Toby Olson - Tampico

They were in a small entranceway. The rock rose up to their left, just feet away, and in its face hung iron rings, and when they looked down to the horses’ hooves and saw the prints of many previous horses, they knew the rings were meant for tethering. Off to the right, the trees were thin, and through their branches they could see more rock and what seemed man-made things, and they could hear the water there. Alma climbed from the saddle and tied his horse’s reins to one of the rings, then gestured for the men to do the same. Carlos could hear their joints creak as they struggled to the ground and knew some of the sounds came from his own body. Alma waited patiently to the side as the men stretched and groaned, and only when Gino said “All right, all right” did he head into the stand of trees, looking back to see that they were following. Their destination was no more than thirty yards away, and when they got there they all stood in a certain wonder and immediate anticipation at the brink of it.

It was a hot spring, a bowl carved out in a slab of ground rock over many years, fed by a steaming rivulet behind it where the rock ascended in natural steps into the pine forest. What they’d heard was the run of the watercourse as it gurgled down many stone steps, flowing between shelves and washing over rounded boulders, until it fell for a few feet, a solid cylinder, as from a massive faucet, stirring the pool’s surface turgidly, then running out in gentle waves to wash over at the bowl’s perimeter. And there were stone and pottery planters on the shelves beside the course of the descending stream and small fruit trees growing in them, green leaves, oranges and pomegranates, and beyond the pool’s lip, to the sides of the water’s fall, stone seats had been fashioned, heavy rock blocks, and there were clothes trees behind them, actual trees, ash or hickory, thought Carlos, stripped white by age and weather, staked firmly in the mossy ground beyond the rock, trimmed branches like hooks, for hanging shirts, pants, and underwear.

Gino was the first in, naked at the edge, still wearing his sombrero. Carlos could see the purple scar tissue covering Gino’s back and running in serpentine lines down his knotty arms and legs. He sat on the stone at the pool’s edge, his feet in the water, then slipped in and disappeared, his hat left to float on the surface, and when he appeared again he was across on the pool’s other side, his head and shoulders, grinning and blowing through his tube. Then they all were in, even Alma, who entered in a shallow dive, making no splash, like a dark dolphin. Carlos saw Larry’s bald head, dust washed away at his mustache, Frank’s heavy chest, thick with brittle grey hair.

They were in the pool a long time. There was no soap, but there was sand at the bottom and they used it to scrub themselves. The water was hot and soothing, and in a while they were just bobbing in their places, Larry at the pool’s rim, his head rested against rock, possibly sleeping, the others moving slowly into various engagements, speaking softly, then moving on, arms in lazy waves across the surface. Carlos hung in the water beside the falling cylinder, feeling the pleasure of its massage, and looked out beyond the pool and down into the valley and across it to where the mountain’s dome rose up in the bright sky. There were a few thin clouds above it now, almost touching it. We’ll be going there, he thought. Then he looked back to see the way they’d come and spied out the twists and turns in the ascending arroyo. They were high above it now, and though it was lost to sight where the rocky walls containing it rose up in places, he could see the course of its meandering, its bed of brush and stone, and that it forked off at a few turnings where other dry rivers joined it. It was a maze, unseen in their ascending, for Alma had known the way, and he could see a double forking near the top and that it rose to level ground in a number of places in addition to the one they’d used. He was looking down a brief pathway through the trees, branches waving slowly across his vision, and beyond the pathway he could see a space of open ground, rough earth where he thought a river fork might empty as it finished its ascent. He lifted his eyes beyond the lip to trace the arroyo’s branchings as it twisted down. Then he saw something, a trace of movement in a declivity in the rocky wall. An animal, he thought, but it bobbed oddly, and when it appeared again he thought it was the crown of a hat. And then the arroyo turned and the rock fell away for a moment, and he saw the head below the hat and the horse’s head and the other rider moving up to the side in the tight passage.

He climbed out of the pool and went naked around it and entered the pine stand, then went to the horses and searched through the packs and bundles until he found the binoculars. They were Gino’s, a fine old pair, and he went back to the pool with them, chilled a little in the dry air, and climbed back into bubbling warm water beside the falling cylinder. Then he lifted the glasses and searched the arroyo once again. The men were dreaming in the pool now, eyes closed, Larry asleep at the rim, the others listlessly bobbing in place, their arms hanging suspended below the surface, and only Alma was aware of the tenseness in Carlos’s shoulders as he concentrated.

Then he found them again, two riders, faceless at this distance, but he could see their hats and leather-dressed bodies and the scabbards strapped to the horses’ haunches at their legs and the butts of the rifles in them, and he thought he could see the shine of a pistol in a holster at the hip of one rider. They passed out of sight at a turning, then appeared again, their horses pressed together, slipping on the uncertain ground, and he thought he saw one reach across and touch the other. Their hats tilted back, and they seemed to be gazing up the arroyo to where Carlos was watching them, naked in the pool. Then they were entering an edge of shadow under the rock wall and soon they were out of sight. Carlos lowered the glasses and looked across the surface of the water to where Alma was, watching him, then he climbed out of the pool again and moved down the brief pathway through the trees and across open ground until he was standing at the edge of the arroyo’s emptying. He could feel a breeze at the lip. The hair at his groin stiffened, and he lifted the glasses again and found them immediately. They’d reached a place where the arroyo opened and the ascent was less steep, and their horses stepped ahead with more certainty, though slowly, and their figures were distinct in the glass as he spied them passing among branches of scrub oak and poplar, leaves casting mottled shadows over their clothing and faces. They seemed much closer than he would have imagined, and when he lowered the binoculars for a moment he found he could see them quite well without them, no more than two hundred yards away. Then he looked back through the tree-lined pathway to the pool. The men were there as before, but Alma was nowhere to be found, and he turned back and lifted the glasses once again.

The one on the left wore a leather vest over a dark shirt buttoned at the wrists and a stained Stetson, and when they came out from under the leaf shadows and into a brief clearing, Carlos saw him reach among objects tethered to the saddle and find the scabbard. He pulled the weapon free, its barrel glinting in the sun, and Carlos saw his fingers near the chamber and trigger housing, checking or arranging something. Then he was working to get the rifle back in place and was having trouble, and Carlos saw the other figure, in leather shirt and breeches, fringe along the sleeves and legs, listing to the side, his body shaking, racked by some malady. The one holding the rifle had his head down, face invisible under his hat’s dark circle, as he struggled, the barrel hitting among hanging objects as he searched for the scabbard’s mouth. There were pots and pans there, sacks and awkward satchels, some thick and quilted, and Carlos saw what he thought was a pink cosmetics case, square and made of plastic, and behind the saddle, over the bedroll secured there, other objects were tied with leather thongs, a set of skewers and a cooking grate, what might have been the sections of a fishing pole, a bundle made of wood utensils, a black skillet, and a net bag full of what seemed dirty laundry.