The Adventures of Macho Caballo



  The Adventures of Macho Caballo

  A Tale of Brave Deeds, Ancient Evil, and Butterflies

  by James E. Eades

  Copyright 2011 James E. Eades

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

  Table of Contents

  Prolog

  Chapter Uno - The Spirit of the Spring

  Chapter Dos - To Market

  Chapter Tres - Waiting for Papa

  Chapter Quatro - Romancing the Horse

  Chapter Cinco - A Shadow at the Fiesta

  Chapter Seis - Gains and Losses

  Chapter Siete - Strolling Through the Market

  Chapter Ocho - Even Cinderella Had a Ball

  Chapter Nueve - False Trails and Bad Roads

  Chapter Diez - Of Secret Aims and Bargains

  Chapter Once - The Shell Game

  Chapter Doce - The Rescues Begin

  Chapter Trece - The Thing at the Top of the Stairs

  Chapter Catorce - I Would Not Leave Her Alone on the Mount

  Epilog – Ride Away

  Author's Afterword

  Prolog

  "Abuelito! Abuelito!"

  Two small forms--a boy and a girl--burst from the screened-in front porch, competing to see who can yell the loudest. "Grampa! Grampa!" They surround the old man, clinging to his legs.

  "Ah! Mi Queridas!"

  The old man stoops to one knee, gingerly, to gather them into his arms.

  "Thomas and Raimunda. Are you ready to be a good little Machito and Machita?" He smiles as they try to drown each other out with promises.

  He lifts his face from the sweetness of their hair, to greet the woman who emerges from the porch. She wears a business suit, a dark gray velvet skirt and a warm rose silk blouse with subtle designs picked out in deep red.

  "Good morning, Patricia. God's grace to you."

  "Thank you for coming over, Papacito. We may be late getting back. I'm sorry." Patricia smiles and brushes his forehead with a kiss. "Lerdo is so very stubborn about states rights and he argues about everything. Children, be good for your grampa."

  "We will!" calls Thomas as he rushes to help close the coach door. Raimunda, torn between clinging to Grampa and racing Thomas to the coach, decides to cling. As soon as the coach departs with their parents and the dust from the road settles, they are back at his side.

  "Where is Abuelita?" Raimunda wants to know.

  "Oh, she could not come today," says Grampa. He attempts to rise from his knee. At first he is unsuccessful. With the children's help, he finally stands. "She had to go visit some friends in the hills."

  "Who was that?" Thomas takes up the questioning.

  After glancing around to be certain no one else is listening, Grampa bends down close to their ears.

  He whispers, "Spirits!"

  "Why can't she see the spirits some other time?" complains Raimunda. "We want her to visit!"

  The old man is shocked. "Ah! So I am nothing?"

  "I don't mean like that! Can't she comes to see us first?"

  "Well, as to that...." Grampa pauses, making a face as he puckers his lips in thought. "You know, sometimes it is better to be polite to the spirits. You never know when they are planning something very important, and their plans might include you."

  "Awww, you're making stuff up again!" Thomas declares. "Mamá says you do that, sometimes."

  "Okay,” Abuelito sighs, as if he yields to pressure. “For today, I will speak only the truth."

  Raimunda pushes between them, demanding, "Tell us a story, Abuelito!"

  "Yes! A story!" Thomas begs as he jumps about. "One with wild animals and Indians!"

  "Some of your own relatives are Indians," Grampa points out.

  "You know what I mean! Wild Indians! Comanches! Apaches!"

  Raimunda breaks in again. "I want a story about beautiful señoritas, and handsome vaqueros... and horses!"

  "Yeah! Lots of horses!" Thomas agrees.

  "Oh, very well, there is a story..." grumps Grampa, although they can tell he is well pleased with the request. "If one of you would bring my tobacco from my pack. And the other, bring me some cold water for my parched throat."

  "Mamá had some hot tea made."

  “No!” The old man jerks back. "No, I would much prefer cold water. I'll be out in the garden, on that bench under the arbor."

  Presently, he sips the water and lights his pipe while the children scramble for a seat by his side. Finally, he speaks.

  "You know, it was water that started the whole thing."

  "Water? Where's the wild animals?" Thomas pipes.

  Abuelito regards him sternly. "Maybe you are too young for this story. It has a lot of long words in it, and some of them are strong language.” Seeing the tears begin in their eyes, he chuckles. “Perhaps I could soften them for your tender ears."

  Thomas suggests, “You could say 'gosh' and 'darn it' for the bad words!”

  "Now, hush, Thomas!" Raimunda says. “I want to hear about the señoritas!”

  The pipe has gone out, so the old man relights it before he says:

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  It begins in the still of this cave in central Mexico, deep underground, where silver water ripples and chuckles to itself, flowing from ewers of granite. At one time boiling hot, the flow has cooled until it is merely tepid, for the water has traveled far beneath the golden brown skin of this land, traveled in the arteries of a continent, seen surface barriers as mere trifles, mountains as amusement rides, deep lakes as portals to the infinite.

  For now, at this moment in time, the water gurgles out of confinement, washing over precious minerals and gold, pouring upward from the piercing blackness of the depths.

  The water remembers.

  It recalls the first men to step across its faltering streams to the north as they followed the game, their tribes migrating south, as if it were this very instant - for time is seen differently by the water.

  It recalls a time....

  v^v^v^v

  In the dawn of civilization, during the triumph of the Mayas, there arose a tale - of a boy kept from his true love because she had been taken to be a temple maiden. Trying to get to his love, he dressed as a girl and slipped past the temple guards. Travelers speak of a festival in that land to this day, celebrating the romance.

  However, there is a dark side to the story, of the means the boy used to fool the guards, for some say he enlisted the help of a witch, but the witch presented him with a choice - accept a terrible consequence or give up his love. If one thinks about it, the boy would have had to have been very convincing. Temple maidens were sacred and their guards would have been prepared for tricks by amorous suitors. After all, anyone can wear a dress.

  Thus was formed the first curse.

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  "Boy that's a serious curse! Having to wear girl's dress? Brrrr!"

  "Shut up, Thomas!" Raimunda glares at him.

  The old man fumbles with the pipe and smiles as he listens to them squabble, then he says, “Now, where was I?”

  They are immediately attentive.

  "Oh, yes...."

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  Then it was centuries later, in the 1500s, by our way of reckoning.

  A schism had developed in the league of Aztec sorcerers who advised Moctezuma. Loyal sorcerers had
become convinced that the newly arrived Spaniards were related to the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl and were, underneath, wise and peaceful. These sorcerers favored the ruler's interpretation and tried to explain why the newcomers were not acting as predicted.

  The other side was more pragmatic and prepared for the end of their world. The horsemen of the invader's faith had arrived, with famine, plague, war and unrest loose upon the land. Facing the destruction of all that they revered, these sorcerers made preparations.

  Strong preparations.

  v^v^v^v

  Beneath a man-made hill, illuminated only by a single shaft of light filtering down from a hole hundreds of feet above, two people struggled. One held aloft a wafer of obsidian, variegated brown and white and liquid red, while the other person served only one purpose in the ceremony, and that was to bleed. A drop of reddest blood fell away, unnoticed, to enter a darker shaft, a well cut hundreds of years before by sanctified priests of a god long since passed up by the current religion.

  Through space and time it fell, this tiny drop of reddest fluid, until it found the water, and the water paused to reflect on what should be done with this humble sacrifice. Through centuries the water reflected, until the time was right, for water had its own way of reckoning time.

  Wise men say, "Do not joke with water, for while it may be true that water has a sense of humor, the joke will always be on you."

  It begins in the still of this cave.

  Thus was formed the second curse.

  v^v^v^v

  Always, there were the drums. A deep, sonorous sob, barely above the level of perception, heard far off across the fields and valleys and hills.

  Closer, now, and let the drums sweep you in. Sweep you into the warm darkness of their deep, slow pulse.

  Closer yet, and you can no longer hear them, for the sensation presses upon your vital organs, pressing and releasing in a slow, impelling rhythm, compressing and releasing and all the while pulling you closer yet, until there is nothing but the warm darkness welcoming you in and under and down, sinking like slow sand as you move down under their weight, until you have no choice but to obey their compulsion.

  You step onto the next ledge, and the next, rising over the multitudes below and looking down to see nothing but the waves of a sea of humanity breaking about this man-made hill. The soul of the sky beckons you yet upward, until you reach the top and you lie back to stare at the fading stars.

  Centuries passed. It was time for water to decree the third curse.

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  "But where's the wild Indians and banditos?" complains Thomas.

  The old man brings his mind back from where it had been wandering, and he smiles.

  "You want bad guys? Okay...."

  ^v^v^v^v^v^v

  Before the Adventure Began:

  A bellow of rage sounded from the deep brush along a half-hidden trail, somewhere between the civilization of La Capitol, Mexico City, and the insignificant town of Villarica del Norte.

  "They don’t have it!"

  Ramón twisted about, facing the person who had shoved him pell-mell into the stockade enclosure.

  A huge, muscular man in a topknot of unfamiliar design towered over him, naked except for tattoos and a loin-cloth decorated with mystical symbols - a warrior, from a tribe he didn’t recognize. Though he rolled quickly to his feet to face his attacker, he couldn’t see the man’s face for the glare of sunlight spearing through branches overhead.

  "Stay with your companions or they die!" the man roared, motioning him back.

  The three girls who were his companions cowered at the rear of the tiny stockade. High timber walls blocked escape on three sides and they watched in dismay as the last wall rise to enclose them, lifted by hempen ropes which smoked and strained over a staunch tree limb as the warrior bent his mighty back to haul the wall into place.

  The smallest of the three girls broke into terrified sobs. The other two girls, closer to Ramón's age, stared with wide-eyed despair at the barrier of log walls closing them in.

  From the bushes, crows laughed - a raucous cackle without heart or mercy.

  "What is this thing?" cried the oldest girl.

  "This is a cage!" Ramón yelled at her, his patience gone. "It's a trap, and you led us right into it! Stupid girls!"

  He loosed a disgusted sigh. Life had been so uncomplicated only a few hours before.

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  “Bueno!” Thomas declares and grins. "That's more like it!"

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  Years Ago - It Might Have Been This Morning:

  Slowly, dawn slivers the horizon until only one bright light is left in the heavens, close to the verge - the glittering diamond that is Venus, the morning star.

  Three dark figures watch the early morning sky.

  One speaks, "Our wisest leaders think to placate them, but they cannot be stopped. All the while, the Goddess of Death descends into her fiery home."

  A second figure nods gravely. "Soon there will needs be a sacrifice."

  Time goes away for a measure, and then another, lost in obscurity, almost as the underground rivers flow far beneath the surface and traverse the length of the Mexican nation.

  Far from their hill, rising above the Mexican peninsula, the bright spark of Venus spins in its orbit, sometimes gracing the morning, sometimes appearing as the evening star.

  Far out in the solar system the other planets turn, almost like a cosmic clock. From the darkness before dawn, a voice speaks -- a voice, a burble, a murmur of water struggling over stone, "This will have to suffice."

  To be answered by a splash of indignation, water hissing over molten rock, "This? Preposterous!"

  "We have extended the beckoning to the True Intended," sighs the gurgling stones. "Far is the distance. Long is the time required. If one answers, that one must serve."

  "Preposterous! Unheard of! It has never been done!"

  "Oh, yes. Recall, Sisters, before you say this, " the stones chuckle in humor. "This one will serve."

  A chorus of foam over cataract answers, "So be it. There must needs be a sacrifice."

  "Yes." In a dying hiss, water over molten rocks can be heard, reluctant, "This one must serve."

  v^v^v^v

  The concentric circles of planetary orbits shimmer as symbols fade into view - astrological glyphs from ancient days. These glyphs distort until they become Mayan writing and then the circles fade into the Aztec calendar, rolling along in the starry background. Music trills - tympanic and flauten - along with a deep, sonorous drumbeat more felt than heard.

  A boy stirs and yawns in a weathered shed beside the hard-surfaced road, stretching as he rises to face the morning sun, trying to remember his dream...

  He had been suspended above a great round circle, with blinding light spilling down from above, while from somewhere a huge drum sobbed, like a giant, beating heart. The thumps had filled him with a nameless dread. Even now he looks about, for he can still hear them....

  Lines appear across the circle of the calendar clock, the symbols fade away and the wheel rolls. The circle becomes a cart-wheel, fashioned of planks bolted together with a rusty hub, clunking along the bumpy gravel road. The drums devolve into the thump of the road, while the flute becomes the complaint of an ungreased hub, rising and falling with the wheel's tortured progress over the roadway. Seeking the sounds, the boy spies the mule and cart.

  "Heh," says Ramón Caballo, son of Manuel Caballo, the self-confessed greatest horse-trainer in all of Mexico. "A dumb old cart-wheel. That's all. I knew it all along."

  He gathers his pouch and resumes his journey.

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  "Hey!" Thomas waves his hand to break into the tale. "His name is just like ours! Only they call him 'Caballo' instead of 'de Caballo.' Why?"

  Abuelito smiles indulgently at the boy's offense and says, "Oh, that is because I'm telling this tale and not you. Do you want me to stop?"

  "Huh? Oh! No!" Thomas se
ttles back to ponder. "I'll be quiet. But, I'm confused. When is all this happening?"

  v^v^v^v^v^v

  It was earlier in the morning before the ambush, and life was good. Ramón was doing what he did best.

  He ran.

  He ran with the easy grace of unhurried speed, the mile-eating pace of his ancestors relaying messages from rulers of one city to another, a courier without a purpose, a horse-master without a steed, afoot on the royal road from Tenochtitlan past Tula, the former Toltec capitol.

  He ran the way his forefathers did, with the easy, rangy gait of the antelope, a flowing, springy step that conveyed him north toward home.

  His pouch, fashioned like the messenger pouches of centuries before, swung close by his side in easy rhythm to the relentless motion of his legs and arms. The people he swept past - farmers trudging to their fields, families on their way to market, children playing in fruit groves along the gravel road - waved and gave him their encouraging grins, as if he were truly one of those who sped messages between the lords of the land in time before.

  Three hundred years before, he would have hurried his pouch past majestic temples and shrines, monuments to honor deities of earth and sky. Now these buildings were the rubble over which his calloused feet trod. The ancient gods, once honored, now forbidden even to memory by the new order, have their faces and shapes carried in the designs woven into the fabric of his pack, chosen by craftsman only because their patterns were pleasing to the eye.

  He ran where others would have ridden prancing ponies, up the dusty farm roads between fields of corn, beans, squash and melon. Past island villages and hamlets he flowed, the road a river, huts and hovels and adobe chalets floating on the stream.

  On previous dawns children had been already up and about, doing their chores, feeding their animals and preparing to help with the crops. Young boys ran alongside him, laughing and shouting for a while and being left behind as he never stopped, never faltered in his step.

  Girls waved from their fields and called, giggling as he passed on, whispering to themselves as they watched him ignore them.

  He had spent the night in an unused shed, without supper. With this dawn came a gnawing hunger and he was happy to see a cozy village, floating like a collection of rafts on a sea of vegetables, with waves of corn, beans and squash lapping at the edges. He headed for the town center, where someone was surely cooking a late breakfast. Villagers stirred, plumes of kitchen smoke lifted from squat chimneys and tantalizing odors wafted into the roadway.

  A man in dusty travel garb, leaning against the side of an adobe wall, stirred as Ramón passed. "Señor!" the man said, in a hoarse whisper. "You journey to Villarica, no?"

  "Um, yes," Ramón paused, wary because, although the fellow did not appear to be dangerous, you couldn't tell about those who lived on the open road.

  "The highway takes a dogleg to the east up ahead, going around the swamp. If you cut through, you can save a whole day. I'm going that way but I do not like traveling by myself. Perhaps we can accompany one another and I will feel safer, not being alone."

  Ramón's chest swelled imperceptibly. "Perhaps," he agreed. "I might...." He was interrupted by a shout.

  "Hola! Could you be Ramón Caballo?" A middle-aged woman appeared, dressed in blouse and skirt for the mid-day heat to come, with a mantilla wrapped about her shoulders to ward off the early morning chill. When Ramón turned back, the dusty man had slipped away.

  "We have been told to expect you on this day!" the woman went on. "Come! My nieces have prepared breakfast!"

  "Nieces?" Ramón said, feeling a sense of unease.

  "Esmeralda and Felicia. They are anxious to meet you," the woman smiled as she looked Ramón up and down, saying "They will not be disappointed."

  "What exactly were you told about me?" he asked, as the woman guided him to the village square. The mujera only smiled amiably and did not answer. Up ahead, a group of children watched them, with the boys staring in open animosity and the girls craning for a glimpse of his face.

  "Ohboy," groaned Ramón. He slowed his pace as he came into the village center where the boys and girls were breaking their fast with chilies and sausages wrapped about with flat corn tortillas.

  "My nieces!" announced the mujere.

  Ramón's nose twitched as he looked down the row of attractive girls.

  The first one wore her dress impeccably neat, her seams sewn with pride and precision, her buttons fastened in a perfect row up the back of her blouse. Though the fabric was faded and worn, her gold-chased belt was expensive. In her eyes, Ramón was certain that he saw the reflection of pesos.

  The second girl had allowed the white cotton of her blouse to fall enough to disclose a scandalous half-inch more of tanned shoulder than was proper. A strand of wayward hair gave her a glamorous, exotic look, with hearts sparkling from the depths of her soulful dark eyes.

  The third girl looked up at him with a smudge of dust on her cheek, her dress the victim of rough-and-tumble with her playmates a few moments before. In her eyes, Ramón thought he saw candied sweets promised for good behavior.

  There was an older woman, or 'mujere,' standing behind and to the side of the girls, a fixed gleam of great expectations in her eyes, her white teeth exposed like polished fence posts in a rigid smile of hopefulness.

  Ramón turned to her in resignation. "Let me guess," he said. "You've been talking to my old man, right? Stocky man, bushy hair? He's got shifty eyes and a big appetite."

  "Oh, no!" protested the woman. "He has such such deep, trustful eyes! But, yes, he had an appetite! Caramba, that man could eat!"

  "Of course he had trustful eyes!" grumbled Ramón. "He's a used horse dealer! What did he tell you so you would give him something to eat?"

  The mujere blushed and waved her fingers. "He tells us that he has a son. He tells us that he is young..." She stopped to look him over and added, nodding, "...and you are young, but not too much so." She smiled, and Ramón shivered, reminded of the smile of a hungry cat.

  "That he is handsome, and you are..." A chorus of sighs from all three girls emphasized her words. "...and that he has been attending the prestigious Universidad del Ranchero...."

  The first girl leaned closer, as though inspecting a horse at the corrals. She asked, "Is it true that graduates of your school are guaranteed a placement in high government offices?"

  The second girl pushed in, saying, "Oh! Tell us of the nights in La Capitol! The parties! The dancing! The fabulous gowns!"

  The third girl looked up at Ramón and said, "Can you touch the tip of your nose with your tongue?"

  "I was tricked into being a stable boy!" growled Ramón.

  The mujere cleared her throat and continued, "...and that he is unclaimed...."

  An ominous silence bore down upon the little group.

  "Look!" Ramón yelped, "He only told you that so he could get a free meal! He was lying!"

  There was a collective gasp from the girls. One asked, in subdued tones, "Then you are married... or promised?"

  Ramón dropped his chin and frowned, glancing to his side as if looking for escape. Finally, he was forced to admit, "No."

  There was a collective sigh from the girls. They focused two beaming smiles and one querulous expression at him.

  "You are available!" cried two girls.

  "Where's my sweets?" demanded the third.

  "I'm going to kill that old man!" Ramón growled. As if in harmony, his belly also rumbled.

  "Where do you travel from?" asked another of the women, offering Ramón a platter of early melons, tortillas and sausages.

  "La Capital," Ramón replied, glad for the distraction, his mouth full of the delicious food. "Eight days ago."

  The men came closer, eager for news. One spoke up, "Tell us everything! Is it true the coalition for state's rights is gaining control, or are the Centralists ahead?"

  Ramón reluctantly lowered the morsel he was about to stuff into his mouth. "I don't know anyt
hing about politics! All I did was go to school there. I know horses, that's all."

  "If you are a horseman, why do you walk?" One of the boys stared sourly because the girls were gathering about, impressed by his appearance.

  Another boy said, with awed tone, "You came this far in only eight days?"

  "I rode the train as far north as it could go, but I'm making good time on my own. I've only walked the last hundred miles," Ramón said with a touch of pride and only a small amount of exaggeration. "I'll be in Villarica in three more mornings."

  The smaller boys clustered about him chorused, 'Wow!' while older boys shot glum grimaces his way.

  Ramón became aware of several girls who were crowding close about him and he stepped back, unconsciously trying to keep a safe distance. He still wasn't comfortable around any pretty girl, and bold girls made his throat tighten in panic.

  "I have to move on, to find the short-cut across the swamp," he mentioned.

  "Oh!" said one of the girls, "I know the way! I would love to show you how to get through the impassible swamp!" She blinked at him with open admiration. "My name is Esmeralda. You have dreamy eyes."

  "I'll bet you'd like to get him off all alone!" said another girl. Ramón decided she looked like a sister to the first, so she had to be Felicia. "I won't allow this! I have a right to talk to him!"

  "Do not!"

  "Do so!"

  "Do not!"

  Ramón broke in to say, "Señora, I cannot waste your niece's time."

  The mujere took Ramón aside to tell him, "You know how it is with young girls."

  "No, I don't! I am a man! I don't want to know these things!"

  "Then, you should have patience. They are growing up, they are bored with the boys in the village, and you are a handsome young fellow. They will soon grow tired of their argument and decide who will show you the path."

  "He's mine!" shouted Felicia. She then turned the deep red of the beets growing in rows beyond the cornfields, as she realized that everyone in the village was hearing their conversation. "I mean, I have a right to talk to him!"

  "Youngsters! No one goes off alone!" The girl's mother snapped. "No matter how cute you think the boy is! Besides, there are crops to be worked after we finish with the ditch!" She fixed Ramón with her gaze, a calculating stare that made his face burn. "Señor Caballo, you are welcome to stop and help with the ditch we are cleaning out."

  "We don't need him!" several boys spoke as one.

  "My father has sent for me. I must hurry," explained Ramón.

  "I'd be right back!" Esmeralda promised the woman. "Tia, please let me go!"

  "I'm going!" Felicia pushed in front of her.

  "Me, too!" crowed a smaller girl, about half their age.

  "Shut up, Perlita!" cried Felicia.

  "I travel alone!" Ramón said boldly, determined to appear manly although he felt like a rabbit being ripped apart by hungry hounds. "I don't care what you think! I shall find my own way!"

  The girl's aunt intervened. "Someone should show you the way. We need the boys to help with the ditch, but we can spare these girls," the older woman said, nodded to herself. "They can watch each other."

  Thus it was that Ramón was accompanied by three girls when he came to the place in the road where a faded footpath led off to the side. He was unhappy. It was bad enough that all the boys in the village stood and glared as they watched him follow these foolish children down the road. Now he had to beg these foolish girls to be released from this indignity.

  "When did I lose control?" he muttered to himself.

  "The Universidad de Ranchero is very prestigious," Felicia mentioned, apparently talking to herself.

  "Exactly what did my Papá tell you?" Ramón wondered aloud.

  "Oh, only that you have been in this school which allowed only boys," said Esmeralda, sighing as if she imagined his deprivation. Unconsciously, she moved closer to him and murmured, "For a whole year! You have been without the cheerful companionship of any sweetheart?"

  "And that you have been learning a trade which will let you provide very well for your family," said Felicia .

  "My Papá provides for my family," Ramón grumbled.

  "Ah!" Esmeralda slipped even closer and batted her eyes. "But you will not stay at home forever, will you?"

  Felicia interposed, "Surely, someday you will have a family of your own?"

  When Ramón narrowed his eyes and stared at the horizon, she prompted, with a self-conscious smile, "You are almost old enough now, are you not?"

  "Tell me this," Ramón stopped, forcing them to halt as well. "Did my Papá tell you this before or after your auntie cooked him a huge, delicious meal?"

  "I think it was after, maybe." Esmeralda tilted her head to remember.

  "No, it was before," said Felicia. "Hey, wait! Wait for us!"

  Ramón paced off, not waiting for them to catch up.

  "He has done it again!" he complained to the air, "Papá has promised someone that I was available just so they would give him a meal!"

  "Here it is!" Esmeralda stopped and pointed, holding on to his elbow, "I'll just show you the trail and return to the village after I'm sure you are safely on your way!"

  "Not without me!" responded Felicia. "I don't trust you!"

  "Look at the pretty flower!" said Perlita.

  Ramón barred their way. "Okay, you've showed me, now go home!" He shoved his chin forward to show that he was not going to be bullied any more, the way his father did when Mamá tried to get him to go to church.

  A few moments later, all four were deep in the trees following the path toward the swamp. Ramón sighed again, resigning himself to their company. Papá never had any luck arguing with Mamá, either. If only they wouldn't chatter so!

  "Women! Why do I have to put up with them?" he growled under his breath, then spoke aloud, "Where is the little girl?"

  "Oh, let her look for flowers," said Felicia. "You can tell us about the big city! What wonderful sights did you see?"

  "What are the ladies wearing?" prompted Esmeralda, the one with the dreaming eyes, as she tugged him over to her side of the trail.

  Ramón stopped and turned suddenly, shaking them off. "Be quiet!" he commanded.

  "I will not!" said Felicia.

  "I wasn't talking that loud!" insisted Esmeralda.

  "I heard...." Ramón's voice faded at the thud of something massive and powerful brushing through the leaves toward them. He stared in awe at the man who appeared from the undergrowth, holding the smallest girl like a rag doll. The man had to be nineteen or twenty hands tall, a huge man with stout muscles flexing beneath tawny tattooed skin.

  Scowling mightily, the man indicated the tiny girl dangling from one of his massive hands. "Do as you're told and you might live," he said.

  v^v^v^v

  So, they were searched and tossed into the tiny pen. Ramón could only gesture angrily at his captors, whom he could hear outside the log wall.

  "What if none of them is the right one?" the big man was saying.

  "We'll wait," came another voice, and Ramón recognized the dusty man who had spoken to him in the village.

  "He was a bandit!" growled Ramón, "No wonder he wanted me to take this shortcut!"

  "If no one else comes by the main road, we'll have to take in what we've got," said the big man. "You'd better pray someone else comes along. I don't think these are what he wants." The sound of their conversation faded into the forest.

  When it became apparent they were alone, the girls raised their own voices.

  "This is all your fault!" said Felicia. "We wouldn't be here if we weren't trying to help you!"

  "Oh, please! You've got to do something!" cried Esmeralda.

  "I want my mommy!" whined Perlita.

  "Quit crowding around!" Ramón snapped. He picked through the supplies that had been yanked out of his pouch. Looking up, he gauged the height of a snag in the tree above and nodded with approval.

  "DO something!"
Esmeralda grabbed his arm.

  "I'm trying to!" Ramón's voice was fading. When he got angry his throat got tight, which meant that it was hard work for him to shout in excitement. At the moment, he was saving his energy. "Back away!"

  He uncoiled a length of braided lariat, a riata, which he had made himself during spare moments at school. Pushing the girls into a corner, he drew back to throw. As the loop sailed high, Felicia caught his elbow again and the riata snagged on a low twig.

  "What'd you do that for?" demanded Ramón.

  "Aren't you going to take us with you?" she asked, tears in her eyes.

  "I'm going to get you out! I can't help it, I have to take care of helpless girls!" Ramón raged, his voice fading away so they could barely hear him continue, "Even if they don't deserve it!"

  The slender branch bent and broke as he yanked the riata free. Again Ramón drew back the loop, then stopped to glare at the girls, but they meekly stayed in the corner.

  The loop sailed, caught and hung. Ramón pulled himself to the top of the wall and looked back at three frightened faces. "Keep quiet!" he ordered, and they nodded. He dropped outside the wall and went to the ropes holding the wall that was the gate in place. The ropes were tough - by the time he finished sawing through them, the blade of his knife was chipped and dull.

  "Now I'll have to take you back home," he said. "I'm already a half-day late, I've had to save you from bandits and I have ruined my knife! Stupid fool girls!"

  "We want to go with you!" wailed Esmeralda.

  "No! I don't want you! Leave me alone!"

  Felicia, driven back by his anger, said in a small, sad voice, "Then you must go on. We can stay away from the banditos - we know another way back."

  Before Ramón could insist, they had withdrawn into the brush. From somewhere in the undergrowth he could hear Perlita call, "But I wanted to say goodbye!"

  Eventually, he made his way to the other side of the swamp. he grumbled as he stepped back onto the royal road.

  "I don't know who is worse, banditos or girls!"

  v^v^v^v

  He strode the long miles from La Capital to Villarica del Norte, one foot before the other, taking the shock of footfall with the spring of his knees, until eventually he overtook a familiar cart being pulled the same direction by a dispirited old donkey.

  The driver of the cart was a homely little woman. She wrinkled the leather of her face into a smile and inquired of him, "Why are you in such a hurry to go to your death, young caballero?"

  "Hah," replied Ramón. He slowed his step to keep pace with the cart. "I'm too young to die, Abuelita."

  "It is a pleasure to meet such a polite young master of the horses," the old woman said.

  Ramón laughed. "Why do you say this? A master of the horses, and yet I am on foot?"

  "The coyotes slink in the brush. The birds build their nest in the cactus. Little children play their games. I see things." The old woman shook the frayed reins to make the mule step a little faster. "You are a gentleman, and yet you were so rude, earlier, when the girls asked to travel along with you a little way."

  Ramón raised an eyebrow, wondering how she could have known what had occurred miles from the roadway. He sniffed in disdain. "It was dangerous to go on. They could not have kept up."

  "They knew that," she agreed.

  "Then why did they try?"

  The old woman glanced sideways at him, one eyebrow lifted. "If you do not know this, then perhaps you are better off in the desert with your Papá."

  "I am in a hurry to get home, Abuelita. I can't stop and flirt with girls!"

  "Perhaps not. But, you didn't have to call them fools to their face."

  "They should have left me alone!"

  "Then listen to me, young caballero. Today you have encountered two mighty forces. Soon you, alone, will be asked to choose between them."

  Ramón drew himself upright and declared, "That doesn't make any sense! I'm not joining anybody! I work by myself!"

  "That is not for you to say." The old woman looked at him with sadness in her faded eyes as she twitched the reins. The donkey jumped and trod forward, and the cart moved on with its awful music.

  "Crazy old woman!" Ramón muttered. He stepped faster, picking up his pace, leaving her behind him on the lonely road.

  He was scarcely parted from her before the painful, sharp groans of the cartwheel ceased, leaving only echoes drifting back from the fields. An aching stillness flooded in upon the land.

  Ramón looked back and the road was empty.