Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  He ran, not stopping, not caring how much his bloody, swollen feet hurt or his throbbing head pained until, way up there in the distance in the darkish daybreak, he thought he saw the little flickering lights of a hundred campfires.

  He slowed down, catching his breath, and he could hear people talking. He listened carefully as he came and then, up ahead in the middle of the flat, he saw the train, the train he’d been after all this time. He began to sob. He’d made it; he’d caught the train. He was going to be able to find his mother and family and not be lost forever and ever.

  But then, getting near the campfires, he felt a strange anger come into him, so he circled around the camp, cautious as a coyote, wary as a young deer, making sure that they weren’t bandits but were, indeed, his people.

  One of the boys who’d raced with him saw him coming.

  “¡Dios mío!” said the startled boy. “You came the whole way on foot, Juan?”

  But Juan couldn’t hear the boy, much less see him. Juan was gone. He was as white as a ghost. His whole face, neck and shoulders were white from where the salty sweat had dried on his skin. He was falling, stumbling, gasping, crying as he came toward their fires, white-lipped and wild-eyed.

  “Your mother,” said the boy, “she said you’d catch us. She told my father last night that you’d . . .”

  But Juan paid no attention to the boy. He just walked on, staring at the fires ahead of him. He was hypnotized by the little leaping flames. He was dead on his feet. He’d been running half-conscious since he’d raced away in terror from the spotted desert tiger.

  A man turned and saw Juan and leaped up, grabbing him under the armpits just before Juan pitched face first into the fire.

  Still, Juan’s feet kept climbing. He couldn’t stop. He had to get past those little dancing hills of flaming fire so he could reach his mother, the love of his life, the only living thing that gave meaning to his entire existence.

  For three days, Doña Margarita massaged her son with herbs and had him suck bitterroots. She prayed to God and thanked Him for this miracle. Luisa, Emilia and Inocenta joined her in her prayers. And, miracle of miracles, Juan’s feet, which were bloody stumps filled with cactus thorns and deep gashes, began to heal. And his mouth, which was ripped open, began to mend.

  On the fourth night, Juan awoke and he was fully conscious for the first time. He came to understand that they were now outside of Torreón, near Gómez Palacio, and they’d been put off the train once more.

  Francisco Villa, the commander-in-chief of the northern division, had to get thirty thousand of his men south in time to reinforce his most famous of all fighters, Fierro, the executioner, who’d taken four thousand of Villa’s cavalry and made a lightning attack. He fought his way back through León, Silao, Irapuato, Salamanca, Celaya, Querétaro, San Juan del Río and Tula, where he’d destroyed Obregón and was now ready for Villa to come and reinforce him so that, together, they could recapture Mexico City.

  Juan awoke and he could feel the excitement. Everyone was talking about the terrible Fierro, the man of iron, the cruel right hand of Villa, who’d just recaptured all the territory that Villa had lost since Celaya.

  But Juan didn’t care; he was now here by his mother’s side, safe at last in her arms. So he hugged his old mother close, kissing her, becoming her tired little baby, and he promised to never do anything so foolish again as long as he lived.

  Emilia and Inocenta watched, both having prayed day and night for the recovery of their little Juan, the last surviving masculine child of their once great, proud family.

  Juan noticed that Luisa and Epitacio weren’t with them. He wondered if Luisa had deserted them, just like his other sister Lucha. But then to his relief, Luisa and Epitacio came out of the dark. They had a pot of water and they put it on the fire to boil the two rats that their mother had caught.

  “It’s bad,” said Epitacio, “with this new battle going on, there aren’t going to be any empty trains going north for a long time.”

  That night they ate well, sucking clean the bones of the two fat rats. But most of the people all around them refused to eat the rodents, preferring to boil their old huaraches for nourishment instead.

  That night Luisa and Epitacio had a big fight and she blamed him for all their misery.

  “Please,” said Doña Margarita, “if we start blaming each other for everything, we will destroy ourselves. Think and take heart, mi hijita. In the last few days, Epitacio has shown himself to be a fine man.”

  “But, Mama, how can you side with him?” said Luisa angrily. “I’m your blood, not him!”

  “Mi hijita, that was the wisdom of Don Pío,” she said. “Blood is blood, but justice is justice. And Don Pío never let blood blind his eyes to justice.”

  “Thank you, Señora,” said Epitacio. “I appreciate your wisdom.”

  “Not at all,” said Doña Margarita. “Now let us pray, we’re alive and so we’ve had another good day.”

  Juan could see that his sister didn’t like it, but still, Luisa lowered her head to pray. They prayed, giving thanks to God. In the morning, they felt better.

  “I had a vision last night,” said their mother, “and I can now see that Juan has shown us the way. With God’s help we can walk all the way to the United States if we need to.”

  “But Señora,” said Epitacio, “the border is well over a thousand miles away!”

  “So, how far do you think I’ve walked in my life, from the stove to the bedroom, to the cow’s corral, to the church?” she asked. “At least a hundred times that distance, I’m sure.”

  Epitacio nodded, not being able to think of anything else to say. They picked up their belongings and started out that morning, going north alongside the tracks with thousands of other homeless people. They couldn’t afford to wait for the trains anymore; they had to get north, even on foot if they had to, before they became too weak from hunger to walk.

  Juan walked alongside his mother, his feet wrapped in wet herb-soaked cloth. He held onto her leather-tough, wrinkled old hand. Inocenta walked on the other side of his mother, holding hands with Emilia. Inocenta and Emilia had grown very close since they’d been on the road. Inocenta had become Emilia’s eyes and Emilia had become the little girl’s mother. Lucha, who’d abandoned them, was becoming forgotten.

  Luisa walked in front with Epitacio. Epitacio carried Joselito along with all their blankets and cooking utensils in a huge bundle on his back.

  They were a ragged mass of dark ants, lifting dust as they walked along the railroad tracks by the thousands, going up the long, wide valley. There was brush and rock and scattered chaparral all around, and high overhead was the bright blue sky and the great powerful sun.

  Juan felt pain in his legs and feet, but he was young and strong, so he kept quiet about his pain and forced his body on. He’d caused enough trouble to his family as it was.

  The morning passed. The sun grew hot. The ground began to sear their feet. Twice they had to stop and Doña Margarita changed the rags on Juan’s feet.

  It was midday before they decided they could go no further in the heat. They took up residence along with the rattlesnakes in the shade to wait out the heat.

  Juan had never seen country like this. The rivers that they’d seen south of León had all been replaced by white, dry riverbeds. And the tall cactus of the red-rock hills where the desert tiger had scared him were gone, too. Here, there was nothing in all directions as far as the eye could see, except sand and rock and granite and the dancing heat waves. It seemed to Juan that the farther north they went, the more desolate the landscape became. Why, the green meadows of their homeland were now nothing but a dream. And the cool, high lakes of their beloved mountains seemed so unreal that he was beginning to believe that they’d never existed.

  “Mama,” he said, “you know, it’s like I’m almost not able to remember our wild orchids anymore.”

  His old mother smiled sadly, sitting in the shade. “I know what you m
ean, mi hijito,” she said. “At times like this, it truly tries my patience with God.”

  “Then you’re losing hope, too, Mama?” he asked.

  “Hope? Oh, no, mi hijito, not hope nor faith, but patience, yes,” she said, laughing lightly.

  Juan laid back on the hard, rocky ground, breathing easy. He tried to figure out what it was that his mother had said. He tried to understand the difference between “faith” and “hope” and “patience.” Ever since he could remember, he loved talking with his mother. She always made life seem so important and grand and full of mystery. He thought about the deep, cool canyons that they’d had back home where the wild orchids grew. He thought of the shallow lakes covered with white lilies during the rainy season. Oh, how he’d loved to watch the goats eat the orchids, sucking down their milky-white, bittersweet liquid, and nibble the water lilies.

  He must have fallen asleep, for when he awoke the sun was going down in the tall, flat sky. It was time for him and his family to start walking once again.

  That night they camped alongside a foul-smelling water hole just north of Torreón. And even though they had Villista money and they were in Villa’s territory, no one would accept the money of Francisco Villa in the town of Torreón.

  Two weeks later, still camped alongside the water hole, Juan and his family began to starve. And being too weak to walk any further, they didn’t know what to do.

  But then, early one morning down in the stockyards where Villa loaded his horses into the train to go south, Juan saw a flock of black birds going through the horse manure. Instantly, he got an idea and ran the birds off and searched through the wet, round horse manure and found good, undigested seed.

  Racing to their shelter made of brush, he yelled, “Mama, everyone, come quick! I found grain for us! Hurry!”

  “But where, mi hijito?” asked his mother. She didn’t want him stealing anymore.

  “Down at the corral! But we have to hurry before other people get to it!”

  They all got to their feet and followed Juan down to the corral.

  “In there,” he said, “I found lots of seed in the horse manure! But the cattle’s caca isn’t so good, I found out.”

  The laughter, the cries of joy that came from his old mother’s lungs, filled the corral with sound.

  “Oh, you are wonderful, mi hijito! No matter how life twists you, you always manage to come up with a rain of gold!”

  “Yes, let’s get all the seed we can and cook up a feast that even a no-good rich man will envy!”

  “Mi hijito, I’ve told you a thousand times . . . ”

  “But I like talking bad about the rich, Mama! It’s fun and maybe God will punish me and make me rich someday, too!”

  She laughed and they went to work searching through the manure and they quickly came to realize that horse manure was best. Cattle digested their food too well.

  The days passed, and the other people began to go through the horse manure, too. Juan now had to keep watch every time Villa’s men brought in new horses so he and his family could be the first ones there.

  “Mama,” said Juan early one morning when the sun was barely coming up on the far horizon, “get up. They just brought in new horses.”

  Quickly, the old woman got up and they all went to the stockyards to go through the new piles of horse manure. Emilia, with her blind eyes, had become the quickest one to find the seeds. Her fingertips were her eyes as she sifted through big round manure, finding the wet, warm undigested seeds. These horses were well-fed, so there was a lot of seed.

  “Oh, are we going to eat good today!” said Juan.

  And so they took all the seed they’d found and washed it clean in the foul smelling water hole, and then they boiled water and added cactus and two lizards that Epitacio had caught.

  Juan and his family ate the soup with relish and felt better than they’d felt in days. Epitacio took heart and began to teach them English again so they’d be prepared when they got across the Rio Grande.

  “And so remember,” said Epitacio, “when you speak English, you have to keep your upper lip tight and you don’t move your tongue very much like you do in Spanish.”

  Juan and Inocenta laughed, feeling good to have their little bellies full of hot soup, and they practiced keeping their upper lips tight as they spoke English.

  The sea of escaping people remained outside of Torreón until they’d stripped every blade of grass, cactus and piece of manure for miles in every direction. They were starving once again, they were crying, they were beginning to die from hunger.

  Then late one night, Epitacio came running up. “Hurry,” he said, whispering to them all as quickly as he could. “Drop everything! There are four empty boxcars going north to Ciudad Juárez right this moment to get ammunition for Villa. But don’t say a thing. Let’s just go before everyone runs ahead of us and beats us to the train.”

  They grabbed their things and disappeared into the night, going down a dry riverbed, following Epitacio through the heavy brush. The mosquitoes were out in droves, but they had to be careful not to slap them away so they wouldn’t make any noise.

  “Hurry,” said Epitacio. “If we miss this train, I don’t know when we’ll get another!”

  There were campfires burning all around them, and they trotted along as quickly and quietly as they could.

  “Damn it!” said Epitacio, getting ahead of them once again. “Hurry!”

  “We’re hurrying,” said Doña Margarita, helping her blind daughter through the brush.

  Then, up ahead, Emilia fell, and when Doña Margarita went to help her up, Emilia waved her mother away.

  “No, Mama,” she said. “Go on without me. I’ll only hold you up.”

  In the distance they could now hear the soft, hard, rumbling sounds of the locomotives warming up.

  “I’ll stay with you, mi hijita,” said Doña Margarita. She turned to Luisa. “Luisa, you go on ahead with your family and take Juan and Inocenta with you. I’m staying with your sister.”

  “No!” said Luisa. “Come on, Mama!”

  “But it’s no use, mi hijita,” said their mother. “This is the time for you and your husband to go on with Juan and Inocenta. Emilia and I, we talked this over a few nights ago, and we decided that if this situation ever came up, it would be best for you strong ones to go on without us. It’s God’s will.”

  “No, Mama,” said Juan, his eyes filling with tears. “You are our life, Mama!”

  “Juanito’s right,” said Luisa. “So no more of this! We’re not going without you, Mama, and that’s that!”

  “But, querida,” said Epitacio, “maybe your mother is right and this is God’s will.”

  “You bastard!” screamed Luisa, leaping at him with clawed hands. “You stand up like a man right now, or I’ll castrate you on the spot! You had a mother once, too, you cabrón!”

  Such stark-naked fear came into Epitacio’s eyes, it was almost comical, but no one laughed. The man just stared wild-eyed with fear at Luisa as if she were some great demon with the power of life and death over his very soul.

  “All right,” he said, “we won’t leave them, querida.” His eyes were darting about like a trapped rabbit. “But maybe I should just run ahead and get us a place on the train.”

  “Epitacio!” roared Luisa. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Querida,” he begged, “believe me, it’s our only hope. Here, Juan can even go with me, then I’ll send him back so he’ll show you the way while I stay there and hold our places!”

  Epitacio looked so desperate that Doña Margarita spoke up in his behalf. “Mi hijita,” she said to Luisa, “you must trust the man you love or you will never have a home. Believe me, trust is the foundation of the casa.”

  “Oh, all right, Mama,” said Luisa, not liking it. “Go on, Epitacio, but don’t leave us. Please, I love you, and we’re depending on you.”

  “I won’t!” he said, and he took off running and Juan was right behind him.

>   Up ahead, Juan and Epitacio left the main riverbed and went up a small, twisting arroyo and Juan tried to watch how they went up the many-fingered gully so he’d know how to get back to his family, but it was impossible. And as they went, they could hear the low, rumbling sounds of the big locomotives warming up to go.

  “Epitacio,” Juan finally said, “let’s climb out of the arroyo and run up on top so I can see where we are, or I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my way back to our family.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Juan!” said Epitacio. “People will see us then, and they’ll rush ahead of us and fill the train!”

  “But . . . ”

  “No buts; come on!” said Epitacio harshly.

  Juan said no more and they ran on. They got to the train and Epitacio took up a place for all of them in one of the boxcars.

  “Hurry, Juan!” he said. “Go back and get the others and I’ll wait here!”

  Juan took off like a deer. His feet were healed and he was strong once more.

  But, when Juan tried to retrace his steps in the dark to find his family, he saw it was impossible. He began to think that it had been Epitacio’s plan all along. And when he finally did find his family, he could hear the locomotives building up power in the distance.

  They never had a chance. The train was long gone, blowing a tall column of fire in the night, when Juan and his family came running up. They all realized then that Epitacio had betrayed them. Numbed with despair, they huddled in the moonlight. But then, to their surprise, Epitacio came out from behind a cactus.

  “Epitacio!” said Luisa, handing baby Joselito to Juan. And she took off running with open arms. “You do love me! You didn’t leave us!”

  She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him, kissing him. But Luisa never saw the armed men on the other side of the big cactus who’d taken Epitacio off the train because he was a single man.

  No, she just threw Epitacio to the ground, kissing him, fondling him, caressing him, and then she picked up her dress, swinging a white, naked leg over him, straddling him like a wild mare in heat.

  “Come,” said Doña Margarita, seeing her daughter’s lust. She and Emilia and Inocenta turned to go back down into the arroyo to give the two people privacy, but Juan couldn’t move.