"When I'm a child, an' before ever I connects myse'f with the cow trade, if thar's a weddin', we-all has what the folks calls a 'infare,' an' I can remember a old lady from the No'th who contreebutes to these yere festivals a drink she calls 'sprooce beer.' An' pulque, before it takes to frettin' an' fermentin' 'round, in them pigskins, reminds me a mighty sight of that sprooce beer. Later it most likely reminds you of the pigskin.
"Mexican barkeeps, when they sells pulque, aims to dispose of it two glasses at a clatter. It gives their conceit a chance to spread itse'f an' show. The pulque is in a tub down back of the bar. This yere vain Mexican seizes two glasses between his first an' second fingers, an' with a finger in each glass. Then he dips 'em full back-handed; an' allers comes up with the back of his hand an' the two fingers covered with pulque. He claps 'em on the bar, eyes you a heap sooperior like he's askin' you to note what a acc'rate, high- grade barkeep he is, an' then raisin' his hand, he slats the pulque off his fingers into the two glasses. If he spatters a drop on the bar, it shows he's a bungler, onfit for his high p'sition, an' oughter be out on the hills tendin' goats instead of dealin' pulque.
"What do they do with the sour pulque? Make mescal of it—a sort o' brandy, two hookers of which changes you into a robber. No, thar's mighty few still-houses in Mexico. But that's no set-back to them Greasers when they're out to construct mescal. As a roole Mexicans is slow an oninventive; but when the question becomes the arrangement of somethin' to be drunk with, they're plenty fertile. Jest by the way of raw material, if you'll only confer on a Mexican a kettle, a rifle bar'l, a saddle cover, an' a pigskin full of sour pulque, he'll be conductin' a mescal still in full blast at the end of the first hour. But to go back to Enright's yarn.
"'These yere pulque people,' says Enriglit, 'does a fa'rly rapid commerce. For while, as you-all may know, pulque is tame an' lacks in reebound as compared with nose-paint, still when pulque is the best thar is, the Pine Knot Cavaliers of the Plaza Perdita invests heavily tharin. That pulque's jest about a stand-off for the chaplain's sermons. "'It's the fourth trip of the pulque sellers, when the Donna Anna shows in the door. The Donna Anna arrives with 'em; an' the way she bosses 'round, an' sets fire to them pulque slaves, notifies me they're the Donna Anna's peonies. "'I'm sort o' pervadin' about the plaza when the Donna Anna rides up. Thar's an old she-wolf with her whose name is Magdalena. I'm not myse'f what they calls in St. Looey a "connoshur" of female loveliness, an' it's a pity now that some gifted gent like Doc Peets yere don't see this Donna Anna that time, so's he could draw you her picture, verbal. All I'm able to state is that she's as beautiful as a cactus flower, an' as vivid. She's tall an' strong for a Mexican, with a voice like velvet, graceful as a mountain lion, an' with eyes that's soft an' deep an' black, like a deer's. She's shorely a lovely miracle, the Donna Anna is, an' as dark an' as warm an' as full of life as a night in Joone. She's of the grande, for the mule she's ridin', gent-fashion, is worth forty ponies. Its coat is soft, an' shiny like this yere watered silk, while its mane an' tail is braided with a hundred littler silver bells. The Donna Anna is dressed half Mexican an' half Injun, an' thar's likewise a row of bells about the wide brim of her Chihuahua hat.
"'Thar's mebby a half-dozen of us standin' 'round when the Donna Anna comes up. Nacherally, we-all is interested. The Donna Anna, bein' only eighteen an' a Mexican, is not abashed. She waves her hand an' says, "How! how!" Injun fashion. an' gives us a white flash of teeth between her red lips. Then a band of nuns comes out of a little convent, which is one of the public improvements of the Plaza Perdita, an' they rounds up the Donna Anna an' the wrinkled Magdalena, an' takes 'em into camp. The Donna Anna an' the other is camped in the convent doorin' the visit. No, they're not locked up nor gyarded, an' the Donna Anna comes an' goes in an' out of that convent as free as birds. The nuns, too, bow before her like her own peonies.
"'Thar's a Lootenant Jack Spencer with us; he hails from further up the Cumberland than me—some'ers near Nashville. He's light-ha'red an' light-hearted, Spencer is; an' as straight an' as strong as a pine-tree. S'ciety ain't throwin' out no skirmish lines them days, an' of course Spencer an' the Donna Anna meets up with each other; an' from the onbroken hours they tharafter proceeds to invest in each other's company, one is jestified in assoomin' they experiences a tender interest. The Donna Anna can't talk Americano, but Spencer is a sharp on Spanish; an' you can bet a pony, if he wasn't, he'd set to studyin' the language right thar.
"'Nothin' much is thought by the Pine Knot Cavaliers of an' concernin' the attitoodes of Spencer an' the Donna Anna touchin' one another.
Love it might be, an' less we cares for that. Our army, when it ain't fightin', is makin' love throughout the entire Mexican War; an' by the time we're at the Plaza Perdita, love, mere everyday love, either as a emotion or exhibition, is plenty commonplace. An' so no one is interested, an' no one keeps tabs on Spencer an' the Donna Anna.
Which, if any one had, he'd most likely got ag'inst Spencer's gun; wharfore, it's as well mebby that this yere lack-luster feelin' prevails.
"'It's about the tenth day sicice the Donna Anna gladdens us first. Orders comes up from Vera Cruz for the Pine Knot Cavaliers to come down to the coast an' embark for New Orleans. The word is passed, an' our little jimcrow camp buzzes like bees, with us gettin' ready to hit the trail. Spencer asks "leave;" an' then saddles up an' starts at once. He says he's got a trick or two to turn in Vera Cruz before we sails. That's the last we-all ever beholds of Lootenant Jack Spencer. "'When Spencer don't show up none in Vera Cruz, an' the ship throws loose without him, he's marked, "missin'," on the company's books. If he's a private, now, it would have been "deserted;" but bein' Spencer's an officer, they makes it "missin'." An' they gets it right, at that; Spencer is shorely missin'. Spencer not only don't come back to Tennessee none; he don't even send no word nor make so much as a signal smoke to let on whar he's at. This yere, to some, is more or less disapp'intin'. "'Thar's a lady back in Tennessee which Spencer's made overtures to. before he goes to war that time, to wed. Young she is; beautiful, high-grade, corn- fed, an' all that; an' comes of one of the most clean-bred fam'lies of the whole Cumberland country. I will interject right yere to say that thar's ladies of two sorts. If a loved one, tender an' troo, turns up missin' at roll-call, an' the phenomenon ain't accompanied with explanations, one sort thinks he's quit, an' the other thinks he's killed. Spencer's inamorata is of the former. She's got what the neighbors calls "hoss sense." She listens to what little thar is to tell of Spencer fadin' from our midst that Plaza Perdita day, shrugs her shoulders, an' turns her back on Spencer's mem'ry. An' the next news you gets is of how, inside of three months, she jumps some gent—who's off his gyard an' is lulled into feelin's of false secoority—ropes, throws, ties an' weds him a heap, an' he wakes up to find he's a gone fawn-skin, an' to realize his peril after he's onder its hoofs. That's what this Cumberland lady does. I makes no comments; I simply relates it an' opens a door an' lets her out. "'I'm back in Tennessee mighty nigh a year before ever I hears ag'in of Lootenant Jack Spencer of the Pine Knot Cavaliers. It's this a- way: I'm stoppin' with my old gent near Warwhoop Crossin', the same bein' a sister village to Pine Knot, when he's recalled to my boyish mind. It looks like Spencer ain't got no kin nearer than a aunt, an' mebby a stragglin' herd of cousins. He never does have no brothers nor sisters; an' as for fathers an' mothers an' sech, they all cashes in before ever Spencer stampedes off for skelps in that Mexican War at all. "'These yere kin of Spencer's stands his absence ca'mly, an' no one hears of their settin' up nights, or losin' sleep, wonderin' where he's at. Which I don't reckon now they'd felt the least cur'ous concernin' him—for they're as cold-blooded as channel catfish—if it ain't that Spencer's got what them law coyotes calls a "estate," an' this property sort o' presses their hands. So it falls out like, that along at the last of the year, a black-coat party-lawyer he is-comes breezin' up to me in Warwhoop an' says he's got to track this yere Spencer to his last camp, dead or alive, an' allows I'd better sign for the round-up an' accompany the expedition as guide, feclos'pher an' friend—kind o' go 'long an' scout for the campaign. "'Two months later me an' that law sharp is in the Plaza Perdita. We heads up for the padre. It's my view from the first dash outen the box that the short cut to find Spencer is to acc'rately discover the Donna Anna; so we makes a line for the padre. In Mexico, the priests is the only folks who saveys anythin'; an', as if to make up for the hoomiliatin' ignorance of the balance of the herd, an' promote a average, these yere priests jest about knows everythin'. An' I has hopes of this partic'lar padre speshul; for I notes that, doorin' them times when Spencer an' the Donna Anna is dazzlin' one another at the Plaza Perdita, the padre is sort o' keepin' cases on the deal, an' tryin' as well as he can to hold the bars an' fences up through some covert steers he vouchsafes from time to time to the old Magdalena. "'No; you bet this padre don't at that time wax vocif'rous or p'inted none about Spencer an' the Donna Anna. Which he's afraid if he gets obnoxious that a-way, the Pine Knot Cavaliers will rope him up a lot an' trade him for beef. Shore don't you-all know that? When we're down in Mexico that time, with old Zach Taylor, an' needs meat, we don't go ridin' our mounts to death combin' the hills for steers. All we does is round up a band of padres, or monks, an' then trade 'em to their par'lyzed congregations for cattle. We used to get about ten steers for a padre; an' we doles out them divines, one at a time, as we needs the beef. It's shorely a affectin' sight to see them parish'ners, with tears runnin' down their faces, drivin' up the cattle an' takin' them religious directors of theirs out o' hock.