Mexico: A Novel Part 26

On himself the bishop had spent little. He lived frugally, fought the paganism of the Indians and kept them at the onerous task of piling one stone upon another for the greater glory of G.o.d. Whenever one of his a.s.sistant priests ran into difficulty in some outlying parish, the bishop was not hesitant in dispatching his brother's troops to allay the trouble and chastise the troublemakers.

At the same time, no Indian tribe in Mexico was more quickly pacified, none was brought more securely into the bosom of the church, nor treated with less brutality, than the Altomecs under the supervision of Bishop Palafox. One of the first Indians to become an ordained priest in Mexico was an Altomec from Toledo. The first home for elderly women was constructed under the bishop's supervision, and in Toledo it was safe to walk at night while other areas of Mexico were still battlegrounds. When I use my Palafox ancestors as prototypes, I have to conclude that they, at least, and I believe a good many Spaniards like them, gave the Spanish colonies a government that was not noticeably inferior to what England would later provide her settlements in America or France hers in Canada.

In the centuries that followed the death of the original Palafox brothers, there was some confusion about the connections in this vigorous Mexican family, for there were Palafoxes everywhere, but it was generally understood that there were two branches, each with its own inherited characteristics. The descendants of Governor Palafox maintained their tradition of marrying only full-blooded Spaniards, and this branch of the family, to which the present Don Eduardo belonged, watched over the business interests of the clan; the offspring of Bishop Palafox and his Indian princess continued to marry with Indians and produce the Church dignitaries, poets, artists and architects. But it was a significant characteristic of the Palafoxes that the two branches, the pure Spanish and the part Indian, lived in harmony, shared the great wealth of their clan, and looked upon each other as true cousins.

There seemed always to be a Bishop Palafox, and he seemed always to contract an alliance with some able Indian woman, so that the essential fire of the family remained strong. In 1640 the third bishop finished the cathedral pretty much as his grandfather had planned it nearly a century before. In 1726 one of his descendants built the magnificent aqueduct that ensured the city's growth. And in 1760 it was an Archbishop Palafox who tore down the old facade of the cathedral, replacing it with the marble churrigueresque masterpiece of which I have already spoken.

But before the facade could be erected-it cost four million pieces of silver, what with the renewed carvings and decorations inside-it was necessary for the lay branch of the family to take action, and they did so with spectacular results. In 1737 Ignacio Palafox, of the Spanish branch, was managing the small group of mines. But, like all his ancestors, he still sought the mother lode, which reason told him had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

On returning empty-handed from his ninety-sixth excursion into the surrounding hills, he came upon a rise of ground from which he could look down upon the valley of Toledo and its pyramid. He turned his donkeys loose to graze and sent his servants home with the horses while he stared down at the mines from which a modest amount of silver had been eked out since their discovery in 1538. Infuriated by his family's two hundred years of failure to find the bonanza, Ignacio Palafox reasoned, "Why not approach this problem from an entirely different prospect? If, as we've always thought, there is a hidden lode, where would it have to be if its inconsequential portions cropped out where our present mines are?" He pointed to each of the mines as it stood on church ground and tried to visualize what the structure of the subterranean areas must be, but no pattern evolved.

"It's haphazard," he concluded.

He turned from the valley and looked at his donkeys as they grazed the hillside, and they moved about in haphazard fas.h.i.+on, one following another's tail, the other moving away by himself. "That's good for donkeys," he reasoned, "but suppose that the distribution of silver is not haphazard. Suppose that there has got to be a system?" He reviewed all he knew about veins and deposits but could deduce no logical pattern. That night he did not come down from the hills but stayed behind with his donkeys and for three hard days and nights tried to visualize what the interior structure of the known mines must be in relations.h.i.+p to a mother lode, and toward the evening of the last day a new concept came to him and he said firmly, "We've always been wrong in a.s.suming that the lode would be in the center of these casuals. Perhaps it's off to one side and they erupted upward, drifting off in obedience to some internal gravity." And when he studied the land afresh he saw that at the surface it had a slight but definite slope from west to east. "It's got to be back there," he shouted, "where we've never looked!" And that was the genesis of the deep shaft going straight down more than nineteen hundred feet that my father and grandfather developed and supported in later years, and which now stood abandoned at the Mineral.

Ignacio Palafox dug for nearly six hundred feet without striking silver, and his family concluded he was crazy. His uncle, the current bishop, encouraged him to proceed, but before he gave him anything more than moral support he struck a firm bargain with the miner. "If I supply you with the funds," the bishop proposed, "you must promise that with your first silver you will beautify the cathedral."

"I'll pay for the paint and a little gold leaf," Ignacio promised.

"It isn't a little gold leaf that I have in mind," the bishop replied. "If I advance the money, and if you find silver, I shall want to tear out the whole interior of the cathedral and rebuild it with silver, and I shall want to tear down the old facade and replace it with marble."

The plans were more than Ignacio could digest and he asked weakly, "How much would that cost?"

"Four million pesos," the bishop said, "but in the end you and I would have the most beautiful church in the world."

'To imagine spending millions when you have nothing is easy," the miner said, shrugging his shoulders.

"But I mean to collect," the bishop warned, and the compact was drawn. In the ensuing years the bishop protected Ignacio from the insults of the family, and his prayers kept the miner hopeful. In 1740 the prayers and the pickaxes bore fruit, and Ignacio Palafox uncovered, at a depth of six hundred feet straight down, the lode of silver that was ultimately to produce $800 million. It was distributed according to the agreed proportions: 60 percent to the king; 30 percent to the Mexican Church; and 10 percent to Ignacio Palafox. Of his share the first four million pesos went to fulfill the pledge to the bishop, who, in accordance with the building mania of his ancestors, ripped out the interior of the cathedral, tore down the facade, and replaced them with the silver and marble of which he had dreamed.

These were years of fulfillment for the Palafoxes. Ignacio, thanks to his gifts to the king, was created a conde, and the counts of Palafox played an important role in Mexican history, bolstering a colonial regime that was increasingly threatened by other Mexicans who wished to free themselves from the domination of Spain. The bishop who rebuilt the cathedral was made an archbishop and the joke became current in Toledo that from the days of Fray Antonio to the. present, the miter had pa.s.sed directly from father to son.

Two traditions of the family were maintained: on the count's side male children married only Spaniards; all able boys, whether Spanish or part Indian, were sent across the Atlantic to the University of Salamanca, where there had been Palafoxes in attendance since before the year 1300. By the 1960s, of course, there were no more counts in Mexico, such t.i.tles having lapsed after the death of Maximilian, but in Toledo they were still thought of as n.o.bility and they behaved as such. I'm proud to be a member of their family, although up to now I've done little to add to their n.o.bility. But as I finished my review of their gallant record I swore I'd do my best.

Chapter 12.

THE BARBERS.

AFTER THE DEATH of Paquito de Monterrey in the ring and our nocturnal visit to the catacomb it was two o'clock Sat.u.r.day morning by the time I returned to my hotel room. As I was preparing to go to bed I chanced to look out the window and was surprised by what I saw. Three men were slipping quietly out of our hotel and heading for the parking lot, and it was the composition of the trio that riveted my attention. Old Veneno Leal was in the lead, with Chucho and Diego trailing, the latter carrying a canvas bag, but Victoriano, the star of their troupe, was missing.

I had an instant response: "If those three are going alone, it certainly has something to do with bulls, some nefarious business that Victoriano must not be involved in. What could that be?" Then it hit me, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness something that few aficionados could ever see. Pulling on my pants and jamming my feet into shoes, I ran from my room, leaped down the stairs and ran out to the parking lot to intercept them.

As I had suspected, they did not go directly there but started across the plaza as if heading for the cathedral, looked about to be sure no one was following, then doubled back quickly to the parking lot, where they climbed into their big cream-colored Chrysler, with Chucho at the wheel, Veneno up front beside him and Diego in back. The powerful engine choked, then caught, but before the car could move I jumped out of the shadows and grabbed the open window at the driver's side.

"You going to do a little barbering?" I asked. The three toreros looked at one another and Chucho shrugged his shoulders.

"How did you guess?" Veneno asked.

"Easy. I saw you leave Victoriano behind, so I knew it must have to do with bulls, something illegal maybe that he couldn't afford to be involved in. Then I remembered that the corrals here in Toledo have room for only two sets of bulls. So it was clear that Sunday's animals would have to arrive sometime tonight. And you're off to intercept them. Right?"

"For a norteamericano, you're pretty smart," Veneno growled.

"Can I come along? I've never seen a barbering job." Again Chucho shrugged, whereupon Diego released the latch of the rear handle with his foot and kicked the heavy door open for me.

"Climb in," he said, and we whirled into the night.

When we left the parking lot it was two-fifteen in the morning, but mariachi bands still roamed the streets and stragglers followed them, so we had to edge our car down the street that led up from the cathedral. Once we were free of the mob Chucho floored the accelerator and with a giant roar we ripped past the open-air chapel, where only a few hours before I had been sitting with Mrs. Evans. We threw dust over the last few houses of Toledo, then tore out onto the highway that led west toward Guadalajara, a hundred and forty miles distant. Like all bullfighters, the Leals were aggressive drivers.

In the right front seat, like the grizzled captain of a s.h.i.+p, sat old Veneno, white-haired and rugged in the flickering light that flashed back into the car from trees or poles. Beside him, at the wheel, sat the peon Chucho, an expensive coat slung over his shoulders like a cape. His thin, handsome face resembled a Renaissance portrait from the brush of Ghirlandaio, its features hard and clean, its subdued colors harmonious.

Chucho was a skillful driver, one who obviously loved the feel of a surging car as its power spoke back to him through the vibrations of the steering wheel. His sensitive hands adjusted constantly, taking the big car into one curve after another, always at high speed yet with reasonable safely. But when we had left behind us even the villages that cl.u.s.tered at the edges of Toledo and had crossed the hills that rimmed the high valley, we came upon those long straight reaches that characterize Mexico's rural highways, and Chucho surprised me by stretching himself far back in the driver's seat, working his shoulders as if they had become stiff, and taking his feet off the pedals that controlled the car.

"What are you doing?" I asked in Spanish.

"Cruise control," he explained, indicating a k.n.o.b on the steering wheel, which he had activated and which would now keep the heavy Chrysler pounding down the road at a constant speed.

"How fast are we going?" I asked.

"Eighty," Chucho replied; I saw that the speedometer had not been converted to kilometers and that it indicated eighty miles an hour. Occasional farms leaped out of the darkness as we whipped past; occasional cattle looked up to see what was roaring past them. The car sped on automatically, cutting its gas feed back a bit when going downhill, increasing it whenever it felt an uphill pull. Down straightaways we roared at eighty. Around gentle curves we squealed at the same speed, and Chucho kicked out the cruise control to regain command of the car only when we approached corners that were so tight that the speed simply had to be cut. Even then, the banderillero . took at sixty-five curves that I would have been afraid to take at forty.

"Where do you plan to intercept the bulls?" I asked once when we had negotiated such a curve and the car had been handed back to the cruise control.

"The village of Crucifixion," Diego, who was sitting beside me, explained.

"Are you going to do the job there?" I asked.

"If the foreman isn't along," Diego replied. "If he is, we'll have to arrange something else."

"Who's Palafox using as his foreman now?" I pursued.

"As always-Candido."

When Diego said the name I happened to be looking at Veneno, sitting stonily in the front seat, and I saw the old picador's jaw muscles contract.

"If Candido's along," I said, "your trip's wasted."

"Maybe," Diego replied. "But also maybe we can do business with the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"With Candido?" I laughed.

"With somebody," Veneno growled from his front seat. Without taking his eyes off the road, he said, obviously for my benefit, "After what happened today, we're going to speak to those bulls."

"You mean ... Paquito?"

The three bullfighters crossed themselves and Veneno growled, "Yes. We are going to talk with the bulls of Palafox, and if Candido tries to stop us-"

There was an ominous pause, and now I could see Chucho's jaw muscles tightening. None of the Leals seemed willing to comment further on the subject, so I said, "I ask this as a writer-that is, as one who knows nothing really about bullfighting-don't you sometimes reflect that what you're thinking of doing tonight is ..." I paused with a show of delicacy.

"You mean, do we think it's dishonorable?" Veneno asked.

"I didn't use that word," I countered, "but it's a good one."

"I'll tell you what honor is," Veneno said, still keeping his eyes on the road, and it was fortunate that he did so, for we now approached at great speed the cutoff that would take us south from the Guadalajara highway to the Palafox ranch. It was along this road that we would intercept the bulls at the little village of Crucifixion. To get onto the road we had to negotiate a rather sharp turn to the left and it was apparent that Chucho was reluctant to take the Chrysler away from the cruise control. With the slightest flick of his white head, the old picador indicated to his son that the turn was coming up, and with an equally controlled reaction Chucho indicated that he saw it and that he intended taking the turn at his present speed. This knowledge frightened me and I started to lean forward to protest, but I was restrained by the cool reaction of the bullfighters. They just became a little more attentive, their shoulders slightly tensed, as the car hurtled toward the turnoff. It seemed to me that Veneno and Diego were asking, I wonder if Chucho can manage this? But it never occurred to them to interfere with what he was doing.

Flexing his shoulder muscles and twisting his neck, Chucho adjusted himself in his seat, moved his left foot nearer the brake pedal in case some emergency forced a slowdown, and prepared to swing the surging car into the turn. At a steady eighty miles an hour we roared up to the cutoff point, edged purposefully to the right, started slipping sideways in a skid, then regained control and thundered ahead on the new road. It was a moment of exquisite uncertainty, followed by a sensation of triumph, and once the turn had been negotiated and we were safe on a road that would not be used much at night, Diego advanced the speed of the cruise control so that we roared south at ninety miles an hour.

"People who follow bullfights," Veneno resumed, as if nothing had happened, "are much concerned about honor and dishonor, and about the worst word you can use for a matador is to say that he is one without honor. Chucho can tell you sometime how it feels to have that word thrown at you."

"A very bad bull in Guadalajara," Chucho observed simply. With his left hand he ma.s.saged his right shoulder.

"The bull gore you in the shoulder?" I asked.

"He gored me everywhere." Chucho laughed. "That is, he should have gored me everywhere, but I jumped over the fence."

"In 1912," Veneno began, staring as if mesmerized at the ribbon of road unrolling in a straight line before us, "I went to Spain as picador for the great Mexican matador Luis Freg, may his fighting soul rest in peace." The Leals crossed themselves in memory of one of the bravest and most inept men ever to don the bullfighter's uniform. "Freg was a man of such honor as we see no more. Sixty-seven major horn wounds while I worked for him. In the hospital--out of the hospital-- great fight on taped-up legs--back into the hospital.

"Well, in 1914 he was so badly wounded that he simply couldn't fight, so he allowed me to hire out with other matadors and I got a good job with Corchaito, the Little Cork Boy, and, believe it or not, he was even braver than Luis Freg. It's about his honor that I wish to speak.

"Corchaito wasn't brave because he was stupid or ignorant. You happen to remember how he exploded onto the bullfighting scene? On a day I'll never forget he was fighting a hand-to-hand with Posada, and on the second bull-:-they were boxcar Miuras-poor Corchaito was severely wounded, but he stuffed a rag into the wound and continued to kill his bull. Big ovation and into the infirmary. Then on the third bull Posada, who was a much better fighter, looked at the audience after a fine pa.s.s, and the bull took him from behind. With three swift chops the bull killed him, right there in the ring.

"With the senior matador dead and the junior badly wounded, the authorities wanted to suspend the fight, but Corchaito came out of the infirmary and said, 'These people paid to see six bulls die, and they will see it.' Painfully wounded, he killed Posada's deadly bull, then the fourth, the fifth and the sixth, after which he collapsed and was carried back to the infirmary near death."

There was a silence as we hurtled southward past sleeping farmhouses, and after a moment I reflected, "I'd say that Corchaito had honor."

"Yes," Veneno mused. "But that isn't the story I was going to tell."

"You mean there's more?"

"With a man of true honor there's always more," the old picador said. "When I asked Freg for permission to work for a Spanish matador, he leaned up from his hospital bed and asked, 'Which one?' and I replied, 'Corchaito,' and he said, 'Good. The Little Cork Boy's brave, and I'd hate to see you work for anyone who wasn't.'

"So that day in August, we're fighting in Cartagena with two of the best matadors of the day and Corchaito says to his troupe, 'Today we're going to kill bulls in the grand style.' On the fifth bull of the afternoon, named Distinguido, he performs magnificently with the cloth-naturals, past the chest, windmills-and he's sure of at least one ear and more likely two. He delivers a good sword thrust, but it was just a little back and to the side. Nevertheless, the bull falls down, mortally wounded, and it's only a matter of the last dagger thrust to finish him off.

"But Corchaito, as I explained, was a man of honor, and he calls his men together and says in a loud voice so that the people in the sun can hear, 'Get that bull back on his feet. When my bull dies he dies right.' We pulled and hauled and got the bull back on his feet, and this time Corchaito gave what I thought was a magnificent kill, but when the bull was down the Little Cork Boy made a great show of studying the exact point where the tip of the sword went in, after which he yelled at us, 'Get the bull up again. I'm a matador, and I kill with the sword.'

"So although the bull was legally dead, we prodded him until he staggered to his feet to face the matador for the third time. But you know how fast bulls learn in the last few minutes of the fight. So when Corchaito came in for the third time with what would have been the perfect kill, this weary, tormented, dying bull neatly hooked him in the groin, twirled him three times on the horn, and threw him against the boards, wherejie caught him with both horns, tossing him in the air twice more. When we carried Corchaito to the infirmary, I put my picador's hat over the gaping hole in his chest so that people in the stands would not faint, but black blood gushed out from the edges of the brim, and before we reached the infirmary he was dead. His heart had been ripped completely in half. That's what honor does for a man."

We thundered down the dark road, carried along by a force that seemed wholly outside ourselves and quite beyond our control. Once we came upon a flock of chickens sleeping on the warm macadam, and for a moment I thought that Chucho would kick out the cruise control and try to lead the Chrysler past the frightened and bewildered fowl, but he apparently decided against this because, gripping the wheel a little tighter, he held the car on its course. There was a wild flutter of chickens, a slamming of feathered bodies against the winds.h.i.+eld, but the car sped implacably on. I was reminded of the time Benito Mussolini, in his early days, was being driven at top speed through the Italian countryside with an American newsman-- Ralph Ingersoll, I seem to remember. The car struck and killed a village boy, but II Duce commanded the driver to drive on. To the American he said, "Never look back," and I realized that if Chucho had struck a child and not a chicken he, too, might have driven on without bothering to look back.

"How many men have you seen die in the ring?" I asked the old picador, who was brus.h.i.+ng feathers from his coat.

"First my father. And then Corchaito. Ignacio Sanchez Mejia. Balderas. Three beginners whose names you wouldn't know, three banderilleros, two picadors and a cus.h.i.+on salesman. Today, Paquito."

We said no more on this subject and for some minutes we tore along the empty road. Whenever we approached a farming village I thought, We ought to slow down for places like this, but Chucho kept the cruise control set at seventy, and as we sped along we sometimes caught sight of astonished peasants who had been sleeping alongside the road until awakened by the thunder of our approach. With sleepy, unbelieving eyes they watched us flash by.

It was about two miles north of such a village that the critical moment of our ride occurred. We were going down a straight stretch of road, completely empty and safe, when from our left just a little distance ahead appeared a lumbering cow about to cross the highway at a point where, if we maintained our speed, we would have to smash into her. In the split second that we four saw the cow, I was the only one who cried out. In English I shouted, "Watch out!"

If we struck this animal at seventy the car would be destroyed and we would be killed, and if we swerved to avoid her we would be thrown on the pebbled shoulder of the road, where we would die in a smashup.

None of the Leals spoke. They did not even move. With eyes straight ahead, they watched tensely as we careened down on the doomed cow, which now occupied most of the roadway. I could not guess what Chucho would do, but at the last moment he calculated precisely where the cow would be, and with a sudden deft turn of the wheel he elected to take us to the right, past the cow's nose. With exquisite skill he kept our left wheels on the macadam, which prevented the car from skidding, and threw our right wheels far out onto the shoulder, which allowed us to squeeze past safely. Even so, the body of the Chrysler struck the cow in the head, breaking her neck instantly and throwing her wildly back across the highway.

The big Chrysler stopped weaving and settled down. Chucho checked the cruise control and satisfied himself that it was delivering its required power. Diego rolled down his window to study the left side of the car, after which he rolled it back up and reported, "Dented." Old Veneno continued to stare straight ahead.

The Leals had the delicacy of not referring to my outcry at the moment of crisis, and as I studied them I realized that as bullfighters, who faced catastrophe every working day, they had not been much concerned by the near accident. Chucho Leal was driving a high-powered Chrysler at night, and it was his responsibility to negotiate whatever dangers might arise. If he had not long since proved himself equal to the job, Diego would have been at the wheel, and he would have slid past the cow in exactly the same way. Bullfighters were men who lived with danger and had a fine sense of its limits. I did not enjoy such driving nor approve of it, but if one elected to travel with bullfighters, that was the kind of driving one got.

"Are you claiming, Veneno," I finally asked, "that a man like Corchaito should not have behaved with such honor?"

"That's not the point at all," the old picador said. "Men like Luis Freg and Corchaito could not have behaved dishonorably if they wanted to. They had no choice. You ever see Freg fight? Sometimes when we got to the ring we had to lift him out of the carriage, his legs were so stiff from bandaging."

It was obvious that we had exhausted this subject for the present, so in silence we approached the little Altomec village of Crucifixion, where the Leals hoped to intercept the bulls of Palafox. From the outskirts it looked like any other grubby little place inhabited by several hundred people, and as our car entered the central area I saw that Crucifixion had the usual plaza with a gloomy saloon lit by a naked bulb. To my surprise we did not stay in this area but rolled quietly down a side street until we reached an inconspicuous spot from which we could survey the deserted plaza.

"We'll wait here," Chucho said.

"Diego," Veneno commanded. "See if the bulls have arrived." From his rear seat the young bullfighter slipped out of the car, carefully closing the door so as to make no noise. As he moved forward he studied the spot where the cow's head had struck. Then he casually sauntered into the plaza.

"What I was trying to say," Veneno abruptly resumed, "is that we should always keep in mind what the end of honor is. My father thrilled Mexico, but the bulls killed him. Freg had honor, and the bulls used him as a pincus.h.i.+on. Corchaito-he had honor and it broke his heart. That boy today had lots of honor and tonight they're singing songs about it, but he can't hear."

The practical view of honor, so similar to Falstaff's and just as reasonable, made me speculate on what my interpretation of the principle was. I suspected that a defining characteristic of my life was that I had always s.h.i.+ed away from the crucial responsibilities-my marriage, the challenge of writing important work or trying to, even the decision as to which country I belonged to. I was no Corchaito willing to die to prove a principle. I wasn't even a Juan Gomez fighting his relatively little battles with a dignity I had never had. Reflecting on all this, I was not proud of myself, but I pursued the matter no further, for in the square a commotion arose. I a.s.sumed that the bulls of Palafox had arrived, but I was mistaken. From a village even smaller than Crucifixion, as I later learned, a group of Altomecs had carried a workman who had fallen from the roof of a church and nearly killed himself. They had been hiking since sundown and twice the injured man had fainted. Now it was near three in the morning and he was unconscious, probably near death.

"It's somewhere over here!" the bearers shouted, pointing toward the plaza exit that led to our street, and the crowd surged our way. One man broke away from the others and ran up to our car asking, "Is this where the doctor lives?" Before we could answer, the others had caught up with him and we saw the pale face of the wounded man.

"I'm a stranger here," old Veneno said gravely, "but I'll ask." He slowly opened the car door and got down onto the sandy roadway. His austere demeanor impressed the Altomecs and they followed him like dutiful servants.

"Halloooo there!" Veneno cried in a deep voice. "Where does the doctor live?"

There was no reply, and he shouted again. A light came on and a woman screamed, "Stop that noise!"

"Where's the doctor?" Veneno cried again, this time in an imperious tone.

"You're in front of his door," the woman bellowed. "Dr. Castaneda."

The Indians banged on the doctor's door and a light went on upstairs. While we waited for the doctor to appear, I studied his office. It was a low adobe building with windows filthy from the flyspecks of nearly half a century. Above the door, bullet scars showed that General Gurza's men had once rampaged through the nearby plaza firing their revolutionary shots at random, and nearly a fourth of the tiles that had once framed the doorway had been broken or stolen.

A downstairs light flicked on and the door creaked open, displaying a barefoot, suspendered old man who was almost as dirty as his windows. He looked exhausted but he made a decent show of welcoming the Altomecs and their miserable burden.

His office consisted of an earthen floor, a few chairs of unfinished lumber and the inevitable framed photographs of women in black and men with mustaches, all covered with the soot of ages. The inert body of the workman, who looked to be near death, was gently placed upon a rickety uncovered table and Dr. Castaneda began undressing him. Both the thigh bone and the s.h.i.+n of the right leg were broken, so that the leg swung outward like a scimitar, but what was more important, and what the doctor noticed immediately, was that some other bone had punctured the lower part of the man's belly and now stood forth strangely white and free of blood. Dr. Castaneda shook his head, and the Indians, interpreting this sign, whispered among themselves.

What happened next appalled me. The doctor went to a gla.s.s case such as shopkeepers use for penny candies, slid back the door, and started rummaging through a pile of filthy medical instruments covered with flyspecks and dust. Forceps, tongue depressors, scissors and hemostats lay jumbled together, and the doctor took whatever he needed from the pile, blew on it, wiped it on his s.h.i.+rt, and went to work. When the tool was no longer needed, it was pitched unwashed back into the gla.s.s case to acc.u.mulate more dust.

Veneno whispered to me in his grave voice, "Now you can see why matadors dread being gored outside the big cities. Can you imagine having your guts operated on with those things?" His two sons studied the doctor with fascination, and when I saw Chucho cross himself, I thought: He's probably experienced such medical care in a similar village.

After his initial probing, Dr. Castaneda looked at the Altomecs and said, "There isn't much we can do for this one."