The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [175]
He turned back to the hags and shouted his challenge: “Viva quién?”
Rebels would shout Viva Tomóchic! Or Viva la Santa de Cabora! A wise traveler would simply cry Viva Porfirio Díaz! and live. But the old women said nothing.
“Viva quién!” the lieutenant repeated.
The women stood, mute.
“I said, Long live who!”
And a male voice shouted: “Long live Holy Mary, Saint Joseph, and the Saint of Cabora!” The old women whipped back their skirts. And in an instant it became clear they were not women at all. Cruz Chávez, at the center, pulled his rifle out from his petticoats and fired.
The lieutenant was still shrugging when his heart exploded. A four-foot geyser of blood, bits of heart and bone sprayed the faces of the riders behind him. Then the other Tigers opened fire. Three riders had fallen by the time the cavalrymen drew their rifles and shot back. The valley filled with smoke and clouds of dust kicked up by the horses. One of the army’s volleys went through the upper left chest of José Chávez, Cruz Chávez’s elder brother.
The Tigers ran as fast as they could while holding José between them. He cried and gurgled. Blood made his shirt greasy and cold as it gushed from his chest. When they were sure the army could not see them, Cruz himself clamped his hand over José’s mouth to still his yells of pain. They tore their shirts, made wadding that they packed into the gaping holes in José’s back and chest. They used the women’s dresses in which they had hidden for black bandages.
Cruz laid hands on his brother’s head. He prayed over him. The men wept to hear José’s ghastly cries. He was insane with pain and blood loss.
“What do we do? What do we do?” they asked Cruz.
They had never seen him afraid, but this was his big brother. His hands shook as he held José to his breast. His own shirt became sticky with blood.
“Cabora,” he gasped. “We must carry him to Cabora, my brothers! Teresita can save him!”
“Amen!”
“Viva la Santa!”
They took his right arm and his two legs and they held him between them. They made a sling of the remaining skirts of the old women and used them to hold up José’s sagging midsection. And they ran.
Fifty-eight
BY THE TIME Tomás and Teresita got to Aquihuiquichi, they were too tired to do much more than sit. They had ridden like creatures fleeing a fire. They leapt fences and logs, leapt over creeks, scattered cattle and deer in panics, drove crows and coveys of quail into the sky in explosive terror.
The horses were stumbling by the time they reached the smaller ranch. Teresita’s legs shook, and she retched when she dropped from the horse. Tomás fetched her a cup of water and held her as she shook.
“Rest,” he said. “Rest an hour.”
“Just a few minutes,” she said, but once inside, she fell into a bed. By the time he had secured the door and come back to check on her, she was asleep.
Still, the cavalry came. And by the time they entered Aquihuiquichi, scattered riders from the ambuscade had joined them, inflaming them with stories of the rocks coming alive, of Indians dressed as women stepping out of tree trunks and murdering their comrades. They rode on the house firing their weapons in the air, yelling curses, coming in a chaos of noise and murder.
“Teresa Urrea!” they shouted.
Tomás stepped out the door, waving off his few cowboys, who were outgunned by the soldiers.
“Bring her out!” the officer in charge shouted.
“I will not.”
“She will die in the house, then,” the cavalryman responded. He signaled and a rider came forth with a tree branch wrapped in torn cloth. “Light it.”
The rider struck a match and lit the torch.
“She burns,” the officer said. “To kill the lice, burn the bed.”
“For the love of God, man!” Tomás shouted.
“God? We don’t worry about God