Shortly before the October meeting, when I had returned to Ajoya from my first vaccinating expedition, I went to make plans with Jesús (Chuy) Manjarréz, who is the official treasurer and effective leader of both the Nuevo Centro de Población and the Comité para la Introducción de Agua Potable. I suggested that the fairest way to collect money for the water project would be to ask each householder to contribute a small percentage—somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2 percent—of the value of what he owned, principally the value of his cattle.

Chuy agreed, but said it would be very difficult to get the wealthier cattle owners to admit that they possess as many cattle as they have. He pointed out that, in order to avoid the taxes on their cattle, many of the big cattlemen report only a small fraction of the cattle which they actually own, and pay handsome bribes to deter investigation. “For example, Marcelo Manjarréz,” said Chuy, “reported in the last census that he had only fifteen head of cattle, while in truth he has closer to six hundred. Most of the other cattlemen did likewise. I believe I’m the only one who told the truth.”

“How many head did you say you had?” I asked.

“Roughly two hundred head,” said Chuy, pleased with his honesty.

I did not refute him, although only a few days before, little Goyo’s brother, Martín, who was working as vecerero for Jesús Manjarréz in La Mesa, had told me that Jesús has six hundred head of cattle at the very least.

Jesús Manjarréz told me that he would help me present my plan for proportional contribution at the forthcoming meeting. In the meantime I paid calls on a number of the other ricos to try to win them over in advance.

First I went to see Jesús (Chuy) Vega, by far the wealthiest man in Ajoya, owning four houses, four huge ranches, and well over a thousand head of cattle. According to my plan, Chuy Vega would be asked to make the largest contribution, and I thought that if I could convince him to pay his share, others would more willingly follow suit.

“An excellent plan!” exclaimed Chuy Vega, when I presented the idea. “I’m behind you all the way, David.”

“Wonderful!” I said. “Could I ask you how many head of cattle you have?”

Chuy chuckled and said, “Well, you know how it is, David. When I’m drunk I say I’ve got 5000 and when I’m sober I say I’ve got five.”

I chuckled with him, and replied, “They say that drunkards and children always tell the truth. I’ll put you down for five thousand.”

“Oh no you don’t!” cried Chuy, waving his fat hand.

“Then how many cattle do you really have?” I asked him.

Chuy Vega grew sober. “To tell you the honest truth, David,” he said, “I’ve sold a lot of my cattle and I’ve had a lot of them die. Right now I’ve only got about eighty little cattle.”

“Now how about telling me the truth,” I suggested.

Chuy frowned. “That’s the very truth, David. I swear it. Eighty head. A hundred at the very most!”

“You won’t object if I check with your cowboys, will you?” I asked.

Chuy waved his fat hands. “Come now, David, you don’t have to do that! I’ll tell you what. You can put me down for two hundred head. It’s more than I have, but because I want to help bring about the agua potable…”

“Two hundred head for each of your four ranchos?” I suggested.

“Oh no!” cried Chuy. He shook his head and laughed. “You’re a hard man, David,” he said.

My next stop was at the home of Tomás Lomas, the father of Dimas. Apart from talking to Tomás about my plan for the Agua Potable, I wanted to see if he could lend me two mules for my next vaccinating trip into the barrancas. Tomás greeted me energetically, agreed to have two mules ready and waiting for me the following Thursday (he didn’t), and also said he would cooperate whole-heartedly with my plan for the water. I explained to him the difficulty I had been having in getting people to admit the number of cattle they possessed.

“How many did Chuy Vega say he had?” asked Tomás.

“Two hundred,” I replied.

Tomás was outraged. “What!” he cried. “Why Chuy Vega has close to three thousand head!”

“And how many would you say you have?” I asked him.

Tomás shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m just a small rancher, myself,” he said. “I’ve got some thirty head of cattle, no more.”

“I’ve seen at least double that number with your brand ranging in the uplands,” I said.

Tomás squinted his eyes and looked hard at me. “What uplands? Where?” he demanded.

“In the Arroyo de Verano near the river,” I said.

Tomás looked over to his son, Samuel, who nodded back that it was so. “Very well,” said Tomás. “You can put me down for sixty head.”

“I happen to know that you have better than two hundred head,” I said gently.

Tomás sprang out of his seat. “Whoever told you that told a lie!” he cried. I did not argue with him.

The meeting of the Nuevo Centro de Población was scheduled to begin at noon on a Sunday late in October, in the village salón (public meeting hall). By one o’clock there was still. No one there, and I went to search for Jesús Manjarréz. I found him drinking beer in the tienda of José Celís.

“Is the meeting going to take place?” I asked him.

“It should begin any moment now,” said Chuy, slightly drunk.

I had just stepped out into the street again when María, the stout school mistress, came hurrying up to me.

“Come quickly to the house of my sister, Teresa,” she said.

“Is Teresa bad again?” I asked.

“No,” said María. “It’s her baby. Hurry!”

“What’s wrong with the baby?” I asked as we strode along.

“I don’t know,” gasped María. “It’s susto, I think. It scares me.” (Susto—literally “fright” or “shock”—is a condition common in infants, thought to be caused by evil spirits.)

We arrived at the ill-kept casa of Teresa and found the mother hovering over her seven-month-old child. I was appalled. The youngster could not have weighed more than fifteen pounds. His face was lean and drawn, making it look older and more human than it was. His shrunken belly sank beneath his protruding rib cage, and his arms and legs were skeletal, emaciated in extreme. All this, however, was not the mother’s immediate concern. The baby looked dead. He was still breathing faintly and had a weak pulse, but his big eyes stared fixedly ahead of him, wide open. I moved my hand in front of them and they did not move, or blink. Teresa began to weep.

“It frightens me!” said María with a shudder.

“What do you feed him?” I asked Teresa.

She told me, whimpering, that from the day the baby had been born she had fed it only cornmeal and water, and sometimes rice, because the other women had told her that since she had asthma, it would be bad to breast feed the baby. Now Teresa’s breasts were dry.

“Why didn’t you ask me for powdered or canned milk?” I asked.

Teresa sobbed. “I was ashamed to ask you for any more help. You’ve already given so much medicine to me and my other children.”

“The baby could have had cow’s milk!” snapped María, suddenly angry. “Four months ago I offered Pedro, my sister’s husband the use of a cow I had in Agüines, but he never got around to bringing it. And he never buys milk, either. When Pedro gets his hand on a few pesos he gets drunk! Poor Teresa, sick as she always is…”

Teresa lit a match to a piece of blessed palm and sprinkled the ashes into the baby’s mouth. Then she passed a small, plastic-enclosed figure of San Martín de Porres back and forth over the staring infant, while she and María said in unison:

En el nombre de la Santísima Trinidád, En el nombre de Jesucristo, el Hijo de Dios, En el nombre de María, Reina del Cielo, En el nombre de José, Patrón de la Iglesia Universál, Bendito Martín cura a mi hijito Para el honor y gloria de Dios Y la salvación de las almas.

In the name of the Holy Trinity, In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, In the name of María, Queen of Heaven, In the name of José, Master of the Universal Church, Blessed Martín, cure my little son For the honor and glory of God And the salvation of the souls.

“Ohhh!” cried Teresa. She caught hold of my arm. “He’s not going to die, is he? Tell me he’s not going to die!”

“I don’t know,” I said gently. I had never seen a child in this state before.

María slapped the child gently, and murmured,“En el nombre del Santo Niño de Atache.” Still the baby stared ahead, zombie-like. María snatched up a bottle of agua de carmin and poured a half-teaspoonful of the bright red fluid into the child’s mouth. The baby neither spat it out nor swallowed. María slapped it again. The baby continued to stare straight ahead with frozen eyes.

“I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” wailed Teresa, and ran from the dark room.

“What’s wrong with the baby?” asked María, terrified.

“The child is starved, that’s one thing for certain,” I said sadly. “Other than that I can’t say.”

Teresa returned and stood, sobbing softly, in the doorway, afraid to look at her child again. María covered her face and began to weep also.

Then a strange thing happened. An overwhelming feeling of sorrow and concern came over me. I reached out and put my hand on the child’s forehead, looked intently into its staring eyes, and willed with all the force I could muster for the child to come back out of its strange, comatose trance. While I still had my hand on his forehead, the child’s eyes began visibly to soften, to melt, almost. They blinked, and began to move. Whether this was due to the warmth of my hand, to some psychic force I do not understand, or mere coincidence, I cannot say. In any case, the child wakened, as out of hypnosis. It was uncanny!

“Look, Teresa!” cried María. “His eyes have come normal again. I think he’s all right.”

Teresa hurried in to peer at her emaciated baby. The child coughed and sputtered and began feebly to move its arms and legs. “Thank God!” sighed Teresa. “What should I give him?”

“Milk!” I said. “I’ll bring some from the clinic right away.”

When I returned with the milk, Teresa was standing over the baby holding an empty tablespoon in her hand.

“What did you give him?” I asked.

“A purgative of cooking oil,” she said: I shuddered. “Did I do wrong?” she asked anxiously.

I shook my head. “Just don’t give him any more of anything without asking me,” I said. Teresa nodded. I gave her instructions on how to prepare the milk, saw that she did it right, and watched her begin to feed the child.

“I’ll come back after the meeting,” I said, leaving.

She followed me to the doorway. “Will he be all right now?” she asked fearfully.

I answered her in her own idiom. “Si Dios quiere.” (If God wills.)

It was now past two o’clock, and the meeting had still not begun. I found Jesús Manjarréz in his home, stone drunk.

“What about the meeting?” I asked.

“I can’t.” said Chuy simply. “I can’t even walk!” He laughed uproariously. “Sorry.”

Most of the men who had come from the neighboring ranchos for the meeting had gravitated into the pool hall, from which the juke-box was throbbing with a loud, Latin beat. In the pool hall, also, I found Cristino Chávez, the figurehead president of the Nuevo Centro de Población. I asked him if there were still going to be a meeting. He said he thought so.

Slowly the men began to gather in the salon for the meeting. Cristino Chavez arrived, and was at a loss without Jesús Manjarréz. After waiting for nearly an hour, during which many people left, he opened the meeting by saying, “Ahem! There are some people who want to talk about land.” And a number of men began to argue. Nothing was resolved; Cristino did not intermediate. As one hour and then another passed, the room got more and more noisy and many people got bored and were leaving. At last I saw Chuy Vega lean over to the man sitting next to him and say “¡Vamos, compadre!”

“What about the agua potable?” I asked him.

“Go forward and tell Cristino you want to speak,” suggested Chuy, “and they can carry on with all this nonsense afterwards.”

I followed his suggestion.

“David wants to say something,” Cristino said simply. The room became silent.

It was then that I made my big tactical error. I had decided, before speaking about the Agua Potable, to say a word in defense of old Nicolasa, the washer-woman, who was still being terrorized by the villagers and afraid to leave Rosaura’s house. I pointed out that the death of Chútele (Juan the Cirrhotic) had been caused by a liver condition that had clearly resulted from too much drinking, not from witchcraft, and that before his death he had been examined by doctors from both México and the United States (namely Dr. Félix and Dr. Price) who had agreed on the diagnosis. I begged the people to stop their unwarranted accusations of Nicolasa, and stressed that it was both unjust and unkind to make her suffer as she was doing.

My little speech was accepted with a stony silence. The people just stared. Their rigid faces seemed to say, “We’re glad you bring us medicine; we regard you as a friend; but you know nothing of witchcraft, so keep your damned Gringo nose out of what you know nothing about!”

“Secondly I want to speak to you about the Agua Potable . . .” I began anew. But I had already turned the tide against me. I re-emphasized the need for pure drinking water, and carefully explained the plan for proportional contribution. “That way a man who has one cow will contribute about one peso, a man who has fifteen cows will contribute fifteen pesos, and a man with five hundred head of cattle will contribute around five hundred pesos. But in any case no one will contribute more than about a peso per cow, so that no one will be hurt. What do you say?”

They didn’t say anything. They all stared at me again with the same stony silence. Part of the problem was that none of the independent campesinos were present, it being a meeting of the Nuevo Centro. Those present from Ajoya were either the rich cattlemen or their peons, and most of the rich cattlemen had already got bored and left. The campesinos who remained dared not express their own opinions even if they had them.

I made another stab: “The contributions will, of course, remain voluntary, so the plan can only work if you, the people, go along with it willingly. What do you think?”

Still the people just stared.

I tried yet again: “If all of you want me to, I’ll cooperate with you to make the assessments of property value and see if we can raise the money between us. Could I have a show of hands of those in favor?”

Heads turned slightly this way and that for their cues, but not one hand went up.

Marcelo Manjarréz said casually, “I think we should raise the money according to the original plan of 150 pesos per householder. I’m ready to give my 150 pesos the day everyone else does.”

“But look, Marcelo!” I protested. “That plan’s not only unfair, it doesn’t work! Fidel’s been trying to collect on that basis for eight months, and he’s still got almost nothing.”

“Nevertheless, that’s what I think,” said Marcelo, refolding his thick arms across his chest. “I’m ready to pay my 150 pesos the day I’m asked.”

Chuy Vega stood up. “I’m completely behind David’s plan!” he said. “And I’m willing to contribute up to 500 pesos to see it go through.” He sat down again.

(Dear Chuy, I thought to myself, if you were really ready to contribute in proportion to what you have, you would not have said 500 pesos, but 5000.) However, I said nothing. I looked about the room for other of los ricos, but they had all. Left. I called for another show of hands. Not even Chuy Vega’s went up.

“I thank you all for listening,” I said, and unable to control my disappointment, passed out through the doorway. From the street I looked back over my shoulder toward the salon and muttered, “¡Borregos!” (Sheep!)

My friend, Tatino, who is one of the Agradistas and therefore had not been welcomed into the assembly of the Nuevo Centro, had been listening from one of the windows. As I walked down the street toward the casa Chavarín, he followed me and put his arm around my shoulder.

“Don’t feel bad, David,” he said. “That’s the way it’s been all along. Ever since the Nuevo Centro took control of Ajoya, they haven’t succeeded in bringing to completion a single project. Even the salón where the meeting is being held was built by Chuy Alarcón and the Agradistas. ‘Ellos’ have the money to make all kinds of improvements, but their elbows are too hard.” (Hard elbow [codo duro] means stingy.)

As we passed the casa of Jesús Manjarréz, leader of the Nuevo Centro, the sound of boisterous laughter flooded out.

“Does Chuy Alarcón drink much?” I asked Tatino.

“I’ve never once seen him drunk,” said Tatino.

“Nor I,” I said. “It’s a shame he left.”

“He was afraid of getting shot just like Ramón Valverde” said Tatino. And he added, “Also, I think he got discouraged.”

“That I can understand,” I said sadly.

As we entered the casa Chavarín, old Micaela came hurrying forward, saying, “David! María came looking for you again while you were at the meeting. Teresa’s baby has died.”

Teresa’s baby is dead. It died while I was wagging my tongue at the meeting. Teresa’s baby who never tasted a drop of its mother’s milk. The shriveled product of poverty and fear. Better off dead, maybe! But still—a mother’s love, a mother’s terror, a mother’s child, a life almost human…

“Oh,” I said numbly.

A very thin little girl with a long, pointed face like a coati mundi’s, who had followed me up the street without my noticing, said to me softly, “David, don’t you have a pencil for me for school? I don’t have one.” It was the daughter of Chútele who had died only two weeks before. I brought a pencil and a handful of crayons out of the back room, and handed them to the little girl.

“Gracias,” she said, gripping her treasures. She hesitated a moment. “My mother asks if you don’t have any more milk for my baby sister…” I placed a plastic jug full of powdered milk in the girl’s arms. “Oh, thank you, Don David! Thank you!” Grinning with delight, she went skipping out of the house.