Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [32]
The procession of vehicles behind the waxed hearse rolled through Carrizozo. Headlights shone pale and bleak beneath the early afternoon swelter of sun. In her wooden coffin lay Agnes Montoya. Delfino, now her widower but only the day before yesterday her husband of forty-nine years, refused to be chauffeured in a black town car from the mortuary. Instead, he’d driven his Ford pickup with his nephew, Marcos, riding shotgun.
Agnes would not have been surprised at his bullheaded behavior. She’d have been touched, though, that rather than wearing one of his usual turquoise bolo ties he’d dug out the only necktie he owned, which Marcos had knotted for him back at the bungalow. Agnes would have loved to see her man dressed proud like this, and had she made it to their golden anniversary it might have happened. As it was, one would have to go back and look at wedding photos from ’thirty-nine to see Delfino similarly decked out.
A few members of her family were here from Oklahoma, and on Delfino’s side people were down from Nambé. All were sad but not shocked. Once Agnes had been diagnosed in Las Cruces and it was understood that the growth was inoperable, her dying had moved swiftly.
A brother of hers—John Bryant, his name had been—who’d come with her to this valley toward the end of the Depression, was buried not far north, at White Oaks Cemetery, fenced by wrought iron and cradled by forested mountains. It was her wish, fulfilled now, if she couldn’t be buried at Dripping Spring, the homestead she and Delfino had settled years before, that she be laid to rest beside this brother. Dust blew as the minister read. 1926–1988. A few people succinctly spoke of her qualities and virtues. The ceremony was, again according to her wish, brief. Afterward, they entouraged back through Carrizozo and on toward Tularosa, as the massive skies spun toward eventide and a first planet brazenly flickered in the still-pale blue behind them on the horizon. After the mortuary people took their leave, with gravity and antique courtesies, Agnes’s families drove down to Alamogordo to have a smorgasbord dinner at the Holiday Inn. Delfino was lost in an understandable daze, but spoke with Marcos, red in the face not from grief but flourishing anger.
—Her tumor was their tumor, Delfino said.
Marcos did not question his uncle. Tacitly he agreed, shaking his head while choking on a deviled egg. Muzak, strangely soothing, underscored the quiet conversing among these two families, who did not know each other well.
—They’ll be hearing from me, Delfino assured his nephew.
—What are you going to tell them? he asked, daring to look at his uncle who had shed, by now, black tie and jacket, leaving buttoned his weskit from another era, of purple, orange, and gold paisley, white shirtsleeves rolled up, the grief only enhanced in his profile.
Marcos didn’t inquire who they were. He’d known for years who they were and happened to agree that Delfino and Agnes had been evicted, defrauded, gypped, swindled, deceived, fucked up and down by the amorphous, considerable them.
—These people murdered my wife and to add insult to injury they murdered her after they’d already killed her. How many times is a soul supposed to die?
His nephew sat still.
—First they made it so she couldn’t have a baby, with all their radiation drifting over the mountain. Then they made it so the only thing that could grow inside her was cancer.
Marcos placed a tentative hand on his uncle’s shoulder.
—I hope they’re happy.
Astounding, thought Marcos, that the tune “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” should be piped through the sound system as his uncle spoke, but there it was. He watched Delfino lay his fork on the plate of uneaten food. But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red—
—As if Communist socialism ever stood a snowball’s chance.
Sarah Montoya had been eavesdropping on her brother-in-law while she engaged with others in the funeral