RIO GRANDE WEDDING

by Ruth Wind

  Scratching the ragged mutt's soft ears, she said, "Everything is going to be okay, pequeña. You'll see." Meanwhile, it was nice not to be alone.

  * * *

  Molly drove under the Wiley Farms sign, waving as she passed a woman selling red wooden buckets of peaches, long green Anaheim and tiny, blisteringly hot habañero chiles. The farm offices were located farther in, in a building with a red roof painted with the orchard brand. "Hi, Joe," she said to the leather-faced foreman as she stepped out of her car. "Where's Wiley this morning?"

  "How you doing, Molly?" He winked. "Ready to marry me yet?"

  She smiled. "Maybe tomorrow."

  He cocked his head toward the orchard. "He's back there. But beware – he's in a foul damned humor."

  "Thanks." She headed toward the trees and shielded her eyes. "Hello, Wiley!" she called to a wiry man in a plaid shirt, jeans and boots. "You got a minute?"

  "Always have time for a pretty lady." He jumped down from the seat of a tractor. "What can I do for you?"

  Molly glanced over her shoulder. Three other men, obviously working on the engine, looked at them curiously. "Let's walk a minute," she said.

  He allowed himself to be led to a spot beneath a plucked-clean tree. "What's up, Moll? Is there a problem?"

  "There is, actually," she said. "I'm looking for a little girl. Her name is Josefina, and she was with one of your migrant workers during the raid. But – " she bit her lip, stuck her hands in her back pockets " – she's missing now."

  He pursed his lips. "I'd like to help you, honey, but there's nobody here. Whoever was left after the raid were gone by morning. I got about twenty guys working the chile fields, but they're all from the valley."

  Molly sighed. "Do you remember her? About eight?" She realized she still had no clear description. "There couldn't have been too many girls her age."

  He frowned. "You know, there was a tyke about that age. Had a bad cough, and I sent her and her uncle over to Health Services to have it looked at. He got nabbed in the raid."

  Her uncle. Bingo.

  For a minute, Molly hesitated, unsure whether to trust him with the whole story. This lying business wasn't as easy as it looked on television.

  But in the end, she chose to err on the side of caution, and repeated the myth she'd generated for her brother. "I don't know about the uncle, but she used to come see me in the garden." She pointed in the direction of her land. "I've been worried about her, and asked my brother if they got her, but they didn't." She closed her eyes, no longer faking it. "It's been a full twenty-four hours. Will you keep an eye out for her? Maybe send someone around to check the fields?"

  "It won't hurt anything to look around, I guess. Poor kid." His blue eyes sharpened. "As I recall, that uncle of hers was a real good-lookin' fella. Sure it's not him you're worried about?"

  Molly bowed her head before she realized it looked like an admission of guilt. On the spur of the moment, she said, "Well, I might have seen him once or twice." With an abashed smile, she lifted her eyebrows. "Not my type. It's Josefina I'm worried about."

  "I'll keep an eye out, honey." He frowned, concerned now. "Don't you be mixing with these guys, now. I know it gets real lonely, you being a widow and all, but some of these fellas are downright mean and ain't got a thing to lose."

  She smiled. "Not to worry." She lifted a hand. "Thanks, Wiley."

  "You might distract that bulldog brother of yours the next day or two." He made a grimace. "I got a truckload of new guys coming in and I don't need no more trouble. Most of 'em got their visas this time, but I need every hand I can get. The chiles got to come in before the first freeze." He looked at the sky. "Likely to be any day now."

  And the little girl was still out there. Molly nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

  * * *

  Alejandro slept for a long time. He didn't know exactly how long, but when he stirred, the bright sunlight had gone from the room. It was very quiet in the house, so his saint had not yet returned.

  A black-and-white cat sat on the windowsill, his long tail swishing as he eyed something outside. With a fond smile, Alejandro lifted a hand and brushed his fingers over the curve of tail. "Hola, gato."

  The cat looked down with round yellow eyes, the alertness showing his youth. Alejandro shifted enough to put his hand under the blanket and wiggled his fingers. The cat's eyes widened and he pounced, a purr roaring out from him as he chased the fingers from one place to another under the blanket.

  Lying there, Alejandro grew aware of the extraordinary luxury he found himself in. The bed was comfortable, big enough for his long legs. The room was clean and warm, and he could not remember the last time he'd had the pleasure of awakening to the company of a house cat. But most profound was the silence. In the migrant camps, there was always noise. Noise of other people, noise of machines and radios. It was not something he noticed ordinarily, but with the silence as comparison, he was amazed to discover how much he'd missed it.

  This was what Josefina needed. Peace and quiet and a normal life. With a pet to sleep with her and school every morning. It made him ache a little to realize she probably didn't even remember such a life.

  The thought of Josefina compelled him to move. While Molly was gone, he had a good chance to see what he could do on his own. Slowly, he got out of bed, and hanging on to walls and chairs, made his way toward the kitchen. The leg hurt, but he could keep his weight more or less on the other one. It was his chest that killed him. Everything made it hurt.

  Going very slowly, he made it to the kitchen. It took an age to take a glass from the cupboard, another year to move three feet to the sink and turn on the faucet. Lifting his arm to his mouth with the full glass hurt a lot more than it had this morning.

  Sweating, he leaned on the counter, despising the weakness that made his arms tremble, made him faintly dizzy. Just walking. Just drinking. He already wanted to go back to bed.

  Instead, he forced himself to move to the long glass doors that led to the garden. The sun drew him and he stood in its light, not daring to step outside where someone might see him. Even blunted by the glass, the warmth of the rays felt good to him. He imagined he could feel the long fingers moving into his ribs, knitting them back together, imagined them putting healing palms against the wound in his thigh.

  It helped. For a moment. Then he found himself gritting his teeth to stay standing so straight. Felt the sweat of effort trickling down his back.

  With longing, he thought of a bath. He'd managed to wash his face and torso this morning, but his hair stuck to his head and he could feel the remnants of his feverish sleep down his back. He did not mind being honestly dirty, when he was sweaty from a day in the sun, or dusty from horses or the fields. But he did not like this. And without the woman's help, he did not see how he could bathe, but he also disliked being so dependent upon her.

  He wiped his face wearily. His mind felt dull, formless. Until his brain cleared, he could not imagine the next steps he would have to take. For a moment, he bowed his head, feeling defeated.

  Ah, Josefina! Hija!

  He had let her down, and could not think how to find her, what do to. He was not a man who relied on others. He took pride in his ability to manage his life and his world, whatever that entailed, but this went beyond his experiences. He did not fall to illness or weakness. He'd once worked an entire day with a broken wrist and never minded it.

  Gritting his teeth, he raised his head. This would not defeat him, either. His gaze caught on the machine that had made coffee this morning. Coffee might clear his head. Would the woman mind? He thought of her solicitousness and thought she would not. He moved, plodding but sure, to examine it. There was a button to turn it on, but he did not see where to put the water. Or the coffee. He glared at it.

  But he could make coffee another way. He remembered seeing her put the can in the cupboard by the stove. He put it on the counter, and then, biting his lip as he reached, moved things around. Brown sugar. Cinnamon.
At first he was disappointed, only finding the ground kind, but he moved a box of cornstarch and spied a glass bottle of stick cinnamon.

  Excellent.

  It had taken him a solid five minutes to do that much, but the act made him feel stronger. From beneath the counter, he took a saucepan and limped to the sink to measure water into it. The next step was more difficult – carrying the water to the stove without spilling it. He splashed a few drops over the edge of the pan, but managed to get it to the stove and turn it on.

  Then he settled on a stool close by the stove and waited for the boiling, for the steps that would make coffee the way he needed it this morning. He gazed out the window and hoped his saint would come back in time to share a little with him. He hoped she would bring news of Josefina.

  Staring out at the blue and dun landscape, he imagined he could see her, his bright, smart niece. He chose to imagine her in a sunny place, calm and thoughtful. A little lonely, but not afraid. He willed her to remember all the things they had practiced for just such an emergency, and he suddenly realized what a foolish, foolish chance he had taken.

  It had to end. It was becoming too dangerous, and would grow worse as she took on the contours of a woman's body – and not only when there were raids. The camps were full of young men, away from their homes and the people who knew them. They were lonely. Josefina would tempt them – and then there would be real trouble.

  With a breathy exclamation, he shook his head. This was no life for a child. No life for him. He ached with homesickness, ached to go back to the simple farmer's life he'd known before his sister's death. And yet, when he spoke to his uncle rarely, it was plain that life in Mexico was no better. The big farms were eating up the little ones, making it harder and harder to make a living from the land. And there were so many people displaced from that land now that the cities were overcrowded, wages were poor, the neighborhoods where a man could afford to house a family too dangerous. Though everyone said it was different in America, he saw some of the same things here. It was just easier to be poor with three dollars an hour, rather than the three dollars a day he could get for the same work at home.

  He did not know what the answer was. It weighed on him every day, thinking of it.

  His head ached with the questions, and he put them aside for today. Today, he had to let himself heal. Today, he hoped to find Josefina. When she was found, then he could decide what to do.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  Molly made a few more stops before she returned home, avoiding her usual haunts in hopes of sidestepping anyone who'd ask about her "sore throat." She was lucky. The market was not busy, and she nabbed a few items to tide them over till morning, then got to her car without having to speak to hardly anyone.

  When she unlocked the door at her house, an aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled her nose, so rich it made her nearly light-headed. Carrying the bag of groceries into the kitchen, she made a show of inhaling deeply.

  "Oh, I must need that coffee! It smells glorious."

  Her patient sat on a kitchen stool by the stove, one hand stirring a pot, the other clasped protectively around his ribs. He lifted his head. "I hoped you would not mind me taking this liberty, if the coffee was good enough."

  "Not at all. As it happens, I had a yen for some doughnuts, so I stopped at the store." She brought out a bag of tender, newly fried doughnuts. "Do you like them?"

  "Yes, I do." He attempted a smile, and only then did Molly see the white lines of strain around his mouth, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. "The coffee will be ready in—" he glanced at the clock "—three minutes."

  Concerned, she crossed the room and with the familiarity of a nurse to her patient, touched his shoulder, bending to look into his eyes. "Are you all right?"

  He ignored her. "Did you find her?"

  Molly sighed. Shook her head. "Wiley is going to keep an eye out. He said he'll send some men to look for her." Automatically, she put her hand on his face to check for fever.

  She regretted it immediately. Her thumb against his cheekbone was very white, very alien, did not belong anywhere near him. And beneath her fingertips, she felt a delicacy and strength of bone that was powerfully intimate. His eyes, sober and large and still, regarded her steadily.

  She took her hand away. "The fever is back a little. You should have some more medicine and go back to bed."

  "In a little while. First coffee, huh?" He lifted his chin to the bag on the counter. "And a doughnut or two." A faint smile edged the wide mouth. "Or three."

  "Ah, so you're like me – a weakness for doughnuts."

  "My mother cooked them. I think of her."

  From the cupboard behind her, Molly took two mugs and set them on the counter. "I've never seen coffee made this way."

  "You will like it." Very carefully, he stood up. "I need a…" He scowled, his hand describing a shape in the air. "You know, something to pour it through."

  "Ah." She ducked below the cabinet and pulled out a large wire-mesh strainer. "This?"

  "Sí."

  "Strainer," she said.

  He gave a single nod, took it from her and pointed to the stove. "It is too heavy to lift now." His wry smile. "Will you do it?"

  Together they strained the coffee into the cups. The scented aroma made Molly's mouth water. "Do we need sugar?"

  He shook his head, and there was pleasure – maybe anticipation – on his face. "You will like this," he promised again.

  Molly carried the mugs, leaving the bag of pastries to her guest. Patient. Whatever. She sensed his need to contribute whatever he could, and gave him the dignity of shuffling to the table with the doughnuts in his long, slim hand. He gave an audible sigh of relief when he sat down, and Molly smiled. "You really do need to take it easy for a few days."

  "Take it easy." He smiled. "You say that a lot."

  "Because I'm so sure you won't." Molly bent her head to the steam and inhaled it, then lifted the cup and took an experimental sip. Cinnamon and coffee and dark sugar burst on her tongue. "Oh! That's wonderful!" She took another taste – closing her eyes this time. "Mmm." She looked at him with a smile. "Thank you."

  She surprised an expression of something she couldn't quite name on his face. Something oddly alert, intense. Then it was gone. She pushed the doughnuts toward him. "Eat, so I can give you medicine."

  He picked out, a glazed one, lifted his eyebrows at her and dug in. Molly said, "Tell me, señor, how it is that you came to be working the fields."

  He raised his eyes, and she saw that he was about to make light of it. But suddenly something in his face shifted, and that intense expression came back and he said softly, "Señora, you have beautiful eyes."

  Startled, Molly looked away, strangely pierced. Then she lifted her head again. "Thank you," she said in a calm voice. "So do you."

  He grinned. "But very different, huh?"

  "Yes." She picked up her doughnut and urged him to do the same. "Now tell me your story, señor."

  "Please," he said. "Call me Alejandro."

  She nodded, but didn't say the word. Not yet. It would roll on her tongue, lilt in her mouth, and she wasn't ready to taste it. It would have been much better, she thought, if he'd been named Hector or Porfino.

  "My father was a businessman. We, my sisters and I, had everything." He caught her skeptical expression. "Ah, you don't believe me."

  She inclined her head. "Maybe. Go on."

  "I went to very good schools, in Mexico City, and so did my sisters, off to boarding school, you know?" He eyed his doughnut and took a bite, chewed it slowly, then asked, "That was after they found oil, and everybody thought Mexico would be a rich, rich country."

  "Oil?" She associated oil with the Middle East.

  "Much oil – and it could have been the thing that turned the country around." He started to sigh, then cut off midbreath and reflexively put a hand to his ribs. "But there was poor management, too many loans. The government cra
shed." He carefully wiped his fingers on a napkin. "My father went down with it. Lost everything."

  "How old were you?"

  "Fifteen. It wasn't so bad for me. I never liked it, school. I wanted to be with the land. So, my uncle, he took us in. He was not rich, like my father, but not poor, either. He had a good farm. It was good enough."

  Molly discovered that she liked the way he talked. His voice was not deep, but the lilting accent, the precise emphasis he put on certain consonants appealed to her. "But?" she prompted.

  He bent his head. "My younger sister, she was—" He shook his head. "She wanted too much. A rich life. A boy came to marry her. A good man, I think, but ordinary, a farmer. She ran away." He looked away, into the distance, into the past. Light shimmered on the dark irises. "To America."

  "Land of the free and home of the brave," Molly said, tongue in cheek.

  He lifted a shoulder. "Land of money. She thought she would come here and find some man who had plenty of money to marry her and take care of her, and she would have—" a dry lift of his eyebrows as he gestured toward her kitchen "—this."

  Molly felt a curious sense of guilt. But that was silly. Wasn't it?

  Alejandro continued, "You can guess what happened to her." The beautiful mouth tightened. "She worked for three dollars an hour as a maid for a big hotel in Texas. It was okay, you know? She was happy enough. Sent money back to us sometimes, like she was the rica."

  Molly smiled. "So where is she now?"

  "She married. Not rich, but she had a dishwasher." A sad smile. "She had Josefina, too. An American citizen. But it turned out her husband was no good. She left him when Josefina was only two. It was hard for her, but she wanted to stay so Josefina could have something better. So she would be an American."

  He took a breath and wiped his fingers on a napkin. "Two years ago, my sister was killed in a car accident. Josefina was with the baby-sitter. She called us to say what happened."

  Again, sorrow settled like a veil over his features. "My sister had asked, a long time before, if I would go to America and take care of her daughter if something happened." He lifted a shoulder. "So I came. In a van, in the night. And here I am still."