The Maldonado Miracle

  "You should see Cantinflas. Maybe we can find a Cantinflas film. There are several Spanish movies in Salinas."

  Jose had heard of Cantinflas and had seen posters of his films. He was a comedian with a face like an egg and a small mustache.

  Giron turned in his seat. "I have an idea. When I was a student at Los Angeles State, we used to try to find everything that was free in town. It's a good game, I'll show you."

  The bus ducked down off the freeway to stop for a few minutes in several small towns and then they were in Salinas.

  Jose was awed by the city. Salinas made Ensenada appear as small as San Vicente. He couldn't imagine what Los Angeles might be like.

  As they moved along the busy street, shops and stores crammed against each other, everyone hurrying somewhere, Jose noticed a secretive smile on Giron's face. Suddenly, the teacher nudged him. "In here," he said. They turned into a large store.

  "It's like a department store, but it's really a pharmacy," Giron said, as they went through a turnstile.

  He paused a moment, looking around. He had the air of the officials who sometimes drove down from Ensenada to inspect finished road work, Jose thought. They always held their noses up high.

  There weren't many customers this early. The clerks were busy stocking shelves and dusting them. Everything from candy and toys to canvas chairs and fishing rods was on sale. In the back of the store was a farmacia counter.

  Stopping by one counter, Giron said, "Ah, hah, here we are." All sorts of razors, the straight kind, the safety kind, and the ones with motors on them, were being sold. In front of one variety was a sign: "Free Demonstration." Jose translated, Demostration Gratis. Some words in English were very close to Spanish.

  Giron cleared his throat importantly and picked up the electric razor. It whirred over his chin. Eyebrows raised, he studied the path of the razor in a small mirror on the counter. He was acting like a Numero Uno, a "Number One," customer.

  "Will you buy it?"

  "Not at all." Giron grinned.

  When he had finished shaving, he placed the razor down thoughtfully, inspected his face, grunted approval, and said, "Come along, we have other things to do here."

  At another counter there was a rack of small bottles with rubber bulbs on top. Giron looked them over and lifted one off. He said, "I am pretending I am Cantinflas." Pointing the bulb toward his face, he squeezed it.

  Jose stifled a laugh. The clerk was only a few feet away. Perfume was heavy in the air. Giron shot a squirt toward Jose.

  The clerk said, "Now, mister."

  Giron replaced the bottle and bowed slightly.

  On the way out, he said, "See, I told you how many things are free in this country." They left the drugstore, laughing as if they'd defeated the entire American Army.

  "Now, we will attack a supermarket," Giron said.

  They began searching for one, pausing once in front of an automobile place. The shining cars, doors invitingly open, stood on deep red carpets. Giron said, "If we were not just on holiday, we would go inside and I would say, "I am Rafael Giron, a millionaire from Los Angeles, and I am thinking of buying a new car.' They would give us a Cadillac, of course, and we would drive round and round. Then we'd go back, and I'd say, "I don't like this one, how about that one?'"

  They found a Safeway and sampled a cheese dip. The next store wasn't so generous, but at a third one a lady in a pink apron was serving small cups of a new chocolate drink. Giron raved over it in Spanish until the woman's mouth dropped. They got a free yardstick in a hardware store and a free balloon in a shoe store. And each time they came out they burst into laughter.

  Then Giron led Jose up and down several streets until they came to a small store that had a palette on the window. It was an art supply store. Easels and tubes of paint and wooden mannequins were on display.

  Giron nodded. "Let's go in."

  The store was crammed with canvasses, frames, tubes of paint, art books and things that Jose had never seen.

  At the counter, Giron said, "All right, you're the expert. Tell me what you need to start painting. But be reasonable."

  "I don't know, señor." Just looking around would have been enough. Jose found it hard to think.

  Giron asked the woman at the counter and she began putting tubes in front of them. Giron held one up. "Grumbacher's Finest Zinc White. Is this all right?"

  Jose nodded.

  "And how about some Cadmium Yellow, Pale?"

  Jose nodded again.

  "And some Thalo Yellow, Green."

  Jose said, "Señor Giron..."

  Giron laughed. "Cadmium Red, Deep. I've never heard of these colors."

  "Neither have I."

  The saleswoman put four more out, along with two brushes and six small mounted canvasses.

  "It is too much," Jose protested.

  Giron shrugged and asked for the price.

  "Eleven dollars and sixty cents," said the woman.

  Giron looked down at Jose. "It's very expensive to be a painter," he said.

  "Put them back," Jose said. It was too expensive.

  Giron laughed. "Oh, what the hell." He paid the woman, and they went out again, Jose clutching the large bag, thanking Giron profusely.

  On the street, Jose said, "I promise you that someday I'll be as famous as Orozco."

  "You shoot high enough," Giron said, chuckling.

  Finally, at about four o'clock, after they'd had lunch and seen a film, Giron said, "Now, I'll treat myself."

  Jose stood outside a bar with dice on its windows and watched as the teacher went in and had two straight drinks. They went down bang, bang. He came out rubbing his belly and grinning.

  They caught the 4:35 Greyhound to San Ramon. There had never been such a good day, Jose thought. Los Estados Unidos was everything he'd dreamed of.

  12

  NOT LONG AFTER they'd returned to Haines Main, the man from next door, Cubria, the checker player, knocked on the cabin and asked Giron if he'd like to go into Paso Robles; have a few beers, maybe look at the girls.

  "You mind?" Giron asked.

  Jose was sitting on the bed, looking at the tubes of paint, feeling the bristles of the brushes, and running his fingers over the canvasses. "No. I'll take Sanchez for a walk. I'll be all right."

  Giron left just before dark. Jose took the dog behind the rows of cabins and out into the fields. He felt sorry for him. The one bad thing about having Sanchez along was penning him up each day. In Colnett, he'd roamed at will; sometimes trotting all the way to the village to pry into the garbage can by the Garcia store.

  Sanchez snooped over the fields, running and stop ping; sniffing, then running on; looking back now and then to make certain Jose was following.

  It was just after nine when Jose and Sanchez got back to Haines Main. The lights were on in the barracks and some of the cabins, but there weren't many men around.

  As they passed by the barracks, Jose heard a voice he knew he had heard before.

  A figure moved out of the shadow of the barracks, blocking his way. It was the man from the shower. A slice of light from the barracks window illuminated his face. He was grinning and he smelled of wine. He was not wearing his false teeth.

  "I think you're gonna be friendly to me, boy. That black man's gone to another farm, and your roomie's out, too. Now, you shouldn't of thrown that soap in my face. I was jus' tryin' to be nice."

  Jose did not understand the words, but he was frightened at the soft tone. "No, señor," he said.

  "Let's jus' you and I sit down here, an' talk a while."

  "Por favor, señor." Jose hoped someone would come out of the barracks. He could hear voices and a radio playing in there.

  "Take it easy, boy," the man said, grabbing for his wrist.

  Jose tugged back, repeating, "Por favor, señor."

  There was a snarl by his ear, and Sanchez's wide jaws clamped on the man's arm. Jose fell back. He rolled over and saw Sanchez tearing at the arm. The americano wa
s screaming.

  On his feet, Jose grabbed the dog by his ears and wrenched him back. Sanchez was still snarling. His teeth were bared, and there was blood on them.

  The americano was wallowing back and forth on the ground, clutching his arm, yelling. Men poured out of the barracks.

  Jose stood holding Sanchez, dazed and shaken.

  Kneeling down, one of the pochos said in Spanish, "We better get him to a hospital." He turned to Jose. "That dog do this?"

  "It was an accident, señor."

  An americano worker said, "Somebody get Eddie. Tell him to bring a gun."

  Jose understood "Eddie" and "gun," and said, "No, señor. Por favor." He began backing up.

  The americano said, "I'll get the dog."

  As he advanced, Sanchez snarled again, showing his teeth, straining to get loose.

  The pocho yelled, "Watch him. He's a killer."

  Jose wheeled and began running toward Cabin 6, looking back once, Sanchez at his heels.

  Inside the cabin, Jose pulled the mattress away and jammed the Colnett money into his pocket. He was stuffing some of his clothes into the suitcase when he heard shouts from up near the barracks and the sound of a car starting.

  Sanchez stood by the door, his back hairs up and bristling. Jose said to him, "We must go. They will shoot you."

  Putting the art supplies in, he slammed the suitcase shut and left the cabin. "Hurry," he said to Sanchez, but the dog was already plunging ahead.

  They went behind the cabin and started across the fields toward the railroad tracks, Jose running as fast as he could with the half-packed suitcase.

  They were gone before Eddie arrived at No. 6, carrying a 30.30.

  Book II

  The Miracle

  1

  SAN RAMON WAS DECAYING. Until the freeway had cut it off two years previously, bypassed it with a sweeping curve, it had been a lively little town on the royal road, El Camino Real, historic old No. 101. Now, much of it was abandoned and boarded up. Some of the doorways were littered.

  There were exactly seven square blocks to the business district—two blocks on the east side of the Real, five on the west. Once, truckers had stopped at Olcott's Service Station to gurgle down gallons of diesel fuel or gasoline. People had come from Atascadero and Cholame and San Ardo to buy groceries at Estaban Cole's market, tools at San Ramon Hardware, and furniture from Nello Solari; or to have beef stew at the Dinner Bell, or a beer at Pook Goodwins Mission Bell Bar.

  Now, they found it simpler to roll out on the banked lanes and go south to San Luis Obispo or north to King City. The drugstore had been abandoned. So had the dry goods store across from the mission and seven other shops. Their windows were either boarded or grimy.

  Once, the town could depend on at least three hundred visitors a day to Mission San Ramon, which stood about forty feet off El Camino Real. In addition to dropping silver in the poor box and spending perhaps a dollar at the mission store, the visitors were usually good for at least five dollars in meals and gas in the town itself.

  Now, the only mission visitors seemed to be the buffs. Even the busloads of schoolchildren from nearby communities, herded together for a historical outing, had ceased to come. An exceptional day could tally no more than twenty-five visitors. On some days, when the winter mist lay cold over the Salinas Valley, Father Lebeon would pray for even five visitors, and the sandaled, brown-robed Franciscan brothers, their capuchos pulled up over their heads, would have been willing to settle for three.

  As much as anything, the village of San Ramon had lost its will to survive.

  On most nights, Frank Olcott kept his filling station open until one, simply in hopes of capturing an extra dollar for the day. Sometimes, farmers gassed their pickups around eleven after a few drinks at Pook's. Olcott, who was sixty-three years old, seldom slept well anyway because of an old back injury. He kept a pot of coffee on for any eye-weary traveler going slow enough to take the San Ramon off-ramp.

  In addition to owning the station, Olcott had been mayor of San Ramon for over twenty years, as well as its only peace officer. In this capacity, he had little to do. He always wore his badge, but sometimes it made him feel silly. The only disturbance amounting to anything usually occurred Saturday nights at the Mission Bell. He'd hobble down the Real, stick his head in the door of Pook's place and yell, "Anyone want to fight a cripple?" That usually did it.

  Tall, balding, a stoop-shouldered man with a farmer's ruddy face and sharp gray eyes, Olcott had been struggling to save San Ramon ever since the freeway dried it up. He'd formed a committee to publicize Mission San Ramon, but no one had any suggestions for persuading motorists to slow down to twenty-five and take the exit. He'd even requested the government to declare San Ramon a distressed area. Nothing had worked.

  In the past year, there had been moments when he was ready to join his fellow townsmen in a mass evacuation. But then he'd take a walk around the seven foiling blocks and decide not to leave. It was the only town he'd ever known.

  A few minutes after one, Olcott saw headlights coming toward him and recognized Father Lebeon's dusty half-ton truck from the mission, hay bales stacked in the back.

  In the lot next door, Jose Maldonado Alvarez pulled Sanchez deeper into the shadows by a pile of broken machinery crates. He was waiting for the station to close so that he could get water. The headlights had startled him.

  Four hundred feet away, Olcott said, "You're up a little late, Father Lebeon."

  The powerfully built priest slid out of the cab and yawned. "People who need last rites don't pick the time." Although clean-shaven, his beard was so blue-black that by last morning mass he appeared grizzly. This time of night, he always had a stubble.

  Born in Marseilles, a French seaport, Lebeon tended to be a practical priest rather than one concerned with holy niceties. He'd been assigned to San Ramon after serving the Indians at Mescalaro, New Mexico, and he spoke fluent Spanish as well as French and English. Much to the amusement of the seven Franciscan brothers at the mission, Lebeon had constructed a chinning bar in the barn, and for a time before his fortieth birthday had punched a heavy bag to take out frustrations. His chief regret was that he had not lived in 1794, when the mission was founded. He preferred a rough life.

  "I didn't think you'd be open, Frank," he said. "I need a quart of oil for the tractor. Brother Carlos made me promise I'd get it."

  "Shouldn't be open, Padre." Olcott went to the oil rack. "Haven't had a paying customer since ten o'clock"

  Jose watched them in the dim lights by the pumps. He could hear the murmur of English and for a moment thought about going up and asking the priest for help. But even at this distance, he looked so tough. There was no telling what he might do. It was better to hide and wait for his father.

  "Maybe I'm your last sale for tonight," Lebeon said, looking up the deserted highway.

  More and more, this village reminded him of the Latin wording on the sundial of that mission in San Gabriel: Horae omnes vulnerant ultima necat. It meant, "Every hour wounds, the last one kills." The hours were ticking off.

  Olcott snorted. "That damnable freeway." It was odd how they always got back to the same subject. He glanced off toward the wide white paths of concrete that swept by the village, speared now and then by car or truck lights.

  "It's progress, Frank."

  "Wish you'd talk turkey with God to slow it down," Olcott replied sourly.

  Lebeon smiled. "Put the oil on the bill, will you?"

  "Why not? I do it for everyone else."

  The priest climbed back into the truck. The engine turned over, and the pickup crunched over the gravel apron, as Olcott began padlocking the pumps.

  A car coming from the other direction caught Jose in a circle of strong light, and he jumped behind the pile of packing cases, losing his footing and falling backward. He yelled as a long splinter pierced his thin jacket and entered the flesh of his left shoulder.

  Olcott heard the yelp and turned, peering
toward the vacant lot.

  The pain was fierce. Jose reached up to his shoulder and found that the spike of wood had driven through. He realized that he was impaled on the packing-case slat. He tried to lift himself with his right hand but almost passed out. One end of the board was still attached to the case, on an angle to the earth.

  There was nothing to do but call for help. He took a deep breath. "Ayuda! Ayuda!" he shouted. Sanchez, standing protectively over him, began to bark loudly.

  Olcott got his flashlight and headed in the direction of the barking, wondering what kind of nonsense was going on next door. The beam of his flashlight finally picked up the boy and dog by the splintered crating, left over from better days when he had sold irrigation pumps.

  Shining the light into the small, stricken face, Olcott asked, "Now, what are you doin' out here this time o' night, and how the devil did you do that?"

  "Ayuda," Jose said weakly but sucked in his breath when he spotted the badge on the man's chest.

  Sanchez kept on barking, his tail whipping. He was still straddling Jose.

  "Get that dumb dog away, and I'll help you," Olcott said gruffly.

  Jose spoke to Sanchez in Spanish, calming him down. The mongrel moved aside but eyed Olcott, making low noises in his throat.

  Olcott came over and knelt. "Good Lord, you did it up brown. That went right through." He pulled the jacket and shirt aside. "There's a half inch stickin' out. Sharp as a nail."

  Jose closed his eyes so as not to see the badge.

  "All right now, just lay still, and I'll get a hand under you. We'll go straight up. This is gonna hurt, boy."

  The words were meaningless, but Jose gritted his teeth as Olcott's fingers worked under his shoulder. He refused to cry, but a groan came out.

  "Here we go, up."

  There was a red flash of pain, and then it was over and Olcott had pulled the shoulder free. Jose felt himself being lifted to his feet. His knees were wobbly.

  "All right, boy, I'll take you to Doc Atherton's and wake him up. But somebody ought to pound your behind for being out so late." Then Olcott spotted the suitcase. "What you doin'? Runnin' away?"