“Oh, mi hijito,” said Doña Margarita, “this is a moment I’ve prayed for. I’m so happy for you.” She took him in her arms. “I feel terrible about Julio and Geneva, especially with the children they left behind, but God works in mysterious ways.”
“The children are with their aunt,” said Salvador. “They’re okay.”
“Good,” said the old woman.
“This is wonderful,” said Luisa. “And now that you’re going to start a new distillery, I’m wondering if Epitacio couldn’t work for you?”
“What?” said Salvador.
“There’s no work anywhere in the area,” continued Luisa, “so I was wondering if Epitacio couldn’t . . .
“But this is the son-of-a-bitch who got me put in jail!” screamed Salvador, leaping to his feet and the cords of his neck coming up like rope. He turned to Epitacio. “All right, you want a job, Epitacio? Then we got to talk, goddammit!”
“No!” screamed Luisa, getting to her feet, too. “You leave him alone!”
“Leave him alone?” yelled Salvador. “It was you who started this whole thing! I was talking about my freedom, and you bring up this piece of dog-shit that put me in jail in the first place!”
“That’s not true!” yelled Luisa.
“Luisa, please,” said Epitacio. “He’s right. He’s got to talk to me.”
“But he wants to kill you, you fool!” she yelled, getting between them. “He blames you for everything bad that’s happened to us!”
“Luisa,” said Epitacio as calmly as he could, “it’s between Juan, I mean Salvador and me.” He got to his feet.
“Come on!” bellowed Salvador, kicking the screen door off its hinges as he went out.
“Don’t go!” screamed Luisa. “You’ll never come back!”
But Epitacio didn’t obey her. He followed Salvador out the door, and they got into his new truck and drove off.
José ran down the street, saw which way they were headed, and took off through the orchard. Pedro was right behind him. Luisa stood there, bellowing like a cow who’d lost her young. The neighbors came out of their houses. Luisa continued bellowing. Only Doña Margarita didn’t seem affected by the whole thing. She went back inside and brought out a bottle of whiskey and served herself a shot.
“Qué chinga,” she said, laughing. “You chop the head off of one of Satan’s snakes, and the devil presents you with two more.”
She drank down her drink.
Driving out of the barrio, Salvador circled the orchard until he was out of sight. Parking alongside the fruit trees, he drew his .45 out of his jacket and rammed it into Epitacio’s mouth with such force that he split open his brother-in-law’s lips, bloodying his face.
“Go on, tell me!” he screamed, “that you didn’t desert us, so I can shoot your brains out!”
Blood was dripping off Epitacio’s chin. But still, he held himself well. “Juan! Juan!” he said. “Shoot me, go on, shoot me if you must! But realize that I didn’t desert you!”
“Then why the hell didn’t you come back?”
“Please, the gun, the gun,” he said, staring cross-eyed down the barrel of the gun. “I can’t talk like this.”
Staring at him in the eyes, Salvador uncocked the huge .45 and took it out of Epitacio’s face. Beads of sweat were gathering on Salvador’s forehead.
Behind them, in the orchard, came José and Pedro, sneaking through the trees.
“Well, after we lost our checks . . . ” began Epitacio.
“You lost ’em! Not ‘we’, you bastard!”
“I mean, after I lost our checks, well, I got so scared of what Luisa would do to me that I took off. And I got all the way back down to Texas before I realized that I had no life except with your family.”
“Bullshit!” said Salvador, leveling the .45 between his eyes again. “You’re going to die!”
“No, for the love of God!” cried Epitacio. “You are my family! And I wanted to come back to you! But the rangers arrested me, saying that I was drunk, and I hadn’t touched a drop. They beat me and put me in jail,” he continued, beginning to cry. “Then they shipped me off with over a hundred other mejicanos to Cheee-a-cago to work in the slaughterhouses, I swear it!”
“And you want me to believe this bullshit?” asked Salvador, cocking the hammer of the big automatic.
Not being able to stand it anymore, Pedro started around the tree to save his father. But José grabbed him.
“Keep still,” said the older boy. “If he was going to kill him, he’d already done it!”
“I went to jail because of you!” bellowed Salvador. “I was beaten and had my guts cut open!”
“Hit me!” said Epitacio. “Hit me like you hit my son, but don’t shoot me!”
“Hit you like I hit your son?” said Salvador, taken aback.
“Yes, beat me! Beat me!” said Epitacio, breaking down in sobbing cries. “I didn’t want to leave! Why else would I come back to Douglas looking for you, then search for you, all the way here to California, if it isn’t true? I never meant to desert you, Juan! I swear it before God!”
Breathing deeply, Salvador uncocked the .45 and lowered it. He looked at the frightened man for a long time. His story made sense, but still he couldn’t really believe him. There was just something about his eyes, his crying little ways, his entire person, that filled him with disgust.
But what could he do? Kill him and draw attention to himself, exactly what Archie had told him not to do? Salvador got out of the truck, still raging, still angry, still unsatisfied after all these years of dreaming of killing this little rat, and he fired the huge .45 into the ground in frustration, emptying the entire seven-shot clip, filling the air with thundering sound. José and Pedro came screaming out of the orchard in terror.
“Don’t shoot, Uncle! Don’t shoot!”
“You crazy kids!” screamed Salvador, now more upset than ever. “Don’t ever come sneaking up on an armed man! I could’ve killed you!”
It was a long, exhausting drive back to their two houses. They were all drained, completely spent.
Salvador hired Epitacio and drove back down to Carlsbad. He had to see if Kenny could help him build a kettle and reinforce a white gas-burning stove. He decided to not go by Lupe’s for dinner until he’d calmed down. He was just too crazy. He’d break crates right and left, the way he was feeling right now.
For two days, he and Epitacio worked around the clock with Kenny building the kettle. Epitacio joked and told stories and, little by little, Salvador began to forget about all the hate that he’d been carrying inside his soul for this little man. The poor man was probably telling the truth. It wasn’t that he’d really wanted to desert them; he’d just been afraid of Luisa’s wrath. Then he’d been taken by the Texas Rangers in the sea of people escaping from the Mexican Revolution and was shipped to Chicago.
On the third day, Salvador took a bath and got dressed so he could go to see Lupe. The sun was going down as he drove up the line of tents. He had two bouquets of flowers this time: one for Lupe’s mother and the other for Doña Manza. On arriving at their tent, he braked in horror. The tent looked empty.
He jumped out of his Moon and rushed up to the long tent and opened the front flap. Everything was gone. His stomach turned, and he felt he’d vomit. He grabbed hold of the tent, steadying himself, not knowing what to think. It almost felt as if they’d never existed, as if these wonderful people and his whole courtship had been nothing but a dream.
His mind went reeling. He remembered how he’d broken the crate, and he guessed that they’d left because they didn’t want Lupe seeing him anymore. Oh, he’d been a fool. A man like him could never end up with a girl like Lupe. She was an angel, and he was nothing but a dirty, filthy monster. He wiped his eyes, beginning to tremble.
Down the way, an old woman recognized Salvador’s car and came up the line of tents to him. “Are you looking for la trensuda and her family?” she asked.
Salvador turned and
looked at the old woman. “Yes,” he said, “I’m looking for the family who lived here.” He figured that the old lady was referring to Doña Guadalupe’s braided hair by calling her la trensuda.
“They left yesterday,” she said. “They went up the coast to Santa Ana with the other people, following the crops.”
“Oh, the crops!” said Salvador, remembering that the harvest was almost over here in Carlsbad and so, of course, it was time for the field workers to move on. It wasn’t his fault that they’d left, after all. No, it had nothing to do with him. He felt much better.
“Thank you very much,” he said to the old lady. “And here, I brought these flowers for you,” he added, handing her both bouquets.”
“Muchas gracias,” said the old woman, taking the flowers graciously.
But driving away, Salvador got to thinking and realized it wasn’t all that simple, either. Lupe’s family had extended a formal invitation to him to come to dinner at their home, and he hadn’t even had the decency to come by and say he couldn’t make it.
By God, he’d been a fool. They’d probably even prepared a special meal for him. He decided that he should go up and see them as quickly as he could and straighten things out. But, no, he couldn’t do that, either. First, he had to rent a house in Escondido and get the fermentation process going. After all, he’d be no good to anybody if he didn’t take care of his business first and have money in his pocket.
These were very hard times. Luisa hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said that Epitacio hadn’t been able to find work. There were thousands of people out of work. Only the fastest and hardest-working people were finding employment.
He breathed deeply, hoping to God that Lupe and her family weren’t too angry with him.
The day Lupe and her family left Carlsbad, heading north for Santa Ana, Lupe, Carlota and their parents rode in the back of the neighbor’s truck. Victoriano rode up front so he could learn to drive. Lupe was feeling very quiet. It had truly upset her the evening that Salvador hadn’t shown up for dinner and her parents had gotten into a terrible argument.
Her mother had bought a piece of pork, a luxury they rarely afforded, and she’d prepared a wonderful meal for them. Then, when they waited and waited and Salvador didn’t show up, her father had told her mother off.
“You and your big mouth,” Don Victor had said to her mother, “you drove the poor man off with your endless talk!”
Lupe had never seen her father so angry and her mother began to cry. Lupe now watched the sun go down into the flat, smooth water as they drove north. Just south of San Clemente, one of the trucks in their caravan broke down and they all got out to stretch their legs. Lupe and some of the younger people walked down the wide valley, past the fields of produce, to the sea. The moon came up, and the crickets began making noise and the first stars began to shine.
Lupe took off her shoes and wiggled her toes into the cool wet sand and she thought of Salvador and how they’d walked on the seashore together a few evenings before. She thought of Mark and all the hours they’d spent together in the library. She remembered that she’d promised Mark to have an answer for him about his proposal when she returned to Santa Ana.
She breathed deeply, looking out at the sea. There was just no way that she was ready to give Mark an answer. Salvador had come into her life and touched her, really touched her, and yet . . . well, she didn’t really know Salvador. For all she knew, he could be a raven in the disguise of an eagle. She thought of Mark and how tall and handsome and truly gentle he was. Why, he was as different from Salvador as any man could possibly be.
She thought of her Colonel and she thought of Sophia and her first marriage with Don Tiburcio. She thought of María and her first marriage with Esabel. She thought of the two fine men that her sisters now had. Oh, love was so complicated. And when she’d been little, love had seemed like the easiest thing in the world.
Getting to the caravan, she found her father and mother all cuddled up together in the back of the truck. They looked like angels with their arms wrapped around each other. She had to smile. Looking at them at this moment, no one would have ever guessed how angry they’d been with each other just the other night.
She took a blanket and covered her parents, feeling a pleasant strangeness. It was almost as if she were now the adult and her two old parents had become the children. She decided that she definitely wasn’t ready to say yes or no to any man about marriage. Love, after all, her mother had always told her, was just so special that you had to be more careful with it than anything else in life.
BOOK FIVE
A Time of Miracles
It was payday. Lupe was in line with her sisters and their families to get paid when it happened again. The paymaster wasn’t going to pay the women as much as he paid the men.
“Why not?” said Sophia softly. “We work as much as the men. Or more.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do it,” said the paymaster. “It would be an insult to the men.”
“An insult to the men?” screamed María, coming up from behind Sophia. “Why, you fish-colored cabrón! I can outwork you, outfuck you, outfight you!” she said, grabbing the table to hit him with it.
Lupe and Victoriano had to drag María away. But she kept screaming, wanting to beat the frightened paymaster.
That night, Sophia called for a meeting at home. The whole family showed up, plus many of the neighbors. Lupe watched her oldest sister calmly lay out a plan.
“This country is our home now,” began Sophia, “so we can’t allow people to treat us like dirt. We can’t just keep saying to ourselves that it’s okay because we’re going back to Mexico someday.”
Don Victor and several of the other men began to protest, saying that they were going back to Mexico, so she was wrong.
“Papa, please!” said Sophia, beginning to anger. “Those are dreams! We must face up to the fact that we’re here now and we must take a stand!”
The women rose up in Sophia’s defense and shouted at the men, “Sophia is right! We have children to feed! There is no other way!”
Sophia continued, laying out her plan on how to cut the balls off the paymaster. She was a tiger. Lupe had never seen her sister Sophia like this before. It filled Lupe’s heart with great pride, but it also frightened her to see how Sophia had stood up to their father with such total lack of respect or fear.
The following day, they picked tomatoes, but when the tomatoes got to the packing sheds, the women in the packing sheds quit their labor. And the people in the fields came in and joined them. At first, the paymaster and the labor contractor just humored them a little, but when it continued all afternoon, they began to get worried. They were going to lose the whole day’s picking if they couldn’t get people to pack.
That night, the paymaster and the labor contractor went around to find new people from other barrios so that they could get rid of Sophia and her troublesome lot. But to their surprise, Victoriano and the other men had already passed the word along to all the neighboring barrios. Most of the people were not going to go against Sophia’s strike, especially when they were told that Sophia and her children would be physically sitting at the entrances of the ranch, stopping all traffic.
The strike went on for three days and nights. It reminded Lupe of the time when the villagers had gathered in the town square back in La Lluvia and they’d stopped the soldiers from hanging Don Manuel and their mother. The people were a power when they united in force.
The women cooked big pots of soup, and every day Lupe watched her sister María threaten physical violence on anyone who attempted to cross the picket line. Sophia, on the other hand, talked softly and reasonably and people listened to her.
“This country is our home now,” Sophia would tell each person who came to cross the line. “We must realize the truth, we’re not going back to Mexico, so we have to stand up to these bosses and not let them treat us like lost slaves. We must stick together and show them that we’re
people of value, and we won’t be cheated out of our wages. And I’m not saying that they should pay the children as much as a man; but for us women who work as hard and as well as any man, they should pay us equally.”
Sophia would send the people over to be fed, and she’d make them feel at home so that they’d join the strike in spirit, if not in body and mind.
Every day Lupe went into the hills with the women and children to help gather cactus and other wild plants and roots to eat. They continued making the large pots of soup, and Sophia’s strike took flame and spread to the neighboring ranches, too. Within a week, the rancher came to terms and they agreed to pay the women as much as they paid the men.
Lupe and her family rejoiced, seeing what could be done if only they united and held their ground. But it didn’t go so well in other areas outside of Santa Ana and Tustin. The times were bad, and a lot of people were out of work.
When things were just going well again for Lupe and her family, María’s first husband, Esabel, returned from out of nowhere. He was as big and as handsome as ever. María slapped him and told him off. But then she threw herself at him and they were like two sex-crazed burros in heat. Her new husband, Andrés, became so embarrassed for the children that he took them out and stayed with them in the garage in back. The following day Esabel and María were still at it, so Andrés brought the children over to Lupe’s parents’ home. No one knew what to say to Andrés. He just sat there, being such a good father to his children and Esabel’s children, too.
Two days later María and Esabel came to the house, searching for the children and looking as happy as newlyweds. Doña Guadalupe took María aside and tried to talk some sense into her, but she’d hear nothing of it. María took her children home and set them up in the garage with Andrés so that she could continue her lovemaking with Esabel. Everyone felt so confused and ashamed for María, but she didn’t feel confused or ashamed at all. No, she blossomed like a rosebush in rich manure, looking younger and better than she had in years and announced to the world that she was now a woman with two husbands and that was that.
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