The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [173]
Segundo was startled to find he was shedding tears.
They hurried through the house.
Buenaventura stood on the front steps.
Tomás stood beside him.
“Son,” he said.
Buenaventura turned to him.
“You did well today,” said Tomás. “I was proud of you.”
Buenaventura smiled.
“You are a man now.”
Tomás put his hand on his son’s back.
Juan Francisco joined them.
“Teresita and I must flee the ranch,” Tomás explained. “We can’t take anyone with us—they’ll only slow us. You know your sister rides like a hurricane. I think I can keep up with her.”
“And the ranch?” Buenaventura asked. “Will Segundo run things here?”
“Segundo!” said Tomás. “This is our ranch. He’s the second in command. Always has been. He’ll follow orders.”
“Whose orders?”
Tomás leaned away and pretended to stare at them both in shock.
“Can you two get along?”
The boys nodded.
“My other children are all in Alamos. I need men here. It’s our ranch,” Tomás said. “It’s your ranch, boys!”
“What?”
“You run the ranch. You’re the men here.”
“Me? Run the ranch?” cried Buenaventura.
“The two of you. I’m leaving you in charge! Segundo and the vaqueros will do what you say, so be smart. And you protect my Gaby, you hear?”
“Father?” Buenaventura said.
“Take care of things for me.” Tomás embraced his boys, and kissed them each on the cheek.
When he left, Buenaventura sat down on the step and stared at the ground. Juan Francisco stood taller and stared at the confused pilgrims staring back at him.
Tomás rode his immense black stallion. Segundo had chosen a fast palomino for Teresita. She slit her skirts with his knife and drew up her petticoats. They moved out, slowly at first, keeping the bulk of the main house between themselves and the front of the property. They slunk away from the kitchen, down between the outhouses and the ravaged herb garden. They cut around a long chicken coop, where the chickens had mostly been poached and all the eggs stolen and eaten by pilgrims, then behind Segundo’s house. They eased down the bank of the arroyo, moved around the turbid green water of last winter, their horses’ hooves pressing deep crescents in the black mud, a glitter of tiny flies fleeing their shadows. The cottonwoods were soft with new green, just starting to fill out in their May finery; still, the ends of their branches were bare, and they clawed the sky like skeletal hands ripping chunks of sun out of the storm clouds. Heat lightning skittering around the crowns of the hills. A heavy darkness rising from the far sea, coming toward them, tattering into white streamers and evaporating above the llano’s heat. Horseflies stinging blood out of the flanks of their mounts. Pilgrims already calling to her as she passed.
“Bless you, Teresa!”
Hands extended, she touched their fingertips as they reached for her.
“Come back to us, angel!” they said.
She touched their heads.
“Viva Teresa!”
They climbed the far bank.
“Viva la Santa de Cabora!”
Tomás looked back at his home one last time and put his silver spur to his horse. The horses exploded over the banks and screamed across the burning plain.
And the People began to slip away. With their saint gone, they went to the four directions. Some hurried. Some tarried. But the camps began to break down within the hour. Fires kicked asunder.
The Yaquis went north and the Mayos went south. The few Tarahumara ran back toward their sierras, and the Apaches galloped to Arizona. The Pimas moved west of Tucson, and the Seris walked toward the sea.
Mestizos hurried toward Sinaloa, their dream of salvation shattered. The Arizonans and New Mexicans and Texans hove their wagons onto the dusty roads and made less haste—the Mexican army would not dare attack gringo caravans. But all along the way, people stopped them and asked, Is it true? And Have they taken the Saint? And they spread the word—they said, Yes, she is gone. They said, Yes, she is dead. They said the army was set to massacre them all.
In the hills, the fighters gathered. They whispered of fire. They spoke late into the night of rifles,