The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [114]
He was supposed to be working, but to hell with work. His sister never worked. All she did was run around like an idiot with the little Indios, then rub them on their heads and mutter mumbo jumbo in their ears. He shook his head.
Teresita was teaching them some sort of Yaqui bullshit.
They chanted, and she led them.
“How cute,” he said.
She glanced at him.
“Indians on the warpath.”
She stopped singing with them.
“Hello, hermano,” she said.
Teresita was stung by the change in him. He had grown distant, then angry, and she didn’t know why. He frightened her sometimes.
He held two fingers up behind his head like feathers.
“Woo-woo!” he sang.
The children looked back and forth between them. Some of them laughed, but others looked down at the ground, unsure of what to do.
“Stop that,” Teresita said, trying a small smile on him.
He hopped on one foot.
“Woo-woo-woo! Heya-heya!”
“Buenaventura . . .”
Fina Félix had stopped laughing. She stood up, brushed her skirt off. “You’re just mean,” she said. “Mean and stupid.”
“And you’re fat,” he said.
“Stop it!” Teresita said.
He put his left hand over his head and made a fist with his right. He kicked up his feet as he mocked them, dancing in a circle, shouting, “I’m an Indian! I’m a Yaqui! Woo-woo! Woo-woo-woo!”
Teresita raised a hand toward him and shouted, “Stop it!”
And Buenaventura froze. His body locked in place. His left arm aimed at the sun, and the other clenched painfully before his heart, and his raised leg would not lower, and his other leg could not hold him. He fell over, caught in a horrible rictus, his face twisted in its hateful sneer. He squirmed on the ground, kicked, let out strangled cries. The children ran, shouting. Fina backed away from Teresita, her eyes wide and wild. Buenaventura, hard as a log, writhed on the ground in his seizure, spit foaming out of his open mouth. Teresita fell to her knees beside him.
“Oh my God!” she cried. “Oh my God! Buenaventura! What have I done?”
His eyes goggled at her, tears already falling from them as he tried to squirm away from her in terror. He rolled and kicked on the ground, his tongue lolling out. Grunting. Gargling.
“Get Huila!” Teresita screamed. “Get Huila now!”
Fina Félix ran to the house and stirred Huila from her sleep. Then she left the courtyard and kept running. She ran until she could slam shut the door of her own house and hide behind her bed.
They came running, Tomás first, with Gabriela close behind. Huila could not run now. She thumped after them as fast as she could, working her crutch in the uneven earth.
They came upon Teresita kneeling over Buenaventura, shouting, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
He seemed to be dying of lockjaw, arching farther and farther back, forming a painful bow with his spine. His eyes, wild with terror, searched their faces, and his mouth had dirt in it, his tongue was muddy. Small sticks clung to his cheeks, his lips. Straw dangled in his hair. He moaned and whinnied.
Teresita looked up at them and said, “I can’t fix him.”
Tomás yelled, “What did you do? What did you do?”
“I don’t know. I—nothing!”
Gabriela put her hand on her throat and backed away.
Huila pushed through them and dropped her crutch and groaned down to her knees. She shoved Teresita aside, saying, “Get out of my way.”
Teresita scooted back, reached for Buenaventura’s hand, but he jerked away from her, making piteous noises.
Huila turned to her with a scowl.
“I told you to be careful,” she spit.
“What did I do?” Teresita begged her. “What did I do?”
Tomás grabbed the back of her dress, took a bunch of the collar in his fist, and ripped her up from the ground. Gabriela could hear the material tearing in his grip. He was talking through clenched teeth: “What did you do to your brother?” He raised a fist, as if to strike her, but Gabriela jumped on his arm and held his fist back.
“Gordo!” she shouted. “Gordo, no!”
Teresita closed her eyes to receive the blow, but wrestle as he might with Gaby, Tomás could not strike her. Instead, he flung her back to the ground.
“What is wrong with you?