Queen of America

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  Gaby stood beside him.

  “Go away!” she shrieked. “Get away from my home!” She would have torn him apart with her own fingers.

  “I take her or I kill you all. Don’t make me kill you.”

  Anita shrieked.

  “Go inside,” said Gaby.

  “You could not tie Teresita’s shoes.” Tomás sneered.

  “She is mine. Give her to me or I kill her too.”

  “You idiot,” Tomás said. “You goddamned worm.”

  He took one step down the stairs.

  “Gordo, no,” Gaby said.

  “You need to leave here now.”

  “She is mine. I own her.”

  “Own? What is she, a cow? You own your own soul and nothing more, and sadly for you, I am about to remove your soul from you.”

  Lupe thought about that. He frowned. He smiled. He shook his head.

  “I have the rifle.”

  Tomás glanced at the doorway, gestured with his head for Gaby to move back. She stood her ground.

  “You leave my family alone,” she shouted.

  “Even without a gun,” Tomás said. “Even with no shoes on my feet, I can beat you like a dog. I can kick the shit you call a life out of you.”

  Before Lupe could say more, Tomás sprang off the porch and kicked the barrel of the gun high; it went off in thunder, blowing a wedge of wood from the front of the house. Anita screamed. Tomás was sure he’d just broken his toe. But he kept moving, his arms coming down like lightning; he swung his right fist into Lupe’s head and wrenched the rifle loose with his left as Lupe fell. “Did you see that, cabrón?” he taunted. “Did you see me beat your ass?” He raised the gun and struck and struck and Teresita burst out the door, shouting, “No! No! Stop! What have you done!”

  The three stared at her—the father with the rifle raised like an ax about to sunder a log; the gunman splayed on his back, bleeding from his nose; the young mother willing to die to defend her home. The family tumbled out the door behind her. Everyone seemed suspended, spiderwebbed in the morning for a long moment.

  Teresita broke the spell.

  She shoved her father aside.

  She fell upon Lupe, shielding him with her body.

  “What?” said Tomás.

  “How could you?” she shouted. “I hate you!”

  “What?”

  Lupe scrambled backward from the Sky Scratcher, hustled several feet away, and rose, pulling Teresita to him.

  “She is mine, old man!” he shouted.

  She buried herself in his embrace, weeping. Tomás could not believe what was before him. If anyone had told him this story, he would have laughed. It was more absurd than his ghost stories.

  “Teresita, no,” he said, smiling a little.

  “I love him!” she yelled.

  Lupe laughed at him.

  “She is mine. I am taking her.”

  “Taking her? Where?”

  Lupe jerked his head.

  “They have a courthouse in this pinche town. I can find a judge.”

  Teresita looked up at him with her mouth open.

  “This is a joke,” said Tomás.

  “Come to the wedding and find out.”

  “Teresa! I order you to come here this instant.”

  She looked back and forth between them.

  “I am your father!” Tomás roared.

  For just a moment, it seemed like she might come to her senses.

  “You brought this… pinche to my door?” Gabriela accused. “This?” Gaby grabbed her own hair and pulled it. “He has come to rob you! He has come to drag you away!”

  “This man is a pig,” Tomás said.

  Lupe turned to Teresita. He smiled sadly. His eyes were huge, wet. Blood stained his face from her father’s blows.

  “They do not know me,” he said. “They do not understand what you have brought to me. This love.”

  He pulled her tight and looked bravely at the Urreas.

  Gaby was beside Tomás. She put her hand on his shoulder. He still held Lupe’s rifle—it dangled like an afterthought.

  “No, Tére,” she said. She shook her head. She tried to make Teresita smile, knowing in her heart she would never forgive her but trying to make this violence fade away. “Come on, Cúquis. This is not what you want.”

  Teresita was shaking.

  “You!” she cried. “You are happy! You have your man! Why should I be alone? Why should you have all the love in the world?”

  Lupe stood his ground, wiped the blood on the back of his arm. He spit—red spit.

  “Lick that,” he told Tomás and spun Teresita around.

  Anita was shouting, pathetically, “Teresita! No, Teresita! Don’t go!”

  All the children were wailing and crying out, clutching at their father and mother, unsure what had just happened to explode their morning.

  For a moment, Gaby thought Tomás would kill them both. She had seen his rages before. His face went purple. He elbowed her aside. He jogged forward and his finger went to the trigger, but she dragged his arms, pulled him, cried and shouted. She could feel him stiff under his clothes, wooden, trembling with anger.

  At the gate, Lupe looked back and shouted: “You are welcome to the wedding!” He laughed at them all. “But bring us gifts, eh? Don’t be cheap!” He turned away for a moment but turned back for a final taunt. “Keep the rifle,” he shouted. He snugged Teresita to his side and shook her at her father. “Good trade.”

  Teresita was confused, they could all see it. She was blinking like a creature in a trap. But she stepped through the gate with Lupe. She hurried away with him. And she never looked back.

  Tomás dropped the rifle in the dirt.

  He didn’t care who saw him cry.

  Thirty-Five

  AS IF SIGNALED BY the eruption in Clifton, the Yaquis attacked the border again, sweeping out of the desert hills like furious spirits, wraiths with fire in their hands, assaulting Ojinaga, Juárez. They had learned things in 1896—not many wore Teresita’s picture over their hearts this time—and they struck like Apaches, from ambush and arroyo, from high outcrops and in speeding runs through undefended streets, blazing and shrieking. But the Mexicans had learned things too, and they surged forth with massive numbers of riders and Rurales and mercenaries in killing waves, with American Gatling guns and repeating rifles, and their sheer numbers, their waves of horses, overcame the attackers and beat them to the earth, where they were shot and skewered and stomped under hoof and boot as the sacred Yaqui flag with its hummingbird on a narrow field of white fell into the bloody mud. It was Ochoa’s revolution at last, but it was crushed before it began.

  The Mexicans immediately accused Lauro Aguirre and sent agents across the river, as did the Americanos, but he had fled El Paso. Aguirre did not know where to go to evade these calamities. He knew nothing of what had happened in Clifton. But he knew there was refuge there, refuge among the family he loved second only to his own. Don Tomás Urrea! The Lion of the Mountains! Teresita! The blessed Saint, Queen of Mexico, Queen of the Yaquis, Mother of the Revolt, Angel of Peace! So he sped away, sped west, trying to outrun night, trying to outrun the authorities. He would have to hide. He would have to creep like an outlaw. Always hoping for sanctuary, hoping for one last chance to inspire Teresita to ignite the world and cleanse it with wrath.

  The silence took over the mountain as word spread from house to house—Teresita had married the terrible stranger. None could believe it.

  But they had seen it, seen it with their own eyes. The tall man dragging her by one wrist as he strode uphill, walking the mile into town, and she, trotting, jogging, trying to keep pace with her groom. They saw him pound on the doors of the courthouse, saw him gesture at the guards, saw her try to pat her hair back, try to straighten her clothing and look respectable. Twidlatch called on Burtch, who sadly reported to Rosencrans, who rushed out to see for himself. But it was too late. Too late to change it, too late to voice opinions, for the deed
was done even before the crowds had started to gather. Little Al Fernandez stood outside the courthouse and took off his cap when they came forth. She was weeping, but why, no one could say. Was she happy? Who would not be happy on a wedding day—even a wedding day as tawdry and melancholy as this? Guadalupe seemed to have forgotten she was beside him. He stood on the steps and stared at them. “What!” he demanded and strode away, heading straight for Ward Canyon. She was flushed, flustered. She looked from face to face. She put her hand on little Al’s head, and she rushed after him.

  “Was there a ring?” Mrs. Rosencrans asked her husband. “I never saw a ring.”

  Segundo and Dolores came up the street, but Teresita was already gone. Segundo rushed from person to person saying, “What? What?” As if he could not understand their words, as if they were all speaking Chinese. He grabbed his little beloved and cried, “What has happened?” into her face.

  “I don’t know!” Dolores wailed. “She has gone insane, mi amor.”

  Teresita had gone quite mad. To them, it was unforgivable self-indulgence. This was all the women could think.

  In the sepulchral Urrea house, the children sniffled in their rooms, threw themselves in their beds. Anita, betrayed and abandoned, hid in her closet and pulled her clothes off their hooks, burying herself in darkness. None dared come downstairs, none could face their father.

  Even Gabriela backed away from him.

  Tomás sat in the gloom, silent, feet splayed out, head hanging. He would not speak. He would look at no one. Gaby brought him slices of ham and thick slabs of bread with butter, but he did not look, did not stir. Just sat. Stared. Stared as the day turned dark, and the night overcame the room.

  That night, people in Clifton ate cold suppers and gazed blankly out their windows. They expected terrible things. The night felt full of fear, but they could not explain why. It was only a marriage. It was none of their concern.

  For years after, the people of Clifton asked themselves what they might have done. They asked what wickedness had come to their mountain. They asked if Guadalupe Rodriguez was even really a Yaqui at all. He was mad, they said, the devil, or one of his agents. But others said he was one of the assassins working for Porfirio Díaz, a spy, sent at last to penetrate the Urrea household and lay waste to it. They told themselves that it was exposure to her holiness that cooked his mind in his skull, that her light burned his thoughts to steam.

  They did not know what powers manifested in Lupe’s Ward Canyon, or how all these things came to pass. Tomás didn’t know. Teresita didn’t know. It could not be understood. But she, who had been waiting her whole life for a kiss, who had given everything to others, including her joy, had come in her moment of surrender.

  In those last few minutes of dusk, when the tallow candles were lit, and the buttery color filled the cabin, he was silent but not unkind, not ungentle with her; she sat on his sagging cot and removed her shoes—she trembled, all nerves, all fear and regret, but bold with her decision to be a grown woman, to break free and claim her own destiny at last, with her husband—husband!—and she undid the buttons of her dress and stood before him, about to let it drop. He said nothing. He stared. He watched her and nodded to the things he wanted opened, dropped on the floor, and when she stood before him, he stepped to her, and she whispered, “My husband, my love,” and he grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back and whispered, “You don’t even smell like a woman, it makes me sick,” and she knew she was about to die.

  In the morning, Segundo found Tomás still sitting in the parlor.

  He knelt beside the patrón’s chair.

  “Boss,” he said. “Boss.”

  Tomás shook his head.

  “Not this way, Segundo. It cannot end this way.”

  Segundo rubbed his chin.

  “Esto está muy mal,” he said. “It stinks bad, boss.” He shook his head. “No good.”

  Tomás looked at him.

  “It is her choice,” Tomás said.

  Segundo shook his head.

  “Love,” said Tomás.

  “Ain’t love. Ain’t love, boss.”

  Tomás waved him away.

  “We can do nothing.”

  “By God we can!” said Segundo. He had a little trouble rising. Oh, his back. His knees. But he made it up. He stood above Tomás and pointed at him. “I can go put a round through that little turd.”

  Tomás stirred himself.

  “Everything I did. Everything I risked and sacrificed. Everything I lost for her. And they spit at me.”

  Segundo hung his thumbs in his pockets.

  “Ain’t easy being a father,” he opined.

  Tomás actually laughed.

  “Indeed.” He patted Segundo. “How right you are.”

  Segundo smiled his hideous smile.

  “Right?”

  “Right, my friend.”

  “I’ll go kill him right now.”

  “No.”

  “One shot, right through the brainpan.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Tomás rose stiffly.

  “But you can do one thing for me.”

  “Name it.”

  “You could ride out there and see. Just take a look. Make sure my daught… Teresita is all right.”

  Segundo nodded.

  “Claro que sí,” he said.

  “Down Ward Canyon.”

  “I know where it’s at,” Segundo said.

  Tomás looked surprised.

  “You don’t think I wasn’t watching him, do you?”

  The patrón smiled. The amazing Segundo. They shook hands.

  “Be careful,” Tomás said.

  “Me? I’m going to live forever,” Segundo said, and he went outside and saddled a horse.

  Tomás went out on the porch to wait for the news.

  Segundo rode down the canyon and into Lupe’s glen. At first, it was quiet. He sat on the horse and watched. The door of the cabin was open. Then Segundo heard Teresita screaming for help. Lupe stepped out of the trees to the side of the cabin with his left fist wound in her hair, dragging her across the ground. In his right, the immense revolver. Before Segundo could react, Lupe swung the pistol up and shot him off his horse. Segundo managed to squeeze off a round. Lupe fired again, kicking dirt into Segundo’s eyes. The old man struggled to rise, and fell back and sighed.

  Tomás heard the echo of the shots and knew what had happened. He had his guns and was running across the yard. He leapt on Caballito Urrea’s back without a saddle and sped away. Even as fast as he was, there were already men from Clifton running out, getting mounted. They were moving. Tomás was in the lead.

  He thundered into the canyon to the terrible sight of Segundo sprawled on the ground. He flew off his pony and crouched, pistol raised, but Lupe and Teresita were gone. He rushed to Segundo’s side. The old pistolero lay staring at the clouds. Blood bubbled out of his chest, up high, well above the nipple. He was wheezing. He pointed toward Metcalf.

  “Kill that son of a bitch,” he said.

  Tomás went hunting.

  He could hear Teresita crying out, cajoling Lupe, shouting at him. Lupe was babbling—Tomás could hear it. Ranting. He started to run.

  It was a quarter mile down the train tracks. Old ore tracks. He realized with a shock that he was still barefoot, and the cinders were bruising and cutting his feet. He ran from cross tie to cross tie.

  Around the bend. There they were. Lupe had her. He was pulling her and slapping her, his gun stuffed in his pants. Shouting in her face. Tomás could hear the slaps.

  “Why?” she was screaming. “Why? Why? What did I do?” It was the most pathetic thing he had ever heard. He never wanted to hear such a thing again. “But I love you! Why? Why?”

  “Cállese, perra,” he snarled.

  Tomás shouted: “Stop!”

  Lupe halted, pulling Teresita down to kneel before him. He turned and glared at Tomás. He grinned. His eyes were wild, like some dog lurching in from the lla
no sun mad and foaming.

  Lupe raised his gun. Tomás walked forward. Lupe thumbed back the hammer and fired. The bullet flew past Tomás’s ear.

  “Father!” Teresita cried.

  “I am coming,” he said.

  Lupe fired; the bullet went wide. He stared at his gun. Tomás trotted. Lupe fired again; the bullet seemed to vanish. Tomás broke into a full run. He raised his gun. Lupe went to fire again and the chamber clicked empty. Tomás’s pistol rose over his head as he leapt off the ground. He flew, he felt the wind in his hair, the fluttering of his shirt, and he came down upon Lupe and split open his head with a terrible overhead swing, all the weight of his leap and his rage and his great arm exploding the other man’s scalp—blood hit Tomás’s face as he tripped over his daughter and her attacker and they all rolled down the tracks and lay in a tangle.

  Sobbing. Gasping. Tomás’s chest hammering, his heart lurching inside him. Heaving.

  She crawled from Lupe, too afraid of her father to embrace him. She moved a distance away and huddled there as the riders came to them. All Tomás could hear was her voice, muffled by her hands, asking “Why?”

  Tomás stood. Men came running. Hands grabbed him. Hands struck Lupe, feet kicked his ribs. Ropes bound him. Men lifted Teresita to her feet. She looked at her father, tears all down her face. His feet were bleeding. His pistol was ruined. He threw it on the ground.

  “Segundo is hurt,” he told her.

  It was an accusation.

  He turned and walked away from her, and he did not turn back, even when she called to him.

  Dr. Burtch withdrew the bullet from Segundo’s chest. Tomás and many of his workers shuffled in the street, worried and drinking. Poor Dolores hiccupped through her sobs, and Tomás awkwardly comforted her.

  They’d known when Burtch had inserted the tongs to grab the bullet because Segundo had shrieked, “More rum, chingado!”

  Some of the men laughed.

  Teresita had been dropped back at the house by the riders. Lupe, semiconscious and bleeding from many wounds now, was dragged at the end of a rope behind their horses, stumbling and cursing.

  “Pig!” he yelled at Teresita as Gaby hurried her inside. “I should have killed you!”