The Coyote Under the Table/El Coyote Debajo de la Mesa by Joe Hayes

Author:Joe Hayes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press

THE TALE OF THE SPOTTED CAT

Once there were three grown brothers who lived with their father in the same house, which was really just one big room. Their mother had died many years earlier.

When the father died, the brothers took his will to have it read and find out what he had left them. They learned that their father had divided the house among them. He did it in the old, traditional way: He left a certain number of vigas—roof beams—to each one.

The oldest son was willed six vigas, which meant that however much of the house was under that many beams would belong to him. So he returned home and starting at one wall of the house counted vigas—una, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis. When he got to the sixth beam he built a wall and made a spacious room for himself.

The second son received four vigas from his father. He used the wall his older brother had built and then counted—una, dos, tres, cuatro—and built a wall. His room was smaller than his brother’s, but still quite comfortable.

The youngest son, whose name was Juan, received just the last two vigas at the end of the house. That wouldn’t make much of a room for him. But Juan was a cheerful young man and he didn’t complain. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well. At least I don’t have to build a wall to turn my end of the house into a room. My brother’s wall will be on one side, and the outside wall of the house will be on the other.”

Juan began living in the narrow room under just two ceiling beams at the end of the house. But his older brothers were very spiteful, and they envied even the two beams their younger brother had received. One of them said to the other, “Our father’s will said that two vigas should go to our foolish little brother Juan, but it didn’t say anything about the latillas that are laid across the beams to make a roof. Let’s take them and use them for firewood.”

And they did that. Now Juan had two beams over his head, with nothing but the sky for a roof. On cold nights he would build a fire on the dirt floor in the middle of his room to keep warm.

When he went to bed, he would spread the warm ashes on the floor and sleep on top of them. He was always covered with ashes, and his brothers started calling him Juan Cenizas.

One night a stray cat jumped over the wall of Juan’s room and moved in with him. It was a white cat with black and brown spots, and Juan named it Gato Pinto. Juan was happy to have the company and shared bits of his tortillas with Gato Pinto. At night he always spread a little extra patch of ashes for the cat to sleep on. During the day, everywhere Juan went, the cat went with him. Everyone who knew Juan knew Gato Pinto.

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