The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [220]
with the casket on his head would step out of the road--so would the whole cortege, musicians included--and with his eyes, like the milk of blackness, a few Mongolian mustache hairs fine and long on the savage bulges of his mouth, even afflicted, and while inimical, would follow the eagle as he passed. There would be the same whisper, "Mira, mira, mira--el dguila, el dguila!" So we'd pass by the white stones and walls that scaled in the heat, the iron prickles, the bones of death, the sleepers' clothes flappy and humiliated at the back; and also the little fever-slain child that rode inside. We got up to the plateau, from which the town lay half covered in a picturesque hole, and there practiced with Caligula to get him used to a take-off while in motion. When he learned that, Thea's confidence in him entirely came back. In fact we did it well. He sat on my arm, I stirred old Bizcocho to move faster, and the eagle took hold strongly with his feet and wrung me through the demon's glove. I struck the hood and then slipped the swivel--I had to drop the reins to do this and grip with my knees--and Caligula put forward his breast with a clap of the huge wings and started to take the air. In a few days Bizcocho was ready, and in tremendous excitement, one morning, we went out for the giant lizards. Jacinto came with us' to flush them out of the rocks, and we climbed down the mountainside I to their tropical place. There the heat was thick; it collected stagnant in the rocks, which were soft and eaten by rain acids into grottos and Cambodian shapes. The lizards were really huge, with great frills or sails--those ancient membranes. The odor here was snaky, and we seemed in the age of snakes among the hot poisons of green and the livid gardenias. We waited, and the cautious kid went to poke under leaves with a long pole, for the iguanas were savage. Then on a ledge above us I saw one who looked on, but as I pointed him out we saw the Elizabethan top of him scoot away. These beasts were as fast and bold as anything I had ever seen, and they would jump anywhere and from any height, with a pure writhe of their sides, like fish. They had great muscles, like fish, and their flying was monstrously beautiful. I was astonished that they didn't dash themselves into pellets, like slugs of m .353 quicksilver, but when they smashed down they continued without any pause to run. They were faster than the wild pigs. I was anxious for Thea. I knew what a state she was in. The place was steep, there was no room to maneuver, and she wheeled and plunged her horse. I had the burden of the eagle, and the old Zapatista gray couldn't turn fast though he was game enough and understood taking chances. So I heard more than I saw most of the time. "Thea," I shouted, "for Chrissake, don't do that!" But she was crying something to Jacinto and at the same time waved to me to get into position. She wanted to get the lizards driven down a slope of stones where they had no cover. Sometimes silver, sometimes dusty, gray, statue-green they looked as they flew. Finally she signaled me to strike the eagle's hood and slip his leash. I took a lurch, Bizcocho started downslope on the loose rocks, Caligula gripped me; I slipped the drawstring and took off the hood, drew the swivel, and he went up, forward in the deep air of the mountainside, once again up toward the high vibrations of blue. Coming and going in stages, he went to a great height to wait on. Thea sprang to the ground to seize the pole from the boy. He was just sweeping it through the thick growth and tore off magnificent flowers as red as meat that tumbled down in the wave of ferns, and he cried, "Ya viene!" An iguana fled down the rock. s. Caligula saw him and made his pitch. Feathered and armored he looked in his black colors, and such menace falling swift from heaven. Down the iguana made his pure leap too, crashed, ran, doubled at Caligula's stoop, slithered from the snatch of the talons, rolled, fought over his belly from the shadow that haunted him so fast, flew again. I saw the two sharp fierce faces,