The Breeders Association of Birds of Combat of Loreto
A ranchero named Gonzalo carrying a truckload of fruits and vegetables gave me a ride back into town.
He also offered to escort me to the peleos de gallos. He was round and bloated from a life of too much food and drink and when he spoke he had the belabored breath of a dying heart. He was a roosterman, an aficionado of the ancient sport, who owned mas o menos cincuenta gallos.
He, along with his brother, ran a fleet of pangas that fished the local waters, but he rarely went out on the sea himself. He had not entered any of his birds in the event as it was un gran campeonato, the biggest fight of the year. He did plan to sell a few of his roosters. He had just finished the house special at La Terraza and from the look in his eye he was three or four beers into the afternoon.
The fights would begin at 3pm. There were local teams but also several from Ciudad Constituciones and two from as far away as La Paz. Most were from nearby ranches. Their truck beds were loaded with tall, narrow cardboard boxes that housed the contestants. The trainers and their handlers milled about outside the arena, sipping from caguamas and discussing their chances. (have fun with this, strategery, etc.). A whitehot sun burned through the smokehaze from the barbecue pits that dotted the lot.
There was an announcement and everyone began to file down into the arena. We settled into our seats, plastic chairs on the first row behind the low wall that separates the spectators from the circular cockpit. The patrons settled into their seats as a man with a hose sprinkled water on the sand floor. It was a festive, but it was not a rowdy crowd. The afternoon sun shined on the notice that had been painted across from us on the white wall surrounding the pit - su permanencia en este lugar depende de su comportamiento.
Gonzalo made the rounds, shaking hands and patting shoulders. I watched a very old man in a cowboy hat studying the first handler who entered the arena. It was Francisco, the saltador I’d seen the day before at the hotel bar. He was all business, expertly tying spurs to his rooster’s legs. He was dressed in all black and he handled his rooster like a shaman. He walked with the bird to a green washbasin and began to wipe the bird down with water. Then he scooped a handful of water into his mouth and blew it into the face of the squirming mad rooster. He seemed to savor this. It was the way he tilted his head as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring into the rooster’s eyes in a slight smile as if to send some deep, sacred communication. He patted its head and breast and approached the middle of the pit to face the opponent.
But Gonzalo was partial to the other bird. He’s half Asil, he said. Look how tall he is. Look at the size of his neck and legs.
We watched them warm up. In the middle of the pit the saltadors held the roosters face-to-face and allowed them to peck at each other. Next, they put them on the ground and, holding them by their tails, let them run at one another before whipping them back at the last second to avoid the official start of the fight.
The referee conducted his ritual of inspecting the contestants. He swabbed their beaks, examined the spurs, and wrapped green tape to one assembly and then red to the other. Francisco’s was green.
Gonzalo whistled and got the attention of a short, older man in a white guayabera who was taking bets who scurried over with a pad and pen. Que quieres, he said.
Rojo. Quinientos pesos, was the reply.
The bookmaker sized me up. Que quieres, he said.
Quiero quinientos, I replied, en el verde.
Gonzalo chuckled and sighed in disgust, slowly shaking his head side-to-side. Pinche, gringo, he said, smiling. We should have bet each other.
I responded by taking out a twenty dollar bill. Quieres algo mas? He clenched a fist with his thumb up.
The MC made an announcement and we sipped our beers waiting as all bets were taken. After a while the crowd fell silent and when the referee signaled the saltadadors released the birds to a flurry of shouts and cheers.
The roosters went at each other and leapt wildly about in a vicious tornado of flying feathers and blood and slobber and horrible squawking screams. In the first five seconds their spurs had become tangled and the referee called time.
It did not look good for El Verde. Francisco’s bird was torn up bad, head down and dizzy, trickling droplets of blood over the sand and panting through its’ trachea in a hard, horrendous wheeze. The referee began counting but Francisco was calm. Uno, dos, tres…… He simply embraced the bird, almost lovingly, and then put its head in his mouth and began sucking the blood from out of its airways.
Es todo, said Gonzalo.
But who’s to say how a fight will end, and Francisco spit the blood out and whispered to the bird and placed it gently on the ground. When the fight resumed somehow El Verde propelled himself in the air in a graceful grand jete, swirling and slicing in a crazed, relentless ballet of violence and then suddenly all was silent.
Blood squirted rhythmically from the shredded throat of El Rojo who with a last dying cry that faded weakly in a pitiful gurgled yawk now lay maimed and stiffening in a swirl of feathers and dust and every patron arose in a wild chorus of cheers and applause and the bookmaker began making his rounds collecting money.