Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  Lupe and her family went to the plaza and got a piece of the barbacoa and took their plates up to eat on the terrace of Doña Manza’s house overlooking the plaza. A funeral wasn’t just a time to mourn the dead; no, it was also a time for friends and relatives to get together and rejoice with the living.

  After eating, Carlota and María went back down to join the festivities along with Cuca and Uva. Sophia, Lupe and Manuelita remained on the terrace with their mother and Doña Manza.

  Everywhere people were laughing and talking excitedly, visiting with people that they hadn’t seen in months. Suddenly, two gunshots rang out in the plaza below. And there was Scott, the tall, handsome engineer, in the middle of the crowd with his pistol in hand.

  “Carmen and I have decided to get married,” he announced.

  “When?” asked El Borracho, tequila bottle in hand. “Now? Or at sunset?”

  “At sunset,” said Scott, grinning wildly. His girlfriend, Carmen, screeched with joy, getting on her tiptoes, kissing him. Then she took María’s hand and they ran off to her home to get ready for the wedding.

  Lupe and Manuelita glanced at each other, giggling happily. Love was still in the air, and no one wanted to miss their chance of catching a part of this miracle of life before they made their eternal peace with God.

  “Lupe,” said Doña Guadalupe, “you and Sophia better go with María and see that she just helps her friend get ready for a wedding. I don’t want any surprises, you understand me?”

  “Oh, Guadalupe!” said Doña Manza. “You’re just too suspicious! Let María have her time in the sun.”

  “It’s not her time in the sun that I’m worried about,” said their mother. “It’s the coyote that’s sniffing the hen coop that I’m suspicious of.”

  The two old ladies laughed. Lupe glanced around, seeing how happy everyone was, except her brother. Victoriano was sitting alone, carving on a piece of wood with his knife. He hadn’t said a word since the funeral.

  The sun was just sliding down the last piece of the tall flat sky when Lupe and her sisters came walking down the pathway from their home to the plaza. They were all wearing new dresses. Lupe’s was a pale rose and she had matching wild orchids braided into her long, dark hair. Sophia’s was also pale rose, but she had a pink ribbon and white flowers in her hair. Carlota and María, on the other hand, had chosen material of the brightest red for their dresses and wore matching red ribbons in a bow, tying their long hair back.

  Doña Guadalupe came behind her daughters, feeling very proud of how they looked in their fine new dresses. But she was afraid that maybe this was all the wealth that they’d ever see from the gold that her son and the old man had found.

  Arriving at the plaza, Lupe’s sisters quickly ran off to where all the young girls had gathered by Carmen’s side. They were talking so excitedly that they sounded like a thousand birds.

  Lupe stayed by her mother’s side, searching through the crowd for her friend, Manuelita. She felt so self-conscious in her new dress that she didn’t want to leave her mother.

  Then Don Manuel, who was going to officiate the wedding, came out of his house with Josefina, his tall, well-dressed wife, on his arm. Rose-Mary and Lydia were right behind them.

  Finding Manuelita, Lupe took her hand. The ceremony was just about to begin.

  “Look!” said Carlota, who was standing to one side of Lupe, right next to Cuca and Uva. “Don Tiburcio is making eyes at Sophia!”

  Don Tiburcio was dressed in a beautiful grey charro outfit with silver adornments. He was in his early thirties but still lived with his mother. He’d never been married.

  “No,” said Cuca, giggling. “Really?”

  “Of course,” said Carlota, bubbling with mischief. “Just look at him!”

  Lupe got on her tiptoes to look, and it was true. Don Tiburcio was standing alongside Sophia, talking to her with rolling eyes and great charm. Lupe glanced behind herself to see if her mother was watching, and she saw that she was.

  Then Don Manuel raised up his hands, silencing everyone. “All right,” he said, “are we ready?”

  “Well, not quite, Manuel,” said Scott, with his heavily accented Spanish. “I was hoping that Jim would be coming.” Jim was who the Americans called Señor Jones.

  “All right, we can wait a few more minutes if you like,” said Don Manuel, glancing at his watch, then up at the sun which was just dropping behind the cliffs.

  But everyone in the plaza knew that the young engineer’s wait would come to nothing. Señor Jones always refused to attend a wedding between his men and the local girls. But then, to everyone’s surprise, there came Señor Jones and his wife and daughter, riding fine horses. Everyone moved aside, making room for the great man and his well-dressed family.

  “Thank you, Jim,” said Scott, holding the horse so Señor Jones could dismount.

  “You can thank Katherine,” said Señor Jones in a long, Texas drawl. “She’s the one who convinced me that this one will be different, since you and Carmen have been engaged for over a year.”

  Two other men took hold of the horses for Katherine and Katie so that they could dismount. Then they led the horses away, and tied them under a tree.

  “All right!” said El Borracho, strumming his guitar as everyone gathered for the ceremony. “Now quiet down! Don’t you see that our mayor, Señor Proper Tight Pants, has raised his arms to start the wedding!”

  The people burst out laughing. El Borracho was as famous for his wit as his wife was for her sharp tongue.

  The ceremony began. With great dignity, Carmen’s father walked her across the rock-laid plaza. Scott stood there, tall and handsome, waiting for his bride.

  Lupe glanced at Manuelita, and their eyes filled with tears. Oh, it was all so beautiful, everyone standing under the tall tree in the middle of the plaza—Carmen on her father’s arm, and Scott standing alongside Señor Jones—with the sunlight coming down through the treetops, filling the entire plaza in soft, golden light.

  Lupe and Manuelita held each other’s hand, weeping through the entire ceremony.

  Then, Scott’s best man handed him the wedding ring, and he was just slipping it onto Carmen’s finger when a shot rang out.

  At first no one knew what was going on. People just thought it was somebody shooting in premature celebration. But then a dozen more bullets came ricocheting over the rooftops of the stone houses, and the people shrieked in terror, “Soldiers! Soldiers!”

  Suddenly, everyone was running every which way. Lupe and Manuelita rushed up the steep steps with their mothers to Doña Manza’s house. María and Sophia got lost in the crowd, along with Carlota and Cuca.

  Señor Jones and the Americans never moved. No, they just stood there, as if they thought they were impenetrable to the bullets of the Revolution.

  Hearts pounding against their little breasts, Lupe and Manuelita crouched down inside the stone house. Their mothers rushed back outside, shouting for their daughters who were still down in the plaza. Bullets were flying all around them, and horsemen came down between the homes, screaming like the devil.

  Lupe could hear her mother’s panicked voice calling for her sisters. Trembling with fear, Lupe got to her feet so that she could help her mother hide her sisters, as she always did.

  “No, Lupita!” shouted Manuelita, gripping Lupe’s leg. “Stay down until the shooting stops!”

  “But I have to help my mother hide my sisters!” she cried.

  “Not now!” screamed Manuelita, pulling Lupe back down.

  The shooting continued and the horsemen came leaping over the stonewalls. Lupe could hear people being trampled and dogs yelping as they ran for their lives. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore; if she was to die, she wanted to die by her mother’s side. So she broke free from her friend and scrambled as quickly as she could across the room.

  Looking through the open doorway from under a table, Lupe could see her mother and Doña Manza in front, crouched down behind the low wal
l of the terrace. Her sisters, María and Sophia, were racing up from the plaza, bullets striking all around them. But Carlota and the others were nowhere in sight.

  “Mama!” screamed Lupe, crawling as fast as she could under the chairs and tables.

  But then, suddenly, she looked up and saw the two white front stockings of a horse in front of her. Her heart soared to the heavens. She could only see the legs and hindquarter of the horse, but she instantly recognized her Colonel’s stallion with its underside of shiny, orange-red fire.

  “¡Dios mío!” she screamed, getting to her feet, running, yelling, waiting to be taken into her Colonel’s great, strong arms so that nothing bad could happen to her ever again. Lupe came racing across the little room, gaining more and more view of the horse and rider as she came, and her little heart wanted to burst.

  But then, reaching the doorway and looking straight up no more than six feet away, she got a full view of the man on her Colonel’s horse, and she saw a dark, wild-eyed black-haired stranger dressed in rags. One whole side of his face was twisted with long, red, terrible scars.

  Lupe screamed, her arms still open. Hearing the scream, the many-scarred man turned, saw Lupe, and his face broke into a vicious grin. “Oh, I’d heard there were beauties up in these mountains,” he bellowed, “but this little one is going to be an angel!”

  He put his pistol into his holster and reached down to take Lupe into his arms. But out of nowhere came Doña Guadalupe, charging in like a wild she-boar willing to do battle with the devil himself. She hit the man on the great stallion with a broom, then rammed the broom’s long bristles into the stallion’s eye.

  The horse reared back in shock, whirling, losing his footing as he tried to get away from this raging woman who was trying to blind him. The stallion bolted over the short stonewall, and the many-scarred man almost fell off as the great stallion went rearing and turning, as he went down through the steep rock garden, falling over the second stonewall into the courtyard below. Hitting the plaza, the great horse slipped, slid, reared in pain. His left front leg was broken, dangling at an ugly angle.

  Up on the terrace, Lupe was still screaming. That man’s face had looked like the devil himself. And, in her heart, Lupe suddenly knew that her beloved Colonel was, indeed, dead. And it had been this ugly savage who’d killed him.

  “Arrest those people!” bellowed the many-scarred monster. “Cabrones, chingaron my horse!”

  The magnificent stallion was limping on three legs, trying to keep his balance. The many-scarred man leaped off with a whirl of speed. He drew his pistol and shot the stallion through the head, blowing out his white, oatmeal-like brains. The great animal fell over backwards, hitting the grey-white cobblestones with a dull thud, red blood and white brains splattering across the courtyard.

  Then the man turned, feet apart, roaring in a mad, vicious rage, “I want that old lady and her family lined up so I can personally shoot them! They killed the horse that Villa gave me!” He was livid with rage. His young, once darkly handsome face was bursting with ugly vengeance. “You stupid old bitch! I wasn’t going to harm your daughter, but now I’ll kill you all!”

  Quickly his men dismounted and rushed up onto the terrace to arrest Lupe and her family. Victoriano saw the men coming, he grabbed the little knife off the wall that he’d been using to carve wood and rushed to his mother. He planted himself firmly in front of his mother and sister, willing to die to protect them.

  “No, mi hijito,” said Doña Guadalupe, tears coming to her wrinkled-up old eyes, “there are too many. Give me the knife and run!”

  But Victoriano refused and he stood there, eyes focused, feet set. And he looked so little and skinny and helpless against the on-rushing armed men.

  The first ragged soldier saw the knife in Victoriano’s hand. He was preparing to hit Victoriano in the face with his rifle butt when María grabbed his rifle and Sophia helped her sister push the man over the wall.

  “No!” yelled their mother. “Run, both of you! And take your brother and Lupe with you! I’m the one who caused his horse to fall!”

  But neither María nor Sophia obeyed their mother. It took four soldiers to subdue them. Then the armed men pushed Doña Guadalupe and her family down the steep pathway at gunpoint.

  Carlota was across the plaza with Uva and Cuca, screaming at the top of her lungs, “Don’t shoot them! Please, don’t shoot them!” But she never came any closer.

  Lupe and her family were put up against the tall, stone retaining wall on the high side of the plaza. The many-scarred man, whom his men called La Liebre, raised up his pistol to shoot them. Lupe closed her eyes, burying her face into her mother’s warm, plump body. She could hear Carlota’s screams of terror across the plaza. Lupe tried to push the screams out of her mind so that she could make her peace with God, but her sister was wailing in such horror that Lupe just couldn’t concentrate.

  Lupe squeezed her eyes tighter, expecting the bullets to come any moment. She prayed as fast as she could for a quick, painless death. But the bullets didn’t come, and they still didn’t come. Then her sister stopped screaming. Lupe opened her eyes and saw that Carlota was on the ground, vomiting uncontrollably.

  The man called La Liebre, meaning “the jack rabbit,” wasn’t aiming his pistol at them anymore. Now he had it rammed under Señor Scott’s chin, who was trying to hand him the reins of Señor Jones’ fine horse.

  Lupe began hiccupping, not able to stand it anymore. Her whole body jerked in convulsions.

  “No!” yelled one of the other young engineers, rushing in to help Señor Scott. “Don’t! We’re American citizens!”

  In a blur of motion, La Liebre whirled about, leaping into the air just like a jack rabbit, hitting the second American across the face with his pistol. Blood and teeth burst from the American’s face. Still moving in one continuous motion, La Liebre leaped on Señor Jones’ horse and gave him the spurs. The big, handsome bay bolted across the plaza. The many-scarred man rode past Don Manuel, still raging crazy with vengeance, until he saw Lydia. He reined in, looking at her with her fine dress and beautiful, golden-brown hair. He put his pistol away.

  “Mira, mira, what do I have here?” he said, taking off his sombrero. He grinned, turning the unscarred side of his face to Lydia. It was easy to see that he’d once been a very handsome, almost feminine-looking, young man, and he was still in his early twenties.

  “Well,” said Señor Jones, coming up and putting his arm about Don Manuel, “maybe we can handle this wild man yet.”

  Don Manuel said nothing, staring with hate at the man who was smiling at his daughter.

  The midwife came to their lean-to that evening and saw to María’s broken hand and Sophia’s bruises. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t get Carlota to stop crying. Carlota just knew that she’d failed her family in their hour of need, and now she wanted to die.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the midwife, “I’ve seen two husbands die so far and I didn’t rush in to help them, either!”

  “But this was my mother and family!” cried Carlota.

  “Well, feel guilty if you must,” said the midwife, and she left Carlota to her thoughts and attended to Victoriano’s bruises.

  That night Doña Guadalupe held Carlota long into the night. “It’s all right, mi hijita,” she kept saying over and over again. “If we’d been killed, someone had to go on living for us.”

  “But I’m no good, and you hate me,” said Carlota, eyes swollen from crying so much.

  “Does the mother deer hate her fawn that stays hidden in the rocks while the lion eats her? Oh no, the mother deer rejoices in the act of giving her earthly body so her children can go on living.”

  But no matter how much their mother spoke, it was a long, terrible night for Carlota. Her shame was killing her more surely than all the guns that they’d faced earlier that day.

  CHAPTER SIX

  And so Lupe thought she would die, not being able to live another day. But th
en, in her sorrow, she found a strange, wonderful kind of joy among the ashes of her truelove.

  La Liebre and his men took up residence by the plaza, throwing people out of their homes. They terrorized the town, taking whatever they wanted. La Liebre took Lydia for his woman and threatened to hang the mayor if he tried to interfere.

  Señor Jones tried to control the soldiers, as he had all the others. But they just laughed at him and took the gold that he had ready and sent it over the mountains to Chihuahua. They said they’d keep it as ransom until he got weapons for them from the United States.

  Lupe had a difficult time sleeping at night, and when she did finally fall to sleep, she could still see La Liebre in her mind’s eye raising up his pistol to shoot them.

  Socorro didn’t invite Lupe into her room anymore. She’d spend her days attending to her twins. She played all day with them in the sunshine, acting as if she didn’t have a worry in the world.

  But then one morning, Socorro got up screaming and she threw out all of her husband’s clothes.

  “You fool!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “I never want to see your clothes again! Over and over I asked you not to fight! I asked you to take us to Europe, but you refused, thinking you were immortal and you’d save Mexico! Oh, I hate you, you fool! You had no right to leave me!” She continued to shout and throw out his belongings. She was a wild she-boar bursting with rage. And she wasn’t done until she fell down with exhaustion, dry-mouthed and cleansed, and he was gone. He was truly gone from her.

  Lupe took her Colonel’s jacket with the shiny brass buttons from the pile of clothes that Socorro had thrown out. The neighbors came and took what they wanted, too.

  That night, Lupe slept with her Colonel’s jacket close to her heart. The following morning she packed it in an empty sack. She told her mother that she wished to go up to the high country for the day.