Gringos Read Online Free PDF

in the moonlight. They were right to come here, too, to see these amazing temples on a dark green jungle hillside. The scholars say that Uxmal has the finest architecture, and of course there is nothing to touch Tikal, for monumental ruins on the grand, Egyptian scale, but the hippies got it right instinctively. They knew Palenque was the jewel of Mayaland.
    Between the ruins and the little town of Santo Domingo del Palenque there was a pasture where they camped out, these young travelers, with their vans and tents and ponchos. The rock music never let up. I stopped with my Blue Sheets to walk around the place and look them over. I took my flashlight and peered in tents and car windows. I put my light in their faces. What drove them to herd up like this in open fields? Even as a kid, and a foolish one, too, all too eager to please my pals, I couldn’t see myself doing this.
    It was getting dark. There was no one here I wanted. I gassed up at the intersection in town and headed inland, up the valley of the Usumacinta River. The road was paved for a mile or two then became washboard gravel. It was so rough that you could drive for miles on a flat tire and not know it. This was the dry season, so called, and the archaeologists were stirring again. In my experience it just rained a little less at this time. Damp season would be more like it. There was no moon. It wasn’t a night for pyramid roosting.
    When you see steel drums you’re getting close to Refugio’s trading post and salvage yard. He counted his wealth in fifty-five-gallon drums. They lay scattered along the road and in the woods all around his place, rusting away and more or less empty, but still holding the residue of various acids, solvents, herbicides, pesticides, explosives, corrosives, all manner of petrochemical goo.
    His people had heard me coming and were assembled outside to see who it was. The floodlight was on; dogs were barking. Small children jumped on my bumpers, front and back. A teenaged boy named Manolo was waving his arms. This was Refugio’s son. He wigwagged me in around the old tires and plastic pipes to an aircraft carrier landing. The crowd parted to make way for Refugio—relatives, cronies, employees. He had the paunch of a patrón now but still he moved like a bowlegged and cocky little third baseman. The sleeves of his short-sleeve shirt hung well below his elbows. Around his thick neck he wore a Mayan necklace of tubular jade beads, with a heavy silver cross at the bottom.
    â€œJaime!”
    â€œRefugio!”
    We went into an abrazo there under the floodlight, with bugs swirling around us.
    First I got the gifts out of the way. Some futbol, or soccer, magazines for Manolo, and a three-speed hair dryer for Refugio’s wife, Sula, and a box of iodized salt. She was afraid of getting a goiter, like her mother. Refugio dredged up half the shrimp from the bucket with his hands and began shouting orders to Sula and the kitchen staff. This many camarones were to be boiled at once. Then peeled and chilled and served to him and him alone in a coctel grande, with mayonesa and green sauce. The rest could be fried with garlic and served up with a lot of rice. That would do for the rest of us.
    He shooed everyone away, and we went to his office. It was like the waiting room of a cut-rate muffler shop, with an old brown plastic couch and some odd bits of automotive seating. Refugio sat at his desk, with Ramos at his feet, son of the late Chino, bravest dog in all Mexico. Refugio never would admit that old Chino tucked his tail when he heard thunder. I stretched out on the couch. Manolo brought me a cold bottle of Sidral, an apple-flavored drink, and a wet towel and a dry towel to refresh myself with. He showed me his Christmas present, which was a thirty-three-piece wrench set, all nicely chromed. Manolo had turned out to be a fine boy, from a brat. He was an only child, and Sula couldn’t bear to wean him until he was