Shame the Stars

by McCall,Guadalupe Garcia

  “You don’t have to be a part of it, mi amor,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take Slater out if he wags his tongue again. I don’t care what happens to me. I won’t let him ruin your reputation.”

  “No. Please don’t do anything rash. You’ve already put yourself in too much danger.” She squeezed my hands for emphasis. “I don’t want Munro’s posse coming after you any more than I want them coming after my own family, and they would. You can bet on that.”

  “But we’d be letting them all get away with this!” I said. “Because it’s not just the deputies who are getting away with this, mi amor. Munro and Sheriff Nolan also share in that guilt. They’re as much to blame for their men acting como salvajes. Someone has to make them pay!”

  “My father says letting them go free is the best thing anyone can do for them right now,” Dulceña said. “He says bad people never stop doing bad things. Water always runs to water. They’ll get what’s coming to them eventually.”

  I nodded. “Papá says sometimes you have to let a vicious dog think he’s loose for a bit, give him a little leash. He’ll just run around in circles until he gets all tangled up in his own rope and hang himself.”

  Sighing contently, Dulceña wrapped her arms around my waist and snuggled up to my chest. I was about to kiss her again when we heard her bedroom door open.

  “Dulceña?” Doña Serafina called from inside her room.

  “You have to go!” Dulceña said. I didn’t hop over the railing right away. Instead, I stole one last kiss from her before throwing my legs over.

  “Hurry!” She pushed me away, almost making me fall off the balcony. “Be careful!”

  “Dulceña, Hija? Are you out there?” Doña Serafina asked, her voice getting closer to the balcony as I started climbing down the jacaranda tree.

  “Coming, Mami,” Dulceña said as I reached the ground. I hid behind the tree, pressed snugly against the wall of her house.

  “What are you doing out there?” her mother asked Dulceña once she was inside the room.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Dulceña admitted. “It’s that moon. It’s so close tonight — like having a giant lantern shining into my room.”

  Doña Serafina went to the balcony door, where she poked her head out and surveyed the garden. I had managed to skulk along the wall to the right of the balcony, discreetly hidden behind a massive bougainvillea.

  “Then you should try closing the door and drawing the drapes.” Dulceña’s mother glanced up at the moon before turning around to talk to her. “You’ll catch a cold, standing out here breathing in this mal aire. Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”

  I stayed in the garden for a few more minutes, to see if Dulceña would come back out and we could finish our conversation. Then I saw a gas lamp light up downstairs, so I bolted out of the yard, jumped over the fence where I’d come in, and ran down the alley toward the edge of town.

  Chapter 8

  I didn’t know much about politics or revolution, but I knew trouble when I saw it. And the next morning, when Manuel came running up the steps of our house asking for my father, I knew something must have been snapping at his heels like a ravenous coyote.

  Mamá, who had been sweeping the porch, set her broom aside in the door frame. “Manuel, qué pasa?”

  “It’s rebels, Doña Jovita,” Manuel said, fear warbling his voice. “They’re through the gate and heading up here.”

  I walked to the edge of the porch. “Rebels?” At the south end of the property, two men were always posted at our gates. “How many of them? Why did the guards let them through?” There was no sign of them yet, but we didn’t have a clear view of the south side from the porch of the ranch house.

  Mamá ignored my questions. A frown marred her forehead. “Are you sure it’s rebels? Did you see them yourself, Manuel?”

  “Sí. I saw them from the water tower. It’s them all right. There’s no time to waste, señora,” Manuel said, pointing toward the south gates as if the rebels were already upon him. “I need to let Don Acevedo know.”

  “Need to let me know what?” Papá asked, his tall, stout frame blocking the door.

  “Rebels, Patrón. Coming up to the house right now.” Manuel twisted his slouch hat in his hands as if it might come apart.

  Papá peered to the west, beyond the mesquite and huisache tree line to the empty horizon. “Now? In broad daylight? Are the Rangers after them?”

  “No,” Manuel said, shaking his head. “I didn’t see anyone after them. We have to hurry, Patrón.”

  “The women and children!” Mamá crossed behind Papá to grab her shawl off her rocking chair and put it over her shoulders. “Go to the fields, the laundry room, the farmhouse. Find them all — wherever they are. Get them together, Manuel. Take them to . . . take them — ”

  “ — to the barn?” Manuel finished her thought — my mother was too flustered to finish it herself.

  “¡Sí! ¡Sí!” she said, turning to Papá for confirmation. “To the barn, ¿verdad, Acevedo?”

  “The barn?” I asked, puzzled. My father nodded, and Manuel took off running behind the house, toward the servants’ quarters. “We’d be safer in the house and on the roofs. We can take better aim from higher up, don’t you think?”

  My father turned to me and said, “Don’t ask questions, Joaquín. Just do as your mother says.”

  “But it makes no sense to hide in the barn!”

  My mother headed off down the wide dirt road that led to the big barn.

  I ran into the hall and pulled a couple of rifles and pistols off the gun rack. When I came back, I handed my father a rifle and his pistol belt and buckled mine around my waist, hoping Papá couldn’t read the worry on my face.

  “Come on, Joaquín. We have to go, Son.”

  As we left the porch and took to the road on foot, a cloud of dust rose up through the woods from the south, getting bigger and bigger as it approached. It was a group of rebels riding hard toward the main house. My stomach twisted with apprehension as Papá and I followed my mother’s hurried steps all the way down to where Manuel, Fito, and Mateo were herding some of the women and children who lived at Las Moras into the barn.

  When I stepped inside, I found only a few of the women and children had been brought into the fold. But when I asked Mamá where the rest of the womenfolk were, she shushed me. “Not now, Joaquín. Please, just trust me,” she said.

  Doña Flora ran up the road, waving her arms, yelling for Manuel to wait for her.

  I hated when my parents did this, treated me like a kid. I was a grown man. She had no business shushing me. Although I didn’t like it, I thought better of resisting or questioning her any further. It would be inappropriate to argue with her in front of the help. It was a conversation for another time.

  “Por favor, let me in. I have to talk to them,” Doña Flora begged Manuel. He moved slightly aside and let her squeeze past him with her two younger sons. Once we were all in, Manuel closed the doors and we stood quietly huddled together beside the haystacks, saddles, sawhorses, wheelbarrows, and small tool crates in the back. Like chicks in a locked henhouse, we blinked, our sight adjusting to the dimness inside the barn.

  The sounds of approaching horse hooves startled our horses, who snorted and pawed restlessly at their stall floors. Papá and Manuel clucked their tongues and spoke soothingly to them as they stood waiting at the front of the barn. One of the younger children whimpered and started to cry. Doña Flora put her hands on her sons’ shoulders. She leaned down and whispered something I couldn’t hear. Some of the other women did the same, while Beatriz and Teresa, our two field house cooks, picked up their young ones and cooed to them, rocking them in their arms.

  I made sure my rifle was loaded and readied myself for whatever happened if the rebels broke through the doors after they were done pilfering the farmhouse and the res
t of the grounds. Mamá came to stand beside me. She put one hand on my left arm and the other over my right hand as it hovered over the trigger. “Wait,” she whispered. My father was standing quietly beside Manuel. Neither one of them was holding a weapon. I didn’t understand how they could all be so calm at a time like this. My heart was thumping in my chest and my hands were sweating as I gripped my rifle.

  Outside, horses came to a stop. Men talked quietly as they dismounted. The spurs on their boots clicked and clanged as they milled around in front of the barn. The shadows of their feet moved back and forth under the door frame, their steps pronounced but unhurried. A barn owl hooted and whistled. A thick drop of sweat ran from my temple down the side of my face and I shrugged, wiping it off with my shirt collar.

  And then the door opened, letting in the morning sun one slow, hazy ray at a time.

  Then Carlos and his men came barging through the door, mean and dangerous in their filthy clothes, with their hands resting over the pistols on their belts. I moved my hand, and then Mamá stepped in front of me, blocking me. I aimed the rifle at the floor.

  Suddenly, there was a rush of movement and joyful squeals and laughter as the women and children ran to greet the bandits. “¡Papi!” Teresa’s son shouted as he and Teresa rushed in and hugged Chavito.

  Chavito grabbed her and called her amor mío. He kissed her on the lips while their son clung to his left leg, his face pressed against his father’s thigh.

  Beatriz had called Pollo “Guelito” as she hugged him and handed him her youngest daughter. “Say hi to your abuelito, m’ija,” she said.

  My head was spinning as I turned this way and that and saw nothing but welcomed hugs, lingering kisses, and tearful, warm smiles. But nothing prepared me for the surprise of my life, the moment when Mamá walked over to Carlos, put her arms out, and said, “¡Hermano!”

  Carlos wrapped my mother in a bear hug and picked her up off the ground as she kissed his scruffy cheeks and cried out for him to put her down. Confused by the realization that Carlos was my mother’s brother, I raised my eyebrows at my father, who was smiling broadly at their reunion.

  Even after he put my mother down, Carlos couldn’t stop grinning, his upper lip lost under his thick mustache. At that moment when he grinned at us, he was different than I remembered him from our encounter at the creek. He was smaller, shorter. More human.

  Papá put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I continued to mull over the fact that Carlos was my uncle. But why didn’t I know him? Where had he been all my life?

  “What’s the matter?” Mamá caressed my cheek. “Are you in shock? Can you talk? This is your tio Carlos, Joaquín. He is my father’s son from his first marriage. Our families weren’t close — our mothers did not get along. That’s why you’ve never met him. But wars tend to unite people, especially if they are familia, verdad, Hermano?”

  Carlos patted my mother’s hand. “Joaquín and I have met, Jovita. At that creek outside of town, the other night.”

  “You mean that night with Dulceña?” Mamá’s eyes widened and her hand lingered on my arm.

  Carlos grinned down at my mother. “But don’t worry. He wasn’t the least bit afraid of us. He is most definitely your son, Estrellita.”

  “Joaquín?” Papá’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  My mind reeled for a moment. I had been holding my breath, so I filled my lungs with air before I spoke to my mother. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little — Wait,” I said, as I tried to make sense of the situation. “Did he just . . . did he just call you Estrellita?”

  Mamá put both hands on the sides of my face, anchoring me with her eyes. Her thumbs grazed my temples for a second. Then she lifted her chin and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t told you what I was doing, that I have been helping the rebels, providing for them, taking care of their families, harboring them at Las Moras. But it was for your own safety — you understand, don’t you? We were waiting for the right time.”

  “We?” I cleared my throat and looked to my father for an explanation.

  Papá nodded to my mother. “Your mother is right. This is definitely the right time to let you know what’s been going on. This conflict has brought us all closer together, and now is as good a time as any to let the lawmen of Morado County know exactly where we stand, what side we’re on in this fight. A lot has changed in the last couple of years. Things are not so black-and-white anymore.”

  I swallowed hard before asking, “You mean . . . we’re in league with bandits? Was Munro right? Were our men really attempting to blow up the mill?” My whole body tensed up. I’d promised Dulceña I’d root out and turn in any rebels hiding out at Las Moras, but I couldn’t denounce my own mother and father. No way I would ever turn them over to Munro or any other lawmen for that matter. I loved them too much.

  “No, of course not!” Mamá reassured me. “These men are a little rough, but there are no ruthless criminals at Las Moras.” My mother moved aside and slipped her right hand into the crook of my elbow, hooking our arms together as if we were about to step onto a dance floor at a baile or quinceañera. “Your uncle Carlos and I have reconnected as more than brother and sister. We are united as tejanos mejicanos, the true children of this land we all love so much. We are what Munro would label rebels only in that we are willing to do whatever it takes to protect our families. Up to now your father has had to keep up appearances, pretend to be neutral, for the sake of this property, our home, the land of our hearts, but he understands and supports my commitment to our people.”

  “I’m sorry we don’t have time for a more proper, less hurried introduction,” Carlos said, interrupting my mother with an urgent tone that startled me. “But I’m afraid Las Moras might be compromised.”

  “How?” my father asked, his eyes shining in the dimness of the barn.

  “Munro and his posse took Gerardo Gutierrez on the road to Hidalgo County at dawn today,” Carlos said. “We all know Gerardo and his friends weren’t really planning to blow anything up. They were there trying to stop the real culprits from bombing the mill. But it was all a setup. Gerardo was a patsy in Munro’s plan. He used him to flush us out. That’s why I sent two men out to follow them, in case they took a detour, like Rangers tend to do these days.”

  “Is he all right?” Doña Flora broke away from the crowd and came forward, wringing her hands. “They haven’t hurt him, have they?”

  “I’m sorry, señora,” Carlos whispered, lowering his voice respectfully. “But my suspicions were right. Munro and his posse never planned on transferring Gerardo down to the jail in Hidalgo. They pulled off the road as soon as they got far enough from town to be out of sight. They were going to hang him. He probably sensed that, or maybe they told him. In any event, somehow he got loose and attacked Sheriff Nolan.”

  “What do you mean, he attacked the sheriff?” I asked, afraid of the answer even as I asked the question. “How? With what?”

  “He disarmed Nolan and shot him with his own pistol,” Chavito said, putting his arm around Teresa and pulling her in closer.

  Doña Flora put her hand to her chest. “So what are they going to do to him? Did they bring him back to Monteseco?”

  Carlos shook his head. “No,” he said. He took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, señora, but they didn’t bring him back. They strung him up. Left him up there on an old oak tree, hanging on the side of the road for everyone to see.”

  “No! No!” Doña Flora’s cry was more like a long-winded wail. She stumbled back and steadied herself against a nearby water barrel. Mamá left my side to comfort Gerardo’s mother, who clung to her and wept, shaking uncontrollably. Teresa and Beatriz went over to help comfort Doña Flora. They wrapped their arms around her and stroked her hair and hugged her tight while they whispered soft, sorrowful condolen
ces.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” Doña Flora kept wailing. “I can’t do this! I can’t leave my baby out there like that!”

  “We won’t leave him out there,” Mamá said, hugging Doña Flora to her chest like she was her very own sister. “We’ll cut him down and bring him home. We’ll take care of him — just like all the others. I promise. Don’t worry about that.”

  “How can I not?” Doña Flora cried, sobbing into her shawl. “I am in hell, and Death is my heir.”

  My mother’s promises to Doña Flora slowed the blood in my veins. I grew numb with shock and something else, something cold and foreign. The emerging details of my mother’s secret life as La Estrella sent tiny shivers down my spine and raised goose bumps on the skin of my forearms.

  Pollo broke the solemn silence that had started to settle over the crowd like a mourning shroud. “The Rangers are holed up in the sheriff’s house with Doc Hammonds,” he said. “Last we heard, they didn’t expect Nolan to live through the night. It’s got the whole lot of them all riled up.”

  “We should open the hole,” Papá said.

  “Open the hole?” Fito asked.

  Teresita’s daughter clung to her mother’s skirt. “What hole, Mami?” she asked.

  I looked at my friends, Mateo and Fito, for the first time since we entered the barn and realized the younger children were just as baffled by everything that had transpired as we were.

  “Yes,” Mamá said, moving out of the way of the men. “It’s time.”

  Manuel and Papá pulled a crate of tools away from the wall. Mamá removed a wooden slat from the floor directly under where the crate had been sitting, a spot I’d never seen uncovered. Papá helped her, and together they pulled on a rope that brought the slat up.