3

Pace drove on Highway 230 out of Matamoros to Monterrey and across the mountains to Saltillo, in the state of Coahuila. He had read about this part of the country, how in the middle of the 19th century, when the Austrian emperor Maximilian ruled Mexico, there had been a strong secessionist movement that resulted in battles between the insurrectionists and federal troops. It was during this period that the government of Coahuila granted sanctuary to the Black Seminoles, an integrated tribe from the United States comprised of Seminole Indians from Florida, breakaway Southern Creeks, who had fled relocation camps in Oklahoma, and fugitive slaves mostly from Texas. These people were called Mascogos by the Mexicans; they were unique in that they mixed freely and banded together against both slavehunters and the U.S. government. The Black Seminoles were allowed to settle in Coahuila in return for their help protecting villages along the U.S.-Mexico border from raiding Comanches and Apaches. The Mascogos became farmers and staunch supporters of the insurrectionists opposing Maximilian’s army.

Pace stopped at the Hotel Río Salado, got a room, cleaned himself up a little, then went downstairs to the dining room. Only one other person was there, a tall, ruggedly handsome, broad-shouldered man in his forties, sitting at a table sipping through a straw what appeared to be fruit punch. As soon as this man saw Pace about to seat himself at another table, he stood up, motioned with a raised hand, and said, “Señor, if you would be so kind to join me.”

Pace walked over and introduced himself, and the man said, “I am Aurelio Audaz.”

They shook hands and sat down.

“As we are the only customers,” said Aurelio Audaz, “I thought it could be agreeable to keep each other company.”

“Por qué no?”

“Ah, you speak Spanish.”

“Very little, I’m afraid. But your English is excellent.”

“My mother was from San Francisco, California. At home we spoke English and Spanish interchangeably. May I ask what brings you to Saltillo?”

“I’m meandering toward Mexico City. I’m a tourist, never been to Mexico before. I live in North Carolina, though I grew up in New Orleans. And you?”

“I live in Coycacán, near Mexico City. I am here in Coahuila to hunt jaguars.”

“Do the local cattle ranchers pay you for this service?”

“No, I do so for my own pleasure. I hunt exclusively with bow and arrow. Wild animals don’t carry guns, so neither do I.”

“They don’t use bow and arrows, either.”

“True, but the big cats are far more powerful and agile than human beings, and have large jaws with very sharp teeth that can crunch your bones, also razor-like claws that with a single swipe will remove a man’s face.”

“At least you’re not going at it hand to paw.”

“Not yet. I lie still and wait for the beast to come to me. It takes great patience.”

A waiter came to their table. Pace ordered an Indio and accepted a menu from him. He went away.

“And when you are not tracking and lying in wait for jaguars, Señor Audaz?”

“I teach economics at a university in Mexico City. Hunting provides an agreeable contrast.”

The waiter returned with Pace’s beer.

“The mole here is excellent,” said Aurelio Audaz. “I recommend it. They make it with chocolate.”

“Mole, then,” Pace told the waiter.

“Lo mismo para mí.”

The waiter nodded and left.

“I’ve done some reading about the Black Seminoles,” said Pace, “called Mascogos, who used to live in Coahuila. It’s quite an interesting history.”

“I know it. Their community was in Nacimiento. I encountered a descendant of the Mascogos once, twenty years ago in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental. He was an old man, perhaps your age, but still sturdy. I was twenty-five. He challenged me to a knife fight.”

“Why?”

Audaz shrugged his shoulders. “Quién sabe? Who knows? He was alone, as was I. Perhaps he was deranged, a mountain hermit. His clothes were torn, even his sombrero. He was dressed like a vaquero, but he had no horse. His skin was black yet his eyes were blue. You know there were whites among the Mascogos? They were not only Negro or Indian.”

“William Powell was one,” Pace said. “He was part white, one of their leaders from Florida. He renamed himself Osceola and led his tribe into the Everglades, where they took refuge.”

“I would like to have met Osceola, the Seminole chief. He must have been a great warrior. He never surrendered to the United States government.”

“That’s right. The Seminoles refused to sign a treaty. Osceola was bayoneted to death at Fort Moultrie, in South Carolina. A doctor there decapitated the body and took Osceola’s head to New York. It was destroyed in a fire.”

“What a terrible indignity,” said Aurelio Audaz.

The waiter arrived with two servings of mole.

“Mole was invented in Puebla,” Audaz said. “Now you can get it almost anywhere in Mexico, but if you stop in Puebla, have it. They do it right.”

Pace finished his beer and signaled to the waiter for another.

“Would you like a beer?” Pace asked Aurelio.

“No, gracias. I don’t drink alcohol.”

“You’ll live longer.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. The most popular way for drunks to die is while driving.”

“I’m sure it’s best not to drink when hunting a jaguar.”

“Fuera de duda, beyond any doubt. Unless, of course, the jaguar also has been drinking.”

After they had finished eating, Pace suddenly felt weary.

“I’m sorry, Aurelio, but I must excuse myself now. I need to sleep. I’m an old man and driving a great distance tires me out.”

Audaz stood up and extended his right hand.

“Of course, Señor Ripley. I leave before dawn tomorrow, so I’ll say buen viaje to you now.”

Pace shook his hand and said, “Good hunting to you, my friend. Don’t let a big cat get his claws too close to your face. It’s a good one.”

“Muchas gracias. If it should happen, we would never meet again, and that would also be, if not a tragedy, a disappointment.”

Pace turned to go, but then remembered Aurelio’s story about his meeting the man in the mountains, and turned back.

“Tell me, Aurelio, what happened with you and the old Mascogo? Did you fight him?”

Audaz grinned and shook his head.

“No, he pulled out his knife, a very long, dark blade, stained from many years of use, from animal and perhaps men’s blood, with uneven chips on the edge. I told him I was sure he had conquered many men braver than I, that I would be an insufficient test of his prowess. He stared hard at me for a long time, and at the moment when I became convinced he was going to lunge at me, seeing that he held his dagger with the cutting edge inward, so that his strokes be directed upward, as experienced knife fighters do, he returned his weapon to his belt and walked away.”

“Good for you.” said Pace.

“Sí,” said Audaz, “but even better for him.”

Pace slept well that night. A long-tailed animal with a tawny body and a black face appeared in a dream. When he woke up in the morning, Pace could not remember if it was a jaguar or not, only that it seemed to be pursuing a naked woman who was laughing as they both ran into darkness.