mexico

george blew a hole in the ceiling of his motel room..."cleaning my gun," he explained.  because it was of a "popcorn" texture we easily patched the wound with toothpaste.  fortunately for george we were leaving that day - and the motel was one storey.  that was shortly after he had run an unsuspecting mexican, on a motorcycle, in reynosa, into a traffic island.  george was a hardass, a great fisherman, and not particularly likeable.

we had been dove shooting in the san fernando valley...not hunting because the doves were so numerous we needed a legion of pickers to handle the dead ones after a day's shoot.  we were staying in mcallen, texas and driving, through reynosa, its mexican sister city, into the fertile countryside each day.

one day, after shooting, with bobby and bus in my balky ford rental car i asked ru to be sure i wasn't the last in line on the way home.  fat chance.  they left us in a cloud of dust - the very thing that was plaguing the ford's carburetor.  eventually we sputtered our way to the north-south highway, lurching, hesitantly, onto the macadam.

thirty miles into our drive we blew out the right rear tire.  i wrestled the car to the tilted verge and stopped.  the lugs were too hot to touch and the car was at such an angle we couldn't jack it.  "what do we do?" asked bobby.  "wait 'til the lugs cool down.  then you and i lean on the car while hawk jacks it up," said bus.  not going to work thought i.

suddenly, down the highway, in the distance, appeared a headlight.  "uh oh," i said.  "get your guns...and some ammunition."  this highway was known for its roving bandits.   the car, one headlight blazing, roared past us, doing eighty i guessed.  the tail lights came on, then it began to reverse towards us.  as it slewed to a stop a happy texan drawl came at us, "need some help?"

the four drunken dove hunters helped me load the car onto the jack and change the tire [at least we had checked the pressure in the spare that morning] and climbed back into their vehicle.  "what happened to your headlight?" i asked.  "hit a cow down the road.  spun her right 'round.  see ya," the driver replied.

when we got back to the motel the others had gone to boys town in reynosa to watch the donkey perform....