El Coyote, the Rebel Page 6

  After that dramatic incident I was never able to force myself to have faith in cast or painted images. I was very much disappointed in saints in general because they let me roll down the hill like an unprotected log. I even felt that El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús was pushing me along.

  Something very interesting happened which broke the monotony of the long march to Cananea. Early one morning, while we were resting near a railroad station in a town named Sacualco, my uncle heard that an American railroad company was going to build a new roundhouse. After hearing this news, he went to the railroad office and arranged to get a job for himself and free transportation for his family to the place where the company had its proposed project.

  Finally, after a long wait in Sacualco, a freight train came along and we boarded it. We were so happy and so excited over the prospect of our train ride that half of the time we were not aware of what we were doing.

  In the excitement of boarding a flat coal gondola, I forgot my bandanna with the broken Sagrado Corazón de Jesús. When my aunt discovered that I had left my bundle under the water tank, she gave me ten well-aimed lashes on my seat with the coarse rawhide belt, saying, “Luis, this will teach you to take better care of the blessed saints.”

  We traveled on the gondola for three days and two nights before reaching Colima, a Mexican seaport, whence we soon embarked on an old ship to sail north to Guaymas, Sonora, where my uncle was to be employed.

  The last twenty kilometers of our train ride were the most impressive to me. The reason was that, after we had passed the last one of three long railroad tunnels, my aunt discovered that my face was black with soot. This annoyed her, and so immediately she proceeded to punish me for being dirty and careless. When she was whipping me I said, “Aunt, your face is just as black as mine, perhaps blacker.’’

  Again she took hold of the rawhide belt and let me have three more lashes across my legs, saying, “This will remind you not to be so disrespectful and impertinent to your elders.”

  To me, the sea voyage was the worst experience of the entire trip.

  The vessel on which we sailed, known as El Terror del Pacífico, was an obsolete battleship which had been converted into a privately owned freighter. The smell of stale fish, together with the odor of fried salt pork, and the slashing of the waves against the rocking old vessel made me very nauseated. I became so sick that I wished right then and there to die and never to see water again.

  At last the swaying ship arrived at Guaymas, but the mining town of our destination was still quite a distance away.

  After three monotonous months of hard work in Guaymas as one of the laborers of the construction gang, my uncle honorably earned for us from the American railroad company third-class passes to Cananea, the town of our dreams!

  It took four days and a half to make the last lap of our trip, which was uneventful, but quite pleasant to me.

  6

  Cananea at last! From the distance the mining town looked unusual and picturesque. The houses seemed almost to be suspended from the air, or standing on stilts by the side of the rocky hills. The mountains looked green and fresh, and occasionally one could see across the distant high Sierras a dark gulch that might have been an old sunken tunnel. Some of the near-by hills were dotted with the mouths of small tunnels about which could be seen dumps of multi-colored dirt and boulders. Here and there one was able to distinguish the battered towers of old mining shafts. Both the ore cart and the regular railroad tracks wound from hill to hill, crossing muddy roads and narrow paths which led to the large ore smelters. It was a beautiful picture, and I was fascinated with the town.

  A week after our arrival in Cananea we found ourselves building a shack in which to live. We constructed our living quarters out of lumber scraps from the mines and castaway five-gallon tin cans. We also made our furniture out of old boxes and crates, which we collected from the company’s commissary. There was plenty of food and we had an excellent start in our new location. My uncle was getting good pay for his work in the ore mines.

  In Cananea I had many little jobs to perform. Every morning I had to get up about five o’clock to go to the bakery to get bread and milk for breakfast. Of all my jobs this one I liked the best because many times the bakers would give me bits of somewhat burned or imperfect pastries. Often they would tease me by saying “Muchacho, would you like to have this burned loaf of bread?”

  “Yes, señor, please.”

  “But, muchacho, it is burned.”

  “I like burned foods of all kinds, señor,” I would say to them, as I quickly took the offerings from their hands.

  On my way home I would eat my burned, or otherwise damaged, pastry, and often to help it along I would take a sip or two of milk. Frequently I would over-sip the milk, and when I would reach home my aunt would ask, “Luis! You drank some of the milk, didn’t you?”

  “Well, ye-ye-ye—”

  “Come on! Come on! Don’t stall,” she would shout.

  “Yes, Aunt, I took a very little sip to see if the milk was fresh.”

  She would get hold of the rawhide belt and say, “This will teach you to mind your own business. It is up to me to know whether the milk is sour or fresh,” and she would let me have three or four whacks across my back for sipping the milk.

  In spite of the fact that there was enough food at home, I was always hungry, and quite often went to the pantry and stole something to eat.

  One day my aunt was going to have company for chicken dinner. When she was out of the kitchen, I happened to see one of the chicken legs floating in the broth. I carefully took hold of the drumstick and went out of the house to a hiding place to enjoy my feast. After I had finished eating my bit of fowl, I knew that my aunt would discover my daring and punish me, and so I thought of a scheme to protect my rump. I placed a piece of cardboard between the seat of my pants and my skin. When the time came for my aunt to serve dinner, she found that the boiled chicken had only one leg. Immediately she shouted, “Luis! Where is the other chicken leg?”

  “What chicken leg, Aunt?”

  “Don’t act so innocent. You know what chicken leg I mean. What happened to it?”

  “I do not know, Aunt. I haven’t seen it. I do not know what happened to it,” I answered.

  “Oh, yes you do!” she screamed. “You ate it, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  As usual, she was ready to strike me with the rawhide, and so when she asked me the last question, I replied, “Yes, Aunt, I ate la patita de la gallina.” As soon as I said “yes, Aunt,” she lashed me with the belt. This time the whipping was not so bad, but I had to cry and scream to keep from giving my device away. Thank God that she never found out my system because after that I used it frequently with marked success.

  Another of my tasks was to go every day to the forest and bring home on my back a gunny sack of wood for the stove. And when I did not go after wood, I had to forage along the railroad tracks to pick pieces of hard coal for the front room base-burner. My greatest trouble in performing these jobs in Cananea was that I did not have enough warm clothes, or decent shoes to wear. In the winter time it used to be very cold, and often, while on my way to the mountains, I would stop at the city dumps to pick up old shoes to protect my feet.

  One Sunday morning my uncle called me into the house and said, “Luis, today our neighbor, Don Pedro, is having a little gathering to celebrate his seventh wedding anniversary, and we are invited. While you are at the party, I want you to act like a gentleman and enjoy yourself. Also, while you are here, I must tell you that your aunt and I have decided to send you to the parochial school. We hope to speak to Father Montoya about you either today after mass, or tomorrow when your aunt will take you to confession. We want you to study hard and get book learning. You must also keep on performing the duties that you now have at home.”

  “Yes, Uncle, I will do all that I can,” I replied as we began making preparations to go to mass.

  When we were back home, my aunt regretted v
ery much not to have been able to speak to Father Montoya about my education. And while commenting on how well the priest looked in the pulpit preaching the sermon, she said to me, “Luis, I want you to be nice to the padres and the dear sisters; they are such good, saintly people. I am praying to the Lord day and night that you may become a priest some day.”

  “Yes, Aunt, I too hope to become a priest, in order that I may have the right to pray for your soul, and ask God to forgive you for all the times you have beaten me,” I meekly answered.

  To that she did not have much to say, but her face turned as red as a bullfighter’s shirt. Then turning to my uncle, she said, “Come on, Miguel, let us get ready and go to the party. Tomorrow we shall see about Luis’ schooling.”

  Late that afternoon, after everything was ready, we went to the party, and all that I can remember of that celebration is that there were many pretty señoritas, plenty of beer, several cases of Mexican and imported liquors, and a large assortment of cigars, cigarettes, and candy. The best part of the fiesta was that young and old could drink and smoke to their heart’s content. Everything was free, and that being the case, I had my share.

  I started by drinking a small glass of cognac, followed with a little beer. After that I took a glass of white wine, chased with more cognac and beer. Then I smoked a perfumed cigarette and ate candy. Next I drank a glass of tequila, after which it was necessary for me to hurry to the privy to dispose of all my mixed drinks and from there to bed.

  By nine o’clock that night I was still dreadfully sick and that over-glorious fiesta cured me of drinking and smoking for all time.

  Since I had a hangover the following day, my aunt could not take me to the church to see Father Montoya. I had to remain in bed for three days and wait until the next Monday to enter school.

  When the following Monday came, I found myself shut in a rather dark schoolroom with many little boys and an old nun. My work in the convent consisted of praying, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Three times a day the classes from all the departments were taken to the main chapel to pray to some saint for the redemption of a lost soul or for the salvation of some naughty pupil. I was so undernourished that every time I knelt to pray, I fell asleep saying my Hail Mary’s and the Lord’s Prayer. As far as I knew, I was doing quite well in my school work, but at the end of my first week, an old, bald-headed padre handed me a sealed envelope and told me to take it to my family. I did so, and soon found that it was my report card for the first week in school. My uncle opened the envelope and looked at the card, but it did not mean anything to him as he did not know how to read. The shock came when a man who was staying with us read the report aloud; then we found that it was a very poor one. As soon as my relatives heard the bad news, they both became enraged and proceeded to punish me for being so stupid. Right after my uncle had finished whipping me, he said to the man who read the card and to my aunt, “I’m going to take him out of school—él no sirve para nada.” So right then and there my school career ended, and after that I had more work to do at home.

  In the latter part of 1913 my uncle bought two donkeys. My duties then were to go to the forest with the burros and bring two loads of wood for commercial purposes. That was more than I could do alone, and an older boy, who knew my troubles, advised me to leave my family.

  One day while we were cutting wood he remarked, “Luis, why in the hell don’t you run away from home?”

  “Run away from home?” I asked.

  “Of course!”

  “Why?”

  “Because your folks don’t treat you right. You should not be beaten by your uncle’s wife—she is not your real aunt, anyway. She is mean—she is cruel. She is not human! Look at your ear; she almost sliced it off with the whip. It is bleeding!”

  “Yes, I know,” I replied, touching my wounded ear, “but I don’t think I should run away. I like my folks. It is true that they whip me, but don’t all parents beat their children?”

  “Certainly not! Anyway, don’t be a fool. You haven’t got anything to lose—you got everything to gain. You’ve a future ahead of you, and someday you will thank me for this. Listen to me, don’t you want to grow to be a strong and independent hombre?”

  “Yes, I do, but if I run away from home, where am I going to stay? Where am I going to get food? Who is going to take care of me?”

  “That’s right!” he mumbled to himself, running his thumb across the edge of his ax. “Where are you going to stay, and who is going to take care of you?”

  “It is very easy for you to tell me to run away from my good home, but you cannot tell me where I can find a place to live,” I replied to his mumbling.

  After a short pause he said, “I know. You can stay at my father’s ranch, and you may be able to work there for your food. My old man is a good sport. He won’t mind if you come to live there. He needs someone to stay in the camp during the day while he and the other men are in the forest cutting wood. Tonight when you get home unload the burros and feed them, as usual; then sneak out to the sunken well, where I will be waiting to take you to the ranch. Don’t fail me.”

  I followed his advice, and about eight o’clock that evening I was riding with my friend to his father’s ranch to work as a camp keeper.

  My duties as camp keeper were to help feed the horses and mules, to stay in the camp when the workers were away, and to help the owner or his son to distribute rations to the workers. These tasks went on in the same manner for six months. Then a team driver’s helper became very ill and I was asked to take his place. His duties were to hitch the horses, load a long four-wheel wagon with oak and pine logs, and control the brakes on the way to market.

  My first experience as brakeman proved to be a sad one. Since I was not accustomed to hanging by the side of the wagon while it was in motion, I had a lot of trouble with the brake ropes. The roads were rough, the horses very slow, and the wagon was old and dilapidated. After a great deal of effort the driver, whose name was Antonio, and I finally reached the main highway with our load of wood, and as we were rolling along he said, “Luis, be very careful with the brakes. That hill over there is a mean one,” pointing to one ahead of us. “Always keep your brake ropes as tight as you can when going downhill; otherwise the cart might get away from us.”

  “I will be careful,” was my answer, as the horses slowly pulled the wagon to the top of the elevation.

  When we started descending the incline, the wobbly wheels squeaked and crackled, and the driver shouted at the top of his voice, “Put on the brakes! Pull! Hold on to them!”

  I groaned, sweated, and struggled with the brake ropes until we reached level ground, and with a sigh of relief I said, “I hope that is the last hill on our way.”

  “Yes, that is the last one,” he answered, and we continued traveling.

  As we arrived near the outskirts of the town, I saw what appeared to be a battalion of soldiers marching toward us. Antonio, who knew more than I did about the political conditions of the country at that time, had told me that General Venustiano Carranza had been elected president of Mexico, and that everywhere bands of rebels were organizing to help him to overthrow the old regime. When we came nearer to the soldiers, whose uniforms were dirty and ragged, Antonio asked, “Luis, do you see those men coming over there?”

  “Yes, who are they?”

  “They are rebels of the worst sort. They are horse thieves, and have no mercy. They insult women, kill innocent children, and hang men!” he replied, excitedly.

  He had hardly finished telling me that they were bandits when we came up to the crowd. Some of the soldiers wore soiled cotton caps, while others wore rusty straw sombreros. The greater part of them wore guaraches, although there were a few who were barefooted. The officers used shoes and leather leggings. Their uniforms were in a better condition than the ones the common soldiers wore.

  As we approached the group I saw that one of the faces looked familiar. It was my uncle, dressed in an officer’s uniform. As he sa
w me, he ordered the team driver to stop the wagon, and tried to take me with him. I refused to go, saying that I was working and that I could not leave my job. While we were arguing, another officer, higher in rank than my uncle, came and said to him, “Señor, the Mexican army waits for no man. If you want this muchacho,” poking at my thigh with his shiny sword, “you will have to come and get him tomorrow.” Then he shouted a command and the troop continued the march, leaving me in the wagon holding the brake ropes as tight as I could, and gritting my teeth.

  “Damn it!” said the driver, “I did not know you had someone in the army.”

  “Neither did I,” was my answer, as we started driving toward our destination.

  The next day about twelve o’clock, my uncle appeared, with four fat and well-armed rebels under his command, at the door of the place where I was staying. He asked for me, and as soon as I came to the door he demanded an explanation of my running away from home. When I refused to answer, he commanded one of the rebels to arrest me. Once under arrest, I was placed between the four soldiers; then my uncle ordered them to march me through town to the cuartel. Some of the people who saw me marching between the four rebels as if I were a criminal felt sorry for me. Others, who thought it was a joke, laughed and remarked, “Look! Look! That little fellow could not be a big criminal, could he?”

  “Why don’t you get a wet nurse for him?” shouted someone in the crowd.

  Thus I was taken to the cuartel for safekeeping, and my uncle ordered my escort to place me under careful watch while I was there.