Free Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes

nuzzled it. “It is good, no? Tonight we drink tequila. Not pulque. Not sotol. Tequila. Because it is Fiesta.” He drank, corked the bottle and replaced it in his hat. He moved his bare feet. “Be seated, my friend. You think business is not good with me? But tonight it is tequila. That is good, no?”
    Sailor slid into the gondola beside the bare feet. He’d like to take off his own shoes. They were hot and heavy after this day. “That’s swell, Pancho,” he said. The gondola was set in motion as he sat in it. It stirred with the dark, glittering leaves over the square, and the ponies stirred gently as if in sleep. Sailor pushed back his hat and the night was cool on his forehead.
    “Zozobra is dead,” Pancho said. “Viv’ las Fiestas!” He uncorked the bottle and passed it in one swoop. “We will have a drink, no, because business it is good?”
    “No more,” Sailor said. He stymied the sad face. “Promised my mother when I was a kid. One drink, no more. My old man was a drunk.”
    Pancho shrugged. “Sometimes it is good for a man to be drunk.” He tipped the bottle. There couldn’t be more than one drink left after this swig. One more and he’d herd the fat man to that bed. Pancho smacked his lips. He began to sing dolefully, “Adios, adios, mi amigo . . .” His eyes swiveled sly. “Where is the Indian girl?” he asked.
    “I left her here,” Sailor said. “With you.”
    “She was most unhappy you leave her,” Pancho said.
    “I had business.”
    “Always you think of business.” Pancho was sad. Only for a moment. His mouth twinkled. “But it is good business for me you think of business. Hola! I drink tequila.”
    ‘You find me a bed and I’ll buy you another bottle tomorrow night,” Sailor promised.
    “With you I will share my bed.” Pancho repeated the vow. “I will share my serape. You are my friend. But first another drink.” He tipped the bottle but the bottle smile didn’t come over his face. “Aaah,” he grunted. He tossed the bottle into the shadows that flickered under a tree.
    “I’ll buy you another tomorrow,” Sailor told him again. “Let’s go to bed now.” He stirred the gondola.
    “One moment,” Pancho stayed him. “First we drink together.”His big hand brought forth in triumph from his hip another pint of the colorless liquid. He grinned as his teeth pulled the cork. He proffered the bottle. Sailor said, “Remember? My promise.”
    “It is true,” Pancho sighed. “I too have given my promise. Many times.” The twinkle bobbed back to his lips. “But this is Fiesta. Tonight we will drink.”
    Sailor took the bottle. He wasn’t a drinking man and this Spanish white mule wasn’t a drink fit for man or mule. It was like fire in your gullet. Nevertheless he drank. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered further tonight. If he couldn’t sleep, he would drink. There was no reason for him to be alert. He drank, choked, and passed the bottle over to Pancho.
    “Bueno!” Pancho applauded. “That is good, no?” He gurgled it, repeated his ritual of recorking the bottle, standing it in his greasy hat. “The little Indian girl. . .” he began slyly.
    “Her friends had ditched her.” Sailor put his foot on that idea. “I didn’t know what to do with her. She was trailing me around. So I gave her a pop and a ride on your merry-go-round. She’d never ridden on one.”
    “No,” Pancho said. His eyes roved across the width of the Plaza to the museum portal where the Indians slept silently. “No.” It might only have occurred to him now. “The Indian children they do not ride Tio Vivo.”
    “Don’t have the price?” Sailor asked blackly.
    “Maybe no, maybe yes,” Pancho shrugged. He passed the bottle. Sailor took it and drank. “The Indians they are funny peoples. They are proud, the Indians. Maybe they do not wish their little ones to be bumped about by the Mexicans and the Gringos. Maybe they do not wish them to be screamed at, ‘Get out of here,