by J. L. Jarvis
Maria saw Ana’s mood change. “It’s hard to watch them sometimes,” she said, as she scrubbed one more garment. “They think of the excitement while we think of the danger.”
Ana caught a knowing look from Maria, who discreetly looked away.
“Your Carlos is a fine man, a strong and brave leader.” She did not bother to say not to worry.
Ana looked at Carlos again as a stranger might view him. There he was, in his element. It was on his face, the bright eyes, the bold posture. She had to look down to hide tears that came without warning. “He’s not my man,” she said softly.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Maria did not inquire further, a fact which endeared her to Ana.
“We were together—but now—well, we’re not.”
“I see.”
“I wish I did.”
Maria smiled and looked beyond Ana to the men. “Men! Look at them. We can know them more than anyone else—but understand them? Impossible!” She laughed and held up a pair of trousers she was washing. “See these? Just pretend he is in them.” With that she smacked it against the rock and laughed some more.
Ana found herself laughing. She held up some trousers and looked at the fly, and then sheepishly traded them for a shirt, which she wadded and pounded onto a rock, and laughed with Maria. The work went faster after that.
They soon finished their washing and stood. Maria sighed deeply. “This one tires me out,” she said with her hand just below her waist. Only then did Ana notice the small mound. She smiled.
“See over there?” said Maria, lightly rubbing her belly. “The one taking off his hat? That’s his father, Tomás.”
As she spoke, Maria’s man saw her looking and smiled back. Their eyes lingered.
Ana felt, for the first time, a twinge of envy. But Maria would not have noticed. She tore her gaze from Tomás and got back to her work, but a smile lingered on her lips.
They draped the clean clothes over branches to dry.
Ana said, “You say ‘his father.’ You’re so sure it’s a boy?”
Maria nodded. “I don’t know how, but I am.” She looked at Tomás and her face lost its joy. She held her stomach protectively. “I want him to see his son.”
Ana wanted to tell her he would.
Maria was still for a moment, then shook off her mood as they picked up their baskets and walked back to camp.
In the morning, the murmur of voices died down as the men assembled and strapped cartridge belts across their shoulders. Sons and fathers embraced their women and families. Lovers kissed, desperate to impress passion onto their memories of their loved ones, knowing how soon passion could turn into grief. Ana was lost in their midst when she sensed another lost soul. She looked up past the clutter of entangled lovers and loved ones. Near the horses Carlos stood alone, watching. Her eyes met his and the sight took her breath. In the pre-dawn light, through the heat of the fire, his deep eyes looked black, and the planes of his face were as hard and unyielding as the rocks in the desert. The moment for feigning indifference had passed. She gazed back.
Couples dropped arms and spoke secret endearments through glances which had to be broken. People crossed between them and the moment was gone. Panic stabbed her. He might not come back. Her lids dropped. “Don’t go.” Ana opened her eyes, surprised to hear her own hushed voice.
He was on his horse, poised to leave. He said something to his men, glanced at Ana, and urged his horse onward. Obscured by a cloud of dust, men, and horses, her Carlos was gone.
Ana stepped gingerly between sleeping children and made her way to a boulder that overlooked the path where the men would return. The sky was hidden from sight by a series of dark, threatening clouds. Those with tents had pitched them, prepared for what surely would be a wet night. All morning they moved camp under cover of tents and a cave. Then they waited. Unvoiced apprehension pervaded the camp. Restless despite her exhaustion, Ana went for a walk. With a deep breath and a sigh, she sat down on a rock overlooking the path that had taken the men into danger. She hid her face in her hands and pled, more than prayed, to God to bring him back safely. “And Eduardo,” she added, feeling guilty for relegating him to an afterthought. She prayed, and God answered with rain.
People clambered for the tents and the cave. There was no sign of the men. Dim gray sheets of rain struck the rocks with a noise that obscured any sound that might hint at their return. Ana sat by the cave’s edge and watched Jaime scrape drawings in dirt, and she waited, like everyone else.
Some of the women made lunch. They took turns on a scheduled rotation. It was not Ana’s turn. She suspected that, after tasting her cooking, they would schedule her for washing—for the good of the cause. Preparing meals looked easy. Making them taste good was not.
Muddy rivulets tripped along winding paths down the sloping terrain of their camp site. The rain let up. A small hand touched her shoulder. Ana smiled. Jaime hovered nearby. She scooped him up onto her lap and curled herself around him. They both sat watching for Carlos. Ana gave his small body a hug, which melted her heart—even though he smelled like a warm puppy.
“Come on,” she told him, getting up.
Carlos had left Jaime in the charge of a woman with six children of her own. Ana told her where Jaime would be, then she found a small sliver of soap. They went down to the stream, where she gave him a bath—a cold bath—during which his regard for Ana fell to a dangerous low. Impressed by an urgent need to express this, he cried and wriggled in misery. Ana ignored his protestations and continued her task. When cries failed, Jaime took off running, and Ana chased after. Determined to catch the nimble young boy, Ana stepped in some mud while changing direction. She slid.
Jaime heard her fall with a thud and a smack and turned to find Miss Ana half covered in a brown muddy paste. The sight sent him into peals of laughter.
“Rinse yourself off and get back to that cave! And if you get one bit dirty…!” She looked very stern.
Jaime lowered his eyes. “Yes, Miss Ana.” He lifted his eyes and a smile broke first.
“Jaime? Come here,” she said, pointing to the ground right beside her.
Now he was in trouble, and he knew it. He came over.
“So, you think I look funny?”
“No, Miss.” He grinned. “Yes, Miss.”
Ana stared for a moment, then laughed as she lunged, and tried to drag him down with her. He dodged her and ran.
Ringing mud from her hair, Ana took off running after him. By the time she heard horses, the first few were in sight. The men were back. They were safe. Where was Carlos? She walked along down the line until, at the end, there he was. He was busy directing the men where to unload the supplies strapped to horses and carts. As she passed, she received several appreciative grins which, in her panic to find Carlos, she did not even notice—until someone laughed. She looked toward the laughter and saw him. He halted mid-sentence and gaped for full seconds before a few indecipherable syllables caught in his throat. She smoothed her hair from her face. Then she followed his eyes and looked down. She was covered in mud, now diluted by rain. And then she saw why he stared. Ana quickly turned, crossing her arms over her chest, and she walked away, trying so to appear nonchalant.
She waded, clothes and all, into the deepest part of the stream, but she had to squat down to submerge herself in it. When the mud seemed fully rinsed from her clothes, she got her soap from the rock where she had left it and washed her hair and her face until the soap melted away. She was miserably cold, but the mud was gone, mostly.
If the humiliation had not been so fresh in her mind, she might have taken the chance of removing all of her clothing and cowering behind a rock or a bush to ring them out. The thought still had some appeal, but the rain started up. She decided to go find a fire and dry off there. She gave her feet one last rinse, even though they would be covered in mud by the time she got back to the cave.
She walked past a large boulder not far from the water and gasped. Carlos was there,
with a bundle of clothes in his hands.
“I thought you might need these.”
When she failed to react, he thrust them closer until she instinctively took them. He was brusque.
“It’s a dress,” said Ana.
“Yes. Some women wear them.”
“I know, but—”
“You seem to need clothes.”
“I like wearing pants. Some of the soldaderas wear them.”
“Wet?”
“No.”
“What were you thinking—parading in front of the men?”
“I wasn’t.”
“No, you weren’t thinking. Perhaps in dry clothes you’ll think better. I know I will,” he muttered as he turned and walked briskly away.
The bundle unwound in her hands. Rolled up in the long skirt was a white blouse of fine cotton, and a corset. She looked up with wide eyes, but Carlos was gone.
Ana’s face flushed. The peasant women wore no corsets. And she liked the men’s clothing. She felt more like a soldadera in trousers. But as much as she liked wearing a shirt with no corset, she had to admit she was not built for such freedom of movement. She had hoped this was obvious only to her, but that delusion was gone.
Ana huddled under a remote—and dripping—tree and got dressed, then walked back into camp in her new blouse and skirt. She brought her wet clothes and damp spirits. The men were stringing up tarps they’d brought back from the hacienda. Beneath one, Ana saw Carlos leaned over a small group of people surrounding a new fire. He was speaking to them when his eyes briefly met hers. Ana went to the cave. A man lay on the ground. Beside him knelt the curandera. On the other side was Maria.
“Tomás,” Ana whispered to herself. She knelt down beside Maria.
“What can I do?” Ana asked softly.
Without taking her eyes from Tomás, Maria shook her head slightly.
Ana put a hand on her shoulder. Carlos arrived with a blanket, which he spread over Tomás. “You did well,” Carlos said as he gripped the wounded man’s shoulder.
Tomás closed his eyes in an effort to nod. “Maria?” His voice was feeble. Maria took hold of his hand.
“I’m here.”
He reached his hand until, at last understanding, Maria guided his hand to her rounded belly.
“Tell him how much I loved him.”
Maria gave a staunch nod.
He drifted to sleep.
Not much could be done. The rain let up. Feeling useless, Ana got up and walked. She had nowhere to go. She just wanted to think, and Carlos was there. She felt awkward.
The injured man’s brother, Beto, sat alone on a rock. “Is there anything I can bring you?” said Ana.
He looked up with eyes darkened by grief. “No.”
She nodded. Silence followed. She inhaled, about to offer him a parting word when he said, “We were leaving, but he stayed back to cover us.”
Ana sat down beside him.
“I tried to stay with him, but he told me to go. They were coming. He was right behind me. He cleared the fence and they shot him. He couldn’t sit up to ride. He was slumped over in the saddle and his horse veered off in the wrong direction. Carlos went after him and pulled him onto his horse and brought him back to us. He would have died there.”
Ana wanted to say something, but no words would come.
“Instead he’ll die here,” added Beto.
Ana sat with him.
Tomás died at dusk. They buried him beneath a small tree.
Afterwards, Beto found Maria, sitting by the stream. He sat down beside her. “When we were children, Tomás and I used to play under some willows along the Nazas River.”
Maria had been to that place by the river, under moonlight.
Beto’s brow twisted. “Why did we bury him in the shade? The sun will not touch him.” His back rounded over as he hid his face in his arms. Maria put her hand on his shoulder. They silently wept. He inhaled sharply and exhaled as he lifted his head with a hardened expression. “I’m sorry.”
“A man with no tears for his brother is not much of a man.”
Night came gently. Sharp points of light pricked the sky to remind Ana that, after grief, there was heaven. Still and quiet, it waited.
Late in the night, Beto got up. Maria’s bedroll was empty. He went to the place by the stream. “I couldn’t sleep either.” He sat down beside her.
Maria said, “I forgot how to sleep alone.”
Beto said, “When we were boys, four of us slept sideways in one bed.”
“How did you get any sleep with that snoring?”
“My God, yes—the snoring. I almost forgot.”
Maria laughed. “Sometimes it’s so loud I poke him with my elbow. Two seconds later, he’s snoring again! There’s no way to stop it!”
They stopped laughing.
“I didn’t want him to go,” Maria said.
After the talk and the sorrow, the silence between them was soothing. They sat by the water and stared at the shining slivers of moonlight. When they walked back to camp, just as always, she leaned up to kiss Beto’s cheek. More gesture than kiss, they would kiss more air than skin. But tonight her lips touched his cheek. It was warm. And the ache in her body ripped through her. A slight turn of her face and her lips would touch his and his breath would warm her again. And the night was so cold.
She lay her head on his shoulder. Beto supported the back of her head. His arms sheltered and warmed her.
He turned his head, and his hair brushed the collar. She touched the fringe with her fingers, and his hair felt the same.
“Maria.” Beto gripped her arms. “Look at me.”
Her whisper was hopeless. “It’s too dark.”
Ana got up in the night and walked past sleeping bodies and rough mountain brush in search of a place that was private. Certain aspects of life demanded more effort out here in the wild. Only during such times did she miss the hacienda. Having walked far enough from camp, she pulled aside some branches, hoping she had found a suitable spot. She heard whispers. A few feet away, looking more stunned than Ana, stood Beto with Maria’s face in his shoulder. Ana opened her mouth. With no words forthcoming, a muffled whimper came from Maria, too deafened by sorrow to sense Ana’s presence. Ana turned and left them alone.
Chapter 13
At dawn, training began. Carlos mustered every man and some women to make sure they knew how to clean, load and discharge every type of weapon in camp, which included a few Winchesters, Springfields, Colt forty-fives and a couple of Mausers. Ana expected to be ignored and was not disappointed. Carlos appeared not to object to training women. They were too few in number to be selective. In fact, Carlos treated the women with equal respect, as long as they behaved like proper soldiers, and as long as they were not Ana. She had known how to shoot since childhood from her days at the hacienda. She was out of practice, but so were some of the men. Many here were farmers and peons, men of peace under normal circumstances, who needed as much practice as she. And so Ana found herself in good company, not the best shot by far, but not the worst either.
After a week, her turn came for the night watch. The evenings were quiet. Anyone who might have sought them in the mountains had given up days ago. Still, Ana was outfitted with bandoliers crisscrossed over her chest, a holster wrapped around the waistband of her skirt with a pistol in front, and a Springfield rifle in her hands. She stood watch far enough from camp to hear more than music and laughter, far enough to hear sounds the night makes. She glanced back now and then at the campfire and the people around it. The flames sent warm light and ashes into the air. Behind them sat Carlos. He watched the fire as if he were waiting for danger, looking through chiseled shadows with eyes sharp and vital. With no warning he laughed, and his face formed new angles that brightened his eyes to near blinding brilliance. Ana wondered, would her heart break from sighing?
As though hearing her thoughts, Carlos looked up and, in one brittle moment, the joy left his face. Ana turned aw
ay. She could not endure it. From then on, she kept her eyes where they belonged, focused anywhere that she would not see Carlos.
The sun came upon the mountaintop with sprays of light that stretched over the vast valley uninterrupted. Land and Liberty. It was their slogan, their reason to fight. She could see it and feel it, and now the desire to fight for them burned like a passion. Beneath, a rock rolled and bounced its way on down the steep slope. Ana looked, and she listened. She heard nothing more, which made her more wary. Could rocks fall on their own? It could have been an animal, or a man. Ana looked toward the camp. A few women stirred to make breakfast. If only the men would awaken. No. she would not let her fear betray her. She held her rifle close by her side. The footfall was careful. She could barely discern it, but someone was coming. Ana lifted her rifle and aimed toward the sound. The steps halted.
Her voice sounded calmer than she felt. “Put your hands up. Come out slowly.”
Her heart pounded, but she kept her arm steady and narrowed her eyes as she cocked the lever. In her mind she rehearsed how to take aim and squeeze. Her finger tensed on the trigger.
“Ana? It can’t be.”
The voice came from behind her. She started. Her shoulders jerked, and the rifle fired into the air. The recoil threw her back. Firm hands steadied her shoulders. Ana whirled around.
“Eduardo!”
He reached out, smiling, and set her rifle down, leaning against a large rock. Then he put his hands on her shoulders.
“Ow! Don’t touch me! Not there,” she said, moving his hand from her shoulder, which was sore from the recoil of the rifle. Eduardo let go at once.
“We thought we’d lost you,” she said as she threw her arms about him.
Eduardo grunted.
“Carlos! No! It’s—”
Carlos pulled Eduardo off Ana by the collar and threw him to the ground. He grabbed the rifle, snapped the lever, and pointed it down at the man who now lay on the ground.
Eduardo looked up along the barrel of the rifle to Carlos.
Carlos’s mouth opened and spread to a grin as he set down the rifle. “Eduardo!” He offered a hand to Eduardo and pulled him back up. He brushed dirt and leaves from Eduardo’s lapel. “What are you doing sneaking up on us like that?”