Gunslingers Don't Sing or Dance by Mike Marino (any book recommendations txt) 📕

that will be a problem,” I offered without consulting the Colonel first. Isadora concurred. “He suis sûr que ce sera un honneur monsieur Verne.”


“How long have you been in Merida,” I queried.


“Two weeks now enjoying this marvelous festival. They call it Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It goes on all month long. Wonderful fun! When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs they found them celebrating for the entire month of August or what it would be called on the Aztec Solar Calendar, but they have since moved it to November 1 to coincide with All Souls day, They felt it was too pagan so they forced them to change it in keeping with a Catholic Holiday. Now, the old guard in areas far removed from the Capital revert to the old ways and celebrate in August, as it should be!”


Isadora understood completely, while I remained amazed and somewhat uneasy, “Baxter, we celebrate death as well as life in New Orleans. I time of remembrance and joy.”


“Yes, but you also have a nasty habit of raising the dead. Very Mary Shelley if you ask me.”


Verne couldn’t resist and seemed genuinely surprised I was familiar with early 19th century literature. “I underestimated you Monsieur. You carry, how you say, a big iron on your hip yet are familiar with the literature of Mary Shelley and her novel ‘Frankenstein’ which is a wonderfully frightening story. I sir, am familiar with the culture of voodoo or v-o-u-d-o-o as it is properly spelled were one to write it down on linen. Here in Mexico it is different. No raising of the dead to walk the earth, merely a celebration to cheer the deceased spirits on their perpetual journey, These people have been celebrating this day for over 3,000 years. Imagine that! While we view death as the end of life, to these people , life was merely a dream and only in death did they become truly awake!”


“It was always a time for skulls as you see here. However the skulls are represented as masks today, in some places.” Gallegos appeared out of nowhere as if he were one of the grateful dead himself risen from the past. “It wasn’t always so. The ancients sometimes used the real skulls of their battle captives to offer to the Goddess of the Dead. It is a custom dying out. The peasants are a superstitious people and believe the  curse of the Aztecs is very real. It  says  if one goes after the treasure they have buried and hidden the thief will lose his head and become a resident of the underworld ruled by Mictlantecuhtli,  a god of the dead and the king of Mictlanthe  the  lowest section of the underworld.”


“Thank you, Gallegos for spooking us. Christ, what are you doing here so soon?”


“We rode fast and camp is being set up.  El Diablo and the others will be coming to town soon along with the Colonel.  After all, the dead are alive in spirit as you can see and now it is the time for the living to enjoy the fiesta too. After we leave here we go inland to Chichen Itza. Where we will travel in barren land. No fiestas. No cerveza.”


“What about Monty? Any sign of them?”


“No. They are taking their time now. I think they know exactly where we are headed. Anyone can figure it out by now. We must be on our guard even more than before.”


I had to agree. At that exact moment, dust was being raised on the road into town as El Diablo and some of his men rode in fast whooping and firing their pistols into the clouds above. Obviously they loved a good fiesta as well as I do. The Colonel was riding with them and looked strangely out of place astride a steed and not at the controls of his flying machine.


“El Diablo! Glad you made it,” I smiled.


“No trouble my friend. This Monty is far behind, but we will be ready for him should he show up. I left guards back at the camp. All good shots too. They have Winchesters so nothing will get past them. Now, we celebrate, yes?”


Isadora and I were ready to join in the festivities, but inside we wanted to find time to be alone. “Look, let’s get a room at the hotel over there, if there are any. We can spend the night here and when the group rides through in the morning we’ll have them bring our horses.”


She was more than agreeable. We announced our plans to everyone and before we headed to the hotel I made sure I introduced Jules to everyone, especially Col. Beauregard. “You two have a lot in common Colonel and if its OK, Jules can ride with you for a spell. Might give him an idea for a book or two. You might even be the hero in it!”


They both laughed and joining El Diablo and his men headed for the nearest cantina to wash the dust from their throats. Jean-Paul stared menacingly at me, then broke into a broad Haitian smile and winked. If he was a zombie, he was alright in my book.


Isadora and I found a room at the hotel. It was small but efficient. Even with so many people in town we managed to get one. “These people are poor, Baxter,” she said. “They can’t afford a room or barely food. They are also a strong people. I feel their strength. A proud people. Aztec and Mayan blood running through them as strong as a raging river.”


“You are an amazing woman, Isadora. Absolutely amazing.”


“It’s the spirits. They inform me. Quiet now. No more talk. Let’s get to our room and freshen up. Then we join the others. After that we will celebrate together. Alone.”


This woman could talk a rattlesnake into surrendering. Voodoo or no voodoo. I was powerless to resist. She had me lassoed and hogtied, and I was in no hurry to leave her rodeo!

Chapter 16 - Aztec Curse of the Grateful Dead

 

We caught up with the others just as the same golden sun Coronado must have been warmed by in his quest for Cibola was descending now below the western horizon of what once was thought to be an Earth as flat as a tortilla. Who knows how many had journeyed to far in the past to the edge of a this invisible precipise only to find more and more terra firma firmly in place.


The town square was alive with dancers, drums and dia los muertos masks.
“It’s all so wonderful. Death as a life celebration, Baxter,” Isadora remarked.


“Yep. Different from anything I’ve seen. Let find a drink and some food. I’m starving!”
Was my somewhat cavalier retort. She saw beauty. I saw a table with wine jugs and gourds filled with mescal the agave drink to cure all ills. As they say in the villages "Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también." or "For every ill, Mezcal, and for every good as well." I’ll drink to that!


Mescal gourds in hand we found our new friend Jules Verne and Jean-Paul sitting on the ground with Col. Beauregard and El Diablo. Gourds raised high in a heathen toast to some hellish deity long forgotten or perhaps just created as an excuse as an  exercise in excess. The semi-circle they had formed was draped in a blue haze that wafted and danced in the fading light.


Isadora howled playfully in her raspy voice, smiling a coyote smile and licking her lips.
“Come Baxter. Let’s dance with the gods!”


We joined our treasure hunting compadres and it was then my epiphany of momentary enlightenment struck. When Isadora said ‘dance with the gods’ I had no idea she meant it was with sticks of marijuana Jean-Paul and Gallegos had wangled from some local Indians. He was wearing that big happy Haitian smile of his passing the stick to Diablo. Jules was chewing like a madman on peyote and washing the mescaline down with a pinata sized gourd of mescal. No wonder he wrote later of fantastic journeys and forays into science fiction.  “I am Captain Nemo!” he said by way of mock introduction to us as we joined the disjointed circle of drug induced individuals risen from the hallucinogenic flames of Dante’s Inferno.


Seconds became timeless as minutes seemed as desert sands in a slow flowing hourglass grain by grain crashing to the bottom of the glass with the impact of moons crashing into unseen and as yet unknown planets. Dancers swirled about us coaxing us to join in their reverie, which we did. It was truly a celebration, the likes of which I had never experienced.


The fiesta was winding down near midnight, as were we, so Isadora and I bid the group goodnight and headed to our room where the lingering effects of the drugs were not wasted on us. We were two coyotes in heat and when a coyote, do what comes naturally to him and Senorita Coyote. Mount and mate! When  we had both expended ourselves, orgasm achieved...we both let out a coyote howl that reverberated from the walls of the surrounding mountains. Our howl was returned to us from those same mountains obviously from a coyote chorus of a dozen or so wild ones representing Aztec spirits acknowledging our sexual indulgence and congradulating we mere mortal humans.  


“Isadora! You are phenomenal!” I blurted out.


“You can drop your gun belt anytime you want cowboy, oh and your pants too!” she responded. We lay in sweat and silence and drowning delightfully in the musk of sex we had created and fell asleep deeper than we ever had before. When we awoke at dawn we were faced with a frantic knock on our room’s door. It was one of El Diablos men.


“Pardon me, senor and senorita, there is something you must see back at camp. We walked the short distance back to camp which was already awake. Coffee was brewing, I need a cup badly. We walked over to the circle the others had formed and parted when we reached them.


On the ground before us was the lifeless body of Gallegos. Not just lifeless...but headless as well! It was right out of a Washington Irving book. Sleepy Hollow was now Merida, Mexico and Gallegos was sprawled out as the Headless Horseman in the dirt!


“What happened,?” I cried out. El Diablo merely shook his head. “I’m not sure but he was drunk and spoke to some villagers about Aztec and Mayan gold and treasure. I think maybe he talk too much. Legend say the Gods protect the treasure and if any man seeks it they will die.”


“Don’t tell me,” I said. “By losing their head?”


“Si, Senor Dooley. By losing their head.”  


I’m not one to believe in such rubbish but Isadora concurred. “Same in voodoo Baxter. May spirits, many curses in the world unknown. If he were killed in town and robbed he would still have a head, but no money. No one else here had reason to kill him and the fact that no one heard anything says something.”


“OK, for now. But I still don’t buy