The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [124]
Huila dipped her bread and sucked it into her mouth. She pointed at Gaby.
“You,” she said. “Where is the girl?”
“Teresita?”
“Where is she?”
Gaby shook her head. “I haven’t seen her,” she said. “She must still be out at prayers.”
Huila looked up from her cup. Her eyes were clouded, blue-white on their edges. She stared over Gaby’s head. Looked once into her eyes. She said “Ay Dios,” then slowly fell over. When she hit the floor, she made a dry sound, like empty burlap sacks thrown to the floor of a barn.
Teresita cupped the water in her hands and ran it up her legs. It curled over her knees and ran down her calves in rivulets. She smoothed her cold hands up over the knobs of her knees, and the water was delicious on her thighs. She gasped and smiled and leaned her head back, letting the sun touch her throat. The dirt was already warm to the touch, and she dug her fingers into it. She curled her toes in the gravel bed of the creek, felt water bugs skim over her feet, ping into her ankles, then sweep away.
Huila, she thought.
“Get me a ladder,” she whispered. It made her laugh.
She lay back slowly, laid her back on the good earth and felt it press her up toward the sky. The earth always offered you up to the sky. She lifted you, when all the time the People thought she pulled you down. Clover heads loomed above her face like trees.
Huila, she thought.
She closed her eyes. Hummingbirds somewhere were making their kissing sounds. Their thrum.
Huila.
And again: Huila!
Teresita opened her eyes.
“Huila!” she said.
She grabbed her shoes and leapt to her feet and turned to run back to the house.
Millán stood between her and the trees. He smiled at her. She half crouched, feeling like a wildcat, certain she could leap over him, leap into the trees, speed away from him. He was breathing hard. His eyes glittered with joy—he was giggling.
“Where are you going?” he said.
Thirty-eight
SHE WAS LIMP. He shook her—her head wobbled as if he’d broken her neck. He pulled her skirts down around her legs and looked over his shoulder.
No money.
Damn it.
Millán squatted on his heels and looked around. Not good, killing the boss’s daughter. Well, hell. If he got back to the barn, he could slip out a good horse and be halfway to the Río Mayo before they even knew he was gone.
Too bad he didn’t have enough time to hide her.
Huila’s collapse sent a wave of dread through Cabora. The People hurried in from the fields when they heard. They collected their children and hid them inside their huts. They watched the sky to see if some dark rider did not come from the mountainous east, now that their protector was fallen.
When she dropped, Tomás kicked back his chair and dropped to his knees beside her, taking her old head in his hands and lifting her, as if he could gaze life into her rolling eyes. Gaby froze, hands over mouth, too afraid of the old one to touch her or even approach her. The cooks cried out and wailed, and some of them ran out the door before Tomás could stop them, raising the alarm —“Huila fell down!”
It felt as if an eclipse had begun, portions of the sun being bitten away, as if the devil’s mouth could no longer contain its hunger for light.
“Huila’s dead!” they shouted.
“She’s not dead, damn you!” Tomás shouted. “Help me!”
But who could help him? Huila was the one he would have turned to in such a crisis, and now the great physician herself was limp on the floor, drooling, her hair slipping out of its braid.
“What do we do?” one of the girls said.
Tomás looked at Gabriela. She shook her head violently, put her hands up before her.
“I don’t know!” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I don’t know either,” said the girl. “Should I splash water on her?”
He shrugged.
“Cover her,” said Gaby.
“Good idea, mi amor!” Tomás cried. “Get me a blanket!”
The girls hustled out of the kitchen and came back in a moment dragging Huila’s own rebozo. Tomás draped it over Huila’s reedy chest.
“Put her in bed,” said Gaby.
“Sí, mi amor!” he replied. “Bed!”
Tomás and two of the girls lifted her.