Vaca

"Knives are the best part of people" was Vaca's motto. He sat at wooden table, the planks pitted and knotty with eyes, watching him become a Vaquero with a big bowie knife. Vaca wore a cowboy hat pulled low on his eyes, and ropey white rings of scar tissue around his fingers where the tooth had bit him. "The knife lets you know that you're slow, makes you get faster." He fanned the fingers of his right hand, spreading them on the table wide enough to be smart but narrow enough to be proud. He dipped his head to shade his eyes from the lights, a Zorro mask made of shadow, Vaca thought of himself as a bandito. His left hand gripped the knife making a stone fist, holding it upright with perfect posture. "It has the pride of a rooster. A rigid spine, a shining flash, a sharp claw." Vaca ground his boot into the floor, feeling the grit. He turned the knife hearing the same grinding sound, boring out a scallop of sawdust next to the knuckle of his thumb. "The knife is your boot. Stomp with the knife as hard as you stomp with your boot. Dancing around your fingers gets you cut, a man that doesn't belong tip toes. A real man stomps around his own house, he isn't afraid who hears him." The rope in Vaca grew tighter, made him taught, and wouldn't slack until the game was done. He stomped the blade between his thumb and pointer, and felt the distance in his mind. He had to understand the distance like a tangible thing, not abstract math. He tapped the knife home and hammered between each finger, looking up with flare and trusting his memory. "The knife has no eyes, it will treat all men the same. The knife is blind justice. You must have three eyes with the knife, the two in your head, the one in your mind. If you dont watch the knife with all three eyes you will lose." His speed increased and he felt himself be taken by the knife, like rolling down hill. An undertow drawing him forward, always threatening to spin out of control. Chips of wood flew up from the table, sweat hung in the air. "Look at a Vaquero," he said, and kept time intensely chanting in his head "I sharpen my knife on the teeth of the night. I sharpen my knife on the teeth of the night. I sharpen my knife on the teeth of the night."