The smell of the tobacco mixed with
old leather and polluted river water gave the air a strangely aromatic yet
pungent stink. Little beads of sweat that had begun forming ever since I
stepped out of the cab were now steadily soaking my shirt collar. The heat and
humidity reminded me of Florida in July. The motor that was propelling us along
the inky green Coatzacoalcos had a throaty howl and sounded as if it might
stall at any moment leaving us floating dangerously exposed. For a hand full of
pesos I located two men who agreed to take me downstream to the Planation Oaxaquena
a once prosperous sugarcane factory that met an untimely demise because of
societal unrest and roving bands of thugs terrorizing the surrounding towns and
jungles. The free-for-all and lawlessness was brought on, in no small part, by
the Mexican Revolution and one day around 1910 the plantation accountant
boarded a train at Vera Cruz destined for the plantation with revenue from
sales. At some point while the train was passing through an isolated stretch of
jungle it was held up by a coterie of vicious thugs, gun-wielding bandits. The
accountant, an American, was murdered for the profits. The Minnesota based
company, The Tabasco Plantation Company S.A., formerly the Tabasco Land and
Development Company, was starting to grow weary of the lawlessness and violence
and not long after began sending its American workers back to the states. The
land for the plantation had been purchased by the Tabasco Land and Development
Company around 1900 and the title held in escrow by the Chicago Title and Trust
company until 1909 until the contract with the development company
expired. The title was then deeded to
the Tabasco Plantation Company, but this was before the real trouble began.
As the Mexican
Revolution progressed business slowed and it became more of an expense keeping
it opened, paying workers wages and carrying the cost of overhead, than
maintaining a stable revenue generating endeavor and shut it doors for good not
long after the revolution ended. The plantation land changed hands a couple of
times, became abandoned and eventually was turned into an Inn for riverboat
traffic. My interest in the old lot stems from a story told to me by an
100-year-old American I met one night in a cantina in the Western Deserts of
Mexico in a small pueblo about forty miles northwest of Mazatlan called La
Noria. He spoke to me of a mezcal so smooth and pure it went down like melted
liquid silver. Granted it was the analogy of a 100-year-old drunk at one o’clock
in the morning, but I have never been one to fain a quest, nor one to turn down
a good drink and so my odyssey went into its prenatal stages. The old man
claimed that he once knew the producer of this now mysterious mezcal recipe, a
local man named Roberto Conde, who along with his father built a small empire
that thrived and made Roberto a wealthy man until Roberto perished during the
world wide flu epidemic of 1917. He owned a Hacienda five miles outside La
Noria called Hacienda Las Moras and that he created his wonderful libation.
After his death his son and daughter-in-law had tried to keep the factory
running but then his son perished from the flu as well. His grandson took over
the day-day operations but eventually the greedy mayor of Mazatlan at the time,
a ruthless man named Alphonso Tirado, himself a vinata owner and producer of
mezcal tried to eliminate the competition. His armed thugs numbering in the
hundreds stormed the grounds of the Hacienda Las Moras and were met by an
opposition force created by Roberto Conde’s grandson and other vinata owners in
the area afraid Tirado would also try and take over their land so he could form
a monopoly of the mezcal industry. Before the confrontation took place Conde’s
grandson was murdered on the steps of the Mazatlan Courthouse. This militia
force he helped put together was called “the woodsmen,” and they were a well
trained and battle ready force that, d espite being outgunned and outmanned,
won a two hour battle where 206 fighters for Tirado were slain. The heartless
mayor recoiled and returned to his work in politics licking his wounds and
leaving the vinata owners in the area alone after his public and humiliating
defeat. As for Roberto Conde’s factory it never recovered as his
daughter-in-law was the daughter of another prominent mezcal producing family
in the area and they took over ownership of the part of the land the factory
was located on. The Hacienda was abandoned and nearly forgotten about until
after a number of years abandoned the land was sold and it was renovated and
turned into a luxury resort. But one thing the old man told me when I asked him
if this Roberto Conde mezcal still existed he said that he only knows of one
bottle that still may exist. It has a black and white label and is somewhere on
the grounds of the Planation Oaxaquena. It had been a wedding gift to his
son-in-law John Loucke, an Austrian exporter who married his beautiful daughter
Maria. The legend is that John Loucke had hidden the bottle in a secret
compartment somewhere in the main Plantation house and after fleeing the
violence of the revolution with his young family, never made it back to retrieve
the gift. The man said that one day he had run into Maria who had been back in
La Noria, visiting from the states where she was living in New Jersey, and the
topic of conversation turned to the lone bottle of Mezcal.
We
strenuously inched are way along remaining mostly in the middle of the river
when I noticed to the starboard side what looked like naked people moving along
the shore. The two men in the boat with me began speaking to each other and one
pulled out a pistol from his breeches.
“Jesus,
what is this a mutiny,” I shouted. The man, with a Pancho Villa moustache,
pointed at what I could now tell was a collection of high-strung Indians along
the shoreline with bows, arrows and spears. I felt like I was back in 1909.
Suddenly one of the Indians shot an arrow in our direction and bestial howls
erupted from the brush. I watched it sailing through the air. We were quite a
distance out and the arrow plummeted and splashed only a few feet from our
boat. The pirate in our boat then shot once up into the air and the Indians
scattered back into the jungle. They wore what looked like thongs with a small
cloth covering their private area and all had black hair in the style of a
1980’s bowl cut. The women left their breasts exposed and had round faces and,
from what I could tell, carried a small hint of beauty but were rough in their
features, more chiseled then the typical woman. Both the men and women had dark
to olive colored smooth skin that glistened in the sun as they ran, their
muscles noticeable and firm. The men were leaner than the women but with
broader shoulders
The
primal hostility shown by the savages was intriguing, especially in this day
and age of television, global economics and urban outfitters. Had the year been
1909 I doubt I would have even blinked when half- crazed naked Indians leapt
out of the bush flinging spears and launching poisoned tipped arrows. We were
now out of range of the arrows though two of the male Indians tailed us for a
good quarter mile before they disappeared back into the jungle.
“Who
were they?” I asked the man sitting behind me working the motor and rudder.
With a large smile filled with gold teeth he responded,
“Canibales.”
Translated
into gringo, that means Cannibals. By the mischievous look in his inky black
eyes I didn’t know if he was serious or throwing me for a line. Didn’t matter
either way, the savages would have probably killed me regardless of whether or
not they intended on basting me up with spices and having a raucous mezcal
induced pogrom.
Now
I don’t use the term “savages” lightly. The fact that they have the courage to
confront us and an alacrity to fight for what is rightly theirs shows character
and I wonder why the Spanish Conquistadores didn’t recognize that despite the
fact that they, the Indians, regularly butchered each other in sacrificial
frenzies so the maize would grow healthy. The Indians didn’t know about weather
patterns and fertilizer back then. The nature of brutality for no good reason
is solely a characteristic of the human, the Indians and the Spanish alike. We
humans have always been the same across all territories and all ages, or so it
has always seemed to me.
The
humidity of this jungle didn’t disappoint and the vegetation was so thick in
places, a few thousand well-armed Indian sharpshooters could have taken up
strategic positions along both banks as well as in the trees and we never would
have seen them. But what concerned me more than possible cannibalistic savages
were the cannibalistic mosquitos the size of flying rodents dive-bombing me
every few seconds trying feverishly to jab me with their lances. Despite the
toxic bug spray I bathed in, the audacious few skewered me and delivered
healthy welts that itched like the Dickens. Luckily in today’s world, unlike
1909, I have a pouch crammed full of Malarone tablets.
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