Читать книгу Trini - Estella Portillo Trambley - Страница 14

5

The Goat

During the days that followed, the mountain became less steep and the vegetation less dense. From Umira, they headed toward the lowlands, passing pueblos of mixed population. The first pueblos were inhabited mostly by mestizos, but as they made their way into barranca country the mestizos became scarce. The numbers of Indians grew in comparison as they headed east of the main settlements. These were not primitive Indian villages. They were settlements with fountains in the middle of the plazas, Catholic churches, and stores. The mestizos had won out; in the last settlement before Indian country, José Mario stopped to buy supplies and ask for directions. Trini saw ancianos going into a church and children playing around the fountain. Buti pointed at a lazy cat sleeping on a muro as José Mario asked the storekeeper, “Can we buy supplies from the Indians?”

The storekeeper shrugged. “Depends. Sometimes they sell, sometimes they kill, sometimes they give away. Who understands descalzos!”

Tonio had been sipping away at his sotol. Tía Pancha made a point of it, “He’s going to drive us off a cliff.”

“You’re a cruel woman,” Tonio lamented. “Here, have a drink. It’ll make you kind.”

“You’re shameless!”

“Sure.” Tonio sniffed the air and avoided Tía Pancha’s accusing eyes. A nervous journey for Tía Pancha, for the fear of Indian country and Tonio’s drinking gave her little hope of coming through the journey alive. This had driven her to constant prayer. She made the children kneel and pray with her whenever they camped. During these times José Mario and Tonio would disappear in a hurry, leaving the children at the mercy of Tía Pancha. Hands tightly clasped, head lowered, she would beseech, “Keep us in your care. Save us from the savages, dear Mary . . .”

“Look, Tía,” Trini pointed at a sunset during one of the praying sessions.

“Hush up and pray,” ordered her aunt, still very much in the midst of her fears.

Outside of Carichic, the travelers sat around a campfire cooking atole for an early supper. A few miles back, they had picked apples from wild trees, and the children were slicing them for supper.

“I wish I had a rifle,” Tonio exclaimed.

José Mario shook his head. “The Indians must not see us with weapons.”

“We could kill some game.”

The sun had not yet set as they rested and ate their corn atole and apples. It was cool in the paraje covered with mulberry trees. Next to their camp was a muddy stream where the children waded. Tía Pancha washed her hair with clear cannister water, for at every mountain stream the cannisters were refilled. Tía Pancha was drying her long hair in the sun. Then she began to plait it with quicksilver fingers. Tonio watched her with a smile on his face. “You’re a good looking woman, Pancha.”

“Be quiet, borracho.”

“It’s the truth, mujer.”

Tía Pancha took to braiding her hair more quickly than ever. Trini wished that Tonio wouldn’t tease like that. Suddenly, from the hill, hundreds of birds burst forth, soaring and shining in the face of the setting sun. In a cluster they circled happily, then disappeared behind a bluff as swiftly as they had appeared.

“If only I had a rifle,” Tonio wished again.

Tía Pancha stopped braiding her hair to watch the birds. When they disappeared, there were tears in her eyes. “So sudden, all that beauty, so sudden. Now, it’s gone.”

“If I had a rifle, we’d have some for supper,” Tonio repeated.

Tía Pancha crying like that! It stayed with Trini. Tía Pancha, not so apprehensive, not so much with her saints, but with beauty. Matilda would have cried too, Trini thought.

“If I’m not mistaken, if we go north, we’ll come to Cusihuiriachi.” José Mario was scanning the horizon.

Trini’s heart skipped. “Are you sure?”

“If we keep east of Carichic.”

Cusihuiriachi! It was a deep note, orange-mellow like the sun. Tonio was looking at her curiously. Trini knew he sensed her happiness. He smiled, “Sabochi, eh?”

She nodded, warm in her feelings. He teased, “What does a chavala like you know about love?”

José Mario noticed the dwindling food, and the thought of Indians who hated mestizos made him uneasy. “I hope it’s Cusihuiriachi. We could use Sabochi to guide us out of the barranca.”

The grass-covered crags on the high ground led into a valley, Trini watched a herd of goats grazing. They must belong to someone—who? she wondered. The road had become very narrow, gradually being consumed by a tangled, growing ravine. It was the beginning of a sea of arbustos polvorosos, for the lush fertility of the high mountains was fast disappearing along the river. The caravan, too, was following the river. The settlement or pueblo would be found close to the river, hugging a life force as the sun beat unmercifully on land red and powder-dry.

There were no longer any commissaries, stores, or tienditas owned by mestizos. This was the land of the descalzos, and the caravan had been in the deep barranca for five days. Still no Indian village, only a river that at times narrowed to dry patches surrounded by mud and more arbustos polvorosos, a defeated river giving in to sun and dust.

The journey had taken its toll on the travelers too. The beating sun, silences. The rhythm of the wagon was painful to bodies now numb and cramped, numb to the jolts that shocked the tense stillness of their limbs. The only food left was a sack of corn, half-full. No more water from the river. And before them, as far as the eye could see, the endless red desert. Trini had never imagined Cusihuiriachi as a barren land. So Sabochi had given up the valley for this!

“We’ll see life soon,” José Mario hoped aloud. “We have to buy food.”

“Cusihuiriachi?” That was the only word on Trini’s lips.

“I hope it is.” José Mario’s voice was strained, worried.

That afternoon, in the shadows of the setting sun, they rested in a paraje. They saw a man coming toward them, an old raramuri riding a mule leading two other pack mules. José Mario went to meet the rider.

“Ave María . . .”

“Sin pecado original . . .”

The greeting involving the Virgin Mary was a customary one among Christianized Indians. José Mario breathed a sigh of relief. Christianized Indians seldom had quarrels with mestizos. Perhaps he came from a village that would sell them food and guide them to Cusihuiriachi. Perhaps he was from Cusihuiriachi. The old raramuri looked at them with suspicion.

“You are chaboches?”

“We’re travelers seeking to buy food,” replied José Mario.

“You are brave, traveling through descalzo country.”

The raramuri scrutinized each face, slowing turning from one to the other. His eyes lingered on the children. He finally seemed satisfied.

“I will rest with you.”

With this he took out a pouch full of an aromatic powder; from another pouch he took dry pieces of corn leaves. He filled the leaves with the sweet-smelling powder, handing one to José Mario, another one to Tonio. Then he poured some powder on a leaf for himself, rolling it tightly, screwing the tips, placing it on his lips, and while it hung there he took two pieces of flint from inside the sarape around his waist, rubbed them vigorously until they sparked, then tightened his lips on the cigarette before he lit it. They smoked in silence.

Tía Pancha held the children back from the man, knowing the ways of Indians. She took some peanut oil and cleaned Lupita’s and Buti’s faces. Trini cleaned her face too, the taste of dust disappearing. She was hungry and thirsty. Soon Tía Pancha would cook some corn in muddy water. As the men talked, the aunt, Buti, and Lupita gathered brush and branches to start a fire. Trini listened to the conversation as she helped make the food.

“Is your village nearby, holy man?” José Mario asked. The old man was a raramuri— indicated by the three deep diagonal scars on his chest, signs of a mystical trial of indoctrination into a holy order among certain Tarahumara.

“I come from the north. I go to Tumuac to sell my loads.”

“What are you selling, holy man?”

“Lentejas and calabazas.”

Lentils and squash! Trini felt a sudden hunger.

“Will you sell us some?” José Mario ventured.

“What’s mine is yours. No money.”

With this the old man rose and went to the packs, heavy on the mule’s back, and untied a sack. Tía Pancha handed large canoas to the children who ran to have them filled. The raramuri filled each one with large yellow squash and a rain of green-brown lentils. What a feast!

“We are beholden to you, holy man.”

“My pleasure.”

After supper, the raramuri took out a bottle of chicha. Beer! The men passed the bottle among themselves until it was empty. Trini wished she could taste something besides the muddy water, but it was not offered to the women or children.

The old man went to the cabaldura and took another bottle. They drank and smoked as early evening cooled the paraje almost to a chill. Tía Pancha unfolded blankets. The cooking fire had dwindled to a dying ember ash; the men were still deep in conversation:

“Who does not hate the white man?” the raramuri asked.

“The white man, too, is afraid of the Tarahumara.”

“You are chaboche. You are part white.”

“We are part Indian too,” José Mario countered. The raramuri laughed, “Habla derecho y seremos amigos.” True, the Indians did not enjoy or accept flattery or lies. Friendship was based on honesty. The old man continued, “I have lived for a hundred years and have seen the milk of our women full of bile and the pestilence of the white man passed on to our children. The white man steals everything, land, women, honor, and they tell vile lies. They think words cleanse them of deeds. No hablan derechos.”

“The Tarahumara have killed many a white man,” José Mario countered again.

“We only kill to keep what is ours. We do not deceive. White men are the plague.”

Tía Pancha was praying silently on her rosary. Trini wondered how men could hate each other so. The raramuri was speaking again:

“It is the gobierno now.” There was futility in his voice. “In the name of a white man’s government, they try to destroy what we have had for a thousand years.”

Tonio jumped up. “A song, holy man. Shall we sing for you, holy man?”

The old raramuri looked at Tonio and slowly a smile came to his face. Tonio beckoned the children. The raramuri nodded pleasantly as the children gathered around Tonio.

“What shall we sing?” Buti asked, ready and eager.

Tonio glanced at the raramuri, asking, “You have a favorite?”

The old man became pensive, then a smile. “Do you know the marriage of the fleas?”

“El piojo y la pulga!” Tonio grinned. “Isn’t it good that the Indian and the mestizo have the same song?”

The old man nodded. Singing voices rose in the dark shadowed by the cast of a half-moon:

“El piojo y la pulga

Se van a casar

Les pregunta el cura

Si saben rezar . . .

Todito sabemos

Y nada sin falta

Contesta el ratón de su ratonal . . .

Que haga la boda

Yo pondré el maíz . . .”

Somehow the little song about two fleas who must pray if they are to be married, about an old benevolent mouse’s offering of corn for the wedding feast, all nonsense, melted old rancors and angers. The old man clapped his hands to the rhythm of the music. Again, thought Trini, Tonio’s joyous insanity has won out. She felt an admiration for her teasing friend.

The raramuri shared their fire, their songs, and their bed that night. The next morning, they broke camp and the raramuri took his leave. José Mario asked him before he left, “Do you know the village of Cusihuiriachi?”

The raramuri shook his head. “I have heard of it, but I have never gone east. That is where you’re going?”

“Yes, holy man. Thank you for your kindness and your friendship.”

“I am richer by it. Ave María.”

“Amen.”

They watched the old raramuri’s straight figure disappear down the trail leading south. Then, they started on their way east. It was another morning of red sun and endless desert. By noon, Tonio decided to ride on ahead while the rest waited under the shade of cottonwoods that bordered the dried riverbed. Tonio had spotted a hill a few kilómetros away. He rode out with the sun directly overhead.

José Mario dozed off under the shade of the cottonwoods and Tía Pancha kept busy rearranging pots and pans in the sacks slung to the horses’ backs. Trini watched Buti and Lupita climb a contorted cottonwood with a wide, open trunk. Sometime later, she looked toward the hill, wondering where Tonio could be. He had been gone for a while now. Had he found a village? Cusihuiriachi? José Mario woke up.

“Pancha, how long did I sleep?”

“Never mind. You rest.”

“Is Tonio back?”

“No, he’s been gone a long time.”

José Mario walked a way in an attempt to spot him, but came back into the shade after a while. The sun was too hot. It was late afternoon when Trini saw Tonio riding toward them. Tía Pancha was cooking the last of the calabazas and some corn for an early evening meal. Tonio was over the bluff now.

“Tonio has a goat!” Buti called out.

Everybody rose to meet him. Sure enough, he had a goat slung over Sarif in front of him, its feet securely tied.

“You found a pueblo? Cusihuiriachi?” José Mario asked, walking toward Tonio.

“There’s a village. I don’t know what place it is.” Tonio dismounted.

“Didn’t you ask?”

“It was deserted. Horses, stock, fires were burning, but no people. I looked around.”

“No people?” José Mario’s voice was puzzled. He looked at the goat. “How did you get it?”

“I took it. I left money for it.”

“You took it?” José Mario’s voice was incredulous. “Don’t you know descalzos by now?”

Trini watched the uneasiness on Tonio’s face. “I thought we needed meat . . .”

“You fool!”

José Mario’s anger was heavy with worry. The goat gave a bleat as if to confirm Tonio’s guilt. José Mario looked out into the distance, grasping for solutions. “We have to take that goat back before they find out it’s gone. Are you sure the village was deserted?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Tonio’s voice was tinged with guilt.

“Strange.” José Mario was still puzzled.

He ordered everyone into the wagon. They broke camp and Tonio wasted no time getting back on Sarif and leading the way. As they turned the hill, Tonio made his way north. While they circled speedily, Trini noticed the river crawling southward in an opposite direction. To the north, she could see the shapes of the village huts clustered together and the swirls of smoke from the chimney fires cutting the late afternoon sun. To the south the river was lost in an area heavy with trees, huge boulders, and brush.

Suddenly, José Mario stopped the wagon, peering toward the river. Tonio, ahead, whirled his horse around.

“What’s the matter?”

“Look.” There was the beginning of distress in José Mario’s voice. “People.”

José Mario started on his way, this time picking up speed. Tonio led the way, urging the horse into a run. The murmur of the river began to fill the air even as they neared the village. It looked deserted. Dusk was falling and the breeze had the rawness of night wind. José Mario halted by the side of a storage shed in the center of the village. Around it were the corrals, one with horses, one with goats. Tonio pointed, “See, Chema, how can they miss one goat.”

“You know better!” José Mario jumped off the wagon and shouted orders to Tonio. “Untie the goat and put it back. Now!”

Tonio quickly did as he was told, fumbling with the knots that secured the goat to the horse. José Mario led the horses to a water trough. Tía Pancha asked, “Is there time to fill the cannisters?”

“Are you mad, woman?” José Mario’s voice was strained, desperate. “We must make a run for it now.”

He was right. José Mario was looking toward the river. The whole horizon was enveloped by moving tangled figures. Trini felt her body jolt forward as José Mario turned the wagon around. Trini looked up to see Tonio running with the goat toward the corral, throwing the goat over, then making his way to Sarif. He leaped on the horse and led the way out of the village.

The supply horses were forgotten as the wagon made a sharp turn and followed Tonio in the darkness. Tía Pancha’s tina and the cannisters teetered to the edge, then fell out, tumbling and rolling down the path. Trini could see the scattering of possessions along the road. Pots rolled, bounced, a desolate clanging filled the dusk. The box with her bultito lay in the dust! The clatter of falling things mixed with the growing shouts of Indians. She was too full of terror to think of loss. The night air hit her face sharply and the road heaved before her. She heard Tía Pancha’s prayers between sobs.

They were racing in the gloom, heading toward the hills. Even the darkness could not save them. She felt the taste of tears and dust as she clung to Buti and Lupita, cowering at the end of the wagon, their little bodies shaking with fright. Trini reached out and put their heads down, as her body felt each twist and jar. Tía Pancha held on to the back of the seat. José Mario urged the horses to race into the darkness of the mountain.

When they circled the hill, Trini looked up to see rising boulders that covered the open ground. No one in sight. José Mario stopped and listened to the silent dark. It wasn’t long before they heard it, horses’ hooves like driving thunder. José Mario drove the wagon down a slope to open ground again and, from a distance, Trini could now make out a group of riding men amidst swirls of dust that rose heavy in the gloom. The wagon hung at a fork in a broken hill. Lupita began to cry.

“What do we do now?” Tía Pancha cried in distress.

“Everybody off.” José Mario’s voice sounded unusually calm. He pointed to trees at a distance. “Over there.”

He ran ahead leading the way. Trini scrambled off, helping Buti down. Tonio was beside her now, leading Tía Pancha and Lupita toward heavy brush. Suddenly, Tía Pancha cried out, “Dios nos salve!”

She was pointing to the top. The shadows of horses and men covered the entire length of the hill, and riding toward them were still more dark bultos of angry men.

“Hide!” was the last whispered order from José Mario. Disoriented in the darkness, Trini soon lost track of the others. She found herself alone. Running along a trail overgrown with brush, she found her way to the shelter of a cleft between two boulders. She flopped to the ground and stretched out flat. Loud shouts hit the darkness. There was a blur coming toward her. Suddenly, she saw the figure of an Indian only a few feet away. She held her breath. She could make out an arm a few inches from where she lay. She saw the figure holding still to listen, then he turned and ran the opposite way as a scream cut the darkness. It was Tía Pancha. Now the voice of Buti crying, then the explosion of Tonio’s angry curses as he struggled with his captors. Trini raised herself and made her way quietly out from the heavy brush.

From behind a boulder, she saw a shadowy group of men. One of them hissed an order, then they separated like fingers on a hand. Trini found her way to the main road. Her hands felt sore, scraped, and a tight sense of nausea filled her. She stumbled toward some kind of an ascent, heard the falling of debris behind her. She looked down to see the shape of a face looking up at her, and a hand that reached and covered her ankle. She felt herself falling, gasping for air. She lay, a tired heap upon the ground, then felt herself being lifted. She tightened her grasp on a man’s arm, and in the darkness her teeth dug into his flesh. He cried out, cursing, and dropped her to the ground.

Trini tried to run, but another Indian grabbed her around the shoulders as she kicked and hit. They pushed her down a slope to where a group waited. There she saw Tonio struggling with three braves. She heard her father’s long, drawn-out, gasping cough, and when she saw him he lay on the ground, breathing in little short whistles. Papá, poor Papá!

It was no use. They were all prisoners. Curses and cries punctured the night air as they were pushed and shoved into the wagon.