Rolltown. Mack Reynolds

there were more often old-fashioned internal combustion engines, rather than steamers or the more recent electro-steamers. Evidently, pollution laws had never been enforced in Mexico. In fact, of wheeled vehicles there were more beaten up trucks and buses than private cars.

      “A cantina it is,” Bat muttered. “I wonder if anybody else from New Woodstock has come in.”

      “I doubt it,” Ferd said. “Everybody’s tired. Maybe tomorrow, somebody’ll get up the gumption. Most of the community’s never been in Mexico before. There’s one over there. Dig that. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen swinging doors on a bar outside a historic TV show before.”

      Bat Hardin parked the electro-steamer in front of the bar in question and got out, Ferd doing the same on the other side.

      Three or four indolent villagers, leaning up against adobe wall or lamppost, seemed to take displeasure when Bat locked the car doors. He wondered idly if it was because they were thwarted in going through the vehicle, or if they were objecting to his suggesting that it might be done if he failed to lock up. Come to think of it, Bat recalled that in these small towns, at least, the crime rate was said to be infinitesimal, though it could be different in the larger, more sophisticated cities. What crime there was usually consisted of violence between family members or between different families, usually involving passion or feud, rather than pilferage or robbery committed against foreigners. However, he still locked the car.

      Ferd led the way through the swinging doors. If the town as a whole had reminded them of a movie set based on the Mexican revolution of 1910, there was little in the interior that would indicate the bar wasn’t a continuation of the set. The room was long, the walls decorated with bullfight posters and illustrations of bountifully bosomed Playmates, probably long deceased, along with the magazine which had once built its reputation with them. There was a brass rail along the bottom of the bar and a tile trough with running water for those who must needs expectorate. At the far end of the bar, along the whole wall which faced the door was a tile urinal which could easily have accommodated half a dozen beer-drinking customers at a time. There was a stench of stale urine in the air, along with that of unwashed bodies. Obviously this was a resort that did not cater to women, not to speak of catering to ladies.

      There were perhaps twenty imbibers present, leaning on a prehistoric bar that would have accommodated double the number. Behind it were three bartenders; one, a fifty-year-old pushing three hundred pounds in weight, was obviously the proprietor, the others, two youngsters in their teens. The liquor selection was limited; tequila, mescal, rum and gin. A battered refrigerator indicated that at least the beer and coke would be cold.

      Ferd muttered from the side of his mouth, even as they found a place, “Montezuma drank here.”

      “Or at least, Cortes,” Bat muttered back. “I’ve recently become an authority on the subject. According to the books, the Aztecs didn’t drink anything but pulque.”

      A silence had fallen upon their entry. The two Americans ignored it.

      The proprietor, who puffed slightly upon movement, hesitated for a long moment but finally came down to them, ignoring some of the cold stares of his regular customers.

      He stood before them, both obscenely fat hands on the bar and said, expressionlessly, “Senors?”

      Bat said to Ferd, “First day in Mexico. Nothing would do except tequila.”

      “Right as rain.”

      “Tequila, por favor,” Bat said to the bartender.

      The other nodded, turned and secured a bottle of the white liquid nuclear bomb, a saucer of limes cut into quarters and a shaker of salt.

      He muttered, barely audibly, “Salud,” and turned away.

      “Jesus,” Ferd said. “The hospitality around here is boundless.”

      Both Bat and Ferd had been in the country before and knew the routine. They poured themselves drinks that would have been called triples in the States into the shot glasses, took up the salt in turn and sprinkled a touch of it on the back of their left hands. They touched their tongues to the salt, tossed the tequila back in one fell swoop, then grabbed up a quarter of the lime and bit into it.

      “Wow!” Ferd said, half in appreciation, half in objection to the strength of the fiery product of the maguey plant.

      The Mexican, standing nearest to them at Bat’s left, sneered and said in passable English, “Ah, not enough macho for tequila, eh, gringo?”

      Ferd hesitated for a moment. Finally, he said to Bat, “Well, we came here to learn. What does macho mean?”

      Bat said quietly, “Manliness, more or less. The quality of being a real man.” He was nibbling unhappily at his lower lip.

      “And gringo?”

      “It’s a derogatory word for an American. Why it should be derogatory, I wouldn’t know. Evidently, it comes down from the Mexican War days. When the American troops invaded from Texas and Vera Cruz one of the popular songs of the day was Robert Burns’ ‘Green Grow the Rushes, Oh’ and the Americans sang it as a marching tune. The Mexicans of the time took the first two words and called the unwelcome invaders ‘green grows’, or ‘gringos’. It bears a sneering connotation.”

      “Thanks for the lecture,” Ferd said politely. He turned to the Mexican. “And you’re a greaser.”

      “Holy Smokes …” Bat began in protest, and much too late.

      The Mexican, although a small man by the standards of either of the two foreigners, with a sweep of his right arm pushed Bat Harden to the side that he all but fell onto the wall behind them.

      The Mexican moved in fast, so fast that he should have been upon Ferd before that worthy could erect defenses. However, the American was prepared. Ferd went backward in the one, two, three shuffle of the trained pugilist, his hands coming up in fists.

      The Mexican was ardent but fighting out of his class as well as weight, height and reach. He swung once, twice, wildly. And then Ferd Zogbaum stepped in with a classic feint of the left and then a crushing blow into the other’s stomach with his right.

      Bat Hardin, meanwhile, had found his feet again and turned to meet the rush of the other occupants of the bar. Unlike his companion, he adopted a crouching stance, his hands slightly forward and held as choppers, rather than fists. He had not spent his long years in the Asian War without compiling background in hand-to-hand combat.

      The very number of the others, in the confined space of the cantina, was their handicap. That and the fact that the locals had been doing a considerable amount of drinking before the arrival of the strangers. They had the spirit of the thing completely, but precious little science. While his companion was finishing off his attacker, Bat was able to hold them although he was being pushed back by sheer weight.

      Ferd yelled, “Let’s get out of here, Bat!”

      But Bat was nearly eliminated from the fray at this point by an attack on his flank. The bartender, with something that looked like a child’s baseball bat in one of his fat paws, leaned over the bar and with surprising speed took a massive swing at the embattled American. Bat caught the motion from the side of his eye and tried to swing away from the blow but only partially succeeded and for a moment the fog seemed to roll in when the bludgeon struck him glancingly on the side of his head.

      Ferd caught him, supported him just long enough for the other to shake his head in an attempt to clear it.

      Swinging almost as wildly as the charging locals now, the two shuffled backward toward the swinging doors.

      “I’ll try to hold them,” Ferd yelled. “Get the car door open!”

      It was the obvious strategy. Bat turned quickly and made a dash for it. In the street, he straight-armed one of the loungers who had been outside and who was now coming up on the run, obviously attracted by the sounds of the battle. Another was coming from the opposite direction, a smallish youngster probably not out of his teens. However,