A Santo in the Image of Cristóbal García

by Rick Collignon

  By the time Flavio and Felix staggered out of the field, Flavio’s lungs were burning and his legs had no more strength. His mouth was bone dry and his lips were swollen and cracked from the heat. The santo slid out from under his arm and fell onto the asphalt. Flavio stumbled over her, kicking her a few feet away into the weeds. He lowered Felix to the ground and then knelt beside him.

  “We’re here, Felix,” he gasped. Over the last fifty yards, Felix had sagged so low that Flavio had dragged him through the sagebrush. Felix’s pants had torn and his knees and thighs were smeared with fresh blood and dirt. The cuts on his face were bleeding again, and there was a bruise high on his cheekbone.

  “I lost my shoe, Flavio,” Felix moaned. He was slumped forward on his knees, his arms stretched out. His foot, bare and white, was gouged with scratches.

  “You don’t need a shoe, Felix,” Flavio said. “The highway is so close I can carry you.”

  “That’s what you always say, Flavio,” he said weakly. “You know what I think? I think if I ever see your grandmother again, I won’t listen to a word she says. My grandmother used to make me sugar cookies and dolls with apple heads.” For a few seconds, Felix lay still. Then his breath caught in his chest. He struggled a little to break it loose and a thin stream of air went to his lungs. Then he began to breathe so quickly that his back spasmed and he sucked dirt into his mouth.

  “Cuidado, Felix,” Flavio said frantically. “You’ll hurt yourself.” He put both of his hands on Felix’s back to quiet him. Then Felix’s leg began to shake and his bare foot kicked out, scraping the pavement. “Let me help you, Felix,” and panic filled Flavio’s heart. He turned Felix onto his side, and the old man rolled onto Flavio’s knees. Felix’s eyes were a maze of broken blood vessels. Flavio wiped at his face with his hand. “Felix,” he whispered. “Don’t do this to me now, Felix.”

  “I miss my son, Flavio,” Felix breathed out. “I missed him from the day he was born.” Then suddenly, he sagged down deep into Flavio and let out a long sigh. His legs eased to the ground and his arms fell away. And in his mind, Felix saw himself sitting in his café. It wasn’t yet dawn, and all Felix could see out the front windows were the shadows of the mountains. In the kitchen, Pepe was rolling out tortillas. The radio was on low and Pepe was singing softly along with it. Felix leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach. Then he heard the sound of the café door opening. Standing in the doorway was a woman dressed in black. A shawl was draped over her head and fell far down her back.

  “Felix,” she said softly. It was the voice of Felix’s wife, Belinda, and his mother and his grandmother. And it was the voice of Guadalupe García and Rosa Montoya. “Hijo,” she said. “I’ve waited so long to see you.”

  Felix thought of all the things he could say to this woman whose voice sounded like his whole life. Then his mind emptied, and in a dream, he said, “If I had a little burro, I would ride over all these hills all the way to Albuquerque.”

  “I know you would, hijo,” the woman said, and as dawn came to the village, inside the café the two of them smiled.

  Donald Lucero was halfway across the lot when the sight of Felix lying dead in Flavio’s lap stopped him. The old man’s limbs were sprawled out and his face was bloodied and empty. Donald rubbed his eyes hard and groaned. His day had begun with Flavio and Felix and now it was ending with them. He felt as if something had slipped by him that he should have noticed. But what it was, he didn’t know. He shook his head in confusion and then glanced off to the north. The fire was a mile away and beginning to swing east. He realized that he had about twenty minutes before it swept over the highway north and he would be stuck in the village. As he walked toward Flavio, he could hear the sound of his two boys crying.

  The fire in the field had reached the door of the old adobe, and the thick grease on a tractor engine was burning. Heat and smoke brushed hot against Donald’s face. He squinted his eyes and pulled his hat low. Then he stooped down, reached out, and slapped the side of Flavio’s face. “Wake up, viejo,” he said.

  The front of Flavio’s shirt was stuck to his skin with blood. His cracked lips were moving, and he was staring straight ahead and patting Felix’s shoulder gently.

  “Flavio,” Donald said sharply. Again, he slapped the side of the old man’s face. Flavio sucked in a mouthful of air and his head jerked back. He looked about, as if lost, and then his eyes fell on Donald. “Let’s go, Flavio,” Donald said. He dropped to one knee and slid his arms beneath Felix. Then, as if all that was left of Felix was air, he lifted him easily and rose to his feet. He looked back down at Flavio. “Get up,” he said. “Or I swear.”

  Flavio’s hat had blown off and was lying on the ground. He reached out, his hand shaking, and picked it up. Then he shoved it on and stood slowly. The side of Felix’s head was resting against Donald’s chest and his eyes were closed. For a second, Flavio thought that Felix was just resting and might wake up again. But then Donald hefted him a little higher. Felix’s head fell back and his foot moved lifelessly.

  “Did you hear me, Flavio?” Donald said. “I don’t have time to wait for you.”

  “I don’t want to go with you,” Flavio said, still looking at Felix. He thought that all of his old friends were being carried away. And he didn’t know where.

  Donald stepped closer to him. “This was our village,” he said. “Both of our families have lived here forever. How could you do such a thing?”

  Flavio didn’t say a word. He could see Donald’s two boys turned around in the car looking back at him. Even with the noise of the fire and the wind tearing at it, he could hear how frightened their crying was. “Tell Pepe,” he said to Donald, “that Felix always remembered him.”

  “You think I’m going to leave you here,” Donald rasped out. “You think I’m going to wake up at night with bad dreams because I left you in this fire? Get in my fucking car, jodido, or I’ll drag you over to it.”

  Flavio moved a few steps away. He bent over and picked up the Lady. He brushed the dirt from her face and wiped away the ash. Some of the small sticks of her halo had snapped when she’d fallen. She looked even more lopsided than before. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I never should have dropped you,” and he began walking away.

  “Flavio,” Donald shouted.

  “My nephew, Little José, carved you a long time ago,” Flavio said softly. “He found you in the wood and he painted you with my sister’s paints.” He could see Ramona and José sitting in his sister’s house. They were sitting at the kitchen table and the sun was warm on the curtains. “Here,” Ramona said, handing her nephew a knife. “But be careful, José, and take away only a little at a time. If you do that, you will see things in the wood that have been there forever.”

  As Donald backed away, he shouted Flavio’s name again. The wind blew sparks against the side of his body, and something stored inside the old adobe blew. He took one more look at Flavio, and then he turned and carried Felix back to his car. By the time he reached the rear door, he was crying and he couldn’t make himself stop.

  …

  “THERE’S NO ONE HERE BUT ME,” Flavio said. He was standing on the edge of the highway looking out over the valley. The road to the north and south of him was empty, and wherever he looked, all he could see moving were smoke and fire. “Eee,” he whispered, shaking his head, “what a mess we started.”

  The mountains were buried under the smoke that hung over the whole village. Along the bottom of the valley, houses and trailers were burning, some of them already just twisted metal or charred adobe. Flavio heard the high frantic bellow of a cow; then he watched it lumber across the road and head south toward town. He wondered what had become of Delfino’s pigs. He remembered telling Delfino that he would watch out for them. Now, it seemed as if he would not be able to keep even that one little promise to his old friend. He pictured them, worried and alone, inside their pen, staring out at the village along with him. The fire had swept through a
ll of the bottom valley and was beginning to creep up the hill toward the church. The branches of the cottonwood were blowing wildly in the wind, and the old wood roof was leaking smoke. Behind him, the fire had come almost to the edge of the highway. Embers were falling on his shoulders, and the back of his neck was hot and raw. The only place untouched by what was happening was the old García house.

  It sat, as it always had, on the hill above the church. Most of the rooms had fallen in and the vigas had rotted to dust. The mud plaster on what was left was long gone, and rain and melting snow had eaten away at the adobe so badly that loose dirt lay in mounds all about the place. The few windows intact were boarded up with blackened lumber. The house looked like every other old abandoned adobe in Guadalupe—a place where someone had once lived that was now turning back to dirt. He realized that while everything he had ever known was burning down, all he and Felix had done was dream the dreams that old men sometimes have.

  “Felix was right,” Flavio muttered. “We should never have listened. We both should have stayed asleep.” An ember fell on the back of his hand and he brushed it away. Then he caught the pungent odor of burning cloth. He moved his hand over his shirt and down the front of his trousers. When he leaned over, he saw that the cuff of his pants was smoking. He bent down, groaning at the tightness in his back, and smothered it with his hand. Then, as he stood, he could see that the front door of the García house had swung open. For a while, he stared at it as it moved back and forth in the wind. A chill ran through his body, and suddenly, in so much heat, he felt cold. “I could never go there alone,” he said. Then, holding Little José’s santo tight against his chest, he began to walk slowly down the hill.

  The spikes that had held the door shut had come loose from the rotted frame, and the top hinge was rusted through. As Flavio pulled the door open, the hinge snapped and the door twisted and fell off to the side. Down the hill, the fire had spread past the church and into the dry sagebrush. As Flavio gazed inside the García house, light from the flames spilled past him into the room.

  His shadow fell across the floor and onto the heavy table that still sat in the middle of the room. The cast-iron stove where Guadalupe had once made tea and warmed tortillas was littered with large chunks of dirt that had fallen from the ceiling. The sides had rusted from water. Cut into the wall behind it were nichos, and each one was empty and spun with cobwebs. In the darkest corner of the room was the narrow opening that led to the rest of the house. Nearly all the rooms he and Felix had walked through so long ago were gone now. And, in his mind, he could see Guadalupe García still sitting where he had last seen her, buried beneath so much dirt and scattered with her were the bones of Emilio García. He had no idea what had brought him to this house, and a wave of sadness went through him. The room looked small and empty, and Flavio realized that was all it had ever really been. There had never been any life in this place. It had only been full of dead things and the noises they had made.

  Flavio looked down at Little José’s santo. She was looking into the room, her eyes wide, a grin on her face. “Venga,” he said to her. “We should go.” As he turned to leave, his shadow fell from the table. Standing in the center of it, light from the fire moving over her body, was the santo Cristóbal García had made. For a second, Flavio was so startled at the sight of her that he didn’t move but stood there seeing her out of the corner of his eye. He thought that what he was seeing couldn’t be and that, if he was smart, he would ignore her and just walk away. But then he remembered coming home from the fields one day to find on his living room floor the small box of letters Martha had left him. He turned back slowly. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “When Felix and I were just little boys.”

  Her shoulders were draped with cobwebs and dirt. Though her gown had been painted with ash and soot, the light from outside stained it red, as if Cristóbal’s blood had run everywhere over her. Even from the doorway, Flavio could see the deep gashes on her body from the knife. Her head was bent slightly, and she was gazing down at the table. She looked smaller to Flavio than she had years before and a little lost, as if she had been alone in this house for too long.

  “Why was I frightened of you?” Flavio said. She looked as though, if she were to move about, it would be slowly and with sadness. He could see her lying in Cristóbal’s arms, and he realized that she was only what he had been. She had gone through her life with him, and the stories she knew were the same ones Flavio had heard. He stared at her for a while longer and then he stepped inside the room, went over to the table, and sat down on the bench. He took off his hat and rubbed the top of his head.

  “To see you standing here,” he said, letting out a long breath.

  He placed José’s santo on the table beside Cristóbal’s. She stood there looking about as if expecting a party to begin or a marching band to come through the doorway. Flavio could see that the old santo’s shoulders had been rubbed smooth after so many years. Beneath the dirt, he could see that the soot had faded and there was the color of cottonwood. As he reached out to touch her, the sleeve of his shirt brushed against something that rolled across the table. He picked it up and held it close to his face.

  “I don’t believe my eyes,” he said. “It’s Felix’s little piece of wood.” He had no idea who had left it for him or what it meant, but just looking at it made him feel happy. He rubbed his fingers over it and then tossed it up and down in his hand. “Eee. It’s Felix’s little piece of wood.”

  When Flavio stepped outside the house, under his arms were the two Ladies. The fire had jumped the highway and was burning down the hill. And below the García house, flames were dancing wildly over the roof of the church. In the air all there was to breathe was smoke. Flavio sat down against the wall of the house, the adobe hot against his back, and held the two Ladies in his lap. The three of them looked out over the village. They watched as the high branches of the cottonwood caught fire, and as the wind blew, ash and embers flew like snow.

  “I am the last of this village,” Flavio said. “And if I could see two of everything, then there would be two villages. In one would be fire and smoke and it would be a place where young boys are hung from trees and where men are buried in blizzards. And in the other will be grass as high as my waist and creeks full to bursting. And I would name both of these places Guadalupe, for neither of them would ever be lost.”

  The fire was rushing up the hill now, and as Flavio closed his eyes from the heat, he thought that in all his life he had never seen anything so beautiful.