While Jaime had told their story, Ángela had sat with her head down and dragged her fork through a bit of leftover egg yolk. Not once had she added to the tale, or given any indication that she had even been there too. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember it.
Now Jaime turned the question to the older couple. “What brought you two to this ranch?”
“Horses,” Don Vicente answered immediately.
“You rode a horse over the border?”
“Hmm, would have had I thought of it. Had I had a horse and known how to ride it at the time.” The old rancher leaned back in his chair as he reminisced. “You two crossed a river, but a lot of the border is a desert. No civilization for hundreds of miles. In some places there’s nothing more than a barbed wire fence meant only to keep cattle separated. In others, not even that. Back then there wasn’t much enforcement in the desert. Probably could have ridden over without a thought.”
The old rancher paused as he seemed to think about that or even regret he couldn’t change the past.
“Instead, guys came to my town in Chihuahua when I was a young man,” he continued. “Said there was work in California on the farms and anyone who wanted to come was welcome. Didn’t have anything better to do so I loaded in the truck with the rest of them. Had never been in a vehicle before and hoped I would never have to again. We were in there for days it seemed like. People got carsick, myself included. We would stop when the driver ran out of gas and were only let out in the dark.”
“You didn’t have trouble crossing the boarder? La migra didn’t search the truck?” Jaime asked. Even crossing from Guatemala into México had been a challenge. They had hidden in a truck filled with used clothes to throw off the patrol dogs, and still their driver distracted the guard with a bribe.
Don Vicente shrugged. “If they did, I don’t remember and it couldn’t have been a big deal. Most farmers were using us, and Chinese workers too, and many thought we’d just return home once the crops were done. Some did, though most just moved from farm to farm depending on what needed planting or harvesting next.”
The country was built by immigrants, Jaime remembered Meesus saying in their social studies class. That immigrants did the work no one else wanted to do, or the work no one was willing to pay more money for others to do. Only those desperate or without other options took these jobs. It was one of the few things Meesus had taught this week that Jaime had understood. Because he knew it all too well.
“It didn’t take long for me to realize I didn’t like farming, probably not even a week,” Don Vicente continued. “I got caught pulling a weed out of one of their horse’s tails and the foreman, a nasty twerp from Sonora, gave me a lashing and docked a week’s pay for laying my ‘dirty’ hands on the steed. Decided I wasn’t going to have none of that and just left.”
“Did they come looking for you to bring you back?” This time Jaime remembered the Alphas back home, and how they would have come looking for him and Ángela had they stayed in the country.
Through his weathered face, Don Vicente gave Jaime a look that said getting caught had never crossed his mind. “I wasn’t a slave, and I hadn’t charged anything to the company store, which lots of the others did. They hadn’t paid me anything at that point so really it was them that owed me. Didn’t matter. I just wanted out. Was hitchhiking back to México when I heard of a mustang roundup. They’re wild horses, and as work it sounded better than planting asparagus. George Padre was there, the current George’s papá, saw that I worked well with the horses, even though I’d never been around them before, and brought me here. Haven’t wanted to leave since.”
“When was that? What year?” Jaime asked.
“After the dinosaurs, I’m pretty sure. There was one time I thought I saw one but it ended up being a wooly mammoth instead.” Don Vicente winked and the idea that maybe he honestly didn’t know his age or the current year crossed Jaime’s mind. The man never mentioned years in numbers, but rather referenced things like “the year of the forest fire” and “the season the calves were all a bit cross-eyed.”
“And during all this time, you never learned to speak English?” Ángela asked the old man.
Doña Cici shook her head while scowling at her husband. Apparently Ángela had hit a sour spot between the two.
Don Vicente sat tall in his chair and looked at Ángela right in the eye as he spoke. “Here, so close to the border, there’s always people that understand me, and how often do I need to talk to people? The horses and cattle, that’s my job, and they don’t care about my native tongue. I wasn’t about to be like everyone else. I may have lived here most of my life, but that doesn’t change who I am, a poor man from Chihuahua.”
Jaime agreed. Why did he have to adapt and blend in? He didn’t need English, just like Don Vicente didn’t. Meez Macálista spoke great Spanish and Samuel in his class didn’t like being a translator but he still helped when Jaime needed him. Next time someone said he should learn English, he’d reply that he was remaining true to himself. Just like Don Vicente, he didn’t need English to work. His art would speak for itself.
“But being able to speak English can open so many doors,” Ángela said. “You can travel almost anywhere and find someone who understands you.”
“My traveling days are over. If I can’t get there on horseback, it’s not worth going. Besides, in all my years, I never once came across a situation where knowing English changed the outcome.”
Ángela opened her mouth like she was about to argue, but the looks from both Doña Cici and Tomás said that it was useless to try to teach an old cowboy new tricks.
The tension in the room remained thick until Jaime turned to Doña Cici. “And how did you come to work here?”
The older woman stood up from the table and began to load the dishwasher. “My story isn’t nearly as interesting. I came with my parents. Again, it wasn’t hard to cross, just told the guard we were grocery shopping and he believed us, since we only carried the empty grocery bags and a bit of money. He didn’t know we didn’t have anything else, lost everything in a fire. We came up here and I met Miss Eleanor, Mr. George’s mom, at church when she had her hands full with a newborn and Mr. George who was barely walking. George Padre wasn’t interested in helping with his children, so she was on her own in that regard. We had never met but she just turned to me and asked if I wanted a job. I said yes, not even knowing or caring what the job was. At that time, no one worried if you had papers, just as long as they didn’t have to pay you as much as a gringo.”
“But people worry about that now. What if you get caught?” Jaime asked, though what he was really asking was how safe they all were here on the ranch.
Don Vicente must have read his mind because he placed a hand on top of Jaime’s. “There must be close to a hundred thousand undocumented workers in just Nuevo México. We work on the farms and ranches out here, and in the cities we work in construction or restaurants or clean houses. If we’re all taken, the state wouldn’t be able to survive. Everyone knows we’re here, but as long as we don’t get into trouble, they’re happy with us doing the work they don’t want to do. And let me tell you, this ranch is too far away from anything for someone to come down that bumpy dirt road who shouldn’t.”
The worry eased. The old man had a point. Just getting to school took nearly an hour.
Jaime’s family helped Doña Cici put away the food, half of which went into containers for them to take back to the trailer. Once the kitchen was spotless to the point that even Abuela wouldn’t have been able to find a speck of dirt, they moved through a hallway filled with photos of Meester George’s parents, children, and grandchildren. Jaime’s favorite was a framed newspaper clipping of an old photo showing a group of men around a corral of wild-eyed horses. The two young men closest to the camera were blurred and unrecognizable, except that one had long, dark hair and the other short. Yet there was something about the two men that made them seem happy and at home around the wild horses.
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“Is one of these men you, Don Vicente?” Jaime asked.
The old man grunted. “Yeah, the one with the bad haircut. My friend Sani is the good-looking bastard next to me.” He squinted at the herd of horses and pointed to two ears barely visible in the black-and-white photograph. “And that was Reina, my first horse. Never let anyone ride her but me.”
Jaime searched the edges of the photo, looking for a date, but whoever cut it out of the newspaper hadn’t preserved the year. He followed the others into the TV room, which was really more like a movie theater. The screen extended larger than Jaime’s arms and lay flat against the wall. A couch the shape of a massive U covered the other side of the room. And to top it off, a popcorn machine stood in the corner. A real popcorn machine.
“You’re sure Meester George won’t mind if we watch something?”
Doña Cici shook her head. “He lets me watch whenever I want. He’s already paying for the service so someone might as well take advantage of it.”
Even though they were stuffed from brunch, they made popcorn, because how could they not, and each settled on a section of the couch. Don Vicente crossed his arms over his chest and fell asleep before 007 lit his cigarette in Dr. No, the first James Bond film and a movie Jaime hadn’t seen since Tomás still lived in Guatemala. By the time the opening credits rolled, Don Vicente was back on his feet and heading outside.
“Just because it’s Sunday doesn’t mean the cattle can take care of themselves.”
Jaime paused the film and turned to the man as he gathered his battered straw cowboy hat.
“You should stay and watch with us. It’s a good one.”
“I have my own television outside. Always changing, never the same.” And with that, Don Vicente left the house.
“When we got married and they built the annex for us, the family gave us a TV. Vicente somehow strapped that bulky thing onto Reina, the horse he had back then, and gave it to a sick friend who needed the entertainment. He never did like things he didn’t have a use for.” Doña Cici rearranged herself on the cushions and motioned to Jaime to unpause the film. “Now let’s see what use we can make of this handsome Bond man.”
For a second Jaime thought about joining Don Vicente. For three days in a row, the old man had picked up Jaime from the bus stop and taken him through different parts of the ranch to get back to the homestead. Don Vicente showed him tracks of critters Jaime had never heard of, like the hoof print of a piglike creature called a javelina. Yesterday he had shown Jaime a den that housed hibernating snakes. Don Vicente even promised to teach Jaime to ride his own horse, something he couldn’t wait to try. Today would be a great day for that—a brisk breeze with the sun high in the breathtakingly blue sky. While the horse grazed on the young spring grass, Jaime could sketch out the arroyos and the critters that lived in them.
But the television had James Bond, and Jaime loved watching movies with Tomás. With all his work, Jaime barely had any time to spend with his big brother. Not to mention he’d barely hung out with Ángela since the snowstorm. Learning to ride a horse could wait. It was family “Bonding” time.
CHAPTER NINE
Monday morning started with a beep from Tomás’s phone. Cell reception on the ranch was spotty. Sometimes it took hours to get notice of a voice message. Text messages tended to arrive more promptly, but a one-minute call from Guatemala contained a lot more information than a single text possibly could.
Without talking, Jaime and Tomás got out of bed and walked the phone over to Ángela’s bedside, where they got the best reception.
The phone said it was 4:36. The sky remained so dark it seemed impossible to think the sun would ever return.
Tomás’s phone didn’t say when the message had been sent, just that there was one new voice message. Jaime swallowed. The message could have been sent a few minutes ago, or several hours.
Tomás held out his phone on speaker. Jaime and Ángela crowded around it, their heads touching each other in their attempt to get as close as possible. Mamá’s voice filled the trailer as she rushed to say everything in sixty seconds or less.
“Hola mi’jos. Your father has been promoted to supervisor at the chocolate plantation, so hopefully we’ll have money to use the village computer for a Skype date soon. I’m taking care of baby Quico three days a week so Rosita can work the cash register at Armando’s store—you wouldn’t believe how big he’s gotten! Ángela, your mamá said to remind you that you’re a young lady and to act accordingly. Both your mamá and papá send their love and hope to add credit to the phone soon. Abuela, though, is not so good, not being able to get out of bed with her broken hip, and refusing to eat. She keeps saying she’s lived a good life; she might not be with us for much longer. We’ll let you know if something changes. Love you all—” and then the phone went dead. She’d paid for only one minute of phone time and Jaime guessed she didn’t have the extra coins to make the call last any longer.
Tomás replayed the message to hear her voice again. Jaime knew, because he wanted the same thing.
“—she might not be with us for much longer. We’ll let you know if something changes. Love you all—”
Tomás pressed the button to save the message while Jaime collapsed on Ángela’s bed.
It couldn’t be true. Not when so many people loved her, counted on her. If the Alphas hadn’t threatened and pushed her, Abuela wouldn’t have broken her hip and been left stranded in bed. If Jaime and Ángela hadn’t left, they wouldn’t have threatened her. However he looked at it, the blame came back to haunt him.
Tomás shook his head as if that could change the news. “If Abuela is in pain, if she’s suffering, then maybe it’s best if she . . .”
But he wasn’t able to finish his thought. Jaime glanced at Ángela, who scrunched her covers in her arms against her chest for comfort.
“She never said good-bye,” Ángela sniffed. “We never said good-bye.”
The morning they had left Guatemala, Abuela had cooked them a feast. Not as elaborate as Doña Cici’s, but with food they had on hand and all the love she had to offer. Considering the potential danger of their journey, when it came time for them to leave, Abuela had walked away, not wanting or not being able to see them off. Now, if it came to it, they were the ones unable to say good-bye.
Tomás put his arm around both of them as the three cried on one another’s shoulders. Vida walked across the bed to join the huddle, licking each of their arms, unable to kiss away their tears.
“She’s not gone yet,” Jaime reminded them. “She’s so tough, she could live years. . . .”
Or minutes. Their grandmother always did what she set her mind to do, and as much as she wasn’t someone to give up, Jaime had never known her to change her mind. If she couldn’t get out of bed, if she didn’t have anything to keep her busy, then she would feel useless. She’d never had patience for lazy people.
They tried calling Tío Daniel, Ángela’s papá, but just as it had the millions of other times, the phone rang and rang. Tomás even tried to ring the pay phone in the village Mamá must have called from, but that one, too, received no answer. In Guatemala it was 5:58 a.m.
“There’s nothing we can do but respect and accept her choice,” Tomás said as he made instant coffee.
Respect and accept? Jaime heard the faltering of his brother’s words and knew they were as empty as he felt. As far away as his family was, Jaime always thought they’d still be there, in the same house, in the same village. Just a phone call away, even if it took a while to get credit. But just as with Miguel, there would be no cell phone reception in heaven.
• • •
“Did Tomás receive any calls during the day?” After an endless day at school, the worry released a tiny bit as Jaime got to ask the question that had been nagging him all day.
Don Vicente pulled Pimiento to a stop where the bus had left Jaime seconds before and lifted his battered cowboy hat. “Not while we were together, and we were in th
e barn with the calves most of the day.”
He removed his foot from the stirrup and held out his strong, weathered hand. Jaime grasped it and swung his leg over Pimiento’s back. After a few days of riding, he no longer kicked the gelding when mounting, though he still wasn’t able to get on the horse on his own.
“Abuela is not doing well,” Jaime explained, though Don Vicente hadn’t asked. “Mamá thinks she might . . .” But just as Tomás hadn’t wanted to talk about it this morning, Jaime couldn’t say it out loud either.
“I heard. But you have to remember this is not always a bad thing.”
“Of course it’s a bad thing! She’d be gone.”
In his frustration, he squeezed Pimiento’s sides. The gelding leaped into a gallop, which had Jaime hanging on to Don Vicente’s waist for dear life. The old man gathered Pimiento up in a few strides and returned him to a walk within seconds. Jaime’s ears pounded with the sound of his heartbeat. It took several deep breaths to ease his hold. A fatal equine accident might not be the best way to get to see Abuela again.
“I never had much use for church and people telling me how to think,” Don Vicente said. “But I believe a body is just a vessel for the soul, and like any container, it’s prone to deteriorating. A soul, however, can never die. It lives forever in the world and in the people it touched. A part of her is in you, and that part you’ll keep forever, whatever happens.”
The Crossroads Page 6