He was singing as he went, howling at the heavens, when the local federales came out of the dark and arrested him. They beat him, tied his hands behind his back, took him to the Army garrison outside of town and forced him to join the Army to fight the Yaqui Indian wars.
Sobering up, Leonides didn’t want to fight any war. He tried to explain to the federales that he was married and had three daughters and a wife to take care of and he had no time to go and fight. But they paid no attention to him, pushed a rifle into his hands, and marched him north, along with two thousand other men.
For two years, Leonides Camargo and his fellow soldiers fought the terrible Yaquis, who were so fierce, it was told, that they ate human babies and sucked the blood of soldiers.
They ran the Yaquis out of their rich, green valleys; valleys that they’d been farming for hundreds of years before the Spaniards ever came. And they burned their homes and shot their women and children. After all, the Yaquis were savages, and so by killing their earthly bodies, the federales were saving the Yaquis’ immortal souls, the priest told them.
But then one day, just at daybreak, when Leonides and five hundred well-armed soldiers hit a Yaqui camp, shooting the men and women and children alike as they came out of their burning huts, something happened to Leonides.
He saw a child, no more than fifteen months old, come running toward him. She was on fire, her arms open as she came begging for help.
In the early morning light, standing there with his rifle to his shoulder, looking over the gunsights at this little girl, Leonides suddenly thought of his three daughters back home. And he saw that this was no blood-thirsty savage racing toward him, as he’d been told. No, she was just a little girl, so he lowered his rifle to help the burning child when he saw one of his fellow soldiers taking aim at her.
Without thinking, without hesitation, Leonides whirled around and shot the man down. Then he grabbed the child, smothering the fire. He got on a horse with the little girl, and took off as fast as he could.
For six days and seven nights, Leonides was on the run, and he ran eight horses to death. When he got home, he explained to Rosa, his young, eighteen-year-old wife, what he’d done, and she was filled with terror.
“Oh, Leonides, they’re going to come and kill us all!”
“But what else could I have done?” he asked Rosa. “She’s just an innocent child and she was on fire!”
Rosa looked at the little, chubby-cheeked girl and it was true; she didn’t look at all like the terrible savages that she’d always assumed the Yaqui Indians were.
“Oh, I don’t know, Leonides, but we better get out of here as quickly as we can.”
And so that very night they packed their meager belongings, wrapped up their children, and left in the middle of the night. They headed north, thinking the authorities would expect them to go south, and they went up into the mountains to hide in the French-Basque settlement of Choix.
Leonides changed his name to Pablo and took up the trade of furniture maker. His young wife Rosa tried to love the little Yaqui Indian girl and treat her well, but it was difficult. Rosa had had to leave her home and parents and brothers and sisters because of this child.
One dark night, while Rosa wrestled with her conscience, an angel of God appeared to her, standing on top of a burning hut, and the angel said, “Rosa, it isn’t your husband Leonides who saved the Indian child; it was the child who saved Leonides’ immortal soul.”
Waking up that morning, Rosa saw it all so clearly. Her husband had, indeed, been killing women and children for two years and so, if he’d been killed, his soul would have gone to hell. Yes, it was this little Indian girl who’d not only brought her husband safely home to his family, but she’d saved his immortal soul.
Rosa was suddenly overwhelmed with love for the little Indian girl. That same week, Rosa and Pablo went to the priest and they had the little Indian child baptized. They named her Guadalupe, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, because it had been she who’d saved their home. Pablo and Rosa raised Guadalupe along with their own children and they loved her and cared for her as their own. They sent her to school and Guadalupe learned to read and write quickly.
The authorities never found them and Pablo and Rosa always knew in their hearts that Leonides had done the right thing the day he’d turned his rifle from the burning child to kill his fellow soldier.
After all, it was they, the soldiers, who’d been the savages and not the Yaqui Indians, whom they’d been exterminating like lice.
Guadalupe grew into a beautiful woman with a quick, agile mind and big, happy eyes. When she was fifteen, she married and had two wonderful children before her husband left her. A few months later, she met a tall, handsome man while she cooked in the house of a rich family. The tall man’s name was Victor Gómez. He was a finish carpenter. He told Guadalupe stories about a fabulous gold mine high in the mountains called La Lluvia de Oro.
When Victor completed his work for the rich family, he packed his tools and took Guadalupe aside. “Señora,” he said, “I’m going up to La Lluvia de Oro. There’ll be a lot of work for me up there. I know we don’t know each other very well, but, still, would you please consider marrying me and going up to the gold mine with me?”
Sitting down, Guadalupe’s eyes filled with tears of joy. After all, this was all that she’d been thinking since she’d first seen Victor. “Don Victor,” she said, “I’m not going to be coy with you. I’ve been watching you for weeks. I see how hard you work and how patient you are. You’re a good man. And so, yes, I’d be honored to be your wife and I’ll be a good, fine, loving wife to you, but only on the condition that you treat my two daughters as your own and we always have room in our home for my parents when they grow too old to be alone.”
“Why, of course,” said Victor, smiling happily, “that’s why I chose you, querida, you are the most loving woman I’ve ever met.”
Victor brought Guadalupe a box of fine chocolates, the candy of love, and they were married with Rosa and Pablo at their side. Then they packed up their daughters and set out for La Lluvia de Oro. It took them two weeks of climbing treacherous trails to reach the canyon.
Immediately Victor got a wonderful job with the Americans, building structures inside their enfencement. The years passed and Victor and Guadalupe did very well and had seven more children.
But then, in 1910, a huge meteorite hit the towering cliffs above the box canyon and the whole north rim of the canyon burst into flame. The people who lived down in the bottom of the canyon thought it was the end of the world. All night they prayed and looked up at the night sky full of stars and moon and great leaping flames. In the distance they could hear the howling of the coyote people, the last remaining descendants of the great legendary Espirito.
Holding her husband’s hand, Doña Guadalupe remembered that terrible morning when her parents’ home had been put to fire and her family had been shot as they’d come screaming out of their burning hut. All night Guadalupe led her family in prayer, listening to the distant howls of Espirito’s descendants, people who’d been wronged, just like her own Yaquis.
In the twilight hours of the morning, Doña Guadalupe and her husband made desperate love, thinking they were all sure to die. But then in the morning when they awoke, they saw the miraculous light of a whole new day. The world had not ended. No, it was still here, full of God’s love. Doña Guadalupe and her family went outside of their little lean-to and they knelt down and gave thanks to the Almighty.
Then, on the third day, the fire on the rim of the box canyon subsided, and Doña Guadalupe and her family picked wildflowers and made a pilgrimage on their hands and knees with the other people of the village up to the place where God’s power had kissed the earth.
And there, up on top of the towering cathedral rocks, they found a new little virgin spring where the meteorite had split the rock. In the distance, they saw a group of ragged-looking people huddled together in a crevice. Doña Guadalupe went
up to them and invited them to come and pray with them, but they only hid all the more. They were the last remaining Indians of Espirito’s original tribe.
An old man named Ojos Puros came out of the crevice, leading his wife Teresa by the hand. Raising up his arms, he called all the rest of the people. “Don’t hide,” he said. “Come! We must join them in prayer.”
The descendants of the great legendary Espirito took heart and came forward out of caves, from under crevices, down from trees, and they gathered in force. By the time they reached Doña Guadalupe, they numbered six children, four old women, two crippled old men, and Ojos Puros and Teresa, who resembled her father so much that she looked like Espirito’s ghost.
For two days and nights, Ojos Puros and the few remaining descendants of Espirito prayed with Doña Guadalupe, Don Victor and all the people who lived at the bottom of the box canyon. They prayed and made peace among themselves. They drank the water from the virgin spring and became pure of heart.
When Doña Guadalupe and her family returned to the box canyon, Don Victor and many of his fellow workmen refused to go back to work at the American mine. They were fired and other men were hired. Don Victor began to drink.
The months passed and word came up the mountain that Doña Guadalupe’s father had died. Doña Guadalupe mourned her father’s death as no one else in all her family. He’d saved her, he’d loved her, he’d been the greatest man in all the world. She asked her husband to go down the mountain and get her beloved mother to come and live with them.
Nine months later to the day that the meteorite kissed the earth, a female child was born to Doña Guadalupe and Don Victor. Rosa named the newborn child Guadalupe, the miracle child, in honor of her beloved dead husband, whose immortal soul had been saved by a burning child.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
And so they were now a people so isolated from the world that they were becoming as shy as Indians.
A large, dark form entered the canyon. Slowly it came around on the main road. It was bent over like a huge bear and had a reddish tint on its back as it came, step-by-step, passing through the golden columns of the dimming light.
Watching, Lupe felt an icy chill slip down her spine like a cold, wet snake. She squatted down alongside her pet deer above the pile of waste just below the black mouth of the abandoned mine. It was late afternoon and the sun was dropping behind the towering cliffs. As she squatted, watching the large form enter their canyon, she realized that her family, down below in the deserted village, couldn’t see it.
“Easy,” said Lupe, petting her young, buck deer, who was arcing his thick neck, shaking his forked horns. “It’s a long way off. We have plenty of time to run down and give warning.”
But still, the young buck didn’t like it and the hair came up on his back as he stood alongside Lupe, the girl with whom he’d grown up.
Since the Americans had left over a year ago, no one had come to the canyon except the bands of renegade soldiers who came to abuse them. Lupe had no idea what this strange reddish creature could be. It didn’t look human, much less like a group of bandits, so the only thing that she could think of was that maybe it was some evil spirit coming to take their souls in the form of a bear.
The people who’d remained in La Lluvia de Oro were so isolated that they’d reverted to Indian ways and were constantly talking about brujas, espantos and evil spirits.
“Come,” said Lupe, stroking her pet deer. Standing up on her long, slender legs, Lupe was taller than the antlers of her deer. She was only ten, going on eleven, but she was no longer a child. She was all arms and legs and long, loose hair—a young lady only waiting to get the flesh of a woman on her bones.
“Let’s go!” she said, leaping across the rock in a tremendous jump. Then she was racing down through the brush and vines that had grown back inside the abandoned American enfencement.
Sprinting in great bounds, the young buck was after her, flying over the brush and dodging through the vines. He wasn’t able to catch her until she was past the ruins of the last American building and they came to the foliage at the bottom of the creek.
Going up the opposite embankment, the young buck flew past Lupe as they entered the plaza which was also overgrown with vines and weeds and thick tree roots. Here, the young deer stopped and glanced about cautiously. The stores were all boarded up. Hardly anyone lived in the plaza anymore, but there were still some stray dogs about, so the deer was very wary.
“It’s all right,” said Lupe, coming up beside her deer. She was hardly out of breath. “The dogs won’t hurt you. You have your horns now.”
Once, a few months back when he hadn’t had any antlers, two dogs had cornered Lupe’s deer and almost killed him. Now, with his forked horns, Lupe was sure that he could gut any dog in a minute.
Just then, Lupe saw Rose-Mary running down along the side of her house, holding up the ends of her long, beautiful dress. Her mother was right behind her, shouting.
“Rose-Mary, you come back here this instant and help me with the laundry!”
“No,” said Rose-Mary. “I wasn’t brought up to be a laundry woman!”
“Was I?” snapped the old woman. “You come back here and help me, or I’ll tell your father!”
“So what? Tell him!” shouted Rose-Mary. “I don’t care!”
Turning, she saw Lupe with her deer. “And what are you staring at?”
Rose-Mary was thirteen, a fully-developed woman, but Lupe stood half a head taller.
“Nothing,” said Lupe. “I was just coming to give warning. A strange-looking red beast has come into our canyon on the main road.”
“Does it walk like a man?” asked Rose-Mary, turning to her mother. Lupe nodded. “Oh, my God, Mama!” said Rose-Mary fearfully. “Lupe has seen the devil, and he’s coming our way!”
“Good,” said the old woman, lugging the basket of laundry. “I hope he grabs you by your fine hair and thrashes you until you learn respect!”
Rose-Mary laughed. “You didn’t really see anything, did you?” she asked, smiling coyly at Lupe.
“Yes, I did,” she said. “And here he comes!” she screamed, taking off across the plaza. Rose-Mary’s eyes filled with terror. Smiling, Lupe continued up the steep steps to Doña Manza’s house, three at a time. “Manuelita! Manuelita!” she shouted, coming to Doña Manza’s house. “A bear-like thing has just entered the canyon up on the main road.”
Manuelita and her sisters and brothers rushed out.
“But what is it?” asked Manuelita.
“I don’t know,” said Lupe, shrugging. “The sun’s going down, so it was hard to tell. But from up above our home, maybe we’ll be able to tell.” She continued racing up the pathway through the deserted houses to their own lean-to.
“Mama! Mama!” she yelled, coming under the ramada of their lean-to. “Something has just entered our canyon!”
“Bandits?” asked Victoriano, grabbing his machete.
“No,” said Lupe, “it looks more like a big bear walking on two legs.”
Sophia laughed. “Or the devil coming in the form of a bear to steal our soul!” she said, enjoying herself.
“Don’t make fun!” cried out Carlota. “Or el diablo really will come and snatch our souls away!”
Victoriano went out the back, climbing up on their boulder. “Come up here,” he said. “I can see it! And it is big! But it’s too dark to make out what it is!”
Lupe and her mother and sisters climbed up on the boulder with Victoriano and they could see the strange dark form in the distance, coming step-by-step down the main road that circled the canyon above the village, going around to the abandoned American compound. Whatever it was, it was huge, the size of an enormous bear. The whole family kept their eyes on the creature as it passed under the shadow of the great cliffs, slipping through the last few remaining slender columns of golden light.
By now every dog and all of la gente in the village were up on rocks, watching the large, dark, bent-over cr
eature. It was coming down the road without any sign of fear or caution.
The dogs began to bark, and the people made the sign of the cross over themselves. Doña Guadalupe brought out her rosary and Lupe began to finger the small cross she wore about her neck.
Now the bear-like form was coming out from the shadow of the first peak of the cathedral rocks, entering a pool of light that shone down into the canyon between the first two peaks.
Lupe felt her heart pounding. This was going to be their first good chance to see what this creature really was.
“What is it?” asked Socorro, climbing up the side of the boulder. Her twins tried scrambling up the rock after their mother. Victoriano picked up one of the little boys, pushing up the other as he followed Socorro.
The large creature came into a pool of light, illuminating its dark form. Suddenly, without question, they could all see that it wasn’t a bear at all. No, it was a human being, carrying a huge load on his back wrapped in a red Indian blanket.
Lupe’s heart came out of hiding and she glanced up at the towering cathedral rocks, thanking God. Lately, all the talk of brujas and espantos had made it very difficult for Lupe to believe in anything good outside of their canyon.
“Whoever he is, he’s a big man,” said Victoriano.
“And strong,” added María. “Look at the size of that load.”
“Could he be one of the americanos,” asked Socorro, “coming back to re-open the mine?”
María laughed. “When have you ever seen an americano carry anything when he has us to do it for him?”
They all laughed, except Victoriano. Protectively, he put his arm around Socorro’s shoulder.
Seeing this, Carlota winked at Sophia, nudging her. But Sophia gave Carlota the mean eye, telling her to stop it and to not embarrass Victoriano, who in the last year had become very close to Socorro.
“Well, if it’s not an americano,” continued Socorro, “then I hope it’s someone that my family has sent for me. I just can’t go on being a burden to you people.”
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