temptations of the devil and man's obligation to God--all those things men begin to think about when there is little time left. And from the beginning Ofelio saw that they were laughing at him. Serious faces straining to hold back smiles.
Pseudosincere questions that were only to lead him on. So after the first few times he stopped telling them what occurred to him in the loneliness of the night and would tell them whatever entered his mind, though much of it was still fact. Billy-Jack Trew listened, and in a way he understood the old man. He knew that legends were part of a Mexican peon's life. He knew that Ofelio had been a vaquero for something like fifty years, with lots of lonesome time for imagining things. Anything the old man said was good listening, and a lot of it made sense after you thought about it awhile- so Billy-Jack Trew didn't laugh.
With a cigar stub clamped in the corner of his mouth, Spainhower's puffy face was dead serious looking at the old man. 'Ofelio,' he said, 'this morning there was a mist ring over the gate. Now, I heard what that meant, so I kept my eyes open and sure'n hell here come a gang of elves through the gate dancin' and carryin' on. They marched right in here and hauled themselves up on that table.'
Val Dodson said dryly, 'Now, that's funny, just this morning coming down from Tularosa me and Billy-Jack looked up to see this be-ootiful she-devil running like hell for a cholla clump.' He paused, glancing at Ofelio. 'Billy- Jack took one look and was half out his saddle when I grabbed him.'
Billy-Jack Trew shook his head. 'Ofelio, don't mind that talk.'
The old man smiled, saying nothing.
'You seen any more devils?' Spainhower asked him.
Ofelio hesitated, then nodded, saying, 'Yes, I saw two devils this morning. Just at dawn.'
Spainhower said, 'What'd they look like?'
'I know,' Val Dodson said quickly.
'Aw, Val,' Billy-Jack said. 'Leave him alone.'
He glanced at Ofelio, who was looking at Dodson intently, as if afraid of what he would say next.
'I'll bet,' Dodson went on, 'they had horns and hairy forked tails like that one me and Billy-Jack saw out on the sands.' Spainhower laughed, then Dodson winked at him and laughed too.
Billy-Jack Trew was watching Ofelio and he saw the tense expression on the old man's face relax. He saw the half-frightened look change to a smile of relief, and Billy-Jack was thinking that maybe a man ought to listen even a little closer to what Ofelio said. Like maybe there were double meanings to the things he said.
'Listen,' Ofelio said, 'I will tell you something else I have seen. A sight few men have ever witnessed.' Ofelio was thinking: All right, give them something for their minds to work on. 'What I saw is a very hideous thing to behold, more frightening than elves, more terrible than devils.' He paused, then said quietly, 'What I saw was a nagual. '
He waited, certain they had never heard of this, for it was an old Mexican legend. Spainhower was smiling, but half-squinting curiosity was in his eyes. Dodson was watching, waiting for him to go on. Still Ofelio hesitated and finally Spainhower said, 'And what's a nagual supposed to be?'
'A nagual, ' Ofelio explained carefully, 'is a man with strange powers. A man who is able to transform himself into a certain animal.'
Spainhower said, too quickly, 'What kind of an animal?'
'That,' Ofelio answered, 'depends upon the man. The animal is usually of his choice.'
Spainhower's brow was deep furrowed. 'What's so terrible about that?'
Ofelio's face was serious. 'One can see you have never beheld a nagual. Tell me, what is more hideous, what is more terrible, than a man--who is made in God's image--becoming an animal?'
There was silence. Then Val Dodson said, 'Aw--'
Spainhower didn't know what to say; he felt disappointed, cheated. And into this silence came the faint rumbling sound. Billy-Jack Trew said, 'Here she comes.' They stood up, moving for the door, and soon the rumble was higher pitched--creaking, screeching, rattling, pounding--and the Butterfield stage was swinging into the yard. Spainhower and Dodson and Billy-Jack Trew went outside, Ofelio and his nagual forgotten. No one had ever seen John Stam smile. Some, smiling themselves, said Marion must have at least once or twice, but most doubted even this. John Stam worked hard, twelve to sixteen hours a day, plus keeping a close eye on some business interests he had in Mesilla, and had been doing it since he'd first visually staked off his range six years before. No one asked where he came from and John Stam didn't volunteer any answers.
Billy-Jack Trew said Stam looked to him like a red-dirt farmer with no business in cattle, but that was once Billy-Jack was wrong and he admitted it himself later. John Stam appeared one day with a crow-bait horse and twelve mavericks including a bull. Now, six years later, he had himself way over a thousand head and a jinete to break him all the horses he could ride.
Off the range, though, he let Ofelio Oso drive him wherever he went. Some said he felt sorry for Ofelio because the old Mexican had been a good hand in his day. Others said Marion put him up to it so she wouldn't have Ofelio hanging around the place all the time. There was always some talk about Marion, especially now with the cut-down crew up at the summer range, John Stam gone to tend his business about once a week, and only Ofelio and Joe Slidell there. Joe Slidell wasn't a badlooking man. The first five years John Stam allowed himself only two pleasures: he drank whiskey, though no one had ever seen him drinking it, only buying it; and every Sunday afternoon he'd ride to Mesilla for dinner at the hotel. He would always order the same thing, chicken, and always sit at the same table. He had been doing this for some time when Marion started waiting tables there. Two years later, John Stam asked her to marry him as she was setting down his dessert and Marion said yes then and there. Some claimed the only thing he'd said to her before that was bring me the ketchup. Spainhower said it looked to him like Stam was from a line of hardheaded Dutchmen. Probably his dad had made him work like a mule and never told him about women, Spainhower said, so John Stam never knew what it was like not to work and the first woman he looked up long enough to notice, he married. About everybody agreed Spainhower had something.
They were almost to the ranch before John Stam spoke. He had nodded to the men in the station yard, but gotten right up on the wagon seat. Spainhower asked him if he cared for a drink, but he shook his head. When they were in view of the ranch house--John Stam's leathery mask of a face looking straight ahead down the slope--he said, 'Mrs. Stam is in the house?'
'I think so,' Ofelio said, looking at him quickly, then back to the rumps of the mules.
'All morning?'
'I was not here all morning.' Ofelio waited, but John Stam said no more. This was the first time Ofelio had been questioned about Mrs. Stam. Perhaps he overheard talk in Mesilla, he thought.
In the yard John Stam climbed off the wagon and went into the house. Ofelio headed the team for the barn and stopped before the wide door to unhitch. The yard was quiet; he glanced at the house, which seemed deserted, though he knew John Stam was inside. Suddenly Mrs. Stam's voice was coming from the house, high pitched, excited, the words not clear. The sound stopped abruptly and it was quiet again. A few minutes later the screen door slammed and John Stam was coming across the yard, his great gnarled hands hanging empty, threateningly, at his sides. He stopped before Ofelio and said bluntly, 'I'm asking you if you've ever taken any of my whiskey.'
'I have never tasted whiskey,' Ofelio said and felt a strange guilt come over him in this man's gaze. He tried to smile. 'But in the past I've tasted enough mescal to make up for it.'
John Stam's gaze held. 'That wasn't what I asked you.'
'All right,' Ofelio said. 'I have never taken any.'
'I'll ask you once more,' John Stam said. Ofelio was bewildered. 'What would you have me say?'
For a long moment John Stam stared. His eyes were hard though there was a weariness in them. He said, 'I don't need you around here, you know.'
'I have told the truth,' Ofelio said simply. The rancher continued to stare, a muscle in his cheek tightening and untightening. He turned abruptly and went back to the house.
The old man thought of the times he had seen Joe Slidell and the woman together and the times he had seen Joe Slidell drinking the whiskey she brought to him. Ofelio thought: He wasn't asking about whiskey, he was asking about his wife. But he could not come out with it. He knows something is going on behind his back, or else he suspicions it strongly, and he sees a relation between it and the whiskey that's being taken. I think I feel sorry for him; he hasn't learned to keep his woman and he doesn't know what to do.
