One certain night there was a hard knock on the light wooden wall of the weather-beaten bungalow in which I lived. I had no watch, but from the position of the moon I judged that it was about midnight. It happened in a village populated by Indian peasants which was known in the region as a nido de bandoleros, or as we would say, a nest of bandits.
Those were revolutionary times; scores of small semimilitary groups that had lost contact with their regiments and whose little properties had been devastated had to keep alive with their families as best as they could.
Fact is, and I ought to know, that one can live securely in the countryside of the Republic in the very midst of so-called bandits if one is neither Indian nor Mestizo and does not care what the people there are doing or how they make their living. In addition I had learned from experience that one can live peacefully and happily in such a neighborhood if every inhabitant of the place knows that one owns only one pair of shoes with holes, a few worn shirts and one pair of pants which can no longer serve even to repair another pair of ragged pants. Aside from this, one may safely own a few pesos, some books, and a dilapidated typewriter without a Spanish type body.
The people of this village, bandoleros or no bandoleros—what did I care—would not let me starve. After I had lost my beautiful cotton because of the boll weevil, and so all the proceeds of my hard work of nine long months, I stared at the world discouraged and utterly dejected. Yet no sooner had I asked myself, What shall I eat, what shall I drink, to whom shall I turn now? when two men of the village appeared at my bungalow with an express desire to learn English and asked how much I would charge. I told them twenty centavos each for one lesson. They paid me ten hours in advance and so I was able to buy corn seed to plant in my ruined cotton field. It was just the right time to plant corn because the rainy season was to start in less than four weeks.
Through those two pupils I got five more within two weeks, because for some reason not clear to me at that time, several villagers had suddenly decided to study English. They all came regularly and paid for their lessons punctually. So all of us were satisfied with one another. Under such conditions I had no reason to bother about whether they were bandoleros or not. They let me live undisturbed and I left them alone. No better way to live on this earth.
Now, if someone in the countryside in the Republic knocks on your door around midnight, experience, advice, good taste and manners demand that you keep quiet, that you don’t answer and that you hold your breath as long as possible, because it might just so happen that at the very moment you open the door to see who is there—you wishing it might be the telegraph boy bringing you a hundred-dollar order—you have two or a dozen shots fired at you, and you withdraw safe and unharmed or filled with lead, alone or followed by some men who push you farther inside and not exactly in a friendly way.
There are people who don’t know better and who will claim that bravery is a great virtue on the battlefield, but bravery in certain places at certain times and in certain circumstances in the Republic is usually a sign of incurable and innate stupidity. No one around there is expected to be a juggler or to catch revolver bullets with his teeth. To see that you pay for it in a circus.
Because many years had elapsed since I traveled with a circus, I had, as is only natural, lost the ability to catch bullets with my hands open or with my teeth closed, so I kept as quiet as a buried chest full of money when I heard the knocking on my door. Whether I began to tremble and break out in a cold sweat I no longer remember now, but I don’t believe I did. If things have already gone so far that you hear a violent knocking on your door at night and the knocking gets more vehement every second, it will no longer be of any use to sweat from fear. Whatever is going to happen, whatever it may be, that has already been decided outside without consulting you and so you’d better save the cold sweat.
After several more of those violent knocks I heard half-loud voices. There were at least three men as far as I could distinguish from the different voices. The voices carried a strong and merciless tone, as of men who knew precisely why they had come and what they wanted.
Then I heard shuffling close to the door. They left the porch and I could catch their heavy steps on the sandy ground. From the sounds their feet made I gathered that two of them were wearing boots and one huaraches. I realized that my life was prolonged by the amount of time it would take them to decide what to do next.
Naturally I thought of escaping. The one-room bungalow had, like most houses in the country in that part of the Republic, two doors, one at each side. But I had barricaded both doors with beams. The loosening of these beams could not be done without noise, and with the least little noise I made the men would immediately be at the door through which I wanted to escape.
In spite of having just come out of a deep sleep, I tried to think of some medicine or trick by which I might save myself. However, at that precious moment I could not concentrate sufficiently on any sort of medicine that might be useful. After all, I had first to see the men and how they looked so that I could select the right medicine.
I had no gun. Anyway, a gun would not have helped me in such a situation as I was in. One might be lucky and shoot all three men. But it would be difficult to get out of a village in which one has shot three of its citizens, especially if the place is a hideout for bandoleros. Actually I was better off without a gun. What’s more, it eliminated any obligation to be brave. Always and everywhere bravery is badly rewarded. It’s always and forever the cowards who survive the wars. The really brave fall on the battlefield for the glory of those who march home under showers of confetti and ticker tape.
By now the men had returned to the door. Because of the annual tropical rains, the bungalow was built on posts and several steps led up to the doors.
I heard the men stamping up and, as the steps were narrow, only one could be at the door while the others had to remain on the lower steps.
The fellow at the door knocked hard with what seemed to be the butt of a revolver or a shotgun.
When the knocking had no effect, he yelled. “Hey, hombre, abre, levántate, we got the goddamn hell to talk to you.”
That proved they knew perfectly well that I was in the house, for otherwise they wouldn’t have called.
Stubbornly they continued knocking and calling. But I didn’t move a lip, that is, not voluntarily. My lips quivered all right. Whose wouldn’t?
Now they talked again to one another. Then they stamped down the stairs and shuffled over the sand. I thought that at last they were convinced that I was not at home. My mistake. Miscalculating things mostly happens when one wants to believe something to be of some benefit to himself.
For half a minute or so they walked about as though not knowing what to do now and then stopped exactly at that part of the wall against which the cot on which I slept was set up. They knocked on this wall with full force and continued to call: “Abre, señor, abre!”
Now I realized that among them must be one who knew the inside of my bungalow very well; otherwise he would not have known where I slept. I was cornered perfectly and had to admit that I was in.
I got up, prepared to look cold death in the face without moving an eyelash. It wouldn’t be a glorious death with no one to take notice of the sneering and cold laugh with which I accepted, even welcomed death, because there was no newspaperman present to tell posterity how bravely and nobly I had behaved during the last hour of my life. Bandoleros don’t care much whether or not one trembles and shakes from cold fear. Neither does a hangman care. It is business, sober and plain business, not a bit sophisticated as some other business.
Although they obviously had expected me to jump up quickly, I did not move. Every minute I gained was wrested from old man death. So I said sleepily: “Hey, you, out there, what’s the matter? You goddamn muledrivers, stinky arrieros, can’t an honest man sleep one single night in this here godforsaken burg of whores, thieves, and violators of decent women-folk? What kind of a drunken lousy pack of cabrones is there shuffling at my door? Not a single stinking goddamn drop of tequila have I got here in my house. To hell with you, you filthy worm-eaten dogs. Hear me! I want to sleep.”
I got talking louder and louder on purpose, trying to get as angry and beastly furious as I possibly could, for if these had to be my last words on earth I wanted them to be added to my last prayer so that eternity should be less boring.
Anyhow, by now it had become obvious these fellows out there wanted very much to get me up. But for what reason, this I could not even guess.
When they heard me answer their harsh tone changed immediately into a very mild one. Perhaps they had imagined until now that I was not at home and that they would have to leave unsuccessfully.
One of them spoke up: “Please, señor, por favor, come to the door just for a moment. We got to talk to you very urgently. It’s a serious matter.” There was a tone of pleading in his voice. Almost pitiful.
Indios and medium-Indios have no conception of time. When their heart is full of sorrow they will come to you at any time be it day or night. In this particular case it might of course have been a trick to lure me to the door and whatever they had in mind doing would thus have been easier to accomplish. But no matter what there was in store for me I had to open the door at last. They could have broken in anyway, had they wanted to.
“Hello, there, señores!” I said sleepily, leaning against the open door. “Welcome. Bien venidos, amigos. What can I do for you on such a night of romantic love?”
Because the moon shone so brightly I could see them very clearly, though I did not recognize one of their faces, shadowed by big palm hats. They were robust types, without coats, clad only in white pants and white, very clean cotton shirts open at the neck. One wore as far as I could make out in the semidarkness of the night leather leggings and yellow boots with high heels, which were completely run down. The second wore brown leather boots that were torn at many places. The third wore—as I had concluded before by hearing his light step—huaraches. The two men with boots on each carried a rifle of the kind used by the army and which they held ready to shoot. Of these two one had, besides, a revolver stuck into a shabby holster. Both wore belts adorned with a full row of cartridges. The man with huaraches on his feet had for his whole armament only an ordinary machete.
It was this man with the machete who seemed to know me. I thought that several times I had seen him around the village. The other two were complete strangers to me.
Instinct told me that the man with the machete had peaceful intentions toward me, and that the other two were not after my riches or my life, but needed help instead. The one holding the machete said: “Would you be so very kind, señor, as to come to our house? My nephew is lying there, sick. I don’t know what ails him. They brought him in, awfully sick. He won’t wake up. He will not come to. So we ask you, very much, please, go with us. Perhaps you can help him. We’re sure you can. We know you’re a very wise man, in fact a great doctor.”
“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what we don’t know and why we ask you so very much, please, do come and see what’s the matter with him.”
The nearest doctor lived about forty miles away. The round trip on horseback would take him three days at least and he would charge no less than one hundred pesos, a sum that had to be put on the table before he would even saddle the horse. Who of these villagers to whom one hundred pesos was a fortune could pay such a sum? No doctor comes without previous payment. He, the medico, is primarily a businessman. No mistake about that. In this world in which he lives he has to be a businessman. No one will give him credit for his rent, and if he does not pay his bill the baker or the grocer, medico or no medico, neither will lend him the following month as much as a pound of potatoes. He who cannot pay has no right to live; he must either die or try to live without a medico. That is the reason why most people of the Republic stay alive for more than ninety years unless someone shoots them.
In my possession I had an old cardboard case in which, once upon a time, shoes had been packed. This cardboard affair served me as my medicine chest. It contained some medicine, if you will call a few aspirin tablets medicine. But besides medicine there were sewing implements, trouser buttons, a torn typewriter ribbon, a few used razorblades, an empty tube of toothpaste, one big fishhook, two small fishhooks, five newspaper clippings, a pocketknife with a broken blade, the other small blade rusty but otherwise in good shape, strings in different thicknesses, four different screws, a few nails, a pencil stub, a leaking fountain pen, the tooth of a donkey, the tail of a rattler, and some few other things which I no longer remember.
During my early youth I carried all my earthly goods in my pants and coat pockets, that is when I had a coat, because I had to be ready to travel at any hour no matter where I happened to be, mostly on account of merciless truant officers. Since then, having become in the meantime well-to-do, I carried all my earthly riches in that shaky cardboard box. It makes you wonderfully independent.
Even had these good men not asked for it, even had they not so highly solicited my medical knowledge, I would still have taken the medicine box along with me. This I did entirely instinctively and out of long and often very bitter experience. For it had often happened to me in the past that, when I thought of leaving my residence for only one hour, upon regaining full consciousness I discovered that I had landed on a different continent. Through such experiences one learns to become careful, so that toothbrush, shaving kit and a little pocket compass were constantly buttoned up inside my back pants pocket. How would I know where I might land if I flew away with these three nightbirds?
“Is this your doctor box?” asked one of them.
“Si, señor, this is my medicine box,” I confirmed, and the men murmured something which sounded like satisfaction.
“Then let’s go,” said another one.
I bolted my door and off we went.
Quite naturally I had not the slightest idea of where we were going. Nothing was said about that. After all it was useless for me to ask such a question, for if we were marching to Honduras or to Sinaloa, it was not up to me to decide. Whether I liked it or not this was determined by those who carried guns. He who carries a gun always has the right to give orders, and the one who has no gun always has the damn duty to obey. And that has been the law since that memorable day when the archangel Gabriel with his flaming sword in hand chased two naked people out of the Lord’s vegetable garden. Had they had a machine gun, everything would have turned out entirely different and giving orders or obeying them would have taken a different road. It was for that difference that anyone will understand why I wandered along with these three men through the night without complaint, without one word to ask where we were going.
We did not trudge through the center of the village, but kept along the periphery instead. On all sides dogs barked furiously. And those dogs that could not see us barked too, barked themselves hoarse so as not to make the impression they had not noticed us or to leave the pleasure of barking exclusively to the other dogs. There was a hellish noise in the whole village. Because of that horrible barking most of the roosters woke up and began crowing lustily, and then the sad braying of lonely donkeys fell in. Not a single living soul came out of his hut to see what was going on. Once these village dogs start barking they will stay noisy half the night through, whether there is a gang of bandits sneaking around or a mule wandering sleepily along the road or one cat chasing another, or whether nothing happens at all.
We left the village behind and marched a fairly long time through underbrush, then for a while through bush-land, when finally we reached a frame house. It had a well-kept, fenced-in flower garden in front, and on both sides there were vegetable patches which I could distinguish clearly in the moonlight. The house was not decrepit or covered with rags and reed mats like most of the homes in the village. From the outside it made a good impression. On the porch were innumerable plants and flowers, in pots and cans and pails, so-called macetas.
The good impression I had received from the outside was increased when I entered the living room. Neither in this village nor in the whole region had I ever seen such a clean and well-furnished house. The living house on a farm in Texas or Arizona, Coahuila or Sonora could not look more agreeable than this one. I had not known nor would I have believed that in this neighborhood there was a family able to keep a house in such fine order and pleasing shape.
The beds were of white lacquered iron. There were real chairs and even some rocking chairs. Large framed pictures adorned the wall. Lohengrin with his Elsa sitting on the bed, Othello holding forth speeches about his adventures in foreign lands. The march of the hero Hidalgo leaving the town of Dolores surrounded by Indian peasants swinging machetes. The Virgin of Guadalupe and a group of small and enlarged photographs of uncles, aunts, grandfathers, children carrying Communion candles, obviously all members of one great family. One could not think of a more respectable and honorable family than that living in this house. People who kept such a house and in such order and cleanliness could not but be citizens who fortified and preserved the pillars of the state and at the same time the columns of the only church which guarantees you a seat in heaven.
But a life full of experience teaches you not to take anything at its face value. There are beautiful plants in the Republic which tempt one to look closer, but if one only touches them or brushes against them with the naked arm one gets a rash which takes months before it can be cured, if at all.
In spite of being at this moment in this respectable looking house I did not forget for one minute that three men had brought me there and that these three men were armed. Neither did I allow my face to express my wonderment that the house and the appearance of the men were in sharp contrast. I accepted everything as if it could not have been otherwise. I looked with great interest at the pictures on the wall, and so as to make these people believe that I admired the pictures I said: “Very fine paintings, made by great artists.”
But while I said this, I looked sidewise at everything in view. The windows were well barricaded and covered. No ray of light could escape out into the night. Little hope there was to escape through one of those windows if it should become necessary. Two doors led into two other rooms. Both men with the guns seated themselves near the entrance door in such a way that nobody could enter or leave without being carefully scrutinized by them. Putting the guns between their knees, they rolled themselves cigarettes.
“Sit down, señor, por favor,” said one of them and motioned me with a nod to an empty chair. I sat down and again looked around. The floor was covered with thick petate mats, fresh and yellow. Where the floor showed, I could see that it was scrubbed clean like freshly washed linen. In the farthest corner, in a sort of niche, there was a picture of La Virgen del Perpetuo Socorro with a small candle burning in front of it. Placed around it there were rosaries and cheap pictures of a dozen or so saints. On the table, which was covered with a multicolored cotton cloth, there stood a kerosene lamp, lighted.
I had not seen such a lamp for at least fourteen months, nobody in the village had one, nor had I. It was this kerosene lamp which had given me the first impression on entering that I was in a house of honest people well-off. On the table there was also a glass bowl of the kind one can win for ten centavos at a fair by throwing balls at objects until they are hit and fall.
When we entered the house the fellow with the machete immediately stepped into another room, closing the door tightly behind him. Since the walls were of rather thin wood I heard now and then voices in an undertone emanating from that room.
After a while the man came back with a glass and a bottle.
“First let’s have one,” he said and filled the glass.
“Salud!” I said and shot it down. It made me feel warm and I thought to myself that where such good tequila is offered there certainly would not be murder back of it. No one wastes such good Añejo on someone he wants to get rid of.
The two at the main door remained where they were sitting. Suddenly I had the impression that these men were not watching me to prevent my escape but rather sat armed close to the door to protect the people in the house against possible harm coming from the outside. Of this I became even more convinced when the two whispered to each other and one left to sit on the stoop outside, while the other took up a position inside in such a way that he could not be seen immediately by someone entering but could cover any intruder with his gun.
The glass was filled again. I was offered and accepted another drink. No one else got a second. Closing the bottle, the man said: “Now, let’s get down to business.” He rose and motioned me to follow him.
We entered that other room, where a very small lamp gave little light. The man returned to the main room, picked up the kerosene lamp and brought it in. Now I could see more clearly. Two women were sitting in rocking chairs, their rebozos wrapped around their heads and necks. Both were Indians, cleanly dressed, and in their speech and bearing not different from any woman of a ranch-owner. One of them was comparatively young, about thirty or so, and as I learned later she was the wife of the man with the machete. The other was older and could well have been the mother of either the man or his wife. Obviously the room was the bedroom of the couple. Judging from the two beds in the main room, several persons seemed to live in the house.
Both women got up and greeted me courteously. They shook my hands lightly and sat down again. A young man was lying on a bast mat, covered up to his chin with a white cotton blanket. His face was pale but full and I concluded that he could not have been sick very long but had probably been seriously injured. He did not move and appeared as if dead or nearly so.
“This is the boy I told you about,” said the man and put the kerosene lamp on a chair near-by.
“I’m sure you can help the boy,” the young woman said. “He’s my nephew and we don’t want him to die. Since our own son lost his life in some silly shooting, this one has been like our own. We would really be very grateful if you could do something so he won’t die. He’s the last young one of the whole family left. All the others have been shot or stabbed to death at election time, even though none of them wanted a job for themselves. They just got mixed up for the sake of others.” The woman did not cry but spoke with touching emotion while the older woman now and then sighed.
The election fights took place in the city of the district to which men and women, young and old, went to enjoy the shootings and the yellings of “Viva” and “Muera.” Of those who went, not all returned; usually two or three, sometimes a dozen, fell and stayed on the battlefield.
There had been no election for some time, so it could not have been in an election fight that this young fellow got hurt.
I knelt down and began to examine him. His eyes were closed. On lifting the lids I saw that the eyes were sleepy but not dimmed and they reacted to light. The heartbeat was regular but very faint. The breath was slight yet fair enough.
“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.
“That’s just what we don’t know,” the woman answered. “They brought him to the house unconscious and he hasn’t come to since then. Do you think he will die, señor?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell that at this moment. Hasn’t he said something about what’s wrong with him?” I asked.
No one answered, and I looked up to see why there was no answer.
I noticed that the man shot a quick look at his wife, put a finger slightly on his lips and shook his head.
Immediately I looked away pretending not to have seen anything and let my eyes rest on the boy. I gave them time enough to finish their secret language. Then I asked: “Has he eaten something which did not agree with him?”
“I don’t believe so,” the man answered.
I sat down on a chair, my elbows on my knees, and buried my face in my hands as if lost in deep thought exactly the way all really big doctors do. In other words, I would not know anything until the sick himself would tell me where it hurt and what the matter was. After all I was no veterinarian.
Now I said the same thing all doctors say: “This is a very serious case, but I shall do my very, very best and I’m sure we can pull him through.”
At that very moment the two armed men came in to see how I was doing.
“Where is my medicine chest?” I asked.
One of the two bolted immediately into the main room and returned with my cardboard box.
What I was to do with it, I did not know at that moment.
However, I was sure a good idea would come to my mind. By all means I had to do something, for I had been dragged here as a doctor and I was expected to behave and act like one. So I had no other choice but to please these people. No doubts puzzled my senses as to what would happen to me should I fail.
It was obvious by now that the two men with guns were in the room for no other reason than to watch my performance, and because they didn’t let go of their guns I was convinced that any minute they might point their guns at me and order: “You goddamn gringo, you save that boy at once and if he isn’t up and around in ten minutes you’ll lie next to him deader than a curbstone.” Such things really happen to doctors in the Republic and since I had been brought here to work as a doctor, there was no reason they should make an exception with me.
An able-bodied doctor, one who has studied medicine successfully, can now and then, if lucky, prolong the expiring of a dying human for a good length of time. And if it finally happens he can still excuse himself by saying that against the will of God nothing can be done. So often are people made to believe that cheap explanation without questioning it that perhaps they will believe me, too, I thought. After all, these good people are Christians, good Christians with lots of rosaries, and are well supplied with all kinds of images of saints as I can see all around me.
Now I started working.
“Do you have Cafion in the house?” I asked the woman with an expression on my face as serious as that of a clergyman anointing and blessing a corpse.
“Yes, we’ve got a full bottle of it.”
“Three tablets and one glass of water.”
I dissolved the tablets in the water and let the boy swallow the mixture. He took it perfectly without anything going into his windpipe.
Quietly I sat down, smoked a cigarette and asked for another shot of tequila.
After about ten minutes had gone by I examined the lad again and I discovered that the medicine had had an excellent effect. The heart had begun to beat more strongly. Though the tablets could easily have stimulated the heart so violently that it might have stopped beating altogether, I had luck—which, by the way, every doctor needs if he wants to be a successful one.
Of course I knew quite well that a real doctor would have done everything I did entirely differently. For that reason he has a license and a partnership in an undertaker’s establishment. I, however, had to do with the knowledge and medicines that were at my disposal. I couldn’t make a camphor or adrenaline injection in the heart because I had no tools for it nor camphor either.
By now the heart was beating strongly and satisfactorily but the boy refused, sternly refused, to wake up. I couldn’t find anything on his head. I slapped his cheeks, palms and wrists. No success.
Now I untied my medicine box. All people present saw the contents of course. However, I could not make out whether or not they were surprised at the different kinds of medicines in my box because no one made a single sound of surprise. They might have thought that the fishhooks in the box served to fish objects out of stomachs—the scorpions perhaps that fall into the big earthen vessels from which people take their drinking water. The broken rusty pocketknife might, in their opinion, serve to amputate feet or arms or to take out an appendix. In any case, the respect toward me and the confidence in my abilities as a medico did not seem to grow less, but, as I could see and feel, increased immensely.
I took a tube of mentholatum half used up and smeared a thick layer of it in the fellow’s nose to help him breathe more easily. Now I asked whether they had ammoniac in the house. They had a little bottle of it and after having given him a few strong doses he sneezed and woke up. Vigorously I now fanned air at him and soon he began to breathe deeply, almost normally. But when he came to, he began to sigh pitifully as if from the bottom of his very being.
Now I knew what was wrong and what I had not been told. If I spoke frankly of what I now knew, then to be sure there would easily happen what I had expected since someone had knocked on my door. The knowledge I had gained in a roundabout way had made me a very unwanted witness. And that almost surely could be reason enough for the men to snuff me out.
I looked at the boy’s aunt. Tears were in her eyes and I knew that she spoke seriously of her feeling toward the boy as though he were her own. The boy would perhaps recover without my help, yet not in less than two days. And in the meantime the soldiers would come, and he who could not get away safely would be shot right outside at the gate. No doubt he would be shot.
Again I looked at the woman who questioned me with her eyes. I don’t want to say that I acted because of exaggerated philanthropy. That would be incorrect. Besides I don’t want to appear better and nobler than I really am. To tell the truth, I am very much like any other ordinary man—endowed with wickedness, baseness, but also with an earnest willingness to help my fellow creatures. In this case, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to find out what would happen to me if I did what I considered the most stupid and dangerous thing.
I looked steadily at the man with the machete and said in a short and loud voice: “Where then is that goddamn hole? How can I bring him around if you don’t tell me where he got the shot?”
All present, even the old woman, were startled, uttered short exclamations, paled, and looked with fright in their eyes from one to the other until they all focused their eyes on me. The uncle regained his composure first and said to the other two men in a tone as if he was ready to give up everything: “I told you before, but you didn’t want to believe me, we can’t bamboozle that cabron of a gringo. The hell of it is he’s a doctor through and through.”
Now I didn’t wait any longer. Resolutely I pulled the blanket back, looked quickly at the boy’s chest and stomach and there I noticed a heavy blood stain on the petate. Examining the poor lad closer I discovered two gun wounds, one in his thigh, the other in his left calf. The latter was not serious. A bullet had just grazed it. In contrast, the shot in the thigh had caused a heavy wound. Doubtless the bullet was out, for I noticed two holes, one where the slug had gone in and one through which it went out again. Judging from the size of the holes, it must have been a forty-five apparently fired from an automatic, the kind only the army is allowed to use. The bone was not damaged but the bullet had obviously torn several veins, which was the cause of so much loss of blood and it was also the reason for the weakened condition of the chap. The whole leg was sticky with dry blood and a light crust had already begun to form around the wounds. Very dirty rags had been used for a hasty bandage. The only danger for the youngster consisted in the possibility of an infection and, as a possible aftermath, gangrene.
Now, the blood of the Indians in general is very healthy; an infection sets in only when all and every ordinary precaution has been disregarded. I ordered them to boil quickly some old linen rags. Strange as it was, so I thought, they had plenty of packages of clean cotton. In my box I carried a few sterilized, still unused gauze bandages. First I washed the wound with hot water and soap. Then I took a very strong disinfectant from my medicine box, the kind that had saved tens of thousands of American soldiers during the war. This stuff I poured undiluted directly into the wound and the poor boy practically jumped high up. He must have felt as if someone had pierced him with a red-hot iron right through the wounds. But he could be sure that this would save him. I let it dry, put some Bismuth-Jodoform over it and bandaged the whole with gauze. He sighed deeply but now with a definite expression of relief. I gave him a four-finger-high dose of tequila and within a few minutes he had fallen asleep soundly and quietly.
I imagined what question would come up now. So I said right away and without waiting: “When you put him on a horse tomorrow morning to make his getaway, it will be highly advisable to apply a bandage made of an old rubber hose or rubber belt or elastic braces to avoid another bleeding, for then he easily might bleed to death.”
I showed the men how to apply that safeguard, told them to boil each new bandage before using it, gave them the rest of my powders and disinfectants, asked for another tequila and bade them good night. I shook hands with all of them—the boy’s aunt bent down and kissed my hand—and then I made my way to the door.
I surely must have given them the impression that what I saw and did here was to me a daily occurrence. But the truth is, I now expected any moment that one of the men would say: “Wait a minute, mister gringo, you just wait a minute, you cannot go away like that. We first got to have a word with you before you leave this neighborhood. And we got to have that word outside, you understand. Best place is behind the vegetable patch.”
The fact that I did not say a word as to how the boy might have got his wounds or even let on that I knew they were gunshots, the fact that I behaved as if I were a bandit myself and a close friend of the family and that it was immaterial to me what my neighbors thought of me and I of them as long as they left me alone, all this quite obviously upset their plans and made them puzzle. And so as to lay still more emphasis on all this, I said nonchalantly: “Should he get worse you may call me any time. I will be only too glad to be of help to you.”
By appearance the last words decided the outcome. No one will slay the only doctor in the vicinity; because of his not being licensed he has no professional duty to inform the authorities of gunshot wounds he has attended.
However, it was not so easy to get away. When I had reached the door, the uncle said: “Excuse me, mister, but we cannot let you go home alone, something might happen to you on the way and besides you might not find your way back. You may easily lose your way in the underbrush. We brought you here and it would be impolite not to see you back home.”
And so I saw before myself the prospect of marching again at night through underbrush, with three men, two carrying guns and the other a machete. Three men who would be happier to have one certain man less in this world, one who knew too much for their comfort, even though they might have a good opinion of this doctor and his willingness to help. Only one of them needed to entertain such a thought, and before the other two could prevent it, it would be all over.
Sharply and significantly I looked at the aunt. Out of politeness she had not taken her seat again, but was waiting instead to do so until I had left the house. She contemplated me with gratitude in her eyes. As if by a sudden impulse she now came close, took my hands, kissed them again and with a smile on her lips went to a little cupboard, took out a jar of honey and gave it to me, saying: “This is very good for baking little cakes. It doesn’t make them taste so dry. Tomorrow I’ll send you two dozen eggs and a few pounds of good beef. And again many, many thanks for coming.”
“No hay porqué, señora, not worth mentioning. By the way, when the boy wakes up give him a good strong meat broth with two, or better still, four eggs whisked in. It will put him fast back on his feet. Good night, señora.”
The woman knew very well what might happen to me on the way back home should the men feel that their safety was at stake. But I had won her sympathy and thankfulness. She, as I learned later, played a more important part in the business than what would be guessed from the surface and from what her honest appearance covered.
Reflecting on the look of this sweet, sweet home where even a huge heavily framed picture of the Pope in full regalia was not missing and where a candle before an image of the Virgin was burning day and night, I could tell who was in command. Since this woman doubtless was more intelligent than any of the men I had met so far, I also knew who was the brain of the enterprise. There is not much difference between an intelligently led band of robbers and certain types of banking institutions whose presidents ride in custom-built cars. Today as always the best mask behind which to cover deeds and misdeeds successfully is still an innocent appearance, a plain face, and an ostentatious display of believing in God and in the holiness of His servants. And that smart and intelligent woman, when she told me in the presence of those men: “I’m sending you in the morning meat and eggs,” was in effect saying: “Woe to these mugs if you are not safe and sound at your house tomorrow to enjoy what I’m sending you.”
The men understood the command. And they also understood the doctor had to be preserved for the good of the flourishing business.
We arrived peacefully at my bungalow. When we parted with a well-meant “buenas noches,” I felt three pesos pressed into my hand by the uncle. “Please, take this, mister, for a small reimbursement.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “I don’t ever take anything from my friends for assistance which I give for purely humane reasons and I’ll always do the same whenever an opportunity presents itself.”
For a while he held the three pesos in his hand, most likely believing that it was only out of politeness that I refused the money and that in the end I would take it anyway. He, like everyone else in the village, knew how badly I could use three pesos. But again I resolutely said: “You don’t want to offend me, do you, señor?”
“Definitely not,” he answered, “most definitely not,” while at the same time replacing the three pesos in his pocket. Then he added: “Let me see, maybe I can send you two more fellows tomorrow who want to study the English language.”
“That’s better,” I said. “Tomorrow morning I’ll come to see how your boy is getting along.”
“Well, well,” he muttered, “I don’t know, but if you insist, all right by me.”
Next morning about nine or so I went to see the lad. Scarcely had I passed the last house of the village when I met the uncle and immediately I had the feeling that he had been waiting for me because he did not want me to come to his house in daylight. I was not even sure that I would find the house again. In fact one week later when I tried to find it out of pure curiosity, I lost my way so completely that it took me hours to get on the trail back to the village and then only with the help of a man I met in the bush. During that eventful night I had been taken through underbrush and thickets in such a way that while I thought I knew where we were going I only learned later that I had been wrong all over.
The uncle told me the boy had been up very early and had gone away with the others.
“We put the bandage on as you told us to and everything went very fine. The wound is healing already. And here are the meat and the eggs the woman promised you last night. And, by the way, mister, you’d better not talk much about all this in the village. You know people might think there was a sort of brawl or what have you and that would give the boy a bad reputation. He’s going to get married, see. You understand that, don’t you, mister?”
“I understand perfectly,” I said. “I’ve no reason to talk about anything. Not anything at all. But I would very much like you, please, to buy for me the medicine I used up last night when you get to town.”
“Of course, of course, it will be a pleasure,” he said and took the note on which I had scribbled the name of what I wanted, and we parted.
When I got home two men were sitting at my door steps. They wanted to learn English and they paid me ten hours in advance.
Early in the morning, two days later, I noticed that the village was surrounded by soldiers. Nobody was allowed to leave the village, but those coming from the outside could come in. A few houses were searched and on the main square all men, women and children were questioned by officers of the district police.
I soon learned what had happened.
A few nights ago bandits had attacked a hacienda, bound the owners and had taken all the money they could lay their hands on. Thirty thousand pesos had been stolen. Every child of course knew that this was a lie. No owner of any hacienda would ever have that much money in his house. Two thousand pesos might have come closer to fact.
The soldiers, all Indians themselves, had traced the bandits to this village. Since the place was rumored to be a nest of bandits, the soldiers would have come here anyway.
I walked slowly toward the center of the plaza to watch what was going on, when a man from the village stopped me and said: “There’s not much to see. They’ll soon go away again without having caught any bandit. They are only looking for an hombre who helped a wounded bandit to get away. When they find that man, the soldiers will shoot him immediately after he has dug his own grave at the cemetery. The officers say that men like these are by far more dangerous to mankind than the bandits themselves.”
“What did the man do, how did he help the bandit to make his getaway?” I asked. “Bandits are big and clever enough to help themselves.”
“This is a different case,” the man said. “It happened this way, you see. At the hacienda that was robbed a young bandit was shot in the leg, maybe he got two shots. He bled profusely, but his friends got him away, and they reached this village. Someone had seen them carry the wounded man on horseback. Where they took him, nobody knows. Then they got hold of a doctor, not a real one, you know, but as you know, señor, one who can do just as well. Now you see, yesterday morning the man, actually a mere boy, was well enough to ride away. The bandits were seen by peasants working in the bush, but the doctor who cured the boy was not with them. They would not have gotten away. The soldiers would have found the boy and then found out who he was, to what family he belonged, and so they would have caught the whole gang.”
“Highly interesting,” I said. “And now it seems there isn’t much hope to catch them?”
“Very little. Since they know that the wounded boy escaped, they are only looking for the doctor who cured him and helped him get away. The officers say that the doctor lives in this village. They have surrounded the whole place so now he cannot get out. They are searching all the houses and as soon as they find the medicine they will know right away who he is. Then they will shoot him on the spot.”
“That serves him right,” I said. “No decent person should ever help a bandolero.”
“You have medicine at your house, too, haven’t you?” my neighbor asked.
“Yes, a little for emergency cases. As we call it, First Aid.”
At that very moment one officer accompanied by three soldiers came out of the house opposite from where we stood and where they had searched for medicine. I had no liking for being searched and questioned by police, so I walked on, but the neighbor said: “Stay quietly where you are, señor, they won’t do anything to us.”
I also thought it best to stand still as the officer with his men approached me. Since I was completely innocent, never having attended wounded bandits, never having helped bandits to get away, I had no reason to feel embarrassed.
“Which of the huts over there is yours, señor?” the officer in charge asked.
“That one there, yes, that bungalow back there,” I said.
“Have you got any medicine in your jacal?” he asked.
“Yes, a little.”
“What kind?”
“A half-empty tube of mentholatum for colds, señor.”
“Can you cure shotgun wounds?”
“Has one of your men been shot?” I asked sympathetically.
“Yes,” said the officer.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, “but when I see blood I faint right away. It makes me awfully sick.”
“That’s exactly what you look like. You gringos, all of you, don’t have the healthy strong nerves we have got. We can see blood and plenty of it. Of course no offense meant. Excuse us for bothering you. We’re on duty here, you know. Adiós.” He shook hands with me.
My neighbor followed the officer into another hut.
While I was standing there contemplating whether to disappear or remain where I was, a boy ran toward me, shouting before he even reached me: “Mire, señor, here is the medicine I brought from town. The señor said everything is paid already.”
I took the package and put it into my pocket.
As soon as my corn was harvested and sold, I thought it wise to leave the neighborhood without waiting for any other thing to happen.
A few weeks later I was sitting in a train going to the capital. Railroad trips sometimes bring people together who have little in common and who under other circumstances would never speak to each other.
Two gentlemen, both natives, sat in front of me and asked whether I would like to play a game of Siete y Medio with them. I agreed. We played for beer which was served on the train and thus passed the time until we got tired of the game.
Now they wanted to talk, the kind of small-talk one indulges in on a train and, as always, the conversation very soon turned to Americans living in the Republic and, invariably, whenever a remark was dropped slightly offensive to an American, the gentlemen politely added: “You understand, señor, that was meant only in general, no intention of offending you or your compatriotas.”
Then they laughed and I also said something critical of the natives and grinning I would add that one says things like that only for the sake of conversation and that I like every one of them very much as if they were my own countrymen and that all of us have our good and bad sides regardless of what nation we are citizens of.
“And right you are, mister,” said one of the two. “We’ve got many Norte-Americanos down here who cause lots of mischief in our country.”
“That I know, señor, there are for instance the big oil magnates, and the mining companies, and the chicle and fruit companies and the big bankers who would like nothing better than to annex one Latin-American country after another.”
“Yes, of course, those too,” he said, “but fact is I did not think of that sort right now. I was thinking of another sort of gringos. Oh, excuse me, please, what I meant to say is that it seems to me that all the bums and gangsters, gamblers and drug peddlers and hoodlums for whom it gets too hot up there in the States come down here and try their nasty tricks on our honest people here.”
“Yes, there are that kind, too,” I admitted, “and they believe they are safe down here.”
“Not with me,” said the little fat gentleman, “no, not with me. With me they don’t get very far. In my district these godforsaken hoodlums don’t exist. They simply cannot stay alive. I am on their trail immediately. And when I catch them I give them plenty. And when I say plenty I mean plenty. They get deported and take their rap at home.”
“Seems you are an Attorney General?” I asked to please him.
“Not yet, but some day maybe, who knows? No, right now I’m only Chief of the Rural Police in the district of San Vicente Lagardilla. Do you know that district, señor? Ever been there?”
“Who? Me? Never in my life,” I said truthfully. One must always tell the truth to a Chief of Police, a Judge or a District Attorney. Only then and then only can one pass life pleasantly and happily. I got somehow suspicious of these two gentlemen because San Vicente Lagardilla happened to be the very district where I had rented and worked a small cotton farm and where I had been living in a shaky bungalow in a village among people, all of whom, without exception, looked innocent like freshly washed angels decorating a saint’s picture.
The Chief of course knew immediately that I had never been even near that neighborhood. That’s why he felt that he could talk freely to me.
“There, in my district, a fair amount of Norte-Americanos are living, some are shopkeepers, some cotton-planters, others farmers and cattle-raisers. They are decent and honest people who pay their taxes punctually and live strictly by the law. None of them causes me ever any trouble. People with education, industrious, money-saving, progressive. People we are proud of, señor; countrymen of yours toward whom I feel a deep respect and we would welcome them becoming citizens, you know.”
“Yes, I’ve met many such fine people from home. Too bad that they didn’t stay home,” I said with profound conviction.
The Chief seemed not to care much about my opinion; he wanted to talk and so I let him continue. The greatest pleasure one can give people is to let them talk all they want. One is respected much more if one lets people talk instead of talking himself. No one has the least interest in hearing somebody else’s opinion. So he continued to tell about a poor fellow who as it seemed had lived in his district and had given him a lot of headaches. He swore that said fellow was wanted for murder, theft, rape, forgery, smuggling of narcotics, selling worthless shares of a gold mine, and a few other felonies.
“I never knew how he managed to come to my district or what he actually did there. He pretended to farm or search for oil, but in reality he was sort of a tramp who scarcely had rags on his back. He never paid for the lease of his farm or the rent for the elegant house in which he lived.”
“Maybe the poor chap had no money,” I replied.
“Perhaps you are right there and I don’t hold that against him. Dios mío, any good man may have bad luck. But what irked me ferociously was what he did in my district. He was a quack. Not that I would have asked him for his license even if he operated on people’s bellies, but what I hated most was that he cured all the bandoleros we shot and that made me really mad. Without him we would’ve shot them all to pieces. But through his activities we never could get a single one of those monsters. He protected them, all of them. He knew every single jacal where they lived and hid out. Worse thing was he not only cured them but he supplied them with a sort of magic potion which made them nearly invisible so that they succeeded in all their attacks. He worked with radio transmitters and light signals, so that these outlaws knew many hours before when the soldiers would arrive at the village. And what money this man earned! The heaps of pesos that the bandoleros brought to his bungalow. That man earned ten times as much as I do being Chief of Police. On top of all that he taught all of them English so that they could attack and rob the American farmers in their own language, his own countrymen. Madre mía, how I chased that man! Four times I was there with a whole company of soldiers to catch him. You being intelligent can imagine how much money all that has cost our government. You see, we can’t do anything without money. Everything costs money and a Chief of Police has to live, too. He cannot work for peanuts just out of love for his profession. I received many reproaches from the government and several times I was threatened with dismissal if I would not bring law and order into my district. I reported everything in a sixty-page typewritten report. Now the government finally realizes that I did all that was humanly possible and now they know very well that if those goddamn lawbreakers have a smart gringo backing them what can I with only one company of soldiers at my command do against bandoleros? You’re telling me, mister.”
“Didn’t you ever catch that gringo?”
“Never, no, never. He was so sly, so goddamn cunning we never could even lay an eye on him. Besides, being the doctor of the bandoleros, how could we get anywhere? They protected him because they needed him so very badly. The government knows all that by now. Some day they will get him. We’ve notified all the police departments in the Republic. Only trouble is we haven’t got a picture of him.”
“How much will he get, once he’s caught?”
“Oh, he will either be shot or sent up for thirty years to the Islas Marías.”
“Doesn’t that gorilla live in your district anymore?” broke in the other gentleman.
“No, he left one night. We had made it so terribly hot for him that he at last simply had to take to his heels. And believe you me, señor, since he’s gone, we’ve had no more attacks by bandoleros. The village is peaceful and quiet as it hasn’t been for many years. So you will see how one man low as only a gringo can be—oh, excuse me, mister, please—may corrupt a whole district populated by law-abiding citizens and good Catholics besides.”
When we arrived at San Juan del Rio, two deputies whom the Chief knew entered the train and right away they began a lengthy conversation with the other two gentlemen, now and then shooting a kind of investigating suspicious glance at me as if they had seen me before somewhere. So I thought it would be better for me to take advantage of their being engaged in lively conversation.
Knowing the ways and tricks of members of the police force, especially the plain-clothed ones, I got off the train as unnoticed as possible at the last stop before it reached the Central Station of the capital, and for convenience’ sake boarded a city-bound streetcar.
After all, how was I to know that my pupils wanted to learn English for no other reason than that they could make the cattle of American farmers obey and follow them in a language which the cows understood? And all I got out of my doctoring bandits was a jar of honey, two dozen eggs, a few pounds of beef and three pesos which I did not accept. This certainly was no just equivalent for a possible thirty-year stretch on the Islas Marías.