Suddenly, unexpectedly, Victoriano shouted, “Socorro!” and ran up the trail.
Lupe dried her eyes and watched her brother go up to the woman that he’d become so close to over the last year.
“I’ll walk you to the rim,” he said.
“I’d like that,” she said, smiling.
Lupe watched her brother pick up one of the twins and take Socorro’s hand as they went up the pathway behind the others.
Lupe and her family watched them go around on the main road, all the way to the mouth of the canyon. Then, at the canyon’s end, Don Tiburcio and their father and Carlota stopped and waved back to them. Lupe and her family waved back, too.
Victoriano put the twin down and it looked like he and the beautiful widow were going to kiss; and then they did, holding each other in their arms, truly kissing.
“Oh, the poor boy,” said María, wiping her eyes. “He loves her so much. But there’s nothing that can be done. He’s too young.”
Tears came to Lupe’s eyes, too, recalling how much she’d loved her Colonel.
Socorro pulled back from Victoriano, staring at him, and then she turned and hurried after the others.
Victoriano didn’t move. He just stood there at the mouth of the canyon like a lovesick dog, looking into the jungle where she’d disappeared.
That night, they lit three candles and their mother led them in prayer. They prayed for their father and Carlota and Don Tiburcio to have a safe journey. They prayed for Socorro and asked God to help her find her family. Tears came to Victoriano’s eyes and he asked to be excused. He was fourteen years old; he was a man, and his feelings for the widow weren’t childish.
Then it was time to go to bed. Lupe knew that her mother’s bed was free now that their father was gone, but she was still so angry at her mother that she just didn’t want to be near her.
Getting her straw mat, Lupe laid it out under the ramada to sleep alongside María and Victoriano. Sophia wasn’t sleeping with them any longer. She was staying at Don Tiburcio’s home, looking after her sick mother-in-law.
Laying down, Lupe wasn’t able to go to sleep, so she went out to see her pet deer. The sky was full of stars, and the young buck quickly came to her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, hugging her deer close. “You’re my special gift from God and no one’s going to take you away from me.” She breathed deeply, thinking of her Colonel and of Socorro and the twins; they were all gone. “But you’ll never leave me. We were meant to be together forever.”
Suddenly, her mother’s voice startled her. “Lupe,” she called. Lupe turned and saw her mother standing behind her in the silvery light of the star-studded heavens.
“Yes,” she said, drying her eyes.
“I want to talk to you.”
Lupe felt her skin crawl. Oh, she just didn’t want to have another talking-to. Still, she obeyed her mother and went down the steep embankment.
“Sit down here beside me,” said her mother, patting the stone beside her. Lupe did as she was told, and her mother didn’t say anything for a long time and then, finally, she took a big breath.
“Well, I guess that maybe I should have been the one to speak to you about your deer myself. But your father asked me if he could, since he has the reins of our family now.”
“You mean you think I should get rid of my deer, too?” asked Lupe.
Her mother nodded. “Yes, and right now before the mating season is over.”
“Oh, Mama!” cried Lupe, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Lupe,” said her mother, “you’re not a child anymore. You must realize how animals get during their season.”
Lupe’s mind went reeling, and she thought of her deer trying to mount their milk goats, and she thought about her own parents and how they’d sounded so awful that first night.
“Mama,” said Lupe, “is Papa really going to stay?”
“Yes,” said her mother.
“And you want him to?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
Her mother swallowed. “Very much.”
Hearing this, Lupe looked up at the heavens, not having expected to hear this. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked out at the millions upon millions of stars as far as the eye could see.
She thought of all the bad things that she’d heard about her father over the years, his gambling and drinking, and thought of how he’d left them. She felt so confused and troubled that her mother could love such a man. But what could she do? He was her father, and he was back to stay, and her mother did say that she loved him.
She turned and her mother took her into her plump, strong arms, holding her. Lupe and her mother cried and cried, heart-to-heart, two women sitting under the star-filled heavens.
It was the longest night of Lupe’s whole life. But the following morning, she got up and took her pet deer up over the north rim of the canyon. Victoriano and his little brown dog went with her. His was the only dog that the young buck allowed near him, since he’d known the little animal all his life.
Going out of the canyon through the break where the meteorite had split the rock, Lupe saw her twisted, little pine tree in the distance, and her heart raced away. Quickly, she began to run. Coming up here, she always felt so free and close to God.
The young buck ran past Lupe in a burst of leaping bounds, also feeling good in the spacious meadows. Then, suddenly, he stopped, raising up his head and arcing his thick, muscular neck. At the far edge of the meadow was a herd of deer.
“Leave him alone,” said Victoriano, coming up behind his sister.
“But I don’t want him to go before I hug him,” she said.
The herd of deer had spotted him, too, and they looked very cautious. Lifting up his shiny, black nose, the young buck sniffed the air and the hair came up on his neck. He took off, not once looking back at Lupe.
“No!” yelled Lupe, starting to run after him, but her brother caught her by the arm.
“Lupe,” he said, “he’ll have enough trouble with our scent on him. Don’t add to his problem.”
Lupe could feel her heart wanting to burst; she’d never said goodbye to her Colonel, either. But then, just before her young buck got to the herd of deer, he stopped, turning to look at Lupe.
“He wants to come back!” she cried.
“Don’t call him,” said her brother. “Don’t do it! Let him go, Lupe!”
Tears ran down Lupe’s face but she bit her tongue, not calling out. And the young buck looked at her for a full twenty seconds before he shook his antlers and took off.
“Good girl,” said Victoriano to his sister, “I’m proud of you.”
Lupe could say nothing. She just stood there, tears streaming down her face as she watched her fine young friend go off with the deer herd, racing across the meadow with big, graceful leaps.
The months passed and they worked the waste. Don Tiburcio came and went. Sophia was big with child, so Doña Guadalupe sent Lupe down the hill to stay with her. Sophia’s mother-in-law was bedridden, and she needed help.
Late one afternoon, Lupe was going down the hill to spend the night with Sophia while her husband was gone, when she came around the side of a deserted house and heard familiar voices in the foliage just beyond the plaza.
Stopping, Lupe could hear that her sister María was whispering to someone in the heavy green foliage that grew along the creek.
“I swear it,” María was saying, “if you don’t come and steal me tonight, I’m coming to your house to get you!”
“But you can’t,” pleaded the man that Lupe recognized as Esabel, “my mother would—”
“I don’t care about your mother!” snapped María angrily. “Two times you’ve promised to steal me, and you haven’t!”
“Look, I’m sorry, querida,” said Esabel in a smooth, caressing voice, “but if you’ll come close and let me hold you, we won’t have to run away to—”
“How dare you!” shouted María.
Sudde
nly, Lupe heard a tremendous slapping sound and she saw Esabel come flying through the brush, landing on his butt, and Esabel wasn’t a small man, either. He was huge.
“Damn it, María!” he yelled. “I’ve told you a dozen times to not hit me!”
“Well then, make good your word and steal me!”
“All right, damn it, I’ll do it tonight!”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good,” she said as sweetly as honey. “Then come here, and I’ll help you up.”
Lupe saw her sister come into view and help Esabel up, taking him into her arms.
Quietly, Lupe turned around. She had to hurry home to warn their mother. No decent girl was supposed to act like this. But backing up, Lupe caught her heel in a vine and she tripped, falling with a yelp. Instantly María came bursting out of the brush.
“Lupe!” she yelled, seeing her sister going up the trail. “Don’t you dare!” And she took off after her.
But Lupe was fast and she had a head start, so she raced hard up the steep hillside. María wasn’t just wide and powerful; she was also lean as a jaguar and she had wonderful, long legs like her father. Her bare feet grabbed the rock and granite, spraying the debris behind her, and she quickly overtook Lupe.
But Lupe was small and agile. She dodged into a deserted house.
“All right, now I got you,” said María, gasping.
“I’m still going to tell Mama,” said Lupe.
“How’d you like to get killed?” said María.
“I’ll tell Sophia, too,” said Lupe.
“She already knows,” said María.
“No, you lie,” said Lupe. “Or she’d stop you!”
María laughed. “Lupe, she’s the one who told me that I had to get Esabel to steal me.”
Lupe couldn’t believe it. “No!” she yelled. “Sophia would never say such a thing. She’s decent!”
María only laughed all the more. “Lupe,” she said, “you have to stop thinking that Sophia’s such an angel. She’s not. She’s as conniving as our mother!”
“Oh, María!” said Lupe, hearing this awful thing about their mother. She dropped to the ground, sliding under the broken wall of upright sticks.
“Ask Sophia! She’ll tell you!” shouted María.
Racing to Sophia’s house, Lupe asked her sister if it was true.
“Yes,” said Sophia.
“But how could you?”
“Lupe,” said her sister, “they’re in love, and what are they to do? None of us have the means to give them a proper wedding anymore. And if he steals her, they’ll have to get married, and so she’s kept her honor.”
Lupe shook her head. “But only the lowest of the girls beg for a boy to steal them.”
“Oh,” said Sophia, “and was Mama begging when she wrote to Papa to come back because she needs him? Is it begging for me to ask Don Tiburcio to not charge Mama for the staples he brings you people?” She took a big breath. “We’re all doing the best we can, querida.”
Lupe puckered her lips. She just couldn’t believe what was becoming of their family. Why, they were becoming as lost as Don Manuel’s family.
“And now I suggest,” continued Sophia, “that you go catch María before it’s too late and tell her that I spoke to you and you’ll keep her secret.”
Lupe didn’t want to, but she finally agreed.
“Good girl,” said Sophia, “and then go home. I think that you’ll be needed there tonight.”
Lupe went back up the hill. She found María and told her that she’d keep her secret. María thanked Lupe a thousand times.
That night after dinner, María got a pan of hot water and she knelt down on the clean, well-packed earth in front of her mother. She massaged the soles of her mother’s feet, lathering her palms with the rough, good-feeling heart of a tender, young cactus. Their mother moaned and groaned with pleasure. Victoriano glanced at Lupe, raising up his eyebrows. Lupe said nothing, just praying that her mother wouldn’t find out about María.
“Well,” said their mother, “I don’t know why, but all my children are so well-behaved tonight that I feel like the saint the old couple cover with their sarape every time they make love.”
Flushing red as fire, María dropped her mother’s foot. “Mama, how can you say that? We’re always well-behaved.”
Doña Guadalupe only laughed. “Tell that to the beavers with no ears, mi hijita,” she said. “Not to your mother who knows every cockroach that crawls across your little mind.”
Blushing, María picked up her mother’s foot again and went back to work.
By the time they went to bed, Lupe was exhausted—she’d been so tense all evening. Under the covers, Lupe watched her mother quickly drop off to sleep and she felt much better.
The moon came out and the coyotes howled. It was late at night when Lupe awoke, hearing the sound of quiet footsteps coming up the pathway to their home. She wondered if it was Esabel or a hungry coyote. But then Victoriano’s little dog let out a yelp and someone screamed out in pain and took off running. Instantly, María was up and out the doorway.
“Don’t,” she yelled. “Come back here, Esabel! I have to get my things!”
“No! That little bastard bit me!”
“But I haven’t got my things!” begged María.
Lupe didn’t know whether to laugh or what. She started to get out of bed to help María so she wouldn’t wake up their mother. But to her surprise, her mother gripped her.
“No,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Ssssshh, leave them alone,” said her mother.
Lupe heard María come in and get her things and go out quietly.
“Well, at least kiss me,” María whispered to Esabel.
“Not here,” he said.
Through the crack of their lean-to, Lupe could see her sister and Esabel silhouetted against the sky.
“Just one kiss,” she insisted.
And so they kissed and kissed again, then hurried up the pathway toward the main road.
Doña Guadalupe threw off her covers and sat up, laughing hysterically. Lupe stared at her mother in shock. Then to further confuse Lupe, Victoriano came into the lean-to and said, “They’re gone, Mama.”
“Yes, I heard them, mi hijito,” she said, still laughing.
Lupe looked from one to the other. “You mean you both knew about this all along?” she asked.
“Of course,” said her mother.
Lupe’s mind went reeling. “Then you also know that Sophia told María to do it?”
She nodded. “I told her to, mi hijita.”
“Oh, Mama, how could you?”
“Lupita,” said her mother calmly, “it was going to come to this anyway, and I want my daughters protected before the bandits come again.” She made the sign of the cross over herself. “We’ve been a very lucky family so far, mi hijita.”
Hearing the words, “so far,” Lupe felt a chill like a cold, wet snake crawling up her spine. She knew exactly what her mother was saying. Of all the families in La Lluvia de Oro, they’d been one of the lucky ones. They never had a girl raped or stolen.
“Mama,” said Lupe, “does this mean that I’m going to be hiding under the manure now?”
Her mother took a big breath. “Desgraciadamente, yes, mi hijita. You’re only ten, but you’re as tall as me.”
“Oh, Mama!” cried Lupe, feeling the snake come lunging out of her stomach with such force that she thought she’d faint.
“This is also why we must get out of this canyon,” continued her mother. “These aren’t soldiers anymore. These are savages, abortions del diablo! They use the Revolution as an excuse to steal and plunder!”
“We’ll take care of you,” said her brother, his eyes filling with tears. “Truly, I’d die a thousand deaths before I’d let anything happen to you, Lupe.”
All that night Lupe hugged her mother close, but she couldn’t sleep. She now realized how her older
sisters must have felt all these years when they’d had to run and hide under the manure. For the first time in all her life, Lupe wished that she’d never been born a woman.
Late one afternoon, when Lupe and Manuelita finished their work for the day, they decided to do their studies in the shade of the peach tree behind the lean-to. Two little Indian girls came down from the American enfencement and they squatted down at a respectful distance.
“These are the same girls that I told you of,” Lupe whispered to Manuelita. “I’ve caught them watching me read several times, but they always run and hide when I call them.”
“Well, then, let’s just not say anything to them and keep reading and let them do as they like,” said the older girl.
Lupe and Manuelita continued with their studies, and the little Indian girls watched them all afternoon. It was fun. It made Lupe and Manuelita feel like teachers, having the little, wide-faced girls watching them.
A couple of days later, when Lupe and Manuelita sat down to read again, the same two little girls came. This time they had bunches of beautiful feathers in their hands.
Lupe and Manuelita waved for them to come closer and, to their surprise, the little girls came forward, step-by-step as shyly as fawns. They placed the feathers before Lupe and Manuelita, then sat down, hiding their faces in their hands, giggling uncontrollably.
And so there it began; a little school all of their own. Lupe and Manuelita met with the two little girls, Paloma and Cruz, every other day after work. The girls were so quick to learn that within a few weeks they actually understood the miracle of the written word.
Books were alive. The words gave life to the written page as surely as God breathed life into the flowers and the trees of the land, and into the birds and the stars of the sky.
Then one afternoon, Lupe, Manuelita, Cuca and Uva were playing jump rope with Cruz and Paloma and singing:
Naranja dulce, limón partido, dame un abrazo, por Dios te pido. Si fueran falsos tus juramentos, en algún tiempo se han de acabar. Toca la marcha, mi pecho llora, si tus juramentos serán verdad duran el tiempo que naranjas dulces.
Sweet orange, split lemon, give me a hug, for the love of God. If your promises are false, some time they will end. The march sounds on, my heart cries out, if your promises are true they’ll last as long as oranges are sweet.
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