“Oh,” he said, “I see. I see.”
“Good, I’m glad you do. Seeing is a good beginning. But remember, this hate that came to you so easy against your own people isn’t just going to go away now because you see. No, it will return to you in many forms, mi hijito. Sadly, it is the cross that you will carry for the rest of your life.”
Salvador took a big breath, then another and another. She took his huge right hand in both of hers and soothed it tenderly.
“Mi hijito,” she said, “the fight of good and evil, or God and the devil, if you will, isn’t anything new, and it will never disappear. No, in fact, it is the blessing, the challenge, of each new generation, so that they can open their own eyes and learn to see with their own vision. So take heart, mi hijito, and see that this cross that God has asked you to carry is good, just as good and great as the one that our Lord Jesus carried to Calvary.”
She stopped and kissed the cross of her rosary. Salvador looked at her, and he saw that she was still glowing, like a hot, burning coal, a coal that had come from an all-hardwood fire, a mesquite coal that had been long in the making and would now be long in giving warmth after the fire had died down. Oh, Salvador could now see, really see, that this old woman sitting before him was, indeed, herself, an inspired human being, one who brought honor to God’s light. Tears of joy came to Salvador’s eyes.
“Oh, God, Mama,” he said. “I love you, I do, but I’ll tell you . . . you’re a hard, hard woman.”
“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling. “And I’m glad you see this, because, I swear to you, even after I’m dead and gone and you’re old and half-deaf, I’ll still be here. I’ll be here inside your heart and soul like a tick up a dog’s ass, scratching you, clawing at you, giving you great discomfort. And every time I see you or one of your offspring get lazy and let the devil come near, I swear, you’ll hear from me. Do you understand? I’m the tick up your spiritual asshole for all eternity!”
He burst out laughing. What else could he do? “Yes, Mama,” he said. “I’m sure you are, and much more.”
“Good! We understand each other, so now, let’s stop all this and kneel down to pray so we can then have a little more whiskito and I can smoke one of my little cigarritos while you make us some fresh coffee.”
She placed her two hands together in prayer and he did, too, and they began to pray. And this was the first time since they’d crossed the Rio Grande that Juan Salvador prayed to God, asking for forgiveness and a whole new life within God’s great plan for the future.
The next day, Salvador slept in late and got up feeling wonderful, as if a huge stone had been removed from his chest, and he could breathe freely for the first time since they’d left their beloved homeland of Los Altos. He lay in bed breathing deeply and he saw it all so clearly. He was going to go to the priest, confess his sins, and even tell him about Duel, whom he never let himself think of, much less tell any mortal man. Then he’d have to go and find Don Febronio and Archie Freeman and apologize to each of them. For it didn’t really matter what they’d done to him. The important thing was what he was doing to himself by carrying all this hate inside his soul.
He got up, shaved, showered, dressed himself in his finest clothes and went to see the priest. The man of God was in the side garden of the church, watering his roses.
“I’m glad to see you, Salvador,” said the priest. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me?” said Salvador. “But how did you know I’d be coming to see you?”
“A few days ago your mother told me that she was concerned for you and that you’d be coming,” said the tall man of God, putting his watering bucket away. “Your mother is a great woman, Salvador. I truly treasure the time I spend with her.”
“Thank you. I do, too.”
“Of course, as she tells me, you are her last carnal gift, given to her by Our Almighty and you have a very special journey.”
“Well, ah, speaking of that journey, I’ve come to make my confession.”
“Good,” said the priest, and they went inside the church.
Salvador’s confession lasted three hours and twenty-two minutes and rung Salvador out as if he’d been taken to the stream like a bunch of dirty clothes and his heart and soul were pounded with stones and scrubbed hard with soap.
Then Salvador drove over to see Archie, but he wasn’t able to locate him. He took a big breath and went over to Don Febronio’s house. The big, tall, raw-boned man met Salvador at the door with a 30/30 in his hand. Quickly, Salvador opened his jacket, showing him that he was unarmed, but Febronio wasn’t impressed. He levered a shell into the chamber.
“What the hell do you want?” he screamed. “Insulting me in front of my sons wasn’t enough?”
He fired a round off by Salvador’s feet. “You son-of-a-bitch! I came by to give you a goat in friendship and . . . and, you bastard!”
He rushed down the steps and took a swing at Salvador with the butt of the rifle. But Salvador ducked and dodged and pulled out his .45 that he’d had tucked behind his back.
“Stop it!” yelled Salvador, firing three shots into the ground. “Goddamnit, I came to apologize, you stupid bastard!”
“With a gun?”
“How else does a civilized man apologize to a hard-headed mule from Zacatecas?”
Febronio’s boys came streaming out of the house, all five of them, weapons in hand. The oldest one raised his machete over his head and charged straight for Salvador, screaming murder.
“No!” yelled Febronio, stepping in front of his wild-eyed boy. “This is between Salvador and me! Don’t you see we’re talking?”
The boy wasn’t about to back off. He was the one who’d jumped in front of his father the other day, and he wanted to kill Salvador once and for all.
Seeing the boy’s raging hate, Salvador lowered his gun. “Look, I owe you an apology, too, mi hijito,” he said to him. “You’re a good, brave man, ready to give your life for your father. I hope I have a son as good as you some day.”
The boy spat on the ground. He wasn’t going to be bought off with worthless words. No, he was trembling, itching to kill. He wanted blood and now!
“Jesus,” said Don Febronio, “calm down. Cálmate. Salvador came to us in good faith. Remember your manners, we don’t kill people who’ve come to our home.”
“Then,” screamed the boy, barely able to talk, he was trembling with so much rage, “you tell him to put that gun away! No! Tell him to hand it to you or be prepared to kill me as I butcher him to pieces, the no-good, son-of-a-bitch! We’re not dogs! He can’t insult us and expect to live!”
Febronio turned to Salvador. “It’s your play. I can’t stop the boy.”
Salvador looked from father to son, then back again. He knew that Febronio was right and the boy was beyond all reason. He’d really have to kill the boy if he didn’t hand over the .45 to Febronio.
“All right, you win,” said Salvador, “I’m giving my gun to your father, but back off with that machete.”
Still, the boy didn’t want to, but Febronio pushed him back gently, carefully, respectfully. Salvador handed the gun over to the big man. Febronio took the .45 and put it in his belt. “All right, it’s over,” he said, “now go back inside all of you. Salvador and I have business.”
All five boys went back inside of the house, but Jesus still stared at Salvador with hate in his eyes. Salvador took a big breath. Oh, that boy had truly meant what he’d said. No matter how many bullets Salvador would’ve put into his body, Jesus would’ve lived long enough to do him in. Oh, his mother was definitely right; hate was a powerful force. It truly did have to be conquered with love, or mankind absolutely had no chance on earth of surviving. Man was just too violent of a species, too ready to join the devil. The following day, Salvador tried to find Archie again, but now it seemed like the big lawman was avoiding him. He decided to let it go until after the wedding.
The morning of the wedding, Lupe lay in bed sleepi
ng, dreaming, hearing the distant sounds of her family laughing, working, talking. She lay in bed under the warm-smelling covers, reliving those wonderful days when they’d lived in their beloved box canyon. She laid there quietly, as she’d always done back in La Lluvia de Oro, enjoying those first few delicious moments of dreamlike reality. She could hear the birds chirping, she could smell the goats behind their huge boulder, she could hear the burros, the dogs, the whole village, coming to life. She stretched and yawned, enjoying the first miracle of the new day, finding herself alive, and she turned, reaching across the warm-smelling bed for her mother, but she wasn’t there.
Lupe awoke with a start and her mind went reeling. She remembered that today was the day she was to marry. She heard the sounds of her family in the kitchen, making chicken mole with the chickens that Salvador had brought by a few days before. She curled back up under the covers and drifted back to sleep, but she just couldn’t sleep anymore. All of these smells and sounds and feelings of her family weren’t going to be with her anymore. No, this morning, this moment, was the last one that she’d ever have with her family.
Tears came to her eyes, and Lupe sat up and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm, but she couldn’t. Her mind was racing. Maybe, just maybe, she’d made a mistake and she shouldn’t marry, after all.
Just then, her mother came walking into the room, humming to herself, happy as a bird. Quickly, Lupe wiped her eyes and got back under the covers. She watched her mother pull open the serape that covered the window, letting in a beam of bright sunlight.
“Wake up, sleepy head,” said her mother, “this is the day that we’ve been dreaming of.”
“No, Mama, please. I want to stay in bed a little longer.”
“But why? There’s so much to do. Now, come on, get up.” She began to hum again, doing things about the room. She noticed that Lupe wasn’t stirring. “Mi hijita,” she said, “what is it? Tell me.”
“No, it’s just silly.”
The old lady laughed. “Good. I need something silly, so tell me,” she said, sitting on the bed by her daughter’s side.
“Well, it’s just that I don’t want to leave home, Mama. I want to stay. So, unless, well . . . he’s willing to come and live with us, I don’t . . . oh, Mama, he’s a stranger!” said Lupe, pursing her lips together like a little girl.
Doña Guadalupe burst out laughing, hugging her daughter, who at the moment looked more like a twelve-year old than her true age of eighteen. “Of course, he’s a stranger, mi hijita,” said her mother, “and so was your father when I married him. What do you think, that we were always together?”
“Well, no, not in my head, but in my heart, I kind of, well . . . ”
Lupe’s sisters and brother came in from the kitchen to see what was going on.
“What is it?” asked Sophia, who’d stayed over so she could help.
“Lupe doesn’t want to marry unless . . . ”
“No! Don’t say it, Mama!” yelled Lupe, covering herself up with the blankets. “Don’t!”
Smiling with mischief, Sophia, María and Carlota completed their mother’s sentence without any help. “ . . . unless he’s willing to come and live with you two, or he can get out!”
“Exactly,” said their mother, “just as she always used to say when she was a child. But you’re not a child anymore, mi hijita. You’re a woman, so get out of bed. And thank God that he’s a stranger. If he wasn’t, you couldn’t dream.”
“Yes,” said Carlota, lunging at Lupe, “come on, you’re getting out of this house! All your life you’ve had more than your share of Mama, and now it’s my turn!”
Lupe laughed and fought Carlota, trying to stay in bed, but her other sisters came into help Carlota, and they overpowered Lupe, throwing her out of bed with tickles and laughter. Don Victor came in to see what the commotion was. Seeing what was going on, he only shook his head.
“Like I’ve always said,” he said, going back out of the room, “it’s easier to raise pigs instead of kids.”
Hearing their father say this for the millionth time, the girls began to mimic him. “Pigs you can eat, but with kids, what can you do?”
“Listen to that,” said their father, acting angry, “now they add to the insult by mimicking me!”
Salvador and his mother were in the Moon, and everyone else was in the big black Packard that Salvador had rented. They were all ready to go to the wedding, but Luisa was still inside the house. Salvador honked his horn a few more times, then, finally, got out of the Moon and hurried back into the house.
“Luisa, come on!” he yelled. “Everyone is ready, and I don’t want to be late to my own wedding.”
“Well, then go on,” said Luisa. She was only half dressed.
“Damn it!” said Salvador, “Don’t provoke me! I’ve been to confession! Now, let’s go!”
“No! I’m not going.”
“But why not?”
“Because they all think they’re too good for us!”
“Luisa, please, stop this, or I swear I’m going to really leave without you.”
“Then go!”
“Damn it,” said Salvador, losing all patience, “this is the most important day of my life. Please, behave.”
“Me behave? It’s you who’s misbehaved!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you! You never asked me what I thought about her or her no-good family before you proposed to her.”
“What? Are you crazy? You never asked me about Epitacio!”
“That’s different. I had no choice. It was that or not be able to save our family and escape from the Revolution. Please, Salvador, reconsider and don’t marry her. Don’t you see? This is the first marriage that our family has had in peacetime, and we can now afford to be choosy.”
Salvador’s mind went reeling. He just didn’t know what to say. He thought he was being choosy. In his estimation, Lupe and her mother were wonderful.
Doña Margarita came in to see what was going on. “What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Salvador. “Luisa says that she won’t come because I didn’t ask for her permission before I proposed to Lupe.”
“Mi hijita,” said Doña Margarita, “what’s gotten into you? Now come on, get dressed, and let’s go.”
“No, Mama,” said Luisa. “You should’ve seen her face when they first saw us. I will not be a part of this! We’ve come too far and been too close to let someone like this destroy our family!”
“But Lupe isn’t destroying us,” said the old lady.
“Oh, yes, she is!” said Luisa, tears coming to her eyes.
“Luisa, Luisa, calm down, this is your brother’s special day. Please, think of him.”
“I am and that’s why I’m not going!” she yelled.
The old woman shook her head. “All right,” she said, “then that’s your decision?”
“Yes,” said Luisa.
The old lady crossed the room. “Let’s go, Salvador,” she said.
“But, Mama . . . ”
“No buts, mi hijito, there is no greater jealousy than a good sister’s.”
“That’s not fair!” Luisa screamed out in agony. “I’m not jealous! I’m mad! You didn’t see how they looked at me!”
But Doña Margarita refused to hear any more, and went out the door. Salvador felt torn in two. He didn’t know what to do. Finally he, too, went out the door. Luisa was left alone, raging with her anger, cursing and throwing things in a fit of craziness.
Salvador and his mother got back in the Moon and everyone else got in the Packard, except for Epitacio. He said that he’d stay behind and see if he couldn’t get Luisa to change her mind.
The pock-faced teacher from Monterrey drove the Packard, and Salvador followed behind him in the Moon. The rest of the barrios went in trucks and old, beat-up cars. It was a caravan of people. Out on the open road, Salvador gave the Moon the gas and got in front of the big Packard.
“Oh, Mama,” he said,
“I so much wanted Lupe and Luisa to be best friends. I just don’t understand what happened. They’re two of the most important people in all my world!”
“Don’t worry, mi hijito,” said the old lady. “Luisa is going to come. She only wants to scare you a little so you’ll show her how much you love her.”
“Scare me? Well, she sure did that.”
“Of course, that was her intent. Don’t worry, when have you ever seen Luisa give up the chance to eat free of charge? She’ll show up.”
Salvador laughed, shaking his head, and continued up the road. The big Packard was right behind them, looking so grand and proper and truly luxurious.
Coming into Santa Ana, the street that led up to the church of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was blocked off with a big truck full of cattle. Two huge Indians with badges on their shirts came up to Salvador. Each had a 30/30 in his hand.
“Are you Salvador Villaseñor?” asked the smaller of the two giants.
“Yes,” said Salvador, “but what’s all this about?”
“You’re under arrest,” said the larger one, putting the talking end of the 30/30 to Salvador’s head.
“Excuse us, Señora,” said the smaller one to Doña Margarita, opening Salvador’s door so he could get him out of the Moon, “but we got strict orders to take this man in.”
“But he’s getting married,” she protested.
“Yes, we know,” he said, winking at her when Salvador couldn’t see, “but ain’t nothing we can do about that; orders is orders.”
“Archie, goddamn it,” yelled Salvador, getting him out of the Moon, “that no-good bastard put you two up to this, didn’t he?”
They handcuffed him. “I don’t rightly know,” said the smaller one, who towered over Salvador. “All I know is that the law’s the law, and you broke it, and now you’ve got to pay.”
“But I haven’t broke any law, you damned fools! I just refused to invite Archie to my wedding, that’s all.”
“Well, around these parts that’s a crime.”
“What’s a crime?” asked Salvador.
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