The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [115]
She folded over, put her head against the ground, clutched the soil. Teresita knew how to grovel. She awaited the kicks with her eyes squeezed shut.
Huila snapped, “Get a plank. We have to get him inside.”
Several ranch hands had wandered over to watch this scene, and Tomás pointed at them. Two of them trotted to the barn to find a plank that could hold the weight of Buenaventura’s body.
They ran back carrying a six-foot length of wall board. They laid it in the dirt, and Huila and the men rolled Buenaventura’s creaking stiff body onto it, tied him in place with a belt and Huila’s apron. “Hurry,” she said. “Run him to the house. The kitchen. Run—have the girls heat water. Go!” They lifted him and ran toward the house as he yipped and kicked one stiff leg. Huila struggled to her feet. Tomás gave her the crutch. She glared at Teresita for a moment, then hurried away.
Tomás pointed down at his daughter and said, “I’ve had enough of this! Do you hear me? Enough!”
She looked up at him, dirt on her face, her hair wild, and he was startled—she looked like an animal, just for an instant; she had a face like a coyote or a fox, her tears cutting strange colored lines through the dust on her cheeks.
“No more!” he said. “No more! No more tricks, no more magic, no more Indian garbage. Do you understand?”
She nodded, hid her face from his rage.
“I won’t stand for it any longer! Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the government could do to us? Do you know . . .” He turned away. “Pendeja!” he shouted at her, though he did not mean to be so harsh, did not mean to use such a crude term with her.
He pushed Gabriela aside and strode away, cursing, shaking his head.
Gaby stood staring at Teresita. She was afraid, suddenly.
“Do you need help?” she asked.
Teresita shook her head.
She stood and dusted herself off. She wiped the tears and dirt from her face with her palms. Then she walked, silently, through the watchers and across the long yard, to the door of the house.
They worked on Buenaventura all night on the big table in the kitchen. He let out terrible cries as he spasmed and jerked. Huila poured cool water over him, tied his limbs down, forced herbs into his mouth. Tomás and Gaby worked beside her, stroking his brow, holding his legs. No one had ever seen such a thing, except for rabid dogs going mad down the arroyos before the vaqueros shot them.
Huila burned sage over him, rubbed oils on his head. She prayed the rosary and did a full limpia ceremony, driving ills from his gut. She undid his trousers and laid a stinking brown and yellow poultice between his legs. Gabriela covered her face.
Finally, as the sun was breaking out of the east, Buenaventura stilled. His clenched hand relaxed, and he sighed. The painful bow of his back straightened until he lay flat on the table. He started to snore.
“The boy will live,” Huila said.
No one came for her all the next day. She did not eat breakfast or lunch or supper. She only drank water from her hand-washing pitcher, and she sweltered in the heat trapped behind her shutters.
It was an accident that she didn’t even understand, and they all acted as if she’d planned it. She had been betrayed before, had been betrayed by her mother and by Tía and by her cousins. But this—to be betrayed by her brother, and by Huila, and by her father and Gaby. She felt her face—it was ugly. Ugly and lumpy. Her body was bony and pale and hideous. Her belly hung out, her ribs showed, and her bottom was wobbly and ugly as Huila’s. They had all seen her for the freak she was. All along, they’d seen that she was a monster. The only one who had not seen it was she herself.
This was the day her worst fear was realized. No matter what she did, no matter who she helped or what pain she helped to ease, she would not be rewarded. No matter how much good she tried to do in the world, Teresita suddenly saw that she was always going to be alone.
She arose before dawn. She listened to everyone snoring, then walked down the hall. She was out on the plain before anyone awoke. She avoided