The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [110]
Thus, in a few short years, Tomás had become powerful. Truly was he patrón, a man now, not a boy. He had his library. Thanks to Aguirre, he had water running in his white house. He had a fine life, and it would drone on exactly the way it was until he died. Little change. Few adventures. There would always be the dull excitements of a ranch, of course—storms and freezes, heat waves and droughts. Cattle would be rustled, coyotes would take baby goats. Men would be maimed and some would be killed, and difficult births would endanger fine mares, and the Indians in El Potrero would become restless or morose or demon haunted or ill. Loreto would have more babies. His Gaby, too, would have babies. Teresita, God forbid, would find a man and produce even more babies. But it would all seem, he already knew, as familiar as the face of his grandfather clock. Life would tick away, in circles, until he was kicked in the head by a mule, or lay back one last time in his feather bed, or was shot by a drunk vaquero in a dispute over his salary. It was all the same, always the same.
He often sighed, often sat and stared at the mysterious Sierra Madre to the east, wishing he could turn the whole operation back over to Aguirre. Wishing he could see the wild Tarahumara Indians, their fabled hundred-mile footraces—wishing for a bear, its raw pelt sour and stinking as it drooped over his pack mule—wishing for eagle feathers, lion attacks, a sighting of the red wolf, a gun battle. But Aguirre didn’t understand these urges. He constantly called for political action, the “true adventure” of revolution. Tomás could not make Aguirre see the terrible truth: should a revolution begin in Mexico, the peasants would come for them first. Urrea’s head and Aguirre’s head would be mounted on spikes to turn black together in the sun. Their eyes would feed the first crows of the revolt.
In Alamos, there were sophisticates and even artists, but he had sworn to Loreto that he would not embarrass her in her newfound society. No freethinker debates. No drinking. No lovers. In Alamos, he played the swell, taking her arm and strolling the Spanish-looking streets. It was all he could do to keep himself from shooting out the streetlights. No one in Alamos, even his wife—especially his wife—understood him. Father Gastélum seemed to find his thoughts seditious, if not satanic.
At Cabora, Segundo had drifted into his own small world; Aguirre, ever more certain that Díaz was hunting him, spent more and more time hidden in Texas. And Gabriela did not want to listen to talk of wildness, or war, or wandering. Gabriela had come into a fine home and a true love—she would not hear any of this wild talk of his.
Teresita was his companion. Sometimes, he spent entire days talking to her about Díaz, or ranching, or horses, or history. He had been angered, at first, that Aguirre and she were teaching Gaby to read. He still didn’t see what good it could do a female to enter the world in this fashion. Now, though, when he could argue with nobody about the latest poet or the latest newspaper scandal, he was growing more dependent on Teresita’s responses. She spent hours working her way through his library, and late at night, when Huila had brought him his slippers, and he had sipped his brandy, he would light his oil lamp and offer her an opening gambit, as if it were a game of chess. (Chess! He would have to teach her chess, as well.) He might say, “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz . . . unfair to men, don’t you agree?” “Ay, Papá,” she’d gasp, heaving a long and exasperated woman’s sigh over the foolishness of her father. “How can you say that?” And they’d be off.
She scoffed at Ivanhoe. He turned to Marcus Aurelius and tried to best her when she championed the Psalms. Voltaire scandalized her, delighted him.
Now, if he could only get her to keep her Goddamned shoes on.
He hopped the rails of the corral, finding her in the stable, brushing her favorite roan stallion.
“Condenada!” he said.
For a man who did not believe in Hell, he condemned her to go there frequently.
Teresita giggled;