|
|
|
|
L. D. sat at a table in the little cafe eating a chili relleno and listening to Hector talk to his wife. It was already 4:15. They had to be at the Mines at 4:30, but the sound of the argument suggested to L. D. a very long fight.Hector and Rosie stood outside the cafe under the street light. Hector leaned against a wall, his long hair tied back with a strip of red cloth. Rosie stood hugging her breasts, glaring at Hector with black bean eyes. She was a waitress at the cafe. The owner, a broad-faced Apache, glanced out through the open door. He clicked his tongue while he refilled L. D.'s coffee cup.
The other customers were leaving, swinging their hard hats and heading up the mountain to work. Rosie wasn't hurrying back to clear the tables.
The owner glanced down at L. D. "So, you're also quitting work today?"
"I might," L. D. said. They watched the argument.
"Why don't you go on?" the owner asked. "Can't you see she's not going to help me until he has to walk up the mountain?"
L. D. drove Hector to work each morning. "I'll wait a minute," he said.
They watched Hector. He looked at his boots. Rosie rubbed her arms with her hands. The mornings were cold. It was one of the first things L. D. noticed about the desert. The cold dark mornings.
The streetlight shone over Hector and Rosie, enclosing them in a little, round moon. The darkness was close all around them, stretching out across White Sands and filling up the space between the earth and the little, glittering stars.
"Did you hear about that Mexican got killed?" the owner asked.
"No," L. D. said.
Hector was looking into the cafe. He smiled at L. D. He looked at Rosie and started laughing. He gathered her up in his arms. He lifted her off the ground.
She pushed away from him saying, "Don't try that, you son of a bitch. I know all about that."
"It was a God-damned mess," the owner said. "A bunch of wetbacks living in a rail car on the Duncan place. And one of them got mad," he said, "and click," he clicked his tongue again and drew his finger across his throat. "And now one of them's deader than a hammer."
"That's no way to solve it," Rosie said. n Juan Salinas sat on the tarred fence eating lunch. He ate the menudo slowly, filling the spoon first with the hard grains of hominy from the bottom of the bowl and then with grease from the top. The other workers sat around in the shade, eating or talking or throwing rocks at the animals, waiting for Juan to finish. Juan drove the old work truck, a privilege that allowed him to set the working hours for the others. It made him happy, this authority, the ability to say "work" or "stop," and today in particular, with his wife's good tripe and a good morning's work already complete, he was feeling fine. The radio was playing in the pick-up, Estacion Fabulosa Tech, and he hummed along with the familiar song, watching Duncan trying to communicate with the new worker.
Juan could tell they were speaking about horses because Duncan spoke Spanish with his hands, waving them in the air, making shapes and pointing to parts of his body. He watched Duncan's tall, lanky frame bending over the shorter man who shifted his boots nervously in the dust. He thought, briefly, that he should walk over and translate since he was the only worker who spoke good English, but then his menudo would get cold and he had been waiting to eat since early that morning. If Duncan needed help, he could find Juan.
Besides, the things Duncan needed to show were not difficult. How to curry, never touching the eyes or ears or genitals. How to hoof pick. Stay away from the frog where the blood is pumped from the legs. This is where the horse gets his endurance. He would show how to feel for sprains by stroking the tendons behind the knees and watching the quiver. How to know shipping fever by watching the flies suck at the eyes. How to pin the colts and phillies between mares to put on their halters. Duncan would show the new man how to spray cuts by wrapping the Nitrotan in rags and stroking the horse before you spray. He would show how much to feed, two coffee cans, no more, because that is how horses colic and die, the food like a stone in their belly. And finally, he would show that the animals must always have plenty of water. He would point to the sun and stick out his tongue. He would pat the man on the back, say hasta manaña and drive into the city, in the big Cadillac, to his work.
Juan watched as the new man approached. "'Sta'ueno," he said in a lisped, Tamaulpais accent.
The new man was dressed a little warmly for ranch work. Juan noticed the tooled belt and cowboy boots. He eyed the new cowboy hat. I'd shave off that beard, he thought.
Juan wore an old T-shirt and a pair of Red Wing work boots with a steel shank. The new man carried a knife on his belt. Juan looked at the new man's face but he was frowning and the beard disguised his age.
"Hey, Bato," the new man said. "You're the boss?" He smiled and Juan saw he was a young man.
"You speak English?" Juan asked.
"Only if it don't get me more work. I'm Pete," he said. He extended his hand and Juan gripped it firmly, pursing his lips.
"We're stringing fence," Juan said. "You can leave your bags in the barn and get into some work clothes."
"No bags," Pete said. He shrugged. "I'm ready."
"The posts and come-along and boxes of clips are in the truck." Juan said, pointing with his spoon. "But I have to finish this lunch."
"I can drive," Pete said.
Juan looked into his bowl. He stirred the tripe, watching the pieces of white corn rise and sink. He thought of the fishes feeding in the pond. "I'll need to show you how to fasten the wire," he said.
"Hey," Pete said, "El Patrón me mostró. He already showed me. Give me the keys. You can kick back and I'll drive the others over."
Juan brushed a mosquito off his arm with the spoon. He wiped his mustache with the ends of his bandana. "I'm ready," he said, pouring the menudo onto an ant pile. n Juan worked with the machete to clear the ivy and brambles from the old posts. Pete was showing the other workers his three-color tattoo, a woman shaded red and blue with a mass of black pubic hair. It curled over his wrist. They sat in the shade by the pick-up.
"Pepe," Juan called. "Come help with these clips."
Pete ambled over to the bois d'arc where Juan was leaning, his face covered with chips of wood and dirt. "Why don't you call me Pete, man?" he asked. "It's my name."
Juan turned to the post and began fastening the wire using a screwdriver to guide the clip over the notches.
"Here," Pete said, "use these pinchers, it's faster." He held out a pair of pliers.
Juan felt Pete looking at the back of his head. The glance felt like a stick jabbing his neck.
Pete shrugged and went to work on the next post. Juan watched as Pete fastened the wire with pliers. It was faster. n That night Pete moved into the boxcar where Juan and three other workers lived with their families. Juan watched from an old rocker as Pete and two other young men walked up from the pond carrying a mattress. Their shirts were off and their hair still wet after their baths. One of the men called out to Amalia, Juan's daughter, as she passed them on her way to the pond, a towel over her shoulder and her long hair piled on her head. Juan glared darkly and the man hung his head.
Juan watched the muscles move in Pete's back as he stood in the boxcar and took the mattress from one of the men on the ground. He felt his wife watching his face. He looked at his hands.
Pete sat in the doorway with his legs dangling outside. He reached in his shirt pocket and brought out a small leather bag about the size of a half dollar. The young worker stood around Pete. The sun was down now, leaving a watery, red stain in the clouds and the air was cool.
"What's that thing you have?" Juan asked, leaning forward in his rocker.
"Your balls," Pete said, not looking up. The other workers laughed and Juan felt his ears turn red. "Nah," Pete said, "I'm just bullshitting you."
Pete emptied some shake into a strip of newspaper. He rolled the paper and sealed the joint with his tongue. The match flared brightly inside the boxcar, illuminating other faces. Pete held the joint back for Juan who watched the red tip fade.
"No," one of the workers said, "él no fuma."
Pete blew out a thin stream of smoke and looked behind him. Juan looked away, down at the tamales his wife was patting out on the floor. He rocked his chair back and forth. Pete passed the cigarette to one of the men standing at his feet. "Mota..." he said, smiling. n Juan dreamed of his brother, Luis, and their home in Rio Bravo. The river was there, about 100 yards away. The sun reflected off the waves made by the rocks under the surface. Juan could hear the voices of children and he realized he was young and playing with his brother in the front yard.
Luis and his friends wanted Juan to play a game. They had a den of milk snakes under the porch and he was supposed to crawl under and catch one. Luis and the others had already gone and killed their snakes by snapping them like whips. The black snakes lay around in the dust like thick, leather strops. He knew the snakes might bite him, but they were not poisonous. All he had to do was drag one out.
He moved under the porch on his elbows and knees. He could barely raise his head. The snakes moved in the straw less than five feet away. One snake was moving around the body of another. They were very black against the yellow straw. He could see their black tongues smelling him. He had to grab one. He was trying but he could not raise his arm. Some of the other boys crawled in after him and propped a board at his feet. There was dust on his lips.
"Go," Luis whispered through the boards of the porch. n "Sssss," Pete's mouth was close to Juan's ear. He had his arm draped lightly across Juan's shoulder. He was pointing to one of the old women. She was wearing a loose gown. One of her breasts had fallen through the arm hole.
Juan felt the blood rise into his face. He had an erection. He clenched his fists. He could feel it coming up in him the way it had the other time, coming up in the same way a weed pushes through the earth, with the same persistent force. It had happened before. He would go somewhere else.
The old woman rose early to urinate. She found Pete under the boxcar gagged with Juan's bandana, his throat splayed. n Juan was walking along the shoulder of the highway. His wife and daughter were walking in the drainage ditch, kicking through the high weeds looking for bottles and cans. Each time a car passed Juan raised his thumb.
The sun was rising. He could already feel the heat in the black asphalt. He could still see the shingles on the Duncan place, but one ride would put them out of sight.
He knew he would get a job, sooner or later. He knew ranch work. He knew English and how to drive a pick-up. He knew how to tend horses.
Jeff Jackson is the owner of Texas Mountain guides. He is a regular contributor to Climbing Magazine and the author of Texas Limestone, a Climber's Guide. His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction. He lives in Austin and Nuevo Leon, Mexico. (July 1995)
