Finally, coming out of hiding, Lupe approached Sophia’s house, going from shadow to shadow like a small nocturnal animal. She could hear weeping up ahead, but it wasn’t the crying of a child. No, it was the soft, lost wailing of a broken heart.
Looking in through the open doorway, Lupe saw dead men lying everywhere. The whole house was a shambles. Then she saw Sophia in the middle of the destruction, holding Don Tiburcio in her arms at the head of a wide beam of late afternoon sunlight coming in through an open window. Lupe gasped. There were two, great blood-gorged holes in Don Tiburcio’s white shirt on his chest.
“I love you so much,” Don Tiburcio was saying to Sophia. “Júrame that you’ll never marry again.”
“But, querido,” said Sophia, brushing his hair out of his eyes, “how can I promise you that? I’m with child, and we have our little boy, too. If I get through this, I’ll have to marry again just to live.”
“Sophia, I’m dying,” he gasped, gurgling blood. “Please, this is no time to be difficult!”
“But I’m not being difficult, querido,” she said, stroking his forehead lovingly.
“Look,” he said, suddenly getting stronger, “I want you to clean the fireplace, then go north immediately.”
“The fireplace?”
“Yes, do as I say!”
“All right, as soon as I can,” she said.
“No, now, immediately, clean the fireplace and leave before the rains set in! You won’t have to marry again. Please, ¡júramelo!”
“But, dear husband, how can I promise you that?” she said, getting annoyed. “You’re dying and I must think of our children.”
“Well, then,” he said, twisting his eyes and gathering all the strength he could, “júrame that if you marry again, you won’t love him, so you can join me in heaven!” he begged.
“Oh, dear Tiburcio,” said Sophia, “stop all this nonsense and prepare your soul to meet God. Really, you tell me, how can I possibly remarry and not be in love again? I’m only nineteen years old, my love.”
Hearing this, he gasped, eyes rolling, and his head fell back, orange foam gurgled up from his mouth and his eyes stared out at the beam of sunlight coming in their open window. He was dead.
“Oh, my God!” screamed Sophia. “Don’t die! I wasn’t trying to be difficult! Please, believe me, I love you too!” And she fell over his body, weeping huge, wrenching cries.
Lupe sank down to her knees, crying, too. Don Tiburcio had saved her life. Next to her brother and her Colonel, he’d been the only man that she’d ever really loved.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The plants and insects flourished where the human blood washed the earth, and la gente grew so desperate that they were ready to give up . . . even the Holy Ghost.
It took three days for Lupe and her family to scrape away the last of the blood from Sophia’s house. The three bandits that Don Tiburcio killed had drenched the whole home with blood.
Lupe never realized how much blood the human body had. Why, one body alone flooded the entire kitchen and, when it dried and thickened, there was just no way to get it off the hard-packed dirt floors.
Finally, Lupe and her mother and sisters had to dig down several inches into the dirt floor so they could get rid of the blood smell which was attracting snakes and lizards and other animals.
One day, Lupe and Sophia were sitting together, listening to the breeze—just being quiet—when, for no apparent reason, they both started to cry. They’d worked so hard and suffered so much. And, not only had the bandits killed Don Tiburcio, they’d taken their gold; raped Paloma and two other little Indian girls, killing all of them. Oh, la vida was just too difficult to bear at times. After having a good cry, Lupe and her sister felt better and they went inside to have a cup of tea.
The water just began boiling when a mouse ran out from under the stove and Sophia’s baby, Diego, let out a screech of joy and started crawling after the mouse. But then came a snake, darting out of a dark corner after the mouse. Sophia let out a scream, rushing to pick up her child.
The mouse ran into the fireplace and the snake followed. Sophia gave the child to Lupe and got a broom, going after the snake.
“Get out of my house! Get out!” she screamed, taking out all of her frustration on the reptile. “You are not permitted in this house, do you hear me? My husband is gone and I will not have you sleeping in his home!”
The child screeched with delight in Lupe’s arms as the snake slithered past Sophia.
This snake was no laughing matter for Sophia and she went to war, kicking and swatting and screaming at the snake until the reptile finally zigzagged out of the fire-place with his head up, tongue darting, testing the different scents in the air, and went out the door.
Sophia was left trembling. “We’re going to have to clean out this fireplace,” she said, “and get the mice out of there so the snakes won’t come back.”
“All right,” said Lupe.
Lupe gave the child to Sophia and got down on her knees to clean the fireplace. She was moving the half-burned wood when she struck something hard under the ashes.
“There is something here,” said Lupe.
“I’ll be,” said Sophia, “I remember Tiburcio telling me at his death to clean out the fireplace.”
They quickly brushed the ashes aside, and there was a metal box about a foot long. Dragging it to the middle of the room, they opened the strong-box. It was full of gold!
Two days later, Sophia was ready to go out of the canyon along with another family that was leaving.
“But, mi hijita,” said her mother, “you shouldn’t go out now. Wait until after the rainy season.”
“I gave my word that I’d go out the moment I could, and I’m going, Mama. Besides, it’s not like we’re parting. You’ll be coming in a few months, and I’ll be waiting for you across the border.”
Doña Guadalupe’s eyes swelled with tears. “Oh, I’m so frightened for you, mi hijita,” she said, hugging her daughter, heart-to-heart.
“And I’m frightened for you staying here in the canyon,” said Sophia.
“No, we’re safe here now until after the rains,” said her mother.
And so Lupe watched her mother and sister hold each other desperately.
“Will you be going by boat or train?” asked María.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sophia, turning and taking María into her arms who was big with child.
“I’ll ask Papa what he thinks when I see him in El Fuerte.”
“Good,” said their mother. “God go with you, my love.”
Lupe and Victoriano walked Sophia up the trail to the main road and around to the canyon’s end. There, Lupe brought out a flower tied up with a piece of red ribbon and gave it to Sophia.
“Here,” she said to Sophia. “It’s for you.”
“Oh, thank you, Lupita,” she said. “Take care of Mama. She’ll need you. You’re the only woman at home now that María’s with Esabel.”
“I will,” said Lupe, drying her eyes.
“Adiós, Victoriano,” said Sophia, hugging her tall, thin brother. “You take care of Mama, too. I’ll be waiting for all of you across the border. Oh, how I wish Mama would accept part of my treasure and you could all come with me now.”
“No, Sophia,” said Victoriano, “there are too many of us and Don Tiburcio died so the money could be for you and your children. Besides, who knows, maybe this rainy season will uncover another pocket of gold and we, too, will be rich.”
“I hope so,” she said.
Sophia hugged her brother and sister once more and then she went down the trail with the family that she was going with. She had one child in her belly and another in her side cloth.
Lupe watched until her sister disappeared in the bend of the overgrown trail. Wiping her eyes, Lupe glanced up at the sky and saw the wind in the trees above her and the jungle out beyond. She took a deep breath and wondered about this world that lay outside their world. Everyon
e was going—Don Tiburcio, her Colonel and Paloma and the two other little girls. Her eyes filled with tears. Everyone just seemed to be disappearing—some to heaven and some to the outside world.
Victoriano put his arm around his little sister, holding her close, and they both looked out at the sky and the land, stepping down into an infinity of mountain peaks. Like in a dream, Sophia was now gone, too, vanishing into the great vastness of sky and jungle and screeching insects.
The rainy season continued, but still, Lupe and her family worked the waste every day; they weren’t finding as much gold as they’d hoped. They began to fear that they’d be trapped in the canyon for yet another whole year, and then the bandits would be sure to come again.
Late one afternoon, Lupe was with her mother down at Doña Manza’s house, sitting on the terrace, when their mother spotted a shiny rock down in the plaza. It had just stopped raining, and they were drinking tea and eating wild roots to numb their hunger.
“Look,” said Doña Guadalupe to Doña Manza, “see that rock in the middle of the plaza? Now that the sun has come out, it shines.”
“My children and I were commenting on that same stone the other day,” said Doña Manza. “Now that the roots have turned up the cobblestones, every time it rains, there seems to be a little color here and there, all over the plaza.”
“So what are we waiting for?” said Doña Guadalupe. “Maybe it’s gold!”
“Oh, no,” said Doña Manza, laughing lightheartedly, “it’s just water drying up. The Americans were wasteful, but not that wasteful,” she added, laughing again.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Doña Guadalupe. “This plaza was one of the first places that the Americans built, and they had gold coming out of their ears back in those days.
“Lupe,” she called, “get your brother and go down to the plaza and dig up that shiny rock for me.”
“Yes,” said Lupe, getting to her feet. She’d been reading a book with Manuelita.
“You go with her, too, Manuelita,” said Doña Manza. “And take a shovel and a bar.”
“Good,” said Doña Guadalupe, “this way, if it is gold, we’ll split it fifty-fifty.”
Doña Manza laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, querida. I’m only being courteous.”
“Then you don’t want half?” asked Doña Guadalupe, eyes full of mischief.
They both had a good laugh together as they watched their children go down to the plaza and start digging up the stone.
And then came a screaming shout.
“It’s gold!” screamed Lupe. “Gold!”
The others were screaming, too, and the two old women were out of the chairs, racing down the steep steps to the plaza. There it was, before their very eyes, shining up at them: a rock, the size of a burro’s head, with a miracle of gold marbled into the side of the stone like a spider web, each strand of the web as big around as a child’s finger.
In the next two days, they dug up the whole plaza, and they had so much gold that they couldn’t process it fast enough.
Victoriano and Esabel did the pounding, and María, Lupe and their mother did the grinding; but there was just no way that they could clean the gold fast enough. The last two steps of cleaning the gold with water and then with mercury in a flat pan just couldn’t be rushed or muscled. No, it took great patience and eye-and-hand coordination or the gold would go spilling over the side of the pan. Only the women seemed able to do it. The men were just too slow and awkward, and they got impatient.
“Damn it!” said Esabel, throwing a rock at a passing dog. “Now we have gold coming out of our asses, but we can’t get it cleaned in time to get out of here after the rains, the way we’re going!”
Esabel and Victoriano were sitting behind the big boulder next to a huge pile of gold ore that they’d pounded down with hammers. They had a year’s worth of gold ore crushed and ready to grind, but there was no purpose to go any further since they wouldn’t be able to clean it fast enough anyway.
That first stone that they’d uncovered at the plaza that afternoon had just been the beginning. After that, they’d found gold all over the plaza and up and down the walkways. Why, the whole town had been paved with gold in those early days.
“Well,” said Victoriano, watching the two dogs fighting over a set of bull’s horns, “if only we could build something to help the women clean the gold faster.”
“What, a miracle?” said Esabel, throwing another rock at the growling dogs.
“Well, no, just something that we could use like a funnel to wash the ore and, yet, not spill it,” said Victoriano.
“Sure, that would be great,” said Esabel. “But since we’re wishing for the impossible, then why don’t we just wish that we could find one of those sixty-pound bars that the Americans took out? Hell, one bar and we’d have . . . but what are you doing?” he yelled after Victoriano.
Victoriano had jumped to his feet and was chasing after the two dogs. “I got it!” yelled Victoriano, grabbing the set of bull’s horns away from them. “I got it!”
Victoriano raced under the ramada to his mother and sisters who were working side-by-side like a little factory. It turned out to be true. Splitting the horn lengthwise, it, indeed, became a funnel and the rough, inside tissue of the horn held the gold back when they washed it with the water and, then, acted like a million tiny hands, slowing down the gold when they mixed it with the lightning-quick mercury.
Now Victoriano and Esabel were able to help the women clean the gold, too. They began to go twenty times faster than they’d ever been able to go before. Within a week they’d cleaned so much gold that it became necessary for Lupe and her mother and brother to stay up late at night to form the little gold balls; the final step of the entire process.
Staying up at night after everyone else had gone to bed, Lupe and her mother and brother cut up old dresses and other material into little square pieces. They took a pinch of the pure gold and placed it in the middle of each little square piece of cloth. They gathered up all four ends of the cloth and squeezed the gold with their fingertips, milking the water and mercury out of the gold until the little ball was round and firm. Then they twisted the ball around and around, holding fast the ends of the cloth, and tied a string around the top.
They began to do more than a dozen little balls like this each night, putting them into the glowing, hot coals of the stove before they lay down to sleep. Lupe loved to hear the hissing of the little cloth-wrapped balls of gold and watch the mercury burn off in quick blue flames.
In the morning, Lupe and Victoriano couldn’t wait to get up and dig the little burnt balls of gold out of the ashes and wash them off. These were their final product: little gold balls about the size of a little finger nail, weighing about five grams each and having little fine lines running all over the ball—the imprint of the cloth that they’d wrapped around the gold.
The rainy season continued, and the box canyon filled with the deafening roar of the waterfalls. The creek at the bottom of the canyon swelled up into a torrent of rushing, white waters, and each morning, Lupe and her mother and brother took the little balls of gold that they’d made the night before and hid them in the potted plants in front of their house. The bandits had found the gold that they’d hidden inside their home last time, so they had to be very careful and not lose this gold.
It rained every afternoon and Lupe and her family continued working day and night, but it was getting more difficult for them each day. They’d run out of food and had to spend a lot of time every day digging for roots so they could eat. Gold was no problem anymore. It was food that they now lacked.
A couple of families couldn’t stand the hunger, so they left the canyon over the north rim, hoping to get out on the trail that Lupe’s Colonel had forged through the jungle. Word came back a few weeks later that both families had drowned while crossing El Río Fuerte, only a few miles away from safety, because they’d refused to let go of the gold they were carrying.
Diggi
ng up roots below the town one day, Lupe smelled meat cooking above her in the deserted village. Following the wonderful aroma, she saw a group of excited people at the edge of the abandoned plaza. They had a fire going inside the ruins of Don Manuel’s store and were preparing a feast. Lupe felt her mouth water with the good smell of the barbacoa, until she turned the corner and she saw the deer hanging in the tree. The animal was half-skinned, but still Lupe could see that it was her pet deer.
She gasped, wanting to vomit, but seeing how anxious the people were to eat, she turned, going off to be sick by herself. It was one of the most difficult things Lupe had ever done.
That same afternoon, Lupe saw her father coming down the trail, returning from the lowlands. His clothes were torn and he looked wild.
“Papa,” she said, “what happened? Where’s Carlota?”
“Not now,” he said, pushing by her like a madman. “Your mother, I must speak to her!”
He staggered into the plaza where la gente were still feasting on Lupe’s pet. Doña Guadalupe saw her husband’s face and she gripped her chest.
“It’s Sophia, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes,” said Don Victor. “Her ship went down in a storm.”
“Oh, my God!” said Doña Guadalupe. “And Carlota?”
“I left her in El Fuerte so I could get here as quick as I could,” said the old grey-haired man, trembling so hard that his whole body jerked in quick vibration. “I never slept. I came night and day, querida. She wanted to go by train but, no, I told her that she’d be safer at sea.”
Saying this, Don Victor collapsed. He’d made the trip on foot in three days that normally, in good weather, took a man a week by mule. He was dead on his feet.
All night, Don Victor was unconscious, and he tossed and cried out in his sleep. He began to sweat and run a fever. The old midwife, Angelina, was called. She checked him carefully and boiled a pot of herbs.
Lupe and María helped their mother, and the midwife soaked their father’s feet and chest with the hot, foul-smelling mixture and vigorously massaged the soles of his feet, the gateway to the soul.
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