It has been reported that you may see strange things if you drive west on the new interstate. It was only opened up eight years ago, but already it has garnered something of a fearsome reputation. Upon hearing that you might be planning on taking your car down that route, singly and without a convoy to keep you company, and that can’t be persuaded into taking instead the venerable train that chugs along by first taking a sharp detour south before proceeding west, some people have been known to take you aside and whisper earnestly that, given you’ve something of an independent streak, it would be best to remember that you can trust all that you may see or hear. They’ve all heard stories about the road, and about the land to the west, and the stories tend to make one scratch one’s head and wonder whether some fiction writer hasn’t been spinning yarns in local taverns to keep themselves well-sated with drinks.
Some people whisper that no, they’ve incontrovertible proof, you see, and old Max down there hasn’t been right in the head since his trip two years ago, and over there, Jim Humbug was on the actual crew that built the road, and when he returned, he insisted that he had seen coyotes sitting around waving their paws at the moon, and heard ghosts that looked like Indians but were ghosts sitting on top of cactus trees, and seen lights coming out of gopher holes, and all kinds of things that might strike you as a little comical if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t in character for the person telling you these things. Needless to say you’re a no-nonsense kind of person, and you tell them you’re not likely to see any of those things, leave that for the artist types for those who are bored with their jobs and need what is termed a little bit of mystery in their lives. No, you’re not like that. But they may tell you to keep watch nonetheless, and don’t let yourself get misled, and if you do see something, don’t pay mind, don’t stop your car, and instead, recite the multiplication tables or the months of the year or the names of ten people named George, and chances are, you’ll be past it by the time you finish, and out of danger.
People have a way of behaving funny when mention if made of the hill country. They act as if it isn’t part of this country, as if a whole new set of laws are in effect out there, as if the constellations become moving pictures telling stories of a past that doesn’t want to fade away, but lingers still, like the people who look and live much as their ancestors did two hundred years or more ago.
Now, it is a truism that advice proffered freely is rarely valued. It may be that the person who was giving you warning about the things you may see isn’t necessarily a bad person, but also isn’t necessarily the most trustworthy of characters. You see him on a weekly basis, and he seems fairly trustworthy, filling up your car and looking it over at the gas station every few months, but he has been known to have a weakness for the drink. The same goes for the other informants. You see, the stories sound a little disreputable, and even old Charlie who always walks around with a bible and offers to quote scripture at the slightest hint of interest has been known to walk around with a little of a dazed look about him. It may be that there are certain people who need to believe in the mysteries of the hill country, for without it, life is too hard to live. But not for you, oh no, you’ve got plenty of responsibility and many investments, and you’ve always considered yourself to be a practical man, one who believes that for every problem there is a solution. No, you wouldn’t make the trip if it weren’t absolutely necessary, and no, you can’t take the train because the detour wouldn’t quite take you where you needed to go, and maybe, you have someone you’re traveling with who isn’t much for traveling with other people, and needs to be watched over very carefully, and maybe needs to go somewhere where his situation might be stabilized, so to speak.
So, you may happen to find yourself driving west on this interstate, and it may be late in the day, and so far, you’ve seen nothing unusual, and if anything it has been something of a dull ride, although for some reason you can’t help thinking of hawks and ravens and eagles, and you feeling maybe a little lighter and dizzier than you’ve ever felt, but there, it must be because you’re hungry, and you didn’t pack enough food in the basket, and as a matter of fact you haven’t eaten anything since the egg and toast you had that morning, with the toast having been slightly burnt, for some reason. It all must be hogwash, and you could sure use a good sandwich or, better yet, a steak and pie, that would hit you square and leave you just right.
Somehow, your nerves have been on edge ever since you decided that you needed to take this trip. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the breathless tales of unusual phenomena out west, no, nothing like that. It must have been the fact that this trip was coming at an inconvenient time, what with little Benjamin returning to school recently after having spent the summer in Vermont and your wife insisting that something needed to be done about the garden out back, because for some reason she suspected there might be gophers or opossoms or some such pest, and for all she knew, they were tunneling into the yard and being a nuisance, and couldn’t they call another vermin remover to come take a look and see why every morning her flower gardens were trampled and the vegetables were half eaten and the dog refused to step out back anymore? And of course your brother in law wasn’t doing much better, and had grown quite moody over the summer, and couldn’t be roused into seeing the light and getting over his wife having left him two years ago, and the fact that he couldn’t find inspiration any more for his art. Yes, life had a way of being messy sometimes.
It took a while to calm down after having left town. Things could be stressful, of course, but he was a practical man, and he knew that there was a solution for everything. There had to be, for didn’t he know about risks, and hadn’t he made his money as an insurance man? He lived in what was known as the city of progress, the Combine of the Midwest and the Motor of Industry of the prairie, second only to Chicago, of course. For others it might seem like an incongruous assemblage of steel and bricks located in the middle of golden corn field, but it was the living heart of the place, the one that gathered the streams of corn and wheat and livestock flowing from the land and pumped then in its generous and overflowing ventricles and sent them elsewhere, to the east and north and south and, yes, west, to feed the appetites of a hungry nation. There was a rhythm to the place, a steady pump and grind that came from packing houses and agricultural processing stations and even the mills that helped to produce so much of the raw material that was needed to maintain these various enterprises. The beating heart of the city was interspersed with whistles and horns and claxons, and the workers moved in reassuring waves. Things moved, and that was why they worked, even if it wasn’t necessarily a beautiful city, and the grime that collected from the belching smoke stacks of the north seemed to buildings with a soot that, in some places, lent them the appearance of gangrenous limbs in urgent need of a surgeon. But the fact that life and commerce thrived in this place and that the city both digest as well as pumped out the product of the vast plains was a testament to the desire for progress and the strength of the human spirit, so he consoled himself as he reflected on the umpteenth time that the birds must have been following him for at least the past three hours, for the shadows seemed to float over the car every few minutes or so, and what could they possibly want?
That’s what this hill country needed, a little bit of that spirit of progress. In his mind, it was all about work and, believe me, times had been hard since the crash, but that didn’t mean the system needed to be replaced. Consider it, instead, a tune up, and if you didn’t lose faith, and let yourself get carried away with this silly nonsense about changing over to socialism, things would soon get back to normal. That was one thing he heartily admired about his Heart of the Praire: there was no union agitation out there, for the business association was very careful to watch out for any troublemakers, and if any wild-eyed agitators were seen to arrive and start gathering the workers with tales of utopias back in Russia, why, then, there were patriotic enforcers who were there to clamp down on these agitators and get the workers back into line. It might take sending a few burly men to break up a few meetings, and to put the fear of god into them by letting them know that the body was weak, and maybe, if they persisted, it might take a few more sessions with more powerful arguments that would leave the workers to crawl back to their dens a little bruised but with their heads unscrambled, so to speak. He quite approved of this system.
Leaving the Engine of the Prairie one makes a right turn and heads past the old Johnson market at the edge of town and one reaches an exit that leads you to the interstate. It isn’t much to look at, although his heart skips a beat when he sees the sign that tells travellers that the proud citizens of the city appreciated their visit, and their return is awaited with an open heart. They are a hospitable people, he thinks, although in the case of his passenger, he isn’t sure whether the hospitality might not have been wasted. He thinks little of the superstitions, and thinks to himself, what stuff and nonsense!, people like to waste their time with idle stories, why should he believe them, the sun is just the same as it ever was, and the sky above is blue, with a few idle clouds floating above, and he can see a few barns already, and these actually look quite stately, with none of the (honest) grime of the city buildings he’s leaving behind. His passenger says what a pretty color, I’ve missed seeing the fields and the cows and the weather vanes on top of the barns, and the driver takes this as a good sign, as long as he doesn’t get carried away and want to wax poetic, for then, he becomes quite frankly very dull. The passenger is, after all, the reason why he’s taking the trip to begin with, and while he hasn’t told him the real reason yet, and has only told him that he’ll be staying at a place for rest and relaxation, where he will be able to paint again, and forget his wife, and maybe find a new path in life, he hasn’t mentioned the word sanitarium yet, and to tell the truth, he doesn’t like the word itself, for it will be costing him a pretty penny to keep him out there and away from his family in the Heart of the Prairie. It is for his own good, of course, a place that will be more to his liking, and didn’t he already say that he liked it better once they had found the exit for the interstate?
Up to this point, maybe he hasn’t taken the time to notice the landscape changing outside, especially if you have other things on your mind, such as the fact that your wife wasn’t quite happy with the idea of this trip, even if you had to explain it to her again and again over the past few weeks, until finally she broke down crying, and said that yes, maybe it was all for the best, maybe Henry her little brother needed medical treatment, and maybe he might be inspired out in the desert country, out past the hill country. He worried as well about his son, Benjamin, and in the darkest, most hidden corners of his mind, he worried that he might have inherited a little bit of his uncle Henry’s artistic sensibility, for he sure liked to spend his time watching other people and using figurative language, like talking about the breath of a caterpillar’s walk, and he had caught him several times listening to those fantastic and overstimulating radio programs that serialized those dime-store adventure tales, such as those of Tarzan. These signs worried him, and that was the main reason why he had had to precipitate his decision, for it was quite plain to him that his brother-in-law could not continue living with them, even if he stayed for the most part in a wing of the house that had its own separate entrance. It was for his good and the good of his son, he told himself, even if he felt an icy caterpillar crawling inside his chest each time he thought of the sanitarium where he was taking Henry.
You’ve been driving now for over eight hours with nary a break, and Henry hasn’t stopped looking out the window once. His eyes gleam, and he pulled out a pad and started scribbling on it, long waves and swirls and circles that he says is the motion of the hawks that have been flying overhead for the past few hours. He says the light feels different out here too, more liberated, purer, more alive, he says, and maybe he isn’t imagining things, for he has noticed a difference himself, although he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. The light just seems to shimmer and evaporate, being replaced by different light, and at times he finds it painful, while at other moments, he finds himself thinking of clouds and oceans and walking over the bridge on a spring afternoon, or stepping outside on a crisp winter morning with a layer of fresh snow on the ground, although why he would think about snow at this point he doesn’t know, maybe because of the whiteness of it, the feeling that it is open and inviting, and he has a feeling that he is being invited to see inside himself. But that sounds like Henry talking again. Maybe those were Henry’s words, things he’s been saying all the while, and he hasn’t bothered to note he was talking, but the words crawled their way inside him and now he feels they are his. He shudders involuntarily.
When he looks out again he is astounded to find that the corn field are gone, melted away, and now the land is full of hills, and has taken on a more sparse and desolate look, with nary a barn or house to be found. Where is everyone? For some reason, he sees rabbits here and there on the side of the road, and once, he thought he saw a deer, but he drove by so quickly he didn’t get a clear view, and he had found himself slowing down abruptly but then caught himself in time and remembered what the credulous types had told him back in the city, to not trust everything he saw. What was he planning on doing out here anyway? Turning around to see if there was a deer back there?
He turned on the radio, hoping to be able to find his favorite afternoon program with stately band music. He confirmed once again that radio reception wasn’t much to speak of out here, and he found he wasn’t able to find his station at all, or any station to speak of. Maybe this was due to the hills, because didn’t they interfere with radio reception? Or maybe it was because he was so far out west and it was so empty out here there were no radio stations within reach. He did manage to find one signal, but it wasn’t what he was expecting at all. Instead of the music of Benny Goodman, he heard a low pounding noise punctuated by chants that wavered up and down. He was sure about the chants, because from time to time he heart words, but he couldn’t make them out. They didn’t sound like English, but they sounded nonetheless familiar, in some strange way. When he moved to turn off the radio Henry had stilled his hand, and asked that he leave it, and he did, for all this time he had been in a solicitous mood with his brother-in-law, and maybe it was because he wanted to reassure Henry and not provoke any confrontation, or maybe it was because he was feeling more than a little guilty. The chanting had gone on for some time, and then, there had been rattles and the sounds of flutes, and the music had seemed to breathe in and out, calling up memories of things he couldn’t possibly have seen or heard or experienced himself. It was if the landscape was reaching in to speak to them.
The mountains of the west won’t be visible yet for a few hours. In the meantime, the chanting has been keeping you mind off of other things, and for a few moments you debate with yourself and try to decide whether you shouldn’t turn around and take Henry back to the city, maybe there is a different solution and maybe your wife might not be so upset either, and what will little Benjamin think when he finds his uncle missing? But you fight with these thoughts for a while, keeping them contained, wrestling within you as you hear the pounding and the chanting, and looking out and seeing the landscape bathed in a golden light, and the sun will be setting soon, and you know you won’t be able to reach the sanitarium until tomorrow, so you better start looking for the turnoff for the town of El Comal, for this was the place where you had planned to spend the night and buy gas before continuing with the journey. The music has faded from the radio and there is only silence now, and finally you can turn it off because the random hissing is a little unsettling, and it makes him think of snakes.
The light reflects from the top of the hills like some sort of signaling device, and you wonder if there might not be more hidden messages outside waiting for him to notice. By now, he is noticing that there are patches of cactus everywhere, and that the terrain is still hilly, but now, rocky as well. Some of those groups of rocks surely are not natural formations. They look like little forts, or maybe beacons, or signs that point to places that he fancies might actually be compelling if he wasn’t so occupied with the thought of getting to El Comal. He finds himself wondering about what he has been told. Is it true that lights are seen to beam out of gopher holes at night? That coyotes circle around and chant at the moon? And what would happen if he had to stop and step outside for a bit? He has just noticed that his bladder is so full he feels it is a drum that has been stretched so tightly it is bound to burst very soon. But no, he doesn’t want to stop and walk out behind a cactus and do his business. He’s actually a little nervous out here, and he feels mysterious energies out here, as if there are things hiding behind the cacti, waiting to rush in the moment he steps out the car. He tells himself to hold on, it shouldn’t be too long now, the sign for the turnoff should be approaching, and then, they’ll travel for a mile on a dirt road and reach El Comal. There, isn’t that the sign?! No, it wasn’t. The sun is fading, and the light is playing tricks.
Some say that the land out hear is desolate because it is in fact a cemetery. Some say a few of these hills have to be burial mounds, and there are tales that were told by some old men even before the highway was built, back when people could only cross this land on pack animals and horses, that travellers would come upon caves fissures where a certain light seemed to gleam through. They told of prospectors getting their hopes up, thinking that if they dug they might find a vein of gold or, better yet, tombs filled with buried treasures from the old people. They would dig and dig, but if they ever found anything, they kept it to themselves. More than likely they returned weary and sunburnt, or some of them were said to have not returned at all, and even now, they might be found still, skeletal figures with gold fever, still digging in caves hidden by the side of certain hills that had a phosphorescent light that shone during full moons.
Old men who live in the hill country will also tell you another version, one that has to do with the reason why the place is so hilly. They say, in a more quaint and idiomatic language interspersed with Indian and Spanish words, that the hills are the result of the ardent attentions of the excited sun, who saw a smooth-skinned maiden lying on the land and who couldn’t resist her attractions, seeing as how she was arrayed in an inviting way, and he bent down to kiss her, but while doing so, set her skin to boiling, and it raised up these innumerable hills. Of course, every tale has a lesson, and it is said that it is not good to be overzealous in the satisfaction of one’s ardour, and one may very well destroy what one desires too much, and this causes one to wonder if the hill people have renounced all passions of their own, and if they are reserved because of the lesson of the sun and the earth, or whether they have seen the wearying spectacle of too many greedy outsiders passing through. It may be that the lesson is directed more towards the outsiders, who like the sun, seem greedy to satisfy their desires.
Up ahead a woebegone sign announces the turnoff for El Comal. This time it is the real thing, not some trick of the light, and he realizes how easily he could have missed it. Not only was the sign not much to look at, but there were distractions. The traveller could have sworn that there was a hawk circling high overhead, something he had been straining to discern clearly, and if he hadn’t of been careful, and if his companion hadn’t of let out a sleep snort at that moment, he would have missed it.
The sign is modest, and already seemed aged in a way that doesn’t seem to fit in for a roadway that is only a few years old. It says, “El Comal turnoff. Population 357. Somos los primeros.” Now, what was that last part? A slogan? The traveller might well find himself wondering about what it says, for he has no real expertise in any other languages than what he needs and has used all his life. What does that last part mean? Is it a welcome in the local language? Now, why would they print something that wasn’t in English? But those mysteries seem of minor concern now, the important thing is that the traveller finds a great measure of relief, for soon he’ll be able to stop the car and step outside and stretch, and the first thing he’ll do is ask for a lavatory, and take care of business. Beside him his companion is stirring, and he looks up at the traveller, who turns to him as the car bounces slowly on the dirt road, and tells him, “We’re making a stop, we need to get something to eat. I’m starving, and you must be too! We’ll stay here, shouldn’t be too long now”, and Henry gives a sleep assent, rubbing his knuckles on his eyelids in comical fashion, then fixing his attention on the road outside. It isn’t much of a road, and the land out here doesn’t have much in the way of vegetation, it seems dried out and, somehow, abandoned. At the very least, however, there are wooden posts along the side, with arrow pointing at the town, just to make sure that any visitors don’t get lost, and to tell the truth, the light is fading fast, and he could easily have found himself wandering off the road and out into the desert.
In the next fifteen minutes they find themselves approaching a set of hills that seem to encircle something, and it must be the town, for from what he can see, there can’t be much else out here, and there seems to be a power line that leads into the circle, so he knows something must be there. Also, a faint glow seems to emanate from the place, and he thinks that this is nothing to be afraid of, the old tales must have been referring to this, and it was as plain as day (which was fading fast) that the lights had to have been from places where people lived, or maybe, from lanterns that they carried around with them. Silly to think of ghosts out here, now.
They drive around a hill and see, sure enough, the outlines of a settlement. It isn’t much of a place, but he can see a good collection of adobe houses crowded around a church, and he can make out what seems to be a ditch, and also, just by chance, he happens to look up one of the hills and sees the outlines of a shack, and strangely enough, as far away as it is, he can tell that there is a person standing next to the shack, although he can’t make out very much else. He drives along the road, and he finds that it gets a little smoother once he enters the pueblo proper, and he sees a sign that says “El Comal”, painted in a homely fashion on the side of the nearest structure.
First things first. He needs to find a bathroom, and then, a gasoline station, for he needs to fill up and maybe get his bearings by talking to someone and asking about where he can find a room for the night, as well as a restaurant for it must be 5 or 6 in the afternoon by now, and they haven’t had anything to eat since they left, and he’s staring, although who knows about Henry, he’s so think he must have gotten used to getting along without food, he certainly never ate much back in the city.
He finds what appears to be a fuel station, with one or two cars parked nearby, and he stops to get gas. “Fill up the tank, and show me to the bathroom”, he says lazily to the attendant, a weather-beaten old man who took his time lumbering out from his station. “And please tell me where I can find a lavatory”, he adds, at which the man looks at him blankly for a few seconds, and he repeats his request, “A lavatory, a loo, you know, for necessities”, and the man continues to look at him blankly, and in frustration he bursts out, “A john, a bathroom, where’s the men’s room!”, and the man then reacts and points to a shack out in the back, lit up by a small light bulb that hangs from a post, and he realizes he’ll have to use an outhouse. He should have known things would be primitive out here.
Nonetheless, it is a relief when he returns, and only then does he remember Henry, who has stepped out of the car and has walked into the building, and is staring at a group of masks that are hanging from the wall, and he seems utterly mesmerized. The masks are seems to portray animals, and he can recognize a mountain lion, and also what appears to be a rabbit, and even a bird, something like an eagle. Henry is touching and admiring them, and seems to want to pull one down and probably put it on, he would, but the traveller stops him, and asks if he needs to go to the lavatory, it’s just outside, somewhat dark inside, but it might be a good idea to go while he can, and Henry just shakes his head no, and goes back to admiring the masks as the traveller pays for the gas and a few tepid bottles of Coca Cola, and asks about a restaurant and maybe a hotel where he can find a room for the night. The attendant is chewing on something, and he looks at him carefully, and takes his time answering, and he takes so much time that the traveller begins to get a little impatient, and is about to repeat his question when he hears the answer. Yes, doña Jimena has a place where they can have a meal, it’s the best place in town, and she can probably find a room for them also, for not too many people come this way, and she always seems to have room for those that do. He points out the way, and tells them to follow the road straight past the plaza, and go to the next street, past the great big elm tree, and next to it he find a large house with basket hanging from the walls, and that will be the place where he can find what he needs.
They leave and by now the drinks seem only to have increased his appetite. What he could really use now would be a good steak with potatoes and hot buns, and a good serving of apple pie, they must have apple trees out here, don’t they?, something he can bit into and fill the ravenous hole he has in his gut. They notice people walking along beside the car, and others on horses, and they all seem to move away from them deferentially, so even if the light has faded and all he sees are lanterns being lit on street corners and dim lights from within the houses, he had nothing to fear, he isn’t going to accidentally hit anyone. It does seem very quiet, except for the sound of a dog barking far away.
The visitor spots the house, and wonders where he should park, the street being so narrow, and there doesn’t seem to be a place suitable enough, so he decides he might as well put the car in reverse and head back to the plaza, there’s plenty of space out there, and he’ll park the car next to the church, it should be safe enough there and out of the way, and they walk back about one block to the place that he had seen, what was it, doña something or other, and they see a sign that says “Pensión Los abanicos”, and they walk in the door into a spacious room, one with a big table where a group of men are sitting at the furthest end, the one next to a fireplace, drinking coffee and playing with cards. Surprisingly, it isn’t that dark in there, no, they have plenty of light, for the place is rather attractive, with displays of plates and pots filled with flowers, and many paintings on the walls, most of portraits of severe-looking men and women standing stiffly, but others a little more imaginative.
A middle-aged matron welcomes them as they step inside, and directs them to take a seat, and they sit not to close to the other men, for the traveller wants a little privacy, and he asks about if he can order dinner, oh yes, señor, bienvenidos, we have dinner for you, there is no problem, and he asks what they might have to offer, and she tells them that their tamales are very tasty, just the thing, and they have sopa as well, sopa de tortuga, it is very fresh and very tasty, and they have something esquisito, un mole de tlacuache, muy delicioso, it is their especialidad, and he finds himself frozen, not knowing what to respond, because he hasn’t caught most of the names she just used, and he asks, steak, do you have steak, and potatoes, and some bread, and she answers, yes, we have carne, we have it in a stew, no asado, but we can prepare for you in just a few minutes, and we have papas, and we have bread, do the señores eat tortillas?, no?, then we have bolillos, and let me bring you some sopa de tortuga, it is good to start with a sopa, and some limonada, and we’ll bring the bread for you, just take a seat, so happy to have you here, will be back in just a moment. And they sit down, not knowing quite what they have agreed to, but when the matron brings out a basket with bread rolls, and a dish with a rather hard slab of butter, it doesn’t matter, they are starving, and they start eating, even Henry, who now seems to confess he was starving all along, while the old men at the other end of the table murmur quietly among themselves, and when the traveller looks at them, the all dunk their heads down in a form of greeting, and say, Provecho!, and they wait while the soup is brought out, a steaming dark soup that is fragrant with spices, and maybe he should have told them he doesn’t like spicy food, but when he takes his first spoon of the soup, he is racing to finish the rest, and doesn’t stop to think about the irony of racing to consume turtle soup.
Next come the strips of thin meat with potatoes and carrots on the side, and no, it isn’t a thick beefy steak, but they find themselves cutting through the meat nonetheless and wolfing it down, and meanwhile the men on the other end of the table do their best not to look, and they ask for refills for their coffee, and the matron brings out a plate with assorted breads, they are colorful breads, and the men gaily go about finishing their card game as they take pits of bread and dunk it in their coffee, in the way of country people, and consume it at a slow and measured pace. “This is quite good, I like it”, says Henry, as he finishes the strip of meat, and he picks up a boiled potato and bites into it, “I haven’t tasted such good food in a long time, ever since the summer I spent in Texas”, he says, and the traveller has to admit he enjoyed his meal too, and before they know it, they’re being served cups of hot coffee as well, and he can detect a touch of something else in it, something like cinnamon, and they have a plate of sweet bread also, and he feels no compunction about doing what the others did, and they are breaking off bits of bread and dunking it in their coffee as well.
They finish everything, even the basket of bread, and they sit back, and they decide to wait a little bit before asking for a room, and the men in the corner in the meantime are doling out cards again, and others are walking into the pensión, a few families with children who ask for bread as well, others who ask for tortillas that they pay for with small jangling coins then carry back in cloth-draped baskets, and others just come in for drinks, and greet everyone with a small nod, and no one seems to be surprised that the place has visitors, even if they are the only ones there that night. A few people sit around on the old furniture and talk, others sit at the table, and at this point, the visitor and his companion see fit to go and sit next to the fireplace, and watch and listen even if half the conversations seem to be carried on in a language other than English. Henry get up and starts walking around the walls, admiring the artwork and the people portrayed, and notices as well other things, such as the fact that the pottery has design work as well, abstract patterns in some cases, and he notices some of the leather handiwork, and pauses in front of the displays of carved figurines, most of them portraying animals of the hill country, some of them hawks, some of them snakes, some of them turtles, and even coyotes and skunks and even a few mountain lions.
There is one painting in particular that holds his attention, next to the carved animals, and it depicts what appears to be a coyote standing on two feet and holding a basket, and he’s talking to a group of men dressed like medieval soldiers, with metal armor and basins worn on their heads, and the coyote seems to have a tricky expression on his face, and the men are holding something out, and it seems to be that they are offering the coyote coins. And in the background, behind the coyote, they can see a group of animals huddled together, and he sees opossums, and skunks, and snakes, and rabbits and birds and even a few deer and what would seem to be bears, and they are all sitting or standing behind the coyote, who alone out of all the animals (except for the birds) seems to have mastered the art of standing on two legs, and also, alone seems to be talking to the men, and this seems so incongruous, that Henry can’t help himself, and he asks one of the men who was playing cards but who has settled back and has been chatting with his friends the meaning of this painting.
“Oh, I see you noticed that painting, it is one of my favorites too, and is it very famous. The animals around here are different, you see, and the old one, the viejitos, noticed it when they came up from the south. You see, this is a hard land to live in, and it takes a certain amount of patience, and a certain cleverness, and the old ones had to learn about this because they needed the animals to make it through those first few years. That one there is the famous Coyote, that is his name, and he still lives out here, and we have to be careful with that one. He saw how things were, and how the settlers were not going to go back, despite all that he did to try to scare them away, and he came to a decision, and tried to do something that was very noble, but also, very dangerous. Maybe you would like to hear the story?”
Henry assents eagerly, and when a few of the children as well as the adult who were standing around realized that a story was about to be told, they all found places to sit and got comfortable, and even the matron doña Jimena came out and made herself comfortable, not without first putting a log in the fireplace, and they waited while don Juan cleared his throat and settled in and began his story.
And they spent the next few hours hearing about the Coyote and the farmers and the soldiers, and they laughed at times, and they shook their heads at others, and they sighed and waved their fists and made swatting motions and even imitated the hissing of the snake and the chirp of the birds and the roar of the mountain lion and the grunts of the bears, as well as the neighing of the horses and even the exclamations of surprise and alarm of the humans, but no one found him or herself bored by the story, and the hours wiled away and before they knew it people were standing up and taking leave of each other, and thanking don Juan for the story, and the matron was showing them to their rooms in the back, well actually, one room with a large bed, and they were too tired to go out to the zocalo to fetch their luggage and put on their night clothes, and they found themselves collapsing into their beds, after undressing hastily, and the traveller in particular would have loved to wash his teeth at least, but he settled for gulping down some water from a pitcher left on a table, and by then Henry was fast asleep, and he sat on the edge of the bed and as his head hit the pillow he was already asleep.
That night he dreamnt about Coyote and about the advice he could have given him about his problem with Henry, who he was aiming to abandon at a sanitarium out west the next day.
Copyright 2014 (C) Oscar Romero
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