Tampico (James A. Michener Fiction Series) (28 page)

The one on the left wore a leather vest over a dark shirt buttoned at the wrists and a stained Stetson, and when they came out from under the leaf shadows and into a brief clearing, Carlos saw him reach among objects tethered to the saddle and find the scabbard. He pulled the weapon free, its barrel glinting in the sun, and Carlos saw his fingers near the chamber and trigger housing, checking or arranging something. Then he was working to get the rifle back in place and was having trouble, and Carlos saw the other figure, in leather shirt and breeches, fringe along the sleeves and legs, listing to the side, his body shaking, racked by some malady. The one holding the rifle had his head down, face invisible under his hat’s dark circle, as he struggled, the barrel hitting among hanging objects as he searched for the scabbard’s mouth. There were pots and pans there, sacks and awkward satchels, some thick and quilted, and Carlos saw what he thought was a pink cosmetics case, square and made of
plastic, and behind the saddle, over the bedroll secured there, other objects were tied with leather thongs, a set of skewers and a cooking grate, what might have been the sections of a fishing pole, a bundle made of wood utensils, a black skillet, and a net bag full of what seemed dirty laundry.

The rifle barrel disappeared as he found the sheath, and his partner must have called out then, for his head jerked in that direction, and Carlos saw his hand reach out and grasp the listing figure’s arm. The horses pulled up, almost touching, and the falling figure leaned into the other, who put his arm around him and reached across with his free hand and fumbled with the straps of a beaded purse that hung from the saddle horn beside a long machete and what may have been a short shotgun. Then his hand was in the purse up to his forearm, rummaging around in it. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, and Carlos saw the hand of the other come up to his own throat. He wore a Stetson too, sweat-stained at the brim, which vibrated in his coughing or choking, and the other, in seeming desperation at their travail, leaned to the off side of his horse, dragging his partner from the saddle, across the rump of his own mount, legs tangled in fishing pole and laundry, until they both slipped, gathered in one another’s arms, down along the loose and flapping stirrup strap, and fell to the rocky ground.

Their progress had slowed dramatically, and though their dark dress remained ominous and their weapons, slung among the various burdens their horses carried, were serious ones, they now seemed harmless and ineffectual as they rolled in the rocks and pebbles, working to disentangle themselves and gain footing, and Carlos lowered the glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, then lifted them again and searched them out.

Once again, they were mounted and moving up the twisting riverbed, and Carlos saw the wave of the red bandanna as it was handed across and coughed or sneezed into, and then the figure was falling again, this time to the far side and they were pulling up, the man lifting his leg and throwing it across the horse’s rump while they still moved, then hopping around at the horses’ heads, which lurched up in surprise at his quick passage, and he was reaching out to catch his partner before he reached the earth, and once again they were tangled together, then were sitting at the horses’ feet, and the one was tending the other, rubbing his back and dabbing at his brow with the red handkerchief. Then, in a while, they managed to mount up again and then were moving, their horses tightly pressed together, and were coming up with a different urgency, though slowly, the coughing and retching continuing, as well as the listing, as the one
held the other’s arm firmly, keeping him somewhat steady in the saddle.

Carlos lowered the glasses and turned back to the pool and saw the men stirring. Larry was at the edge still, but his eyes were open now and he was standing, chest and shoulders in the air, water cupped in his thin hands and lifted up to flood over his bald head and down his neck. Frank and John were beside each other, near the falling cylinder, only their heads above the water, disembodied, as they watched Gino, who was showing them the dead man’s float, lying face down on the surface, knotty arms and legs extended, the splotches of scar tissue on his back like red lichen, still as some drowned animal after a flood. Carlos heard a shuffling, and when he looked up and to the pool’s left, he saw Alma in the higher branches of an oak tree, above the descending watercourse. He was standing in the branches, leaning out and to the side for good vantage, sighting down the arroyo, and Carlos saw the primitive club strapped at his naked waist.

Then he heard the coughing and wheezing, the slow shuffling clop of the horses’ hooves, and the men heard them too. They were poised for a moment, the water’s surface still, then John pushed away from Frank, sending out ripples, and Gino was lifted on the wake, and Carlos saw Frank’s hand reach for his floating foot before he turned back to see the riders as they emerged around the last turning, their horses climbing the few remaining feet of stony ground, until they were standing before him, stomping and blowing on the mossy carpet between the pool and the tree-lined pathway and the arroyo’s lip. He looked up at the rider, the one sneezing and shaking, gasping in stertorous gulps of air, face hidden in the red bandanna held at the mouth, then saw the figure begin to list and fall again, the arm of the other reach across, inadvertently hitting the hat brim. The Stetson tipped away, tumbling over the horse’s rump, and the hair followed it, black and grey-streaked, falling to the rider’s shoulders. Then the hand holding the red cloth sunk to her saddle horn, he saw the blue mascara running down her cheeks from rheumy eyes. Still gasping and falling, fringe shaking frantically at arms and legs, she looked around wildly, up at Alma in the tree, then down at Carlos, then over his head toward the pool. He heard a splashing and another gasping. It was Gino, his voice crooked and his tracheotomy tube whistling in it as he called out, “Ramona!,” and when Carlos saw the stricken gringo face of the other rider, the set of those horsey teeth, he knew he’d found his father too, though he’d not been searching for him.

Gino passed him, naked on the mossy carpet, the others splashing out of the pool and following, and Carlos was heading for his father, who had tipped
the pink cosmetics case and spilled its contents on the ground, when he heard the voice call from the tree, “pollen,” and then their hands were brushing against each other as their fingers slipped through lipsticks, eyeliners, various rouges and compacts, and his father lifted his head once and looked at him without recognition. Then Carlos heard the woman crying out, through congestion and wheeze, “the fucking inhaler!,” and when his eyes moved to her, he saw her face through white and knotty legs, her frantic painted brows and the start of a scar there, below wrinkled scrotums.

Gino was a naked child, leaning over her; “Ramona” again, this time plaintively. His mouth moved down to hers for artificial respiration, and Carlos saw her head turn desperately. Then his father was on his feet and stumbling toward the cluster of old men, the tube in his hand, and was pushing among their bony bodies, his arm extended and reaching down to her, and he saw her hand brush ruby scar tissue on Gino’s inner thigh as she struggled through the thicket of their legs, reaching for momentary salvation.

There were eight of them in their saddles when the sun came up. Ramona rode to the side of Gino, and Carlos could see the various accoutrements set to bouncing on her horse’s rump between the figures of the men ahead when they separated, pulling their mounts away for better footing as they descended the escarpment, heading for the valley floor. He rode beside his father, the donkeys on the rope line behind them, and at times they looked at one another, still trying to find a way to be together. John’s hat was tilted forward on his brow to fight the rising sun, and Frank and Larry were nodding, high on their folded blankets, sleepy after the long night of talking.

They’d set up camp in a clearing behind the rock pool, and smoke had risen from their fire, then filtered through the high branches of the pines surrounding them, until the fire was proper and the smoke was gone and they could see each other’s faces across the red embers in which the cook pot rested, steam and the scent of rich stew at its mouth. They ate, and drank Alma’s brew, and only when they were settled among blankets and sleeping bags in the coolness of the deeper night did they attempt explanation and the necessary reordering of their places among each other, and it was only when John had spoken Carlos’s name and Ramona had named his father, calling out Manuel and asking him to fetch something, that the two of them could look steadily at one another in acceptance of their relationship. Ramona sat at Gino’s side, and he was watching her, and on occasion they could hear the huff of her inhaler, not unlike
those familiar sounds that issued from their tracheotomy tubes.

They’d been at the house before Carlos had arrived, and that wasn’t coincidence, since they had been there even earlier, scavenging. And Manuel had been there, too, many years before, when he was a child and his own father had taken him there and they had sat on horses and looked the place over. It was empty then and starting to run down, and his father had told him it might have been his, still could be, but he had been a child, anxious for other places, and the words had meant little to him, though he had not forgotten them. And then he was there again, with Ramona, to see about the cauldrons, if there was any possibility of moving them. They’d found the oil too, under the tree, but there was nothing in that for them, not until Carlos came with the surveyors, and they had hid themselves up in the foothills and seen the men arrive. Then they had begun to think there might be something, because Manuel remembered his father’s words and they were desperate now.

They had come to Tampico from the States a year ago, Manuel thinking they could make a new start there. It’s a long story, Ramona said, but in the States it was always difficult, because Manuel was a Mexican. Then in Tampico, with his gringo look, he was mistrusted. Gino huffed at the explanation, not buying it, but when she looked hard at him in a certain sadness he had bowed his head for her forgiveness, and she continued.

In Tampico there was nothing for them and they were growing old. She was fifty-nine, Manuel sixty-seven, and the money they had brought with them, a good deal of it in fact, was running out, and they were living carefully, though at a decent place still, not far from Chepa’s house, going out to find odd jobs and whatever else they could find that they could sell and thus replenish their money. They’d found deserted houses they could break into. They knew how to do that, and in some of the houses they’d found things of value. They’d found little at the house in question, but there were some things, and they had plans to return for the brass bed, and they were considering the cauldrons once again when they heard the sound of the Range Rover. “So many years,” Ramona said. “There were times we hoped for the future. But that was long ago, and now we’re old.” “Not really old,” Frank said. “Enough,” Ramona replied.

So they had watched the men, vague ideas blinking in their minds, and when Alma had come and the men had bathed in the cauldrons and then set off, they had returned to their own house and quickly loaded up their horses, then had followed their trail, and in a while there had seemed no way in which they could stop doing that. They had entered places that were infected with pollen,
and they realized there was no turning back, not alone, and that those they followed might now become their saviors if Ramona’s asthma and allergies continued to affect her. When Carlos watched them through the glasses they were attempting a desperate assault. They had lost them, then had found them again, spied through their own glasses. But in the arroyo the pollen was thick, and halfway up Ramona had her attack, and their assault had turned away from aggression and into a search for help. “We were about halfway up,” Manuel mumbled, and Carlos looked over at him, vaguely remembering his passivity. “I’m too fucking old for this kind of thing,” Ramona said, and Manuel dropped his head to his chest, nodding deeply in agreement. “What about the fire?” Gino said, and Ramona looked at him in desperation once again. “Lord, father. I must have been someone else back then. Remember the jewel in my tongue? Someone else entirely.” “Are you married?” Gino asked, gently now. “Yes,” she said. “And he has been my savior.” “Coincidence,” John said. “There’s no accounting for it.”

They reached the valley floor, then found themselves in trees, taller and more shade-laden than they had pictured from above. There were animal trails, winding off in various directions through grasses and hard-packed dirt, and the one Alma led them down seemed no different from the rest. It too turned and twisted, and branches brushed against their legs as their horses followed the rumps of the ones ahead, in single file now. Ramona coughed and sputtered and lifted her inhaler to her mouth, and Gino turned in his saddle to look back at her. Carlos was in constant awareness of his father, and Gino’s turning seemed a presage of his own, should he too turn to face into that past, strangely erased by the present.

They came into small clearings, and sun warmed their heads and shoulders, and there were places where the trees thinned and they could see ahead for a good distance. It was close to ten by the time they saw through to where the trees ended, and when they reached that place and forest was behind them, they were standing at the brink of an open plain, a shallow bowl of breeze-wavering grasses, at the far edge of which rose up the first stones and rocks of the mossy foothills, and they could see a causeway where the foothills started, a broad trail that ascended gracefully, up through a rocky passage toward the domed mountain. Heavy trees hung languidly in mist, and the trail disappeared in mist before it reached the top, but there was sun above the plain, and Carlos thought the mist was really low clouds and that they’d come to brighter air above.

Mountain flowers grew where veins of moss joined the rocks like green mortar at their creases. There were bees in the flowers at head level, and Ramona was sneezing occasionally. The trail was broad enough to ride two abreast, and Gino was beside her, attentive in his sombrero. He leaned into her, talking. Carlos thought, all these years, but he had not turned to his father yet for such conversation. They rode beside each other, the donkeys hitched to that line behind them. The horses’ heads were up, scenting, their ears rotated to catch the breeze. They seemed expectant, legs lifting, hooves digging into the trail’s hard dirt with increasing energy, which the men lacked. John nodded off in his saddle, and Larry leaned over to touch and awaken him from time to time, to steady him, though he too was fighting sleep, and Frank rode singly ahead of them, constantly shifting his weight on the blanket and rotating a stiff shoulder. The soothing heat of the pool and the redemption of night’s sleep had worn away now, and they were dead tired in their bones, though the sun they could see through mountain mist above had not yet reached its zenith.