The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [14]
“Is my hair more blond yet?” he asked.
“Not quite,” said Segundo.
“Don’t be negative.”
Now, a rider came from the west. He wore a straw hat that was almost conical, and he had a sad old shotgun tied across his back with twine. Rope sandals.
“Now what!” Tomás cried.
Cayetana, her movements making shushing noises in her bush like the breeze, shifted to see the next amazement.
“That rider is on a mule,” Segundo said.
A straw hat and a mule: this was a guaranteed laugh getter for the vaqueros.
“Don Tomás Urrea!” the man called.
Tomás stepped forward.
“At your service, caballero,” he said.
The boys giggled. Horseman. Haw! Muleman, maybe. Tomás cast a surreptitious glance back at them to silence them.
“I bring a message from your uncle, Don Miguel Urrea.”
“Yes?”
“The Rurales approach!”
“Rurales!”
“Mounted Mexican rural police, sir!”
“Will wonders never cease.”
The rider nodded.
“You’re not from here,” Tomás said. “I hear an accent.”
“I am from the land near Pátzcuaro,” the man replied.
“Which town?”
“Parangarícutirimícuaro, sir.”
All the giggling cowpokes fell silent and stared.
“What did you say?”
“Parangarícutirimícuaro,” the rider replied.
This won a round of applause from the assembled men.
As the rider and his mule headed back toward Ocoroni, Tomás took up his favorite topic. He always had a favorite topic. These days, he was fascinated by bees.
“These Mormons,” he told Segundo, “in the land of Ootah.”
Christ, thought Segundo, not the bees again.
They climbed back on the fence. The vaqueros recommenced their torment of the spirited pinto pony. It was as if the last two apparitions had never materialized at all.
“Yes,” Tomás said, “bees.”
Nobody gave a shit about bees.
“They have tamed bees.”
“Right.”
“Tamed bees, docile as cows. They provide honey, you see, and wax. They are tame. They probably come when the Mormons whistle.”
“Such miracles,” Segundo offered.
Presently, two riders came down the road. Ocoroni, Tomás mused, must be the crossroads of the world.
“Ah! Los Rurales, at last!” said Tomás.
They were a sight, these two. They came forward on huge sorrel mounts, their fancy saddles flashing silver in the sun. They wore full charro outfits—tight tan pants, tight tan jackets, red bandanas, and vast Mexican sombreros worked with silver thread.
“What are these pendejos going to do, sing us a serenade?” Tomás said.
They wore crossed gunbelts across their chests, and they had Winchesters in their scabbards. Segundo thought their spurs were the biggest he’d ever seen.
“Greetings,” Tomás called out.
They reined and stared down at the patrón.
“We are Rurales,” one of them said. “I am Gómez, and this is Machado.”
Tomás nodded.
“So you are the mighty Rurales,” he said. “Lieutenant Enríquez of the cavalry told us you would be coming one day. It has been two years, my friends!”
“He’s Captain Enríquez now,” said Gómez. Machado just sat on his horse and said nothing. “It is better not to see us,” Gómez boasted. Machado smirked.
“Good for Enríquez,” said Tomás. “Would you care to dismount? Have some water, or some tequila? A bite to eat.”
Gómez shook his vast sombrero.
“We do not drink on duty,” he intoned. “Nor do Rurales fraternize.”
Fraternize, Tomás thought. He doesn’t even know what that word means.
“We are accompanying a prisoner.”
“Oh?” said Tomás, looking around.
“He’s coming,” said Gómez. “In a wagon.”
“Who is it?”
“El Patudo.” Bigfoot.
The men looked at each other. El Patudo. They found El Patudo? The famous bandit?
“Where did this big-footed fellow make his home?” Tomás asked.
“Guamúchil.”
They all knew the patrón’s limerick, There was a young man from Guamúchil, whose name was Pinche Inútil. To the consternation of the Rurales, the men all broke out laughing. “Viva Guamúchil!” one of them cried. Gómez thought they were laughing at him, and he put his hand on his revolver. Tomás didn’t help when he said, “Gómez, my good man, did you say El Patudo hails from Parangarícutirimícuaro?”
The vaqueros