Toby Olson - Tampico

The rifle barrel disappeared as he found the sheath, and his partner must have called out then, for his head jerked in that direction, and Carlos saw his hand reach out and grasp the listing figure’s arm. The horses pulled up, almost touching, and the falling figure leaned into the other, who put his arm around him and reached across with his free hand and fumbled with the straps of a beaded purse that hung from the saddle horn beside a long machete and what may have been a short shotgun. Then his hand was in the purse up to his forearm, rummaging around in it. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, and Carlos saw the hand of the other come up to his own throat. He wore a Stetson too, sweat-stained at the brim, which vibrated in his coughing or choking, and the other, in seeming desperation at their travail, leaned to the off side of his horse, dragging his partner from the saddle, across the rump of his own mount, legs tangled in fishing pole and laundry, until they both slipped, gathered in one another’s arms, down along the loose and flapping stirrup strap, and fell to the rocky ground.

Their progress had slowed dramatically, and though their dark dress remained ominous and their weapons, slung among the various burdens their horses carried, were serious ones, they now seemed harmless and ineffectual as they rolled in the rocks and pebbles, working to disentangle themselves and gain footing, and Carlos lowered the glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, then lifted them again and searched them out.

Once again, they were mounted and moving up the twisting riverbed, and Carlos saw the wave of the red bandanna as it was handed across and coughed or sneezed into, and then the figure was falling again, this time to the far side and they were pulling up, the man lifting his leg and throwing it across the horse’s rump while they still moved, then hopping around at the horses’ heads, which lurched up in surprise at his quick passage, and he was reaching out to catch his partner before he reached the earth, and once again they were tangled together, then were sitting at the horses’ feet, and the one was tending the other, rubbing his back and dabbing at his brow with the red handkerchief. Then, in a while, they managed to mount up again and then were moving, their horses tightly pressed together, and were coming up with a different urgency, though slowly, the coughing and retching continuing, as well as the listing, as the one held the other’s arm firmly, keeping him somewhat steady in the saddle.

Carlos lowered the glasses and turned back to the pool and saw the men stirring. Larry was at the edge still, but his eyes were open now and he was standing, chest and shoulders in the air, water cupped in his thin hands and lifted up to flood over his bald head and down his neck. Frank and John were beside each other, near the falling cylinder, only their heads above the water, disembodied, as they watched Gino, who was showing them the dead man’s float, lying face down on the surface, knotty arms and legs extended, the splotches of scar tissue on his back like red lichen, still as some drowned animal after a flood. Carlos heard a shuffling, and when he looked up and to the pool’s left, he saw Alma in the higher branches of an oak tree, above the descending watercourse. He was standing in the branches, leaning out and to the side for good vantage, sighting down the arroyo, and Carlos saw the primitive club strapped at his naked waist.

Then he heard the coughing and wheezing, the slow shuffling clop of the horses’ hooves, and the men heard them too. They were poised for a moment, the water’s surface still, then John pushed away from Frank, sending out ripples, and Gino was lifted on the wake, and Carlos saw Frank’s hand reach for his floating foot before he turned back to see the riders as they emerged around the last turning, their horses climbing the few remaining feet of stony ground, until they were standing before him, stomping and blowing on the mossy carpet between the pool and the tree-lined pathway and the arroyo’s lip. He looked up at the rider, the one sneezing and shaking, gasping in stertorous gulps of air, face hidden in the red bandanna held at the mouth, then saw the figure begin to list and fall again, the arm of the other reach across, inadvertently hitting the hat brim. The Stetson tipped away, tumbling over the horse’s rump, and the hair followed it, black and grey-streaked, falling to the rider’s shoulders. Then the hand holding the red cloth sunk to her saddle horn, he saw the blue mascara running down her cheeks from rheumy eyes. Still gasping and falling, fringe shaking frantically at arms and legs, she looked around wildly, up at Alma in the tree, then down at Carlos, then over his head toward the pool. He heard a splashing and another gasping. It was Gino, his voice crooked and his tracheotomy tube whistling in it as he called out, “Ramona!” and when Carlos saw the stricken gringo face of the other rider, the set of those horsey teeth, he knew he’d found his father too, though he’d not been searching for him.

Gino passed him, naked on the mossy carpet, the others splashing out of the pool and following, and Carlos was heading for his father, who had tipped the pink cosmetics case and spilled its contents on the ground, when he heard the voice call from the tree, “pollen,” and then their hands were brushing against each other as their fingers slipped through lipsticks, eyeliners, various rouges and compacts, and his father lifted his head once and looked at him without recognition. Then Carlos heard the woman crying out, through congestion and wheeze, “the fucking inhaler!” and when his eyes moved to her, he saw her face through white and knotty legs, her frantic painted brows and the start of a scar there, below wrinkled scrotums.

Gino was a naked child, leaning over her; “Ramona” again, this time plaintively. His mouth moved down to hers for artificial respiration, and Carlos saw her head turn desperately. Then his father was on his feet and stumbling toward the cluster of old men, the tube in his hand, and was pushing among their bony bodies, his arm extended and reaching down to her, and he saw her hand brush ruby scar tissue on Gino’s inner thigh as she struggled through the thicket of their legs, reaching for momentary salvation.

There were eight of them in their saddles when the sun came up. Ramona rode to the side of Gino, and Carlos could see the various accoutrements set to bouncing on her horse’s rump between the figures of the men ahead when they separated, pulling their mounts away for better footing as they descended the escarpment, heading for the valley floor. He rode beside his father, the donkeys on the rope line behind them, and at times they looked at one another, still trying to find a way to be together. John’s hat was tilted forward on his brow to fight the rising sun, and Frank and Larry were nodding, high on their folded blankets, sleepy after the long night of talking.

They’d set up camp in a clearing behind the rock pool, and smoke had risen from their fire, then filtered through the high branches of the pines surrounding them, until the fire was proper and the smoke was gone and they could see each other’s faces across the red embers in which the cook pot rested, steam and the scent of rich stew at its mouth. They ate, and drank Alma’s brew, and only when they were settled among blankets and sleeping bags in the coolness of the deeper night did they attempt explanation and the necessary reordering of their places among each other, and it was only when John had spoken Carlos’s name and Ramona had named his father, calling out Manuel and asking him to fetch something, that the two of them could look steadily at one another in acceptance of their relationship. Ramona sat at Gino’s side, and he was watching her, and on occasion they could hear the huff of her inhaler, not unlike those familiar sounds that issued from their tracheotomy tubes.