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Mexconnect Review of “Playing for Pancho Villa”

Posted on by sterlingbennett
Mexconnect.com’s book reviewer James Tipton reviewed my novel Playing for Pancho Villa. I suppose all writers gnash their teeth over parts of reviews. I will let you find the spot where I gnash. Still, it’s good to get some exposure, since that is the challenge facing a small press and a new writer.

According to Mexconnect, more than 500,000 people read their site each month—80% of them from the U.S. and Canada.
More than 54,000 other web sites link to it, and it ranks in the top 1% of all Internet sites in the world.
It has become Mexico’s most-read site in English.

This is James Tipton’s review:

Playing for Pancho Villa
By Sterling Bennett
Libros Valor, Mazatlan, Mexico, 2013
Available from Amazon Books: Paperback (and Kindle)

The year was 1916. Young Frank Holloway “got mercury poisoning working in the Silver Creek Mine in Mogollón, New Mexico.” To recover his health, his doctor told him to get away and go have “an adventure.”

And so… perhaps lacking judgment because of the mercury poisoning, Frank opted for danger as well as adventure. On Tosca, his beloved mare, he rode south, and fifty miles west of El Paso he crossed the border into Mexico.

Frank, “with a fool’s luck, managed to pick his way… between horse thieves from both sides, the Texas rangers who pursued them, Pancho Villa’s Dorados, General Pershing’s 6,000 gringo troops who were chasing Villa after the raid at Columbus, New Mexico, the Carrancista forces who were maneuvering to block Pershing, weapons smugglers who supplied all sides, common bandits with scars across their eyebrows and twitching hands, private agents who protected the alfalfa and coal supplies, horses, mules, and even locomotives for American and European mining operations and finally the occasional outlaw Apache — banished long since from their tribes for crimes against their own people….” That’s enough for any lone traveler to deal with!

Two weeks into Mexico, Frank shot a hungry Carrancista officer who had just shot a young boy with a limp, who was out caring for his goats. Frank’s own almost spontaneous action plunged him into other situations and dilemmas: “He wished he had not fired at the man. He wished the man had not wanted mutton and then drawn his pistol on a boy who limped. He wished the boy had not thrown stones, or even been there.”

After the boy, not seriously wounded, was cared for, Frank washed in the stream, while the boy’s mother, apparently a widow, washed his shirt and trousers. Later, under a U.S. Army blanket, she hugged his naked body all night long, while her own mother and her own son slept on pallets next to them.

In addition to danger at almost every turn, Frank, as he continued his adventure, also continued to come across fascinating Mexican women, two in particular: Doña Mariana (of the narrow waist and long green dress) and the heroin-addicted Sofía de Larousse. He was not particularly experienced with women, as passages like this suggest: “He had never touched a woman’s shoe with a woman still in it.”

He also met, several times, Pancho Villa himself, and only because he could play the piano (Alexander’s Ragtime Band) did Villa spare his life. In a later confrontation, the frustrated Frank admonished the mercurial Villa: “With all due respect… I wish you could ask us for something without threatening to kill us.”

The whole story is told, incidentally, by Frank’s grandson Liam Holloway, who had heard many of his grandfather’s stories, “which interested no one in the family,” and who, with his sister, had recently discovered a steamer trunk in the old barn, filled, of course, with his grandfather’s old notebooks and letters. This is a common story-telling device, and it still works for me.

Frank does have “a girl back home,” Rosa Marta, but she is not a developed character. We do hear that Frank had never been “inside her” (That sounds ever so slightly crass, taken out of context—SB) because she “required something more formal.” In fact she seems, at least for the course of this adventure, to be of little concern to Frank. Frank finds himself far more interested in Sofía de Larousse, who, even in the midst of the life-threatening mayhem of the Mexican civil war, made him feel something “he had never felt before.” To make room for her on his bed, “he lifted the Winchester and put it on his other side.” He begins to realize that knowing a woman “was not always possible and not even necessary, if there was friendship and respect.”

In addition to these two fascinating women, both strong in different ways, we also meet the wise and wonderful Chinese man, Mr. Wu, talented with needles and arrows, and the devoted and philosophical young doctor, Juan Carlos, who had also rescued a young boy, shortly after his father was killed in battle. In their efforts to survive the chaos of the civil war, the lives of all of these characters become more and more connected and intertwined.

Playing for Pancho Villa has a feeling of authenticity to it which I assume is because the author, who lives in Guanajuato, knows Mexico well… and of course because he is a thoughtful observer and a natural story teller. There are a few flaws (How could the reviewer have said such a thing!), but nevertheless Sterling Bennett tells a good story and, as in all good stories, his principle characters are ones we come to care about; and, indeed, we feel their absence for awhile after we have finished the novel.

Broccoli Bandits and Just Plain Bandits

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Cameras and Broccoli

After exactly one week, one of the local bandits walked through the unfinished building ten feet from us and, as predicted, stepped out onto a ledge and dropped a heavy rock on our neighbor’s replacement security camera—which had been placed by right below it.

I guess you could call it a war over the public space and how it should be used. The alleys are for whom? Arbitrary occupation and use by a few families, or for safe passage for everyone? It’s all more comprehensible if you think of bandit and non-bandit culture, for which there is a long history in Mexico. The bandit culture says, “I will take what I want and you can’t stop me—because I have rights, too.” Except that bandit or tribal rights exclude the rights of others. “There shall be no limits on my behavior,” says bandit culture.

So how do you resolve the issue, if you have to change culture in order to do it?

What about broccoli culture? It is entirely the opposite. We were returning from San Miguel the other afternoon. There was a big truck ahead of us, with high sides and back and an open top. It was loaded with broccoli, with a loose tarp over everything. At the smallest bump, the whole load jiggled like—well, broccoli.

I said to Dianne, “Bump the back of the truck (with our Honda CV-R), maybe some broccoli will fall off.” I was joking, of course. But then the truck came to a tope—a speed bump—a little too quickly. Three heads of broccoli fell off. I said, “Stop!” Dianne stopped, in the middle of traffic. I jumped out in bare feat. I picked up three heads of broccoli. Bandit work. After all, the truck had gone on. I offered one to a motorcyclist behind us. He shook his head grimly, as if the say, “Get out of my way, free the road.”

We drove on a bit. A man was returning to the sidewalk. He had two heads of broccoli. I whistled my loud whistle at him, motioned a throw, he prepared to catch, I tossed, he caught. Big smiles at each other. A moving broccoli pass-off.

Farther ahead, a young woman was picking up broccoli. I called, “Buen provecho!” Bon Appétit. Big conspiratorial smile. We crossed the railroad line. Farther along, a man had gotten out of his car to retrieve fallen broccoli. “That’s private property, you know,” I said. He didn’t know what to think. In a few seconds, he passed us on the inside and waved—smiling.

We stopped one more time. I got out and picked up a broccoli. A nice one. Then I saw that a woman had started across the road from a fruit stand. I walked to meet her. She came forward, we met in the middle of the highway. It was a sweet exchange. After all, we had all the broccoli we needed, and she had hoped for one.

What happened? you ask. I think we were performing bandit culture, but with a difference, in that we were sharing the public space—and the public booty.

Dropping the Big Rock

Posted on by sterlingbennett

The neighborhood has been calm for two or three weeks. But it may not last. Apparently, the Policía Preventiva have a new tactic. It was triggered by a recent spate of robberies of local houses. One of them was a policeman’s house. As a consequence, the PP have put out a standing order of apprehension I believe for both of the main delinquents in the neighborhood. They (and their families) were informed that the two lads would be arrested on sight; and for that reason, they have disappeared from view. Lying low, as we used to say. Peace reigns, and it is a good feeling.

At the same time, the two stolen cameras have just been replaced, in slightly different places. They now sit on metal frames that make it harder to steal them. Though I put nothing beyond the capacities of the past camera thieves-guerrillas. Three policemen spent the entire day standing by as the cameras went up. The installers hammered little plaques into the walls next to the cameras that said, “City of Guanajuato. The PP monitors these cameras twenty-four hours a day.”

Experts from both the PP and from the installers chose one very poor place, in my opinion. The lads will, I’m afraid, figure it out quickly. You can enter the vacant lot right in front of us, walk through the unfinished building, stand in a door-window opening to the alley right over the vulnerable camera, and drop the largest rock you can carry right on top of it. I would say the camera had a week or two at the most before this happens. I am encouraging the installers and owners of this camera to embed it in a steel cage that can withstand the heaviest rock you can carry.

The aunt of one of the suspects emerged from her house and said she too would be interested in having one of the cameras on her house, and of course the various codes and apparatus that she assumed would be given to her for nothing, so that she too could contribute toward the security of the side alley from whence most of the insecurity derives. I believe the Ladies’ Detective Agency have told the installers and the PP to not even to dream of acceding to her wishes.

My brother in New Hampshire will be pleased that the two new cameras are up. He checks remotely a couple of times a day, to see what’s happening in his brother’s (me) environs. What he sees is, to say the least, in great contrast to life in his New England village of swishing SUV’s, green lawns and white clapboard houses with black shutters. Here he sees narrow allies (too narrow for cars) which are also stairs, rising or dropping between graffitied walls, everybody on foot, carrying children and groceries—a whole different economic world, inaccessible to the police cruiser with its flashing lights and the promise of law and order.

Listening to a Story, Drifting Toward the End

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I received great compliment (not quite the right word) today when a friend told me she was reading my novel Playing for Pancho Villa aloud to a person who is struggling against a cluster of merciless winning debilities. The person could follow the story, see the images and listen for the next step in the unfolding. And found satisfaction, even distraction, as he listened. What better use of a story can there be? What could be more important to the storyteller?

Looking for San Marcos

Posted on by sterlingbennett

IMG_0491IMG_0481With some trepidation, I left the main highway at Magdalena, part way between Tepic and Guadalajara—in search of the railhead that a hundred years ago was the site of Mexico’s own little Auschwitz.

I tend to think of Mexican cuotas—toll roads—as an additional layer of security for a driver. But I drove south over narrow country roads in bad repair and away from the cuota. Everything said agriculture, and nothing said narco. By that I mean that everything I saw had to do with farming, work, and time moving in sync with the growing seasons. No big pickups that had shiny chrome bumpers and were over-all too clean. No big guys with bellies, dressed casually and wearing gold necklaces. I had my map book Guía Roji, and I had gas. I had money, and I had a cell phone. And I had a goal.

I was looking for San Marcos and a certain building just before it. I had no idea whether I would actually be able to approach the building, or whether it would even still be there. I had looked down on it from Google Earth, but I had no idea how old the satellite photo was. I could tell it was the building, because I could still see traces of the railroad that had run past it. I had also seen the great eucalyptus grove that stood beside it and is said to have grown over mass graves of Yaqui Indians (and others: Mayos, political dissidents) who 1906-1910 were captured—as many as 15,000 of them—in the state of Sonora, brought by train (boxcars) from Hermosillo to Guaymas, put on ships, disembarked in San Blas, then force-marched with little food and water roughly 300 kilometers for 15 to 20 days over the mountains from San Blas at the coast to San Marcos, the closest rail head at that time, 80 kilometers west of Guadalajara.

Many of the prisoners were women and children. Men of fighting age were either still in the mountains east of Guaymas, the Bacatete, killed in battle, or executed as enemies of the state. For hundreds of years they had been defending their rich tribal lands and water against first the Spanish, then against Mexican hacendados with enormous, ever-increasing land holdings—while American money owned the mines, built the railroad right into the Yaqui lands, and needed cheap labor in the henequen fields of the Yucatan—where many of the Yaquis were sent to work and perish quickly as forced labor.

Already in the 1870s, henequen growers in the Yucatan were in debt to North American rope manufacturers who needed the henequen fiber called sisal and whose backers (Hearst, Guggenheim Rockefeller, I have read) provided the finances to keep the farms operating. (http://www.saudicaves.com/mx/yaquis/). The cheap labor that they got included Mayans from the Yucatan, Korean indentured workers, Chinese, Mexican political dissidents, Yaqui deportees, and many other groups. By the 1870s, Mexico was supplying 90% of the world’s sisal, mainly for rope and burlap—the time of capitalism and empire, when the dominant nations had to have massive hawsers for their merchant- and warship fleets.

Everyone got a cut from the sale of Yaquis—the Governor of the State, the “labor agents,” anyone with immediate control over the prisoners. I have read conflicting figures: 2.50 pesos at San Marcos, per head; or, 25 centavos, per head. Families were split up and sold (women and girls sold separately) in different directions at San Marcos.

There is a long history of Indian children being given to white families around Hermosillo and Guaymas (before deporting their parents) so that they could grow up to be “civilized,” as opposed to “barbarian,” terms used freely in the times.

There are few if any records. There is some recorded oral history: I highly recommend Raquel Padilla Ramos’s “Los partes fragmentados narrativos de la guerra y la deportación Yaquis” and John Kenneth Turner’s book “Barbarous Mexico” (1910), which exposed the genocide against the Yaquis. You can download it from Amazon.

I could see the eucalyptus grove first. It towered over the rest of landscape. Then I saw the building. I wondered about access. I passed up the first left, barely a track. Then I saw a well-used second left, a dirt road leading into the north end of the station. I was able to drive right up to the station on my left and the grove on my right.

As soon as I stepped out of my car, a small black dog began to hector me, begging to be fed and cared for—a more contemporary example of abandonment. I entered the building, with the dog on my heels. It was exactly the way I had seen it in photos: dirt floor, fairly intact corrugated roof and, everywhere, graffiti. There was no plaque, no sign, no reference anywhere to state or local protection, nothing of the history of the place. I wondered why it was still standing, still there. A hundred years had passed. Who owned the land, the building, and the grove? Why wasn’t the old station either torn down or used for something else?

I walked into a few side rooms. Living in a country with so many buildings still carrying signs of history, I looked for clues. On the outside wall, where the trains would have stood, there are bullet holes in the wall. I found about fifty of them, some very low, meaning that the shots had been directed at people sitting or lying. At Buchenwald, out side of Weimar, there are bullet holes in the floor of a fairly small room with a drain in the middle. A sign said that Russian prisoners of war were executed in that room. They had been sitting or lying when they were shot. Two hundred feet to the west, there was a ruin of a few standing walls. The back wall had a great many bullet holes in it at various heights. That place seemed as if it was a more intentional execution site. For a while I had thought the impact patterns were also evidence of automatic fire that pointed to a later time; but now I am not so sure.

Some of the train rails are still embedded in concrete near the station. There is a ramp up to the train level. The roof overhangs the platform on both sides of the station. There had been another two people taking dirt from a pile near the grove. They departed. That left me and the little black dog, that continued to whimper—placing me in the curious and ironic dilemma of offering my empathy to those who had suffered in this place a hundred years ago, while denying it to a creature who needed immediate help and might or might not ever receive it.

Why did I seek this place out, and why am I writing about it now? Because I think it is important not to forget what we are capable of—murdering each other, enslaving each other for whatever purpose. That is why the Germans and Poles have preserved the concentration camps in those countries.

Somebody appears to be protecting the San Marcos site, but also not wanting to advertise that fact—perhaps because the State or the Republic will not permit it. It is some kind of informal arrangement—and a mystery I cannot explain. I am not sure what percentage of its visitors have any idea what happened there. They come as picnickers or graffiti artists. But I suspect that some of them are also the descendants of the people who perished there or farther down the line—and I suspect some of them are Yaquis.

M. Evades a Future

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Awake at 2 AM, listening to whoops in the callejones, the alleys that cross in front of our house. Someone had taken one of the usual inhalants and was acting out in the usual way, roaring at the neighbors, as if they were responsible for all his pains. I watched on the camera monitor for a while. Unfortunately, by mistake, we had hit the wrong buttons somewhere along the line, and the picture keeps changing from camera 1 to camera 2 to 3 to 4, so you can’t studying the situation or track someone’s movement. Delinquent behavior was occurring, but I could only catch snatches of it.

Only that morning, I had reprimanded young M, whom no one washes, for not being at the art workshop being offered at S’s tienda–store–two blocks up the stairs. I yelled up at his sister, whose head I could see above the half-wall on their roof.

“Where’s M?” I called up. “He not at the workshop.”

She looked down with a kind of shrug-of-the-shoulders expression.

“Where’s M?” I asked again, not letting myself be put off.

M appeared at an open window one story lower. His face was as blank as his sister’s.

“Why aren’t you at the workshop?” I ask. His eyes shifted around, as he looked for an answer. Everything about his face told me that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going.

“It’s just that I have to hold tools for someone,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” I replied. “A lot of people have worked really hard to set this up for you. Why aren’t you going?”

He disappeared, then appeared around the corner, on my level, in the callejón.

M is a practiced con-artist, best at trying to get money out of you with the most outlandish stories of why he has to have it. D has told him there will be no more money until she has talked with his teacher and his parent figures (the father is not interested in him) present a financial report of money-in and money-out. They seem to have a record of complicity in M’s stories and reasons. The children come saying there is no food to eat. It is hard to say no. We have given food, but we no longer give money.

He was beginning up the steps with me. He looked back, as if he was worried about pressure coming from somewhere else: his mother. I suspected she had told him he didn’t have to go.

“You have a commitment,” I told him, as we climbed toward S’s tienda and the workshop. I used the word commitment because M always seems to be sliding in the other direction—no commitment toward anyone including himself and any kind of future.

“You know, I’m disappointed in you, M. A lot of people are coming together to offer you something worthwhile—the history of Mexican art—and you can’t be bothered to get your ass off your chair and up the hill.”

He brought up his duty to hand someone tools. I told him he didn’t have that duty. He had a duty to attend what M and others had worked hard to organize.

“Do you want to become a pandillero–a thug?” I asked him. I knew there was a constant suck on him in that direction.

He looked at me, shocked that I could think such a thing. I thought of my own father’s gruff guidance as I marched M toward something worthwhile. Are you going to do the right thing, or not?

We entered S’s tienda. S was at the front, selling tacos with fresh goat meat. I had met the animal earlier. Various parts of him had been stewing since the night before. M was delaying. He said he had to throw his plastic cup away. I took it out of his hand. I would throw it a way. S was watching me. I rolled my eyes. S gave a little nod. He knew the story. M had to buy a candy bar. A, S’s wife, sold it to him. He opened it and casually took a bite. In that moment, he was a tough guy that had important things to do in his life—besides attending workshops.

I mounted the stairs behind him. I got him a chair and planted him across from A, the young volunteer teacher—a theater major from the university, coming from the young citizen’s group called 473, which is our area code in Mexico. I drew up a chair and sat behind M—like a sprawled goatherd dog keeping tabs on one of his goats—a goat boy that possibly still had a future if he felt that anybody at all gave a damn about him.

Between 1 and 2 AM, the local losers—D disapproves of dehumanizing terms—had a rock fight with another gang a few houses down from us, broke the streetlight in front of our house, smashed open the steel door to the vacant lot and knocked out one of the adjoining metal panels, and terrified the neighborhood with their bellowing. Various young women fluttered around one of them (I caught glimpses of this on the always changing cameras), trying to return him to the privada–the side alley–before the police arrived in their knee guards, plastic shields, and metal clubs. Apparently, each neighbor thought the other would call the police—and no one did. The police did not arrive, and the boys-without-futures had one more spell of violence and chaos.

This is My Land

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Interview with Alfredo Figueroa (Caborca, State of Sonora, Mexico), November 12, 2001:

~ When I was a small kid in 3rd grade we were starting geography. The teacher pointed to a map on the wall and said, “Now this is the United States that we all love so much.” I got up like an Indian and raised my hand and said, “Well I don’t love it too much.” She asked, “What do you mean? You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I said, “My father says they stole this land from us.” I wouldn’t change my mind, so they sent me home and told my mother I was unpatriotic. They kept me away for two weeks. They took me to the principal’s office, where he had a big old paddle they used to call the board of education. And they paddled and whipped me. They made a play named after Philip Nolan’s book, Man Without a Country, and showed it at school, just to intimidate the Mexicans. They named it Boy Without a Country. I was just telling them, “This is my land.” I was just a little kid. Can you imagine, 9 years old? Man! But that’s why they had the Americanization schools, to brainwash all those young Mexicans and Chimahuevos living in Blythe.
My mother always used to say that we were Chimahuevos and my father was Yaqui. We never did classify ourselves as American. Never! It was a battle everyday, and we knew who we were. My mother negotiated with the principal, and I had to write on the blackboard, “I love the United States” in front of all the kids a hundred times. And then I was accepted back as a student at Blythe grammar school. ~

Sunken Children

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A friend heard I wrote stories for children. I told her I had only written one—for my granddaughter when she was five years old. My friend asked if the story was in English. I said it was in English, Spanish, French, and Dutch. She asked me whether I would read the Spanish version at a Catholic shelter here in Guanajuato for children who were victims of various kinds of violence and lived temporarily under the protection of the Church. The reading hour was called the Beatrix Potter Sala de la Lectura, Hogar del Buen Pastor, Guanajuato.

The appointed day arrived. I printed out the Spanish translation of “Biff and the Sinking Coal Freighter.” Its title in Spanish is “Biff y el barco carbonero que se hundía,” translated by Lirio Garduño, a fine local poet.

With barely enough time, I practiced reading it through, repeating the technical words so I would say them correctly. I had never read the Spanish translation very closely—only to see if it had reached a good equivalency. My friend wanted my biography, too. I estimated the age level might be about eight. This is what I wrote:

 

Sterling Bennett, con apodo “Plata,” vive en Guanajuato capital desde hace 9 años.

Sterling Bennett, nickname Plata, has been living in Guanajuato for nine years.

Tiene una gatita negra que se llama Lilus Kikus que sabe más que él.

He has a female cat named Lilus Kikus, who knows more than he does.

Vivió por muchos años en California, en Los Estados Unidos, con su esposa D, que también sabe más que él.

He lived for many years in California, in the United States, with his wife D, who also knows more than he does.

Tiene una nieta de siete años que se llama L. Escribió este cuento para ella. L. también sabe más que él.

He has a seven-year old granddaughter named E, who also knows more than he does.

Tiene dos hijos, M y D, quienes siempre le ganan en ajedrez. Ellos también saben más que él.

He has two son, M and D, who always beat him at chess. They also know more than he does.

Ha estudiado en la más famosa universidad en Los Estados Unidos, que se llama Harvard, donde los estudiantes también sabían más que él.

He studied at the most famous university in the United States, called Harvard—where the students also know more than him.

Le encanta mucho tener esta oportunidad de leer este cuento a ustedes—quienes probablemente saben más que él.

He is delighted to have this opportunity to read this story to (all of) you, who probably know more than he does.

El cuento se trata de dos osos capitanes marineros….que probablemente……(???)

The story has to do with two bear tugboat captains…that probably…..(??)

Then I read the story to them, stopping frequently while my friend made sure they understood what I was describing.

There were four large round tables, at which were seated about thirty girls between the ages of four and thirteen. Most of them were on the younger end of the scale. One whole table of eight very young children almost immediately lay their heads on their table and appeared to be sound asleep—so quickly and so uniformly that it seemed to me that their action was about something else—an invoked escape stupor, a largely psychological exhaustion because of family crisis, an agreed upon behavior in unison to deal with overwhelming anxiety—a block against information they did not know or understand: a man, a gringo, too old to being doing anything, who was doing something they did not understand—storytelling, talking a little funny in their language, using words they had never heard and didn’t understand. What did these things mean: tugboat, captain, cable, sinking ship, Great Lakes, Erie Canal, locks, steam whistles, with each great wave pushing the coal freighter up onto the beach so it would not sink?

Even the fact that the two heroes were bear tugboat captains seemed unable stir them from their curious slumber. Nor the dramatic moment that all seemed lost in the story—until the second tugboat captain came out into the storm at night and helped push the sinking coal freighter up onto the beach. And he was a she—and a second courageous tugboat captain.

We got through it. The story ended. I tried to say something about the elephant in the room (bears?) and mentioned how almost half my listeners were like my black cat Lilus Kikus, who slept ninety-five percent of the time…and knew more than I did.
They wrote me letters—the little ones were roused for that exercise by the two attending women, impressive professionals and volunteers from the outside—drawing flowers and bears, inquiring now and then who I was and even how to write my name—Plata, as in silver, as in Sterling.

Pictures were taken and sent me. I will not show you their faces, because some of the children are in deep protection from various kinds of targeted abuse. I was going to show one child whose face was hidden, propped on her arms—but I have decided not to.

When I got home, I told my love that it was the least successful public reading I had ever done—and the most meaningful one. Since I, in the end, was another audience—overwhelmed by a story told by sunken children.

Biff and the Sinking Coal Freighter

Posted on by sterlingbennett

A story for my five-year old granddaughter:

When I was little, my father told me about a bear named Biff, who was the captain of a tug on the Erie Canal. He steamed back and forth between great lines of ships and barges whenever he heard the toot-toot that ships gave when they needed a tug. When he wasn’t pushing and pulling ships and barges he went out on the deck, smelled the smell of hay coming off the fields, and began polishing the brass bell just outside the wheelhouse. There was not a single tug captain that had such a polished shining bell. That was because Biff was the only bear tug captain. All the others were people. And because they didn’t have fur, they couldn’t really get a good shine on their bells. They would tire of rubbing a piece of cloth against their brass bells. But Biff simply rubbed whatever part of him was nearest when he passed the bell. Sometimes, he gave it a nudge with his head, sometimes with the back of his elbow, and when he was feeling really pleased sometimes with his butt, as he went by.

Sometimes they went out through the locks onto Lake Erie where it could get quite rough during storms. Other tug captains had trouble standing and moving around in such weather, but Biff simply dropped down on four legs and got things done. He attached towing cables to the great capstan in the middle of the rear deck. He unhooked them when the tow was over. He could do all this in terrible storms because he had four legs. Such weather stimulated him, made him feel especially alive, so that even in dangerous weather, if he passed his brass bell, he gave it a brush with the fur on some part of his body.

For all these reasons, ship and barge captains tooted to him whenever they needed a reliable tug. And Biff would ring back in answer on his shining bell and approach these ship at full steam.

One night, a great storm blew out on the great black lake as big as an ocean. A very large coal freighter was in trouble and taking on water. Its desperate toots blew on shore with the night wind, but all the tugs were afraid to go out into the huge waves and freezing sleet. Except for Biff, who put on his bright yellow storm slickers, shoveled extra coal into the boiler below deck, tooted for the locks to open, and steam out into the raging night.

He steamed out for twenty minutes before he saw the freighter, low in the water and in danger of sinking. Men threw him a line from the bow of the freighter. Biff brought it around to the stern of his tug, the SV Grampi, and pulled on it until he got the cable and cinched it around the capstan. Then, on all fours, he crossed to the pilot house and pushed on the throttle and the SV Grampi pulled slowly until the cable was tight, then he began pulling the sinking coal freighter. If he could just get it to the beach, the sinking coal freighter could not sink because it was shallow at the beach. But because the freighter was so full of water, it would not go in a straight line and would veer to the right or the left, and hardly go forward at all.

Biff was sad because it looked like he would not be able to save the freighter and the men on it. The freighter would sink and the men would probably drown.

That was when he heard a toot behind him, from very close. He could see the other tug in the darkness, coming closer and closer at great speed. His heart leapt, and tooted back in welcome. Biff could not see the other tug captain in his dark pilot house. But he knew that tug captain was very brave coming out into the mountainous seas with only two human legs to stand on.

The sailors on the floundering coal freighter threw the new tug another line. Biff watched the tug captain – just the yellow blur of a figure in rain slickers – come out of his pilot house, take the line, bring up the cable, and loop it over the capstan with a clove hitch. Now there were two tugs pulling on the sinking coal ship, and so the stricken coal freighter came along straight ahead. Because, whenever it tried to veer left or right, the other tug pulled it back, and so it had to go straight ahead in a straight line.

When the coal freighter rode up onto the beach, the tugs threw off their towing lines and went around behind the coal freighter and, with each great wave coming under them, pushed the freighter farther up onto the beach where the giant waves could no longer hurt it. The crew of the coal freighter, seeing that they were saved, gave both tug captains a great cheer, in thanks. Biff and the other captain gave them a long line of toots to salute them. Then they, Biff’s tug and the other one, pulled away from the perilous breaking waves, reached deeper water, and steamed toward the locks, rolling so much – because the waves were hitting them from the side – that they themselves were in danger of rolling over and sinking.

The old man who manned the locks was out in his yellow slickers, watching for the tugs. And when they came, he pulled on a lever and the steam engine that was part of the locks screamed and roared, and the great steel doors opened wide, and the two tugs hurtled in through the great dark steel gates, the gates closed behind them, and the two tugs drifted to a stop in the protected calm waters at the beginning of the Erie Canal.

Biff came out of his pilot house. He wanted to thank the other tug captain for his bravery. The other captain came out of his pilot house then. He was smaller than Biff, and when he too took off his yellow slicker rain hat, Biff saw that it was not a person but a bear like himself, in fact the most beautiful girl bear he had ever seen.

He wanted to hit his shining brass bell, with his back side, that’s how moved he was, but he restrained himself, in order to make a good impression. He thought she was wonderful. And she was. The bravest, most wonderful, the cutest girl bear he had ever seen. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked across the space between the two tugs. As the wind howled out on the lake, and as some of it roared through the tops of the trees on the side of the canal, Biff went forward and tied the SV Grampi off on a mooring buoy. Then he tied the other tug against his, and he watched as both tugs began to swing around in the wind until the mooring line came taught and they rode at rest with their bows to the wind.

“The tea water is getting hot,” said the other captain. And so Biff leapt across the his gunnels and hers, the way bears do, and together, each of them down on four feet, they went across her deck and into galley, where they had hot tea and cookies, and introduced themselves. Already, they admired each other very much for each other’s bravery. And out of this came a deep and lasting friendship. And one month later, a marriage between two brave bear tug boat captains, one Biff Bennett, whom you already know, and the other, the princess of his life, Eleanor, the courageous captain of the SS Claypool.

Biff and the Sinking Coal Freighter in Spanish

Posted on by sterlingbennett

Biff y el barco carbonero que se hundía

Traductor: Lirio Garduño

Un cuento para mi nieta de cinco años, L.

Cuando era pequeño mi padre me contó la historia de un oso llamado Biff, que comandaba un remolcador en el canal Erié. Salía navegando a lo largo del canal, entre grandes filas de barcos y de gabarras cada vez que oía el silbato de vapor de las embarcaciones pidiendo un remolque.  Cuando no estaba empujando o jalando barcos y gabarras, salía a la pasarela, disfrutaba el olor a pasto que venía de los campos, y empezaba a pulir la campana de cobre que se encontraba justo afuera de la cabina de mando. No había un sólo capitán de remolcador que tuviera una campana tan pulida y brillante. Eso era porque Biff era el único oso capitán de remolcador. Todos los demás eran humanos.  Y porque no tenían pelambre no podían obtener un brillo realmente bueno en sus campanas.  En vano se cansaban de frotar con un pedazo de tela sus campanas de cobre.  Pero Biff solamente frotaba cualquier parte de su cuerpo que estuviera cerca cuando pasaba a proximidad de la campana. A veces le daba un pequeño cabezazo, a veces usaba la parte de atrás de su codo y, cuando estaba realmente contento, le daba un golpecito con su trasero al pasar.

A veces los capitanes de los remolcadores franqueaban las compuertas hacia el lago Erié, donde las cosas se podían poner difíciles durante las tempestades. Los otros capitanes de remolcadores tenían dificultades para quedarse de pie y circular en tan mal clima, pero Biff solamente bajaba en cuatro patas y hacía lo que había que hacer.  Ataba los cables de remolque al gran cabestran en medio del puente trasero.  Los descolgaba una vez la maniobra terminada.  Él podía hacer todo esto en las tempestades más terribles porque tenía cuatro patas.  Este tipo de clima lo estimulaba, lo hacía sentirse especialmente vivo, así que hasta en un clima peligroso, cuando pasaba cerca de la campana de cobre, la rozaba con el pelambre de alguna parte de su cuerpo.

Por todas esas razones, los capitanes de barcos y gabarras lo llamaban con sus silbatos cada vez que necesitaban un remolque confiable.  Y Biff contestaba a su vez haciendo sonar su brillante campana, y se acercaba a sus barcos a todo vapor.

Una noche, una gran tempestad sopló sobre el enorme lago negro, ancho como un océano.  Un barco carbonero muy grande estaba en problemas, y empezaba a llenarse de agua.  Sus silbidos desesperados llegaban hasta la costa con el viento nocturno, pero todos los remolcadores tenían miedo de salir entre las olas enormes y las ráfagas heladas de nieve casi derretida. Todos, excepto Biff, quien revistió su brillante impermeable amarillo, echó un poco más de carbón en la caldera bajo el puente, lanzó un silbido para que le abrieran las compuertas y se fue a todo vapor adentrándose en la noche furibunda.

Navegó veinte minutos antes de vislumbrar el buque de carga, bajo sobre el nivel del agua y en peligro de hundirse.  Los hombres le lanzaron una cuerda desde la proa del barco.  Biff la hizo llegar hasta la popa  de su remolcador, el SV Granpy, y jaló hasta poder atrapar el cable y engancharlo sobre el cabestran.  Entonces, a cuatro patas, se dirigió a la cabina de mando y empujó la palanca y el SV Granpy  jaló lentamente hasta que el cable se tensó por completo, entonces empezó a remolcar al buque carbonero en problemas. Si solamente pudiera llevarlo hasta la playa, el gran barco en peligro no se hundiría, porque allí no había mucho fondo. Pero el barco estando tan lleno de agua, no podía seguir una línea recta y se desviaba siempre hacia la derecha o hacia la izquierda, casi sin avanzar.

Biff estaba triste porque parecía que no iba a poder salvar al buque carbonero y a sus hombres. El barco se hundiría y los hombres probablemente perecerían ahogados.  Fue en este momento cuando oyó un silbido detrás de él, muy cerca.  Pudo ver otro remolcador en la oscuridad, acercándose cada vez más, a gran velocidad.  Su corazón dio un vuelco y Biff accionó su silbato en signo de bienvenida. Biff no podía distinguir al otro capitán en la oscuridad de su cabina de mando.  Pero sabía que este capitán remolcador era muy valiente por salir en medio de esas olas gigantescas con sólo dos piernas humanas sobre las cuales pararse.

Los marineros del buque carbonero en peligro lanzaron otra línea hacia el nuevo remolcador. Biff vio cómo el otro capitán – apenas una silueta amarilla en su impermeable – salió de su cabina, tomó la línea, alcanzó el cable, e hizo un nudo sobre el cabestran.  Ahora había dos remolcadores jalando el buque carbonero que amenazaba con hundirse, y así el barco en peligro pudo empezar a avanzar en línea recta.  Porque cada vez que intentaba dar hacia la izquierda o hacia la derecha, el otro remolcador lo jalaba y así tenía que avanzar obediente en línea recta.

Cuando el buque carbonero estuvo cerca de la playa, los remolcadores desataron sus cables y se dirigieron hacia la popa de éste; y aprovechando cada ola que los levantaba, empujaron el barco carbonero más lejos sobre la playa, donde las olas gigantes ya no podían hacerle daño.  La tripulación del buque, viéndose a salvo, lanzó una gran aclamación de agradecimiento a los dos capitanes de remolque.  Biff y el otro capitán les respondieron con una serie de silbidos para saludarlos.  Entonces los dos remolcadores, el de Biff y el otro, se alejaron de allí donde rompen las olas, alcanzaron aguas más profundas y fueron a todo vapor hacia las compuertas balanceándose tanto – porque las olas los golpeaban de lado – que ellos mismos estuvieron en peligro de volcarse y hundirse.

El anciano que manejaba las compuertas estaba afuera con su impermeable amarillo, esperándolos.  Y cuando llegaron, accionó una palanca; la máquina de vapor que movía las compuertas, rugió y rechinó y los enormes paneles de metal se abrieron ampliamente y los dos remolcadores se deslizaron a través de las grandes y negras puertas de acero, las puertas se cerraron detrás de ellos y los dos remolcadores avanzaron lentamente hasta detenerse en las aguas tranquilas y protegidas  del inicio del canal Erié.

Biff salió de su cabina de mando.  Quería agradecer al otro capitán por su valentía. Entonces el otro capitán salió de su propia cabina.  Era más pequeño que Biff y cuando se quitó su sombrero amarillo, Biff vio que no era un ser humano sino un oso como él, de hecho la osita más bonita que jamás hubiera visto.

Tenía ganas de dar un golpe a su brillante campana de cobre con su trasero de tan emocionado que estaba, pero se controló para dejar una buena impresión.  Pensó que ella era maravillosa.  Y lo era.  La más valiente, la más extraordinaria, la más linda osita que nunca vio.  “¿Le gustaría tomar una taza de té?”, preguntó ella a través del espacio entre los dos remolcadores. Mientras el viento aullaba sobre el lago y parte de él rugía sobre las copas de los árboles a los lados del canal, Biff avanzó y ató el SV Granpy a una boya de amarre.  Luego, ató el otro remolcador al suyo y contempló cómo los dos barcos empezaban a balancearse con el viento hasta que la línea de amarre se tensó y que los dos remolcadores quedaron con la proa haciendo frente al viento.

“El agua para el té está lista”, dijo el otro capitán.  Entonces Biff saltó por encima de ambas bordas, a la manera de los osos, y los dos juntos en cuatro patas atravesaron el puente hasta la cabina donde tomaron té caliente con galletas y se presentaron mutuamente.  Ya se tenían mucha admiración por la valentía de cada uno.  Y de todo esto nació una amistad profunda y duradera. Y un mes después ocurrió una boda entre dos valientes osos capitanes de remolcador, un tal Biff Bennett  a quien ustedes ya conocen, y la princesa de su vida, Eleanor, la valiente comandante del SS Claypool.