My mother and Ultima sang some prayers, part of a novena we had promised for the safe delivery of my brothers. It was sad to hear their plaintive voices in that candle-lit room. And when the praying was finally done my mother arose and kissed the Virgin’s feet then blew out the candles. We walked out of la sala rubbing our stiff knees. The candlewick smoke lingered like incense in the dark room.
I trudged up the steps to my room. The song of Ultima’s owl quickly brought sleep, and my dreams.
Virgen de Guadalupe, I heard my mother cry, return my sons to me.
Your sons will return safely, a gentle voice answered.
Mother of God, make my fourth son a priest.
And I saw the Virgin draped in the gown of night standing on the bright, horned moon of autumn, and she was in mourning for the fourth son.
“Mother of God!” I screamed in the dark, then I felt Ultima’s hand on my forehead and I could sleep again.
Cinco
¡Antoniooooooo!” I awoke.
“Who?”
“¡Antonioooooo! Wake up. Your uncle Pedro is here—”
I dressed and raced downstairs. Today was the day we went to El Puerto. My uncle had come for us. Of all my uncles I loved my uncle Pedro the most.
“Hey, Tony!” His embrace lifted me to the ceiling and his smile brought me safely down. “Ready to pick apples?” he asked.
“Sí tío,” I replied. I liked my uncle Pedro because he was the easiest one to understand. The rest of my uncles were very gentle and kind, but they were very quiet. They spoke very little. My mother said their communication was with the earth. She said they spoke to the earth with their hands. They used words mostly when each one in his own way walked through his field or orchard at night and spoke to the growing plants.
My uncle Pedro had lost his wife long before I was born and he had no children. I felt good with him. Also, of all my uncles, my father could talk only to my uncle Pedro.
“Antonio,” my mother called, “hurry and feed the animals! Make sure they have enough water! You know your father will forget them while we are away!” I gulped the oatmeal she had prepared and ran out to feed the animals.
“Deborah!” my mother was calling, “are the bags packed? Is Theresa ready?” Although El Puerto was only ten miles down the valley, this trip was the only one we ever took and it meant a great deal to her. It was the only time during the year when she was with her brothers, then she was a Luna again.
My uncle Pedro loaded the bags on his truck while my mother ran around counting a hundred things that she was sure my father would forget to do while we were away. Of course, it never happened that way, but that is how she was.
“¡Vamos! ¡Vamos!” my uncle called and we clamored aboard. It was the first time Ultima would go with us. We sat quietly in the back of the truck with the bags and did not speak. I was too excited to talk.
The truck lurched down the goat path, over the bridge and swung south towards El Puerto. I watched carefully all that we left behind. We passed Rosie’s house and at the clothesline right at the edge of the cliff there was a young girl hanging out brightly colored garments. She was soon lost in the furrow of dust the truck raised. We passed the church and crossed our foreheads, then we passed the El Rito bridge and far towards the river’s side I could see the green water of the dam.
The air was fresh and the sun bright. The road wound along the edge of the river. At times the road cut into the cliffs made by the mesas that rose from the river valley, then the river was far below. There was much to see on such a trip, and almost before we had started it was over. I could hear my mother’s joyful cry from the cab of the truck.
“There! There is El Puerto de los Lunas!” The road dropped into the flat valley and revealed the adobe houses of the peaceful village. “There!” she cried. “There is the church of my baptism!”
The dusty road passed in front of the church, then past Tenorio’s Bar and into the cluster of mud houses with rusted tin roofs. Each house had a small flower garden in front and a corral for animals at the back. A few dogs gave chase to the truck and in front of one house two small girls played, but for the most part the village was quiet—the men were in the fields working.
At the end of the dusty road was my grandfather’s house. Beyond that the road dipped towards the bridge that crossed the river. My grandfather’s house was the biggest one in the village, and it was rightly so, because after all the village had been largely settled by the Lunas. The first stop we made was at his house. It was unthinkable that we stop anywhere else before seeing him. Later we would go and stay with my uncle Juan because it was his turn that my mother’s family visit with his and it would slight his honor if she didn’t, but for now we had to greet our grandfather.
“Mind your manners,” my mother cautioned us as we got down. My uncle led the way and we followed. In the cool, dark room which was the heart of the house my grandfather sat and waited. His name was Prudencio. He was old and bearded, but when he spoke or walked I felt the dignity of his many years and wisdom.
“Ay, papá,” my mother cried when she saw him. She rushed into his arms and cried her joy out on his shoulders. This was expected and we waited quietly until she finished telling him how happy she was to see him. Then came our greetings. In turn we walked up, took his ancient, calloused hand and wished him a good day. Finally, Ultima greeted him.
“Prudencio,” she said simply and they embraced.
“It is good to have you with us again, Ultima. We welcome you, our house is your house.” He said our house because a couple of my uncles had built their houses against his until the original house spread into a long house with many of my cousins living in it.
“And Gabriel?” he asked.
“He is fine, and he sends you greetings,” my mother said.
“And your sons, León, Andrés, Eugenio?”
“The letters say they are fine,” and her eyes were full of tears, “but almost every day there is a tolling of the bells for a son that is lost to the war—”
“Take faith in God, my child,” my grandfather said and he held her close, “He will return them safely. The war is terrible, the wars have always been terrible. They take the boys away from the fields and orchards where they should be, they give them guns and tell them to kill each other. It is against the will of God.” He shook his head and knitted his eyebrows. I thought God must look that way when He is angry.
“And you heard about Lupito—” my mother said.
“A sad thing, a tragedy,” my grandfather nodded. “This war of the Germans and the Japanese is reaching into all of us. Even into the refuge of the Valle de los Lunas it reaches. We have just finished burying one of the boys of Santos Estevan. There is much evil running loose in the world—” They had turned towards the kitchen where they would drink coffee and eat sweet breads until it was time to go to my uncle Juan’s.
We always enjoyed our stay at El Puerto. It was a world where people were happy, working, helping each other. The ripeness of the harvest piled around the mud houses and lent life and color to the songs of the women. Green chile was roasted and dried, and red chile was tied into colorful ristras. Apples piled high, some lent their aroma to the air from where they dried in the sun on the lean-to roofs and others as they bubbled into jellies and jams. At night we sat around the fireplace and ate baked apples spiced with sugar and cinnamon and listened to the cuentos, the old stories of the people.
Late at night sleep dragged us away from the stories to a cozy bed.
“In that one there is hope,” I heard my uncle Juan say to my mother. I knew he talked about me.
“Ay, Juan,” my mother whispered, “I pray that he will take the vows, that a priest will return to guide the Lunas—”
“We will see,” my uncle said. “After his first communion you must send him to us. He must stay with us a summer, he must learn our ways—before he is lost, like the others—”
I knew he meant my three brothers.
/> Across the river in the grove of trees the witches danced. In the form of balls of fire they danced with the Devil.
The chilled wind blew around the corners of the houses nestled in the dark valley, brooding, singing of the old blood which was mine.
Then the owl cried; it sang to the million stars that dotted the dark-blue sky, the Virgin’s gown. All was watched over, all was cared for. I slept.
Seis
On the first day of school I awoke with a sick feeling in my stomach. It did not hurt, it just made me feel weak. The sun did not sing as it came over the hill. Today I would take the goat path and trek into town for years and years of schooling. For the first time I would be away from the protection of my mother. I was excited and sad about it.
I heard my mother enter her kitchen, her realm in the castle the giants had built. I heard her make the fire grow and sing with the kindling she fed it.
Then I heard my father groan: “¡Ay Dios, otro día! Another day and more miles of that cursed highway to patch! And for whom? For me that I might travel west! Ay no, that highway is not for the poor man, it is for the tourist—ay, María, we should have gone to California when we were young, when my sons were boys—”
He was sad. The breakfast dishes rattled.
“Today is Antonio’s first day at school,” she said.
“Huh! Another expense. In California, they say, the land flows with milk and honey—”
“Any land will flow with milk and honey if it is worked with honest hands!” my mother retorted. “Look at what my brothers have done with the bottomland of El Puerto—”
“Ay, mujer, always your brothers! On this hill only rocks grow!”
“Ay! And whose fault is it that we bought a worthless hill! No, you couldn’t buy fertile land along the river, you had to buy this piece of, of—”
“Of the llano,” my father finished.
“Yes!”
“It is beautiful,” he said with satisfaction.
“It is worthless! Look how hard we worked on the garden all summer, and for what? Two baskets of chile and one of corn! Bah!”
“There is freedom here.”
“Try putting that in the lunch pails of your children!”
“Tony goes to school today, huh?” he said.
“Yes. And you must talk to him.”
“He will be all right.”
“He must know the value of his education,” she insisted. “He must know what he can become.”
“A priest.”
“Yes.”
“For your brothers.” His voice was cold.
“You leave my brothers out of this! They are honorable men. They have always treated you with respect. They were the first colonizers of the Llano Estacado. It was the Lunas who carried the charter from the Mexican government to settle the valley. That took courage—”
“Led by the priest,” my father interrupted. I listened intently. I did not yet know the full story of the first Luna priest.
“What? What did you say? Do not dare to mention blasphemy where the children can hear, Gabriel Márez!” She scolded him and chased him out of the kitchen. “Go feed the animals! Give Tony a few minutes extra sleep!” I heard him laugh as he went out.
“My poor baby,” she whispered, and then I heard her praying. I heard Deborah and Theresa getting up. They were excited about school because they had already been there. They dressed and ran downstairs to wash.
I heard Ultima enter the kitchen. She said good morning to my mother and turned to help prepare breakfast. Her sound in the kitchen gave me the courage I needed to leap out of bed and into the freshly pressed clothes my mother had readied for me. The new shoes felt strange to feet that had run bare for almost seven years.
“Ay! My man of learning!” my mother smiled when I entered the kitchen. She swept me in her arms and before I knew it she was crying on my shoulder. “My baby will be gone today,” she sobbed.
“He will be all right,” Ultima said. “The sons must leave the sides of their mothers,” she said almost sternly and pulled my mother gently.
“Yes, Grande,” my mother nodded, “it’s just that he is so small—the last one to leave me—” I thought she would cry all over again. “Go and wash, and comb,” she said simply.
I scrubbed my face until it was red. I wet my black hair and combed it. I looked at my dark face in the mirror.
Jasón had said there were secrets in the letters. What did he mean?
“Antoniooooo! Come and eat.”
“Tony goes to school, Tony goes to school!” Theresa cried.
“Hush! He shall be a scholar,” my mother smiled and served me first. I tried to eat but the food stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Remember you are a Luna—”
“And a Márez,” my father interrupted her. He came in from feeding the animals.
Deborah and Theresa sat aside and divided the school supplies they had bought in town the day before. Each got a Red Chief tablet, crayons, and pencils. I got nothing. “We are ready, mamá!” they cried.
Jasón had said look at the letter carefully, draw it on the tablet, or on the sand of the playground. You will see, it has magic.
“You are to bring honor to your family,” my mother cautioned. “Do nothing that will bring disrespect on our good name.”
I looked at Ultima. Her magic. The magic of Jasón’s Indian. They could not save me now.
“Go immediately to Miss Maestas. Tell her you are my boy. She knows my family. Hasn’t she taught them all? Deborah, take him to Miss Maestas.”
“Gosh, okay, let’s go!”
“Ay! What good does an education do them,” my father filled his coffee cup, “they only learn to speak like Indians. Gosh, okay, what kind of words are those?”
“An education will make him a scholar, like—like the old Luna priest.”
“A scholar already, on his first day of school!”
“Yes!” my mother retorted. “You know the signs at his birth were good. You remember, Grande, you offered him all the objects of life when he was just a baby, and what did he choose, the pen and the paper—”
“True,” Ultima agreed.
“¡Bueno! ¡Bueno!” my father gave in to them. “If that is what he is to be then it is so. A man cannot struggle against his own fate. In my own day we were given no schooling. Only the ricos could afford school. Me, my father gave me a saddle blanket and a wild pony when I was ten. There is your life, he said, and he pointed to the llano. So the llano was my school, it was my teacher, it was my first love—”
“It is time to go, mamá,” Deborah interrupted.
“Ay, but those were beautiful years,” my father continued. “The llano was still virgin, there was grass as high as the stirrups of a grown horse, there was rain—and then the tejano came and built his fences, the railroad came, the roads—it was like a bad wave of the ocean covering all that was good—”
“Yes, it is time, Gabriel,” my mother said, and I noticed she touched him gently.
“Yes,” my father answered, “so it is. Be respectful to your teachers,” he said to us. “And you, Antonio,” he smiled, “suerte.” It made me feel good. Like a man.
“Wait!” My mother held Deborah and Theresa back. “We must have a blessing. Grande, please bless my children.” She made us kneel with her in front of Ultima. “And especially bless my Antonio, that all may go well for him and that he may be a man of great learning—”
Even my father knelt for the blessing. Huddled in the kitchen we bowed our heads. There was no sound.
“En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y el Espíritu Santo—”
I felt Ultima’s hand on my head and at the same time I felt a great force, like a whirlwind, swirl about me. I looked up in fright, thinking the wind would knock me off my knees. Ultima’s bright eyes held me still.
In the summer the dust devils of the llano are numerous. They come from nowhere, made by the heat of hell, they carry with them the evil spirit of a
devil, they lift sand and papers in their path. It is bad luck to let one of these small whirlwinds strike you. But it is easy to ward off the dust devil, it is easy to make it change its path and skirt around you. The power of God is so great. All you have to do is to lift up your right hand and cross your right thumb over your first finger in the form of the cross. No evil can challenge that cross, and the swirling dust with the devil inside must turn away from you.
Once I did not make the sign of the cross on purpose. I challenged the wind to strike me. The twister struck with such force that it knocked me off my feet and left me trembling on the ground. I had never felt such fear before, because as the whirlwind blew its debris around me the gushing wind seemed to call my name:
Antoniooooooooooooooo…
Then it was gone, and its evil was left imprinted on my soul.
“¡Antonio!”
“What?”
“Do you feel well? Are you all right?” It was my mother speaking.
But how could the blessing of Ultima be like the whirlwind? Was the power of good and evil the same?
“You may stand up now.” My mother helped me to my feet. Deborah and Theresa were already out the door. The blessing was done. I stumbled to my feet, picked up my sack lunch, and started towards the door.
“Tell me, Grande, please,” my mother begged.
“María!” my father said sternly.
“Oh, please tell me what my son will be,” my mother glanced anxiously from me to Ultima.
“He will be a man of learning,” Ultima said sadly.
“¡Madre de Dios!” my mother cried and crossed herself. She turned to me and shouted, “Go! Go!”
I looked at the three of them standing there, and I felt that I was seeing them for the last time: Ultima in her wisdom, my mother in her dream, and my father in his rebellion.