We lay well up on a rising slope, chins on our crossed arms. It was Father’s Day in the United Sates that morning. But at that time in Mexico nobody paid that any attention. Fathers didn’t seem to count. “You see anything?” my companion said. A hawk soared high on still wings noting us as he scanned the mountainside. I nodded at the bird. “There’s nothing to see.”
“He is probably stripped to bones by now. Wolves, a lot of coyotes up here. That bird is looking for the last scavengers: Weasels, ferrets.”
Rosendo – ”Chendo” – Saucedo was a mountain campesino – a sharecropper. Though he was uneducated, many people knew him for the remedies he made from the mountain’s wild plants and from large rattlesnakes that made this mountainside their home.
His field-work kept him familiar with the terrain I was examining with a pair of ancient binoculars. “Nothing.” I handed him the glasses. He shook his head. “Those things break too easily.”
“How long ago did you find him?” I put the binoculars in a leather pouch slung over my shoulder.
Chendo squinted, remembering. “Five days.”
“The body was fresh?”
“Like he could be breathing. But I hadn’t heard any shots or voices. I didn’t touch it. I came back down through the deep brush, not the trail.”
We rose, checking the terrain. Then we headed up to where Chendo said the body was. We avoided the trail, carefully picking our way uphill.
Almost immediately, we ran into to a squat blocky man carrying a much-used rifle of Revolutionary vintage. This was the early 1960s. It would be years before Mexico began to crack down on firearms. In those days practically every adult male seemed to own at least a pistol, a rifle, or both.
“Hola, Paco,” Chendo said cheerfully
The squat man squinted at me, and gave Chendo’s an abrazo. “Hola, primo. You have foreigners visiting you.”
“A customer looking for a remedy for his wife.”
Paco reluctantly shook my hand. “Primo, have you heard anything about a body up here?”
“No. We are looking for the cascabels – rattlers – I use in medicine.”
Paco frowned at the boulders around us. “Here?”
“This is a place they like to stretch out and doze. It’s a good place to easily find comida. Ferrets, squirrels. Coyotes, if they’re really hungry. Pos, we are going after some snake medicine right now. Come along.”
“No. It’s time to get my mandados – errands – done.” He went watchfully downhill quite fast. “Most Mexicans don’t like snakes.” Chendo grinned.
“He’s going to get home fast.”
“You didn’t talk to your primo about this. No trust?”
“The fewer who realize what we know, the better.” Chendo was setting a good pace.
“Are things that bad here?”
“I don’t know. That body in my field changes things. Who he is? Why is he here?” Chendo shook his head. “Most of all, why did someone kill him?”
He stopped to listen to the intermittent breeze. “There’s nothing good about this.”
“You are worried. I have a friend who has a pistol you can borrow.”
“No. The police find that, and I’ll never get out of jail. The cost to bribe them all would be too dear. This municipality ..! Who knows who they’re really working for?” He carefully looked around us. “Let’s go up now.”
“You didn’t know before it was this bad?”
“Not until I saw Paco just now. He knows.” Chendo mounted the incline quickly. “He knows things we do not.”
“He wasn’t going home?”
“No.”
“And he is going come back here after we’ve gone?”
“No. Andale, let’s find out what we have to know.”
“And plan for surprises like Paco.” At this, Chendo nodded sourly. We studied what was around us. The mountain revealed no secrets. “Wait,” I said softly, and detoured into a slice of brush. Chendo frowned, began to say something. I shook my head.
Far above we heard two faint voices. Slowly they disappeared. “All right. Quickly. They’ll be back.” With long strides, we went directly uphill.
The body was well torn apart. “Wolves, coyotes, foxes.” Chendo’s machete poked the remains. “Everything.” I knelt over a chewed piece of pant leg and bone, and a small torn piece of paper. I gave it to him.
“I’ve heard of this family. Guadalajara I think.” I dug with my machete. Three cartridges covered with earth. Forty-fives. One was unfired. “They meant business.” Roughly, I nudged his shoulder, heading for some storm-wrecked forestry.
“Paco!” Chendo said as we knelt out of sight. I held up one finger. “He’s dangerous?” I whispered.
“It is hard to believe he is into something so serious.”
“Drugs?”
“We all use mota for medicine. My medicines use it. Slight amounts police do not note.”
“But large amounts sold to foreigners?”
“Large amounts of drugs and money make trouble.”
“He knows you know all this now.”
Chendo swore artfully. “I have to talk to him.”
“If it’s this much money.” I fingered the bloody paper. “What can you say?”
"Our entire family. His wife and kids.”
Quickly, we gathered more information. Then disappeared into the brush nearby.
When Paco reappeared he was alone, moving with efficient care. “He puts everyone in danger for a bit of greed,” Chendo whispered faintly as Paco neared.
Stealthily, Chendo stepped forward and hit his primo with side of his machete. Paco dropped as if shot through the brain. Chendo swiftly tied him to a spiny huizache tree.
“Betrayer, traitor, idiota, pedejo.” Those some of the names my enraged friend called Paco as he regained consciousness. Pulling a hefty knife from his waist scabbard. “I’m going castrate you, and if you scream I’ll slit your throat. We’ll see how brave a butcherer you are.”
Paco’s eyes were wide and fearful. His mouth moved silently. The knife pressed against the left artery of his neck.
Some city people had persuaded him to join in selling large amounts of mota in Guadalajara and other cities. He was tired of making a hard living from a campesino’s work. But he didn’t kill anyone, he swore. He didn’t have the agallas.
“Ohhhh.” Chendo, who had taken Paco’s worn Colt .45, a switchblade knife and his wallet, said in a pitying voice, “un vago pobrecito.
“You will tell the family of your brilliant plan. That will be end of it, but we will watch you. This (he put pressure on the knife) waits for you, cabron. Do you understand? Speak clearly. No whining!”
Later, I mentioned that it was father’s day.
Chendo grunted “Well then, Paco has two presents: He’s still alive, and he learned an important lesson.”