Las Bocas was slowly stewing in its native filth when the Three sighted
it again at noon next day.
In all the world nothing reflects its environment more faithfully than a
Mexican town. Southward, the great cities of Mexico and Guadalajara
testify with their stately cathedrals, ornate public buildings,
theaters, parks, and plazas, the flowering _patios_ of lovely and
luxurious homes, first to the richness of the central Mexican plateau,
secondly to the fact that in normal times all the wealth of the republic
drains to them. Oppositely, the northern towns with their squalid adobe
streets, overrun with a plague of dirty children, dogs, vultures, pigs;
desiccated by fierce heat, drowned by torrential rains; these in their
place and turn are eminently characteristic of the arid desert. Save
that it was a little smaller, a little dirtier, perhaps a little richer
in the variety of its stenches, Las Bocas might serve as the type of all
Mexican frontier towns.
As the wind blew their way, the Three smelled it from afar. But usage
breeds indifference even to evil odors. If not actually homesome, the
fetor bespoke a possible drink.
A quarter mile before entering the town they crossed the _arroyo_ that
gave it drink. Its waters also furnished an open-air laundry for two
brown girls who knelt by its edge, pounding their soiled linen on flat
boulders. These days of rampant revolution, a good girl had needs be
careful, and at sight of the Three, dusty, unkempt, bearded, and gaunt
from tire and travel, _gringos_ at that, the two leaped up and fled
toward the town.
Grinning at their fright, Bull and Sliver would have ridden on, but
Jake, who never missed a trick, reined in his beast and began to examine
the laundry with the eye of a connoisseur. Though the remainder of her
be clad in rags, the humblest _peona_ will have her lace petticoat, and
the dozen or so pieces that were already spread out to dry on the
neighboring bushes were really very fine.
"D'you allow to turn lady's maid?" Sliver spoke, as Jake bent to stuff
the lingerie into his saddle-bags.
"Not till Rosa's had the refusal of it. This orter keep her satisfied
for at least a month."
Grinning, the pair of rascals spurred their jaded beasts and overtook
Bull as he entered a narrow gut of a street that followed the
meanderings of the original cow-path to the _jefe's_ house, a plastered
adobe, limewashed in purple and gold, that faced the inevitable military
barracks across a sorry attempt at a plaza.
If the small traders and artisans who constituted the bulk of the
population had been addicted to such flights of imagination, they might
have pictured the _jefatura's_ yawning gates as a huge gullet through
which, in normal times, their substance drained in taxes, fines, and
imposts to Mexico City, the nation's stomach, there to be consumed by a
hungry tribe of official hookworms. Now, of course, it was being
deflected into the private pocket of the dominant revolutionary chief.
Lacking the imagination, they cursed beneath their breath and waited
patiently till the next revolution should bring a new tyrant to avenge
them on the present oppressor.
The latest incumbent was at lunch under the peppertree in the _patio_
when the Three dismounted at the gates. Fat and sleek and brown, his
generally gross appearance was accentuated by pouched beady eyes, waxed
mustache, unhealthy, erupted skin. As he sat there, shoveling in
_frijoles_ and _chile_, even a _peon's_ slack imaginings could have
easily established a resemblance--if not between him and a hookworm, at
least, to some greedy parasite. The irritability, blind individualism,
offensive conceit, treachery, too common to Mexicans, lay hidden under
the usual veneer of Spanish courtesy. The embraces, backpattings,
effusive greetings with which he welcomed the Three would have graced
the reception of a favorite son.
"Enter, amigos!" His welcome buzzed through the _patio_. "Sit down and
eat. Afterward we shall look over the horses. You have bestowed
them--where?"
But when he learned of their failure, the scorpion showed through the
glaze of courtesy like a fly in amber. "_Carambar-r-r-aa_, señores!" His
read wagged in a nasty way. "I had counted on the horses--to save your
alive. On my desk lies a requisition from your gringo border police,
demanding your bodies. Que desgracia!" The spite that scintillated in
his beads of eyes gave his words sinister significance. "One would
dislike to do it, if 'twere only through hate of your Government. But
one has to account to his chiefs. Already they have inquired for you,
and always I made answer, 'These are good hombres, useful to our cause.'
But deeds count more than words. Horses for their artilleria would have
proved your worth. But now--" a second nasty wag told that their failure
left them as other _gringos_, to be despised, hated, persecuted. Having
given the impression time to sink in, he suggested, "But there must be
others? You will try again?"
"No use." Bull's gloom emphasized the denial. "This is the second time
in a month that we've been chased across the border. They're looking for
us all along the line."
"Si? Then must you go elsewhere. What of"--pausing, he looked cautiously
around--"what of this side? In central Chihuahua there are many
horse-ranchos, gringo ranches with fine blooded stock."
"But--"
The _jefe's_ shrug anticipated the objection. "Si, si! 'tis Mexico. That
is what I have always told my chief--'these hombres bother only the
gringo pigs.'" With a covert grin at the safe insult, he continued, "But
a gringo is a gringo, whether here or in your United States. If they be
despoiled, we shall not shed many tears. There will be a complaint, of
course, to and from your Government, and much writing between
departments. In the mean time we have the horses. So--"
"But that's Valles's country, isn't it?" Jake put in. "He's a bad hombre
to fool with!"
The _jefe_ turned on him his evil grin. "What if the gringo ranchers had
caught you last night? Hanging, amigo, is a dog's death. I would prefer
the fusilado of Valles's men."
"What if he kicks to your people? Puts in a claim for our heads? You're
working together, ain't you?"
Once again the _jefe_ looked around. "Listen, amigos! Between friends
one may show the truth. Already there is a cloud, a little cloud, no
bigger than a child's hand arisen between us and Valles. If the horses
are taken from a gringo _rancho_ in Valles's country, my chiefs will be
the better pleased. What they have Valles cannot get in the days when
the cloud grows big and black and bursts."
Sliver, who understood more Spanish than he could speak, here nudged
Bull. "Ask him if he'll grub-stake the deal."
"Ask nothing!" Bull's hot eyes shot brown fire. "You heard him rubbing
it into us, didn't you? If it wasn't that we need him I'd wring the
little brown adder's neck." He went on, suavely, in Spanish, "My amigo
questions me of the price. It will be the same--fifty pesos apiece,
señor?"
Nodding, the _jefe_ glanced impatiently back at his lunch. He appeared
to have forgotten his invitation. Pleading an engagement, he bowed them
out through the gates, then returned to his gorging while, hungrier, and
even still thirstier, the Three rode down the street.
Usually they were not averse to an exchange of glances, or a
flirtation--if the _hombre_ was not in sight--with the brown girls who
watched them from their doorways. But now their glances sought only the
_cantinas_, whose open bars displayed a tempting array of bottles. While
they looked their progress grew constantly slower, finally stopped in
front of one whose owner was taking his _siesta_ stretched out on the
bar.
Jake looked from the sleeper to his companions, then at the bottles of
anisette and _tequila_ on the rough wooden shelves. "If he was drunk it
'u'd be easy--" As the Mexican disposed of the doubt, just then, by
opening one excessively sober eye, Jake desperately concluded, "Say,
kain't we raise the price among us?"
Bull tapped his empty pockets.
Sliver mourned, "All I've got is a Confederate five some one slipped me
during my last toot in El Paso. I've carried it sence for a lucky
piece."
"An' lucky it is!" Jake extended an eager hand. "After this
revolutionary currency that's run off by the million on a newspaper
press, these greasers are crazy for gringo bills. What if it has got
Jeff Davis's picter on it? This fellow don't know him from Abe Lincoln.
All gringo bills look alike to him. He'll never know the diff."
Neither did he. The note, when thrown with elaborate carelessness on the
bar, brought in exchange at current ratios thirty-two _pesos_ and some
_centavos_, along with three stiff _copas_. Deceived by the size of the
roll, the Three now proceeded to order from the _tienda_ behind the bar
coffee, sugar, maize, the grease of Rosa's desire, and other
necessaries. With half a dozen bottles of _tequila_, it made a goodly
pile on the counter, but the offer of the roll brought a second lesson
in finance--to wit, that cheap money buys few goods. After segregating
the _tequila_ from the groceries, the merchant explained with a bow and
shrug that the thirty-two dollars and some _centavos_ aforesaid
represented the value of either.
From the groceries, the glances of the Three passed to the _tequila_;
then, with one accord, their hands went out and each closed on the neck
of a bottle. They were already outside when, looking back, Sliver
happened to catch the merchant's eye.
He grinned, answering Sliver's wink. "Si, señores, this time you shall
drink with me."
That which followed was quite accidental. While the Mexican was setting
out three glasses, Jake drew a pack of cards from his pocket and began
to throw two kings and an ace in the "three-card trick." So deftly he
did it that Sliver, who was really trying to pick the ace, failed half a
dozen times in succession. Their backs being turned, only Bull noticed
the Mexican's interest in the performance. Fascinated, he watched the
flying cards.
"Looks easy, don't it?" Bull suggested. "Here, Sliver, give this hombre
a chance."
Of course he succeeded, and, being Mexican, his conceit prodded him on
to try again. He could do it! He'd bet his _sombrero_, his horse, his
store, that he could do it every time! The Three being possessed of no
other stake, he finally wagered the pile of goods, which still stood on
the counter, against their bottles of _tequila_--and lost! In the course
of the next half-hour, being judiciously led on by occasional winnings,
there were added to the groceries six other bottles, the original
thirty-two _pesos_ and some _centavos_, a bolt of lace and linen for
Rosa; but for a large, greasy, and infuriated brown woman who charged
them suddenly from the rear of the store he would undoubtedly have lost
his all. Further acquisitions being balked by her unreasonable
interference with the course of nature as applied to fools, the Three
packed their winnings in the saddle-bags and rode on their way.
As a rule a certain fairness is inherent in the externally masculine.
Even a Mexican expects to pay his losings, and, of his own impulse, the
_comerciante_ would probably have let things go with a shrug. But not so
his woman! The eternally feminine is ever a poor loser--perhaps because
she has usually no hand in the game--and as the Three rode off she let
loose an outcry that brought a gendarme running from around the corner.
"It is that honest Mexicans are robbed by gringo thieves while thou art
lost in a siesta!" she assailed him. "After them, lazy one, and recover
our goods!"
By her violence she might have lost her case. With an answer that was
quite ungentlemanly the gendarme had already turned to go, when the two
girls whom Jake had robbed of their lingerie came tearing up the street
and added their outcries to the woman's clamor. And now the Three were
surely out of luck. It chanced that for a week past this very gendarme
had been making sheep's eyes at the larger of the two girls, and now the
saints had sent this chance for him to gain her favor.
"They stole thy--" Delicacy gave him pause; then, his natural
indignation increased by the nature of the robbery, he hot-footed it up
the street and overtook the Three.
Ordinarily the arrest would have been accomplished with lofty Spanish
punctilio, but in his heat the gendarme allowed his zeal to exceed his
discretion, and thereby invited disaster. For as he seized Bull's
bridle, the rustler reached over, spread his huge hand flat over the
man's angry face, and sent him toppling backward into the kennel. He was
up, the next second, long gun in hand. But in that second Jake's bleak
eyes squinted along his gun, Sliver had him covered, Bull's rifle was
aimed from the hip.
To give the Mexican policeman his due, he does not easily give up. If
one man cannot bring in a prisoner, ten may. If they fail, perhaps a
company can--or a regiment. The man's shrill whistle was really far more
dangerous than his absurd long gun. Instantly it was taken up on the
next street and the next; went echoing through the town till it finally
brought from the _carcel_ a squad on the run.
By that time the Three had backed up against a wall and stood with
rifles leveled across the backs of their beasts. Every particle of human
kindness, humor, that had showed in their dealings with one another was
gone. Jake's long teeth were bared in a wolf grin. Sliver's reckless
face had frozen in stone. Bull's head and huge shoulders rose above his
breast, his face dark, imperturbable, fierce. Grim, silent, ferocious as
trapped wolves, they faced the squad which took cover while messengers
brought an officer and company from the barracks.
Now it was really dangerous. The tragedy that lurks behind all Mexican
comedy might break at any moment. In its uniform, that ragged soldiery
set forth the history of three revolutions. The silver and gray of
Porfirio Diaz's famed _rurales_, the blue and red stripes or fatigue
linen of the Federal Army, even the _charro_ suits of Orozco's
Colorados, were all represented. But in spite of their motley the men
were all fighters, tried by years of guerrilla warfare. Their dark brown
faces showed only eager savagery. If it had depended on them, tragedy
would have burst forth there and then. But the word had to come from the
officer, who found himself looking down the barrels of three leveled
rifles. It took him just five seconds to make up his mind on this
fundamental truth--whoever else survived, he would die. The game was not
worth the candle! Very politely he addressed Bull.
"Did I not see you, señor, at the jefatura just now?"
With Bull's nod tragedy resolved into comedy. Swinging round on the
_comerciante_ and his woman, the officer pronounced on their complaint.
"They that gamble must expect to lose. Off, fool! before I throw thee in
carcel."
Having driven in the moral with the flat of his saber across the
merchant's back, he next took up the complaint of the girls. "How know
ye that these be they that stole your garments? Only that they passed
while you were at the wash? Then back, doves, to your cotes! These be
friends of the jefe and no stealers of women's fripperies."
Stiffly saluting the Three, he marched his ragged soldiery away.
Five seconds thereafter the Three were again on their way--to the
_cantina_ where they usually put up.
"All we've gotter do now," Sliver chuckled as they rode on down the
street, "is to rope a stray calf or a pig on the way home, an' Rosa'll
be fixed for a month."
But, alas for Rosa! After they had stabled their horses and eaten,
followed one of those debauches that occur when men with natural
"thirsts" turn loose after a period of deprivation. During its course
they spent first the thirty-two _pesos_ and some _centavos_, drank up
their own _tequila_, finally bartered the groceries to buy still more
liquor for the rabble of _peones_ and brown girls that flocked to the
_cantina_ like buzzards to carrion.
The "drunk" went through the customary stages from boisterous
conviviality, singing, loud boasting, quarreling, fighting. Three times
Sliver and Jake locked and rolled on the floor, tearing like tigers at
each other's throats, nor let go till pried apart by Bull. Worse,
because really terrible, was it to see the giant rustler, after the
other two had lapsed into sottish sleep, sitting with his broad
shoulders against the adobe wall, huge hands squeezing an imaginary
throat, while his drink-crazed brain rehearsed the details of some past
tragedy. Shortly thereafter he also rolled over in drunken sleep.
As they lay there, crumpled, limp, breathing stertorously, there was
nothing edifying in the spectacle. It would be unfair to hint at a
likeness between them and the swine that snored in the kennel outside;
unfair to the swine, which never descend through drink from their
natural estate. Drunkards and outlaws, they were probably as low, at
that moment, as human beings ever go. Yet when they awoke, _sans_
groceries, _sans tequila_, _sans_ money, but plus three splitting
headaches, they faced the situation with saving humor.
"Tough on Rosa," Jake said, with a rueful grin.
"If she's still there," Sliver doubted. "An' I'll bet a peppercorn to a
toothpick she ain't."
"Chihuahua, now, or starve," Bull succinctly summed the situation. He
added, grinning, "Anyway, we'll travel light."