She was an anemic little girl in a tattered linen dress. She was always smiling as she raced from one room to another to answer a summons. Everybody seemed to take fiendish delight in calling for her. The cry of, “Petrona! Petrona!” echoed across the patio from morning until night. Even the parrot had adopted the slogan, and throughout his waking hours would screech, “Petrona!” And Petrona, always cheerful, obeyed each call.
One of the other guests was a married lady, whose husband had sent her to Tegucigalpa to keep her out of the way of an expected battle elsewhere. With the extreme faithfulness of Latin-American wives, she locked herself in her room, to which Petrona brought her meals. She emerged only to wash baby clothes at the hotel pump, or to scream instructions to her numerous progeny in the patio—a noisy little brood of future revolutionists who paid no heed to her many injunctions.
The other guest was a Spaniard, who had just come up from Nicaragua to bring twenty-four prize game-cocks for Sunday’s rooster fight. He was a tall, horse-faced, loquacious individual, who talked continuously at the table, mostly in subtle smut. He was an artist at the use of double entente, and had raised vulgarity above the level of pure nastiness, so that it was now quite suitable for dinner-table conversation in the presence of ladies. He was a jovial person, predisposed toward the singing of love songs, to which he could wave time with his knife and never spill a bean. If his game-cocks won on Sunday, he was planning to hire an airplane and fly home to Nicaragua. He intended to load it with beautiful women, and sail as close as possible to the romantic tropical moon.
His roosters were tied to stanchions in the patio. They were continually glaring at one another, flapping their wings, crowing challenges, and straining at the cords that held each of them by the foot. Whenever the Spaniard ceased his vigilance, one of the married lady’s children was certain to unloose a bird, and watch him peck a neighbor to death. But on Saturday the survivors were sent to the arena, packed into individual compartments in a large wooden box, and thereafter the hotel was peaceful. The box disappeared down the street on the shoulders of a peon, accidentally inverted, so that the game-cocks stood on their heads—an indignity which should have made them scrapping mad for the morrow.
The revolution not having materialized, I went to the cock-fight. It was held in a back yard, where a rude board shack had been improvised. There was a dirt-floored ring, surrounded by a four-foot wall, and overlooked by a rickety grand-stand and a still more rickety bleachers.
The ring was already thronged with natives, each holding a rooster in his arms, and shoving it at another fellow’s rooster in order to provoke the martial spirit. The birds were fluttering, blinking beady eyes at other birds, and clucking loudly to express their irritation. Back against the adobe rampart of the establishment were some forty other prospective contestants, each in an individual cage, crowing noisily as though he would proclaim himself the father of the largest egg ever laid in Honduras.
There was much delay. It seems that the gentlemen in the ring were trying to match their birds, but each desired to pair off his own with one that could be easily licked. There was much argument, much waving of hands, much indignant protest. At length it was settled. A little fat man beside me commenced sawing off the spurs from a rooster’s legs, and fitting thereon two sharp curved blades of steel. At the money counter—a rough wooden board presided over by a tall stony-faced man with heavy black eyebrows and the general air of the professional gambler—there was great excitement. Men crowded about it, shouting, “Two pesos on the red one!” “One peso on the gallina!”
The umpire—a well-dressed, impressive-looking individual who had once held office in the Honduran cabinet—inspected the steel gaffs, and the fight commenced. The two owners released their birds, and withdrew. For a moment both cocks eyed one another. Then, in apparent indifference, they turned away, and pecked unconcernedly at the ground, strolling around the ring as though neither saw the other. They walked clumsily, bothered by the long blades they carried. Occasionally they stopped, raised their heads, and crowed. Then they resumed their pecking at the earth, hunting imaginary worms. This, however, was all bluff, designed to throw the adversary off his guard. Quick as a flash one turned and flew at the other. They met in mid-air with a great flurry of feathers. Back they drew, crouching. Then they were at it again, clawing and pecking until the world became saturated with flying rooster.
The spectators went frantic with joy. They screamed applause. They shouted advice at the contestants.
Again the cocks drew back, crouching. A wild yell went up from the stands. I could observe nothing, but these fellows were experts, and they saw the end before it came. For suddenly, without warning, one of the cocks toppled upon its side, gushing blood from its trembling beak. In a flash the other was upon it, pecking triumphantly at its head. And the crowd poured into the ring.