“I been here before, you know. Ees true. Everyzink I see, I know. I been here before. You got to believe me. La canara prohibida!”
There was a taste in Pat’s mouth now which he had not noticed before. Something about it reminded him of aniseed balls but that was not quite right either. “No—it’s more like—,” he began, as he perceived his smile extending across the expanse of his face, reminding him of the taut elastic of his catapult as a boy. “But no,” he reflected, “in fact I think it reminds me more of—”
But he never Finished the sentence for just then the dust cleared and he found himself being curiously contemplated by three gravel-pecking chickens (of the Rhode Island Red breed) against the blocky unblemished whiteness of two adobe haciendas where a sweaty mustang bided its time. As a bitter cry echoed out across the muggy, bell-ringing afternoon.
“I don’t like it,” remarked Pasty, taking a hesitant step backward. “I don’t like it at all. I think maybe we got off at the wrong stop.”
But it was too late. Already a door had been flung open and a girl with hair black as a raven’s wing was stumbling forward, shoeless, into the space between the mustang and the dry-snouted glumness of the village pump. “Come back here!” reverberated a snarl, and to their horror they looked up to see a grimacing, shirtless soldier, making for the waste ground with the gold buttons of his red tunic gleaming in the sun, hurling himself forward to expertly bring down the unfortunate female in a rugby tackle (or whatever the Mexican equivalent was—for he was surely Mexican) and skidding along with her until they came to a clamorous halt at the foot of the pump which instantaneously released a parasol-spume of water, the clarity of which Pat had never, he reflected, in his whole life, encountered before. The mustachioed generalissimo rose stoutly to his feet.
“Now you geef me what I ask for, you beesh, you expect me to eat food wheesh you geef to peegs? I cut off both your legs and eat zem!”
The sound of him chastising her was heartbreaking in the silence. But when he shoved her head—brutally, for there was no other word for it—beneath the cascading waters, Pat could no longer contain himself.
“Hey, you! You!” he cried. “Leave her alone!”
“No! No, Pat!” cautioned Pasty, but it was already too late.
The teeth of the generalissimo introduced themselves one by one to the visitors, as if to declare themselves proud of their time-ravaged blackness and crumbling tombstone aspect. A string of saliva swung vinelike from his lips before being snapped and flung disdainfully into the high vermilion of the afternoon.
“Hey! Hey!” the generalissimo sneered. “Eet is no good, my friend, ze gringo! Hey hey—you very stupid man!”
Pat stabbed the air with his finger as if it were a gun.
“I said—leave her alone!” he demanded anew.
“No, Pat!” cried Pasty, alarmed.
“Back off!” called Pat to the stricken, dust-coated girl. “Stay well back, missus! You hear?”
The generalissimo wiped his chops and, abstractedly buttoning his dust-mapped jacket, began to advance upon Pat. The chickens continued to poke unconcerned at the spot where the large round shadow of his head fell.
“You know, my frien’, you make a very beeg mistake! Liver of yours—ees my dinner!”
His bloated lips parted to reveal the ramshackle military forma-dons of his devastated molars as he said, “You theenk he make a beeg mistake, your frien’? Me—I theenk so. This type of mistake—make you sad, ever you make it. You know?”
How it could have been, Pat did not know, but it definitely did seem as though time had stopped at that precise moment in the village square. And the generalissimo seemed as unconcerned about it as the fly which now made its way across the dunes of his cheeks in the direction of the swing bridge of his expansive nose.
“One time,” he continued at last, “one time a gringo he get off ze bus. O yes—he know all ze answers. Ze generalissimo, he try to reason weeth heem. Say, ‘My frien’—maybe you get back on ze bus, hey? We forget all zees and everyone ees happy.’ But he don’t do that—and now he is at ze bottom of ze well.”
It was the first time Pat had noticed the well. Despite the fact that it was bluntly situated directly in the middle of the village. It also seemed that it was the first time Honky’s eyes had fallen upon it. As was the case with Pasty’s. And the generalissimo’s. Everyone was looking at the well.
“Hey! You wan’ look at ze well, huh?” growled the generalissimo, simultaneously reaching in his boot and producing with a dny flash a squat object which, it became clear, was in fact a derringer pistol. But he hadn’t reckoned on Pat, who had already flung himself to the ground and was rolling at a furious speed toward the Winchester rifle which lay at an angle to the water bucket lying on its side in the sand.
“No!” cried Pasty instinctively, as the lethally leveled Winchester spat fire.
By the time Pat had stopped firing there were three holes in the military man’s body, one above his heart, one directly in the center of his abdomen, and one right between his eyes. The sound of feet was that of Pasty and Honky running up.
“Oh no! Oh, Jesus! Pat! Now look what you’ve gone and done!” cried Pasty almost hysterically.
He knelt down and felt the generalissimo’s pulse. There was no doubt about it—there was none. He was dead.
“He shot the fuzz! Man, you did it! You shot the fuzz!” repeated Honky, turning around in circles. “I can’t believe my eyes what you done!”
There was an edge to Pasty’s voice as he faced Pat and said gravely, “You’ve done it now! You’ve really gone and done it now, McNab!”
Pat was about to explain himself but before he could, a raven-haired beauty had taken hold of his arm and was rendering any such explications redundant by her fury.
“He was a pig!” she snapped. “A thousand deaths for a man like him who is a pig! Beside him, a pig is as a king!”
Then, to Pat, “For ever I will love you for what you do for me and my village!”
She kissed him eight times on the face and said her name was Rosa.
“I work in the cantina,” she said. “Come with me.”
Pat found himself taking her hand and stumbling forward as he called back to his companions, “Come on, boys!”
Reluctantly—in desperation, perhaps—they meekly complied.
As they approached Rosa’s house, Pat considered for a split second the resemblance the elderly, silver-haired man standing by the window bore—his sallow skin aside—to Hoss McGinnity who often sang in Sullivan’s on Saturdays. Considered for a moment, indeed, the likelihood of them being actually one and the same man. But he knew this to be impossible, and was simply a consequence of the melody oft favored by the rotund Hoss which was now, quite coincidentally, pouring with equal fervor from a complete stranger’s throat, lighting up the tranquil Mexican sky with its beautifully painted word pictures of a love harbored for a beautiful woman:
South of the border down Mexico way
That ‘s where I fell in love when stars above came out to play
And now as I wander, my thoughts ever stray
South of the border down Mexico way
“Papa!” cried Rosa, as they all came crashing in the door. The tenderness displayed on the face of the old, linen-clad (linen that had seen better days, indeed, pardcularly the torn, knee-length pantalette-type things that hung melancholically about his knees) man was wonderful to behold.
“Rosa!” he cried, and ran to his daughter. They embraced.
“How can I ever thank you?” he said to his visitors when Rosa explained all that had happened.
Some hours later, as they shared stories around a table in the candna, Rosa smiling (pardcularly at Pat) whilst she ferried tin plates of blackened beans back and forth, not to mention endless carafes of red wine, Papa—anxiously—fixed them with a darkening stare as he said, “So now you see the generalissimo’s brother will be looking everywhere for you. He is a crazy man! On
e hundred children he kill! To him it is as nothing! But first—Rosa, my darling!”
Without warning, the old man clicked his fingers and his daughter was in his arms as they spun wildly about the floor. Then, in each of their hands, a Castanet—where had they come from? What wonderful people they were! Pat reflected as once more the song it echoed in the Mexican night now hot as peppers:
She was a picture in old Spanish lace
Just for a tender while I kissed the smile upon her face
For it was “fiesta” and we were so gay
South of the border down Mexico way.
Pat flushed ever so slightly as suddenly he looked down and Rosa was in his lap, the entropie tendrils of her hair seeming to reach to every corner of the room. The old man smiled and said: “She is a good girl, my Rosa, no? The generalissimo—he want her for himself! And his brother! And the whole village! But you, gringo my friend! You can have her—if you can rid us of this curse!”
The pain in Rosa’s eyes was almost heartbreaking as she stroked Pat’s face and said, “Can you do that? Can you do that for us, please?”
Inexplicably, Pasty and Honky beamed with pride although they hadn’t been addressed at all.
As expected, a large crowd had gathered outside the small mission hall where the funeral of the generalissimo was to take place. It was now the afternoon of the following day and the sun was burning even hotter like a rotating ball making a hole in the middle of the sky. A low harmonium played, its melancholy note causing the generalissimo’s brother to hopelessly break down over the coffin. The padre’s condolences were all to no avail, as he was rebuffed by a stray blow to the side of the head. In lime, the howls became unbearable for all present. As did the risk of being beaten to a pulp by some crazed soldier—such as the one now punching and kicking wildly all about him as he roared, in a cascade of spit beads, “Who has done this to my brother I love more than my mother? I will feed his miserable heart to the vultures! Agh! Agh!”
Quite how many people were assaulted, josded, or forced to endure temporary chokings at the hands of this man it is impossible to say. There could be no question but that it reached double figures before at last he fell to his knees, all the while kissing the padre’s ring as he vowed unspeakable vengeance.
All this was witnessed by the triumvirate which comprised Pat McNab. Pasty McGookin, and Honky McCool, as regards whose reactions it could be said that they possessed a certain homogeneity. Best described by Pasty’s words, which were, “That’s it! That’s enough! We’re getting out of here! Tomorrow! Right, Pat?”
Reluctantly, Pat lowered his head and assented.
“We don’t have any choice,” he said.
Honky’s voice was almost a high-pitched squeal.
“Freakzoids! Freakzoids! This is not Mehico! This is some crazy place! La canara prohibida!
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Pat said.
Even the evanescent image of a weeping Rosa which fleetingly passed across his mind was not enough to weaken the resolve of Pat McNab.
They spent the night in an unused adobe not far from the candna and outside the relentless tramp of marching feet persisted in the suffocating, eye-darting darkness. Beneath the window where they lay crouched upon the floor, Honky cried, “I can’t stand this! Why did we have to come here?”
This was more than Pasty could bear.
“What are you talking about?” he snapped. “Who was it was always going on about Mexico—how great it was!”
Honky blanched to the roots.
“What are you talking about? This isn’t Mexico! This is a filthy mad world of crazy men and she-devils!”
“Well, it’s your fault we came here! It was you brought us! You did it, so stop complaining!”
“I did it?” rasped Honky. “Did what? I was only supposed to get the bus to Dundalk! That was all I was supposed to do!”
“Aye, well why didn’t you get it then instead of coming round with all your big talk about Mexico!”
“All my big talk about Mexico! It was you started that, with your ‘Tell me about Mexico! Tell me about Mexico, Honky! I’d love to go!’ You wouldn’t shut up about Mexico!”
Something broke within Pat.
“Lads!” he demanded. “Will you shut up!”
Pasty scowled and hid his eyes underneath the eave of his right hand.
“Shut up! Who’s talking to you?”
“Ah, I can’t stand this! I’m fed up with it! I can’t—do you hear me? I’m getting out of here!” Honky snarled.
He leaped to his feet and stomped across the floor as Pat cried after him, “No, Honky! Wait!”
But he was already gone, the sad, badly assembled door swinging forlornly behind him.
Rosa looked even more beautiful than ever, thought Pat (he had come to say good-bye to her), as Luis—a friend of her father’s with a coal-black mucca—strummed a guitar in the corner of the small, cramped but once—before all this had happened—so happy house. Luis, drawing his thumb down along the strings, released a melody so melancholic it almost brought tears to her father’s eyes as he sat by the window, his lips miming:
Then she sighed as she whispered, “Mañana”
Never dreamed that we were parting
And I lied as I whispered, “Mañana’”for our
tomorrow never came.
The closing words were “South of the Border—I rode back one day” but they were never uttered, for just at the moment when they were about to be delivered, the door splintered open and Ramon (a serving boy who often assisted Rosa in the cantina) fell in crying, “Papa! Papa! Ees the gringo! Captured, he …!”
“Honky!” gasped Pat, leaping to his feet.
Pasty slapped his forehead with a despairing palm.
The pale light of dawn was beginning to enfold the sleeping town, the depth of Honky’s plight dawning on Pat and Pasty as through the broken slats of the stables they observed the tragedy of his fate being played out before their very eyes. The metal toe caps of his boots barely touched the straw on the floor as the generalissimo’s brother (Manchita) slowly tightened the noose of the rope about his neck. General Manchita (for he too was a general) suddenly turned and slammed open the stable door, crying out to the chicken-peppered silence, “You out there? You listen to me! Or perhaps you don’ have ears! You have until zis time tomorrow to give yourselfs up! If you don’t—zen you die weeth heem!”
The door shot closed as he returned to the wan (clearly broken) Honky and placed the handle of his curled bullwhip close to his Adam’s apple.
“So, my frien’? You comfortable? Ha ha!” he sneered.
His indulgent whinnies, thought Pat as his affronted knuckles paled, might have been the braying of an ass, hopelessly oblivious, as many of its compatriots, of the nature and depth of its self-deluding foolishness.
Some hours later, Pat was in an awful state as he paced the floor of the cantina crying, “This is our fault, Pasty! Ours! It’ll be all our fault if he dies!”
“Why did he have to bring us here in the first place!” was Pasty’s response. “If he hadn’t done that! Pat, I don’t care! I’m getting out of here first thing tomorrow!”
“But he’ll be dead by then! Stop it, Pasty! You hear me? Stop that talk and stop it now, I tell you!”
“The first bus that comes along I’m climbing on it! I’m getting on it, Pat, and I’m going!”
Nobody was more shocked than Pat McNab to hear the sharp, uncompromising crack his palm made across the vivid red cheek of Pasty McGookin’s face.
“Stop it now, Pasty! Stop it, I said!”
The effect on Pasty was quite remarkable. Clearly he had been suffering from hysteria. He calmed down almost instantaneously.
“I’m sorry, Pat,” he said placidly, adding, “But what are we going to do? Honky’s going to die!”
The sharp hammer-clips pounding in the nails of the makeshift scaffold which was at that moment being constructed in the village
square copper-fastened Pasty’s anguished appraisal. Perhaps it was merciful that this was the only intimation of Honky’s worsening situation that was to be visited upon them that night, for anything approaching the true facts might well have proved unbearable.
The leather thong binding Honky’s wrists as he writhed upon the badly constructed kitchen chair formed red fleshy bangles that seemed to be on fire. His tormentors had not seen fit to permit him so much as a glass of water in over twelve hours. All they granted him were two cigarettes which were inserted in each nostril and various lung-choking taunts of “Ha ha ha! What seems to be ze problem? You don’ smoke?” which they delivered raucously whilst wiping their eyes and supporting each other physically lest they should fall to the ground in a state of incapacitation from sheer mirth.
Their laughter as Honky passed out yet again was as a coil of wire barbed and rusted that sprang from their crusted lips and leaped through a hole in the roof to cruelly encircle the entire town.
The chimes which emanated from the burnished gold timepiece were oddly haunting as Pat, despondent now in a way he’d never been before in his life, contemplated the faded oval watercolor portrait within. He felt Rosa’s bronzed hand touching his shoulder tenderly. “Who is it, Pat?” she softly enquired. He put his hand on hers. “It’s Mammy,” he said, and slowly clasped it shut. Rosa nodded. She understood. Then, smoothing her skirt, she lowered her head then raised it and stared with glittering eyes in the direction of the heat-hung horizon. “He was a beautiful man, your friend Honky,” she said. “Ees hard to believe that in the morning he will be litde more than a corpse!”
The distorted image of Pat’s face in the back of the engraved timepiece seemed to mirror the inner state of his soul. In the instant she spoke, he saw himself and Pasty entirely attired in black, hands crossed over their stomachs where they held their silk top hats, as the coffin waited by the open grave and deep male voices rang out, singing:
Let’s all gather at the river
The beautiful the beautiful river