Shame the Stars

by McCall,Guadalupe Garcia

  “Sí,” I admitted, lifting my chin, letting him see I had nothing to hide. That journal was full of my deepest personal thoughts and dreams, but I wasn’t about to let these outlaws make me feel ashamed of them.

  “What should we do, Jefe?” asked one of the bandits.

  Carlos looked at the first page of my journal again, snapped it closed, and toyed with it, as if weighing his options before he gave the command: “Let them go. Give them back their things.”

  “Thank you,” I said as Chavito handed me my clothes. I wasn’t going to ask why.

  “Take your things and pack your horses. And tell no one of this.” Carlos tossed the journal at me. I didn’t take my eyes off him as I caught it against my chest.

  “We won’t say a word, promise,” Dulceña said, stepping back and away from the bandits.

  “Go!” the gang leader yelled. “You don’t belong out here.”

  Chapter 4

  We were nearly back to the main road when two mounted figures came out of the woods in front of us. When I first saw them, I thought the rebels had changed their minds and come after us again. It wasn’t until they called out to us, identifying themselves as Morado County sheriff’s deputies, that I realized we were not being hunted down.

  “What are you two doing out here?” one of the so-called deputies called out. I couldn’t see their badges in the dark, and because I couldn’t tell if they really were deputies, I pulled my rifle off my shoulder and laid it sideways before me next to the saddle horn.

  “We’re heading home, sir,” I said as they approached and circled us. I caught a glimpse of a deputy’s badge and my pulse quickened.

  Dulceña had covered her head and the lower part of her face with her rebozo. As we made eye contact, I gripped the reins tightly in my hands until my palms felt bruised. The sheriff’s office worked closely with the Texas Rangers. Papá was definitely going to find out about our midnight escapade.

  “Heading home?” I recognized Deputy Slater as he leaned forward in his saddle, trying to get a better look at us in the dark. We wouldn’t have been at a disadvantage if the rebels hadn’t kept our lantern. “You Ace’s younger boy?”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” I said, nervously. I’d heard tales of what Rangers did out in the chaparral. Out here in the darkness, where lawmen can’t tell Mexicans and tejanos apart, the Rangers were ruthless, shooting first and asking questions later. It was exactly why I had been worried about our late-night meeting in the first place.

  “This your sweetheart, Joaquín?” Slater asked, sidling right up to Dulceña’s mount, trying to catch a glimpse of her covered face.

  Before I could answer, Dulceña shook her head. “That’s none of your business,” she said.

  “This is Dulceña,” I said. “She’s my parents’ goddaughter.”

  “Well, don’t you two know there’s a rebellion going on?” Slater asked. “Outlaws hide out in these parts. It’s not safe to wander the woods at night.”

  “Yes, sir, we know.” I looked sideways at Dulceña, who was sitting quietly in her saddle. “We should really get going. Her parents are probably worried sick about her by now.”

  “I’m sure they are,” the second deputy said, and as he came toward me, I recognized him. His name was Davis, and he was new to Morado County.

  When Slater came over to sit between me and Dulceña, she averted her eyes, turning her face away from the deputy. Slater reached over to Dulceña’s horse and stroked its mane for a moment. “Maybe we should escort you two into town — make sure you make it there without any trouble.”

  “No!” I said — too quickly, because both deputies turned their attention to me at the same time. “No. It’s fine. We’ll be all right.” I tried to sound competent, up to the task of getting Dulceña home safely without assistance.

  I didn’t want to come off as paranoid, but I just didn’t trust them. Lawmen were just as dangerous as rebels in South Texas these days. Reports from Hidalgo County and Agua Dulce had been running in the rumor mill, of lawmen — Rangers and deputies alike — taking girls away under the pretense of escorting them home and then violating and brutalizing them, oftentimes leaving them for dead in the campo. Since I didn’t know Slater and Davis personally, I wasn’t about to let them “escort us home.”

  Davis’s mount snorted, and he yanked at the reins, smiling. “Wait a minute. Are you two running off together?”

  “No, of course not!” Dulceña’s pitch rose in agitation. “I was out for a ride this evening and decided to visit Las Moras. It got to be too late to ride back alone.”

  Slater cleared his throat fiercely. Coughing something up, he spat on the ground in front of Dulceña’s mount. “Stop teasing her, Davis,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get this caravan going.”

  Dulceña shrunk a little inside her rebozo as Slater took the reins from her and began to ride off with them in tow.

  “There’s no need to take her reins away,” I said as I started to follow. “She can manage her own horse.”

  Davis suddenly sidled up to my left and reached over to me, “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, grabbing me by the back of the neck. He pulled me toward him, and I twisted against him until we both fell off our horses, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

  Somewhere in the darkness, I heard Dulceña scream, but Davis had me facedown on the dirt, flat against the ground. I wrestled against him. His right arm wrapped around my throat, cutting off my airway, and his knee pressed against my back, keeping me still while he tried to choke the life out of me.

  “Dulceña?” My voice sounded small, weak to my ears.

  When she didn’t answer, I closed my eyes and anchored my right shoulder in the dirt, pushing my knees into the ground at the same time to gain momentum. When I felt Davis’s arm give a little, I pushed off, lifting us both off the ground. I twisted around until I had him on his back so that I could scoot over him, easing myself out of his chokehold in the process.

  On my feet a moment later, I reached for my horse’s reins, hoping my lead would get me to Dulceña in time. Then Davis, on his knees beside me, pulled his gun.

  “Stay!” he ordered. My skin prickled, and every muscle in my body tightened.

  I froze.

  Davis started to stand.

  Given a moment of distraction when he wobbled on one knee, I threw myself at him. Davis flew backward. I yanked his pistol from his hands as he went down, throwing the gun into the brush and dropping on him in one motion.

  I didn’t think. I just reacted. Papá had taught me how to wrestle and fight to defend myself since I was twelve years old. Pugilism had been his favorite pastime as a youth, so he trained me well. Though I’d never expected to use them in defense of my life, the moves came naturally now. I hit Davis in the side of the jaw with a few quick left jabs before delivering a solid punch with my right, exactly the way I had practiced with Papá.

  Once Davis was laid out on the ground, I ran into the brush in the direction my horse had taken when he’d gotten spooked by all the squabbling. I found him standing between two trees. He shook his head and snorted when I clicked my tongue and approached him. I stroked his mane once, to soothe him, before mounting. Then I grabbed my rifle and rode into the thicket, in the direction Slater had taken Dulceña.

  Just a few yards on the other side of the brush, Dulceña was fighting off Slater’s attack as he tried to pin her against the trunk of an old oak tree. Without hesitation, I fired a warning shot into the night air and aimed at Slater’s back. Slater spun around, pulling Dulceña in front of him. She was pale with fright, and I could tell by her swollen cheek he’d beaten her up quite a bit. I dismounted, because if I was going to shoot, I wanted to make sure I was standing on firm ground where I had more control of the situation. Holding his pistol to her temple, Slater yelled, “Throw your weapon down, boy.”

  The
sight of Dulceña with a bloody lip and bulging left eye was enough to send me over the edge. I kept my rifle aimed at him. I wanted nothing more than to shoot him, but I didn’t have a clean shot. I thought about it for a moment, considered shooting at him anyway, but then he yelled again, “Now! Before I change my mind and kill you both.”

  I didn’t get a chance to lower my weapon. Davis came out of the shadows behind me and hit me in the head. My head exploded with pain and I fell to the ground.

  “What should we do with him?” Davis asked, pressing his gun against my head.

  Slater took a deep breath, as if considering what to do next. Then he pushed Dulceña back to the tree. “You stay there, or you both die tonight. Understand?”

  Dulceña nodded, and Slater walked over to me, tapping his thigh with his gun.

  “Joaquín del Toro,” Slater said. “You should’ve stayed down, boy. You’re in over your head here. What are people going to think when we take you in for raping and killing this pretty young thing?”

  The thought of them getting away with rape and murder put knots in my stomach. “You’re not smart enough to pull that off.” To prove my point, I spat on his boots.

  Slater tossed his gun to Davis and pulled me up by the collar of my shirt. When I was on my feet, he pushed me back and swung at me. I let him have the first punch. His fist barely skimmed the rim of my jaw as I moved my head sideways, shifting with the punch to minimize the impact.

  Then I ripped into him, jabbing his jaw three times before taking him by the shoulders. I kept him close so that it was his back Davis would hit if he tried to shoot me, throwing body punch after body punch.

  “Slater!” Davis screamed. “Do I shoot him?”

  “No!” Slater shouted as he struggled against me. “No! No! Whatever you do, don’t shoot! I can . . . take him . . .”

  “Oh, hell!”

  Davis threw down the guns and tried pulling me off Slater. Almost immediately, we all went down to the ground, struggling in a mass of arms and legs. Together, both deputies were getting in more and more punches on me, which fueled my rage. I punched blindly, not caring where my fists landed, as long as flesh pounded flesh.

  Suddenly, a shot rang out, and we all froze. Still clutching Slater’s shirt in my fist, I turned to see Dulceña holding a deputy’s pistol in each hand, pointing at us. Her figure was tiny against the darkness, but her feet were firmly planted on the ground, shoulder-width apart. She was ready to shoot again.

  “Get off him,” she said, waving the gun in her left hand in the general direction she wanted the deputies to move.

  As Slater and Davis rolled off to the side, I clutched at my forehead. Sometime during the scuffle, I had hit my head hard against a rock, and the sting of it suddenly caught up with me. Dulceña spoke again. “You two stay where you are. Don’t even breathe. Are you all right, Joaquín?”

  “Yeah.” I got up and walked over to check on Dulceña’s wounds. “The question is, how are you doing?”

  She handed me one of the pistols. “I’ll live” she said, leaning into my arm with a sigh of relief. “Should we tie them up?”

  The sound of approaching horse hooves caught everyone’s attention. As we all turned, my older brother, Tomás, came crashing into the clearing followed closely by Mateo and Fito. They kicked up a cloud of dust as they came to a quick stop that made Tomás’s sorrel whinny, rear up, and beat at the air with his white forelegs.

  All three men jumped off their horses. While Tomás came over toward us, Mateo and Fito made quick work of grabbing Slater and Davis and pushing them to the ground, making them lay there with their hands behind their heads. Tomás winced when he prodded my head wound, but he let out a loud, exasperated breath when he inspected Dulceña’s face.

  “It’s not too bad. The swelling will go down in a few days. I just hope your lip doesn’t scar.” He took the gun from Dulceña and handed it to me. I pointed it at the deputies on the ground.

  Inching over to me while keeping his gun aimed at the deputies, Mateo asked, “You feeling okay, Joaquín? Not seeing two of everything, are you?”

  “No. I’m fine,” I said, touching my forehead again and flinching at the pain that was becoming sharper by the minute. “What are you all doing here?”

  “What do you think we’re doing? You left without telling anyone where you were going.” Tomás’s voice changed. He was suddenly grit and stone, hard, the way he used to be when I was growing up. Even though I wasn’t a boy anymore, his tone still affected me. I suspected it would always be that way. “Mateo and Fito were worried about you. They couldn’t go back to Las Moras without you. How would they explain your whereabouts? You shouldn’t be so inconsiderate of your friends, Joaquín. Perhaps if you had stayed with them, none of this would have happened.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind that,” Tomás said. “What happened here, exactly?”

  My brother’s eyebrows furrowed more and more as I recounted the harrowing events of that night, leaving out the meeting with the bandits for fear of incurring more of his wrath. I swear my brother cringed when I pointed out Dulceña’s disheveled hair and torn dress to validate my story.

  “You two are going to have a tough time explaining this to Sheriff Nolan after I have a talk with him,” Tomás said to Slater and Davis, who were now sitting up on their knees next to each other, hanging their heads. “I suggest you get on your horses and start heading into town.”

  “We can’t let them go,” I protested, upset but not shocked by his decision. Tomás was always trying to help people out. “We have to take them in. Tell the sheriff what they did.”

  “We don’t have any authority here,” Tomás said. “These might be Nolan’s men, but we all know who’s really in charge. It’s Munro we’d have to talk to, and I doubt Munro would believe you over them. You know how he is. He’d do anything to keep law and order, even if that means covering up for his men when they run rampant.”

  “He’s right,” Mateo said, his dark face twisted with disgust. “Unfortunately, it’s your word against theirs, and lawmen are never wrong. Not around here, they ain’t.”

  “We have to get you home,” Tomás said. “You’re both bleeding, and we need to get some ice on Dulceña’s face to bring down the swelling. And if I know Mamá, she’ll want to help her clean up before we call for her parents.”

  “But — ”

  “But nothing,” Tomás interrupted me. “Take their guns. Make sure they have no other weapons on their mounts, and let’s get you both back home. It’s going to be a long night at Las Moras.”

  Excerpt from the Hand-Book of Etiquette for Ladies by an American Lady, 1847-1915

  Chapter 5

  When we got back to Las Moras, my father called Munro and we all met in the sala, the more intimate family room in the back of the house, away from the impersonal foyer and the grandeur of the main parlor. Dulceña’s parents sat together on the big couch with their daughter snuggled between them. My mother had taken care of Dulceña’s wounds. Other than a swollen lip and a few scratches on her face, my beloved looked like she always did, composed and smart, completely in control of her emotions.

  It was strange having both our families gathered together in the sala again. Not since that fateful Easter Sunday when my father had lost his temper had the Villas visited our house, much less sat across from each other in this, the most familial room in our home. But I couldn’t take any joy in the situation. Dulceña’s wounds made me regret the circumstances that were bringing us together.

  Mamá, beside me on the love seat, rested her hands on my right arm, and fussed with my hair. My father and Tomás were standing by the stone fireplace next to Captain Munro, as he asked questions and put together the details of the attack. We all knew it was a long shot, but my parents had insisted on calling in Munro and trying to make him do s
omething about the attack.

  While Captain Munro, Tomás, and Papá sorted things out, Mamá checked my head wound one more time, gingerly testing the bandage. Then she kissed me and hugged me tight, saying, “Gracias a Dios you’re all right. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. ¡Eres mi alma — mi corazón!”

  Captain Munro asked me a few more questions about the incident. Why were we there? What was the purpose of the meeting? Who else was at the creek? I was as honest and truthful as I could be when I answered him without making any remarks that might tarnish Dulceña’s reputation or give Munro any information about the concerns we had over our ranch hands before I had an opportunity to alert my father. As far as Munro was concerned, we were just talking, visiting with each other away from the chaos and commotion of the quinceañera.

  “You have to understand,” Mamá said, coming to our defense. “They’ve been friends since they were out of the crib. We practically raised them together. They played together year after year, in school and in this house. It can’t be easy for them, this . . . separation.”

  Munro took stock of us as we sat together in discomfort. “And that’s it?” he asked. “That’s the whole story.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s it,” I said. “We just wanted to sit down and talk, away from the drunken partygoers in the plaza.” Of course, I didn’t mention the earlier incident, when we were accosted by rebels. I couldn’t tell anyone about that, not after the information Dulceña had bestowed upon me earlier that night. I couldn’t be sure what the Ranger would think if I told him the rebels let us go soon after they found out who I was. There were all kinds of implications there, and I didn’t want Munro to come to the conclusion that we were in league with tejano rebels.

  Dulceña didn’t mention the rebels either. It’s not that Dulceña’s deceptive, but she probably wanted Munro and his posse to concentrate on the deputies. She’d want Slater and Davis arrested and imprisoned for what they tried to do to her.