First of all, according to Belano, the reporter was probably going by hearsay. It was possible, of course, that the main Hermosillo newspaper had a correspondent in Agua Prieta and that this correspondent had sent in his account of the tragic event by telegraph, but what was clear (though why I don't know, incidentally) was that here, in Hermosillo, the story had been embellished, lengthened, polished, made more literary. A question: who sat in the vigil over Avellaneda's body? A curious detaiclass="underline" who was the bullfighter Ortiz Pacheco, whose shadow seemed to cling to Avellaneda's? Was he touring Sonora with Avellaneda or was his presence in Agua Prieta purely coincidental? As we feared, we found no other news of Avellaneda in the Hermosillo archives, as if once the death of the bullfighter had been witnessed, he had fallen into absolute oblivion, which, after all, was only natural. The vein of information was exhausted. So we made our way to the Peña Taurina Pilo Yáñez, located in the old part of the city, a family bar with a faintly Spanish air where the Hermosillo tauromachy fanatics gathered. No one there knew anything about a pint-size bullfighter called Pepe Avellaneda, but when we told them that he was active in the 1920s, and the name of the bullring where he was killed, they referred us to a little old man who knew everything about the bullfighter Ortiz Pacheco (again!) although his favorite was Pilo Yáñez, Sultan of Caborca (Caborca yet again), a nickname that we, unfamiliar with the labyrinthine byways of Mexican bullfighting, thought seemed more fitting for a boxer.
The old man's name was Jesús Pintado and he remembered Pepe Avellaneda, Pepín Avellaneda, he called him, a bullfighter who never had much luck but was braver than most, from Sonora, possibly, or maybe Sinaloa or Chihuahua, although he made his name in Sonora, which meant that he was Sonoran by adoption if nothing else, killed in Agua Prieta on a bill he shared with Ortiz Pacheco and Efrén Salazar, during Agua Prieta's big fiesta, in May 1930. Señor Pintado, do you know whether he had any family? asked Belano. The old man didn't know. Do you know whether he traveled with a woman? The old man laughed and looked at Lupe. All of them traveled with women or picked them up along the way, he said. In those days, men were wild and some of the women were too. But you don't know? said Belano. The old man didn't know. Is Ortiz Pacheco alive? said Belano. The old man said yes. Do you know where we could find him, Señor Pintado? The old man said the bullfighter had a ranch near El Cuatro. What's that, said Belano, a town, a road, a restaurant? The old man looked at us as if he had suddenly recognized us from somewhere, then he said it was a town.
JANUARY 9
To make the trip go faster, I started to draw pictures, puzzles that I was taught in school a long time ago. Although there are no cowboys here. No one wears a cowboy hat here. Here there's only desert, and towns like mirages, and bare hills.
"What's this?" I said.
Lupe looked at the drawing as if she didn't feel like playing, and was silent. Belano and Lima didn't know either.
"An elegiac verse?" said Lima.
"No. A Mexican seen from above," I said. "And this one?"
"A Mexican smoking a pipe," said Lupe.
"And this one?"
"A Mexican on a tricycle," said Lupe. "A Mexican boy on a tricycle."
"And this one?"
"Five Mexicans peeing in a urinal," said Lima.
"And this one?"
"A Mexican on a bicycle," said Lupe.
"Or a Mexican on a tightrope," said Lima.
"And this one?"
"A Mexican on a bridge," said Lima.
"And this one?"
"A Mexican skiing," said Lupe.
"And this one?"
"A Mexican about to draw his guns," said Lupe.
"Jesus, Lupe, you know them all," said Belano.
"And you don't know a single one," said Lupe.
"That's because I'm not Mexican," said Belano.
"And this one?" I said, showing the drawing to Lima first and then to the others.
"A Mexican going up a ladder," said Lupe.
"And this one?"
"Gee, that's a hard one," said Lupe.
For a while my friends stopped laughing and looked at the picture and I watched the landscape. I saw something in the distance that looked like a tree. When we passed it I realized it was a plant: an enormous dead plant.
"We give up," said Lupe.
"It's a Mexican frying an egg," I said. "And this one?"
"Two Mexicans on one of those bicycles for two," said Lupe.
"Or two Mexicans on a tightrope," said Lima.
"Here's a hard one for you," I said.
"Easy: a buzzard wearing a cowboy hat," said Lupe.
"And this one?"
"Eight Mexicans talking," said Lima.
"Eight Mexicans sleeping," said Lupe.
"Or even eight Mexicans watching an invisible cockfight," I said.
"And this one?"
"Four Mexicans keeping vigil over a body," said Belano.
JANUARY 10
The trip to El Cuatro didn't go smoothly. We spent almost the whole day on the road, first looking for El Cuatro, which according to what we'd been told was about ninety miles north of Hermosillo along the federal highway, and then, once we'd reached the town of Benjamín Hill, a left turn east along a dirt road where we got lost and came back out on the highway again, this time six miles south of Benjamín Hill, which made us think that El Cuatro didn't exist, until we took the turn at Benjamín Hill again (actually, to get to El Cuatro it's better to take the first left, the one that's six miles from Benjamín Hill) and drove and drove through landscapes that looked lunar sometimes and other times revealed patches of green, always desolate, and then we came to a town called Félix Gómez and there a man planted himself in front of our car with his legs braced and his hands on his hips and cursed us and then other people told us that to get to El Cuatro we had to go a certain way and then turn another way and then we got to a town called El Oasis, which in no way resembled an oasis but rather seemed to sum up all the misery of the desert in its storefronts and then we came out on the highway again and then Lima said that the Sonora desert was a shithole and Lupe said that if they had let her drive we would've been there a long time ago, to which Lima responded by hitting the brake and getting out and telling Lupe to take the wheel. I don't know what happened then, but we all got out of the Impala and stretched our legs. In the distance we could see the highway and some cars heading north, probably to Tijuana and the United States, and others heading south, toward Hermosillo or Guadalajara or Mexico City, and then we started to talk about Mexico City and bask in the sun (comparing our tanned forearms) and smoke and talk about Mexico City and Lupe said that she didn't miss anybody anymore. When she said it I realized that strangely enough I didn't miss anyone either, although I was careful not to say so. Then they all got back in, except for me. I entertained myself by tossing clumps of dirt as far as I could in no particular direction, and although I could hear them calling me I didn't turn my head or make the slightest move toward heading back, until Belano said: García Madero, either get in or stay here, and then I turned around and started to walk toward the Impala, having gotten pretty far away without meaning to, and as I returned I thought how dirty Quim's car looked, imagining Quim seeing his Impala through my eyes or María seeing her father's Impala through my eyes and it really wasn't a pretty sight. Its color had almost vanished under a layer of desert dust.