Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  “The cops,” said Pedro, staring at the headlines.

  “Shut up!” said José.

  Juan now caught on, but still, he didn’t know what it was all about. He didn’t read any English, nor too much Spanish, either.

  “Here,” he said, handing José a nickel, “buy the paper and tell me while we eat.”

  They got the newspaper and went to the far corner of the little café.

  “Read it to me,” said Juan, sitting down, “and don’t worry about nothing. We’re just three Mexican plumbers out for breakfast.”

  Nervously, José glanced around and then began to read. The FBI had set up the biggest bootlegging bust in Southern California history. Fifteen trucks of illegal liquor had been confiscated. Twenty-two people had been arrested.

  By the time they were back to the big house, Juan knew that they were in serious trouble. “All right,” he said to Julio and Geneva, showing them the newspaper, “no more fighting between you two; we got to get smart or we’re dead!”

  “But you told us that we’d be safe here!” yelled Geneva, holding her two little daughters close.

  “And we were,” said Juan, “that’s why we didn’t get arrested like the others. And now we got to disappear for a few months. Believe me, when that hairy-armed gorilla starts pounding on Mario, and Mario sees that I wasn’t caught along with him and all his friends, he’s going to turn on me and they’ll come looking for me and you, too, Julio!”

  “Oh, my God!” yelled Geneva, “I knew we should never have gotten into this, Julio! I told you so!”

  Juan looked at the big-mouthed woman, realizing that he could never do business with Julio again because of her. She was one of these simple-minded people who thought they could get whatever they wanted in life without paying the price.

  “Look,” said Juan, pulling out the keys to his big Dodge, “I’m going to give you the use of my car.”

  Instantly, Geneva stopped whining and looked at the shiny keys with lustful greed.

  “But, on the condition,” said Juan, dangling the keys, “that you two go back to Mexico now, today, this very morning, as you wanted to do, and not come back for two months. And I’ll give you fifty dollars to hold you over. But don’t, I repeat, don’t go near those barrels that we hid, Julio, until you see me and we talk. Because they’ll be looking for bootleg whiskey. Believe me, cops aren’t stupid!”

  “Of course, mi general,” said Julio, reaching for the keys to the grand car.

  “No!” yelled Geneva, grabbing the keys first. “I’ll take the keys!” she shouted.

  “But you don’t know how to drive,” said Julio.

  “So?” yelled Geneva.

  Ten minutes later, Geneva and Julio were on the road. Juan and the two boys loaded the last three barrels on Juan’s truck and took off with the two trucks, José driving one and Juan driving the other.

  A couple of miles outside of Corona, Juan pulled off the road into some thick brush and José pulled in behind him in Julio’s big Dodge truck.

  “You drove good,” said Juan, walking into the bushes to take a leak. “You handled that big truck just fine.”

  José and Pedro quickly unbuttoned their pants, too.

  Juan laughed. “You know,” he said, “I always wondered why it is that animals on the run have to piss and shit so much. Hell, a coyote outruns the dogs until he can’t shit no more and then he falls apart.” He smiled, milking the last drops of urine from his thick cock. “When I was on the run from prison with those two Yaquis, I pissed and shit all the way. Nothing like being on the run a la Gregorio Cortez with the rangers after you to clean a man out,” he said with gusto.

  “Yes, I’ve never pissed so much,” said Pedro, laughing.

  “All right,” said Juan, buttoning back up, “now you two go home without me.”

  “Without you?” said the boys.

  “Yes,” said Juan, “and park away from our place and then go home on foot.”

  Juan took a big breath. “And from now on you two must learn to think like the mouse—scared, careful, and eyes all ready for the big cat. But not too scared, you understand. Just quiet, scared inside, so no one knows you’re scared but you.” He smiled. “You’re both good little men. And you, José, the truck you drove is clean, so you got no worries. But still, you park the truck down the street and then walk home like you’re coming from work.”

  He could see that both boys were getting nervous. “It’s okay,” he said, patting them on the shoulders, “everything is fine. You two must go home and tell Luisa and my mother what’s happened and that I’m going to Mexico for a while.”

  Tears came to José’s eyes. Pedro hugged his uncle with all his might. Juan was the closest thing that either boy had ever had to a real father.

  “Look, don’t worry,” said Juan, hugging them both. “Hell, I’m not going to get killed, I promise you. Shit, I’ll be back in a few months and we’ll laugh about all this. But, don’t tell that to no one. As far as everyone is concerned, I’ve returned to Los Altos for good. Do you understand? I’m gone. Never coming back, as far as anyone is to know.”

  “Yes,” said both boys, “we understand.”

  “Good,” said Juan, “good. But, on the other hand, if for some misfortune, I don’t come back in a few months, then you two are the men of the house. You are the machos, the life, the future of our families. You are all that’s left, so you must protect our mothers and grow and do good and have families of your own. I love you. I do. I do.”

  They were all three crying, tears running down their faces. “And remember, we think, we work, we have respect and honor above all else. And those barrels we hid, they’re almost all ours. Only eight belong to Julio. And you get Archie to help you sell them at fifty dollars each, but don’t trust the son-of-a-bitch. Be tough. Listen to Luisa. She’s made of iron! Don’t let nobody cheat you!”

  “But, Uncle,” said Pedro, a flood of tears bursting from his eyes, “you’ll be back! You got to!”

  “Of course, I will,” said Juan, “but just in case, you be ready and you remember, we’re mejicanos and . . . and . . . and you never kill even a pig to eat without respect and unless you do it quick so he don’t suffer.”

  “Oh, uncle, please, don’t go!” said José. “We can hide you in the hills!”

  Juan’s eyes narrowed. “José, don’t be stupid,” he said. “Think, pay attention; this is no joke. This is the FBI and many people think that I’m the one who killed those two agents last year.”

  “Didn’t you?” asked Pedro.

  Juan stared at his nephew. “Mi hijito,” he said, “if I did or didn’t, isn’t the point. The point is that a mejicano can’t stay around to see if the gringos will believe him or not. I’m running just like the coyote, as far as I got the shit to take me!”

  Saying this, he hugged his two nephews close once again, holding them, squeezing them in a big abrazo between hombres; then he kissed them on one cheek and then on the other.

  “Tell my mama that I love her,” said Juan, more tears coming to his own eyes, “and tell her that I’m sorry that I couldn’t come and tell her goodbye. But I will return! I swear it! I’ll be back some night with the full moon!” he said, squeezing his nephews. “Oh, God! I love you boys so much! Bye. Take care of our familia. You’re the men of the house!”

  Juan turned and got in his truck and took off, heart pounding, head throbbing, lips dry, and mouth choking with emotion as he drove off.

  His eyes cried desperately and he thought of his mother and wondered how she’d take the news of yet another son of hers disappearing. Would this be the last straw to finally kill the grand old woman? Oh, how he hated himself for having put her through this.

  He dried his eyes and concentrated on the road. Strangely enough, he began to feel better. He was free at last. Free to run, to hide, to fight for survival. Oh, to be on the run felt almost wonderful in a crazy kind of way. Life was so simple. There were no complications. But then, his t
houghts drifted to Lupe.

  “No, I can’t think of her now,” he said to himself. And he began to whistle and then sing the ballad of Gregorio Cortez, who, like his own brother José, had been chased by hounds and hundreds of armed men.

  He breathed deeply, trying to keep calm, but inside he was going crazy, thinking of what could have been: a life of love, a life with the woman of his dreams.

  José and Pedro had been home no more than fifteen minutes, telling their family of the situation, when Rodolfo came rushing in the back door.

  “They’re coming!” yelled the schoolteacher with the pocked face. “Five cars full of gringos lawmen!”

  Everyone leaped with fear, except Doña Margarita.

  “Thank God that they’ve arrived,” she said, making the sign of the cross. “Waiting is what makes fear; not the devil’s entrance.” And saying this, she took up her rosary with the greatest of calm and began to pray as she’d done a thousand times before. The five cars came rushing up to the front yard, scattering the chickens and pigs alike.

  “Open the door, Luisa,” said the old lady, “so they don’t break it down. Show them we have nothing to hide. Also, go feed the chickens with Pedro, but give them no attention. Just do your chores as if everything is fine. Remember, we speak no English and we know nothing, so what can they do to us if we stay calm? Nothing, absolutely nothing, if we don’t provoke them.”

  Outside, the lawmen were surrounding the house.

  “And don’t move, mi hijito,” said the old, wrinkled-up lady to her oldest grandson. “You just sit still, because you’re big and they would like to provoke you so they can unleash their anger, the anger of trained dogs.”

  José obeyed his grandmother, keeping still, trembling, his mind going crazy with fear. Outside, he could see that they were questioning his mother and brother. Then they came, rushing at the open door, bursting in with guns drawn as other armed men broke the glass out of the windows in the back of the house. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and he started to get up.

  “Don’t move!” snapped his grandmother in Spanish, watching the men search the house. “Let them destroy everything! Houses, furniture can all be replaced; but not you, my love.”

  José sat back down, his whole body vibrating with such emotion that he was sick. Oh, he was so frightened and yet outraged at the same time.

  For over an hour, the lawmen tore things apart, looking for evidence of a distillery, but they found nothing. Bill Wesseley, the big man that Juan had seen at the hotel, led the lawmen. Mario was handcuffed inside one of their cars. When the lawmen finally left, the two houses were in a shambles, and one of their little pigs had been kicked to death by two, over-zealous young lawmen.

  Late that afternoon, Doña Margarita and her family went to church along with several other people from the barrio. It was just like the Revolution for them all over again, and so they prayed as they hadn’t prayed in years.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  And so here they were, two human hearts, struggling for survival as they searched for the miracle of love, a dream come true.

  Two days before, Lupe and her family passed through the barrio of Corona on their way down to the Imperial Valley. They were following the crops once more. They stopped at the two houses at the end of the street, traded for some eggs and goat’s milk, and continued over the mountains. The following day they found work down in the valley near Brawley. That night, they set up camp under some big trees outside of town, behind a little gas station. There were five families, and in the morning they would go back to work across the highway in the fields.

  But they had a hard time sleeping again. The mosquitoes were out by the millions. Finally, Doña Guadalupe made a mixture of fresh garlic and oil to put on their exposed skin so they could get a few hours of sleep before they had to go to work.

  Down in the Imperial Valley, Juan sold two barrels of whiskey for twenty dollars each, telling each buyer that he was headed for Mexico. Then he headed for Mexicali, wanting to get there before midnight, but the headlights of his truck began to grow dimmer and dimmer.

  Finally, he pulled over at a little gas station just the other side of Brawley. Smiling, the owner of the gas station, a little short Anglo, got a rag and a bucket of water and washed the dead insects off each blackened headlight.

  “Happens all the time,” said the Anglo good-naturedly. “People come through here just after dark, thinking their headlights are going out, but it’s only the bugs. Hell, last Spring we had up to ten million mosquitoes per square foot. A man could get rich if he could figure a way to flatten ’em and sell them for meat!” he said, laughing.

  Juan could see that he was an old, wrinkled-up desert rat and that he had a wild side to him.

  “So you wanna get rich, eh?” said Juan.

  The man stopped and looked at Juan. “Sure,” he said, grinning. “Who don’t?”

  “But I mean right now,” said Juan.

  The man started laughing. “Sounds good. What we gonna do, amigo, rob a bank?”

  “No, nothing that illegal,” said Juan.

  The man laughed all the more. “Well, then, shoot! I’m rough and ready!”

  “You buy this truck off me for cash right now and I’ll throw in a ten-gallon barrel of the finest Canadian whiskey you ever drank,” said Juan, grinning.

  “Canadian, really?” said the man, looking like a starving fish ready to bite the hook.

  “Sure,” said Juan. “But you got to close down and drive me across the border right now.”

  “Shit, why not?” said the man. “Who are you, some famous bootlegger on the run?”

  “You guessed it!” said Juan Salvador, laughing.

  “I’ll be damned!” said the old man, licking his lips, thrilled at the thought of getting involved in something exciting for a change.

  So, they made a deal and Juan sold him his truck for two hundred dollars cash, and they unloaded the barrel, hiding it behind his barn.

  There was a group of migrant workers camped under some trees behind the station. Juan took a long, hard look at them, thinking that Lupe and her family were probably down here right now, following the crops. Then he saw the tall, regal silhouette of a woman walking by a tent and his heart exploded. Could that be Lupe? He wanted to walk over and see, but he couldn’t. He was on the run, but the strangest thing happened. The woman stopped and looked his way, too. My God, he thought, it’s either her or an angel from God put down on earth to drive men insane—she’s so beautiful.

  “Well, let’s crack leather!” said the gas station owner, coming up behind Juan.

  “Oh, yes, sure,” said Juan. He got in the truck with the old man and they took off. They got to the border station at midnight. Crossing into Mexicali, Mexico, Juan felt a lot better. They went into an all-night bar and had a few legal drinks together. Then Juan told the man goodbye.

  “Thanks for your help,” said Juan. “Maybe I’ll see you some day if you come down to Los Altos de Jalisco.”

  “So, you’re not coming back, eh?” said the man.

  “Nope, never,” said Juan.

  “Well, so long,” said the man, and he headed back across the border.

  Juan took a big breath. He was good now. He’d made a big enough impression on that old desert rat so that he’d be telling the story to every person that came into his station. The law would finally get wind of the story and check it out. He’d be so excited that he’d probably even show them the barrel of whiskey, proving to them that his story was true.

  Turning up the street, Juan headed for Chinatown. He’d made quite a few good Chinese friends when he’d smuggled Chinese across the border a couple of years back.

  In the morning, Lupe and her family went across the highway to the ranch and got jobs. The day grew so hot, that Lupe and her father became sick. The wind picked up right after lunch, and the dust hit them with blinding speed. Lupe and her father began to cough. They just weren’t able to put up with the heat an
d dust like everyone else.

  That evening, when the people that Lupe’s family was traveling with gassed up their truck, the attendant offered to sell them whiskey in quart jars. Don Victor bought a quart and said that it was the best whiskey that he’d ever tasted. The other men bought several jars, too. That night, Lupe watched her father and the other men get drunk and sing and make fools of themselves.

  A few days later, Lupe came in early from the field and she found Doña Manza and her family at their camp. Lupe and Manuelita were so happy to see each other that they couldn’t stop talking. But then Carlota and the others came in from the fields and Lupe was never able to get in another word.

  Manuelita had recently become engaged, and Carlota just couldn’t stop asking her questions. Lupe said nothing more. She was going to wait until she and Manuelita were alone so that she could talk to her privately. Lupe had something very important to ask her friend about engagements.

  Two days later, it was decided that they’d go to the coast along with several other families. Leaving the great, flat valley, they headed for the towering mountains to the west. Lupe rode in the back of an open-bed pickup, along with Manuelita and her sisters, Cuca and Uva, and Carlota. Don Victor and Victoriano rode in front with the man who owned the truck.

  Looking out behind, Lupe could see her mother and Doña Manza sitting in the back of the third vehicle as they climbed up the winding road. It made her heart swell with happiness to see her mother and her best old friend together once again. In the distance, Lupe could see the heat waves dancing in the huge valley below and the glistening mirages of flat shimmering lakes beyond the heat waves.

  It never failed to amaze Lupe how much the country of Southern California changed once they started up over the mountains. The Imperial Valley lay hot and flat and wide behind them, stretching grey and white for hundreds of miles. The farming communities of Brawley and Westmoreland sat like little green checkered islands in the white-flatness of the infinite desert.

  It began to cool as they climbed the towering, jagged mountains filled with brown cliffs and huge orange boulders, and shelves of red rock with naked batches of glistening granite so white that it hurt the eyes. It was a land so colorful and yet forbidding. It seemed impossible to Lupe that anything could grow here, and yet, it did. It grew in the forms of cactus, short and wide, tall and graceful, round and thick. And at this time of year, the cactus plants had flowers of such bright, dazzling colors of pink and yellow and red that the flowers seemed to pop off the mountainsides, hitting you in the eyes. The colors were so bright that one just knew they reflected the brightness of the burning sun, the right eye of God. Just then a huge raven swooped down, landing by a huge yellow cactus flower. Lupe watched him, thinking that there was something strangely familiar about this big black bird.