El Paso: A Novel (44 page)

ONE DAY THEY CAME TO AN INDIAN VILLAGE
high in the mountains. It was located at the edge of a meadow, and smoke wafted up from a dozen fires. It being evening, Villa ordered his camp set up not too far away, and after the fires were started Tom Mix asked Timmy if he’d like to go over and see what the Indians were like. Mix asked Katherine, too, but she had her nightly chess match with Villa, and besides, she wasn’t much interested anyway. So far she had secured for them several sets of riding clothes and even some for Donita Ollas, who had pretty much worn out hers. As a sop to Villa, Katherine only had to sing to him once—a piece from
Naughty Marietta
—and while she sensed that he didn’t entirely appreciate the song, at least he’d been polite enough to listen and applaud and suggested that the next time he would send a few of his guitar players around to back her up. How a Victor Herbert operetta would sound on guitars Katherine did not know, but at least her scheme was moving along.

MIX LED AN ENTOURAGE TO THE INDIAN VILLAGE
consisting of Timmy, Reed, Bierce, and Lieutenant Crucia, of the nose necklace. General Fierro decided to tag along also, accompanied by several of his aides, and at the last moment the Hollywood movie people who had shot film of Villa’s attack at Chihuahua City also decided to join the party, but they left most of their cameras behind because of the lack of light.

The village belonged the Rarámuri people, a tribe of mountain runners thought to be descended from Aztecs, but nobody, including the Rarámuri, could prove it. They had established themselves in caves along a ridge that rimmed a large open meadow surrounded by oaks and ponderosa pines. When Mix’s group showed up, the Rarámuri were in the middle of a footrace, which they ran every evening after working their cornfields or tending flocks of goats and sheep. The women had finished their race and the men were now just beginning to return—each running a ten-mile lap down the canyons and back up to the meadow, kicking before him a carved wooden ball. It was said that in ancient times the Indians once formed part of a vast network of messengers carrying news and orders for hundreds of miles through the mountains. It was also said that in olden times the Rarámuri used a human skull for the ball they were kicking. The Rarámuri were friendly enough when Mix and his people walked into their camp.

“We’d like to buy something for supper,” Mix told a man in Spanish, but the Indian didn’t seem to understand. Lieutenant Crucia tried in some Indian tongue and the man appeared to comprehend this better, but Crucia did not understand the man back. Soon they settled on a mixture of Spanish and whatever language Crucia was using. Presently a woman appeared with a large basket of hot corn cakes, about the size of pancakes, and these were offered to the group. They were tasty, though without salt; water was also offered from a gourd.

Fierro told Crucia to ask if they could buy some sheep and goats from the village because his men were tired of beef. The Indian looked pained at this, and said that they needed the sheep and goats for their manure to fertilize their fields. This answer displeased Fierro and he told Crucia to make the man an offer. Crucia did so, but the Indian shook his head.

“What’s he say?” Fierro inquired.

“Says they can’t get any more sheeps and goats up here,” Crucia said.

“Tell him we’ll pay him well,” said the Butcher.

Crucia translated, and the old Indian looked baffled.

Fierro produced a wallet and displayed dozens of one-hundred-peso notes.

The Indian examined them and began to laugh.

“I don’t think these people understand the concept of money,” Crucia said hesitantly.

“Tell him we are the army of General Pancho Villa and are authorized to requisition whatever we need from the people, including livestock.”

Crucia relayed this to the man and received his reply.

“He says he doesn’t understand any of that,” the lieutenant told Fierro.

“Then tell him we’ll swap him some of our beefs for some of his sheep and goats,” Fierro offered. But the old Indian shook his head and replied that cattle didn’t live very long at this altitude.

Fierro glared with his hooded falcon eyes at the Indian, and it must have gone through the minds of Mix and anybody else who knew the Butcher what was probably going to happen next, but just then Villa came striding out of the gathering darkness.

“Well, General,” he said to Fierro, “are you people having a nice chat?”

“He won’t sell us any sheep or goats,” Fierro said sourly. “I told him we would take them anyway.”

“That’s not very hospitable, especially since you are a guest in this man’s village,” Villa replied. “I am not going to touch a hair on the head or lay a finger on the property of anybody else in Mexico except the stinking gringos. They’ve stolen everything we need, and it was ours in the first place.”

“Not up here in this wilderness,” Fierro replied. “My men are sick of eating beefs.”

“I remember when they were sick of eating beans,” Villa reminded him. As if on cue, a woman appeared with a large
olla
containing a stew of beans, mutton, and prickly pear pads, and a plate of corn tortillas. Timmy thought the stew was as good a thing as he’d ever eaten. Fierro sulkily put his hands on his hips and wandered off back toward camp. Villa sat down on a stump and tasted his bowl of stew, pronouncing it
muy bueno
.

Reed, meanwhile, seemed fascinated by the Indians. He had walked to their caves and inspected them and all their furnishings and especially the Indians themselves, peering at their blankets and the crude vines with which they wrapped their feet, and was having a grand time taking everything in.

He wondered to Lieutenant Crucia if he would ask the Indian how long his tribe had lived here.

Crucia nodded at the old Indian’s reply and said, “He doesn’t know. A long time, but there were others that lived here before him. They were giants and they ate the Rarámuri children and raped their women until the people tricked them into taking poison.”

“
Gigantes?
” Villa said, amused. The Indian spoke again.

While the Indian was talking, Bierce, who had also been observing things, remarked cynically, “These people live like they were already dead.”

“Don’t count ’em out yet, Señor Robinson,” Villa replied. “They were here while your ancestors were still spearing rats in Europe.” To Mix and the others, there still seemed to be a perceptible antagonism growing between Villa and Robinson. Where this might lead, those who had been around Villa long enough would not venture a guess, aloud or even to themselves.

Finally, Crucia translated: “Yes, he says that in the caves they have found some very big human bones—some the size of pine trees. And they found a head—a skull—size of a large
olla
. It was full of snakes.”

“Well, in that case, I’m getting the hell out of here,” Villa said, standing. He put his bowl of stew on the stump and nodded politely to the man and women and others of the tribe who had gathered around accompanied by a large variety of dogs and a turkey or two; then, like Fierro, he turned and disappeared into the gathering gloom.

As Villa crossed the meadow toward his own campfires, he thought he heard a noise and stopped. Everything was quiet except for distant singing from some of his soldiers. He took another step and heard it again; whirled, but nothing was there. The talk of giants in the mountains had made him jittery, even if they were long dead. Then he heard the neigh of a horse. It seemed to come from behind him. He turned again but saw nothing, so kept on walking, faster, stumbling over rocks and depressions. He couldn’t keep from imagining Sanchez’s ghost was somewhere out there, lurking at the edges of the ponderosas. He broke into a trot, and then a run, until he arrived slightly out of breath at the edge of his own encampment, where he met a member of his personal bodyguard.

“Are you all right, General?” the soldier asked.

“I don’t much like this place. It’s too high up in the air.”

Meantime, Timmy had been playing with a skinny little Chihuahua dog that belonged to the Indians. It hovered around his feet and scratched up at him with tiny claws. He picked the dog up and cradled it in his lap while it licked his fingers.

“He’s just a little puppy,” Timmy told Mix, who replied, “Nope, that’s all as big as he’s gonna get. Those dogs was brought here by the Chinamen a long time ago.”

“You think I could buy him?” Timmy asked hopefully. He was remembering Ranger and the day he was killed by the car; the inexpressible sadness and loneliness when Ranger wasn’t there to walk him to school in the mornings.

Mix frowned. “Nah, I wouldn’t try to do that. You ain’t got any money anyhow, and besides, General Villa don’t like those little lapdogs. They yap too much and he’s apt to shoot it. He don’t like things to do with Chinamen, anyhow.”

Timmy put the Chihuahua back on the ground. It stood on its hind legs and pawed at him pitifully with big bulging eyes. Mix felt a pang of guilt; he knew the boy missed his folks and was scared and seemed to crave an act of human kindness.

“Well,” Mix said, “I guess we best be getting on back.” As they walked toward their own campfires, a melon moon came riding slowly on a clear, starlit sky and bathed the meadow in a silver glow. Mix was feeling guiltier and guiltier about Timmy and the dog—and other things, too. He’d never had anybody to look after before, and had never really been looked after himself, even as a boy. He’d agreed with Robinson back when Timmy was really sick, that Timmy should have been gotten to a hospital. But Mix had not spoken up and he was ashamed that he hadn’t.

By the time they got back to camp, Mix was miserable. No one else was feeling rosy, either. Katherine had thrown another chess match to Villa and had to sing for him again. It had put her in a melancholy spirit. Timmy went immediately to his blanket and curled up, staring at the fire. Donita Ollas, too, was glum and uncomfortable, owing to ant bites she had suffered when she’d stepped into a bed of them getting off her horse that morning. All in all, nobody had much to say.

Mix went to his saddlebag and took out a bottle of whiskey, which he rarely used. He marched off into the darkness of the pines and slugged down a long shot and stood there taking long, deep breaths of the thin air. The moonlight filtered through the tall pines, and in the distance the snowy peaks of the very highest mountains suddenly reminded him of an endless row of sharp and broken teeth, topped by a ghastly nose in the form of the moon. As he had more and more lately, Mix began to question what he was doing there. He might be able to just sneak away, but then he’d be deserting those kids. Seemed like he couldn’t do right for doing wrong.

Next morning, Mix eased out of camp before anybody else was awake and returned while the cooks were preparing breakfast over a restoked fire. Slung over his saddle was some kind of animal, and Mix dismounted with it in his arms. It was not the Chihuahua, but one of the strangest-looking dogs Timmy and Katherine had ever seen. It looked more like a dark brown kangaroo with long front legs and no hair. The nearest Timmy and Katherine could imagine to such a creature was a naked Doberman pinscher with a long tail and big upright ears like a bat’s. Mix put the dog on the ground and led it with a little braided leash over to Timmy.

“You wanted a dog and I found you one,” he said. “It’s a lot better than one of them Chihuahuas that yaps.”

“What is it?” Timmy asked, stunned. The dog was sniffing him over.

“Mexican hairless, is what we’ve always called it. But they got another name for it down here I can’t pronounce.”

“He’s so . . . so . . .”

“I know,” Mix said. “Ain’t got no hair, does he? That’s why they call him a Mexican hairless.”

“Where did he come from?” Katherine asked. The dog began to prance around and sniff.

“Them Indians,” Mix replied. “I saw him when we was there last night. They had two or three, but this one seemed like the best. Can’t be more than a year old.”

“Why hasn’t he any hair?” Timmy asked, squatting down. The dog began rubbing itself all over him, nosing his arms and chest and face.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Tom Mix said. “See, these dogs go back to prehistoric times in Mexico. The old Aztecs used to eat them for food—real tasty, so the story goes. But later they decided they was sort of godlike and they buried them with their masters.” Mix was warming to his subject and for the first time since last night he felt good, seeing the look on Timmy’s face. He had traded three eating forks and three knives to the Indians for the Mexican hairless, but he could replace those at the chuckwagon.

“See,” Mix continued, “since he ain’t got no hair, his temperature’s a lot higher than yours, so’s he don’t freeze. And what the Mexicans do, see, is they use them as a kind of hot-water bottle. Sleep with him, you know—keep you warm all night. And they also say they’re good for cures for things like sore backs or rheumatism or bruises—just put him close to you and he heats you all up.”

“What’s his name?” Timmy asked.

“Well,” Mix said triumphantly, “he’s yours—you name him.”