A Santo in the Image of Cristóbal García

by Rick Collignon

  Flavio had never seen a thing like this before in his life. A couple of miles south and a mile west of the village, gray-white smoke poured from just below the rounded top of a foothill. It looked as if there had been an explosion. There was so much smoke that not even flames were visible, only a faint orange hue that churned at the base of the column.

  “My God,” Flavio said. “The mountain is on fire.”

  He hurried back to the house, up the porch steps, and rushed into the room. “Felix,” he gasped, “there’s a fire. The mountains are on fire.”

  “I told you so,” Felix said to him calmly and then lowered his eyes.

  Flavio stood breathing heavily just inside the room. He opened his mouth and then closed it. Finally, he said, “How could you know this?”

  With some effort, Felix pushed himself up a little straighter on the sofa. One of his hands began to shake and he held it with the other. “Don’t blame me, Flavio,” he said. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  Flavio stood staring at him. The Felix he remembered was a man who took meticulous care of his café, spent money frugally, and wasted little. He was not a man to go running about the mountains starting fires. “How could you do such a thing?” Flavio stammered out.

  “With matches.” Felix shrugged. “And a little pile of sticks.”

  “No, jodido,” Flavio said, his voice louder. “I mean how could you do this?” and he raised his arms. “Did you just wake up this morning and think it was a nice day to burn the mountains?”

  Felix’s head began to jerk again, and he bent forward a little, his back rounded. “Don’t ask me so much, Flavio,” he said in a way that made Flavio feel as if he were talking to a child.

  Flavio walked quickly across the room. He took off his hat, slapped Felix on the shoulder with it, and then shoved it back on. “Vamos,” he said. “Let’s go see how bad it is.” He pulled Felix to his feet and, leaning against each other, the two of them walked out of the house.

  Flavio helped Felix take the step up into the cab of his truck. He checked the bed to make sure he had his shovel and then he climbed behind the wheel of the pickup. He switched on the ignition and let the engine idle. He glanced over at Felix, who had begun to breathe hard again and was so hunched over that his head barely cleared the top of the seat.

  “I’m sorry I hit you with my hat,” Flavio said under his breath. Then, thinking everything had to be one enormous mistake, he shoved the gearshift into reverse and drove off.

  Delfino Vigil, a man Flavio’s own age, was bent over at the waist beside the stop sign at the end of the road. He had one hand on a knee, the other was grasping onto a shovel, and he was gulping air. He was wearing heavy, oil-stained overalls that were so big for him they dragged on the ground and a baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead. Flavio slowed to a stop and leaned across Felix. “Delfino,” he yelled out the open window. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

  Delfino jerked his head sideways and then waved an arm. He hobbled over to the pickup, threw his shovel in the back, and swung open the door. When he climbed into the cab, the air filled with the thick odor of manure and grease. Delfino let out a long ragged sigh. Then he took off his cap and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. His scalp was round and smooth and marked with liver spots and only a few wispy white hairs.

  He looked over at Felix sitting beside him. “Flavio,” he said, “Felix García is in your truck.” His face was bright red as if he’d run the mile from his house to where Flavio had picked him up, and since he’d left his teeth by the sink in his bathroom, his words came out of his mouth slightly mumbled and with a faint echo. He wasn’t much taller than Felix, and Flavio suddenly felt as if he were driving a school bus.

  “I know Felix is in my truck,” Flavio said as he pulled up to the sign and stopped again.

  “¿Cómo estás, Felix?” Delfino said, and he reached out and touched the back of Felix’s hand. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.” When Felix didn’t answer, Delfino bent forward and looked at Flavio. “Why is Felix in your truck?” he asked.

  “I’m taking him back home,” Flavio said and tapped the steering wheel with his fingers.

  “From where?”

  Flavio turned his head. “He’s been visiting me at Ramona’s,” he said. One of Delfino’s eyes was the color of milk and the pupil had turned a faded blue. It seemed a little bigger than his other eye and made half his face seem like it belonged to someone else.

  “Ramona’s dead,” Delfino said.

  “I know Ramona’s dead,” Flavio said. He was beginning to feel irritable and wished Delfino would talk about something else. “What happened to your eye?” he asked.

  Delfino lifted his hand to his face and then dropped it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s just tired.” One night, Delfino had gone to bed even before the sun had set. His head was aching and outside his bedroom window, he could hear the sound of birds and the voices of the Gallegos children next door, who never seemed to keep quiet. He had slept without dreaming, and when he woke he was in exactly the same position, arms at his sides and legs stuck out stiff, that he had gone to sleep in ten hours earlier. He had slept so soundly that for a second it seemed to him as if he had been somewhere else or had been dead for a little while without knowing it. One of his ears felt like it was full of water and as he walked to his kitchen he slapped the side of his head. When he looked in his little mirror that hung beside his stove, he saw that his eye had turned white in the night. It wasn’t until later, when Delfino was cooking his sausages and chile, that he discovered he had also lost his sense of smell.

  “I’m a little nervous now when I sleep,” Delfino said to Flavio.

  Flavio looked out his side window. There was a line of cars driving into town for almost as far as he could see and few of them he recognized. He glanced back at Delfino. “What’s it like?” he asked.

  “It just looks a little funny,” Delfino said. “It still works sometimes.”

  “No. I mean to not smell.”

  “You know how many things smell bad? I can stick my head anywhere and it’s no problem.” He looked out his window at the smoke billowing hundreds of feet into the air. “I never thought I’d live to see something like this happen, Flavio. Look at it. It’s burning up our mountains.” He turned to Felix. “Don’t worry, Felix,” he said. “We’ll put this fire out. And then we’ll shoot the jodido who started it.”

  Flavio stared out the window at a couple of dogs running along the ditch across the road. One was limping badly, dragging his hind leg, and every so often he’d bite at it as he ran. “Maybe the fire started by itself,” he said.

  Delfino grunted. “You think two stones rolled together and made a spark? There’s nothing up there. I used to hunt all through those hills. There’s no roads, not even any trails. Just piñon and brush for the rabbits to hide in.” A sudden gust of wind shook the truck and blew dust through the cab. “Pull out, Flavio. Someone will stop for you.”

  “I’ve never seen so many cars.”

  “They’re all coming to see the fire.” A new pickup passed by with two men in the cab. The driver was bent over the wheel, looking at the foothills. The man in the passenger seat stared at Flavio for a second and then moved his eyes away. “There,” Delfino said, and he leaned forward and pointed. “That’s Erlinda Gonzales and her Tía Modesta. She’ll let you in.”

  Flavio pulled onto the highway and waved a hand at Erlinda. He could see the fire now framed in the windshield like one of Ramona’s paintings. It was bigger at the base than he’d thought, and the wind was beginning to twist the column of smoke so that it leaned slightly. Smoke was trailing away from the top and thinning out over the valley.

  “It’s too big,” Flavio said softly. He glanced at Delfino, who was staring straight ahead. His bad eye was half closed, and he had one arm outstretched, his hand on the dashboard. He shook his head and then looked out his side window.

  There were a few old adobes se
t back off the road, all of them in disrepair and all of them boarded up. The shingled roofs were curled and black, and those with tin had either rusted out or were coated with tar. A few trailers were parked near the houses, the corners shimmed up on cinder blocks, a thin sheathing of plywood around the base to keep out skunks in the summer and cold in the winter. At one time, the Romeros and the Durans had lived along this stretch of road. Their fields had been planted with crested wheat and alfalfa, and their corrals had been crowded with sheep.

  Flavio looked back at the road. The sun was angling in his window, and he could feel it sitting hot on his thighs. He took in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly. “What were you doing running to town?” he asked. “That truck of yours finally break down.”

  “I don’t own a truck no more,” Delfino said. “The chingaderas took it away from me.”

  “I didn’t hear about this,” Flavio said. “Who took it away?”

  “How should I know,” Delfino said. “I had a little accident, and when I went to get my truck back, they told me it had disappeared. I had that truck thirty-five years, and in all that time it never once disappeared. They must think I’m stupid to believe my truck is hiding from me.”

  Delfino had driven into the side of Tito’s Bar. The collision had smashed the plaster and pushed in a section of the adobe wall on top of Fred Sanchez, who had been drinking beer all morning and complaining bitterly to anyone who would listen about his wife. After Delfino had been helped from the cab of his pickup and after Fred Sanchez had been unburied, Delfino was asked what had happened. It had been, after all, a day in early June and no traffic had been on the road. Delfino had answered that the last thing he remembered was feeding his pigs old potatoes and how should he know what his truck was doing inside Tito’s Bar. Then, without another word, he had walked back home by himself.

  “That was the last time I saw my truck,” Delfino said. “I was a young man when I got that truck. And now, when I’m too old to walk, they take it away from me.”

  Flavio had not heard this story, and he realized that he couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen Delfino. It struck him that somehow, even in such a small village, it was easy to disappear. Like himself, Delfino was getting on in years. It was too bad he had no family to watch out for him.

  Flavio slowed down as he came to Felix’s Café. The lot in front was empty, and Pepe’s car was nowhere to be seen. The lights were out inside and the sign on the door was flipped over to CLOSED. “Where’s Pepe?” Flavio asked, and he looked at Felix.

  There was moisture at the edges of Felix’s eyes from the breeze blowing through the cab and saliva at one corner of his mouth. His head was nodding away, his hands trembling in his lap. Flavio said his name and Felix blinked once and said nothing.

  “What is it with you, Felix?” Flavio said. “One minute you can’t be quiet and the next you’re like a stone.”

  “Felix can’t talk, Flavio,” Delfino said. “And he hasn’t done a thing in eight years.”

  “You think so?” Flavio said. “Well, today he’s been pretty busy. Tell Delfino, Felix, how you spent your morning.”

  Delfino put his hand on Felix’s arm. “It’s okay, Felix,” he said. “Flavio’s a little upset about this fire.” Then he leaned forward and took a better look at Felix’s face. “What happened to you, anyway? You been fighting with cats?” He looked at Flavio. “Why is Felix all beat up?”

  Flavio shrugged and shook his head. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  They drove past Tito’s Bar. Tomás Gallegos, a miner, was standing in the open doorway drinking a beer. He raised the can in a wave as they passed by. The lumberyard was as quiet as the café. The gates were closed leading to the yard, and though the front door was propped open and the lights were on, there didn’t seem to be a soul inside. They came to the bottom of the hill, and as the road swung around, the valley opened up before them.

  “Eee,” Delfino breathed out. “I don’t believe my eyes.”

  Vehicles were parked half on the pavement and half on the shoulder all the way to where the road climbed out of the valley to Las Sombras. People were walking about, visiting or standing in groups. Whole families were sitting in the beds of their pickups, the butt end of the trucks parked so that they faced the fire. The village squad car and a number of state police cars were in the midst of everyone, their lights flashing, their sirens off. It looked like the entire county had come to Guadalupe for a party. Kids were running up and down the highway. Six-packs of beer and soda pop were being passed around. Flavio knew most of the people, but there were others, standing off by themselves, whom he had never seen before. The only traffic moving was in one lane in the center of the road, and even that was almost at a standstill.

  Flavio swung his truck off the road and shut off the engine. The fire was not as far into the hills as it had seemed from Ramona’s house. In fact, it had started not far above the Guadalupe cemetery, which was on a small knoll halfway up a foothill. Maybe it had once been just a small pile of sticks lit with matches, but now it was hundreds of feet wide and flames rose far above the trees. Worse, it seemed to be moving in all directions at once and was now lapping up against the far edge of the cemetery.

  Delfino flung open his door and climbed out of the cab. He grabbed his shovel, then stopped beside Flavio’s door. He raised his arm and pointed at the hillside. “I think if I can get up there,” he said, “I can make this fire turn to the west. Then, maybe, it will just burn itself out at the river.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Flavio said. He could hear the low rush of noise from the fire, like a high wind blowing. “This is not a fire to fight with a shovel.”

  The top of Delfino’s head rose only a few inches above the bottom of the door window. He turned his head and looked at Flavio. “I brought my shovel,” he said, “and my heavy boots. I don’t want to stand in the road and drink beer.”

  Delfino’s bad eye looked like clouded glass and as the other moved, it stayed still gazing straight ahead. “But you can’t even see,” Flavio said to him.

  “I know the way well enough for one eye. Besides, sometimes it will fool me and begin to work.” What he didn’t tell Flavio was that when it did begin to work all he could see out of it was the shadow of things, which made walking about all the more difficult.

  The two men looked at each other for a moment and then Flavio said, “I think you should see if anyone else wants to go. Maybe there’s a group getting ready and if you go alone you might confuse them.” But for all Flavio could tell, nobody was organizing anything. People were either talking together or wandering about aimlessly. There wasn’t anyone else with a shovel, and even the fire truck was parked in the ditch on the side of the road.

  “Bueno,” Delfino said. “That’s a good idea.” He slapped the side of the truck. “I’ll see you, Flavio. Cuidado and take good care of Felix.” He turned away and began walking down the highway, his feet stepping on the bottom of his overalls.

  “And you, también,” Flavio said softly. Then he looked up at the hill. The sage and small piñon bordering the upper edge of the cemetery were smoking. Even from the road, he could see all the white crosses, some of them leaning where the graves beneath them had sunk over the years. Bouquets of plastic flowers were tied to some of them and also onto the rusted wire that ran around the graveyard. My whole family’s buried up there, Flavio thought, and he pictured them beneath the ground, startled at the oncoming heat and the roar of the fire.

  He turned to Felix. “You had the whole mountain,” he yelled. “Why did you have to set the cemetery on fire?”

  WHEN FELIX HAD AWAKENED THAT MORNING after being asleep for eight years, he was, as usual, sitting alone in the far corner of the café. Although it was not yet dawn, there had been a faint pale rim growing above the mountains in the east. Inside, the room was dark, the only light coming from beneath the door that led to the kitchen. Pepe, after dressing his
father and walking him to his table, had left an hour earlier to get kitchen supplies in Santa Madre. He had kissed his father’s cheek and told him that he would be gone most of the day and that his good friend Ambrosio would be watching out for him.

  Ambrosio Herrera had lived beside the café in a small trailer for twenty-five years. The trailer had only one room. It leaned badly as if hurt, and it shook even in a slight breeze. Ambrosio had first come to Guadalupe from a place far in Mexico, and he had stayed because it carried the same name as his own village. He had found a job at the café where he would sweep the pavement outside and scrub the floors and sometimes help Felix in the kitchen. In return, he was given the small trailer to live in, his food, and a few dollars each week, which he almost always sent to his family. For some time, Ambrosio would only remain in the village during the summer months, returning to Mexico for the winter. But, as the years passed, he grew tired of all the traveling until, eventually, he no longer left at all. Still, he sent his money to his wife and nine children whom no one in Guadalupe truly believed he had and whom he had nearly forgotten. On one day each month, Ambrosio would dress in slick black boots and black pants and a white shirt. He would wear a cowboy hat and then walk to Tito’s Bar. There, he would drink whiskey all night and cry bitterly and sing songs about his family that would break only his own heart. Then he would stumble home by himself, back to his trailer, and sleep without dreaming until far into the next day.