Queen of America

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  “Whatever you say,” he said.

  “You’re goddamned right, whatever I say, desgraciado!” Tomás was red in the face. He threw another kick at Wo’i. “And take this jackal with you!”

  Guadalupe made kissing sounds at the dog and backed away. He winked at Teresita and walked, very slowly, down the slope. Wo’i followed, casting accusatory looks at them over his shoulder.

  “Who—in the hell—was that,” Tomás said, not really asking. He stomped inside, and she could hear him buckling on his gunbelt. He stormed around in there, shouting: “Coffee! Where is my newspaper! Did I or did I not just ask politely for some coffee!”

  A mother with a shawl over her head came forward, bent at the waist. She struggled from the gate to the porch. Her body moved with painful, mechanical ticktocks, like the pendulum of an old clock. Her face was gray. Her brow was knotted. Teresita saw the shadows of clouds around her head. She was dying.

  She called, “Santa Teresa. I have an issue of blood. I have great pain.”

  Teresita wiped her hands on a cloth and raised them to the woman.

  Oh, day of sunlight unfurling in waves like golden curtains in the breeze, day of white tree trunks and golden leaves, day of the river ringing in small bells and singing in voices from the back of a church; butterflies blew up from the gardens like colored paper; the air was sharp, almost cold, and it carried the scents of cut wood, smoke, flowers and animal dung, snow far above them, and water. The distant, amusing tang of a skunk wafted down the valley. Wo’i was apparently chasing another poor cowboy across a field—his demented barking echoed off the barn and the mill until the shriek of the spinning blades cutting pine trunks drowned him out.

  “Come to me,” she said. “I will ease your hurt.”

  The woman winced up the steps. Teresita did not help her. She watched the struggle, judging it. The woman said, “I have brought you a gift.” She extended a cloth wrapped around sweetgrass and sage. Teresita claimed it without a word. She took the woman’s hand and helped her sit gingerly in the chair. Teresita could smell the blood under her skirt.

  “Ay,” the woman said.

  “Shh.”

  They sat quietly for a moment.

  Teresita rose and stood before her.

  “I am here,” she said. “You are with me. Here, now. This pain, this disease—they were with you yesterday. But you are with me today. And here, there is no room for your pain. We invite it to go home.”

  She put her hands on either side of this harried, plain woman’s face.

  “You are so pretty,” she said.

  She ran her thumbs down either side of her face, sliding the wrinkled and beaten skin until it lay smooth.

  “Blessed among women,” Teresita said.

  She kissed the woman’s forehead.

  “Daughter of God.”

  The woman was baffled, even alarmed. She had never been praised. She had never been blessed in this fashion. She trembled.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I will if you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  She squeezed the woman’s face and gently shook her head, slowly, almost imperceptibly.

  “You,” Teresita said in a whisper, “are holy. You are worthy of this day.”

  Teresita stared in her eyes as if she were going to enter her head through them and live there. The woman didn’t blink. Teresita smiled at her.

  “Do not be afraid,” she said.

  “I… am not.”

  “Good.”

  “I believe.”

  “Good.”

  She knelt at the woman’s feet. Her knees popped. She smiled.

  “Did you hear that?”

  The woman found herself laughing. She had not laughed in weeks because the pain was so great. And the shame. The cloths under her skirt were already full.

  Teresita shook her head.

  “The knees are the first to go,” she said.

  “The knees and the hips!”

  “Oh, I know it. Being a woman… hmm.” Teresita shook her head again. They were both laughing as if they were at a garden party.

  “Have an orange slice,” Teresita said.

  She put her left hand out and pressed it against the woman’s belly. With her right hand, she made signs over the woman’s head. She never got to the orange slices. She gasped and closed her eyes. She opened them and stared above the valley.

  She could see eagles far over the peaks, and they were circling slowly in the endless wind.

  Heat moved up her torso.

  The woman’s knees slammed shut, then sprang open.

  Teresita touched her head.

  “Oh,” the woman said, and she began to weep.

  “God,” Teresita said, “give this mother back her blood.”

  Teresita could feel the sickness inside the womb swarming up the insides of her arms like dull brown smoke. She felt weak. It slithered, the smoke becoming a snake. The sickness coiled inside her, and she would have to pray and cleanse herself to move it out into the mud where it belonged. She dropped her head and reached out into the woman’s agony and took hold of the slippery knot of the heart of the illness. It wanted to escape, to hide elsewhere in its victim, but Teresita’s authority was complete. Her hands were tingling, burning with life. Her will could not be denied. “Come now,” she said. “Come now and leave this good woman in peace.”

  The woman cried out once. She sobbed.

  “Pain?” asked Teresita.

  “Relief.”

  The woman hung her head down until it rested on Teresita’s shoulder. Teresita put her arms around the slender shoulders. The woman’s breath was bitter, but Teresita knew it would sweeten day by day.

  “I love you,” the woman said.

  Tomás watched from the doorway and then silently crept back into the house.

  Twenty-Nine

  FIFTY DONKEYS ARRIVED IN a grouchy pack train led by arrieros from New Mexico who did not spare the whip. They came up the mountains in a straggling atajo, the old-time mule trains Tomás had once seen in the Yaqui hills of Sonora. Everything reminded him of everything else; his mind fluttered and flew, seemingly out of his skull, as it took in the great world. The thought of money brought it right back, however, to perch and focus where it belonged.

  The arrieros were a scruffy bunch, and they hobbled about on bandy legs as if barely capable of walking. Once they were off the backs of their yellow-eyed mules, they were like crabs. They asked for food, pay, and a place to sleep. They called the bunks in the worker’s dormitory cootie cages. Nobody knew what they were talking about.

  Tomás immediately deployed the donkeys with fifty men leading into the hills. Each donkey had its own aparejo packsaddle, ready to carry its load of wood. Teresita guided wood scavengers to the many valleys, canyons, and wilderness defiles where she had found hundreds of fallen trees and old trunks ready to be collected and trimmed for firewood. It was an army. Among these wood hunters rode Guadalupe, but Teresita ignored him. Her father had made it quite clear that fraternizing with the workers was forbidden. The humor in this situation was not lost on her.

  The year 1899.

  A long season of peace. Four years in one place—it was hard to imagine. Teresita told Anita, “I wish life would speed up.” Wisely, Anita said, “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.” As Don Lauro Aguirre might have stated in one of his broadsides, The fair sisters of the mountains were about to learn whether this desire was wise or not.

  Aguirre had shipped a phonographic machine to Tomás. It was a sensation. No one in Clifton had ever seen such a device. They gathered in the parlor and requested the tune—the only tune—to be played again and again. Assenting, Tomás inserted the red wax cylinder in the maw of the contraption and spun its handle, whereupon the trebly notes of “A Hot Time in the Old Town” assaulted their ears. Gabriela found it quite irritating, but Teresita was utterly fascinated by this new technology. Later that year, the newest popular song in Amer
ica arrived by post: “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away.”

  “¿Qué es un Wabash?” Tomás wanted to know.

  The fame of the phonograph was so wide that it lured the Van Orders up from the flats to listen. It was a pleasant visit, with Juana and Teresita dancing to the herky-jerky music as the men drank, smoked, guffawed, and boasted. There had been no word from wicked John for a year, but Harry, Teresita’s beau, had found true love and hoped to marry an Irish girl. Teresita hid her distress.

  The Urreas also acquired the latest scientific breakthroughs—cold cereal and aspirin. Gaby could not get enough of the flaked corn, and she ate bowls of it for breakfast and lunch, much to Tomás’s disgust. “Vegetarian!” he accused. Aspirin was of great interest to Teresita, for it offered to do some of her heavy work by way of a small pill. She welcomed it, testing its simplicity with her own monthly stomach pains, and found it did work.

  They received magazines: the hilarious humor compendium Life; Gaby’s favorite, Good Housekeeping; Teresita and Anita’s delight, National Geographic; and Tomás’s sacred McClure’s. The occasional Sears, Roebuck catalogue came, and Segundo enjoyed sneaking peeks at the drawings of women in their underwear.

  Life was so good that nobody even noticed the Spanish-American War had come and gone the year before. “Spaniards? Cubans?” Tomás said. “Pah!”

  They were not left alone. Visitors to the Anglo mine owners and businessmen of Morenci and Clifton were inclined to stop by the Urrea ranch to see the “Girl Saint” they had read about in the newspapers. Dr. Burtch brought them to dinner, and Anita and the other children were constantly dolled up in precious outfits and made to parade about in rosy-cheeked, silent performances for heavily scented, high-hat-wearing gringos. The Englishmen, mine managers mostly, were hilarious. They had a faint stiffness about them that repeatedly parted like a curtain to reveal a stinging wit. The Irish were more like Mexicans and quite comfortable to be around. New Yorkers fascinated Teresita most; their funny, honking accents, yes—but also their head-spinning sophistication, the way they simply owned the room when they entered. They lived in her dream city, city of mystery and culture, towers, and, she had heard, a park full of tigers and bears.

  Everyone loved the scratchy music machine.

  Teresita stepped out onto the porch to escape one such crowded music party. The night was heavy with crickets and night birds. Frogs in the shallows raised a wild hosanna. She fanned herself—who knew that fine Englishmen and rich bankers could be so hot and sweaty? Life was full of wonders.

  She sat on the steps of the porch.

  And he was there.

  “Cúquis,” he said.

  “Lupe.”

  He was tall against the stars.

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “I see. Waiting like a coyote to strike his prey.”

  He was startled by this.

  “I don’t see it that way,” he said.

  Guadalupe Rodriguez kept to himself. He worked harder than any three of the other men together. But he seldom spoke or joined in the workers’ celebrations. He stayed away from town, and he avoided church. Nobody even knew where he came from—he’d just appeared one day, carrying an ax and heading into the woods. He kicked a squat former shrimper from New Orleans out of his bunk and moved in and took a tin plate at feeding time and scooped up three servings of beans. He had a Winchester ’73 that was bright and well oiled, and he produced a very old Buntline Special revolver that was about as long as Wo’i’s leg. “Touch these,” he said to the other workers one night, “and you die.”

  “Right,” one of the men said in the dark. “Good night to you too.”

  Later:

  “Pendejo.”

  The men snickered in their cots, but they did not touch Lupe’s weapons.

  Segundo assumed Tomás had hired him. Tomás thought Lupe was one of Segundo’s Neanderthal henchmen. He just got in line on payday and accepted his small pouch of coins and went back to the bunkhouse to sleep.

  She felt a thrill when she saw him. It made her feel strong to ignore him. But she longed to hear that accent, those occasional words in the mother tongue.

  “I want to be with you,” he said.

  “You are right there.”

  “No. With you.”

  “Who else are you with, Lupe?”

  “You think you are funny.”

  “I know I am funny.”

  He crossed his arms, kicked at the dirt.

  “How’s the dog?” she asked.

  “He ran away.”

  “Shame. He was the best part of you.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Am I?”

  He blew air out in a near whistle.

  “Your father hates me,” he said, perhaps angling for sympathy.

  “Yep.”

  This took him aback as well.

  “If he catches you creeping around here,” she said, “he will ventilate you.”

  He snorted.

  “I am a bad man,” he said.

  “I believe that.”

  “I can’t be chased away so easily,” he boasted.

  She rubbed her face with both hands. Boys, boys, boys. How many boasts would she have to endure before she died? She stood, brushed off the back of her skirt, squared herself, and faced his shadowy bulk.

  “Lupe?” she said. “You will have to do better than that.” She yawned. “Frankly, that bored me. Now go away. Your mommy is calling.”

  She went inside and slammed the door.

  She was smiling as the next round of dancing began.

  The next time she saw him was down along the San Francisco’s banks; she’d been following the river away from Clifton. It cut and wandered in these mountains on its way. It was rocky, hot, then turned a corner and fell in among cottonwoods and slanting pines and turned cool. Flowers exploded on the edges of the shade—blue and yellow, visited by fluttering little paper confetti that revealed itself to be butterflies and red dragon-flies and golden-eyed water flies with great delicate wings. Wasps with hard stone-yellow backs fussed busily among the wild anise and watercress plants, snipping and scooping balls of mud from the black shore. Teresita could see small golden glitters in the mud. Rich dust of ore tumbling unseen out of the peaks. She loved that the wasps’ nests would be decorated with gold and copper, the finest walls in the entire region.

  As she walked near reeds, small frogs launched themselves with chirps of alarm, her stroll seeming to set off a great green popcorn cook-off.

  Out of sight of the rancho, she found a place between the roots of an old oak that formed a seat. She nestled in it and rested her spine against the trunk of the tree. She asked the oak what it thought of the day. Tomás would have suggested she be committed to an asylum if he heard that, but she knew that one’s back should often press against a great wise tree. She could feel its profound age and patience through the cotton of her blouse. Besides, it was comfortable. Bees worked the weeds all around her. Humming and muttering. The water’s whisper. The birds. The sun. She closed her eyes.

  Something woke her. Her eyes opened slowly. She smiled at the day. She stretched. Her bones creaked, and she yawned, wide as a cat.

  She looked downstream, and here he came. She could see his hat above the reeds. His oddly bouncing gait, the force of his movement. His head was down, his hat covering his face. He didn’t seem to know she was there. He was carrying something.

  He stepped through the wall of reeds and stopped. He carried a fawn in his arms. It still bore white speckles on its tawny back. It was tiny in his great embrace. The fawn turned and looked at her.

  Lupe grinned up at her.

  “Saint,” he said.

  He came forth and knelt and gently put the fawn down before her on wobbly legs.

  He stroked its neck. Teresita put out her hand—the fawn licked it.

  “Malichi,” Lupe said softly—little fawn. “Dogs got his mother.”

  She put her hand on its back
. It nudged her with its nose.

  “Here we are in the huya,” he said. The wilderness. She looked at him. “Things happen. Sad things.”

  She was in love with the tiny deer.

  “Can you save him?” Lupe asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  He nodded.

  “I will carry him for you,” he said and took the fawn back in his arms and rose taller than the trees. He put out one hand and took hers and helped her to stand.

  By the time they passed through the rancho’s fence, they were laughing.

  Thirty

  MALICHI FOLLOWED TERESITA around wagging his little tail. When Tomás saw them go by, he cried, “¡Epa! ¡Teresita! Did you use your powers to turn your dog into a deer?” He didn’t even wait for a response. He didn’t want to know the answer.

  Segundo, who was becoming more useless the older and happier he got, sat in the rocker on the porch with a pot of coffee and a platter of sweet rolls.

  “Boss don’t like the deer,” he noted mildly.

  “No,” she said.

  Malichi stuck his head under her skirt and lifted it. Segundo regarded her knees. He smiled benevolently, offering his blessings upon the earth.

  “I can slaughter him for you,” he offered.

  She swept Malichi into her arms and hurried away.

  “I like venison,” he muttered as he picked raisins out of his scone and stretched out his aching legs. Ah, the sun. He chewed and sighed and counted the hours until he could return to plump little Dolores.

  1899/California

  From: El gran chingón

  Skinny, ¿qué pasa?

  I seen everything in sant fransissco. Its more than our big father seen anywere. He think hes so smart and hes not.

  I meet the chinos you love so much. They got duck with heads on in windows you can eat all crunchy with sour pepper soup. Pinchis chinos and mexicanos own sann fransis.

  They got fogs that cover up the city like las cortinas from your fancy bedroom Skinny like I never had until now. You got to see my big bed. I bet my bed be as big now as your bed. Ha how you like that

  Our pendejo father never didn’t believe in me so what I am Johhny now. They love me here. It is full of boats, sour bred, kites in the parks. And many bad girls. You know what I likes. And the girls liking me!