“With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.”
I enjoy reading about brave men like Queequeg (Moby Dick): real men, with the bark on—in this case tattoos, but no matter. Maybe harder to find these days, but they’re still around. Men with no back up and no inclination to take water from anybody, unless they’re thirsty. In a day of whiners and moaners in which it’s not acceptable to call a coward a pansy, or worse—and for the pure pleasure and meanness of it—it’s refreshing to know those men still exist. Rumor has it that like good water from a deep cold well, they spring from Múzquiz, but rumor has a lot of things. Whatever—and be that as it may, tomorrow with any luck, you might meet one, or two . . . at
El Chap
Y a la hora de siempre
mt