That Which Takes All A Man Has To Give

Brian R. Quinn about 2,900

BrianRQuinn@me.com

https://www.BrianRQuinn.com

    That Which Takes All A Man Has To Give

We climb, the officers and I. Corporal Mejia, the fat one, is sweating like the pig he is, panting and stumbling up the narrow path, dragging and thumping the butt of his fine government issue musket against the pitted volcanic boulders scattered along the trail.

Sergeant Naranjo Es Hermano! Ramrod straight. He practically marches up the mountainside. Naranjo is a man to be trusted. Relied upon. Not a fumbling idiota like Mejia.

“Do not worry Inspector,” Naranjo tells me, offering his canteen, “the village is not much farther. It’s just on the other side of the mountain.”

“Gracias,” I say feebly, pulling the cork out. The water tastes of tin and smells like the river. “You know these men?”

“Oh, yes,” he tells me, removing his shako, tucking it under his arm. “I have visited them many times, once a year, year after year, with Señor Mendoza.”

“Mendoza,” I say, glancing down. Something is scratching at my leg, a strange insect, the color of coral, as long as a man’s middle finger. It’s scratching and biting its way up my calf. I shudder and stomp my foot! Stomp! Stomp! until I shake the odd creature loose and watch it melt in the dirt. 

“Mendoza,” I say again. 

Mendoza was a tax collecting thug who cheated the government at every turn. I picture him, my predecessor, returning from his rounds, wild eyed, insane, raving about the beast that lived on the mountain.

The village is nothing more than a few mud huts strung together. Dogs whimper and howl as we approach. Naranjo enters the first through a curtain of stringed beads.

I follow.

Mejia, behind me, blocks the only source of light. 

“Corporal,” I say sharply, “clear the doorway inmediatamente!”

“Eye-yeee!” a voice, startling, in the darkness, sounds.

Mejia raises his musket. 

I see a man on my left. He is barely visible in the gloom. “You have come,” he says in a deep, commanding voice, “at last.”

“At last?” I say.

There is a second man in the darkness.

“The carnations!” he says, “Did you bring the carnations? Las claveles? Si? Si?” His voice is high pitched, shrill.

Foul unnerving laughter breaks from the corner followed by the thump of an overturned stool on the earthen floor.

Mejia pulls back the hammer of his musket. The snap is distinct, threatening.

“My woman will bring us food,” the commanding one says.

“Mierda! Your woman! Your woman! Everything is your woman!” There is a third man here, screaming. “We haven’t seen your woman in what? How many months?”

steps forward and draws his broadsword. It is a menacing thing meant for chopping bone and flesh. He pulls a stiff, dry skin off the wall. 

A dusty shaft of light penetrates the darkness.

There are four men, all dressed in filthy blue ponchos and canvas trousers. They are old men unaccustomed to the light. Strips of toquilla palm litter the floor. Odd shapes float in the shadows, hang from walls. I see a trio of jellyfish trailing starched white tentacles…a heap of leather snakes writhing on a tabletop.

I study the men, their sunken cheeks, their blackened teeth. Wooden cups and empty bowls litter the tabletops. A pile of broken sandals lies in the center of the floor.

“I am Inspector Trujillo,” I say, my voice, hollow, empty.

Silence.

“I have come about the hats.”

The crazy, insane laughter, breaks again. The men take no notice. 

“Yes inspector,” the commanding one says, “the Superfino. Muy fino, no?” He has a lazy eye and a single gold tooth.

“Yes, very fine,” I say, “and that is why we have come, to collect the taxes.”

“But Señor Mendoza is the tax collector.”

“Men-do-zaaa!” the shrill voice screeches, stretching the name out like a curse.

“Maybe Men-do-zaaa is with your woman?” the Third Man, on my left, says, taunting the one with the lazy eye.

Lazy Eye screams and grabs Third Man by the throat, forces him over with his body weight, and drives him down to the floor. 

“Naranjo!” I say.

Naranjo slams the pommel of his broadsword into the rear of Lazy Eye’s head. Lazy Eye feels nothing, and squeezes harder, trying to choke the life out of his enemy.

Naranjo yanks his head back and rests the razor sharp edge of the sword against his throat. “Release him,” Naranjo hisses, “or I’ll slit you wide open!”

Third Man drives his knee deep into Lazy Eye’s groin. Naranjo strikes Third Man him with the cross-guard, drawing blood. Third Man collapses.

“Now,” I say, raising my voice, “which of you is in charge here?”

“In charge?” the shrill one answers, stepping closer, so close I can smell him, all sweat, and bad teeth.“Why, Javier, of course,” he says, pointing at Lazy Eye. “El Cortador!” 

Lazy Eye is writhing on the floor, cupping his manhood, drawing breath through clenched teeth.

“The cutter?” I say. “Of what? Where are the hats?”

“Why, here, Jefe,” he tells me, smiling, “as you see. We are working on them.”

I look around. The hut is empty.

“I see nothing,” I tell him. “You are working in another place, no?”

“Another place? No señior. Aqui!” he says waving an open palm across the empty tables. “We work here. As you see.”

I look at Naranjo who blinks absently, then at Mejia kicking at the pile of broken sandals.

“Javier is master of lost straws,” the man says, “he finds all the imperfections. The bumps and burrs. He extracts them with a blade. It is the closest of shaves. Should he find a discolored straw, or one out of place, he removes it, like a cancer, and weaves, in its place, a new strand impossible to trace.”

“Is that so?” I say, placating the man.

“Imagine,” he says, triumphantly, “thirty-six-hundred-weaves per square centimeter! Per centimeter! Javier can remove a single strand! You or I would need a magnifying glass!” 

The man, having proved his point, flashes a toothless grin. 

“Naranjo,” I say, “get that man on his feet.”

Naranjo grabs Cortador by the waist and pulls him upright. The man’s knees bend and jerk up into the air. He weighs practically nothing. Naranjo, embarrassed, sets him on his feet, rests his hands on his shoulders and smooths his filthy poncho. “Perdóname,” he tells him.

Cortador crumples on the nearest stool.

Miejo sets the butt end of his musket on a tabletop. The jolt releases the mainspring. The weapon fires. The sound, deafening.

I throw myself on the floor, whimper and crawl like a child. I am meant to lead, instead I cower in the dirt, terrified by the noise and the gritty taste of gunpowder in the air. 

Naranjo ignores the acrid smoke and the grey haze rising through the shaft of light. “Inspector,” he tells me, leaning down slightly, “you can get up now.”

I stand and brush the dirt off my suit. It is ruined. The knees and elbows are blackened. I pick up my cheap street stall sombrero and stick it back on my head. 

The shot has frightened only me. The others stand still, like nothing happened. Mieja’s musket rests on the table, his attention elsewhere; Cortador is stropping a razor. The motion of the blade against the leather is intoxicating, the sound hypnotic. Mieja is entranced. 

The Shrill One is speaking. “...Alejandro’s plaiting es magnifico! Tight. Strong. Like steel, yet crush it, and it snaps back into shape. Water runs right off. And light weight? Madre de Dios!” 

He leads me to the rear of the hut where Alejandro is bent over a table weaving furiously. His thumbs are firm. His fingers dance an intricate pattern; left over right, then opposite, a fold, a tuck, a tug. Left over right, then opposite, a fold, a tuck, a tug…

Naranjo lays his broadsword on the table and sits down shoulder to shoulder beside Alejandro. Alejandro pays him no mind. He keeps weaving. Left over right, then fold, and tuck...

“A pattern within a pattern,” the Shrill One says. “The Superfino shall be like the surf, waves rolling in one direction, crashing in the opposite. Together the patterns will join as one, in motion, its surface undulating like the sea.”

There is no hemp. 

Alejandro’s fingers are empty, working furiously, but empty.

“What is he doing?” I say. “I see nothing.”

“He is weaving Jefe,” Shrill One says, “braiding the green immature strips of Trujillo. Surely you can see that? The way he moves, interlacing the weave...perfecto!”

Naranjo is mesmerized, moves closer, until his face is nearly touching the empty fingers.

“Naranjo?” I say.

Naranjo is lost. He does not answer.

“And here,” the Shrill One says, pointing, “El Rematador! Rematador stitches the complicated back-weave which seals the very brim. The outer edge es muy importante no? It must be strong, like the sea wall, holding everything in place, yet for all the crashing and blending it is almost invisible.” 

There is, again, nothing. Nothing on the tables. No sign of progress. No firm, malleable plaits. Just empty cups and bowls. 

“And this,” the Shrill One says,reaching down to the floor, raising to me with reverence, an empty fist, “is the back weave. So supple, so strong,” he joins thumbs and forefingers, pulls them apart, snaps an invisible length of hemp.

“Enough!” I scream. “Enough! Do you think I’m some sort of fool?”

The Shrill One looks at me, surprised. “Inspector?”

“I know your game. Do not treat me like an idiot! I have come for the taxes!” I say, turning to Cortador. “You are known,” I say, pointing at him, “your work, renowned. The Superfino is, as you tell me, Perfecto! Magnifico! ... so where, I demand, is the money?”

“Ahh...the money,” Cortador says nodding, “you have come for the gold no? Gold you shall have.”

“Do not patronize me,” I tell him. “I am not a man to be cheated.”

“Patron, no one is trying to cheat you,” Cortador says, standing up, pulling the pocket of his poncho inside out, spilling gold coins on the table; they clatter, spin, and roll in the half light.

“Gold!” Mejia, says, eyes wide, “so much gold!”

I am stunned. The sovereigns bounce and dance across the table, fall to the floor. Cortador pulls at the empty pocket, releases more and more coins with each tug. I stand frozen, unable to speak or move. 

Naranjo smacks a spinning gold piece against the table with the flat of an open palm and raises the glimmering piece to his greedy eye. He studies it in the smokey shaft of light.

“Your gold has been waiting for you, here, all along,” Cortador says with bloodshot eyes sinking in their sockets. “El Cortador has been holding it for you.”

“Eye-yeee!” the scream, behind me now, sounds again. 

The stream of coins ceases. The pocket emptied.

El Cortador lurches forward, doubles over like a man gut-punched trying to right himself. His joints pop, His spine twists horribly. His sinews strain audibly. 

I watch, terrified, as man turns into beast and rises to an impossible height. He is an ominous, feral creature, threatening me with snapping jaws. 

I stagger back and wipe my eyes. The room, is it growing darker? Are my eyes playing tricks on me? The dry stiff skin is still lying on the floor, the aperture still exposed, open, but the hut is growing darker, the walls…constricting. 

The men have formed a tight circle around me, Naranjo is with them, He is rocking from side to side. His eyes are vacant. There is gold in hands.

The wild laughter cracks again, this time right in front of me sounding wildly, repeatedly, uncontrollably.

El Cortador grabs my forearm with razor sharp claws that pierce my skin. He roars at the smell of blood.

I crumble and slump to my knees. 

The beast wrenches my arm from its socket. 

I black out. 

“Wake inspector.”

I hear a voice, a familiar voice, but it is blank, unrecognizable.

“Inspector!”

It is Naranjo. There is a cold distant look about him. He is like a man sleepwalking. “It is time for you to choose,” he tells me.

“Choose? I have come for the gold,” I hear myself say.

Naranjo stands stock still, eyes fixed forward.

El Cortador, the beast, on all fours, sinks his teeth into the back of my neck, He shakes me like a dead thing, slams me into tables and walls, drags my body and drops me in the center of the blue circle.

There is silence. Nothing. No sound.

The Shrill One bends to pick up my sombrero. He wipes the dirt from the cheap, shapeless form, and raises it for all to see.

The Beast Cortador lurches forward, sniffs, bites, and tears at my hat, leaving a tattered, stringy mess.

“Your sombrero Inspector,” the Shrill One says, looking down at me. “You have come for gold, but now you must choose.”

I look. In his hands I see a magnificent Superfino. Pale, radiant. Purest white. Expertly woven. A thing of lasting beauty.

“Choose wisely,” he says, “or you will not leave this place with your life.”

“I...I...do not understand,” I say, fear sweeping through me.

“The gold?” he says, gesturing at the coins on the table, “or the Superfino? A simple choice, no? That which takes all a man has to give, or that which gives all he desires? The Superfino takes a year to create, the effort, in time, robs a man of all he posses. Eyesight. Stamina. Dexterity. He is reduced to a doddering fool, fighting, screaming, and squabbling in darkness.

“The gold, which all men crave, provides wealth, freedom, power.

“The gold you would proudly carry back to your superiors to prove yourself a better man than Mendoza. But some of that gold, no doubt, would not make its way back to your bosses. Some would stick. Would it not? To enrich you, and your family, and your families family.

“And in time, year after year, returning, you too would become rich while we remained here, in this hut, decade after decade,” he said, turning the Superfino over, studying it, caressing the back-plaited brim, the modest peak, “weaving in darkness.”

“And now...it is your turn. Decide! Accept this fine gift and quiet the beast, or demand the gold. Just speak, and it is yours.” 

I spoke not a word but grasped a single sovereign, so light, so delicate. I saw myself dressed in a fine linen suit, on a veranda with the ocean behind, a lovely wife and child sitting beside me. I am Patron, benefactor of my village, a man of stature and property. 

The Beast Cortador growls deeply, threatening.

The hair on the back of my neck rises, prickles. I see...old age, here, in this dank prison. I am blind, plaiting furiously, endlessly, fingering the intricate pattern; left over right, then opposite. I fold. I tuck. I tug. I am a screaming madman dancing in a circle.

I release the coin. It makes no sound against the earthen floor.

Daylight floods the hut.

I struggle to my feet.

“Naranjo! Mejia!” I scream, breaking the trance, “vamos!”

In my hand I discover the Superfino.

“Vamos! Vamos!” I say, pushing my way through the circle of men, through the curtain of beads, leaving this cursed place forever.  

I race from the village, running, nonstop, following the narrow trail until the heat overcomes me and I can go no farther. I collapse on a decaying tree stump, gasping for breath, waiting for Naranjo and the idiota Meija to catch up.

The jungle sounds around me. Something scratches at my leg.

Naranjo appears, ever the good soldier, he is upright, moving quickly.

“Inspector,” Naranjo says, nodding.

”Naranjo,” I say, my breath coming hot, and hard, in short bursts.

I brush a strange insect, the color of coral, as long as a man’s middle finger, off my thigh. There are more of them, swarming out of the stump, crawling inside my pant leg. I stand and stomp them! Stomp! Stomp! I turn in a circle, a mad circle, dancing the merry dance of freedom. I crush them, churn them, and smash them to bloody pulp. 

I hear Meija clumping up the path.

“Do not worry Inspector,” Naranjo tells me, reaching for his canteen, “it is not much farther.”

The sun is setting. I smile and admire my beautiful Superfino. I wipe the interior band with my handkerchief to sop up the moister of my brow. The handkerchief is oddly discolored, reddish. Reddish sweat. A trick of the light no doubt. 

Meija finally arrives, dragging his fine government issue musket along the volcanic cinder path.

Naranjo offers me his canteen. 

I pull the cork. The water tastes like tin and smells like the river.

“Do not worry, Inspector,” Naranjo repeats, “the village is not much farther, just on the other side of the mountain.”

Fear and exhaustion have clouded the man’s mind. I shake my head, surprised that Naranjo, a man to be trusted, relied upon, has cracked. 

I settle the Superfino back on my head, snug it, firmly, into place. But something is wrong. The Superfino, no matter how I adjust it, slide it forward, back, reseat it, it still feels...not right.

“Come,” Naranjo says, “I know these men. I have visited them many times, once a year, year after year, with Señor Mendoza.”

I pull off the Superfino. I have, no doubt, disturbed the inner band. I turn it over in my hand. The crown is punctured, the interior blackened, moldy, and the brim, a tattered, stringy mess.

I scream at the sky.

“Come,” Naranjo says, “we must hurry. It is time to collect the taxes.”