Yes, he was illegitimate—Tomás’s bastard son. But so was Teresita. Why had she been accepted when he had not? And when her mother’s family had balked and mistreated her, Buenaventura was there. Who was there for him? Who had ever taken him in when he was hungry?
One day—a day he regretted, and not simply because it had cost him—he had vexed Teresita and humiliated her by screaming insults about her Indian blood. And she, even then feeling the surge of powers in her body, lost control and—when he thought of it, he winced. His shoulders hunched. Because he had nothing to compare it to. It was a bolt of pure anger. It was cold, and it was hot. It flew from her eyes, or her hands, or her gut, or her heart, or the awful Indian spirits he was convinced followed her in a warrior band. It pierced him and stole his speech and froze his mouth and paralyzed his limbs. Even now, years later, he walked with a limp. It had been harder to demand respect since that day. Then they were gone, and he was the boss. And this is how he became a dandy, Fast Johnny Urrea.
He still feared her.
It was an uncomfortable scene at the dinner table. Tomás had sent Gaby and the children away—he wasn’t about to contaminate them with the foolery of this swaggering nitwit. Besides, when Gaby considered the various partners Tomás had left scattered behind him, she grew sullen and refused to make love to him. Her belly swelling with his next heir was driving him mad with desire. He could not keep his hands off her belly, her swelling bottom. Her breasts were still heavy and veiny from the last child. He had to shake his head and refocus on Buenaventura, who happily poured himself another cup of coffee. Teresita came from the kitchen and placed a plate of pig cookies before him. Those pig-shaped gingerbread cookies were every child’s favorite.
He sneered.
“I hate that shit,” he said, then gobbled one and slurped his black coffee to wash it down.
Out on the porch, Aguirre and Segundo sat in rocking chairs, maintaining an uncomfortable truce.
“Jules Verne is erudite,” Aguirre was saying. “But he is no match for the fevered nightmares to be found in Wells!”
“Goddamn,” Segundo agreed falsely, blowing smoke.
Teresita grinned, laid a hand on her brother’s arm.
He jumped.
Tomás eyed them both, raised his eyebrows at Teresita.
“So,” he said.
“Yup,” Fast Johnny said. “I’m through with Mexico. It’s a dung pile.”
Tomás twiddled his fingers.
“I’m on my way to California. You want to live, Pop? San Francisco’s for you!”
Pop? thought Tomás. Pop?
“You,” said Johnny, nudging Teresita, who gazed upon him with adoration that he could not see. “You need to shake the dirt off your feet, skinny. Come to San Francisco. I’m going to catch a ship to China.”
“Oh!” she said.
“Absolutely not,” said Tomás. “And what brings you here?”
“Business,” said Johnny, smiling broadly. “I took care of the ranch.”
“How so?”
“Sold it.”
Tomás simply stared.
“You… sold… my ranch.”
Johnny gulped some coffee, licked the crumbs of his cookie off his lips. “Sold it. You ain’t coming back.”
“It wasn’t yours to sell.”
“It was all mine to sell,” Johnny corrected him. “I was your only heir.”
“Heir!” Tomás roared.
Teresita shivered. Segundo clomped inside.
“Something wrong?” he said.
“Kill this little bastard!” Tomás cried.
Johnny grinned, shrugged, leaned over and spit on the floor.
“Hey,” said Segundo.
“Hey,” scolded Teresita.
“You can’t kill me,” Johnny said. “I am your little bastard.” He laughed. He pointed his fingers like a pistol and shot Tomás. “Daddy!” he announced.
He threw an immense bundle of worn bills on the table.
“I took all the money from the sale of Cabora to Don Miguel, el patrón. He gave me my cut.” He gestured to his clothes. “I’m spending it real well. And he asked me to drop off this cut to you, dear Father.”
He slammed his hand on the table once and rose.
“I’ll borrow a horse,” he said. “I don’t feel like we’re going to have a family reunion. Besides, I hate the smell of animal dung. You should do something about that.”
He flicked Teresita’s hair as he went by.
“I just made you rich,” he said. He leaned down. “Meet me in San Francisco.”
He started to whistle as he stepped out the door and skipped down the steps.
Aguirre peeked in the room.
“Is it safe to come in?” he asked.
They all shouted, “No!”
Twenty-Seven
ANITA BORROWED A DONKEY from the paddock and followed Teresita and Caballito Urrea uphill. They veered off the road and cut along a deer path that switchbacked over raw slanted cliffs. Swallows tumbled out of cliff nests and cut the sky with their scissor tails. Vultures had wing tips that seemed to be reaching for the tops of pine trees like ten-inch fingers, and small angry birds harassed them until they flew out of sight. Crows were irritated at the riders coming through their territory and voiced insults and questions as they went from spire to spire, dead tree to ledge, looking down at the intruders and then looking at one another in apparent disbelief. An escapee yearling cow was feral and sly in the bushes, thinking itself invisible because its head was buried in greenery.
Teresita, far ahead, was in her white dress; she’d pulled up her skirts indecently, and her brown legs were bare to the sun. Anita did the same, though the donkey’s spine felt like it was going to split her bottom in two as she bounced and jounced after her sister, and its fur, so soft at first, started to burn her thighs and sting the insides of her knees. This riding—overrated. But it was another gleaming day in the mountains. The air felt thin as paper, as if their faces might tear it and pass through into something beyond.
Teresita ignored the little scamp following her. She was wandering over the side hills and the abandoned camps scattered in gray planks beyond the winding rail lines that seemed to swirl down the mountains like vast carnival rides. Her horse, given free rein, moseyed ever upward. Teresita scrubbed the visions of Buenaventura out of her eyes, squeezed the memories of faces, names, whole years out of her head. Oh, to be free of them all—Cruz, Huila, Buenaventura, her terrible aunt and her flailing wooden spoon. She wondered where Harry Van Order had gone, he of the blushing-little-boy face and the hopeless cowlicks. And John, so mean, so tall, away to Chicago, chasing dollars and finery.
They drifted up and up until they were roaming the old slopes of Shannon Hill and its cemetery, the whole hill a home of the dead. There were houses not far from the old graveyard, but the graveyard was where Caballito Urrea took her. He was not interested in mestizos’ homes and their smells. He was interested, like Teresita, in herbs and flowers. Horses understood healers: healers smelled like plants.
He shuffled along the old fence, and he sampled the weeds outside the boneyard. A happy dog galloped along between the graves, chasing a twirling scrap of paper that he caught in his fool mouth and released in the wind so he could chase it again. His barks were small as stones and fell dull on the ground. It was a gravel lot, curving with the slow curl of the world’s horizon, silent save for two small boys tossing a béisbol at each other across the far dirt road. Their mother came out and shouted at them—Teresita heard the door smack tartly as they went in. She sat astride her horse and waited for her insistent little sister to catch up.
The graves were sad, yet the place felt friendly. Lonely, but not unwelcoming. The endless wind of the peaks whispering and sighing through corroded iron plaques and crooked stones. She squinted. A lone man stood out there among the farthest crosses, thin, tall, with long hair blowing around his head. For a startling moment, he looked like Cruz Chávez. But no. H
e was thinner. Fairer. Clean-shaven. Black vest and white shirt. He turned his head and looked at her, but she could not tell from this distance what expression was on his face.
Anita trotted up. The donkey was not happy about the climb. It huffed and stomped its foot and made disgruntled donkey noises.
“Hush,” said Anita.
They dismounted.
“Ow. My butt.”
“That’s what you get,” Teresita scolded her. “If you think I’m rubbing potions on your nalgas, you’re crazy.”
Anita giggled.
“Why did you follow me?” Teresita demanded.
“I want to learn.”
“I am not your teacher.”
“You’re the Saint.”
“I am not a saint.”
“Well, I love you.”
“Oh,” said Teresita.
She put her hand on top of Anita’s head.
“Are you not afraid?” she asked, gesturing toward the graves.
“No. Not with you here.”
Teresita shook her head.
“Don’t put your faith in me, child,” she said. She began to walk. She crossed her arms as though to keep the wind from entering her chest. Anita could smell her. She loved that smell—sometimes, when her big sister was out, she snuck in her room and sniffed the roses from the pillows on her bed.
“I am as empty as these graves,” Teresita said.
“Ay, Teresita.”
Anita rushed to her and hugged her—her arms came around Teresita’s hips.
“When I die,” Teresita said, “you make sure I’m buried well.”
“You won’t die.”
“Oh, I will. I won’t be here long, Anita. Not very long.”
The crazy dog joined them. He was trotting sideways, wagging furiously. He offered Anita the scrap of paper in his mouth, but when she reached for it, he tore away and jumped around with it.
“Idiot!” Anita yelled.
They laughed.
He crouched before them and dared them to take his paper.
Teresita shook her finger at him.
He twirled joyfully.
She shook her head. She was distracted. She had been staring across the bare ground at the Indian man. They could hear his voice. He was singing.
“What is he singing?” Anita said.
Teresita shook her head. Shrugged.
“Let’s get closer,” she said.
“Let’s spy on him,” said Anita.
Teresita took her hand and walked in his direction without walking directly toward him. She kept an eye on Caballito Urrea—escape was always a concern now. She needed to know she could leap aboard and gallop away, dust blowing in an attacker’s face. She would not harm anyone intending to harm her, but she would kill anyone for hurting Anita.
They walked, studiously reading what stones they could see among the weathered planks and rusted iron markers.
His voice came in the dusty breeze as if it too were dusted.
Teresita froze in place and gripped Anita’s hand more tightly. Her eyes grew wide. She stared at the ground.
“What is it?” Anita asked. “What, Teresita?”
“Maso bwikam,” Teresita breathed.
“What?”
“Shh. Deer songs. Shh.”
They listened.
Aa sewailo malichi yewelu sika
Yo chikti yo sea yeula sika
Sewailo malichi rewelu sika
Yo chikti yo sea huya aniwapo
Yeulu sikaaa…
A tear fell from Teresita’s eye. Anita watched it roll to the edge of her big sister’s chin, tremble, and fall.
The dog came over to them and sat at their feet.
“What is it, Tére?” she asked.
“It is the story of a deer, a fawn. Covered in flowers. Out in the wilderness of flowers, going from blossom to blossom.”
Anita looked across at the singer. He was staring at them. She waved at him. He nodded.
Teresita had thought she would never hear the mother tongue again.
The singing stopped.
“Uh-oh,” said Anita. “Here he comes.”
“Look busy,” Teresita said.
They turned away from him and tried to make it appear that the ground was deeply fascinating.
He walked forward, stopped a respectful distance from them. He crossed his arms behind his back and gazed at them.
“I work for your father,” he said. “I am Guadalupe.”
“I am Teresita.”
He grinned.
“Yes. I know who you are. And this little one?”
“Anita,” Anita said, raising her chin to him.
“My little sister,” said Teresita.
He nodded.
They looked at each other.
“That dog,” he said. “His name is Wo’i.”
“ ‘Coyote,’ ” Teresita translated for her sister. “Is he yours?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Then how do you know his name?”
“I just named him.”
The dog looked up and wagged.
Anita liked it that the man and her big sister were chuckling.
“You,” he said to Teresita. “You were in Sea Ania?” The flower-world.
“Perhaps. I was somewhere.”
“Did you see God?”
“I did.”
“What can you tell me of God?”
She smiled.
“God is not a white man.”
They burst out laughing.
Guadalupe said, “Don’t tell me God’s a Mexican!”
“No, no. I don’t think so.”
Anita’s head was swiveling between them.
“He might be Sioux.”
“Ay, ay, ay,” Guadalupe said. Then: “Was Sea Ania as they say?”
“It was.”
He nodded.
“Deer?”
“Deer.”
He smiled.
“Water?”
“Plenty of water. The grass was like a thick blanket.”
He nodded.
“Gracias,” he said and turned and walked away. He stopped, turned back, and called: “Your father keeps you from your destiny.” He walked on. They watched him recede in the distance and vanish over the lip of the hill.
“He had no horse,” noted Anita.
Teresita smiled.
“Maybe he flew.”
They laughed.
As they walked, Wo’i followed them, ferociously guarding them from weeds and the horse and donkey.
Anita said, “What was that? That… Ania?”
“Sea Ania. The flower-world.”
“Flower-world?”
“The other side.”
Anita looked at her.
“The world in the east,” Teresita said. “The world that mirrors our world. Has no one taught you anything, child?”
And she bent to a trembling little weed and started telling Anita stories about the plants and the deer and the movement of grace that flows like water across the sky and lands in our hands, and then she made the girl rub her hands together briskly and raise them to the weed to feel its billowing, silent singing. Their hands were their ancestors’ hands, moving through the air and back, back, hovering like prayers through ten thousand years.
Twenty-Eight
TOMAS WAS NOT HAPPY about the dog. Wo’i sat on the porch at Teresita’s feet grinning at the world, thumping his tail when horses, donkeys, the pig, the cats went by. However, when a buckaroo appeared, or a mill worker with a pine-tar-dripping plank, he’d set off in demented assaults, yowling and barking and trying to bite the man’s heels. From his seat, Tomás tried to kick him, but Wo’i seemed to find this hilarious, and he scooted sideways and started his moronic dancing, begging for more kicks to dodge. “Are you responsible for this?” Tomás asked Teresita. She shrugged and ate her orange slices with a vague smile. His moods, he reflected, could still be amusing. He flicked his cigarillo stub at the
dog and lit another. “Filthy beast,” he said. Suddenly, Wo’i spied an unfortunate Dr. Burtch coming through the gate and sped off in a frenzy of rage and chased the doctor back out of the yard and up the road. Tomás burst out laughing.
“Perhaps,” he noted, “the dog is not as bad as I thought.”
He said to her, “What’s wrong with these Americanos? They don’t have any drive—nobody thought of ranching cattle here before. Milk, Teresita! Right now these poor cabrones have to bring milk up the mountain! I’ll give them their own fresh milk.”
“Perhaps you can bring them bees as well,” she said.
He stroked his whiskers.
“Perhaps.”
She was delighted to be chatting with her father as if nothing strange had ever happened. She knew the moment would be brief, and it was delicate. It was made of ashes. It could blow away in an instant. So she busied herself with her bowl of sliced oranges and relaxed as he boasted.
“Milk! And firewood! Can you believe they buy lumber and ship it here? And they have to scrounge about in the hills for firewood for the winter. Ha! I can give them wood, and I can make sure they don’t cut down their trees to heat their asses when it’s snowing.” He shook his head, raised his hand, and smoked. “They needed me here to organize them, my dear.”
Wo’i focused their attention when Guadalupe the deer-song singer appeared at their porch steps. He didn’t remove his hat. He had his hands in his pockets. Tomás found this insolent in and of itself, but Wo’i simply wagged his tail and shuffled over to the untidy Indian and butted his head against Guadalupe’s knee. Tomás stood up and glowered.
Guadalupe called to Teresita, “¿Qué hubo, Cúquis?”
Cookies? Cookies? Tomás felt for his pistola, but it was inside, hanging on a peg by the staircase.
“¡Lárgase de aquí!” Tomás scolded.
Teresita smiled at Guadalupe.
“¡Andale!” Tomás shouted. “I’ll fire you the next time you speak to my daughter like that.”
Guadalupe looked sideways at him and dipped his head.