Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  “All right,” said their mother, pushing Juan away, “we better clear the ground and check for scorpions so we can go to sleep. Tomorrow we’re going to have to get an early start so we can get past León and wait out the heat of the day in the shade.”

  Juan burped, got to his feet and helped his family sweep the ground around the shelter they’d built. And as Juan worked, he saw his blind sister’s leg and he just couldn’t help himself. He dragged the burro’s rope across her naked calf, yelling, “Snake!” Emilia jumped up, screaming in fear.

  Juan burst out laughing. Luisa was on him in a flash, gripping him by the ears. “You monster!” she yelled, hitting him across the skull.

  “No!” shouted their mother. “Stop that, Luisa! His ears are too big already!”

  “But he’s getting wilder every day we go!” said Luisa, hitting him again as Juan dodged and jerked.

  “Mi hijita,” said their mother, “he was only playing. And, Emilia, I don’t care how blind you are, you can still tell the difference between a rope and a snake. Now come, all of you, let us kneel so we can do our evening prayers.”

  They all knelt down inside the little shelter that they’d built on the well-swept earth and their mother led them in their evening prayers as the cannons continued to shout in the distance.

  “Thank you, dear God.” She said, “We are far from home and the land we know, but still You provided us with corn, the staff of life. We are Your humble servants and appreciate how You always give us Your helping hand in our hour of darkness. I have lost my husband and most of my children and we don’t know our way. We can hear the explosions of death in the distance, but with Your guidance, we have no fear, for You are our Shepherd, dear merciful God.”

  And so she prayed, not saying the usual memorized prayers that people learned in church. But, instead, she made up her own words for the Almighty, and she spoke each word, each syllable, as if it had never been spoken before.

  She was Don Pío’s daughter, after all. And so like him, she was stout-hearted in her absolute belief that all things were possible in life, if only one was open and true to God.

  Doña Margarita knelt there, and her family repeated each word she spoke, clearly, distinctly and with all their hearts. And as they prayed, Juan looked up into the heavens, fully expecting to see God come riding across the sky on His great stallion with four white stockings. God was the horseman of the universe, after all, who rode herd on all the stars and planets, keeping them in order. God was the force that gave men and women heart in their hour of darkness. And, at any moment, Juan expected to see God coming across the heavens, mounted on a great stallion with a star-studded sombrero and a lariat in His hand.

  Only once during the night did Juan awaken. And he almost cried out in fear, thinking they were back home and their house was on fire and screaming horsemen were stealing their livestock. But then he saw his mother lying beside him on the rock-hard ground, and he saw the stars overhead and he heard the river running gently nearby. He knew he wasn’t home and all was safe.

  The coyotes were calling on the other side of the river. The coyotes were working and teaching their young how to hunt together like a family, and so everything was fine.

  Juan turned over and saw his mother’s large, dark eyes shining there in the night, and he drew himself closer to her. She took him in her arms and he was her little, lost, scared child once again. The night was a very different time for Juan than the day. At night Juan would forget that he was eleven years old and big and strong. At night Juan was his mother’s little baby, a gift from God, he’d been told.

  Juan went back to sleep, listening to his mother’s heartbeat, knowing that the world was good when he was in her arms.

  In the morning when Juan awoke, he was so hungry that he couldn’t think of anything else. So he quickly got up, relieved himself and hurried to the warm ashes of the cow dung and poked through them with a stick, searching for the corn nuts that they’d shredded off the cobs the night before to roast. Finding some, his face lit up with joy as he took them in his hand, blew off the ashes and popped them into his mouth.

  “¡Qué bueno!” he said, chewing noisily and rubbing his stomach like a little bear. “Hurry, Mama! The nuts are delicious! Oh, I’m so glad that ugly, no-good Cara de Nopal is so ruthless. He saved more corn for us to steal from him!”

  “Mi hijito,” said Doña Margarita, rubbing her tired, sleep-swollen, old eyes, “I’ve told you a thousand times, if you speak badly of people, God will punish you and make you just like them.”

  Juan laughed, eating vigorously. “Good,” he said, “because I speak badly of the rich all the time, so when is God going to punish me and make me rich, too?”

  His mother laughed. “You are the devil, aren’t you, mi hijito,” she said, “twisting your mother’s words like that.” And she knew that she’d spoiled this last child of hers, but she didn’t mind. He was always so happy and full of life that it gave her heart reason to live. He was like the baby chick that broke the shell; he didn’t ask any questions or bother looking right and left. No, all he did was stare straight ahead and start pecking the ground, filling his little starving belly.

  She was so glad that her father, the great Don Pío, had lived long enough for little Juan to get to know him. Juan was turning out to be, in many ways, a lot like her legendary father: quick-witted, resourceful and yet full of happy mischief.

  “All right, mi hijito,” said Doña Margarita, getting the twigs and leaves out of her hair, “don’t eat so much. Save a little for the others.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Juan, “we’ll have plenty to eat from now on. All I have to do is fool a foreman every day and get more corn for us.”

  “Oh no, you won’t,” said Doña Margarita. “You were lucky yesterday that you didn’t get us all shot. I don’t want you doing that ever again, mi hijito.”

  “Oh, Mama,” laughed Juan, his mouth full of dung-roasted corn, “don’t be ridiculous! You’re too old and worthless for anyone to waste their good bullets on you!”

  But before his mother could laugh, Luisa came out of her blanket as angry as a tiger.

  “I swear it, Juan!” she yelled. “You insult Mama once more and I’ll brain you!” she said, picking up a stick to hit him.

  But Juan dodged and ran, then he got a stick, too. Luisa was almost eight years older than Juan and all her life she’d been as hot-tempered as their father, but Juan wasn’t afraid of her.

  “Luisa!” shouted their mother. “Put that stick down!”

  “No!” yelled Luisa, swinging at Juan again. “He needs to be hit, Mama! We have months of traveling to do and he gets worse every day!”

  “Luisa!” said their mother, getting between them. “Stop that! I don’t think it’s your brother that you’re angry at. You’re just mad because your new husband deserted us!”

  “Mama!” she screamed, raising the stick in the air, she was so mad. ‘‘I’ve told you a thousand times that Epitacio didn’t desert us! He just went ahead to find the best route for us to take! I swear it, if you let Juan get away with talking like this, it’s not fair! When I was small, Papa would have slapped us!”

  “But, mi hijita,” said the old woman, reaching for the stick her daughter held in her raised hand, “when you were small we had a home and a family. Now your father is gone and we have nothing, so what else do I have to give your brother? Eh, you tell me. We were already growing down like the steer’s tail to the ground when Juanito came to me. He never got to see any of the riches that you saw in the settlement your grandfather built on the mountain, mi hijita.”

  Luisa still didn’t like it, but she finally let go of the stick, giving it to her old mother. She went to get her little baby, who had started to cry. Lifting up Joselito, Luisa pulled up her blouse and gave her milk-gorged breast to the infant.

  “All right, Mama,” she said, “I can see that everything is different; but still, I’m mad at Juan. Not at Epitacio,” she said, tears
coming to her eyes as the baby continued to suck, gripping her large breast with his fine little hands.

  It was mid-morning and the sun was bright white when they came to the flat, open country at the outskirts of León, Guanajuato. Up ahead they could see that the city was in flames and that people were fleeing from the city on foot. Then, in the confusion, Juan and his family saw some horsemen chasing after some men on foot, shooting at them.

  Crouching down, Juan and his family watched. They saw an unarmed man on foot, who’d obviously been hiding, get up behind the horsemen and start running across the broken terrain, directly toward them, less than a quarter of a mile away. The man was short and had sandy hair. He was waving at Juan and his family as he came.

  Two of the horsemen saw him and turned about, shooting at him too, as they gave chase. The bullets ricocheted by Juan and his family.

  “In the ditch!” yelled Juan, getting the burro and cart off the road as fast as he could.

  The shooting continued, and the shouts of the man running toward them grew louder. Juan peered over the rim of the ditch between two rocks. He saw that the two horsemen were gaining on the man who was racing desperately just in front of them like a rabbit, dodging through the brush and cactus. Juan thought that there was something familiar about the man as he got closer. Then Luisa screamed.

  “Epitacio!” she yelled, passing her baby to Emilia and getting to her feet. “Oh, he better pray they kill him before I get my hands on him!”

  Juan watched in disbelief as his sister leaped from the safety of the ditch, screaming murder as she charged across the broken terrain after the man whom she thought had done her wrong. Bullets sang past her ears, but she paid no attention to them.

  “I’m going to kill you, Epitacio!” she yelled.

  The two horsemen saw the woman running toward them. They quit shooting and reined in their horses. And Luisa, bellowing like a cow who’d lost her calf, went racing across the rocky ground, screaming vengeance at this man who’d serenaded her with his guitar after the death of her first husband.

  The sandy-haired man saw Luisa racing toward him and he turned, saw the armed horsemen behind him, and he took off in a third direction, looking even more scared of Luisa than he’d been of the horsemen.

  But Luisa was strong and fast. Having been raised on the ranch, she knew all about catching wild farm stock. Quickly, she picked up a stick and threw it sideways, down low, over the ground. It whirled in a circular motion, catching Epitacio by the ankles and knocking him to the earth. Then she was on him before he could get to his feet.

  “You left me, you cabrón son-of-a-bitch!” she bellowed, hitting him and biting him, then picking up a rock to pound his skull as he fought for his life.

  “But I didn’t leave you, my love!” he shouted at her. “Truly, I just went ahead to find us a safe passage!”

  “You lie with all your God-forsaken soul!” she screamed, yanking at his hair and biting him in the face, drawing blood. “You only came back because they were after you to force you to join the army!”

  “Oh, no, my turtle dove! I came back because I love you! You are my life!”

  “You played with my heart!” she screamed, pressing down on him with her larger, stronger bulk. “And I’m going to cut your tanates off!” She continued screaming, biting, hitting and gouging and yanking at him until she was so exhausted that she couldn’t do it anymore.

  The horsemen lowered their weapons.

  “Well, I guess he really is married,” said one of them. They laughed and turned their horses about, going back toward the burning buildings in the distance.

  Juan stood up. Now Luisa was crying and acting hurt. And Epitacio, who was a bloody, torn mess, was kissing her gently and trying to make up.

  “I believed in you, Epitacio,” cried Luisa softly, gently, “when you said you loved me and I was your life.”

  “Oh, you are, you are,” he said, sitting up and kissing her, wiping the tears from her eyes, “you are the heart of my life.”

  “Then why did you leave in the night without a word?”

  “I didn’t want to disturb your beauty sleep, my angel.”

  “My beauty sleep?” she said. “Then you really do think I’m beautiful?”

  “Oh, yes, my dear. You are the earthworm of my heart.”

  “Earthworm?” she yelled.

  “I mean, the earth, the ah, ah,” he quickly added, “the earth soil of my life. You are the rich harvest of my dreams!”

  “All right, don’t say anything more,” she said, jerking him close and kissing him hard. Then she started laughing and laughing, and he did, too. “Earthworm? What a mouth you have!”

  It was late in the afternoon when they got into the burning, smoldering city of León. Luisa hadn’t hurt Epitacio’s legs when she’d beaten him, so he was able to walk alongside Juan and help him pull the wagon while Luisa and her child rode in the back along with Doña Margarita. Emilia and Inocenta came behind the wagon, holding hands as they walked over the debris caused by the cannons.

  Coming down the narrow street, Juan and his family saw the remains of the battle. The bloated carcasses of dead horses lay in the harnesses of their overturned wagons. The air was pierced by the anguished voices of people begging for help, for water, for comfort. But Juan and his family had nothing to give the hundreds of outstretched hands.

  “Just don’t look at them,” said Epitacio. “We’ve got to get to the train. It’s our only chance of getting north.”

  “I’m not closing my eyes,” said Doña Margarita. “We don’t have much, but at least we can draw water from the well and give these people a cup of water in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” She got down from the wagon, making the sign of the cross over herself, and proceeded to a well in the middle of the square.

  Juan could see that as much as Epitacio didn’t like it, he was also not prepared to argue with his mother. Once Doña Margarita had made up her mind, she wasn’t a woman to be taken lightly.

  “All right,” begged Epitacio, “but please, let’s hurry, Doña Margarita. They have empty trains going to the north right now.”

  “God will provide,” she said confidently.

  Epitacio glanced up at the heavens. Sometimes he wished he’d never even met this family. But a man without a family was forced into the army, so there wasn’t much he could do.

  Juan was with his mother giving water to a wounded man when a dozen armed horsemen came galloping up the street, pulling a cannon. Seeing the burro and the little wagon, they reined in.

  “Take the burro and wagon!” shouted the man in charge.

  “Oh, I knew we shouldn’t have stopped,” said Epitacio, getting out of the way so the armed men wouldn’t do him any harm.

  But Juan wasn’t about to be pushed aside. “No!” he yelled. “That’s our wagon! We need it to get to the train!”

  “Out of my way, muchacho,” said the man in charge. He was a big, tall, handsome man with a huge sombrero. He was in his twenties and he had a thick, furious-looking moustache.

  “But our burro is old,” said Juan, taking up ground. “If you misuse him, you’ll have nothing!” He could feel himself getting angrier and angrier. He loved their little burro.

  “My little brother is right,” said Luisa, coming up, too. “We’ve come a long way, and we wouldn’t even be here now if we hadn’t stopped to help your wounded men.”

  “That’s enough!” said the big moustached man, and he spurred his big sweat lathered horse, leaping him forward to grab the burrito by the reins.

  But Juan didn’t shy away, neither did Luisa. They knew horses, so they held their ground, waving their arms and shouting loudly as they stared up at the horseman, standing between him and their little cart and burro.

  The horse of the big moustached man reared up, pawing the air with power. He was used to battle. He foamed at the bit, wanting to trample these people who stood in his master’s way.

  Doña Margarita came up,
holding Luisa’s child in her arms.

  “If you’re going to trample them,” she said, “you might as well trample me and this child, too, for we won’t want to live.”

  “Damn it!” yelled the man, his eyes raging with anger. “Where in hell are you people from?”

  “Los Altos!” said Juan and Luisa, together, not once taking their eyes off him. “I thought so!” yelled the man. “Only from up there, where people were raised free, do we get people who won’t bow!” His horse was snorting, wild-eyed; he wanted to charge and bite and kick these people who opposed his master. “Did you know a man named José Villaseñor?” he asked.

  Juan and Luisa glanced at each other. They didn’t know what to say. José was their brother, the great protector of their beloved mountains, the man who’d managed to keep the Revolution out of their mountains, with just a couple of dozen young men for nearly four years.

  Seeing her children’s silence, Doña Margarita stood up. She wasn’t about to lie or hide the truth from any mortal man. She was her father’s daughter, after all.

  “Yes, Señor!” she said loudly, distinctly, fully prepared to meet death if this was God’s wish. “I don’t know why you ask this, or if you’ll kill us because we know him, but yes—God as my witness—I have no earthly fear of you. So I say to you, José Villaseñor Castro was my son, and I’m proud of it!”

  She stood up tall and straight, all five feet of her, prepared to meet her fate, however it came.

  “José was your son?” roared the man, his horse leaping forward, wanting to trample Juan and Luisa. “Well, I’ll be!” he said, jerking his horse back. He smiled, pushing back his hat, showing the line of white that ran across his forehead where his great sombrero blocked out the sunlight. “I rode with him! He was my friend! I salute you, Señora! Your son was the greatest, smartest, most daring horseman the earth has ever produced!” He whirled his horse about. “How is he? I’d heard he’d gotten captured.”

  “He escaped that, thank God,” said Dona Margarita, “then he was killed in the United States—God rest his soul.”