Y'all are poppin my bubble, I thought Texas was crawling with big cats,
even saw one myself draped across the tailgate of a pickup out in Big bend.
Ain't you got plenty of whitetails for catbait? Hell, I even saw one up close
here in Florida on my fiftieth birthday right outside of Hogtown. I was
told by the authorities that it was an arboreal German shepherd.
Being careful won't do you much good but fighting back might. I have had
four, count em four friends who were "attacked" in or near Belize by "Red
tigers" as they are called.
The most spectacular attack was directed against my jungle buddy Arturo,
one very bad hombre. We had just returned to the squalid settlement of Mango
creek after three weeks up the Bladen branch of the Monkey river when a
village kid ran up to announce, "Turo, Turo, Big man be waitin for you! Big
man was an overgrown asswipe from a military background who owned an
adventure trekking company and had decided to undertake a little stroll across
the
Maya mountains. His plan was to go up the Bladen branch to its end (where
we had just been), cross the Maya mountains to the headwaters of the
Chiquibul then across the Vaca plateau to a sacbe (Mayan superhighway) that
led
north to the ruins of Caracol, then back to civilization. The whole trip was
to take only ten days. Arturo had a well deserved reputation as the
toughest of the tough so the Big man wanted Turo to accompany him.
When I heard this absurd plan I just laughed. We had just taken three
weeks to cover one quarter of the distance. Arturo explained to the Big man
that his plan was impossible, but for extra money he would lead him across the
Maya mountains by way of the Trio branch of the Monkey river, a major
shortcut. The Big man was an arrogant asshole and I wanted nothing to do with
him. I do such things for fun, not to prove a point. So I bowed out and
wished Turo, but not the big man, good luck.
As Turo tells it, on the morning of the third day he shouldered his heavy
pack and took the lead with his machete in hand. The Big man carried
Arturo's gun and a day pack. As Arturo stepped from between two big boulders a
huge male Red tiger came bounding down the mountainside and leapt through the
air with every intent of eating him. Under such circumstances time stands
still. Arturo remembered the words of his old Chiclero teacher who said,
"You can chop de tiger (jaguar), but you can never chop de Red tiger, him too
fast, you must jook him!" So he turned to face the cat, screamed "Fuck
you!" and stabbed with his machete as the big pussy flew through the air. The
point of the machete caught the cat right in the nose causing it to do a
double backflip and run howling up the mountain with blood flying everywhere.
After the cat was gone Turo turned around. The Big man was standing there
with the gun cradled in his arms trembling like a leaf. Arturo asked, "What
de ting you hold in your hand?" That was when the Big man noticed he was
holding a gun. Arturo snatched the gun out of his hands, threw down the pack
and said, "Big man, pick up the pack. It is time for you to chop and carry
the load. But the Big man announced, as "big" men so often do under such
circumstances, that they were running behind schedule and perhaps it would be
best if they returned.
I think Arturo is dead now, but it is hard to be sure because legends die
hard if at all. He was a bad man. He raped women, killed men, looted
temples, and killed more tigers, both red and non red, than he could remember.
Nevertheless I respected him and he respected me. Our mutual respect was based
upon our respective abilities in the jungle. In his prime he was a
chiclero guide, the fellow who led the other chicleros to untapped trees in
unexplored jungle. Perhaps some of you may have heard of how rough and tough
chicleros were. Aturo was the alpha chiclero. Along the way he found countless
ruins and no doubt looted them all. He tried his hand at guiding
archeologists but soon learned to loathe them and their petty bickering ways.
He was
paid pennies, far less that he could make from looting. In his eyes the
archeologists were simply grave robbers on a grander scale. On our many trips
into the bush I did what I could to prevent him from looting, but there was
nothing I could do to prevent him from coming back after I was gone.
One day we had a big argument about this so he said, "I am going to show
you what real grave robbery looks like". He took me to a place not far from
the Southern highway near Medina bank where archeologists had seen a "hollow
mountain" from the air. It was only a few miles from the road but despite
repeated attempts using local guides it could not be located. So they hired
Arturo and he effortlessly found it. The site was pristine. It was indeed
a hollow mountain, a huge day lit arch with altars, graves, and numerous
artifacts laying in plain sight, an archeologist's dream. He watched while
they utterly destroyed the place.
When I got there some years later I could hardly believe the destruction.
In their zeal to extract "knowledge" the archeologists had left nothing but
piles of dirt, garbage, and miles of flagging tape. Total disrespect.
Arturo was especially upset about the destruction of the altar so I rebuilt it
to his specifications. If only I could find a virgin!
Logan, are you out there somewhere? Do you remember Arturo? If so tell us
some stories!
SW
