The Blue Indians
By Hanns Heinz Ewers 1907 (Die blauen Indianer)Copyright 2009 by Joe E. Bandel
Protected under United States Copyright Law as a derivative work of a foreign Author originally published prior to 1923
“The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”
I got to know Don Pablo when I had to shoot an old donkey in Orizaba. Orizaba is a little town that is the point of departure for those wanting to climb Pico de Orizaba, the tallest mountain in Mexico. In school they call it Citlaltépetl.
At the time I was still a true greenhorn and always mixed a handful of Aztec and Toltec words in with my Spanish. My Mexican was terrible and unfortunately the Mexicans couldn’t understand it at all. They preferred scraps of English mixed in.
Orizaba was a charming little-
But I have no intention of talking about Orizaba. It has nothing to do with this story except that it was where I needed to shoot an old donkey, which also has nothing to do with this story. I need to speak about the old donkey only because I have it to thank for my making the acquaintance of Don Pablo and it is through him that I met the blue Indians.
The old donkey stood in the back of the park. The park was not very large and laid out in a square at the end of the city. There were many high trees and the grass was growing over the path because no one ever went there. The people of Orizaba went to a place in the middle of the city where they played music.
Late one afternoon I went into the City Park while it was raining very hard. I found the old donkey in the back where the mountain rises. He was thoroughly soaked and grazing in the wet grass but I was certain that he looked at me as I went past.
The next evening I again went to the park in the rain. I met the old donkey there in the same place. He was not tied up, was not near any house or cottage that he could belong to. I went up to him. Then I saw that he was standing on three legs. His left rear leg dangled in the air. He was very old and had many sores from where the cinch had been too tight and rubbed the hide off, from lashes of the whip and from being stabbed with nail sticks. His leg was broken in two places; a dirty rag hung loosely around it. I took my own handkerchief and made a makeshift bandage.
We rode up the mountain the next day but returned two days later because of the unending rain. We were frozen and our nags shivered in the wet cold. I kept thinking about the old donkey. I rode over to the park before taking my mare to the stable.
He was still standing there in the same old place and raised his head when he saw me coming. I sprang down, petted him and spoke to him. That was not an easy thing to do because he stank dreadfully. I bit my lip not to get sick, bent over and raised his leg. It had become gangrenous; the flesh was rotting and stank bad, very bad. Much worse than-
I will not say. It is enough that I endured it. I knew what it meant. The old donkey looked at me and I felt what he was asking of me. I took my Browning, tore up a handful of grass.
“Eat,” I said.
But the animal wouldn’t eat. It only looked at me. I held the revolver behind his ear and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. A second and a third time, no shot. The revolver wouldn’t fire. It had rusted in the wet holster.
I laid my arm on the head of the animal and promised that I would come back. The fear in its tortured eyes fled.
“Will you really come back? Are you certain?”
I sprang onto the back of my mare and whipped her around. There perching on the branches of a dead tree were vultures. They were prepared to fly down as soon as their victim fell. They had been waiting days for the sick animal to collapse and then it did. The donkey stood up, fell, then sprang up again on its legs trembling in silent miserable fear. Oh, it knew its fate. If only it could die somewhere hidden, alone, away from these miserable birds. Then it collapsed again, couldn’t get up any more and the birds flew down.
They still needed to wait for days until the gasses from the decomposing body burst the hide open. Their weak beaks couldn’t rip through it. But now, right now, they could take the best from the meal, the delicious Hors d’ Oeuvre, the eyes of the living animal-
I turned around in the saddle. “Stop, you stop right now. I will be right back.”
The mud sprayed in the softened street. I went into the hotel like a tramp. There in the guestroom at the corner table were the gentlemen, German, English and French.
“Who will lend me a revolver?” I cried.
They all reached into their pockets, but then one asked, “Why?”
I told them about my old donkey. Their hands came back empty. No one gave me his Browning.
“No,” they said. “No, don’t do that. It would be very bad for you.”
“But the animal doesn’t belong to anyone,” I cried. “Its owner has chased it away to let it rot alive and be devoured by vultures.”
The bartender laughed, “You are entirely correct. Right now the donkey belongs to no one. But if you shoot it dead an owner will show up after an hour and require a sum for it that you could buy twenty horses with.”
“I would throw him out through the door!”
“Naturally, and that is the thing. The man will get the sheriff and the judge. Then you will refuse to pay. This is not Prussia and they would handle you brutally. You would most certainly find yourself sitting in jail and we would need to exert all our influence and a heavy amount of money just to get you out of there. What is the purpose in doing that! Believe me, there is law in Mexico!”
“Really,” I cried. “Law?”
I waved with my hand to a pair of bullet holes in the wall.
“Nice law! And those-”
The English engineer interrupted me. “Those? We just told you about them yesterday. The man shot three men and two women dead just for the fun of it. But they were Indians and prostitutes, not worth as much as a donkey. He received a half-year in jail but got off by staying at a hospital for two days. That might be true but don’t forget he was a Mexican and the Governor’s nephew. Strangers in this land must obey the law without fail.
I bet you would sit in a cell for a year because of your old donkey if we didn’t get you out, and that would cost us thousands. We would need to bribe the sheriff and the judge. Everyone knows how this business works. We are only saving our own money by not giving you a revolver.”
No one gave me his weapon. I pleaded but they laughed at me. I left the room fuming. A quarter hour later there was a knock on the door of my room. It was Don Pablo.
“Here is my revolver,” he said giving me a nod. “Pack your suitcase. Go back to the City Park as late as possible and then take the early 3 o’clock train. I will be leaving as well and wouldn’t mind a traveling companion.
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