After this occurrence his success among the humbler Mexicans was more
marked than ever, but some of the men of property who had been subsidized
by MacDougall were not so easily won over. Such a case was that of old
Pedro Alcatraz who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos, a bit
of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz was a tall boney old man, and
was of nearly pure Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the queer
crinkled character of his beard and moustache, which were like those of a
chinaman. He was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking the
Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his own town he was a petty
czar, like Alfego, but on a much smaller scale. By reason of being
_Hermano Mayor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and of having most of
the people in his own neighbourhood in debt to him, he had considerable
power. He was advising men to sell their lands, and was lending more money
on land than it was reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a doubt, he had
been won by MacDougall’s dollars.
Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The old man listened to a long harangue
on the subject of the race issue without a word of reply, and without
looking up. Ramon then played what should have been his strongest card.
“My friend,” he said, “you may not know it, but I am your brother in the
blood of Christ. Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo who is
trying to take this country away from the Mexican people?”
“Yes,” the old man answered quietly, “I know you are a _penitente_, and I
know why. Do you think that I am a fool like these _pelados_ that herd my
sheep? You wear the scars of a _penitente_ because you think it will help
you to make money and to do what you want. You are just like MacDougall,
except that he uses money and you use words. A poor man can only choose
his masters, and for my part I have more use for money than for words.” So
saying, the blunt old savage walked to the other end of his store and
began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.
Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage, slapping his quirt against his
boots. He would show that old _cabron_ who was boss in these mountains!
He went immediately and hired the little _adobe_ hall which is found in
every Mexican town of more than a hundred inhabitants, and made
preparations to give a _baile_.
To give a dance is the surest and simplest way to win popularity in a
Mexican town, and Ramon spared no expense to make this affair a success.
He sent forty miles across the mountains for two fiddlers to help out the
blind man who was the only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in a
back room he installed a small keg of native wine and one of beer.
The invitation was general and every one who could possibly reach the
place in a day’s journey came. The women wore for the most part calico
dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume, heavily starched and
absolutely devoid of fit. Their brown faces were heavily powdered,
producing in some of the darker ones a purplish tint, which was ghastly in
the light of the oil lamps. Some of the younger girls were comely despite
their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts, mild dark heifer-like
eyes, and pretty teeth showing in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
ready-made suits which have done so much to make Americans look alike
everywhere, but they achieved a degree of originality by choosing brighter
colours than men generally wear, being especially fond of brilliant
electric blues and rich browns. Their broad but often handsome faces were
radiant with smiles, and their thick black hair was wetted and greased
into shiny order.
The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms of eagerness on all
hands. Bashful youths stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam in
the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the room, nudged and tittered
and then became solemn and self-conscious. Each number was preceded by a
march, several times around the room, which was sedate and formal in the
extreme. The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz, in which the swain
seized his partner firmly in both hands under the arms and put her through
a vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was rough and sanded, and
the rasping of feet almost drowned the music. There were long Virginia
reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of ceremonies, full of grace
and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed
with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the
formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank
floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal
balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to
its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant
of a dying order.
Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as he watched the affair. It
stirred a sort of sentimental pity in him. But he threw off that feeling,
he had work to do. He entered into the spirit of the thing, dancing with
every woman on the floor. He took the men in groups to the back room and
treated them. He missed no opportunity to get in a word against the
gringos, and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed their
fellows by advising them to sell their lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz
by name, but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.
Late in the evening, when all were mellowed by drink and excited by
dancing, he gained the attention of the gathering on the pretext of
announcing a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue in which he urged
all Mexicans to stick together against the gringos, and above all not to
sell their homes which their fathers had won from the barbarians, and were
the foundations of their prosperity and freedom.
“Remember,” he urged them in a burst of eloquence that surprised himself,
“that in your veins is the blood of conquerors—blood which was poured out
on these hills and valleys to win them from the Indians, precious blood
which has made this land priceless to you for all time!”
His speech was greeted with a burst of applause unquestionably
spontaneous. It filled him with a sense of power that was almost
intoxicating. In the town he might be neglected, despised, picked for an
easy mark, but here among his own people he was a ruler and leader by
birth.
The most important result of the _baile_ was that it won over the stubborn
Alcatraz. He did not attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
realized that advice in favour of selling land would not be popular in
that section for a long time, and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting
Ramon to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd bargain with him,
whereby he gave his influence in exchange for certain grazing privileges.
On his way home a few days later Ramon looked back at the mountains with
the feeling that they belonged to him by right of conquest.