27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (6 page)

Rosalio, stand and speak!

(
The Son looks at The Judge.
)

T
HE
J
UDGE:
Yes, Rosalio, speak.

(
The Son rises slowly
,
twisting the length of white rope between his hands.
)

S
ON:
What do you want me to tell you?

T
HE
J
UDGE:
(
smiling
)
Simply the truth.

S
ON:

The truth?

Why ask me for that?

Ask it of him, the player—for truth is sometimes alluded to in music.

But words are too loosely woven to catch it in . . .

A bird can be snared as it rises or torn to earth by the falcon.

His song, which is truth, is not to be captured ever.

It is an image, a dream, it is the link to the mother, the belly’s rope that dropped our bodies from God a longer time ago than we remember!

I—forget.

(
The Chorus murmur.
)

L
UISA:
The tainted spring—is bubbling.

S
ON:
Player! Prompt me with music.

(
The Guitar Player sweeps the strings.
)

S
ON:
(
with a sudden smile
)

How shall I describe the effect that a song had on us?

On nights of fiesta the ranch-boys, eager with May, surrounded our fences with little drum-gourds, with guitars.

(
facing The Mother
)

You, Mother, would wash the delicate white lace curtains, sweep down the long stairs and scent the alcoves with lemon.

(
Chord on the guitar.
)

How shall I describe the effect that a song had on us?

Our genitals were too eager!

M
OTHER:
(
involuntarily
)
No!

L
UISA:
Listen!

S
ON:

Player, prompt me with music For I have lost the thread.

Weave back my sister’s image.

(
Music
)

No. She’s lost,

Snared as she rose,

or torn to earth by the falcon!

No, she’s lost,

Irretrievably lost,

Gone out among Spanish-named ranges.

(
He smiles vaguely.
)

Too far to pursue except on the back of that lizard . . .

L
UISA:
Bubbling! Bubbling!

M
OTHER:
Rosalio!

(
The Father touches her shoulder.
)

S
ON:

. . . Whose green phosphorescence,

scimitar-like,

disturbs midnight

with hissing, metallic sky-prowling . . .

J
UDGE:

Is this the chimera you,

you moon-crazed youth,

pursued through the mountains?

S
ON:
No . . .

(
Luisa laughs harshly.
)

L
UISA:

How shall he describe the effect that a song had on him!

S
ON:
I washed my body in snow.

L
UISA:
Because it was shameful!

S
ON:

Yes!

And now you may know

How well indeed I succeeded in putting out fires.

My sister is free.

(
To The Rancher
)

His hand gave liberty to her.

But mine—a less generous agent—

Only gave her—longings . . .

(
The Mother cries out. The Father rises. The Chorus murmur.
)

L
UISA:
Sangre mala!

(
A peal of thunder outside.
)

J
UDGE:

A house that breeds in itself will breed destruction.

L
UISA:
Sangre mala!

F
ATHER:
(
passionately
)

In our blood was the force that carved this country!

Sangre mala,
you call it?

T
HE
J
UDGE:

Your pride turned inward too far, excluded the world and lost itself in a mirror.

M
OTHER:

No, we admitted too much of the world, I think.

We should have put up more fences.

The Conquistadors must not neglect their fences.

F
ATHER:
Ours were neglected.

M
OTHER:
We poured our blood in the desert to make it flower.

F
ATHER:
The flowers were not good flowers.

(
The sky through the doorway darkens. Wind moans.
)

M
OTHER:
They were neglected.

S
ON:
(
tormented
)
Mother!

M
OTHER:
I never should have poured—dark wine—at supper.

S
ON:
Mother!

M
OTHER:

Yes—yes, lately the place has grown a great deal wilder

because of neglect

or maybe because winds take more liberty with it.

Storms seem to come more often.

F
ATHER:

Year after year it’s the same.

I step out the door, a little bit drunk after supper, to watch down the valley—

Five miles off, even ten,

the rainstorms advancing like armies of tall, silent men.

Nothing changes . . .

M
OTHER:

But isn’t it strange how things grow up in a life?

Like trees—

One spring planted—accepted—forgotten almost,

Then all of a sudden—crowding the backyard with shadows!

F
ATHER:

Invaders!

We are invaders ourselves.

These ranches, these golden valleys—

A land so fiercely contested as this land was.

Father’s blood and mother’s anguish bought it!

Is it to be merely used for cattle to graze on?

Are we to build on it nothing but barns and fences?

No, no, we are invaders. We used the land—gave nothing!

But even so—

This man has killed our daughter.

We ask in return his life.

M
OTHER:
Demand his life in return.

L
UISA:
Hear how the blood-lust in them cries out loud!

T
HE
J
UDGE:

Rosalio, in your presence your sister was slain.

It is for you to accuse the man who . . .

S
ON:
(
springing up
)
Yes, I accuse him!

L
UISA:

Your tongue should be torn from your mouth and flung to buzzards!

Shameless—Shameless!

S
ON:

Yes, I am shameless—shameless.

The kitchen-woman has spoken her kitchen truth.

The loft of the barn was occupied by lovers not once, not twice, but time and time again, whenever our blood’s rebellion broke down bars.

Resistless it was, this coming of birds together in heaven’s center . . .

Plumage—song—the dizzy spirals of flight all suddenly forced together in one brief, burning conjunction!

Oh—oh—

a passionate little spasm of wings and throats that clutched—and uttered—darkness . . .

Down

down

down

Afterwards, shattered, we found our bodies in grass.

(
Soft music
)

The coolness healed us,

the evening drained our fever,

bandaged the wounded part in silk of stars . . .

And so did the wind take back the startling pony—and hurl him down arroyos toward the dawn!

(
He sinks down on the bench between his parents.
)

T
HE
J
UDGE:
(
rising
)

Enough for a while—enough. The court is thirsty.

(
He crosses to door and shouts.
)

Muckachos!
Run to the well and bring us water!

Or if you prefer—
habanero!

Musician—play!

(
Smiling cavalierly, The Guitar Player moves sinuously forward.

He stands in the light through the window and plays a danson. Gourds and buckets of water are brought inside and passed among the benches.

The Judge returns from the doorway.
)

S
CENE
II

T
HE
J
UDGE:

The clouds are darkening still.

If heaven is good enough to send us rain, the court will be suspended until tomorrow.

Now let us get on.

(
He pauses before the people from Casa Blanca.
)

Rosalio, could you not guess that this violation of blood which you have acknowledged would certainly—sooner or later—bring shame—disaster?

S
ON:

We knew—and we did not know.

We were oblivious of this sun-bleached man who sullenly dreamed to possess her.

But he of us derived his green suspicion, the only green thing in him, watered and tended by this sly Indian woman.

He, our former repair man, mender of our broken fences, which almost without our knowledge had grown to be his, till he seized on the girl—instead of Casa Blanca.

Finding that all of his clutching was finally gainless, clutched an axe!

For he would be owner of something—or else destroy it!

(
The guitar sounds. He faces The Rancher.
)

You, repair man, come early, before daybreak can betray you.

Now clasp in your hand the smooth white heft of the axe!

But wait! Wait—first—

Fill up the tin buckets with chalky white fluid, the milk of that phosphorescent green lizard—Memory, passion.

L
UISA:
The tainted spring . . .

S
ON:

Unsatisfied old appetites—And stir these together—carefully, not to slop over—

L
UISA:
. . . is bubbling!

S
ON:
(
to Luisa
)

You, too, assist in this business.

Bring a scapular blade to remove the stained parts of the lumber—collection of rags to scrub the splatterings off.

M
OTHER:
(
moaning
)
Ahhh—ahhh . . .

S
ON:
(
deliriously
)

For often toward daybreak that rime of the reptile’s diamond-like progress . . .

L
UISA:
(
mockingly
)
He wanders again. The tainted spring is bubbling!

S
ON:

. . . makes following easy for those who desire to pursue him.

He depends on his tail’s rapid motion, scimitar-like—green lightning—to stave off hunters!

You have to skip rope lightly, handy-man, our former repair man,

you have to skip rope lightly—lightly!—lightly!

Carry your axe and your bucket

slow-clanking past frozen hen-houses

where sinister stalactite fowls make rigid comment

claw—beak—

barely, perceptibly stirring their russet feathers—

on purpose of your quiet passage.

Go on—go on to where

the barn,

that moon-paled building,

large

and church-like in arch of timber,

tumescent between the sensual fingers of vines,

intractably waits

this side of your death-coition!

There halt, repair man, for surely the light will halt you if nothing else does.

(
Guitar
)

R
ANCHER:
(
trance-like
)

It stood in a deep well of light.

It stood like a huge wrecked vessel—in deep seas of light!

S
ON:
You halted . . .

C
HORUS:
(
like an echo
)
Halt!

R
ANCHER:
Yes.

S
ON:
At this immemorial vault,

C
HORUS:
Vault!

S
ON:

this place of plateaux and ranges of Spanish-named mountains . . .

C
HORUS:
Mountains!

R
ANCHER:

Yes.

I set up the ladder.

S
ON:

Set up the steep, steep ladder—

Narrow . . .

R
ANCHER:

Narrow! —Enquiring

If Christ be still on the Cross!

C
HORUS:
Cross!

S
ON:
Against the north wall set it . . .

R
ANCHER:

Set it and climbed . . .

(
He clutches his forehead.
) Climbed!

C
HORUS:
Climbed!

S
ON:

Climbed!

To the side of the loft that gave all things to the sky.

The axe—

for a single moment—

saluted the moon—then struck!

CHORUS:
Struck!

S
ON:
And she didn’t cry . . .

R
ANCHER:

Struck?

Aye, struck—struck—
struck!

C
HORUS:
Struck!

(
Dissonant chords on the guitar, with cymbals. The two men surge together and struggle like animals till they are torn apart. There is a rumble of thunder.
)

T
HE
J
UDGE:

Thunder?—Over the Lobos.

Señores, Your passion is out of season.

This is the time for reflection to calm the brain, as later, I hope, the rain will cool our ranches.

I know that truth evades the certain statement but gradually and obliquely filters through the mind’s unfettering in sleep and dream.

The stammered cry gives more of truth than the hand could put on passionless paper . . .

My neighbor from Casa Rojo, Stand and speak your part in this dark recital.