Safe Passage

by Carla Kelly

  “I did.”

  “How careless.”

  I suppose it was, he thought. More than you know. “It is a long story and I am too tired to tell it. I’m going to sleep here today and then tonight I will take you to Santa Clarita.”

  “That is a long way from Colonia García,” she reminded him. “Señor, I did not see a woman or a man in Colonia García. Are you so certain she is there?”

  “No, I’m not, but I have to see for myself.”

  She thought about that and nodded. Her face took on an expression of shame. “We did not leave anything there for you to eat. I am sorry for that, now that I have met you.”

  “Well, never mind. I can always eat nopal,” he told her, gesturing toward the spiny-leafed cactus behind them. “I’ll take some with me tomorrow.” He yawned. “I’m going to sleep now, and I advise you to sleep too.”

  “Should one of us watch?”

  Trust a soldier to be smarter than he was. “Would you watch first, Serena? I’ve been awake a long time.”

  She nodded and pulled the loaded Mauser into her lap, sitting quietly on the fallen log, as he had first seen her when the sun rose. He asked God to protect them both and closed his eyes.

  B

  She woke him hours later, when dusk approached. He sat up, immediately alert. He knew how quickly he could go from snoring to wide awake used to startle Addie, who preferred to wake up in stages. Serena didn’t seem surprised. She was used to soldiers and men always on the edge of activity.

  Night had fallen, and she had let him sleep all day. “Serena, you were supposed to wake me, so you could get some rest,” he chided her.

  “Your need was greater,” she replied simply. “Besides, I can sleep in the saddle.”

  He took out two tortillas and opened another can of salmon, dividing the tin between them this time. She ate with the same economy of effort. When she finished, she went to the prickly pear cactus and carefully cut off several leaves. She handed him two and kept two for herself, trimming the edges expertly, the same as he did, and cutting off the spiny eyes. She cut hers in strips and he cut his in chunks and they finished dinner.

  Ammon filled his canteen from the spring, mindful that the dead horse was starting to bloat and give off mysterious gassy sounds. He picked up Serena’s saddlebags, poor limp affairs too light to be holding anything.

  “How did you get enough to eat?” he asked her, thinking of Topia, and the guerillas’ saddlebags stuffed with food.

  “You have to be fast and if not fast, then know someone who is,” she said with a shrug. “Felipe and I …” Her voice trailed away and she looked to the mound of dirt.

  “Then it’s time to go home. Blanco can carry us both.”

  Ammon gave her a moment’s privacy as she knelt beside her brother’s grave, patting the earth as he had done earlier. After wishing he had grain for Blanco, he saddled his horse and mounted, holding out his arms for Serena, who nimbly put her foot in his stirrup and swung up in front of him. Her bandoleras of bullets were uncomfortable, so she took them off and slung them on the saddle horn, the Mauser across her lap. She tried not to lean against him, until he teased her for being silly, as he would tease one of his sisters. With a sigh, she settled back.

  He thought she slept, as they rode west toward Santa Clarita. She smelled of wood smoke and sweat, same as he did, and he missed the fragrance of lavender in Addie’s hair. Serena had been kind to let him sleep all day. She was a child at war and so far from the image of a soldadera that he wondered how he could have been such a fool.

  “The soldiers came through our village two years ago,” she said out of the blue, when he thought she slept. “They promised us land and cattle if we would take up arms for Francisco Madero.”

  My land and my cattle, he thought, but had the sense not to say it. “Did your father get any land and cattle?” he asked instead, curious more than irritated.

  She shook her head. “I suppose we were never first in line there, either.” She half turned in the saddle. “Señor, you are a wise man. Why does the fighting go on and on? Why do allies turn against each other?”

  “I’m not that wise, Serena,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

  He held Blanco to a walk as they crossed the big valley. The moon was large and bright and felt like a parabolic mirror, pinpointing them as they passed through what he prayed was empty space. He saw no armies, but he also knew how the land that looked so level contained furrows and ridges capable of concealing men and horses.

  As Serena slumbered in his arms, he considered Old Ammon the Nephite, separating from his brothers and heading into his own wilderness, living rough and on the alert for Lamanites. I hope you don’t mind if I talk to you now and then, Ammon, he thought. Were you as frightened as I was? Did you have to take a detour on your journey, or was the whole thing the journey? Addie, I hope you’re alive. I’ll find you when I can. Addie, my own Adelita.

  B

  Dawn was breaking and he was stiff from the saddle when he saw the winking lights of Santa Clarita, a few lights here and there; it was a small village, as villages go. He sniffed the air and smelled smoke from cooking fires. He often hauled grain to Santa Clarita for Rancho Chavez outside of the village. The hacendado raised racing horses, and his mayordomo had taken the trouble to show Ammon the stables and arena where they broke the beautiful horses to the saddle. Two years now after the revolution began, he wondered if that land owner was still alive and what had become of his horses.

  Serena would know. When she stirred and stretched, he pointed to Santa Clarita and felt her huge sigh.

  “Did you think you would never see it again?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Before every battle.”

  “I have never been in a battle.”

  She twisted to stare at him in disbelief, a true daughter of the revolution. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-six, Serena, and not everyone goes to war,” he said in his own defense.

  She just shook her head.

  Blanco must have known there might be a stable and hay, if not grain. He picked up the pace of his own volition. Ammon obliged him, eager to be under cover somewhere, now that dawn was breaking.

  “Serena, I know this revolution is about land.” He gestured to the series of buildings just south of Santa Clarita, still black humps in the distance. “Did your family get any of the land from Hacienda Chavez? I can’t imagine the hacendado is still in residence there.”

  “His bones might be,” she replied. “General José Inés Salazar cut him up a piece at a time until he died.”

  I’m glad you owe me a favor, Ammon thought, disturbed. “And the general divided the land amongst the paisanos of Santa Clarita?” he asked, ready for an answer with a happy ending.

  She shook her head. He could tell she was choosing her words carefully. He could almost sense her weighing each syllable before it left her mouth, as if measuring the revolution in his eyes, or maybe her own for the first time.

  “The general decided he needed it more than we did,” she said, her voice soft, as if to speak louder would bring down the wrath of a revolution that had turned on the people it was supposed to benefit.

  “I’m sorry for that,” he replied. He shut his mouth, thinking of all the harassment and duplicity he and his neighbors had endured at Salazar’s hands. So much for a revolution of the people, something easy enough to proclaim in crowded plazas full of potential soldiers, and less easy in hay fields and stables full of blooded stock. “He needed it more than your family did?”

  She shrugged, that refuge of all Hispanics when words wouldn’t do.

  “Oh, Serena, stay home now and prosper,” he said softly.

  They were in Santa Clarita by the time the sun rose, riding through quiet streets—too quiet. For a moment, Ammon wondered why it was so silent. His first instinct was to set down Serena and gallop from the village immediately. Then he realized that there were no dogs barking. He listened, a frown on his face. No
roosters announced the dawn, either. What he thought were cooking fires was the nearly burned remnant of a building, collapsing in on itself. This wasn’t the Santa Clarita he remembered, with its small but noisy marketplace and dogs everywhere. This was a dying village.

  “Where … where is your home?” he asked the soldadera, his mouth suddenly dry. Amazing how fear could leech out saliva.

  Wordless now—she felt so wooden in his arms all of a sudden—she pointed down a side street, where pepper trees hung low.

  Please let there be a house and people in it, he prayed silently.

  “Here, señor,” she said, indicating an adobe house with a grindstone in the front yard. “My father is a knife sharpener. Mama cooks for the hacendado, or at least, she used to.”

  Business obviously hadn’t been good lately. Too bad General Salazar didn’t understand that when his army killed the landowners, they killed the people who provided livings for the villagers. He spoke to Blanco, who obligingly stopped. Serena stepped down as nimbly as she had mounted and Ammon followed, stiff from a night in the saddle. The little soldadera stood silently in front of her home, then squared her shoulders and went to the door.

  “Mama? Mama?” she called, her voice soft, as though she had enough second thoughts about Santa Clarita to match his own. She went inside. He waited.

  She came out a few minutes later and gestured for him to come closer. Looking around, Ammon led his horse through the gate and tied him at the side of the house, out of view of the deserted street. He followed her inside, observing the tears in Serena’s eyes, even as she tried to look away so he could not see them.

  When his eyes accustomed themselves to the late-night gloom that lingered, despite the sunrise, he saw three men sitting at a table. They were as thin as Serena, with blank expressions that told him all he needed to know about the success of the revolution in Santa Clarita.

  “I didn’t mean to disrupt your breakfast,” he said. “I can wait outside.”

  His quiet words seemed to rouse them from their stupor. The oldest man, perhaps Serena’s father, rose and leaned heavily on his chair. His voice shook, but he welcomed Ammon with all the hospitality Ammon remembered from visits to Mexican homes.

  Serena stood beside him, telling them of his help in burying Felipe and getting her home safely. The men nodded, their eyes wary.

  “My father, my uncle, and my other brother,” Serena whispered. She bowed her head, and whispered, “They tell me Mama died last winter when everyone starved.”

  And no one’s doing much better now, Ammon thought, appalled. “How can I help you?” he asked Serena.

  “Papa said there is a bowl of nettles in the kitchen. That is for the evening meal, but if you are hungry …” Her voice trailed off.

  “You would give it to me, wouldn’t you?” he asked, touched. “Serena, I’m not hungry, except for these nopales.”

  He sat down at the silent table and picked up the knife, running it deftly around the spiny leaves of the prickly pear, then cutting out the sharp eyes. He remembered that Serena had cut her nopal into slices last night, so he did the same thing, all the while telling the silent men how he had come upon Felipe and Serena. The men all looked the same age, a testimony to what starvation could do. When he finished, there was a pile of cactus strips.

  “I’ll be back,” Ammon said, getting up.

  Blanco was cropping what little grass remained by the side of the house. Ammon took out his few tortillas and the remaining tins of canned salmon, wishing he had not laughed at Ma when she offered him more for his journey.

  He handed the tortillas to Serena, noticing the sudden interest of her relatives. “I wish there were more,” he said simply. He set the cans of salmon on the table, along with the sharp little can opener. Please, Lord, turn it into loaves and fishes, he thought, as he nodded to her and left the house.

  Serena followed him into the yard. “Papa said the village is nearly deserted now,” she told him. She looked away, embarrassed. “He said his heart breaks that he can offer you no hospitality. He assures you that no one in the Camacho house will ever say that you were here. He told me to kneel and kiss your hand.”

  Ammon shook his head. “I just wanted to get you home, Serena. Would you ask your father where I might hide myself and my horse until nightfall?”

  She went back inside. When she came back, she handed him a knife. “This is for bringing me home and for burying Felipe. Papa wants you to have it.”

  “I can’t take that,” he protested.

  The soldadera gave him a look so fierce that he felt his insides rearrange themselves. “Haven’t you lived in Mexico long enough to know not to turn down a gift? It’s ever so sharp because he is a fine grinder of knives.” She said it with all the dignity of her people, a most polite race.

  “Very well. Tell him thank you.” He took the knife from its sheath and admired the razor-thin edge. “He is a fine grinder of knives.”

  “He also said for you to go to Hacienda Chavez. No one lives there now and you will be safe this day in the stables. I will watch over you from the field and warn you of trouble.”

  He knew better than to argue, but every instinct rebelled at leaving this little soldier the same age as his younger sister in a place no better than where he had found her. He had to do more.

  He pocketed the knife and felt the few dollars left of the twenty-five his mother had coaxed out of his father-in-law as part of the deal to find Addie. He hoped with all his heart that it would look like an enormous sum to the Camachos, who sat in their house waiting to die.

  He held out the money and Serena backed away, frowning. He took her hand and put four dollars in her grimy palm, closing her fingers over the money. “Don’t give me trouble,” he warned. “In the United States, there is a custom that if someone gives you a knife, you have to pay a few pennies for it, or it’s bad luck. I don’t have any pennies, so I’ll give you what I do have.”

  Serena looked down at the dollars in her hand, then up at him. “Go with God, señor,” she whispered. “Hurry now, before the sun is any higher.” She touched his arm. “I hope you find your wife, señor. If you do, don’t lose her again.”

  He nodded. “I won’t.” He took her hand and kissed her cheek. “And you remember how the salmon got in those cans, chiquita.”

  His reward was the ghost of a smile, and it nearly broke his heart.

  SIX

  AMMON KNEW BETTER than to hesitate. With a smile he forced on his face, and a wave, he mounted Blanco and rode back the way he had come, through silent streets. He didn’t look around because he knew people behind curtains watched him. All he could do was stare straight ahead and pray that no one was curious about who had brought Serena Camacho home.

  The sun was high overhead now, and he knew it was not safe to travel, even to the deserted hacienda. He also knew he had no choice.

  To lessen his own danger, he rode Blanco west until he was out of Santa Clarita, then dismounted at the top of a small rise that commanded the view. He crouched there in the tall grass, watching the village. After an hour, when no riders followed him or started for the rebel army he thought was somewhere to the north, he mounted Blanco and rode back toward Santa Clarita, then south to the hacienda. I wonder what a bullet between the eyes feels like, he thought. Probably I’ll never know what happened.

  Nothing. Relieved, he rode through the sagging gates of Hacienda Chavez, once so majestic and now just ruins swinging on creaking hinges. Probably by winter, the people of Santa Clarita would knock down the gates and use the wood in their fireplaces. With a jolt, he realized that would happen to Colonia García if none of the Mormons returned.

  Once through the gates, he stared a long moment at the hacienda. Someone had set it on fire—who knew which army? He sniffed; the burn smell lingered, suggesting this latest insult to a lovely estate was of recent origin. If General Salazar had claimed it for himself, as Serena insisted, some guerilla group or other had taken what his
father would call “poor man’s revenge.”

  He rode closer, looking at the hanging baskets once filled with some exotic red flower Addie could probably identify, dangling limp now that most of the cords anchoring the baskets to the porch ceiling had been cut.

  He had admired those flowers earlier this summer when he freighted grain to Señor Chavez for his beautiful horses. There had been ladies sitting on the porch, sipping tea like the English and paying him no mind, except for Graciela Andrade, daughter of the mayor-domo on the San Diego Ranch near Colonia Juárez. Eyes lively, she had nodded to him. As he remembered, she had started to rise from her wicker chair when the blonde woman next to her—Señora Andrade—put her hand on her arm and whispered something, probably that he was a dusty Mormon gringo.

  “Where are you now, Gracie?” Ammon asked the empty, half-burned porch.

  Like most of the young men at Juárez Stake Academy, he had fallen in love with Graciela Andrade, whose father had taken the unconventional step of enrolling his daughter in the school of the mormones. Tongue-tied and shy, Ammon couldn’t believe his good fortune when his English teacher made Graciela sit next to him so he could help her. He couldn’t think of another time in his life when grammar ever mattered so much.

  After one term, Papa Andrade decided he had been too unconventional after all. Graciela had cried on her last day at the academy when she came to collect her books. He sent her to Chihuahua City for the rest of her education. Ammon had written a number of letters to her, then discarded them.

  He sat there a moment longer, until Blanco reminded him with a shake of his head that there had to be a better plan for the day. Ammon tipped his sombrero to the long-gone Graciela. Revolutions being what they were, he hoped the rumor was true that she had married a doctor from Chihuahua City and moved to Spain. It was just as likely she was dead in a ditch somewhere, revolutions being what they were.

  No one fierce for revenge had burned the stables, to Ammon’s relief. The doors swung wide, and he rode Blanco inside, but not before taking his rifle from its scabbard and setting it across his lap. He sniffed the air, smelling cats and something more cloying and dense. He knew the odor, which made the hairs on his neck do a little dance. Ammon patted his horse and continued a slow walk past the empty stalls.