Fresh to Chapala’s Lakeside area, Spencer Adams resided next to a German woman who reportedly had killed his husband just a while back.
For a maid, she had a bruja named Siva who kept Spenser – and several other venturesome gringo patients – free of a cluster of fevers that harassed newly arrived North Americans, particularly of the various forms of diarrea, all of them traveling under the sobriquet la turista.
Siva had an inventive sense of humor and welcome sense of concern for her foreign – and seemingly hopeless – patients. The first time Siva saw Spencer’s scarred chest she narrowed her eyes and said nothing beyond, “This tastes terrible. Drink it anyway, three times a day, sin falta.”
Spencer claimed he had received the Army’s fastest wound stripe. He stepped into a freezing Korean combat zone commanding a group of .30 caliber machine gun crews. And immediately had the sensation that one of his grandfather’s stallions had just kicked him in the chest. True, he did get his men into their assigned foxhole positions and everyone firing, including himself. But that was short-lived. He was abruptly slammed into the frozen mud bottom of his foxhole.
The maid that Spencer hired — with his bruja friend’s approval — was Yolanda (Yoli) Rios. She was a shy, but lively informant on all things Mexican. Spencer was even soon getting along fairly well with her father, Anselmo (Selmo) Rios. Selmo was suspicious of young men hanging around his daughter. He was wary especially of gringo military types, whose daily work meant spending part of the day alone with his almost 16-year-old daughter. He tended to stop by to see how Yoli was doing until she complained.
Please login or subscribe to view the complete article.
No Comments Available