Quickies for Halloween 08- El Gringo and El Cadejo 1

I have to leave the village tonight. They say that I did something to the American, but that is not true. I did not touch a single hair from his head. Believe me.

He showed up one afternoon after my friends and I had finished a match of pelota and were conversing on the stands.

"Who is that?" said one of my friends.

"Looks like a gringo," said another.

He was tall and skinny. Sported long hair, a blond moustache, and was dressed like Indiana Jones. He had several cameras strapped to his body and one raised on a stick. He was talking to it as he approached us, gesticulating with his free hand. He pointed it at us. It was really annoying, but we understood that he was a foreigner and perhaps unware of the fact that in our culture, it was considered bad manners to shove a camera on somebody's face without their consent.

He turned to us and said, "Ingles? Habla Ingles?"

I was the only who spoke English, and I told him so.

"Good! Good! What's your name?"

"Rodo," I told him.

"Rodo! Nice to meet you. I'm Jim. I'm here from California to make a video about the legend of El Cadejo. And I wanted to know what you and your friends knew about it."

He showed us some videos and pictures from his website and told us he was "thrilled to be here" and would be grateful if we could help him.

Before we could answer, he set up two cameras on the stands and one down on the field.

"Tell me, what is El Cadejo?"

"It's a bad spirit," said my friend.

"A demonio," said another.

"It's like a big dog. He appeared to my uncle in Las Ruinas and nearly killed him."

"I don't think they bite," another friend chimed in.

"It has evil in his red eyes, has horns like a bull, and hooves like a goat."

"I heard it was more like a deer," said another.

"A deer? A deer isn't scary."

And so on. We guffawed at the stories that got more outrageous and more vulgar as the interview went on. We also argued amongst ourselves about the true nature of El Cadejo and still nobody could give a clear account of the creature.

"You mentioned Las Ruinas," El Gringo said.

"Yes, in Cerrito Negro," my friend said. "My uncle was fishing on a nearby river, and it got dark, so he had to sleep there in the ruins.

"What kind of ruins?"

"Very old ones. My uncle was sleeping there when El Cadejo attacked him. He said it was black, strong like a bull, and it smelled like piss and farts."

We laughed and told him other yarns about the creature.

"But you said it was small, and you said it was big," the American said to my friends. "And then he said, it doesn't attack, but you said it was ferocious. Who's telling the truth?"

"There is a white one too?" my friends told him. The white one was good and protected travelers, but my friends pointed out that people didn't like to encounter the white one either.

After the interview, El Gringo packed up his equipment and said to me, "listen, I know that this will sound strange, but I was wondering if you could take me to Las Ruinas. I don't know my way around these parts, so it'd be great to have a guide."

"Las Ruinas? Why you want to go there?" I said to him. "It's far up on the hills, and it's all jungle."

"Well, your friend said that his uncle saw El Cadejo there. So, I though it'd be great to go and take a few clips."

"My friend is full of shit."

"Yes, but it'd still be cool if I could get some shots. Viewers enjoy watching those kinds of videos and are more likely to click the like button."

"It's a long way," I told him. "It would take you almost the whole day to go there and return."

"Well, El Cadejo only comes out at night, right? So I was thinking we could spend the night there. "

I looked at him with wide eyes and did not know what to say.

"Look, I'll pay you." He took out sixty dollars. "It's not much, but I'll take care of the gear and food. You just have to get me there. What do you say? You're not scared of El Cadejo, are you?"

I laughed. Ha! "Of course not." I was scared of spending the night alone in the woods with a crazy gringo.

He pleaded with his hands like a five-year old child. I realized that he was going to do it anyway, so I might as well help him and get sixty dollars for my troubles. We made arrangements and decided to meet on the weekend.

On Saturday morning, I borrowed two machetes from my grandfather and met Jim near the church. I found him recording a video in front of the statue of Jesus.

"The church has a cemetary out back," he narrated to the camera. "But I don't think I'm allowed to record. Besides it's time to go. My guide, Rodo, is here."

I greeted him shyly, as I am not fond of cameras. I gave him one of the machetes, which he received with several 'wows'.

"Look at the leather! Beautiful patina. It looks like a conquistador's sword. Amazing!"

I slid it out of its scabbard and handed it to him.

He waved it around and laughed gleefully. "El Cadejo doesn't stand a chance," he said.

We began our trek up the hill. It was slow going on account of his video recording antics. He wore a camera strapped to his belt and had another one tied to his backpack's shoulder strap. He also had two cameras on tripods, which he kept positioning and moving them around, hopping like a mad rabbit, running back and forth along the road. I was beginning to wonder if I had made a serious mistake.

Because of our slow progress, it was already dark by the time we arrived at the ruins. He stopped and took out a contraption tied to a small strap then handed it to me.

"Headlamp," he said. "Luz!"

The path was overgrown with vines and grass, as I had suspected, but I cleared a path with the machete. El Gringo recorded himself whacking a vine and managed to get the machete stuck. I showed him how to retrieve it without cutting himself.

"Look at these stones!" he said when we arrived at the ruins. "It's amazing to think that these Indian houses have been here for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. And nobody knows about it except the locals."

The way I understood it, these were not Indian ruins but old settlements belonging to the banana company that used to have plantations in the valley several years ago. We just called them ruins because they were very old. He had obviously misunderstood our meaning. But he seemed so awed and happy to be in the "Indian" ruins that I didn't bother to correct him and instead let him prattle on about shamans and rituals.

"We'll camp here tonight," he said. "If El Cadejo shows up, we can escape through this back entrance or stand and fight here, plenty of room to swing our machetes."

I was now convinced that I had made a serious mistake.