Before we return to the Stealmans’, let’s take a gander around Bruneville.
In the Market Square, the gringo with a monkey is playing a hurdy-gurdy. The monkey dances, the hurdy-gurdy wheezes, but no one pays any attention to them, there’s almost no one around, and those who are hurry past in fear. The organ-grinder is tired of playing to an empty crowd, he’s an artist! He closes his hurdy-gurdy, calls to the monkey, clips a leash to its collar, and heads to the Café Ronsard with the leash in one hand and the hurdy-gurdy pressed against his body. He’s afraid too. He enters the café. He leaves his instrument by the door (he knows he’s not allowed to play inside, they’ve told him before, and he won’t drink with it at his side, that would look ridiculous — he’s still angry they won’t let him play, but today’s not the day to renew that argument; he brushes his anger off like a fly). He orders a drink at the bar.
“Tell that gringo to take his monkey outside. Last time it kicked up a ruckus.” Ronsard says this but no one makes a move.
The barkeep repeats himself to the organ grinder in his broken English. The gringo thinks it over for a moment. His loves his monkey, but he only has one life, and out on the street things are looking bad. He takes the leash, goes outside, ties the monkey to the hitching post at the Café Ronsard’s front door, the one that Gabriel put up — two poles and a crossbeam, some folks call it “The H,” it’s meant for horses — and he goes back inside, not because he really wants to (they don’t treat him right) but because (as we said) he’s afraid.
The Eagles are meeting at the Café Ronsard. But no one who sees them there would know. That’s why they’re meeting in public, to avoid suspicion. The Rangers, hired guns, have thrown themselves headlong into taking revenge upon Nepomuceno, for years now they’ve been scaring Mexicans every chance they get. Today the Rangers are going from house to house, searching for what is taking place in plain sight. Meeting in secret would be tantamount to a confession of guilt.
Besides, Gabriel Ronsard usually takes part in card games and chats with his friends, he’s the owner and the host.
It doesn’t look like they’re confabulating.
At Ronsard’s table: Carlos the (insurgent) Cuban; Don Jacinto the saddler; and the foreigner, José Hernández — who calls the café la pulpería. Half a dozen Eagles wander around, some sit at the bar and adjacent tables, alert: Sandy, who has returned from her reconnaissance; Hector, the round-faced cart owner; Cherem the cloth merchant; Frenchie the seed merchant; and Alitas, the chicken farmer.
Don Jacinto to José Hernández:
“Where’s your sing-songy accent from?
“The plains down south.”
“I’ve been down south. What plains? Say what you want, Don José, there ain’t no prairies down there, not even brushwood or flat valleys; it’s all ravines and giant trees that are big enough to hang long strings of …”—he was about to say “Texans” but just in time he says—“Indians.”
“Don’t you try to tell me, gaucho, there’s much more down south than what you’ve seen …”
Carlos the Cuban shuffles the deck — there’s not a trace of clumsiness in his movements, the cards fly through his hands, he’s right at home. He deals and they quietly begin to speak of crimes. Since the Café Ronsard has begun to fill up, he sets the tone: they won’t talk about anything new and they won’t go into details. It makes it nearly impossible for anyone to follow their conversation.
Carlos names the first atrocity.
“Josefa Segovia.”
Ronsard immediately responds.
“1851.”
“Frederick Cannon.” That’s Hector sitting in his chair, four feet away.
Laughing with barred teeth. That’s how they let off steam.
(What are they talking about? Not a soul can figure it out! In Penville that year, the gringo Frederick Cannon raped a Mexican, Josefa Segovia, who reported his crime to the authorities along with conclusive proof: she was accompanied by her doctor who presented a written report, and her nephew who was a witness — Frederick broke into her house, beat up Josefa’s nephew (who was barely ten years old), tied him to a chair, and forced himself on the young woman before the boy’s eyes. They also presented something rather scandalous: photographs of a reenactment of the crime, in which the victims — the girl who had been raped and her nephew — acted out the scene with Josefa’s oldest cousin playing the part of the criminal, Frederick Cannon. Among the photographs were pictures considered indecent, close-ups of the boy’s injuries and the bruises Frederick left on Josefa’s body.)
(Two days later, Frederick Cannon’s body was found in the dirty stream that carried away Penville’s sewage and trash; it looked as though he had fallen into the stream in a drunken stupor. The authorities accused Josefa Segovia of murdering him, and, despite the fact there was no evidence to support their accusation, they took her into custody. The following Saturday, at sunset, the townspeople stormed the jailhouse with the sheriff’s cooperation. A group of men took Josefa from her jail cell, groped her and showed her off to the crowd, drenched her, and tore her dress off, leaving her nearly naked. The townspeople witnessed her beating and how they dragged her through the streets and doused what was left of the lovely young woman with turpentine. They threw a rope around the lowest branch of an ancient pepper tree and hanged Josefa. Her rags made a stark contrast to the clothes of the people celebrating her lynching: women dressed in their finest, men in clean clothes — shirtsleeves (because of the unbearable heat) and hats — as if they were going to church. Musicians played. People began to dance at the feet of the dead woman, celebrating the death of the “greaser,” and some set Josefa’s corpse on fire.)
How the Eagles laugh. They smile in bitter revenge, as if saying these names has repaired these offenses, as if it has given them pleasure.
“And what about the guy who kept his herd 333 miles north of Rancho del Carmen?”
Silence. The number 333 makes their blood boil. In one swift stroke, like a general’s, King’s men had taken every last head of cattle from the Mexican in a skillful coup by the lawyers. Judge Jones (who people called Busy Bucks) accepted the evidence — all as counterfeit as twelve-dollar bills — presented by King’s legal representatives (Judge Jones was the predecessor of Judge White, old Whatshisname).
“It’s apples, the …”
Another pause. “Apples” is a code word for one of their slogans: “The Anglos’ violence is a strategy to intimidate us, its obvious goal to take away our rights and our property. What they call laws and dress up like laws are nothing more than an ongoing battle for our property, our privileges, and our basic rights. No matter what a Mexican does to get his property back, even if it’s as honest as growing apples, they call larceny, robbery, or theft.”
They each recite this in silence; it looks like they’re just sitting there, mouths shut. Jacinto the saddler snorts. Carlos imitates Shine, the customs agent, wrinkling his nose like something smells bad.
“And what about those seven lemons?”
They’re referring to Mexicans who had been maltreated by the lawless gringos when the Mexicans came to visit Bruneville. Customs agent Shine was the only American who dared speak out about it, which earned him a beating on the way home from work one night. The next morning Shine found a message painted on his house: “Death to pro-greasers.” The work of the Secret Circle, which didn’t sign it but most everyone knows it was them.