Katherine quickly gave the cowboy’s two friends each a free girl and the tension broke. That night, after closing up, Katherine called Juan to her private room and thanked him for his quick action. The next day, she had her hair dresser cut Juan’s wild-looking curly hair, then sent him to her private tailor.
Coming out of the tailor’s shop wearing a new suit, Juan would never forget, as long as he lived, what happened when he saw his reflection in the window in downtown Butte, Montana. Why, he didn’t even recognize himself, he looked so handsome and civilized.
That night back at the house, he was taken aside by Katherine once again, who presented him to the young girl whom he had saved. Her name was Lily, and she was beautiful. She was so grateful that he had saved her life that all night she purred to him like a kitten in love, teaching him things of the human body that he had never dreamed.
The next morning, he was taken in hand by the English woman again. They had tea together on fine china, and she spent the whole morning explaining to Juan the mysteries of life, love, women and good manners.
In the next year, Juan and Katherine became very close, and Juan came to respect her as the smartest and toughest woman he had ever known, except, of course, for his own mother, and she wasn’t even Catholic.
But then Duel began to grow jealous of their friendship and one dark night, Duel got drunk and accused Juan and Katherine of cheating him out of some money. Juan denied it, but still, Duel drew his gun. The next thing Juan Salvador Villaseñor did was something he’d never stop regretting for the rest of his life. He had loved Duel, he really had, like his own father.
A few months later, Juan got a telegram from his sister Luisa in California, saying that if he wished to see his mother alive again, he’d better come home immediately.
The day that Juan left Montana by train, all the land was white. Only the tallest trees poked up through the blanket of snow.
Both Katherine and Lily stood at the depot, seeing him off. The year was 1922, and Juan Salvador was nineteen years old, but he looked more like twenty-five. He was well dressed, had a moustache, and the aura of a very cautious man, a man who’d lived many lifetimes.
“I’ll be waiting!” called Lily.
“I’ll be back!” said Juan.
Katherine only watched him go, following him carefully with her eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
And so he thought he’d died and gone to heaven, smelling the orange blossoms and seeing the sky so blue and warm and beautiful.
It was a long, cold, miserable train ride, coming down from Montana. It was Christmas day the morning that Juan Salvador came into the Los Angeles train depot.
Juan was wearing a hat and fur-lined gloves and the great overcoat that Katherine had specially made for him. Glancing around, Juan couldn’t believe his eyes. Why, it was the dead of winter and, yet, it was as warm as summertime in California.
Taking off his overcoat, Juan breathed in the warmth, feeling it go all the way to his bones. He hailed a taxi, giving the driver his mother’s address in Corona. For the next hour, Juan sat back in the cab and looked at the luscious orchards of oranges and lemons on both sides of the road and the great, rich fields of produce.
He lit up a long cigar and breathed in the fragrance of the land. This was, indeed, the most beautiful country that he’d seen since he and his family had been forced to leave their beloved mountains of Los Altos de Jalisco.
“Tell me,” said Juan in good English to the cab driver, “is it usually this warm or is this an unusual day?”
“Where you from?” asked the small, dark-skinned Anglo.
“Montana,” said Juan Salvador.
“Well, then for you, mister,” said the man, “it’s always this warm! Montana, man, that’s cold up there! Myself, I’m from New Jersey! Came out here last year to visit my brother, and stayed! To hell with those cold winters, I say!”
“You bet,” said Juan Salvador, smoking his cigar.
The small, dark driver continued talking in a fast-sounding strange English, but Juan quit paying attention. He looked out the window and thought of Katherine and Lily and Duel and all that he’d learned up there. Montana had been the greatest teacher that he’d ever had. Montana had gotten him away from his own gente and showed him a whole new way of looking at la vida.
Getting to Corona, Juan noticed the well-paved streets of the American side of town, and then he saw the rutted dirt road as they entered the Mexican side of town. Coming into the barrio was like entering a different country. The houses were tiny, run-down, and there were chickens and pigs and goats running loose in the street. The driver had to honk at a mother pig and her five little piglets to get by.
Juan laughed. It never failed to amaze him how different his people were from the Anglos. Los mejicanos never wasted anything. Instead of green grass in front of their homes, they had vegetable gardens. And they didn’t fence in their livestock, but let them roam free so they could eat anything they could find. Instead, they fenced in their crops.
Juan had never understood the Anglos’ reasoning of fencing in their animals that could roam, and leaving the crops, that could not move, free.
Looking out his window, Juan saw that la gente were staring at him. He wondered if his mother and Luisa would recognize him. He had been nothing but a kid when he’d escaped from prison. He hadn’t even started to shave yet. Now he had a big moustache, fine clothes and had to shave twice a day if he wanted to keep a smooth face.
He suddenly remembered Luisa’s telegram, and he wondered if his mother was even alive. Oh, how he’d loved that worn-out, old sack of Indian bones. His mother had been his everything!
Goats ran everywhere as the cab driver came up to the last, two little houses at the end of the block. There were four half-naked children playing in the mud between the two houses. Juan smiled, remembering how much he’d always enjoyed playing in the wet corn fields back home when he’d been a child, feeling the itchy-good soil between his toes. He wondered if any of these children were Luisa’s. He knew she’d had another child after he’d gone to prison.
Putting out his cigar, Juan stepped out of the cab into the warm sunshine. Across the street, two old Mexicans with machetes at their sides watched him from under their big hats. But Juan felt no worries; he was armed, too. Ever since he’d started working for Duel, he’d been carrying a .38 snub-nose under his belt.
He reached into the front pocket of his well-tailored pants, bringing out a wad of money. All the children stopped playing and stared at him.
“Well,” said the taxi driver, coming around with Juan’s luggage, “this is the address you gave me, but maybe you better check and make sure before I go.” He seemed a little nervous.
“That’s not necessary,” said Juan.
“You sure?” asked the man.
“Yeah, I’m Mexican, too,” said Juan.
The man’s eyes widened.
Juan laughed. “How much?”
“Fifteen dollars,” said the man.
Juan peeled off a twenty. “Keep the change,” he said.
“Thanks!” said the cab driver. “Any time you need me, just call!”
Juan watched him drive off, then turned around. All the children were still staring at him.
A large goat rounded the corner, racing fast, with a young boy holding onto the rope tied around the goat’s neck. The goat had horns and he turned and charged the boy, hitting him in the gut. But the boy was tough and only laughed, wrestling the goat to the ground. Seeing the boy’s face as he looked up, Juan instantly recognized him. It was Luisa’s oldest son, José. He was the spitting image of his father, José Luis, a man whom Juan had loved very much.
“Buenos días, José,” said Juan to the boy, feeling a strangeness come to his tongue as he formed the Spanish words, “¿Dónde está Doña Margarita o tu mamá Luisa?” Juan had to lick his lips to speak. His tongue just didn’t seem to remember how to speak Spanish. It took more movement of the entire
mouth than to speak English.
The boy said nothing. He just held his ground, regarding Juan suspiciously.
Picking up his luggage, Juan came closer. “¿Qué tal?” he said to the boy. “I’m your tío, Juan. I used to take care of a hundred goats back in Los Altos when I was your age.”
Suddenly, the rear door of the front house opened with a bang and a powerful looking woman with a knife in her hand came out. “You leave my children alone!” she bellowed.
Juan started to laugh. She’d aged and gained weight, but he still recognized her. “Luisa,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in six years, and you come at me with a machete?”
Luisa closed her mouth, staring at him, then she let out a blood-curdling scream and came racing off the steps.
“Oh, Juan!” she cried, knife still in hand. “Juan!” And she grabbed him in her arms, yanking him off the ground. “You’ve grown so much, just look at you! These clothes, and that taxi, what did you do, rob a bank? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that taxi come up to our house. I thought it was the sheriff.”
She had tears in her eyes, she was so excited. “Come,” she said, wiping her eyes, “Mama’s been praying all week that you’d get here by Christmas.”
“Is she going to live?” he asked.
“To live?” screamed Luisa. “Hell, she’s going to see us all to our grave!”
“But in the telegram you said to hurry home if I wished to see her alive.”
“Oh, that!” said Luisa excitedly. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but Mama insisted, saying it was the only way to get you home for Christmas! And she was right! Here you are!”
They walked past the larger house to the little shack in back. “Mama lives in back,” said Luisa. “She talks too much. That’s why we turned the goat shed into a house for her.”
Juan laughed. “And you, you hardly talk, eh?”
Luisa stopped dead in her tracks, whirling about with the big knife. “You trying to start trouble?”
Juan didn’t know what to say. Here he was, only back for two minutes, and his sister was already threatening him with a knife. “Oh, no,” he said, laughing. “I’m not trying to start trouble, Luisa.”
“Good,” she said, relaxing her grip on the knife, “so now wait here while I go in and warn Mama. I don’t want her dropping dead now that you’ve come back from the dead.”
Luisa opened the door of the goat shed. And in the long, thin spears of light coming in through the cracks between the thick, wooden planks of the shack, Juan could see that there was a little wood-burning stove by the far wall, and a small mattress on a bed of box springs to the side of the stove. The whole place smelled of dust and smoke and decay.
Juan watched his sister cross the room, passing through the spears of light with floating particles of glistening dust to the bed of box springs. Then, to his surprise, she bent over, talking to a tiny bundle of dark, flat blankets.
The blankets moved and Juan saw two little cat eyes peer toward him from under the covers. Instantly, he knew that the tiny bundle was none other than his beloved mother! Tears came bursting to Juan’s eyes, and he rushed across the shack, taking his old mother in his arms.
“Mama!” he yelled.
“¡Mi hijito!” she said.
They hugged and kissed, and their eyes filled with tears. The children came to the doorway and watched.
“The only thing that’s kept me alive, mi hijito,” said the old woman, trembling, “is the promise that I made you in the desert, that I’d live to see you grow big and married.”
“Yes, I remember, Mama,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “And you did it!”
“Yes, you’re big now,” she said, “but I still have to see you married, and I don’t have much time. ¡Júrame! Promise me that you’ll never leave me again!”
“But, Mama, I have a business in Montana. I can’t just . . . ”
“Don’t you dare speak to me about business!” she said. “You are my son, my last born child, and you were robbed from me when you had to flee and I didn’t get to see you grow into manhood before my very eyes!
“Look at you, a fully-grown man! A giant compared to me, and I didn’t have the joy to see it happen. Oh, you must never, never, never leave me again! ¡Júrame! ¡Júrame! Promise me that you’ll never do anything to have to leave me again!”
“All right, Mama,” he said, tears pouring down his face. “¡Te lo juro! ¡Te lo juro! With all my heart! I’ll never leave you again!”
And so they hugged in a big abrazo, mother and son, heart-to-heart, and all of Juan’s years in prison and in Montana suddenly vanished. He was home at last, back in his mother’s arms, his most perfect love in all the world. Still, a big part of him knew that he should return to the north where he had a fine business waiting for him, playing cards in the back room of the best house with the finest women in all of Montana.
That afternoon, José killed the big goat and they dug a hole in the ground for the barbacoa, and all the people from the barrio came to celebrate. It was a time of wet eyes and big abrazos. They, too, had been separated from many of their loved ones because of the Revolution.
The celebration lasted long into the night, people crying, laughing, rejoicing, and then they all left, going home. Juan, Luisa and his old mother sat down together in the kitchen, still talking, still eating, still drinking terrible, bootleg whiskey.
“And little Inocenta?” asked Juan. “What became of her?”
“She married,” said their mother, getting up to go to the outhouse. “Oh, this whiskey is awful! It kills!”
“Married? But she’s only a child!” said Juan.
“Oh, no!” said Luisa. “She’s a woman! Taller than me! And she and her kids live with her parents, Lucha and Tomás.”
“Lucha?” yelled Juan. “You mean that you’ve seen those bastards? They abandoned us like dogs in Mexico!”
Lucha was the sister who’d left them back in Mexico with the soldiers who’d raped Emilia.
“Quiet down,” said Luisa, glancing at the door where their mother had gone. “We found them in Bisbee, starving to death after you went to prison. And Mama, well, she didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?”
“Well, because,” said Luisa, “you know the money that you got for us when you sold yourself? Well, she gave some of it to Lucha and Tomás.”
Juan rammed his fist into his mouth. “But I did that to help you and Mama, not those bastards!”
Luisa nodded. “Yes, I know, Juan,” she said. “But what can you do? A mother’s love sees no wrong when it comes to helping her children.”
“And the money that I’ve been sending you from Montana?” he asked.
“It’s gone, too,” she said. “We used some to live on, and Mama gave the rest to Lucha and Tomás.”
Juan’s whole chest came up. “I’m going to kill them,” he said, getting to his feet. “Right now. Where are they?”
“Don’t even think that,” said Luisa. “Killing them won’t help anyone.”
“Yes, it will,” he said. “It will help me!”
Juan was up so high, flying with such rage, that it frightened Luisa. Then their mother came back inside and Juan tried to calm down. He asked about the rest of their family, but it was very difficult.
“And Domingo?” asked Juan. Domingo was the brother that Juan had grown up with, and he missed him dearly.
Doña Margarita sat down. “Only the Lord God knows,” she said. “Every new mejicano we meet, we ask them about Domingo and they ask us for their lost ones, too.”
“But,” said Luisa, “we have heard about our cousins.”
“Which ones?” asked Juan anxiously. Half of their cousins had been raised in their home and were more like brothers and sisters than cousins.
“Everardo and two of his younger brothers,” said Luisa. “And supposedly Everardo lives here in California, too.”
“And how did you find this out?” asked Juan.
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Luisa glanced at their mother.
“Well, go ahead,” said the old lady. “You started it, you finish it.”
Luisa really didn’t want to, but she could see no other way. “Well,” she said, “right after you went to prison, just before we got that money, we ran across Everardo’s younger brother, Agustín. He saw how desperate we were so he took off his coat, putting it over Emilia and her child who were sick from hunger. He cried and cried, telling us that he was on his way to see Everardo who lived in California, but that he’d first stay and get a job to help us.” She strained to not cry. “But, well, Juan, he only ate the last of our food and . . . She couldn’t go on.
“Don’t tell me!” yelled Juan. “He ate your food and never came back!”
Luisa nodded, tears running down her face. Her two sons came to her side, giving her comfort.
“And you weren’t going to tell me, were you?” bellowed Juan, leaping to his feet once again and the muscles of his neck coming up like ropes.
Luisa shook her head and her boys hugged her, feeling frightened of their uncle.
“That son-of-a-bitch!” continued Juan. “After eating our food all those years, sleeping with us, being our brother, then he stole our sister Lucha, abusing her, and now he sees you starving and he eats your food and runs. My God, is there no justice? I swear it, only Everardo was any good from all that family!”
“Mi hijito,” said their mother, “they were good people, too. Agustín just got scared because he saw our situation so desperate.”
“Mama!” screamed Juan. “Don’t say that! I sold myself for murder so you could eat!”
“But,” she said, “was I able to eat that food? No, it was food stained with the blood of your soul.”
Juan was stunned. He stared at his old mother, hating her words, filled with rage and frustration.
“Oh, mi hijito,” said the old lady, seeing his insane anger, “I love you so much. And I’m so happy to have you back. But please, let’s stop all this and rejoice. You are my love. And you must promise me never to do such a thing again. Money comes and goes, but the blood of our soul is eternal. You had no right to sell yourself. God would’ve shown us another way.”
Rain of Gold Page 31
