cops and anyone else we might run across that needed a pack. We cut over on 30 to Highway 57 to avoid Monterrey and had a great time on the road drinking Fantas and beer and singing Mexican songs. Lucy had a great voice but Jeb was terrible. Like a frog. I’d like to think I was somewhere in between, but was probably closer to Jeb.
We spent the night in Saltillo, a pretty town and near Jeb’s old stomping grounds, where he spent time with his cousins, growing up. We didn’t take time to stop for a visit—we had our schedule.
The trip was fun. With Jeb and me it was usually fun—except when it was terrifying. But with Lucy along, it was really fun. Terrifying could wait. We would be sorry when this trip was over. At least that’s what we thought at the time.
Jeb and I told tales of our growing up in Brownsville, most of them with at least a grain of truth to them. The time we learned to swim, for instance.
We used to spend a lot of time sneaking back and forth across the Mexican border, just for fun. It was fairly easy and no one paid much attention to kids. Early training for smugglers.
One day we were on our way to Matamoros and were planning to wade through the Rio Grande. We could have crossed at the bridge, nobody was stopping us, but this was more fun. Besides the bridge cost a nickel. It had rained up river and the water was way deeper than usual. We would have had to take the bridge after all but there was activity at the riverbank so we had to check it out.
It was awful. A woman had drowned trying to cross the water and was still floating there, caught on a tree branch wedged into the bank. People were wading out to her with ropes to bring her in.
We knew, of course, that this happened all the time along the river, but knowing is one thing and actually seeing is another. We resolved, then and there, that we would learn to swim, and swim well.
We did, too. We went to pools, we went to the beach at Padre Island, we went into the river itself. Jeb turned out to be a better swimmer, but I can hold my own.
Lucy’s childhood was totally different, out there with the cows and chickens. We did have in common that we both lived on the Mexican border, but hers was México’s border with Belize, which was still British Honduras when she was a tiny girl.
Lucy agreed, “You’re right, my childhood was nothing like that. It’s true we were on the border, but we hardly ever even went into Chetumal, much less across the border. There is nothing there anyway. It’s not like Brownsville, with a big city on the other side and you can’t even cross right there at Chetumal, there’s no road and there is no town or anything to cross to.”
“I was mostly at home on the rancho with the cows and chickens and pigs. We did the usual country things, weeding gardens, gathering eggs, shoveling stuff, riding horses. The horses I loved, the rest not so much.”
“My grandfather would tell us bedtime stories, mostly old Mayan tales. Some of them were pretty scary.”
“Like what?” Jeb asked. “Tell us one. We’re not busy here.”
“Well…OK,” Lucy said, “but you might not like it.”
“Try us,” Jeb replied.
“All right, get ready. Here goes.”
This was a time with just a little of the beginning of dawn on the face of the earth. There was not even the Sun.
But there was one who thought very highly of himself. This one was called Seven-Macaw, or Vukun-Cakix
The Sky and Earth were already there, but the Sun’s and the Moon’s faces were cloudy. They say that the light was provided by Seven-Macaw.
But now began the defeat of Seven-Macaw by the two boys, the hero-twins Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque.
The hero-twins were gods and they regarded the self-aggrandizement of Seven-Macaw as evil. So they talked about it.
“Let’s get rid of him. We could make him sick. We could kill him while he’s eating. We could get rid of all his brilliance, his metal, his jade and jewels.”
“So be it,” they said. And so they picked up their blowguns and went off together.
Now, Seven-Macaw had two sons: Zipacna, the builder of mountains, and Cabrakan, or Earthquake, who tore down mountains. Their mother was Chimalmat, the wife of Seven-Macaw
“Here I Am. I am the Sun,” said Seven-Macaw
“Here I am. I am the maker of the Earth,” said Zipacna.
“Here I am. I am the destroyer of mountains,” said Cabrakan.
The twins said this was puffed up evil. And then they planned deaths and disappearances of those who practice self-aggrandizement.
They took up their blowguns and climbed the great nance tree of Seven-Macaw and hid in the leaves and branches. Now Seven-Macaw eats each day of the fruit of the nance tree, and he came there that morning.
Seven-Macaw was eating the nance fruit when he was shot by Hun-Ahpu. The blowgun dart hit him in the jaw, breaking his mouth, and he fell to the ground.
Hun-Ahpu ran to Seven-Macaw to grab him, but Seven-Macaw instead grabbed the arm of Hun-Ahpu and tore it out of his shoulder.
Even so, the twins thought they had done well.
Seven-Macaw, holding his wounded mouth carefully and carrying Hun-Ahpu’s severed arm, went on home.
“What is going on? What have you got there?” asked Chimalmat, his wife.
“The trickster twins shot me in the jaw,” he answered. “All my teeth are loose and they ache. I have Hun-Ahpu’s arm here and I’ll hang it over the fire.”
Meanwhile, Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque thought about it. They called upon the First Grandfather, named Great White Peccary, and First Grandmother, named Great White Tapir.
They said to them, “please go with us. We’re going to Seven-Macaw’s to get our arm back. We’ll just follow right behind you.”
“You can tell Seven-Macaw, ‘please forgive these children we are bringing with us. Their father and mother are dead. We might give them away because all we seem to do is pull worms from their teeth’.”
They approached Seven-Macaw’s home, where he was out in front yelling loudly because his teeth hurt.
“Where are you going, Grandfather?” asked Seven-Macaw.
“Just going around trying to make a living,” replied the Grandfather.
“Please take pity on me,” cried Seven-Macaw, who’s teeth were very painful. “What medicines can you make? What potions will cure me?”
“We just pull worms out of teeth, and we cure eyes. We set bones, too,” replied the two.
“Good. Please cure my aching teeth. It is horrible. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Those two tricksters shot me and my teeth are loose.”
“Very well, sir. There is a worm gnawing at the bone of the teeth. We will merely pull out the teeth and put
