Rawness of a recent piece of 1960’s Jalisco history prompted both surprise and shock in some readers. They view Jalisco history as something more benign than that report. Understandable: To many the 1960s seem both a while ago, yet not enough to “make it so brutally different.” Yet it was an era when most of the population here was overwhelmingly not merely Mexican, but campesino Mexican. Much of the center of Ajijic, for instance, had corn fields trimming the sides of “streets,” many of them not cobbled. Most buildings were adobe. Most females went barefoot. Men wore sombreros, considered goras – English speakers’ “baseball caps” – inadequate against the sun. There were few cars, many horses, not a few sheep, pigs, chickens in the streets.
Regarding weapons: Firearm stores crowded Guadalajara’s Calzada Independencia, then considered the center of the city, Yet for most rural folks, the 1926-1929 Cristero Rebellion meant that nearly every home housed well-used firearms. La Cristiada was the Jalisco-centered Catholic uprising against the brutal anti-Church administration of Plutarco Elias Calles. Calles openly waged an anti-Catholic war during his presidency, and continued it by a series of “puppet” presidents. He made clear who was in power by taking the title of “Jefe Maximo”. He was deported by one of his puppet presidents, Lazaro Cardenas, April 1936. Local Callistas quickly switched sides to maintain their domination and wealth. In the early 1960s many folks brutally treated by Callistas were still alive.
Anacleto Rosales was reared in the echo of that rebellion and its brutal aftermath – the assassinations of the initially disarmed Cristeros. Born in the hard-worn municipio of Atoyac in the early 1930s, his Cristiada family was locked in a life of wariness and thin resources. Local authorities felt the Familia Rosales had been too fierce in the fight against people whose kin tortured and executed priests, whose bodies were hung on electricity posts lining Mexico’s highways. To maintain their properties and local power when Calles was expelled from Mexico, such people declared their kin had “long ago” renounced an anti-Catholic past. Now they ostentatiously paraded into church. Few believed them. That trouble-touched life kept Cleto skinny and watchful, but swift physically and mentally, though he had only a slip of poor schooling.
There was little general doubt that it was kin of “Christ killers” who rustled livestock and destroyed crops of former Cristero families. That past kept troubling La Familia Rosales.
Cleto’s equestrian skills began as soon as he could struggle up to a saddle. In no time it seemed he was working late in the evenings for a wealthy rancher, acquiring two fine ponies, plus four milk cows for his family. He seldom got to sleep before midnight. Often he sat up-mountain, watching for rustlers.
“Maybe they’re watching me watching for them,” he told me the night I was with him.
“Pos, I’ve be up above, No sign of anybody’s been spying.” I was visiting his folks, who’d just bought a yearling calf I sold for a friend. His wife was ill. He said it was a spell by a local bruja. One heard so much about the work of brujas it made you wonder.
About a half-hour later, I thought I heard something. A wide sound. No just a couple of horses crossing downhill. “Hear that?” Cleto tilted his head, said nothing.
“The far left, a bit downhill. More than one, two animals.”
He grinned. “We got them.”
“You got your rifle?”
“Como no. You have your pistol?”
“No.”
“Chinga. Sounds like many people” He put out his hand. “Use my pistol.”
It seemed like three men pushing maybe five horses. They weren’t knowing about the terrain for a dip down into steep-banked arroyo startled them. “Now,” hissed Cleto.
The last man heard us coming and kicked his horse into a run. That animal promptly stumbled and fell, rolling over its rider. Cleto guided his mount across the rider and after the others. One of them turned to uselessly fire at him. Once riled, Cleto tended to be unfazed by people shooting at him. Most campesinos, farmers were poor shots. Town people were usually worse. His family had to deal with antagonists ever since they took sides – Zapata – in the Revolution. Each subsequent generation had cause to defend itself against unforgiving dictatorial governments. Cleto wasn’t reckless, he was carefully relentless. Common marksmanship was his ally.
I was excited first, then calmed and went for coldness. There I had the advantage of Army training. As I caught up with him, I called out, “Oye, these pendejos own the government. Shoot the horses. Not the men.” I hated saying that. He grimaced unhappily, spat dust. Always, he liked his enemy’s mounts while loathing their owners.
We both fired and brought down the closest horse. The rider jumped free, then cried out, grabbing his leg. The lead rider dodged past the stock he was driving and headed for the trees ahead, firing uselessly over his shoulder.
“Let him go.” I was afraid we would hit the rider.
“No.” Cleto pulled his bay gelding to a halt and aimed carefully. He brought down another mount. He was a fine shot with both hand gun and this World War II M-I Garand rifle someone bought at a gringo surplus store years before. Mostly, I was pleased we hadn’t hadn’t killed anyone. That would have meant trouble with thieving, splenetic authorities.
He went to the three men, each tied to a tree. When he came back, he said, “Pos, I don’t trust them, but they say they’ll blame the dead horses on thieving strangers if we don’t turn them in for rustling.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, I have the feeling it’s the kind of deal that Queta Lujera would say could hold.”
Who is Queta Lujera again?”
“Our family bruja.”
I shook my head, laughing. “ If you say so. I don’t have any idea that comes close to that.”
Damned if the bruja didn’t agree it was a “lively” deal. And damned if it didn’t stick.