There's not alot to do in Cabo. It's a beach of party-goers and sunbathers. There are watersports off the beach, but the water is dirty and the undertow strong.
On the third day, I sent the others off on a fishing trip. They found a boat and skipper that looked fairly seaworthy, and I said I'd just go wander the town. I had a late breakfast at a marina-front restaurant. Very tasty tortillas and eggs, something I haven't been able to duplicate at home. I walked to the end of the touristy strip and looked toward the town square. Seeing the police with their machine guns walking the edge of the demilitarized zone, I changed my mind and rejoined the herd of tourists.
One must find one's own entertainment in these situations.
I walked back toward the cruise ship landing where the famous Cabo Wabo is. The cantina is above a patio and souvenir emporium. I walked up the few steps and to the far end of the bar to inspect the restrooms. Yep, Sammy was keeping it authentic. There is nothing more appalling than a public restroom in Mexico.
Maybe I'd sit at the bar and watch the tourists fresh off the Carnival Elation discover the "real" Mexico. I was fortunate to find a seat with good sight of the restroom doors, and looked at the menu. It boasted of the fine tequilas you can only buy in Mexico, nothing like that industrial solvent called Cuervo. It was shortly after noon. Ok. I'll try a sampler.
Videos of Van Halen looped on tv monitors around the bar. Some with Sammy Hagar, some with David Lee Roth. Roth is better.
"Sip it like brandy," said the barkeep. "It doesn't need lime, it doesn't need salt, it doesn't need ice. Those condiments are for bad liquor to hide the taste."
I looked at the five small shot glasses half-filled with liquids ranging clear to amber he set in front of me.
"Take a breath and hold it. Take a sip. Let the tequila slip down your throat, then exhale." It took a few tries, but I could appreciate the quality of the drink. Fruity, kinda, and certainly smoother than the Cuervo Gold we'd passed around in our youth.
I suppose a half hour had passed when I finished the fourth sample. It was about then a dark and very good looking young man dressed in a white blouse, bolero, black pants decorated with silver, and a serape around his shoulders came to sit beside me. He handed his pistol to the bartender and ordered a Budweiser.
I recognized him from the old posters I'd seen in Calaveras County Museum when I was in grade school.
"You have your head," I observed. The Bandit Joaquin smiled with perfect white teeth.
"Never lost it," he replied. "That was some other guy. What a joke."
There are many stories about the bandit. One was that a Stockton lawman gave a public speach about the vicious outlaw and nailed a poster to a tree. $100 reward for the body of the Bandit Joaquin, dead
or alive. The people watched as an individual strode boldly out of the crowd , wrote something at the bottom of the document, then went to his horse and rode off. The inscription read, "I will give $1000. Joaquin Murrieta"But things were getting too hot for the bandit. The once vast California territory was becoming more populated and government more organized.
"I got a good idea," said the bandit to me. "I had an acquaintance named Harry Love. Big phoney lawman, easy bribe. We decided he would go to the governor to say he'd find me and kill me for $1000, and he'd deliver my head in a jar for $5000. Love came back to our camp in Fresno and gave me the go-ahead. Five of us armed ourselves well.
"I'd told my brother-in-law many times I didn't like the way he was treating my sister. If he put his hands on her one more time, I'd kill him. He laughed at me and said with the price on my head, I'd better watch out for him! Timing was bad for him, good for me, so that's Carrillo's head floating in the brandy. And I threw in the hand of that whiner, Three Fingered Jack as a bonus. Harry might as well get the bounty on him, too. I didn't need a partner any more.
"Take these to your governor and keep the cash." That's the last I saw of Harry Love, but I heard he made good use of those body parts. Carrillo and Jack toured the state of California and for $1 any man, woman or child could view what remained of them. Harry could never tell the truth, or his gravy train would end.
"And so I disappeared," concluded Joaquin. "Very successfully."
I thought of the stories my babysitter told me when I was very little. "You see that hill? That's Brushy Peak. The Bandit Joaquin is still hiding up there. He killed hundreds of men with his knife and his gun. Stay in the yard so he doesn't see you!"
"Where did you go?" I asked. "Were you at Brushy Peak?"
"Just think, senora. If I were at Brushy Peak when you were five, I'd have been a hundred and thirty years old. I have to say I was pretty far from there."
The bandit set down his empty beer bottle, put some silver coins on the bar and took his pistol back from the bartender. He nodded toward my empty tequila glasses.
"Get the lady an agua fresca."
He touched his forehead and bowed slightly. Then he was gone.
