A terrible coughing fit gripped her body and she doubled over in pain.
Juan glanced at Inocenta and Emilia and her newborn. Oh, he just couldn’t understand how God could allow all this to happen to them. Their mother coughed uncontrollably until the woman came out of the little shack nearby and gave them a cup of water.
Juan and Inocenta decided to go across town to the river and get a pot of water while the winds were still calm.
Getting to the Rio Grande’s bank, they found the air was cool and moist. People were gathered there by the thousands, having come to refresh themselves.
Stepping into the shallow, muddy water, Juan and Inocenta bent over and washed their faces and worked their toes into the itchy-good sandy soil. Oh, it felt so wonderful to get the sand and dirt out of their eyes and soak in the cool wetness of the water. They were as happy as little ducks, splashing about and laughing along with all the other people who’d come out of hiding after the winds.
Across the river, on the American side of the bridge, armed soldiers were patrolling the river, making sure that no Mexicans crossed except on the bridge where they could be properly checked.
Juan watched the tall Americans. He saw how clean and well-dressed they were. He wished with all his heart he could get his mother across the river before she coughed herself to death or became permanently blind like Emilia.
He wondered if Luisa was ever going to come back for them, now that she was across the river in safety. And suddenly, he had a mad urge to just race across the river and find his sister, but then he remembered the alligators.
Quickly, he glanced around, but he saw no big-toothed monsters, so he took heart. “Hello!” he yelled across the river to one of the soldiers. He’d never spoken English to a real American before, and his heart was pounding. “Where’s alligator?” he said, smiling a big smile.
The American soldier turned around and looked at him with real interest. “What’d you say, kid?” yelled the soldier. “I didn’t hear ya!”
“Hello!” repeated Juan as loudly and distinctly as he could. “Where’s alligator?”
“Alligator?” the tall boy in uniform shouted back. “What the hell are you talking about?” He spat out a long, wet wad of brown tobacco juice.
“What did he say?” asked Inocenta, running through the calf-deep water to hear her Uncle Juan speak English.
“Quiet!” said Juan sternly. “Don’t you see I’m busy?”
The other people in the river now turned to watch, too. So Juan once more smiled his best smile and yelled out to the soldier the next words Epitacio had taught him.
“All right! Where’s shit house, mister boss?” and he pronounced the words so perfectly, so distinctly, just like Epitacio had shown him, that the young soldier understood him and doubled over with laughter.
“Hell, I don’t know,” said the young man. “I guess you can crap right over there in those bushes next to you,” he said, pointing at the brush alongside Juan and Inocenta.
But seeing where the soldier pointed, Juan thought he was telling him of the alligators, and he screamed in fear. “¡Caimán! ¡Caimán! Alligator! Alligator!”
And he grabbed his niece and the pot full of water and took off running from the river. Half the people in the river took off, too, thinking he’d seen a huge alligator.
The soldier watched all these desperate-looking Mexicans running in fear, and he couldn’t understand what had happened, so he brought his rifle up to ready and continued patrolling down the Rio Grande.
For three more days the wind didn’t come up but, still, there was no sign of Luisa or Epitacio. Juan began to think hard about their situation. He decided it was possible that Luisa and Epitacio would never come back. Luisa was gone, just like Lucha and Domingo. Once they’d gotten across the border, Juan figured that Epitacio had been able to convince Luisa that she didn’t have any responsibilities to her family anymore.
“Well, God,” said Juan quietly, “I guess it’s up to me. I’m the last man.” He got up and washed his face and drank down plenty of water. “Mama,” he said, “I’m going to go out into the hills and look for firewood to sell so we can eat and be strong to travel when Luisa returns,” he lied, deciding that it was best not to tell his mother that he’d figured out that Luisa was never going to come back for them.
“Are you all right?” asked his mother suspiciously, looking at him with her swollen, blind eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m strong, Mama.”
“Good,” she said, smiling up at him with her wrinkled, old face, “remember, even God needs help to make miracles.” And saying this, she made the sign of the cross over herself and then she opened up her old skinny arms for Juan to come to her, and they hugged and kissed, heart-to-heart.
“Oh, I love you so much, Mama,” he said. “I’m never going to leave you as long as I live! I swear it!”
She laughed. “Not even when you marry, mi hijito?”
“No, not even then!” he said. “I’ll always stay by you!”
“Well, then, you’ll have to find a very special wife,” she smiled, “who’s willing to come and live here with us under this brush.”
“I will,” he said. “She’s going to be an angel, just like you, Mama.”
The howl of laughter that came up from the old lady’s body was so huge that it caused the people nearby to turn and look at them. “Oh, you poor child,” she said, “if only your father could hear you call me an angel! Half of the time he accused me of being the devil.”
She continued laughing and it was wonderful. Laughter, not only gladdened the heart, but it loosened all the muscles of the face and gave sunlight to the soul.
And so Juan took off to search for firewood. He climbed the steep hill behind them, searching every gully and arroyo, but he couldn’t find any. The masses of waiting people had stripped the surrounding countryside bare.
The sun was painting the sky pink and yellow and lavender when Juan decided to head for home. He was trudging through the sand when he suddenly heard gunfire just beyond the ridge. Quickly, he ran to the rocks ahead of him. And there, across a sandy hill, he saw that six horsemen were being ambushed by more than a dozen wild men.
They all disappeared into a gully, shooting and screaming. Carefully, Juan got up and crept closer. The men who’d come out of the rocks were on foot and they leaped onto the men on horseback, pulling them off their mounts, hacking them with their machetes and shooting their horses out from under them if they tried to get away. Like a pack of wolves, the men on foot made short work of the half-dozen horsemen.
Laughing, they stripped off the dead men’s shoes and clothes, fighting among themselves for the best ones. Then they took the four horses that they hadn’t killed and headed toward town.
Glancing around and not seeing anyone left, Juan inched his way down into the gully and saw the six dead men and the two dead horses. The men’s naked bodies looked ghostly white in the dimming light.
Approaching the first dead horse, Juan saw the moist, red flesh where the bullets had made big holes, and he licked his lips with hunger.
Quickly, he looked around for something that he could use for a knife. He scrambled around in the rock looking for a sharp stone. Finding a broken rock, he ran back down to the dead horse and began to hack at its exposed flesh. But the rock was too dull.
“Damn it!” he said. “I need claws! What’s wrong with You, God, we eat meat but we didn’t get fangs or claws!”
Two vultures came swooping down, red-necked and bald-headed.
“Get away!” Juan screamed at them. “They’re mine! I found them first!”
But the vultures just landed leisurely in the rocks above to wait him out.
Juan took a big breath, looking at the dead horses and men. He didn’t like what went through his mind. He was a Christian, after all, he wasn’t a cannibal; but he was sure he could cut through the men’s’ limbs easier than he could the horses’ hairy hides.
&nbs
p; “Oh, God,” he said, tears coming to his eyes, “help me. My family’s hungry, and I’m going crazy!”
He looked at the horse once more, and he saw flies swarming about the open wounds. Then the ants came, too, by the thousands. He saw how well-equipped they were to do what they had to do to survive. He went crazy with rage.
Screaming and yelling, he threw himself at the dead horse, knocking the ants and flies away and biting at the bloody hairy, hide with his teeth. The flies rose in clouds above his head as he bit and pulled, but he just didn’t have big enough teeth, nor enough saliva to get at the piece of dirty, dry meat, and he began to choke.
Rolling over on his back, face smeared with blood and flesh, he suddenly knew why dogs had such long, wet tongues. Humans just don’t have enough spit in their mouths to yank and tear at dry flesh and hide.
Laying there, Juan saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned and saw four, hungry-looking coyotes come over the ridge. They’d smelled the blood and were coming his way. Juan realized that he could be in danger. He got up, throwing a rock at the skinny, grey-brown animals, but they only dodged and came closer.
Step by step, he watched the four animals circling, closing in on him and the dead bodies.
“All right, you win this time,” he said. “But I’ll be back!”
He turned and was just scrambling over the top of the gully, when he heard a scream. He turned around and couldn’t believe his eyes. One of the men was still alive and was screaming as he tried to crawl away from the coyotes. But they had him, ripping, biting, like cats on a rat.
Juan felt his whole body shiver. Why, he’d been thinking of doing the very same thing to that poor man.
That night, Juan barely had the strength to make it back to their home alongside the fence. Once more they had nothing to eat. Juan went to sleep, trembling. He had terrible dreams of boys with faces of wolves trying to eat him.
In the morning, he was delirious. Doña Margarita, still blind, groped to make a fire and put water to boil. Then she woke Inocenta and had her help make yerba buena tea along with some of the other dry healing herbs she always carried.
“We must break his fever,” said the old woman. “The devil is wrestling with God for his soul!”
Inocenta helped her grandmother as best she could, and together they made Juan drink down the tea. Then they massaged the soles of his feet, the mirrors of the entire body. Juan began to calm and his breathing changed. But still, he made no sense when he talked.
“Oh, Mama,” he kept saying, “don’t let them eat me.”
“Who?” asked his mother.
“The coyote boys!” he screamed.
“No one’s going to eat you, mi hijito. I’m here and God is with us, and all is well.”
“Oh, Mama, how can you say that? All isn’t well! We got nothing!”
“Nothing,” she said. “And my love for you, is that nothing?”
“Well, no, not your love. But . . . but . . . ”
“But what?”
He looked straight into his mother’s red, swollen, infected eyes. “I’m crazy with hunger! And love can’t feed us, Mama!” he yelled.
“Oh, is that so?” she said.
He nodded. “Yes, that’s so!” he said angrily.
“Give me your hand,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand, “and feel my pulse, feel my power, and I will give you the food of my love for you to eat.”
“Oh, Mama,” he said, trying to jerk his hand away from her. “I need real food!”
“Oh,” she said, “and your father who had pigs and goats, real food as you said, all around him to eat, what did he die of? Eh, you tell me. He starved to death of a broken heart.
“Mi hijito, we are human beings, made in God’s own image, and so above all else we survive because of love. Relax. Feel my hand and open your heart and soul to God’s power of pure love and you will be fed.”
And it was true; as his mother held his hand, Juan felt a warmth, a pulsating strength, come pouring into him and, yet, he didn’t want it. He wanted meat; he wanted tortillas; he wanted food.
“Oh, Mama,” he said, “please, this is no good.”
“If you’re fighting it, no. But if you’re willing and open, yes. You tell me, who was the strongest of all the animals up in our mountains?”
“Well, the bull, of course,” he said.
“And when sick,” she asked, “how does the bull become?”
“A coward,” he said.
“Exactly, the great, powerful bull becomes a coward; but the horse, he doesn’t. The horse remains brave, even in the face of sickness and tragedy, and is willing to travel over yet another mountain for his master, whom he loves.” She took a deep breath, filling herself with power and confidence. “And we, mi hijito, are worlds and worlds ahead of that horse.
“Do you really think I could have endured these last few years without love? It’s love here, inside my heart, for my family, that has kept me alive and going. Love is our greatest nourishment.”
“But, Mama,” he said, going crazy with frustration, “I need to eat food, too!”
“And so do I, so hold my hand and you feel my love, and together we’ll go on and find our earthly food, too.”
Juan relaxed and held his mother’s hand and he felt the warmth grow and grow. A hot, good power came into him, little by little, with such force that he just knew he was, indeed, connected to the cord of life. His mother’s spirit was overwhelming him with strength.
“Oh, Mama,” he cried, feeling the ghosts of the night slipping away, “don’t ever leave me. Please, swear it! Swear it! You are my life!”
“All right,” she said, “you keep your faith, mi hijito, and I, in turn, promise you with all my heart and soul, that I will not break or die or leave you alone until you, my last child, are grown and safely married.
“We’re going to live,” she continued, “I can feel it here in my bones. We are going to live and you’re going to grow to be a fine man and marry and have children, and have a great house on a hill where all hearts open, just as your grandfather Don Pío had. For you are the miracle child of my old age, mi hijito. You came to me when I was years beyond giving any more life.
“Now squeeze my hand and promise me that you’ll never let the devil of doubt rob you of your faith in God again.”
He looked at her, feeling her power come pulsating into his body like a newborn still connected to his mother by the umbilical cord. “I promise you, Mama,” he said, tears coming to his eyes.
“Good,” she said, “and so now you can depend on me not to die or leave you as surely as you depend on the sun to rise and the stars to shine in the heavens, for I will live and see my responsibilities done!”
And hearing this, Juan let himself go and he went off to sleep, dreaming, feeling peace at last.
It was early the next morning when Juan awoke and he could see that Emilia and his mother were arguing. Emilia was in tears, she was so frightened.
“Emilia,” said Doña Margarita, “get hold of yourself. I’m not leaving you. I’m only going to town to get a job so we can get something to eat.”
“But, Mama,” cried Emilia, “you’re blind just like me and the town is full of starving people! You’ll get lost, or worse, killed!”
“Are you going to town, Mama?” asked Juan, sitting up. “I’ll go with you.” But when he tried to move, he fell back down.
“No, mi hijito,” said his mother, “you stay here and get your strength.”
“But, Mama,” said Emilia, “at least take Inocenta with you.”
The old woman shook her head. “No, I’m going alone,” she said. “And I’m not blind. All night I put herbs on my eyes and I can see pretty good.” She stood up. “And besides,” she added, “I’m not going to town alone, I’m going with God. And He will be my eyes.”
Saying this, Doña Margarita kissed each of them and she covered her head with her black shawl, got a stick from the broken fence,
and started across the granite-hard, white sand toward town.
All afternoon Juan watched Emilia cry like a frightened child, but he didn’t. He had all the faith in the world that his mother would return. They were human beings, after all, made in God’s own image. They weren’t like the bull at all. No, they were like the horse.
But that evening, when the sun was going down and their mother still hadn’t returned, even Juan began to get frightened.
“Let us kneel and pray,” he said. “This is what Mama would tell us to do if she was here.”
So they knelt down and they were just beginning to pray when Inocenta shouted, “Mamagrande! Mamagrande!” as she raced down the slope. And there she was, a short little figure, coming up the slope in the evening light, weaving between the open campfires, and they couldn’t believe their eyes. It really was their mother, skinny and twisted with age, stumbling as she came.
Juan was on his feet, too, crying with joy. Here came their old mother. It was a miracle of miracles. Their mother hadn’t just returned to them safe and sound, she’d returned with a bag full of eggs, milk, tortillas and beans, and even a big, juicy tomato and three long chiles.
It was a feast! They started a fire to cook the food, giving thanks to the Almighty. They had so much food that Doña Margarita gave some to the fine, generous people inside the house who’d been giving them little bits and pieces.
“Oh, Mama,” said Juan, eating with gusto, “I was beginning to get frightened when the sun went down and you still hadn’t returned.”
“Not me,” lied Emilia, holding her child, “I was sure you’d return, Mama.”
Juan and Inocenta laughed and they ate until they were full, laughing and joking, and feeling warm and good, especially when the sweet juice from the tomato and chile hit their stomachs.
The next day their mother went to town again, and once more she returned with food. When they asked her how she’d been able to get all the food again, she only laughed.
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