The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [130]
When it was painted, powdered, combed, and dressed, they carried the body into the parlor. Vaqueros had hauled most of the furniture out of the room, and they had set up a wooden table in the center, with a white crocheted cloth covering it. A small satin pillow was at one end, to hold up her head. Candles lit the room. In the morning, they would open the double doors to the outside, so mourners could shuffle through for the viewing. That night, the wake would begin with teams of people sitting watch over the body, praying rosaries. Tomás and Gaby would sit first watch.
Teresita’s body was set out on the table. They wrestled its hands into a prayerful clench and rested them on its chest. They wrapped the hands in a rosary, so Teresita looked as if she were praying in death. The rosary held her hands together. Gaby laid the braid over her shoulder so it rested beside her praying hands.
Teresita’s body spent the second night on the table in the parlor, in the company of murmuring mourners until three in the morning, when it was left alone and the candles were blown out.
The two best shovelers were dispatched to the small graveyard where the victims of the Yaqui raid and three vaqueros and five infants were buried. They dug a perfect hole for Teresita, making sure the edges and corners were straight as if cut with a knife. The pile of dirt beside the hole was shaped as well, its flanks pyramidal in the morning light.
Segundo’s coffin arrived after breakfast. It came on the back of a small wagon, covered in cloth to keep the dust off its shiny sides. Tomás and Segundo helped the carpenter carry the coffin into the room where the body lay on the table. Old women traded shifts watching over it, praying, lighting candles. The carpenter faltered when he saw Teresita’s white face. After he put down his end of the coffin, he crossed himself.
They pulled the cloth from the wooden box, and they admired the craftsmanship. Not a nail could be seen. The wood glowed with many layers of wax. The silk within was tacked in so it formed soft-looking puffs of material. Tomás nodded his approval, stroking the wood.
The carpenter asked for a moment to pray over the body. Tomás ushered the old women out of the room and quietly shut the doors.
Teresita’s body spent the third night in the company of friends and family. Gaby sat with her, then Fina Félix. Juliana Alvarado came late, and then Gaby’s father, Mr. Cantúa, came all the way from Guaymas. Old Teófano, Jefe de Plazuelas, muttered a rosary over her deep in the night. At three o’clock, Buenaventura stood in the corner farthest from her, and stared at her face. And in the morning, the women of the rancho returned to pray her through her last day.
Forty-two
THAT LAST DAY found Teresita in the company of five praying women. The sun was already moving down the western sky, and four old ones knelt around the table, and Fina Félix sat in a chair near the door. All of the women prayed as one, calling to the Virgin to bless Teresita. None of them saw her eyes open.
They prayed on for another minute, dogged and blind to anything but their folded hands, offering up the pain in their knees to Jesus, as a gift, as an offering to trade against Teresita’s safe passage to Heaven.
“Mother of God,” an old voice piped.
And all answered: “Pray for her.”
Teresita sat up.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
A screaming eruption of women fled the room, a howling explosion of rosaries and candles, a stampede.
“God save us!”
“She lives!”
“The dead are walking!”
Fina Félix, for the second time in her life, ran all the way to her father’s ranch.
Animals bolted.
Donkeys kicked.
The women burst out the doors and fell over each other as they ran and shrieked.
Buckaroos fell from their horses.
Chickens, driven to a feather-dropping panic by the screaming