Free Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes Page A

you dirty Indians.’ The Indians are funny. They stay to themselves.” He took a philosophic swig. “The Spanish people say that they are proud peoples. Maybe one time, yes. Maybe they come on their horses, a proud peoples, with gold on their saddles. It is said this is true. That is why there is the Fiesta. Because the proud Spanish conquered the Indian. Don Diego de Vargas in his coat of mail and riding in his fine leather saddle on his fine proud horse. That is what they say.”
    Sailor remembered vague history. “I guess it’s in the books,” he said. The gondola stirred gently and the dark glittering leaves were a-rustle in the night.
    “It is not good to be a conqueror, I think,” Pancho said. “The Spanish were a proud peoples when they conquered but they are no longer proud. The Gringos came after and conquered the Spanish. Not by the sword. With business.” His lip drooped and he winked at Sailor. “Business it is. Land and hides and wool and the buying and selling of money. That I do not understand. The buying and selling of money. But the Gringo sonnama beetches, they understand it.” He took a big happy breath. “They are funny peoples, the Gringos, no? Maybe once they were proud peoples but I do not think so.” His nose wrinkled. “No, I do not think so. Proud peoples do not root like pigs for fifty cents, two bits, a dollar, do they? Proud peoples are too proud.”
    “What about those proud Spanish people of yours?” Sailor asked. He didn’t wait for invitation; he reached out and took the bottle from the hat. “Weren’t they money grubbers too? Didn’t you just say they were rooting for the almighty dollar too?”
    “No, no,” Pancho denied. “They were not looking for two bits fifty cents. They look for gold— mucho oro —the seven golden cities of Cibola. Do you think once there was the seven golden cities?”
    “Could be,” Sailor said. If going after big dough instead of little made you proud, he’d be pretty proud himself tomorrow. He wasn’t listening very hard. The cradle was rocking and the leaves were rocking and there was a quietness in him, a peace in the gentle rocking darkness.
    “Maybe so, maybe not,” Pancho sighed. “The Spanish was a proud peoples then. But they was not good peoples. They was greedy and selfish and cruel peoples. They do not come with peace in their hearts and love. Love for the sky and the earth and the peoples of this land. They come to steal.” His eyes glittered like the dark leaves over the Plaza. “Something happen to them. The land do not like them. They are cruel to its peoples. I am an Indian.”
    “I thought you were,” Sailor murmured. Like Pila. There was a sameness in the big man and the stone girl; he didn’t know what it was but he recognized it as there.
    “My grandmother was an Apache,” Pancho said. “I am Spanish also. The Spanish they are good peoples now. Because they are humble peoples. It is good for them to be humble as it is good for the Indian peoples to be proud. It is the way this land would have it be.”
    The way Pancho talked about this country you’d think it was some heathen god that must be obeyed. That you had to sacrifice to. Not just a lot of wasteland stretching on and on until the mountains stopped it. Until the mountains uprose, a barrier against the sky.
    ”What about the white folks?” Sailor asked.
    “The Gringos, pah!” Pancho scorned. “They are not of this land. They do not bring nothing to this land. All they want is to take away the two bits fifty cents. Never are they of this land.”
    The aliens. The ones without existence.
    Pancho said comfortably. “I am an Indian and I am Spanish. My grandfather was a Spanish don. That is why I am called Don Jose Patricio Santiago Morales y Cortez. It is the name of my grandfather. My grandmother was his slave.”
    “Lincoln freed the slaves,” Sailor said. He said it like he was reading from a book, a history book in grade school and outside