The Jaguar's Children (30 page)

CW: That's what you call a dry spell.

TH: But we worry when the signal stops moving because it's tough out there—all kinds of people willing to shoot a jaguar. There's narcos would love to have one of these guys on their wall and there's a lot of ranchers have a
NIMBY
attitude toward any kind of predator. You know, “shoot, shovel and shut up.” Indians might have some reasons of their own, but I can't speak—

JB: So, you found them when?

CW: He's wanting to know about the truck, Ted. Sorry. With us it's all about the cats.

TH: I'm sure you know illegals are a dime a dozen out here. They're trashing the desert like you wouldn't believe and it's very disruptive to our work, especially when you're dealing with something as shy as a jaguar. Mostly, we try to work around them.

CW: So I was checking for signal that morning—Easter—and Ted was late coming from church. I picked up Alvin's signal right away, checked the GPS and saw he'd been in that spot more than twenty-four hours so we packed up the gear and went. The nearest road is two miles away so we parked the truck and walked in. We had our packs, radios, camera, GPS, a rifle with tranquilizer darts, and Ted's carrying a sidearm 'cause you never know who you're going to meet out there these days. That area—Altar Valley—is wide open semi-arid desert; you've got ocotillo and mesquite, some barrel cactus and saguaro, but it's pretty fast going. That's why it's a highway for illegals, and with all that foot traffic it gets harder to track an animal. Lots of tire tracks too, lately. A mile or so in—we're maybe a mile north of the border now—we spot a little grove of ironwood and paloverde in a low spot off to the southeast. Looks like a wash. There must be some decent water underground because the trees are old and there's a couple of good-size saguaros, so now we're pretty sure we found our cat. We head over that way and when we're about two hundred meters out we get down and check his signal again. He's still there, hasn't moved at all. It's a good place to lay up, cooler in there, so we're thinking he must have a kill, a nice javelina or something. There's a little breeze out of the east so he won't be winding us, and we creep up on him, belly-crawling—

JB: And the truck?

TH: Almost there, chief. Anyhow, I saw it first—the vehicle—and I told Cal to hold up. Said we got company, smugglers for sure, but you can't tell if it's drugs or people. Makes a difference, safety-wise. If it's mota you're trying to save your life, and if it's tonks you're probably going to have to save theirs. Now, you got 'em both together sometimes.

CW: Hell, these days you can get shot by one of your own.

TH: Happened more than once, I'm sure. Either way, we can't figure what Alvin's doing. Did someone shoot him and dump his collar? Is the vehicle abandoned? Nothing's making sense. So we move in a little closer, but it's still as death in there. Not a sound, just doves and quail. Well, we don't want to be ambushed, but at the same time, you been out here a while you can kind of
feel
if you're alone or not. And this one here is feeling pretty darn lonely.

CW: We get to fifty meters out—close—and we can see the truck back there in the trees. It's some kind of tank truck—old—not the kind of thing you usually find out here. There's writing on the side—looks like graffiti, but the vegetation's too thick to make it out. You can see how they'd miss it from the air. Anyhow, we're hoping it's our cat in there so we move around to the west, downwind, and when we're thirty meters out, that's when we start smelling it. A jaguar'll eat damn near anything if he's hungry enough, and now Ted and me, we're going the same place with this—we're thinking Alvin's on some carrion. Corriente steers'll hide out in places like this, maybe antelope, but so will a Mex, and with that truck there, well, you can imagine what we're thinking. In twenty years I've seen a lot out here, and a lot of changes, but this would be a first. I loaded a dart and Ted's got his Glock in case there's something more than Alvin in there, and we shout then, calling Alvin's name 'cause we're wanting him to move now.

TH: Nothing happening so I throw a handful of rocks. Well, that rousts him up and he's not a happy kitty—he's growling. Usually, if you spook them they'll just take off and you won't know where they went, but you can tell this guy doesn't want to move. He's definitely got something in there and he ain't sharing. We stand up so he can see us, see we're bigger than him, and we walk in like that, noisy and close together. You can really smell the meat now, like roadkill and outhouse mixed together, and we can hear movement by the back of the truck. It's Alvin and he's growling, just low and steady.

CW: I've got the tranquilizer ready and we're skirting around to the south, looking for an opening, and there he is in the wash. He's standing in the bare sand by the back of the truck. Looks like a water truck; you can see the pipes there just above Alvin's head. Well, Alvin isn't budging and I said to Ted, “I guess he thinks that truck is his.” We're looking all around for the carcass because we know it's somewhere close, but there's nothing—not under the truck, not anywhere. It's weird.

TH: I was thinking it must be further back in the trees or maybe he drug it up in the branches, but that's a leopard trick;
onca
doesn't normally do that.

CW: It's in the wash we see the first fresh man tracks mixed in with Alvin's; not old—no more than a few days. Looks like two guys and they're heading south, beating it back to Mexico. Hell of a place for engine trouble. We're not worried about narcos anymore because no Mexican's gonna stick around with this guy. We're maybe fifteen meters off now and I'm waving my arms trying to get him to go. But you kind of hate to, because how often do you get this close to a jaguar? Not often, I'll tell you that.

TH: Heck, never, unless he's dead or you dart him.

CW: And he sure won't just stand there like Alvin is. I'm wondering if he isn't sick. Rabid maybe. So I took a knee then and sighted the rifle, but I'm saying, “Let's just watch him a minute.” Well, the way he's pacing back and forth, glaring at us and growling, he sure doesn't
look
sick. He looks mad! And I said to Ted, “I do believe old Alvin's giving us the stink-eye.” It was the first time we'd seen him since we collared him, and he is a specimen—healthy like you read about. You see him out there in all those pale browns and greens and him so bright and vivid, the spots jumping off his body. It's like a piece of the jungle landed in the desert, like the jaguar is more alive than everything around him—even you. Hard to explain if you haven't seen it yourself. Isn't that right, Ted? Ted was taking pictures like a Jap tourist.

TH: I got so many it's like a movie. Here, take a look. Right, that button there.

JB: Wow. He's beautiful. And big. Jesus, look at those teeth.

TH: Most powerful bite, pound for pound, of any cat. Crush your skull. That's how they kill, you know—right through the brain.

JB: Amazing. OK, and that's his collar there.

CW: We watched him for a couple minutes like that.

TH: Which is forever by cat standards.

CW: It was a long time, and we notice that every now and then he'll wave his nose around by the pipes, especially the one on the left—that one with the elbow there.

TH: He's scenting something for sure, and I'm saying to Cal, “Oh Lordy, you think that's what we're smelling?” And then, my goodness, well, we kind of knew, you know—there's people in there. Judging by the smell we're too late, but we have to check it out, so now we got to get Alvin moving.

CW: I didn't want to dart him if I didn't have to, so I jumped up and yelled at him and he backed into the thicket. Not far.

TH: Look at this one—you can just see him there. See his eye?

JB: It's like it's glowing.

TH: Yeah, they're spooky that way.

CW: Well, then Ted and me moved in there together, yelling some more, and that got him. He was gone.

TH: But hard to say how far.
Onca
's not the kind to attack a man—kid, maybe, but nothing's normal here, so we kept our guard up, threw some more rocks, but it seemed like he'd cleared out for the time being.

CW: So now I'm saying, “Hola! Anybody there? Qui es aquí!” Well, I know my Spanish is lousy, but there's nothing coming back. I'm still keeping an eye out for Alvin, and Ted goes in to check that pipe.

TH: I'm telling you, I about lost my breakfast. Smell was that bad. Make your eyes water. So I catch my breath and try knocking on the tank with a rock. Sounded pretty empty but hard to say for sure, so I put my ear to it. Nobody home, but just to be safe, I hold my nose and give a listen to that pipe—

CW: And that's when he says, “Jesus in Heaven, there's somebody in there. I can hear him breathing.”

This book was a collaborative and often serendipitous process that would never have begun had not my beloved wife, Nora, moved our family to Oaxaca for a year in 2009. I am deeply grateful to her and to the many people we encountered, Mexicano and expat alike, who made us feel welcome in one of the most beautiful, compelling and troubled places I have ever been.
The Jaguar's Children
is as much a token of my gratitude to Oaxaca and those who illuminated it as it is the realization of a lifelong dream.

Among those who made Oaxaca especially vivid are Niels Barmeyer, Miguel Batista, Katie Fellman, Aldo González, Carlos Hernández, John Kemner, Steve Lafler, Lapiztola, Cathey López, Mercedes López-Zschaemisch, Serena Makofsky, Linda Martin, Eric Mindling, Jorge Pinzón, Nina Pozzi, Jane Robison, David Sandler, Angélica Vásquez Cruz, Gracia Vásquez Olivera, Heather VerWys and Lauren Waits. Special thanks to Larry Cooper, Kara Hartzler, Saúl Orozco, Melanie Thon and Susana Valdivia for their careful reading, and to David Riker, not only for reading twice, but for his deep understanding of the place and the process.

Foremost among many sources were
The Devil's Highway
, by Luis Alberto Urrea, and “Exodus,” by Charles Bowden. The excerpt from W. J. McGee's “Desert Thirst as Disease” is reproduced courtesy of
Journal of the Southwest.
For their contributions to my understanding of corn, its history, economy and genetics, I am indebted to Professors Michael Blake, George Haughn, and Andrew Riseman of the University of British Columbia, and to Timothy Wise of Tufts University's Global Development and Environmental Institute.

Thanks to Richard Grant for sharing “the skeleton key to Mexico,” Janet Chávez Santiago for advice on Zapotec translation, and especially to Annita and the late Tom Harlan for taking me down El Camino del Diablo.

My deepest gratitude goes to Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori and the Santa Maddalena Foundation for granting me the space and time to write a first draft in the most idyllic surroundings I could imagine, and to Sonny Mehta and Louise Dennys for their belief that I belonged there. Ted Hodgkinson, Miguel Syjuco and Evie Wyld were delightful companions in that dreamtime.

I also want to thank my agent, Stuart Krichevsky, for handling my transition to first-person Zapotec fiction so gracefully, and for his unwavering enthusiasm throughout.

Finally, I am indebted to my editors, Louise Dennys and Amanda Lewis at Knopf Canada and Jenna Johnson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for seeing the jaguar in its best light.

Mil gracias, amigos.

 

J
OHN
V
AILLANT
's work has appeared in
The New Yorker
, the
Atlantic, National Geographic,
and
Outside
, among other magazines. His two previous, award-winning books,
The Tiger
and
The Golden Spruce
, were international bestsellers. This is his first novel.