Queen of America

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  Aguirre offered Teresita his arm, and they strolled like an uncle and a young niece to the shade of a mesquite tree that actually had a rough patch of grass beneath it. Off to the west, Picacho Peak stood amusingly, looking like a slouch hat knocked cockeyed. But only Teresita thought things like mountains were funny. One had to understand their language.

  Aguirre spread out a blanket beside the hamper, and Teresita lowered herself and commenced to fanning her face with a lacy hankie.

  “Beastly hot!” noted Don Lauro.

  “I believe I will take a sip of water,” she said.

  The boys in their summery uniforms shone like little candles. She watched them trot and throw the balls to each other. Their hair bounced in the sun. Their strong legs were quite attractive. Men with dark beanie caps hollered at the boys and seemed to chase them around like a small herd of goats. All very amusing.

  Tomás was wandering around, nodding amiably at all the picnicking women on their quilts.

  “Baseball!” he was saying. “Baseball!” It was apparently his favorite new American word. It came out “beiz y-boll.”

  Suddenly, a small collection of duffers hobbled out of the little clubhouse and entered the baseball diamond. All players stopped their hustling and doffed their caps. The old-timers tottered to the mound and commenced a martial racket on drums and fife.

  “What is this?” Tomás demanded.

  A handsome Mexican woman seated on a small folding chair near him said, “These are heroes of the American war.” Her hat was adorned with cunning little silk flowers that made her head seem to be a garden of great tenderness.

  “Which one?” he quipped, smiling at his own wit. “They have so many!”

  “The one between the states,” she replied, fanning herself lightly with a newspaper. “The big war.”

  Aguirre excused himself from Teresita and hurried forth. Uncorking a draft of erudition, he stepped up to his friend and the woman. “Of course,” he offered, “we all know our celebrated Cinco de Mayo commemorates the defeat of Napoleon the Third’s invading troops in heroic Mexico. However, most aficionados of history miss the fact that Napoleon was marching north to lend support to the American rebels! Indeed, the Confederacy might have prevailed over the Union if Napoleon’s army had arrived in time. But we all know that they did not.” Beside himself now, he muttered, “¡Viva México!”

  They looked at him. Tomás had an utterly blank smile on his face that stated, in no uncertain terms, Shut up! Tomás turned to the fine lady and said, “He remains a patriot.”

  She reached up.

  “Hand, please.”

  “But of course!” Tomás effused.

  He took her soft hand and helped lift her and held on a half beat longer than necessary. Just to let her know he could make her forget the doldrums of this charred spot. That he could see into her soul. She withdrew her hand from his grip and adjusted her horticultural hat.

  “Gracias,” she said.

  What a peach! What music in her voice! Tomás glanced over at Aguirre and winked.

  “Remove your hats,” she said.

  They did.

  “He is Don Lauro Aguirre,” Tomás offered. “Formerly an engineer, but of late a very famous newspaper man and publisher in El Paso, Texas!”

  Aguirre bowed and said, “Delighted. At your service.”

  “Sir.” She smiled, tipping her head. “I am Juana Van Order, from Solomonville.”

  Tomás dared to kiss her hand. Ah! The delightful knuckles smelled faintly of orange peel. Once again, she retrieved her hand from his grasp.

  “I am,” he proclaimed, “Don Tomás Urrea. Currently, ahem, residing in Tubac. But most recently of Cabora, near Alamos, Sonora.”

  Tomás Urrea: back in top form!

  “Cabora!” she replied. “Are you familiar with the Saint?”

  “Familiar!” Aguirre cried. “He is her father!”

  She gasped.

  “And there is the Saint herself!”

  They spun around and beheld Teresita putting her hand upon the head of a raggedy urchin with bare feet. She carried a small clutch bag, and she reached in and drew a few coins out and handed them to the boy. She smiled and waved.

  “My, my!” rhapsodized Juana Van Order.

  “Yes,” Tomás boasted, “my dear daughter, buying shoes for poor children.”

  “I should like to meet her.”

  “Ah.”

  “My boys and my husband would like to meet her as well.”

  “Ah!”

  He stood in the same spot and didn’t seem about to budge.

  “My younger son is a great aficionado of hers.”

  “Fancy that!”

  “He has a picture of her, can you believe it?”

  “Such miracles!”

  “Some huckster is selling them, I suppose.”

  Aguirre adjusted his collar and smiled faintly.

  “Why, I never,” said Tomás.

  He grasped his hands behind his back, hat hanging down upon his rump and bobbing, and rocked up on the balls of his feet. They stood there in silence, regarding the fife-and-drum ensemble tootling through a few more martial pieces meant to rouse the crowd. Scattered applause met each pause between songs.

  “¿Le gusta el baseball?” Juana asked Tomás.

  “Like it? I love it! It is the sport of kings!” he bellowed.

  Two further duffers staggered out to the mound now, one carrying a Union flag and the other bearing the Confederate Stars and Bars. An announcer sallied forth with a huge white megaphone at his mouth, hollering:

  “Join me in honoring the heroes of the War Between the States!”

  The cowboys whistled a few times. The people around the field groaned to their feet and clapped. Several doffed their hats. Tomás put his back on. The music resumed. Tomás scoffed at the fife player squeaking away like a baby chicken.

  “That little flute looks like a rolled taquito,” he quipped.

  The fine lady smiled.

  Emboldened, he added, “That flute player—I don’t know how he was a hero. He seems a little feminine, if I dare say so.”

  He chuckled until she said, “That is my husband. Mr. Van Order.” She smiled up at him. “He played the fife in many battles. He was shot twice and lost his leg at Chickamauga.”

  “By God!” Tomás cried. “He has a peg leg?”

  She opened her parasol and used it to subtly separate herself from him.

  Before the game began, Mr. Van Order limped toward them. Tomás grabbed Mrs. Van Order’s empty chair and rushed to him. “Sit!” he cried, seizing Mr. Van Order’s elbow and forcing him into the seat.

  “¿Habla español?” he asked.

  “Po’,” Mr. Van Order replied in Italian, inadvertently answering Tomás’s question completely.

  “Ah!” Tomás said. Then, in his best English yet, he announced: “Is hero! Your leg! Berry brave, berry strong. ¡Y la flauta!” He mimicked the fife.

  Mr. Van Order looked to his wife for guidance in this situation, thinking that the tall Mexican was disporting himself like a wild man.

  “My dear,” the fair Juana called. “This is Señor Urrea, the father of the Saint of Cabora!”

  Various handshakes and pats on the back followed, accompanied by questioning glances cast at Teresita, who seemed perfectly happy at a distance, watching all the handsome young men in their outfits galloping and trotting around the diamond, clapping their hands, hooting “Ho!” and “Hey!” and catching the whizzing balls.

  “Mr. Urrea,” said Mr. Van Order. “Perhaps your daughter can grow me a new leg.”

  Tomás looked down at him gravely.

  “This is silly,” he lamented.

  Mr. Van Order busied himself with a warm bottle of beer. Tomás and Aguirre were delighted to help him uncork an extra pair of flagons. The three men engaged themselves with the first inning of the game. The first batter took his stance, bent slightly forward with his bat raised over his shoulder. In
his extraordinary English, Tomás confided to Mr. Van Order: “Is look like he crap pretty soon!”

  Juana drifted back to Teresita. Soon, the men were vaguely aware of the females laughing behind them, and they suspected the women were laughing at them, but the exciting crack of the bat hitting the ball kept them focused on the game. They all, in their own ways, loved the beizy-boll.

  The Solomonville visitors were ahead by one run when they took a break.

  “Best two out of three, you know!” Mr. Van Order explained.

  Aghast, Tomás inquired, “How long is this series?”

  “Today’s about it. We played two games yesterday.”

  Thank Christ!

  “What a shame,” Tomás mourned. “To cut short.”

  “At least we’re winning,” Mr. Van Order replied.

  They availed themselves of more lager.

  Mrs. Van Order turned to Teresita and laid her hand on the Saint’s arm.

  “My son,” Juana said, in Spanish, “will not believe you are here.”

  “Which one is he?” Teresita asked, looking at all the pretty boys in the sun.

  Juana smiled. She knew romantic excitement when she saw it. Why, for all her fame and holiness, Teresita was just a nineteen-year-old Mexican girl. Juana knew all about being a Mexican girl. She knew what Teresita was feeling at that moment. Watching all those big boys with all that shining blond hair. Why, when Mr. Van Order had appeared before her with his medals on his lovely blue uniform coat, she had felt a flutter that had run from her belly to her knees. No one felt love more profoundly than a Mexican girl.

  “I have two boys,” she said. “John is the tall, darker one out there. A great batter, if I do say so. He thinks he’s growing a mustache.”

  They laughed.

  “Harry is my baby. He’s the light-haired boy near first base. Do you see him? He’s your great admirer.”

  Teresita stared and smiled faintly. Behind them, people had started drifting to the field. Small groups gathered, watching. Harry was a youth with pale skin burning pink in the sun.

  “Yes,” she said. “I see him.”

  “How amusing it would be,” whispered Juana Van Order, “if my Harry should become the beau of the Saint of Cabora!” She was not so much forward as she was familiar. That wonderful instant bantering that happened among the women when the men were not near.

  “Ay, señora,” Teresita cried, hiding her face with her hankie. “¡Por favor!”

  They giggled.

  But Teresita stopped giggling when young Harry trotted toward them, his hair gleaming in the sun, his cheeks round, bright from exertion. He had dirt on his knees and apparently on his bottom, for he batted at it with his cap, and puffs of dust flew out behind him as he jogged. Why, he looked just like an angel. She imagined a cherubic boy like that might be a good fit for a servant of God such as herself. And she liked his muscles.

  “Father!” cried Harry. “Did you see that last play?”

  Mr. Van Order struggled up.

  “Indeed I did, Harry boy! A remarkable save!”

  Harry had snagged a low line drive down the right foul line one-handed as he sailed sideways through the air, then crashed to the unforgiving soil with the ball held aloft for all to see.

  Harry laughed and took a stoppered bottle filled with water from his father and guzzled it; the water fell from the corners of his mouth, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. He toed the soil. His legs were long and restless.

  From her seat, Teresita thought he was as lovely as a young horse.

  “Son,” said Mr. Van Order, “I would like to introduce you to my new friend Señor Tomás Urrea.”

  Harry stunned Tomás by turning to him and greeting him in perfect Spanish. “Buenas tardes, Don Tomás. Yo soy Harry Van Order, a sus ordenes.” He offered his hand for a firm handshake.

  “Mi amigo Don Lauro Aguirre,” Tomás said.

  Harry turned to Aguirre and bowed slightly.

  “Es un placer, señor,” he intoned.

  Such manners! Well-bred! Aguirre beamed at the lad.

  “Son,” said Mr. Van Order. “I believe I have a surprise for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sonny boy, take a wild guess who is Tomás’s child.”

  “I could not.”

  “Try.”

  Harry laughed, shrugged.

  “A hero of yours.”

  “Billy the Kid?” Harry said.

  The men laughed politely.

  “A girl,” his father prompted.

  “A g—?” Harry stared at Tomás. Harry liked girls.

  “Don Tomás,” Mr. Van Order explained, “owned a rancho in Mexico.”

  “Cabora,” Tomás offered—he couldn’t help himself. A good drama really helped the hours pass.

  “Oh my Lord,” said Harry.

  The men smiled. Tomás slapped Harry’s arm. Mr. Van Order took him by his shoulder and turned him around.

  “The Saint,” he said.

  Teresita waved.

  “Holy…” breathed Harry Van Order, “… smoke.”

  Harry’s older brother, John, sauntered over to them with a towel around his neck. He was taller than Harry, dark-skinned, though that could have been from either his mother or the sun. He pushed his brother, and they roughhoused for a moment. Mr. Van Order chuckled. “Oh, these boys!” he said.

  Teresita regarded him from her puddle of shade. Oh, this one. This one was strictly on the devil’s payroll.

  Tomás noted to Aguirre: “This muchacho has his mother’s looks.”

  “Why, my dear Urrea,” Aguirre replied. “He looks just like you!”

  When John heard that Teresita was sitting nearby, he spun and stared. She made him blink. He had not been much interested in this saintly folderol Harry had been going on about, but she was as fresh as a damned daisy. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

  “Harry’s idol,” he said.

  He immediately appalled his brother; he strolled over to her and announced, “My little brother is in love with you. After the game, you need to eat with us so I can watch him squirm.”

  Harry was so mortified that he ran back onto the field, cheeks burning.

  “You might find out which one of us is the better man,” he said. He winked and grinned. “At least,” he said, “the taller man.” Teresita looked up at John, dark against the sky, and thought he was rude. Horribly handsome.

  “Be kind to your baby brother,” Juana said.

  John kissed his mother on the cheek.

  “Mama’s boys are the best,” she said.

  “Me?” he cried.

  “Both of you.”

  He trotted away, punching his father on the shoulder as he passed. He held out his right hand, and a baseball appeared there as if by magic. He pivoted as he ran and threw the ball to deep left and shouted, “Catch it, you lummox!” He forged on into the burning sun.

  Mr. Van Order dragged his chair back to his wife and Teresita, where he sat and patted Juana’s hand as the final innings of the ball game played out in dust and whistles, laughter and mild applause.

  Behind them, the slowly swelling mob had unfurled a banner.

  VIVA LA SANTA DE CABORA.

  Harry Van Order, at first base, bottom of the ninth, watched them unfold the painted sheet, and he missed the ground ball that his brother scooped up and threw to him. The runner thundered past him as he fumbled for the ball, which had taken on a life of its own and was hopping around his feet like a drunken toad. The enemy scored three runs off his error. Solomonville lost the game.

  Enraged, John ran over and slugged him in the shoulder, and they wrestled furiously in the dirt. The coaches of both teams dragged them, spitting and cursing, apart. John kicked at Harry. Harry threw a handful of gravel at John. Teresita watched them as they were hauled behind the clubhouse, where the dust of their ongoing battle drifted to view in periodic billows.

  Mr. Van Order shook his head.

  “Boys,” he lamented.r />
  Teresita was thinking she could beat John Van Order in a fight.

  Nine

  BACK AT CABORA, BEFORE the troubles destroyed everything, Teresita had tussled with the vaqueros like a scrappy boy. The Sonoran sun, in her memory, was buttery yellow and somehow less brittle than the Arizona cauldron of fire that turned the center of the sky dead white at noon. She was skinny under its light, and her shadow was blue as it puddled around her feet. Arizona made her feel angular, a rattling scarecrow made of bones and regrets.

  In Sonora, and before that in Sinaloa, she had been thin but made of flesh. She could outride the other children on the ranch, and some of the vaqueros thought she could outride them too. She could definitely outplay them on guitar. They included her in their wrestling matches, and she could exert some tremendous power to make herself too heavy to budge. She would taunt them. “Come on, big men. Knock me down!” And they would line up to heave a shoulder into her. They, who were twice her size. They would batter themselves against her small frame and be unable to move her.

  Teresita often laughed out loud when she thought of those days.

  Very little, now, made her laugh.

  Her teacher had tried to show her that it was all a question of balance, that without balance, there could be no control. And she had exercised control ever since—her thoughts, prayers, actions, behavior were all under endless scrutiny. If not by God, then by her father, and if not by her father, then by the People. They had once been her neighbors and friends, and then they became her followers. She felt a small chill of horror. Followers! It was terrible to have followers. But it was more terrible that part of her liked it.

  Of course, she could not control her fanatics, only herself. Balance, again. When she had followers, she was watched over by the government and the newspapers. People copied her words in notebooks. She caught herself wondering what she had said and worrying all night if this time her careless utterances would lead to someone’s death or some outbreak of madness she could not have foreseen. Sometimes you just want to speak without measuring your words! Sometimes you want to laugh and sing! Sometimes you just want to ride your horse!