The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [143]
War parties had parleyed with Cruz in his fortified home west of the town church. They came quietly and squatted in the dark, smoking clay pipes and reed pipes, holding their guns and their bows. Rarámuri runners came, Yaqui spies, some Chiricahua and Mescalero. Pima traders passed through Tomóchic and accepted his invitations to eat with him, to speak of this new saint of the lowlands.
She had healed the sick, they said. And she preached revival. Dangerous revival—even war. War, he said, what saint preaches war? They had heard her with their own ears, this half-Yori girl, sweet in her face, but strong and sturdy in her spine, telling them that God himself had given them their lands.
“Do you believe in God? Do you believe in justice?” she had asked them. And they murmured Yes, yes—God, justice. “Do you? For the governors and the soldiers, the priests and the presidents, they are spiders, falling upon you, drinking the blood of your children! Do you believe?
“Do you believe God put your feet on this land? God gave land to every man and woman! And this is your land! This land is holy! Do you believe?”
Yes! We believe!
“These octopi strangle you with their sinful arms. Greed! Greed is a sin! No man, whether he is white or brown, can take the land from you! It came from God! Only God may take it away from you!
“Tell me now! DO YOU BELIEVE?”
They had yelled her name. They had danced. They had lifted their hands and fallen to the ground.
She had smiled.
“This is not a call to war,” the Pope of Mexico said.
“It is to us,” his men said.
It took them two days of running. At night, they slept close together on the hard ground, their feet overlapping, each body heating the other. Traditionally, the one in the middle changed each night so all members of a party could have one night’s warmth, though Cruz and Rubén had voted to keep José in the center on this mission.
Cruz would give this saint a simple test. She could heal José, or she could fail to heal him. And if she failed, Tomóchic would renounce her as another imposter.
They squatted in the morning and ate jerked venison and berries from pouches on their belts. A swallow of water each. A pebble in the mouth to make refreshing spit. Cruz pointed to the west and set out at a brisk pace. The others fell in behind.
Cruz found the arroyo before noon, and they ran along its edge. They found the first of Lauro Aguirre’s dams, and they stopped to look at the green water. They’d been running for only three hours—they didn’t need a drink yet, but it was refreshing to look. Already, little willows and alamos trees were sprouting on the banks.
Cruz ran until the main house was in sight, then he slowed to a walk.
All three of them pulled their rifles around in front of them and walked with their weapons across their chests, ready to fade into the brush and shoot anyone who threatened them.
They stopped at a small camp to stare at a twisted child writhing on a pallet. Her knees were terrible balls of bone, and her hands formed claws that scraped the air. She strained her head to look at them, and she seemed to laugh, though it could have been a scream.
Cruz spoke to the mother:
“Sister, what is wrong with your child?”
“No one knows, señor,” she said. “She was always like this. It is the will of God.”
Cruz looked at his companions.
It was a good answer.
They approved.
“God,” he said. “If it is His will, then why have you come here to try to change it?”
“It may be His will to heal her now,” the mother said. “Glory be to God.”
Cruz leaned on his rifle.
“Do you believe God changes His mind?”
“God does what God does.” She blessed herself. “It is not