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chapter 36
The vehicle disappeared around a bend in the road. There were only tire tracks on the ground and a thin cloud of dust hanging in the air above. MacClayne was holding the bottle of tequila which Wendy had given him.
"I hope you don't mind."
"Go ahead," I said reluctantly. I watched him unscrew the cap and take a long swig. It reminded me of movie scenes where the hero goes through a hair-raising experience without batting an eye, and then reaches for a bottle and says, "I need a drink."
"Poor Jeff. He flipped out," I said, somehow feeling a need to say something, anything, just to unload the experience.
"A little drunk," MacClayne said, looking at the bottle in his hand. "And under stress."
"I wonder why she let him drive. She could have grabbed the keys or refused to get in the vehicle."
"Well, why do you think?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
"She set him up."
"She did?"
"When we left she had him in the palm of her hand."
"It doesn't make sense," I objected. "She put herself in danger."
"People even commit suicide to control others."
We picked up our things and started walking. Cuauhtémoc scurried along to keep up; we were walking pretty fast. "Hop up," I said, and extended my arm.
Through openings in the brush I could see the ocean which was only a couple hundred meters away, but at that moment I wanted to be on the road. I needed to burn off some adrenaline.
"This doesn't have to be a foot race, does it?" MacClayne said.
"What?"
"You don't have to walk so fast."
We'd been walking side by side, but now MacClayne had fallen half a pace behind.
"I'll slow down," I said, and readjusted my pace to his.
"It seems like you're always trying to out-walk me."
"I'll try not to," I said. For a while we marched along in silence, and I concentrated on keeping down with his maddeningly slow gait. MacClayne normally walked slower than was natural for me; usually it didn't bother me, but today it was terribly hard to go anything less than fast.
"I can't imagine what would bring a character like him to a place like this," I said.
"Probably wanted to show his wife he's a macho guy."
"No doubt, and who knows," I said. "He might not be so bad if we were to meet him without his wife."
"The guy nearly got us killed."
"I know. We could have been drowned in the river or mangled in a wreck."
"So why are you making excuses for him?"
"Excuses?" I said. "I'm not excusing him for what he did."
"You sound like you are."
"Well, I can sympathize with a poor guy who finds himself in a situation where he can't function properly. But I tell you, for a while back there, I was about to bash his head in."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because--" I began, and then it hit me that MacClayne was about to drag me into a trap and corner me. The beginning of another Socratic dialogue.
"So, why would you?" he asked again.
I shook my head but said nothing.
"Apparently you feel you have violent tendencies?" he said.
"I'm a monster," I said sarcastically.
"We're having a serious discussion and you get defensive."
"Can we just drop this?"
"If you don't want to discuss it, that's up to you."
"Listen!" I said, raising my voice slightly. "We're alive because we stopped that guy before he could kill all of us, including his wife and himself."
MacClayne started to speak, but I cut him off. "Let me finish," I told him. "We took effective action. The three of us. You, the bird and I. We did good. We did damn good! We prevented a tragedy and we should be congratulating ourselves!"
Cuauhtémoc clucked.
MacClayne looked at the bird and grinned. "The rooster's right," he said. "We did well."
"We did. All of us."
"Amazing that the rooster would jump in and fight for us," MacClayne said. "He also saved us from the scorpions a couple nights ago. Definitely a valuable member of our expedition. It's a good thing we have him along. But you're still walking too fast."
"Okay, I'll slow down," I said. "This time I promise."
During the frightening jeep ride, I hadn't been aware of any tension. But now that it was over, I found myself bursting with nervous energy and I felt I could walk all the way to Lázaro, maybe even to Apatzingán.
I glanced at MacClayne and wondered if he felt that way too. Apparently not. He appeared calm, as though nothing had happened. To a war veteran who'd survived shipwrecks and seen his pals die around him, this must've seemed like a very minor incident. He paused to take another swig from the bottle.
"You're twenty-three, aren't you?"
"Twenty-four now," I corrected him.
"Have you ever drunk a beer?"
"Of course I have! A couple of times."
MacClayne looked at me thoughtfully. "At times you seem old and wise, so far ahead of me you amaze me. And then a minute later you talk like a child I need to teach and protect."
"What do you need to teach me?" I said. Though I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a putdown, I was more curious than offended.
"The practical use of alcohol." He tilted the bottle up, swallowed, and took a deep breath. "Can we sit down for a minute?" he said. Up ahead was a fallen log.
"I suppose so," I said reluctantly. I wanted to just keep going. We came to the log and sat down.
"You aren't afraid of becoming alcoholic, are you?" he said when he was comfortably seated.
"No, of course not."
"Then have a beer." He dug one out of his bag and set it on the log beside me.
I laid my pack down and picked up the can; it was still cold from Wendy's ice chest. "I guess I can try it," I said, then opened it and took a whiff. The aroma was enticing, but when I took a sip I wondered how people could enjoy such a bitter taste, and I was inclined to suspect it was just an agonizing ritual that guys did to prove how macho they were. I would've really preferred chocolate milk, but just to show MacClayne that I was game, I started drinking it, and almost right away I felt a little high.
Cuauhtémoc stood there watching me, and I figured this time he was going to want a swallow. "We might as well have this together," I said to him. He hopped up on the log beside me while I took an aluminum cup out of my pack and poured it full.
He dipped his beak for a couple of swallows, then I took a drink, and passed it back to him. We took turns till we'd finished the cup, and I refilled it. I knew this wasn't right, but somehow I was doing it anyway. Thank goodness Chayo wasn't here. At the end of the can, MacClayne poured some tequila in our cup and we drank that too; it tasted less awful now.
There was a grassy spot by the log and as I looked down at it I suddenly felt terribly drowsy. It could have been the liquor, or maybe a letdown from the excitement wearing off. "Excuse me while I take a nap," I mumbled to MacClayne.
"Go ahead, I'll be here," I heard him saying.
I fell asleep and into a dream almost the instant I lay down. Suddenly, I was back in the jeep, and our vehicle was being swept downstream by the current, through whirlpools and towards the ocean. The breakers were only meters away, then we disappeared beneath the waves. "Cuauhtémoc!" I screamed. "Do something!" But the bird was drunk on his tail. On the surface above, a patrol boat manned by Royal Marines was looking for us. They were preparing to drop depth charges.
I awoke with a start, gasping for breath. The sun was still shining brightly. Cuauhtémoc was perched on the log beside me, hiccuping. MacClayne turned to look at me.
"What happened to the German?" I said as I sat up.
"What German?"
"The one who torpedoed your ship."
MacClayne looked at me strangely for a moment, then said, "I heard they found him in the water, hauled him aboard and machine-gunned him. That was the scuttlebutt that went around. But it was never officially confirmed and so I don't know if that's what really happened. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering," I said.
"It's an odd thing to be wondering the minute you wake up."
Could he have somehow guessed or sensed that I was seeing his lost shipmates in my dreams? Probably not, but I wished I'd waited and found a more suitable time and place for that question. I tried to think of something to change the subject.
"Maybe we should be on our way," I said.
"Where are we going?"
"Huh?" His question caught me by surprise; I couldn't imagine why he asked.
"Where are we going?" he said again.
"To Lázaro," I replied uneasily. "I believe that's our plan."
"On foot?"
"We can't stay here."
"How far is it?"
"Assuming that was the Río Cachán we crossed, we're almost half way there."
"Half of a couple hundred miles?"
"Yes."
"So we're right smack in the middle of this damn jungle."
"No, we're halfway out of this jungle."
"With a hundred miles of horse trail ahead of us?"
"It's less than that," I said. "Anyway, this is a road, used by vehicles."
"One every three days?"
"So what would you suggest?" I said.
"You are the guide, the pilot, the pathfinder. You tell me what we're going to do."
So he was putting me in charge. Or was he looking for some way to corner me with more of his goddamn Socratic dialogue? I noted that his face was slightly red, even under the chin. Probably not sunburn. The tequila bottle on the log beside him was now half empty.
"Let's eat," I said, and dug into my pack for the burritos Wendy had given us. It was something I figured we could agree on.
MacClayne nodded and said, "You know, I was wishing for one of those a while ago, but I didn't want to be poking into your pack while you were sleeping."
"You should've just helped yourself. They're yours too," I said. "But I guess I shouldn't have put them in my pack." I passed the bag to him and silently congratulated myself on how well I'd ended our dispute. As he took out a burrito and handed the package back to me, I realized how hungry I really was. What a treat! I took a huge bite and began chewing contentedly.
An instant later I spat it out.
"Is it spoiled?" I heard MacClayne saying. I kept spitting, again and again, trying to clear my mouth. "It's chicken!" I gasped, and spit some more.
"Chicken?"
"Yes!" I said, recovering my breath. "At least this one is."
He still hadn't bitten into his burrito. He unwrapped the tortilla and found it was also made with chicken meat. "Maybe the others are made of beef or pork," he said.
Wendy had given us a generous-sized bagful, probably all she had. We went through all of them, but found that the meat in every last one was chicken.
There was a tacit agreement between MacClayne and myself that we didn't eat chicken. This was in deference to the avian member of our expedition. For a split second MacClayne's eye fell on Cuauhtémoc, but very quickly he turned his head to look another way.
"Does it really have to matter?" he said after a pensive silence.
"Very much so!" I said. "Remember the time we were in that restaurant where the little pig sat there in the kitchen door, and out of respect for the little animal we decided not to eat pork in front of him? We can certainly show the same respect for Cuauhtémoc."
The bird was no longer hiccuping. He got off his perch and strutted off on his own, perhaps feeling it best to let us speak freely and decide the matter between the two of us.
"That was in a restaurant," MacClayne said. "We had other foods to choose from."
"Shouldn't we do the same when there is nothing else to eat?" I said. "This is our chance to show we really mean it."
"Do we need to show that?"
"I think we do," I said slowly, almost under my breath. I recalled a newspaper article about a group of airplane crash survivors who ate their dead companions to survive. I guess when you're trying to survive, you do desperate things, but we weren't starving. Yet.
As these thoughts ran through my head, my eyes fixed themselves on a tire track in the road. It looked fresh, but it was probably from Wendy's jeep. Maybe there wasn't much traffic on this road and we might have to wait a while. Out of the corner of my eye I saw MacClayne reaching for the tequila bottle.
I spat again. The taste of chicken was still in my mouth.
MacClayne was turning the tequila bottle over in his hand. I thought of suggesting to him that I wouldn't think less of him if he ate the burritos, that it was just that I wouldn't eat any myself. I was about to speak when I heard him saying something.
". . . producto de Jalisco." He was reading the label, apparently to himself; then he glanced at me. "Do I say it right--Jalisco?"
"Close enough," I said. His Scots accent gave the name a peculiar ring, but it wasn't without charm.
"I spent a couple of weeks there once, in Guadalajara," he said. "That was in 1954. Francesca and I were living in New York at the time and we had a fight. She gave me a hassle about something and I just packed my bag, walked out the door and went to México."
"And that was the end of you and Francesca?"
"I stayed in México till my money ran out, then went back to New York. And we got back together again," he said. "Did you ever meet her?"
"No, I didn't," I said. Every time MacClayne had a few drinks he'd ask me if I remembered Francesca. He seemed to forget that I'd never been in New York and never met any of the people he'd known back there, except for Alasdair MacAlistair who'd come to California to escape creditors. So as not to disappoint him entirely, I said: "But I remember a photo you showed me. She was very attractive."
"She was," he said nostalgically.
"How long were you together?"
"A decade or more, off and on. We broke up many times. In the end it wore out. Relationships don't last."
I didn't know what to say. It was a depressing thought, but I couldn't imagine things ending up like that between Chayo and me. She and I seemed to get along splendidly. Well, she was kind of bossy at times, but not unbearably. It bothered me to think of what she might've said if she'd known I'd given the bird that beer and tequila.
MacClayne uncapped the bottle and took another drink. "Women are nurturing at first, but after a while they just want to control you."
She probably wanted to control his damn drinking, I thought to myself. Poor woman. She must've been a saint to put up with him for so long.
The burritos Wendy had given us were still sitting on the log and MacClayne kept glancing at them. "So," he said finally. "If we don't eat these, where do we find our next meal?"
"We've passed villages from time to time. There should be another one soon," I said. "There'll be places where we can buy something to eat. Anyway, we still have oranges."
"Okay," he said at last. "But what do we do with these burritos?"
"Maybe we'll meet somebody, and we can give the lunch to them."
"You mean it's okay for others to eat?"
"Yes, of course," I said. "Other people aren't part of our commitment to Cuauhtémoc, and for them it's not wrong."
"So we're going to carry food we can't eat. Just to give away?"
I couldn't think of how to respond, so I said "Maybe we should get going. When we get to a village we'll ask around and hear if somebody's going our way. We should be able to hitch a ride."
Without replying, he rather sullenly put the half-empty tequila bottle in his bag, and we set out down the jungle trail. We trudged along in silence, and I wondered to myself if he were going to make me pay for this later.
A breeze rustled the leaves, but when the air was still I could hear the muffled roar of the ocean. An occasional opening in the thick foliage allowed us a peek at it. Cuauhtémoc strutted beside me.
I figured it might be a while before we reached a village, but I was certain we would eventually come to one. When we did we'd be able to buy food and, even if it took a couple days to get a ride, we could camp on the beach. I liked the ambience. This was beyond the end of the paved road, and, of all the remote places on our journey, this seemed to be the most isolated, and, precisely because of that isolation, I found it intriguing and was in no special hurry to leave. I only wished that MacClayne had more enthusiasm for places like this.
While walking we encountered a couple of campesinos and asked them how far it was to a nearest village. They told us there was one not far up ahead, and I gave them the bag of burritos.
But before we reached the village we heard the sound of a motor. A pickup truck approached from behind us, heading in the direction of Lázaro. Damn! I thought to myself. I wanted to just keep on walking
'Let it go," I wanted to say. But I knew MacClayne wouldn't be at ease till we got to some place that connected up with paved roads and buses. He immediately waved both arms while I just sighed and hoped the vehicle wouldn't stop. It did.
The driver wore a wide-brimmed hat with a tassel, the kind that was common in the Uruapan area, and I recalled seeing him in the palm-thatched restaurant in La Placita. He was the man who'd sat at the table near us, eating chile verde. I remembered thinking that the guy looked like a prosperous rancher who probably owned several dozen head of cattle and most certainly a pickup truck, but I hadn't expected to encounter him out here in the jungle. Perhaps he was equally surprised to find us here, but if so, he didn't say anything; he just asked where we were going.
"In the direction of Lázaro," I said, and he motioned for us to climb aboard. There were already two other men in the front seat, so we got on the truck bed where we stood behind the cab, hanging onto the roll bar. Cuauhtémoc perched on the bar between us, and the pickup started to move.
I hadn't gotten a good look at the other two men in the cab, but I wondered if one of them might be that hostile-looking fellow who'd accompanied the driver in the restaurant. I bent down and tried to catch a surreptitious glimpse of them through the back window of the cab, but I could only see their tasseled hats. One was inserting a cassette in a tape recorder, and soon I was hearing a popular ballad.
Volaron los pavos reales
para la Sierra Mojada
mataron a . . .
The peacocks flew
to the mountains
they killed . . .
Lo sacaron a la orilla
por ver si sabía jugar.
Le dieron tres balazos
al pie de un verde rosal
They pulled their victim aside
to see if he knew the game.
They shot him three times
at the foot of a green rose bush
"Wherever you go in México, you hear that terrible music," MacClayne said with a grin, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the din of the road and radio.
"It may be terrible, but I like it," I said, and I suspected that MacClayne also liked this music, though he'd never admit it.
The song that followed was also about a killing. Bandits and tragic deaths were the themes of many ballads--corridos they were called here in México. I had a collection of tapes which included the one being played, and I'd spent many hours listening to them till I knew many by heart. Domingo also sang these songs back at don Pablo's boarding house, and everybody there enjoyed them. But right now the violence of the lyrics was beginning to bother me with those violent-looking characters in the cab.
Overactive imagination, I decided. Enrique had warned me about bandits in this region. So had doña Matilda, the woman at the hotel back in Aquila. Now at the tune of a ballad I was seeing a bandit behind every tree and in every vehicle.
The driver certainly didn't look like a bad guy. He'd been kind enough to give us this ride, and it bothered me to be thinking these distrustful thoughts about him and his companions. Anyway, had it been their intention to do us any harm, they'd probably have done it already.
I glanced at MacClayne; he appeared quite content to be getting this ride. I knew he wanted to get to where the paved roads began, and of course to an eating place. I couldn't really blame him. We were both hungry, though I could guess that MacClayne was not only hungry but also angry with me for giving away our burritos.
It was a long ride. The road remained bad and often the jungle closed in so tightly that branches scraped both sides of the pickup and we had to duck overhanging boughs. Our vehicle crept through places where much of the narrow track had been washed out by the recent storm. At one place we had to turn back and go inland for some distance. The going was slow, but I appreciated the pace, both for the driver's attention to safety and also for this opportunity to see our surroundings. There were more deer, and glimpses of enticing beaches and lagoons.
The music continued to play, and not all the songs were about killings. Some were humorous. One was about a woman who flew from branch to branch like a pigeon, causing headaches for all, and I thought of Wendy. I wondered if we might somewhere come upon her and Jeff, but they were probably nearing Caleta by now.
The road began to get better. It went from two parallel ruts between the trees and bushes to a horrible washboard surface on which we bounced violently. It continued to improve, from dreadful to awful, then from not-quite-so-awful to just very bad. Eventually we found ourselves on intermittent stretches of blacktop. Finally we met a bus coming from the other direction. It was a long-nosed thing with the engine sticking out in front, the kind we called bad-road buses. But presumably it had to connect up with Lázaro.
"We can now consider ourselves home free," I said.
The bird, who was still perched between us on the roll bar, clucked triumphantly, and MacClayne breathed a visible sigh of relief.
"When we see a camping place, let's get off," I said.
continued in Chapter 37
"I hope you don't mind."
"Go ahead," I said reluctantly. I watched him unscrew the cap and take a long swig. It reminded me of movie scenes where the hero goes through a hair-raising experience without batting an eye, and then reaches for a bottle and says, "I need a drink."
"Poor Jeff. He flipped out," I said, somehow feeling a need to say something, anything, just to unload the experience.
"A little drunk," MacClayne said, looking at the bottle in his hand. "And under stress."
"I wonder why she let him drive. She could have grabbed the keys or refused to get in the vehicle."
"Well, why do you think?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
"She set him up."
"She did?"
"When we left she had him in the palm of her hand."
"It doesn't make sense," I objected. "She put herself in danger."
"People even commit suicide to control others."
We picked up our things and started walking. Cuauhtémoc scurried along to keep up; we were walking pretty fast. "Hop up," I said, and extended my arm.
Through openings in the brush I could see the ocean which was only a couple hundred meters away, but at that moment I wanted to be on the road. I needed to burn off some adrenaline.
"This doesn't have to be a foot race, does it?" MacClayne said.
"What?"
"You don't have to walk so fast."
We'd been walking side by side, but now MacClayne had fallen half a pace behind.
"I'll slow down," I said, and readjusted my pace to his.
"It seems like you're always trying to out-walk me."
"I'll try not to," I said. For a while we marched along in silence, and I concentrated on keeping down with his maddeningly slow gait. MacClayne normally walked slower than was natural for me; usually it didn't bother me, but today it was terribly hard to go anything less than fast.
"I can't imagine what would bring a character like him to a place like this," I said.
"Probably wanted to show his wife he's a macho guy."
"No doubt, and who knows," I said. "He might not be so bad if we were to meet him without his wife."
"The guy nearly got us killed."
"I know. We could have been drowned in the river or mangled in a wreck."
"So why are you making excuses for him?"
"Excuses?" I said. "I'm not excusing him for what he did."
"You sound like you are."
"Well, I can sympathize with a poor guy who finds himself in a situation where he can't function properly. But I tell you, for a while back there, I was about to bash his head in."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because--" I began, and then it hit me that MacClayne was about to drag me into a trap and corner me. The beginning of another Socratic dialogue.
"So, why would you?" he asked again.
I shook my head but said nothing.
"Apparently you feel you have violent tendencies?" he said.
"I'm a monster," I said sarcastically.
"We're having a serious discussion and you get defensive."
"Can we just drop this?"
"If you don't want to discuss it, that's up to you."
"Listen!" I said, raising my voice slightly. "We're alive because we stopped that guy before he could kill all of us, including his wife and himself."
MacClayne started to speak, but I cut him off. "Let me finish," I told him. "We took effective action. The three of us. You, the bird and I. We did good. We did damn good! We prevented a tragedy and we should be congratulating ourselves!"
Cuauhtémoc clucked.
MacClayne looked at the bird and grinned. "The rooster's right," he said. "We did well."
"We did. All of us."
"Amazing that the rooster would jump in and fight for us," MacClayne said. "He also saved us from the scorpions a couple nights ago. Definitely a valuable member of our expedition. It's a good thing we have him along. But you're still walking too fast."
"Okay, I'll slow down," I said. "This time I promise."
During the frightening jeep ride, I hadn't been aware of any tension. But now that it was over, I found myself bursting with nervous energy and I felt I could walk all the way to Lázaro, maybe even to Apatzingán.
I glanced at MacClayne and wondered if he felt that way too. Apparently not. He appeared calm, as though nothing had happened. To a war veteran who'd survived shipwrecks and seen his pals die around him, this must've seemed like a very minor incident. He paused to take another swig from the bottle.
"You're twenty-three, aren't you?"
"Twenty-four now," I corrected him.
"Have you ever drunk a beer?"
"Of course I have! A couple of times."
MacClayne looked at me thoughtfully. "At times you seem old and wise, so far ahead of me you amaze me. And then a minute later you talk like a child I need to teach and protect."
"What do you need to teach me?" I said. Though I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a putdown, I was more curious than offended.
"The practical use of alcohol." He tilted the bottle up, swallowed, and took a deep breath. "Can we sit down for a minute?" he said. Up ahead was a fallen log.
"I suppose so," I said reluctantly. I wanted to just keep going. We came to the log and sat down.
"You aren't afraid of becoming alcoholic, are you?" he said when he was comfortably seated.
"No, of course not."
"Then have a beer." He dug one out of his bag and set it on the log beside me.
I laid my pack down and picked up the can; it was still cold from Wendy's ice chest. "I guess I can try it," I said, then opened it and took a whiff. The aroma was enticing, but when I took a sip I wondered how people could enjoy such a bitter taste, and I was inclined to suspect it was just an agonizing ritual that guys did to prove how macho they were. I would've really preferred chocolate milk, but just to show MacClayne that I was game, I started drinking it, and almost right away I felt a little high.
Cuauhtémoc stood there watching me, and I figured this time he was going to want a swallow. "We might as well have this together," I said to him. He hopped up on the log beside me while I took an aluminum cup out of my pack and poured it full.
He dipped his beak for a couple of swallows, then I took a drink, and passed it back to him. We took turns till we'd finished the cup, and I refilled it. I knew this wasn't right, but somehow I was doing it anyway. Thank goodness Chayo wasn't here. At the end of the can, MacClayne poured some tequila in our cup and we drank that too; it tasted less awful now.
There was a grassy spot by the log and as I looked down at it I suddenly felt terribly drowsy. It could have been the liquor, or maybe a letdown from the excitement wearing off. "Excuse me while I take a nap," I mumbled to MacClayne.
"Go ahead, I'll be here," I heard him saying.
I fell asleep and into a dream almost the instant I lay down. Suddenly, I was back in the jeep, and our vehicle was being swept downstream by the current, through whirlpools and towards the ocean. The breakers were only meters away, then we disappeared beneath the waves. "Cuauhtémoc!" I screamed. "Do something!" But the bird was drunk on his tail. On the surface above, a patrol boat manned by Royal Marines was looking for us. They were preparing to drop depth charges.
I awoke with a start, gasping for breath. The sun was still shining brightly. Cuauhtémoc was perched on the log beside me, hiccuping. MacClayne turned to look at me.
"What happened to the German?" I said as I sat up.
"What German?"
"The one who torpedoed your ship."
MacClayne looked at me strangely for a moment, then said, "I heard they found him in the water, hauled him aboard and machine-gunned him. That was the scuttlebutt that went around. But it was never officially confirmed and so I don't know if that's what really happened. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering," I said.
"It's an odd thing to be wondering the minute you wake up."
Could he have somehow guessed or sensed that I was seeing his lost shipmates in my dreams? Probably not, but I wished I'd waited and found a more suitable time and place for that question. I tried to think of something to change the subject.
"Maybe we should be on our way," I said.
"Where are we going?"
"Huh?" His question caught me by surprise; I couldn't imagine why he asked.
"Where are we going?" he said again.
"To Lázaro," I replied uneasily. "I believe that's our plan."
"On foot?"
"We can't stay here."
"How far is it?"
"Assuming that was the Río Cachán we crossed, we're almost half way there."
"Half of a couple hundred miles?"
"Yes."
"So we're right smack in the middle of this damn jungle."
"No, we're halfway out of this jungle."
"With a hundred miles of horse trail ahead of us?"
"It's less than that," I said. "Anyway, this is a road, used by vehicles."
"One every three days?"
"So what would you suggest?" I said.
"You are the guide, the pilot, the pathfinder. You tell me what we're going to do."
So he was putting me in charge. Or was he looking for some way to corner me with more of his goddamn Socratic dialogue? I noted that his face was slightly red, even under the chin. Probably not sunburn. The tequila bottle on the log beside him was now half empty.
"Let's eat," I said, and dug into my pack for the burritos Wendy had given us. It was something I figured we could agree on.
MacClayne nodded and said, "You know, I was wishing for one of those a while ago, but I didn't want to be poking into your pack while you were sleeping."
"You should've just helped yourself. They're yours too," I said. "But I guess I shouldn't have put them in my pack." I passed the bag to him and silently congratulated myself on how well I'd ended our dispute. As he took out a burrito and handed the package back to me, I realized how hungry I really was. What a treat! I took a huge bite and began chewing contentedly.
An instant later I spat it out.
"Is it spoiled?" I heard MacClayne saying. I kept spitting, again and again, trying to clear my mouth. "It's chicken!" I gasped, and spit some more.
"Chicken?"
"Yes!" I said, recovering my breath. "At least this one is."
He still hadn't bitten into his burrito. He unwrapped the tortilla and found it was also made with chicken meat. "Maybe the others are made of beef or pork," he said.
Wendy had given us a generous-sized bagful, probably all she had. We went through all of them, but found that the meat in every last one was chicken.
There was a tacit agreement between MacClayne and myself that we didn't eat chicken. This was in deference to the avian member of our expedition. For a split second MacClayne's eye fell on Cuauhtémoc, but very quickly he turned his head to look another way.
"Does it really have to matter?" he said after a pensive silence.
"Very much so!" I said. "Remember the time we were in that restaurant where the little pig sat there in the kitchen door, and out of respect for the little animal we decided not to eat pork in front of him? We can certainly show the same respect for Cuauhtémoc."
The bird was no longer hiccuping. He got off his perch and strutted off on his own, perhaps feeling it best to let us speak freely and decide the matter between the two of us.
"That was in a restaurant," MacClayne said. "We had other foods to choose from."
"Shouldn't we do the same when there is nothing else to eat?" I said. "This is our chance to show we really mean it."
"Do we need to show that?"
"I think we do," I said slowly, almost under my breath. I recalled a newspaper article about a group of airplane crash survivors who ate their dead companions to survive. I guess when you're trying to survive, you do desperate things, but we weren't starving. Yet.
As these thoughts ran through my head, my eyes fixed themselves on a tire track in the road. It looked fresh, but it was probably from Wendy's jeep. Maybe there wasn't much traffic on this road and we might have to wait a while. Out of the corner of my eye I saw MacClayne reaching for the tequila bottle.
I spat again. The taste of chicken was still in my mouth.
MacClayne was turning the tequila bottle over in his hand. I thought of suggesting to him that I wouldn't think less of him if he ate the burritos, that it was just that I wouldn't eat any myself. I was about to speak when I heard him saying something.
". . . producto de Jalisco." He was reading the label, apparently to himself; then he glanced at me. "Do I say it right--Jalisco?"
"Close enough," I said. His Scots accent gave the name a peculiar ring, but it wasn't without charm.
"I spent a couple of weeks there once, in Guadalajara," he said. "That was in 1954. Francesca and I were living in New York at the time and we had a fight. She gave me a hassle about something and I just packed my bag, walked out the door and went to México."
"And that was the end of you and Francesca?"
"I stayed in México till my money ran out, then went back to New York. And we got back together again," he said. "Did you ever meet her?"
"No, I didn't," I said. Every time MacClayne had a few drinks he'd ask me if I remembered Francesca. He seemed to forget that I'd never been in New York and never met any of the people he'd known back there, except for Alasdair MacAlistair who'd come to California to escape creditors. So as not to disappoint him entirely, I said: "But I remember a photo you showed me. She was very attractive."
"She was," he said nostalgically.
"How long were you together?"
"A decade or more, off and on. We broke up many times. In the end it wore out. Relationships don't last."
I didn't know what to say. It was a depressing thought, but I couldn't imagine things ending up like that between Chayo and me. She and I seemed to get along splendidly. Well, she was kind of bossy at times, but not unbearably. It bothered me to think of what she might've said if she'd known I'd given the bird that beer and tequila.
MacClayne uncapped the bottle and took another drink. "Women are nurturing at first, but after a while they just want to control you."
She probably wanted to control his damn drinking, I thought to myself. Poor woman. She must've been a saint to put up with him for so long.
The burritos Wendy had given us were still sitting on the log and MacClayne kept glancing at them. "So," he said finally. "If we don't eat these, where do we find our next meal?"
"We've passed villages from time to time. There should be another one soon," I said. "There'll be places where we can buy something to eat. Anyway, we still have oranges."
"Okay," he said at last. "But what do we do with these burritos?"
"Maybe we'll meet somebody, and we can give the lunch to them."
"You mean it's okay for others to eat?"
"Yes, of course," I said. "Other people aren't part of our commitment to Cuauhtémoc, and for them it's not wrong."
"So we're going to carry food we can't eat. Just to give away?"
I couldn't think of how to respond, so I said "Maybe we should get going. When we get to a village we'll ask around and hear if somebody's going our way. We should be able to hitch a ride."
Without replying, he rather sullenly put the half-empty tequila bottle in his bag, and we set out down the jungle trail. We trudged along in silence, and I wondered to myself if he were going to make me pay for this later.
A breeze rustled the leaves, but when the air was still I could hear the muffled roar of the ocean. An occasional opening in the thick foliage allowed us a peek at it. Cuauhtémoc strutted beside me.
I figured it might be a while before we reached a village, but I was certain we would eventually come to one. When we did we'd be able to buy food and, even if it took a couple days to get a ride, we could camp on the beach. I liked the ambience. This was beyond the end of the paved road, and, of all the remote places on our journey, this seemed to be the most isolated, and, precisely because of that isolation, I found it intriguing and was in no special hurry to leave. I only wished that MacClayne had more enthusiasm for places like this.
While walking we encountered a couple of campesinos and asked them how far it was to a nearest village. They told us there was one not far up ahead, and I gave them the bag of burritos.
But before we reached the village we heard the sound of a motor. A pickup truck approached from behind us, heading in the direction of Lázaro. Damn! I thought to myself. I wanted to just keep on walking
'Let it go," I wanted to say. But I knew MacClayne wouldn't be at ease till we got to some place that connected up with paved roads and buses. He immediately waved both arms while I just sighed and hoped the vehicle wouldn't stop. It did.
The driver wore a wide-brimmed hat with a tassel, the kind that was common in the Uruapan area, and I recalled seeing him in the palm-thatched restaurant in La Placita. He was the man who'd sat at the table near us, eating chile verde. I remembered thinking that the guy looked like a prosperous rancher who probably owned several dozen head of cattle and most certainly a pickup truck, but I hadn't expected to encounter him out here in the jungle. Perhaps he was equally surprised to find us here, but if so, he didn't say anything; he just asked where we were going.
"In the direction of Lázaro," I said, and he motioned for us to climb aboard. There were already two other men in the front seat, so we got on the truck bed where we stood behind the cab, hanging onto the roll bar. Cuauhtémoc perched on the bar between us, and the pickup started to move.
I hadn't gotten a good look at the other two men in the cab, but I wondered if one of them might be that hostile-looking fellow who'd accompanied the driver in the restaurant. I bent down and tried to catch a surreptitious glimpse of them through the back window of the cab, but I could only see their tasseled hats. One was inserting a cassette in a tape recorder, and soon I was hearing a popular ballad.
Volaron los pavos reales
para la Sierra Mojada
mataron a . . .
The peacocks flew
to the mountains
they killed . . .
Lo sacaron a la orilla
por ver si sabía jugar.
Le dieron tres balazos
al pie de un verde rosal
They pulled their victim aside
to see if he knew the game.
They shot him three times
at the foot of a green rose bush
"Wherever you go in México, you hear that terrible music," MacClayne said with a grin, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the din of the road and radio.
"It may be terrible, but I like it," I said, and I suspected that MacClayne also liked this music, though he'd never admit it.
The song that followed was also about a killing. Bandits and tragic deaths were the themes of many ballads--corridos they were called here in México. I had a collection of tapes which included the one being played, and I'd spent many hours listening to them till I knew many by heart. Domingo also sang these songs back at don Pablo's boarding house, and everybody there enjoyed them. But right now the violence of the lyrics was beginning to bother me with those violent-looking characters in the cab.
Overactive imagination, I decided. Enrique had warned me about bandits in this region. So had doña Matilda, the woman at the hotel back in Aquila. Now at the tune of a ballad I was seeing a bandit behind every tree and in every vehicle.
The driver certainly didn't look like a bad guy. He'd been kind enough to give us this ride, and it bothered me to be thinking these distrustful thoughts about him and his companions. Anyway, had it been their intention to do us any harm, they'd probably have done it already.
I glanced at MacClayne; he appeared quite content to be getting this ride. I knew he wanted to get to where the paved roads began, and of course to an eating place. I couldn't really blame him. We were both hungry, though I could guess that MacClayne was not only hungry but also angry with me for giving away our burritos.
It was a long ride. The road remained bad and often the jungle closed in so tightly that branches scraped both sides of the pickup and we had to duck overhanging boughs. Our vehicle crept through places where much of the narrow track had been washed out by the recent storm. At one place we had to turn back and go inland for some distance. The going was slow, but I appreciated the pace, both for the driver's attention to safety and also for this opportunity to see our surroundings. There were more deer, and glimpses of enticing beaches and lagoons.
The music continued to play, and not all the songs were about killings. Some were humorous. One was about a woman who flew from branch to branch like a pigeon, causing headaches for all, and I thought of Wendy. I wondered if we might somewhere come upon her and Jeff, but they were probably nearing Caleta by now.
The road began to get better. It went from two parallel ruts between the trees and bushes to a horrible washboard surface on which we bounced violently. It continued to improve, from dreadful to awful, then from not-quite-so-awful to just very bad. Eventually we found ourselves on intermittent stretches of blacktop. Finally we met a bus coming from the other direction. It was a long-nosed thing with the engine sticking out in front, the kind we called bad-road buses. But presumably it had to connect up with Lázaro.
"We can now consider ourselves home free," I said.
The bird, who was still perched between us on the roll bar, clucked triumphantly, and MacClayne breathed a visible sigh of relief.
"When we see a camping place, let's get off," I said.
continued in Chapter 37
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