“But why, mi hijita?” asked her mother.
Lupe shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. But I must go, Mama.”
“All right,” said her mother, sensing her daughter’s need, “but your brother will have to go with you.”
“I know,” said Lupe.
She didn’t wish to go alone, either. No girl was safe anymore. La Liebre and his men were raping any girl that happened to walk by the plaza unescorted.
Leaving the village, Lupe and Victoriano walked around on the main road, then took the zigzagging trail that her Colonel had built up the steep canyon wall. Lupe tired often, and it took them a long time to just get to the white pines. Her heart felt empty. She had no more hopes of ever seeing her truelove again.
Going through the break where the meteorite had split the earth, Lupe felt none of the mystical joy that she’d felt the time before. And up on top, the high country was still stunningly beautiful, but it brought her very little pleasure. But then crossing the meadows, Lupe spotted the little twisted pine tree on the formation of flat tortilla rocks, and she suddenly knew why she’d come to the high country. Anxiously, she began to run.
“What is it?” asked her brother.
“That tree! That’s where I’m going to bury my Colonel’s coat!”
“But why? Are you crazy?” he yelled.
Victoriano watched his sister run across the meadow. The little waterways had all but dried up; the winter grass was green-blue, it was so thick and lush. Deer trails were everywhere, cutting through the knee-high grass. It was truly a land of plenty.
“Okay,” he said, and he, too, took off running after his little sister.
Ever since the landslide, Victoriano had been torturing himself, thinking that if he hadn’t gone down for their lunches, maybe Don Benito and Ramón would be alive today. He figured that maybe he could have gotten Don Benito to use only two sticks of dynamite and not all sixteen. If only he’d remained behind.
Victoriano came to the pile of flat, round rocks and climbed up after his sister. “But what’s so special about this place?” he asked. “We could have buried his coat down in the canyon if that’s what this is all about.”
Lupe shook her head, glancing around. “Oh, no,” she said, shivering with wonderful, good feelings. “This is my Colonel’s place! Just look, it’s so beautiful! Why, over there we can even see the silvery mist over the Sea of Cortez!”
Victoriano turned and looked. It was true. Mountain peaks and flat-topped mesas stretched out as far as the eye could see, and way over to the west they could see the coastline stretching out for miles with piled-up clouds. Lupe seemed so happy that he couldn’t help but smile, too.
“So, how will we bury his coat?” he asked.
“We’ll have to gather flowers and build an altar first,” she said.
“Oh, Lupita, you are crazy.”
“Will you help?”
“Of course,” said Victoriano.
And so, saying this, Lupe put her Colonel’s jacket down and they climbed off the rock pile, went down to the meadow and began to pick wildflowers. And as they worked together, Lupe began to hum to herself. She was so happy; she was finally making preparations to put her truelove to rest.
Victoriano watched his sister gathering the flowers of pink and blue and yellow, and little by little he began to feel better, too.
“Come,” said Lupe, “we have more than enough flowers. Let’s go build an altar for him under the little pine.”
They climbed back up the pile of tortilla rocks, brother and sister, happy to be working together. Work was the third miracle of each day. Work was a deliberately chosen duty by the people. Work was a job done with the hands, the greatest tools given to man by the Almighty, making man equal to God in the creation of His own world.
“Over there,” said Lupe. “We can bury his coat in that crevice behind the roots of the little pine.”
But then, when Lupe climbed around to the other side of the little twisted tree, Victoriano suddenly saw his sister freeze.
“What is it?’ he asked, thinking she’d seen a snake or something equally dangerous.
But she only laughed. “Look,” she said excitedly.
Victoriano came close and there, in the shallow little crevice, was a tiny spotted fawn with huge frightened eyes.
“Why, it’s a miracle,” said Lupe. “Just look at him; he has eyes just like my Colonel.”
Victoriano laughed; he could see that his sister was right. She’d found her true-love once again.
In the months that followed, there wasn’t a place that Lupe would go, except to school, without her pet deer. They became inseparable, and at night Lupe would even prefer to sleep with her fawn on a mat on the ground than with her mother in her soft, straw bed.
Fed goat’s milk by hand, the fawn grew quickly. And thinking that Lupe was his mother, he’d call out to her in his little, forceful high-pitched deer voice whenever he’d see her coming up the trail from school. The Indian kids at school began to call Lupe “the deer girl.” They’d race with her and her pet deer over the slopes above the town, shouting to the heavens.
Katie Jones left the school and went out of the canyon with her mother on the pretense that they had to spend the holidays in San Francisco, California. But everyone knew that Señor Jones had sent his family to the United States permanently. La Liebre was smoking Señor Jones’ cigars and eating dinner with him, but still the Americans had very little control over the man of lightning-quick reflexes.
Then one afternoon, Señora Muñoz asked Lupe if she could please stay after school so that they could talk. Lupe became apprehensive, thinking that she’d done something wrong.
“Lupe,” said Señora Muñoz once they were alone, “I wish to compliment you on how well you’ve done this year. You’re already at a third-grade level in your reading and in your second year in arithmetic.”
Nervously, Lupe watched her teacher rub her hands together. She felt that she was going to get it now. Many times her mother gave her compliments before she hit her between the eyes.
“Lupe,” said Señora Muñoz, “I don’t know just how much longer I’m going to be able to be here. So I want you to know that you have a great future in your studies. I hope that you will never forsake them, as so many young girls do.”
Lupe’s eyes filled with tears. She just couldn’t listen anymore. She loved her teacher almost as much as she’d loved her Colonel. How could she possibly be leaving her, too? “Oh, please,” she said, interrupting her teacher, “you can’t go! We need you! I’d never have learned to read and write if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Oh, querida,” said Señora Muñoz, “please don’t make this any harder for me than it is. I love you, too.”
They took each other in their arms, student and teacher, holding and hugging and feeling so close.
“All right, now,” said Señora Muñoz, bringing out her handkerchief for them, “no more of this. I’m not leaving immediately and so, well, I’d like to ask a favor of you.”
“Anything,” said Lupe, drying her eyes.
“Well, I’ve always heard so much about your mother’s kitchen,” she said, “so I was wondering if you couldn’t please, maybe, bring me some of your mother’s famous goat cheese and a few tortillas, too.”
“Why, of course,” said Lupe. “I’d love to!”
“Good, and if you’d give it to me privately in the mornings, I’d appreciate that,” she added.
“By all means,” said Lupe. “I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”
In the next two weeks, Lupe brought her teacher a little goat cheese almost every morning. And a couple of times Lupe thought that she saw her teacher almost salivate, she was so hungry. Then one day Lupe noticed that Manuelita was also bringing Señora Muñoz sweet bread in the mornings. Lupe began to get suspicious, especially after she and Manuelita talked things over one afternoon on their way home from school.
Then it happened. One morning Doña
Guadalupe found Lupe putting a piece of cheese into her school bag just as she was about to leave.
“Are you still hungry?” asked her mother.
“No, I mean yes,” said Lupe quickly.
“But you ate such a good breakfast, mi hijita,” she said, coming closer. She saw Lupe’s eyes dart about like a frightened mouse. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing, Mama,” said Lupe. “I just have to go. Bye now!”
“Just wait, young lady, what’s going on?”
Lupe stopped. “Please, Mama,” she said, “don’t ask me.”
“Lupe,” said her mother, “talk to me. I’m your mother.”
“Oh, Mama,” said Lupe, feeling like a traitor, “the cheese isn’t for me. It’s for my teacher.”
“Señora Muñoz? But why didn’t you just tell me, mi hijita?” said Doña Guadalupe. “There’s nothing wrong in taking your teacher a little present now and then. As it is, they pay her very little and she’s always needed help.”
“But she asked me to keep it just between us,” said Lupe.
“Why?” asked her mother.
Lupe shrugged. “I don’t know. The only thing I know is that Manuelita is also taking her sweet bread.”
“My God!” said Doña Guadalupe.
“Oh, please don’t be angry with her, Mama,” said Lupe.
“I’m not angry with your teacher, child!” said Doña Guadalupe. “I bet that Don Manuel has stopped paying her since Señora Jones left. And that poor woman has been starving!”
Doña Guadalupe went to the narrow work counter and cut a larger piece of cheese. “Take this to her,” she said, “but don’t say anything. She’s a good, proud woman, and we don’t want to cause her any more embarrassment!”
That afternoon when Lupe got home from school, her mother took her by the hand and they quickly walked down the hill to Doña Manza’s house. Several other parents and their children were already there. When Don Manuel came home from the mine that evening, they were waiting for him. Lupe had never seen so many mothers ready to do battle.
“But how could you have stopped her wages without telling us?” said Doña Manza.
“I don’t work for you!” said Don Manuel. “And furthermore, it wasn’t me who stopped her wages, it was Señor Jones. He’s under no written obligation to supply a school for the village.” And Don Manuel would have closed his door on their faces if Don Tiburcio hadn’t put his foot in the way. He was only a couple of inches taller than their short mayor, but he was so wide of shoulder that he dwarfed the proper little man.
“But you are our town mayor,” said the man who owned the second largest store in the village, “so I do believe that it was your obligation to inform us of Señor Jones’ decision, so at least we would not have let the poor woman starve.” Saying this, Don Tiburcio held the door open to the mayor’s large stone house. Don Manuel knew that he’d just lost all the respect that had taken him years to develop with townspeople. His chief rival had just stepped forward and made him out to look like a weak, disgusting turncoat.
“I have nothing to say!” said Don Manuel. “I was told what to do by the office, so I did it. Good night,” he added, closing the heavy door made of iron and thick oak.
That night, Lupe sat alongside Manuelita and she heard her mother and the other mothers talking. Finally, it was decided that they’d all take turns inviting Señora Muñoz to their homes for dinner and they’d also contribute a couple of pennies each week so that they could make up, in part, for the fifty cents that she’d been getting paid per day.
But when Señora Muñoz found out what was going on, she was overwhelmed with such emotion that she refused the peoples’ offer. “Oh, you shouldn’t!” she said. “I know how much trouble you’re all having already.”
“But we need you, this is only right,” said Doña Manza. “The joy that you’ve brought us with the knowledge that you’ve given to our children, we can never repay, no matter how much we try.”
“Besides,” said Doña Guadalupe, “what’s one more mouth to feed when we all have a houseful of children?”
With tears in her eyes, Señora Muñoz hugged Doña Manza and Doña Guadalupe and accepted the peoples’ offer.
But the situation with the school didn’t stop there. Now that his wife and daughter were gone, Señor Jones acted as if he hated the people of the canyon and he was out to destroy them. Two days later he bolted the door of the school, closing it down. But the people simply assembled again and moved Señora Muñoz down in to town. They had her teach school behind Doña Manza’s bakery shop so that Manuelita could keep all the books and supplies in her room for their teacher.
The townspeople were proud of themselves. They saw that they could get things done if they united.
One evening, just as the sun was disappearing behind the towering walls, Don Tiburcio rode up to Lupe’s home on his little, quick-footed white mule. In these mountains, no one owned horses except for the Americans and the passing soldiers. Anyone who’d lived up here any length of time knew that a small-hoofed mule was much safer and faster in this steep, treacherous country.
“Good evening,” said Don Tiburcio, coming under the ramada. He was all dressed up and had flowers and a burlap sack in his hand.
“And a very good evening to you, too,” said Doña Guadalupe. She had been feeling very proud of this quiet, little man ever since he had spoken up to their town mayor.
Taking off his hat, Don Tiburcio glanced about, blushing when his eyes met Sophia’s. He’d never been to their home before, but it was quite obvious why he’d come.
“Please, bring up a chair for Don Tiburcio,” said Doña Guadalupe to Victoriano, “and move over, girls, make room for our guest to join us by the warmth of the coals.”
Lupe and her sisters and Socorro pulled their chairs back, making room for the well-dressed man.
“Oh, thank you,” he said, sitting down nervously. “It’s been quite a day. I just got back from the lowlands with a mule train of merchandise. Every day it’s becoming more difficult to depend on the muleskinners.”
“But what can I do? I got to have fresh supplies if I’m to compete with Don Manuel’s store.”
“And you do,” said Doña Guadalupe. “In fact, you always have fresher and better fruits and vegetables than Don Manuel, and you don’t have the help of the Americans every time they return with the empty mules after delivering the gold.”
Don Tiburcio laughed. “That’s true, and I doubt if Don Manuel will be getting anymore help from the americanos, either,” he said. “It is said that Villa kept the mules that La Liebre’s men used to take the gold!” He stole a quick glance at Sophia. “Well, when I was down in the lowlands, Señora,” he said, looking back at their mother again, “I took the liberty of buying a box of sweets for you and your family.”
He had to continually tug at his collar, he was having so much trouble getting his words out.
“Here,” he said, pulling the present out of the burlap sack and handing it to their mother. “A box of chocolates.”
Carlota screeched with anticipation. None of them had ever seen such a beautifully wrapped present.
“Oh, Don Tiburcio,” exclaimed their mother, “but you didn’t need to do this!”
He only blushed the more, then stood up and reached across the shovelful of hot coals to hand the flowers to Sophia.
“Gracias,” said Sophia, accepting the flowers with a flutter of her long eyelashes. “They’re beautiful.”
He sat back down, still blushing.
“Well,” said their mother, feeling the nervous anticipation in the room, “why don’t you open the chocolates, Sophia?”
Sophia shook her head. “Oh, no, you do it, Mama,” she said, smiling behind the flowers.
Chocolates were a great luxury up here in the mountains. In fact, Lupe and her family had never had a chocolate candy. They’d had hot cocoa to drink which came in crude, round spicy cakes—and they’d had candied fruit that
Doña Manza was famous for making in her bakery at Christmas time, but they’d never before seen, much less eaten, an individually wrapped piece of creamy-filled hard, brown chocolate candy.
“All right,” said their mother, turning the beautiful box of blue paper and red ribbon in her hands, “I’ll open it.”
She untied the wide, red ribbon carefully, wrapped it about her open hand into a neat fold and put it aside to use later. Then she undid the ends of the box, being very careful not to ruin the fine blue paper. She was just going to slip out the box when Carlota squealed with delight, jumped from her chair and pranced about the ramada like a pony.
“Oh, hurry, Mama! Hurry! Chocolates are the candy of love, and I just know that they’re my favorite!”
María and Sophia blushed, having been thinking the very same thing about this legendary sweet.
Don Tiburcio looked like he’d die. Facing bands of bandits when he went up and down the mountain didn’t frighten him nearly as much as this did now. He was thirty years old and he’d been watching Sophia grow up ever since she was a child. In his estimation, she was by far the most beautiful and lady-like girl in the region. Oh, the day that La Liebre had made his move on Lydia, he’d been grateful that the man hadn’t set his eyes on Sophia or he would have killed him.
“Mind your manners,” said their mother to Carlota.
Doña Guadalupe brought the box out of the wrapping, folded the blue paper and put it away, too. Then she opened the box, revealing a beautiful assortment of individually wrapped candies. Each candy was wrapped in different colored foil—gold, silver, metallic red, green and blue—that made them glow like jewels in a treasure chest.
“Oh, give me one!” yelled Carlota, reaching to grab one with her hand.
“No,” said her mother, slapping her hand away. “Our guest, Don Tiburcio, goes first.”
“Oh, no,” said Don Tiburcio, “please, you ladies go first.”
“Well, if you insist,” said Doña Guadalupe, handing the box to Sophia. Carlota snatched up a silver one with the speed of a lizard and took off. “Where are your manners?” said her mother. “You won’t be getting another one if you behave like that!”
Rain of Gold Page 11
