And they were singing and jumping and truly enjoying themselves when Victoriano came rushing by and climbed up on the big boulder.
Instantly, Lupe quit jumping and her heart pounded with fear, realizing that if it was bandits, she’d have to run and hide.
“What is it?” asked their mother, coming out of the ramada.
“I don’t know,” said Victoriano, looking into the distance.
Cruz and Paloma took off, running down the path to the thick foliage.
Lupe felt like screaming, but she kept calm. She ran around to the back of the boulder and started digging into the manure so she could hide, but there wasn’t enough to cover her.
Then she heard her brother shout, “It’s Don Tiburcio and Papa and Carlota.” Lupe began to cry—she was so relieved.
When Carlota and the two men reached their home, everyone in the canyon was waiting for them. It quickly became a time of wet eyes and big abrazos. Even Don Manuel and his family came up the hill.
Sophia hugged her husband and took him aside so he could feel her big stomach. Their child was due any day now. María hugged her father and explained to him that Esabel and she had gotten together and she, too, was with child.
Don Victor stood up erect, staring at María and Esabel. But then, instead of becoming enraged, he simply embraced María.
“Then you’re not mad at me?” asked María, tears coming to her eyes.
“No, of course not,” he said. “Times are difficult. We do the best we can.” He put out his hand for Esabel, but the young man was too embarrassed to take it. “Come now, Esabel,” said Don Victor, “take my hand like the man you’ve chosen to be and promise that you’ll be a responsible man.”
Esabel took Don Victor’s hand, but he couldn’t meet his eyes—he was so embarrassed.
Lupe could see that their mother was relieved to see how well Don Victor had taken the news.
Carlota came up and took her mother in her arms. “Oh, Mama,” she said, her eyes overflowing with tears, “I’ve missed you so much!” She turned to Lupe. “And you, too, you skinny rat!” She squeezed Lupe so hard that Lupe lost her breath.
Across the way, Victoriano and their father were regarding each other cautiously.
“I brought the new shovel you asked me for,” said Don Victor.
“Oh, you remembered!” said Victoriano.
“Why, of course,” said the older man.
“Good,” said Victoriano, “and, well, did . . . ” He could hardly speak, he was so nervous. “Did Socorro find her family?” he asked finally.
Don Victor shrugged. “I don’t know. She stayed in El Fuerte with us for a few weeks, but then she went with some people to the coast.”
He reached out, squeezing his son’s arm. “I’m sorry I don’t know more but, well, it was very hard for us, too.”
Quickly, suddenly, Victoriano took his father into his arms, crying desperately. His father held him, chest-to-chest, in a big abrazo.
A few days later, when Lupe was with her mother and María under the ramada grinding the ore into fine sand, Don Tiburcio came rushing up the hill.
“She’s ready!” he said. “Hurry! Please!”
Carlota and their father had gone out the day before, taking Don Manuel and his family with them. Don Tiburcio had stayed behind so he could be with Sophia when she gave birth.
“Go and get the midwife while the girls and I attend to her,” said their mother to the frightened-looking man.
But he couldn’t move. His face had lost all color, and his legs buckled under him. He fell.
“All right, then, lay down and rest,” said Doña Guadalupe, laughing at him, “and you, Lupe, go for the midwife while María and I go down.”
“Yes,” said Lupe, and she was off like a shot.
By the time Lupe got to Sophia’s house, her mother and María were there, and Sophia was crying out in pain.
Sophia’s mother-in-law was in the next room. She hadn’t been out of her bed for over a week. Poor Don Tiburcio was pacing about the house, feeling crazy; he felt so useless.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” he pleaded.
“Nothing,” said Doña Guadalupe. “Now, please, just go outside and leave us alone.”
“But I want to help her,” he said.
Lupe felt sorry for him. He just didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Look,” said Doña Guadalupe, “I know you love Sophia and you want to help, but there are certain things that happen at childbirth that no man should see.”
“Is she in danger?” he asked.
“No, she’s fine, but it’s not going to be an easy birth. The moon isn’t full, so the great waters of the world aren’t moving, and Sophia’s water won’t want to break. Please, now, leave before you witness something you shouldn’t.”
Doña Guadalupe ushered Don Tiburcio out of the door in a hurry. Lupe felt such tenderness for him. Since he wasn’t a woman, he couldn’t stay and help.
“Now come here, María and Lupe,” said their mother. “If the midwife doesn’t come soon, we’ll have to get started ourselves.”
Lupe obeyed her mother and helped her tie Sophia’s long hair back, slip off her skirt, and then they prepared the rope and the water and the clean cloths.
But Sophia was angry; she didn’t want anyone to come near her, and she hissed at them like a snake, belching out great burps of gas.
Lupe had never seen her sister behave like this before, and it frightened her. Her mother just ignored Sophia’s demon-looking ways and massaged her limbs with warm oil and herbs.
“Get away from me!” yelled Sophia angrily. “I never knew it was going to be like this! It’s awful! I hate this baby!” she screamed. “It’s killing me!”
Lupe made the sign of the cross over herself. No wonder their mother had sent Don Tiburcio out. Why, her sister had turned into el diablo.
Her mother only winked at Lupe. “Just ignore her, mi hijita,” said their mother reassuringly, “and do as I tell you, and everything will be fine.”
“Oh, no, it won’t!” snapped Sophia angrily. “I hurt! Get away from me!”
When the midwife arrived, she immediately took over. The old woman laughed and joked and told Sophia to scream all the blasphemies she wished.
“After all, God needs to be reminded that it’s no joke what He puts us women through!”
The old woman cursed at the heavens herself, telling Sophia to curse, too. Sophia did so at the top of her lungs, chilling the canyon with such blasphemies that even the coyotes quit howling in the distance.
Outside, Victoriano and Don Tiburcio were shocked at the words they heard. They moved further away, trying to ignore her shouts, but it was difficult. Sophia sounded like a monster.
Don Tiburcio brought out some paper and tobacco. He tried to roll a cigarette, but his hands were shaking too much.
“Here,” said Victoriano, “let me help you.”
“I didn’t know you smoked,” said the older man.
Victoriano blushed. “Sometimes,” he said.
Don Tiburcio handed him the makings. “Then go ahead. Roll us two.”
“Two?”
“Sure.”
Victoriano’s eyes grew so big that their whites could be seen even in the dark of the night.
Don Tiburcio laughed, slapping the tall, thin boy on the back. “You’ve never smoked in front of your elders, eh?”
Victoriano shook his head. “No, of course not.”
“You know,” said the older man, “I was twenty-seven years old and owned two deaths before I dared to smoke in front of my mother.
“We’re a strange people,” he added. “So much respect, so many traditions, and yet we kill each other like dogs and we don’t think nothing of that.”
Finishing the two cigarettes, Victoriano handed one to Don Tiburcio and the older man brought out a match. He was just going to light them up, when a wailing scream was heard.
Inside the house, Sophia
was screaming and pulling on the rope as she squatted down, pushing and straining. The midwife and their mother helped Sophia between her legs, and Lupe and María held her by the armpits.
A series of wailing screams followed as Sophia pushed, strained, until the baby emerged. Lupe held her sister with all her might and the baby was coming, coming, fighting with all his power, too.
Time stood still and the women worked together inside the house. Outside, the men stood about—holding in terror.
Then the baby came, wet and raw, slipping out into the world—another miracle of God’s.
When Lupe came outside with the newborn infant, her brother and Don Tiburcio were pale.
“Is Sophia all right?” asked Don Tiburcio, trembling like a leaf.
“Yes,” said Lupe. “She’s fine. And look, you have a son.”
Don Tiburcio took his son in his arms, crying with relief. He thanked the heavens that it was finally over. Oh, he’d never felt so helpless in all his life.
A few weeks later, Lupe and Manuelita were under the peach tree behind their home giving lessons to five Indian children when Ojos Puros came and sat down on a rock some fifteen feet away. He brought out a pair of wire-rimmed glasses that he’d found in the deserted American office and put them on.
“Go on,” he said, “I’m just going to read the paper.”
Lupe and Manuelita went on with their lesson, but it was very difficult because when Ojos Puros took up his newspaper, it was upside down. And all the children tried hard not to laugh, for they could now see that Ojos Puros, the leader of their people, didn’t read but, of course, he was too proud to admit it.
“Pay close attention,” said Manuelita loud enough for the old man to hear, too. “See these letters and how they go?”
“Yes,” said the children.
“Oh,” said Ojos Puros to himself, uprighting his paper as he pretended to read.
Again the children tried hard not to laugh as Lupe and her friend continued with their lesson. Dark clouds started gathering overhead. The rainy season had begun a couple weeks ago, and it was now raining a little every afternoon.
Ojos Puros folded his newspaper very carefully at each crease and put it under his poncho to keep it from getting wet. Lupe and all the children went inside the ramada.
Suddenly, the sky exploded with thunder and lightning, and the rain came down in white sheets, making a mighty roar.
Dripping wet from head to toe, Victoriano burst into the ramada. “Where’s Mama?” he said. “I got some good ore!”
He had a basket of rock.
“She’s down with Sophia,” said Lupe.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, taking off his wet hat and poncho.
Ever since Sophia’s mother-in-law had passed away, their mother was spending a couple of hours every afternoon with her daughter at her house.
The wind came up and the water came down in white torrents of rain. The thunder echoed off the towering cliffs, filling the canyon with sound. The lightning flashed in great, zigzagging lines of fire, breaking the sky open.
Victoriano got a shovelful of hot coals and put them by the girls’ feet to keep them warm, then put some water on the stove to boil for tea. He was tired. For nearly a year they’d been working the waste, sun to sun, seven days a week. Victoriano was still skinny, but his legs and arms were as strong as iron.
Lupe and the children watched the storm. It was pleasant, standing there by the glowing warm coals. The main part of the storm passed and a gentle rain came into the canyon. The sky opened up, exposing startling patches of blue sky.
“Look!” said Lupe, pointing to a cloud. “A deer!”
“Yes,” said Cruz. “And over there, a chicken!”
“And look at that huge spider that’s chasing the chicken!” said Paloma.
The girls all laughed, and Ojos Puros and Victoriano glanced at each other, smiling happily. The tea was ready and Victoriano served a cup for the old man and another for himself.
Finally, the storm passed and the clouds broke up, rolling, turning, doing somersaults in the sky like happy children.
“Look, a rainbow!” shouted Manuelita.
Everyone turned to see, including Victoriano and Ojos Puros. And there it was, a miracle of God’s magic, holding beyond the mouth of the canyon in a spectacle of color-red, pink, yellow, green, blue and lavender.
Suddenly, Victoriano’s little dog lifted up his head, but it was too late. There they were at the back door—two men with guns in their hands, grinning lecherously from under their big sombreros.
Seeing his dog, Victoriano whirled about, and without hesitation, threw the pot of boiling tea at them. The men leaped back, screaming, and Victoriano yelled, “Run, Lupe!” as he grabbed a rock from the basket full of ore, throwing it.
Lupe was out the door and running with Manuelita and the little Indian children. The she looked back and saw that they had her brother cornered.
“Victoriano!” she yelled.
Ojos Puros was nowhere to be seen. He’d disappeared, even before the children. “Go!” screamed her brother, kicking and fighting as they struck him with their rifles. “Warn the others!”
But when Lupe turned to run, there was a third man behind her. He lunged at her.
“Don’t run, little one,” he said, smiling. He had a red bandanna about his curly, brown hair. She could see that he was young and handsome but, also, he had a gleam in his large dark eyes that told her that he was a no-good.
She moved to the left; he moved, too. But then she dodged under the ramada, scrambling on her hands and knees, and she leaped over the stone wall between her mother’s potted plants like a deer.
“¡Órale, Chuy!” yelled one of the other men. “Don’t tell us you’re going to let that little virgin get away!”
The handsome one named Chuy was quick and he was after Lupe. Victoriano, who was on the ground with his face covered in blood, whistled to his little spotted dog. In a flash, the little dog was after Chuy, grabbing him by the calf, biting and snarling.
“¡Cabrón, perro!” bellowed Chuy, trying to kick free from the little dog, but he couldn’t. He brought up his rifle, hitting him.
The brave, little dog went down, but still Chuy shot him, blowing out the animal’s lungs through his backside.
“You stupid fool!” yelled the older man who’d knocked down Victoriano. “Now you’ve warned everybody!” He turned to the man beside him. “Stop that girl!”
Now this second man and Chuy were both after Lupe, going through the wet foliage like two, hungry-eyed hounds.
“You damn boy!” said the older man to Victoriano. “Look what you have done!”
He raised up his rifle to crush Victoriano’s skull, when Ojos Puros materialized from a dark shadow behind the stove. He came swiftly, silently, like a ghost across the hard-packed earth on his calloused bare feet, driving his thin, long, pig-killing knife through the bandit’s throat, slashing out his jugular.
The man was dead on his feet, eyes staring in shock, never having known what struck him. Victoriano rolled out of the way as the bandit came down with a flood of blood, face-first into the earthen floor.
Down the steep hillside, Lupe was dodging through the rain dripping underbrush like a frightened rabbit slipping, sliding, wet and cold. The two young men chasing after her saw her here, then over there, and then she was gone once again as she went scurrying like a cottontail through the underbrush, her heart pounding with terror.
Lupe came to the roaring creek with the series of waterfalls. The two men thought that they had her now. The one named Chuy put down his gun and unbuckled his pants, grinning at his friend.
Looking down into the racing white water, Lupe was horrified. She didn’t know how to swim. Only the boys learned how. Still, she’d rather die than be soiled by this man. She turned to leap when suddenly Don Tiburcio—high above them on a boulder—aimed his rifle and fired. The man’s head exploded, with brains and pieces of red bandanna
, before Lupe heard the report of the rifle. The other man ran into the brush as Don Tiburcio continued shooting.
Lupe leaped for cover, and then, shooting broke out everywhere. Scrambling through the wet foliage, Lupe found a small hole in the rocks. But to her complete horror, someone was already there. With relief, she realized that it was Cruz.
“Where’s Manuelita and the others?” whispered Lupe.
Cruz shrugged. “I think they got them.”
“Oh, my God,” said Lupe, drawing close to the girl.
The shooting continued, and Lupe and Cruz held each other in the hole of the rock under the cold, wet foliage, listening to the screams, the shooting, and the men racing everywhere. Lupe and her little friend hid there, hearts pounding, until they were numb with cold and fear.
Suddenly, the shooting stopped. All was quiet. Not a sound was heard but the drip dropping of the wet foliage all around them. This silence grew and grew until finally, it was even more frightening than the shooting. Lupe’s mind ran amuck, thinking that maybe everyone in the canyon had been killed and there was no one left in all the world except her and Cruz.
Lupe glanced around and she could smell the powder of the spent guns and the wet burning of the palm leaf roofs of their homes. At last, from far away, she thought she could hear the crying of a child. Someone had lived. There was still life. They held their breaths, straining to listen, but all they could hear was the breathing of the plants and the insects coming back to life.
Time passed. And more time passed. Then they heard men’s angry voices and horses coming their way on the trail alongside the creek at a slow, deliberate walk.
Lupe and Cruz crouched down, and they saw the horses’ hooves pass by, underneath the foliage no more than an arm’s length away.
Lupe started to make the sign of the cross over herself, but Cruz shook her head no. Lupe stopped and suddenly remembered her father’s words, that to disappear was the only way to survive in war.
Tears came to Lupe’s eyes and she and her little friend stayed in hiding until the sun went down and the long shadows of the coming night covered the canyon like secret ghosts.
Rain of Gold Page 27
