Don't Kill the COw Too Quick

A couple of hours after his wife left for Changuinola to stay with her sister, a stranger
came to Eduardo’s house offering a horse for sale. Eduardo, depressed by the
departure of his wife, bought the horse.
Feeling lonely that evening, Eduardo decided to seek company and rode his new horse
to town. His dog went with him.
It was after midnight when Eduardo mounted the horse and set off for home. As he
passed the light of the last house of town, he was overcome by guilt and a sense of
doom. He had bought the horse without his wife’s knowledge and had spent heavily on
rum for himself and on a woman who had joined him at his table.
“Well at least I bought a good horse,” Eduardo told himself. “Lucia will be pleased.”
Eduardo decided to see just how good a horse this was. Pulling a branch from a
roadside tree he beat on the flank of the horse and urged it on with the heels of his boots.

The horse went faster but not satisfied, Eduardo beat harder and it was then that the
horse turned his head and looking him in the eye said, “Hey stop that! Don’t you think I
have feelings?”
Eduardo fell from the horse and in a state of extreme terror ran on down the road. His
dog ran beside him.
When he could run no further, he climbed a tree. Fighting to get his breath, he looked
down at his dog and said, “It is the work of the Devil. Did you hear that? The horse
spoke to me.”
The dog looked up at his master and said. “I sure did Boss and he scared me too.”
Eduardo fell from the tree and died. The horse was never found and the dog never
spoke again.

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• Naitafon (Night of Fun) is a group of friends dedicated to recording g through
music and verse the folklore and lingua of the Creole and Guaymi peoples of Bocas.

The Night Ride

Shades of Don Quixote

Retold by Malcolm Henderson

The essence of this story was first told to me by Lic. Raoul Holston, Bocas poet and
lawyer and founder of Naitafon*. Raoul is a direct descendant of two of the earliest
non indigenous families to settle in the archipelago, the Sanchez Iglesias of
Bocas del Drago and the Browns of Isla Carenero.

Since hearing the story told by Raoul, others have added to the telling of this piece of
Bocas folklore.