Don Benito nodded sadly. “Yes, I know about luck,” he said. “She can be cruel.”
Lupe glanced from Don Benito to Manos, wondering why it was that men always put misfortune into the dress of a fine woman. But, before she could say anything, the horn blew again and Manos was off.
“Well,” said Don Benito once they were alone again, “thank you for passing the sunrise with me.”
“The pleasure was mine,” she said.
“Oh, no, the pleasure was all mine, mi hijita,” he insisted, reaching into his pocket. “Here, I almost forgot, I brought you a little present, Lupita.”
And opening his twisted, torn right hand, Lupe saw the most beautiful feather she’d ever seen in all her life. It was green and bright blue with a touch of red and yellow near the tip. It was a feather from one of the huge flocks of parrots that came to roost in the towering mighty cathedral-like cliffs where the old man worked, and where only the eagles soared above the wild white-pine trees.
“Oh, Don Benito,” Lupe said excitedly, “it’s absolutely beautiful!”
“Yes,” he said, “and when I found it yesterday while I was working at the base of the cathedral rocks, I thought of you . . . the most beautiful child God’s ever created.”
And saying this, he smiled, and his whole face lit up. Lupe smiled, too, not taking offense at his compliment.
The sun was only two fists off the horizon when Lupe and her family finally sat down to eat their own breakfast. Outside, the dog barked and started growling. Victoriano got up and went out and glanced around. He could see nothing. But his little brown dog continued growling and looking up toward the cliff rocks on the western side of the box canyon.
“What is it, boy?” asked Victoriano, petting his little brown dog. “Do you still smell the coyotes from last night?”
But then, suddenly, Victoriano felt it, too; here it was under his bare feet, the trembling of the earth. He could feel it before he heard it. His eyes went huge with fear, racing back inside the ramada.
“Mama, soldiers!” he screamed.
But his mother and sisters were already up and running, before the first sounds of the thundering horsemen even came echoing into their box canyon. Lupe felt her little heart wanting to burst. Ever since she could remember, her family had been running and hiding when soldiers came racing into their canyon.
Quickly, she grabbed all the food off her plate with her tortilla and fell chest-down to the earth along with her mother and sisters as the shooting began. Bullets were singing over their boulder as Lupe shoved the food into her mouth chewing, swallowing, realizing that it would be a long time before she got to eat again. Then Lupe and her family were then crawling, hearts pounding against the earth, going under the chairs and tables as fast as they could so that they could get to the safety of the big boulder at the back of their lean-to.
Spitting out what she hadn’t eaten, Lupe kept close to her mother, gripping the sun-warmed ground with her hands and pushing with her knees. The Revolution had started coming into their box canyon three months before Lupe was born. Bullets and death were a way of life for Lupe, but, still, she dreaded them as much as her goats dreaded the coyote’s fangs.
Quickly, Lupe and her mother got behind the big boulder below the goat pens. Victoriano and María were already digging into the pile of manure behind the boulder.
“Hurry!” said their mother. “You’re going to have to hide, too, Carlota!”
“No, I’m still little!” said Carlota.
“Carlota! Do as I say! Even Lupe could be in danger!”
Wet, soggy, smelly manure was flying all around Lupe’s face as her brother and sisters burrowed into the pile of chicken and goat waste. The last time soldiers had come through, even small girls not yet in their teens had been raped and beaten and taken away.
Suddenly, the screaming horsemen were in the canyon itself, circling above them on the main road. That meant that theirs would be one of the first homes to be struck, unless, of course the soldiers took over the gold mine first.
“Faster!” screamed their mother, digging herself, making room for Sophia, María and Carlota. Lupe couldn’t help it; she began to puke. Egg and tortilla and salsa got all over her hands and face. Her mother’s fear frightened her more than even the thundering sounds of the horsemen and the screaming shouts of men with their exploding rifles.
Down below in the main part of the village, the people were running in terror, hiding as quickly as they could while the monstrous sounds of the galloping horsemen shook the very earth.
Lupe and her family now had the pile of manure pulled out. Sophia and María crawled inside the crevice behind the boulder.
“Get in there, Carlota!” said Doña Guadalupe.
“But Mama,” said Carlota, her face expressing pure repulsion, “that caca is all wet.”
Having no more patience, Doña Guadalupe slapped Carlota, pushing her face-first down into the crevice. María and Sophia gripped their sister by the hair, pulling her in with them under the boulder.
Quickly, Lupe and Victoriano first tossed the straw over their sisters and then the wet, fresh manure. But Carlota kept shouting, trying to get out of the crevice until she got a wet piece of chicken shit in her mouth. She gasped and choked. Everyone, in spite of themselves, began to laugh.
Then, here came the horsemen, a hundred of them, leaping off the main road as they flew over the rock fences and lean-tos, racing down into the main part of the village. For the first time, Lupe couldn’t hear the Americans’ generators, the horsemen were screaming and shooting so loudly.
And now with her older sisters hidden, Lupe got down with her mother and brother behind the big boulder, hugging the earth, heart-to-heart against each other in horrible fear. Up above them, some ten feet away, the two big milk goats were going crazy in their pen, leaping at the fence, trying to get their young ones, but they couldn’t make it over the sharp cedar-picket fence.
Hearing a terrible cry, Lupe looked up and saw the two big mother goats jumping at the fence and their babies crying in terror in the other pen. Lupe started to get to her feet so she could open the gate for her goats when two bullets came hissing over her head, splattering against the top of the big boulder.
Doña Guadalupe screamed, grabbing her youngest daughter and throwing her down on the ground.
Crying with fear, Lupe closed her eyes and crouched down between her mother and brother. She began to pray. But then she heard a terrible cry from her goats and she opened her eyes and saw that one mother goat had leaped on the fence with her big awkward body and her huge udder had caught on a picket post and ripped open like a paper bag.
Red blood and white milk and a piece of inner tissue splattered against the cedar fence as the mother goat kicked and screeched. But still she did not die. No, instead, she continued to live and suffer her entire predicament.
Lupe lay there screaming and crying until she could cry no more. She lay there, held down by her mother and brother as the horsemen turned the ramada inside out, knocking over their sheet-metal stove, setting the place on fire.
Then the horsemen passed on, sweeping down into the main part of the village. Lupe and her mother and brother got to their feet and saw that the big goat had kicked her last.
They hurried inside to get blankets and water to put out the fire as quickly as they could. And, as Lupe fought the fire and helped throw the flaming chairs and table outside, what she saw that hurt her most of all was the hard-packed earth, that she and her family had swept and watered for so many years to get it to look like polished tile, had been turned to rubble by the horses’ hooves. She screamed, feeling invaded, trampled, raped, but no sounds came out.
It was noon. The shooting had ceased and the people were coming out of hiding. Victoriano and Old Man Benito were skinning out the dead mother goat.
“Lupe,” said Doña Guadalupe, “I think it’s safe now for you to go get fresh water.”
“Yes,” said Lupe.
The main part of the village lay burning behind her and across the creek, up the slope a few hundred feet, she could see the piles of yellow chalk-like waste from the mine and she could hear some of the soldiers further up the slope at the American enfencement laughing and joking, truly enjoying themselves.
Señor Jones, who ran the American mine, had prepared a feast for them. This was how the Americans always dealt with the soldiers who came shooting into their canyon. They fed the soldiers, made them welcome, and then calmed them down by promising them weapons from the United States.
Lupe was bent over between two huge ferns, concentrating on filling her pot, when suddenly she felt a dark shadow fall over her.
Instantly, Lupe knew it was a soldier and he was going to grab her. She sprang to her feet as quickly as a deer and was halfway across the creek before she turned and saw the man mounted on his horse.
But then, she didn’t know why, she stopped and stared at him. There he sat on a sorrel orange-red stallion, smiling down at her with the whitest teeth she’d ever seen.
“Hello,” he called gently.
“Hello,” she said cautiously, looking at him in the sunlight coming down through the tree branches, surrounding him and his horse in a halo of golden-pale light.
Her heart went out of her and she didn’t run across the creek; no, she just stood there, facing him, and she felt such wonder. The stranger was in uniform. He wasn’t wearing a big straw hat and the coarse-white clothes like the others. And his uniform had shiny buttons and was well-kept and clean and beautiful, even in the midst of battle. Lupe swallowed, not moving, and saw that his blue eyes were kind and gentle. He was, indeed, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
The soldier smiled down at her as she stood there in the middle of the creek, balanced on two stones, and she just knew that something was happening inside her heart that would be with her for all the days of her life. He was so tall and handsome. And his big moustache reminded her of her father.
Her heart stopped and the world held still and, suddenly, she just knew why she’d always been so shy and unable to speak to anyone except her mother. No one had ever come into her world before that truly mattered. No one had ever come up inside her and touched her very soul.
“Buenos días,” he said in a rich, strong voice, still smiling.
“Buenos días,” she said back to him, smiling too.
“Do you live around here?” he asked.
“No,” she shook her head. “I live way up there near the top of the village.”
“Good,” he said, “Because I’m looking for a home away from the center of town for my wife.”
Lupe’s heart leaped. He was married. She felt her knees go weak. The stone under her right foot moved and she began to fall. But in a lightning-blur of motion, he was off his horse and had her in his arms.
He carried her to the riverbank, putting her down on the tall green ferns. Taking off his cap, he placed it under her head and then brought out his handkerchief of white silk, wet it in the clear cool water and soothed her forehead.
“There,” he said, “better?”
She nodded yes, not once taking her eyes off him. He saw and laughed and combed back her dark, curly hair with his fingertips. She looked at him, surrounded by golden-pale light, and she just knew that this man was her shining prince that her sisters were always reading about in books. He was her perfect love, made for her in heaven by God, Himself. Nothing bad could ever again happen to her as long as she was in this man’s arms.
Lupe closed her eyes, dreaming, praying, hoping never to awake from this magical moment.
“Well, querida,” he said, “If you are better, let’s go. I need to find a home for my wife so I can attend to my duties.”
Lupe finally opened her eyes. She saw the man before her in his grey uniform with shining buttons; she saw the great dark trees overhead, and she realized that she wasn’t asleep and dreaming.
“Are you sure that you’re all right, querida?” he asked again.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Then, let me put you on my horse and I can carry your pot for you so we can go up to your home.”
She said nothing, feeling a great warmth go all through her body as he picked her up in his arms.
“Can you ride?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Good,” he said, and he lifted her high into the sunlight and put her gently in the saddle of his great orange-red stallion. Then he took the animal’s reins with his left hand and picked up her pot in his right, starting through the ferns and trees. Never had Lupe been on such a tall, magnificent animal. Even the great green ferns below her seemed small from way up there.
Coming into the little plaza, Lupe could see over the soldiers’ heads. The soldiers were lining everyone up against a stone wall. She could smell the smoke of the homes that had been set on fire, and she could see the terrible fear in the people’s eyes as they were lined up.
Then she saw Lydia and her family. Lupe didn’t mean to, but she giggled. The mayor Don Manuel and his family looked so out of place in their fine clothes along with all the other townspeople.
But then Lupe stopped giggling. Her mother’s best friend, Doña Manza, and her two sons and two daughters were up against the wall, too.
“Doña Manza!” cried out Lupe.
“Lupe!” cried out the old lady.
“Your mother?” asked Lupe’s handsome prince.
“No, she’s my mother’s best friend,” said Lupe anxiously. “And she makes the best sweet bread in all the village!”
Her prince laughed. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said, handing the pot to a passing foot-soldier dressed in coarse white cotton. “Lieutenant!” he said in a loud, booming voice to the soldier in charge. “Have that woman, Doña Manza, and her family released immediately so they can get back to their task of making fresh bread for all of us!”
“Yes, mi coronel.” said the well-dressed lieutenant, rolling a heavy “R” sound into the word, “colonel.” He had a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.
“And the others?” asked Lupe. “What will happen to them?”
“They’ll be questioned, querida,” said her Colonel, “So we can find out who’s who and what they do.”
“Then you’re not going to harm them?”
“No, of course not.”
And saying this, her Colonel put his left foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle, lifting Lupe forward with his right hand so he could fit in behind her. He took the reins in hand, motioning the soldier to follow with the pot. Lupe and her prince snuggled in close as his great orange-red stallion pranced up the cobblestones out of the plaza and up the steep hillside.
The homes got smaller and poorer as they climbed up the twisting pathway. Finally the homes were nothing more than lean-tos made of sticks and mud, anchored to a tree or a boulder. Approaching her home, Lupe turned to her Colonel.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but I’ll have to go inside by myself.”
“But why?” he asked.
“Because,” she said, feeling her heart wanting to hide, “my mother doesn’t allow soldiers in our home, so I’ll have to speak to her alone first.”
“I’m glad to hear that, my angel,” he said. “If I had a home, I wouldn’t want soldiers in it either.” And saying this, he kissed her on the cheek and then swung her down from his horse, putting her gently on the ground.
She stood there, looking up at him.
“Well, querida,” he said in his strong but gentle voice, “I’ll wait here for you.”
“But, excuse me,” she said, “I don’t even know your name.”
“Can you read?” he asked, getting off his horse.
She shook her head. “I don’t start school until next season.”
“Well, then, you’ll be reading soon,” he smiled, “so here’s my card.” And saying this, he handed her a card made of stiff white paper. “Colonel Manuel Maytorena at your service!” he said, tipping his cap and snapping his tall black boots together.
Lupe blushed; she’d never seen such a card before, nor a man tip his hat and snap his heels together. She picked up the hem of her dress and curtsied.
Looking at her white homemade dress and her fine manners, he smiled grandly. “Oh, child,” he said, “Since the first moment I saw you, you captured my heart. I only pray to God that someday I have a daughter half as beautiful as you! For truly, you are an angel!”
For once, Lupe didn’t blush. Instead, she looked at him, thinking that maybe it was true, after all: she was beautiful. She turned and ran up the hillside like a deer, flying over the rocks to their ramada. She was in love with her truelove. And he loved her, too.
Coming under the ramada, Lupe found her mother and brother still cleaning up the mess the soldiers had made. Her three sisters were nowhere in sight.
“Mama! Mama!” yelled Lupe, “I found him and he wants to keep his wife here at our home!”
“Who?” asked Doña Guadalupe. “I don’t permit soldiers in my home! Tell him to stay down by the plaza!”
“But, Mama,” said Lupe, her heart wanting to burst, “he’s my prince! And he’s strong! Why, even the soldiers obeyed him when he told them to let Doña Manza and her family go.”
Hearing this, Doña Guadalupe quit her labor. “He what?” she asked.
“At the plaza, the soldiers were lining up everybody and they had Doña Manza and her family, but when I told him that she made the best sweet bread in the village, he said for them to let her go so she could go back to her work.”
“And they released her?”
“Immediately,” said Lupe.
“I see,” said Doña Guadalupe, sitting down and smoothing out the apron on her lap. “And this prince of yours, where is he now?”
Rain of Gold Page 3
