by J. L. Jarvis
“He’ll be dead by then. Don’t you see? An innocent man will be killed.”
Ana pled, but he turned toward the door. She took a step after him, but the guard at the door gripped his rifle and stood in her way. The clerk opened the door. Ana cried out, “Eduardo!”
The door closed. The guard pushed her back with his rifle and thrust the bayonet toward her. “If you were a man, you’d be dead.”
“Please, help me.”
He lowered his voice. “Go, señorita.”
“Please—”
He lifted his rifle. She stepped back. She gave him one last pleading look, but was met with the same stony expression. She left.
Ana went to the jail, where she followed a guard to a cell that was crammed full of men. She did not see him at first. Carlos saw her and forced his way to the bars. He held on and called to her. She rushed to him and put her hands over his on the bars. He looked at her delicate hands touching his. Her words echoed in his memory. He died by your hands. How can I let those hands touch me?
It was on her mind, too, as she looked at their hands, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. In a hushed voice, she said, “You don’t deserve this.”
If she offered a measure of forgiveness, he was too harsh a judge of himself to accept it. More than these bars, grief and remorse held him captive. He tried to describe his sorrow but, finding no words, he touched his lips to her forehead, and then turned to leave her.
Ana gripped his hands and would not let him go. “Listen to me. I went to Eduardo. He wasn’t there, but I’ll find him and—”
“Ana, go home. Forget about me.”
“And leave you here—when you’ve done nothing wrong?”
He lifted dark eyes. “We both know that’s not true.”
It hurt her to remember, and it hurt to imagine what would happen to him if she did not do something. She spoke in an even, quiet voice that belied the sorrow behind it. “I left a letter for him. He will come.”
He spoke plainly. “Tomorrow I will face a firing squad.”
He lifted his fingers to her lips and hushed her protest. “I am not afraid to pay for my sins. When justice is done, perhaps you will remember the love and forgive the sorrow.”
She still loved him, and she still loved her father. She suffered for both.
Ana turned with a start as a door opened and closed behind her, but it was not Eduardo. Another woman arrived to be with her condemned man. Ana turned back to Carlos. He was eyeing his jailers, two rebels, like himself. Hours before they were on the same side.
Ana started to faint. He grabbed hold of her elbow and reached for her waist, but could not get his arm through the bars.
“I’m all right. I just need to sit down.” Ana sank to the floor.
“When did you last eat?” Carlos asked as he sat down and took her hand gently.
Ana sighed. She could not remember. “When I was hungry.”
Carlos touched Ana’s hair, slipping his hand down the length from her nape to the smooth strands at the end.
She studied his fingers as he touched her hair. They were coarse hands that had touched her in love and taken life from her father. She leaned her forehead against the steel bars.
“Do I dare ask for forgiveness?” he said.
A profound weariness overwhelmed her. “Why can’t we go back?”
“Don’t you know how I’ve wished that?”
Carlos stared at the worn wooden planks of the floor.
Ana said, “During the fighting, I told myself it was war, but for each person we kill more than one life is taken.”
Carlos rested his brow against hers.
They sat there most of the night. He watched her drift off to sleep, her head near his shoulder, where the bars met the wall, and he wanted to be outside of the cell and inside of her. He leaned closer and breathed in the scent of her hair.
Ana opened her eyes and looked at him. His eyes were deep and lost. The strong bones in his face made him look different each time she looked at him. How long would she remember how his lips nearly smiled even when he was serious, or how she could look in his eyes and feel their souls meet? His skin was the color of honey, so even and warm. Soon the sensations would fade. Her father was already reduced to a meager collection of images. Why could she still see him hanging from a rope, but could barely imagine him standing beside her? Hours from now, Carlos would be torn from her memory—first by bullets and then piece-by-piece by her memory.
“It’s time to go,” said a guard. A woman wept as they pulled her away.
A guard nudged Ana’s shoulder. Carlos took her hand and pulled her close. His fierce look cut through her. “Don’t watch me die.”
“I have to be with you.”
“I don’t want you to see me.”
Ana drew a sharp breath as his raw gaze burned her. She scarcely nodded, then looked at his face, at each feature, and tried hard to sear them into her memory.
The guard took Ana’s arm. Carlos gripped the bars. When the door closed between them, she could still feel him there. She walked into the sun.
Ana looked through the window of her boarding house room, although she would not see him from here. Shots fired, then some more. Was that one for Carlos? Her ears rang in the hush that followed the last shot. Ana sank to her bed and allowed woe to sweep her away.
The first time she saw him he was riding so tall that the desert had to be his. He owned it like he owned the charreada lienzo. In he would ride and his presence would fill the arena. It was more than a sport. It was art, and Carlos executed each move as though it were a dance, not only with precision but with passion. The Anglo rodeo cowboys did not understand this. They tried to master animals by might. To endure the longest was all that mattered. But the charro sought perfect style and balance between beast and master, and therein was the beauty. That was the dance. And when Carlos performed, it was powerful. He pulled taut the thread to man’s own deepest nature.
The first time he touched her, put his hands through her hair, she knew she would love him. Did he know then how his touch stirred her, so that she sighed even now to recall it? Yet, if he knew that, he must have known how he had hurt her. There was a time when she would not have forgiven. But she had since fought in a war that had twisted right and wrong, and the value of life. Revolution had tangled itself in their hearts, and their families, nearly choking them off, and yet their scarred love had survived.
Ana handed her father’s watch to the hotel proprietor. The old man had had his eye on it since he first saw it on the bureau in Ana’s room. She needed money for the train, and proper clothing. She looked at the watch in his beefy hands and wanted to grab it back from him. It did not belong there. Had she not lost enough?
“Please,” she asked him humbly, “if someone asks for me, give him this.” She gave him a letter addressed to Eduardo.
She boarded the northbound train wearing her plain white shirtwaist and dark brown skirt. In her hands were a purse and shawl, but no luggage.
The train filled up fast. Trains did not run like they used to before the revolution. By the time one arrived, there were throngs of people eager to board. Ana was swept along with the flow of people pressing through the doorway. She walked through several cars until she found a seat. A collection of musicians had struck up a song. A euphoric young man took Ana’s hand and pulled her from her seat. He tried to coax her to dance. She resisted. He insisted. Others danced. Others sang.
“No. Please.” She turned to sit down.
Puzzled, he released her. “But señorita, the President has resigned. Díaz is gone!”
There was cause to be happy. Unable to smile, Ana excused herself with half a nod. She moved to the next car, but it was no different. She stepped over crates, bags, and squalling children. She pulled the door open to the next car. In the center of a rooting crowd was a cockfight.
Ana turned back and searched for a place to sit down. She found a space by the wall where she spread he
r shawl on the floor and sat down. Pulling her knees against her chest, she leaned back and tried to rest. She might more easily have pounded than rested her head on the wall of the rattling car as they lumbered along the unstable train tracks. Ana chose not to ponder how many times these tracks had been blown up and repaired. She was about to say a small prayer for a safe journey, but changed her mind.
The woman beside her had a brood of young children. On one hip was an infant. A toddler crawled about her lap and pulled upon her blouse. Meanwhile she seemed to keep watch over the others with astounding calm. Some time into their long journey, she reached into a sack and pulled out several tortillas with fried beans rolled inside them. Each child took one and eagerly ate. Ana smiled wearily.
The mother reached out and offered a tortilla to Ana.
Ana politely declined, but the woman’s warm expression made her reconsider. “Thank you.” She accepted the gift, sacrifice that it was. It was good. They spoke little, but now and then exchanged smiles.
Ana rested her eyes, but could not sleep. Abrupt dips and jarring sideways motions interrupted her rest. Her head would bob forward, bump her knees, and up she would sit with a start.
A loud crack and a shrill metallic screech cut through the stifling air. A sudden jolt threw Ana across the car, onto a bundle of clothing.
A little girl lay beside her, with eyes opened wide, looking at Ana.
“Are you all right?” she asked the child.
Her dazed look turned to panic, which ended as soon as she spotted her mother.
Ana joined the growing numbers outside. There were bruises abounding, but no one seemed hurt very badly. The train had come upon a stretch of torn track. It had stopped just in time. A crew of men set to work in the track. Since the revolution, they routinely carried spare ties and lengths of track on the train.
They worked in shifts. Passengers milled about and eventually settled into groups for what appeared to be a long wait while the tracks were repaired.
At dusk a crowd gathered about a large fire. “Let’s dance!” someone shouted. Guitars sounded and singers joined in. Couples danced. Others laughed and clapped and drank Tequila. The night was warm and the air felt so soft, like the night she danced with Carlos and knew she was in love. Ana lingered and watched others dance while, behind them, stars scattered through the sky like specks of hope forever out of her reach. Strains of a corrido filled the air like a breeze, and the firelight played tricks, casting a glow on facial planes and dancing bodies. The romance was for others. She saw a man towering over the crowd. With his thick hair like black silk, he looked so much like Carlos that she thought he might be a ghost sent to haunt her. She wished it were so.
“Señorita?” A man stepped in front of her, blocking her view. He was her height and very broad in the shoulders. She glanced at a face that was somber except for his eyes, which were bright with drink. She glanced past him and tried stepping around him, but with coarse courtesy he bowed and asked her to dance.
“No, thank you.” Ana searched the crowd, fearing she had lost her apparition, but he was still there. She walked toward him. The spurned dancer glared after her, but was soon distracted by a more agreeable woman.
The ghost moved into shadows, obscuring his features. She drew in breath and drew near enough to touch.
“Ana?” he said.
It was his voice. Fear passed through her like a wave.
“Ana.”
She reached out her hand and warily touched his shirt. Beneath the fine cotton he was warm. “Is it you?”
Her eyes closed as he took her into his arms. He whispered her name and held her against him.
Chapter 19
Earlier the Same Day
Eduardo closed the heavy doors and left the tribunal behind. He turned and embraced Carlos who, despite having just been set free, did not share his exuberance.
“We must find Ana and tell her,” said Eduardo.
“Not yet.” He glanced back uneasily and started down the steps.
“Hey. What is it?” Eduardo caught up with him and put a hand on Carlos’s shoulder.
“I need a bath and a drink, and then we can talk.”
Eduardo bought some ready-made clothes at a shop along the way, then took Carlos to his suite at the hotel.
“I’ll go find something to drink,” he told Carlos. He left and went looking for Ana.
When he got to the boarding house, Ana was gone. She had left him a letter.
Carlos stood at the hotel room window in a new shirt and trousers and combed his fingers through wet hair. Eduardo burst into the room. “Hurry. I’m going to take you to Ana.”
“Where is she?”
“We’ll talk on the way. You’ll need more clothes, and some money…”
“All I need is a drink.”
“Here.” Eduardo handed him some folded up money.
“I won’t take your money. Just do this for me. Find Ana and tell her I’m alive.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“No.”
Eduardo stopped walking. “Don’t you want to be with her?”
“It’s all I want.”
Eduardo took his friend’s arm. “Then let’s go.”
“Almost since I met her, I’ve dreamed of life with her. After Villa’s little joke, she wanted a real wedding, in a church, with a priest.”
“You don’t need a priest to see what you two have.”
“I can see her, so beautiful, walking down the aisle to give herself to me. But her father’s ghost would always be there beside her, accusing. She would always have to turn from his memory to be with me. How could she do that? How could I ask her?”
Eduardo followed Carlos into a drab little cantina. They sat facing each other across a small table. Carlos drank in silence, while Eduardo studied him. To avoid the scrutiny, Carlos said, “So, my friend, you will work for Madero?”
“I will work for the people. Madero will lead us.”
“Good. You have much to offer.” Carlos drank the glass down and asked for another.
Eduardo watched. Carlos’s face never settled, but moved from one expression to another, avoiding, concealing the truth behind it. Eduardo peered at him and asked, “Tell me. Why won’t you just see her?”
A sharp flash of emotion crossed Carlos’s face. His eyes darted downward as he turned the glass in his hands slowly. A long silence passed. “My family, the people I fought for; they’re gone.”
Eduardo’s sympathies were too honest to offer the inadequacy of a reply.
Carlos peered into the air. “My life touched them and they’re gone.”
“But Ana is here, and she loves you.”
Carlos traced the rough gouges in the dark wooden table. He had buried his feelings in places deeper and darker, but could not hide from them. “I killed her father.”
“You had no choice.”
“I’m not asking for absolution,” Carlos said, with a darkening look.
“Then what is it you want?”
“To give Ana her life back.”
“She has a life—with you.”
“What life would it be—linked to grief from the past.”
“It’s the life she has chosen.”
Carlos nodded. “She’s too good to leave me.”
Eduardo looked away with disgust.
“But I’m not that good.” Carlos stood and walked to the bar. He muttered something and took hold of a bottle the bartender offered. Resentment gnawed at Eduardo. Carlos returned and filled both glasses. He lifted his glass, drank it down, and poured out another. “I’m doing her a favor.”
“You’re a jackass.”
Carlos blinked with surprise, but melancholy dulled its effect. He raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement.
“Is this why I pulled you from the firing squad?”
Carlo said, “I don’t know. Why did you? How did you?”
“I called in a favor.”
“It must have been som
e kind of favor.”
“It was,” Eduardo said gravely.
Carlos waited for more. Eduardo took a sip of his drink. His face betrayed him too easily. Carlos eyed him with suspicion. “What was it?”
Eduardo seemed resigned. The truth would someday have surfaced. He needed to tell it. “It was one of the generals on the tribunal.”
“Which one?”
“One of the generals,” Eduardo repeated with guarded intonation.
“You must have done quite a favor.”
“No, you did.”
Carlos leaned back and waited. His stare made the question redundant. “What favor?”
Eduardo stared at the table. “You killed Ana’s father.”
Carlos did not move. He held onto his glass and stared at the pale golden liquid that clung to the edges. His mind worked through each thought slowly. The facts oppressed him until the air was too thick to breath.
“You set me up?”
“It didn’t concern you.”
Carlos reached across the table and grabbed Eduardo’s collar. Eduardo was stunned, but unafraid.
“You set me up to do your dirty work. What kind of a coward are you?” He pushed Eduardo against the back of the chair and returned to his seat. He poured a drink and leaned forward. “It concerns me now. Tell me.”
“Señor Martínez—excuse me—Mister Martin was asking too many questions.”
“Asking who?”
Eduardo gave him a knowing look.
“Don Felipe?”
“He was curious about the shipments. He was never told about the smuggling, at least not by us. But he began asking questions. Don Felipe thought he was working with others. We had orders to watch him. I saw him meet with some men. There were two of Díaz’s men and two men who, I later found out, were sent by the U.S.’s President Wilson.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I. President Wilson never had any great love for the Mexican people, but to work with Díaz—it made no sense. He had gotten information that we might be dealing with Germany. Both governments were willing to work together to make sure that didn’t happen.”