The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [176]
“In the name of all that is holy!”
“I am all that is holy,” the officer said. “I am your religion now.”
Tomás held up his hands, as if he could stop the horses by himself.
“She dies here,” the rider said, “or she dies in prison.”
The door behind Tomás opened. He smelled her before she stepped out.
“Teresita, no,” he hissed.
“Do not burn this house,” she said.
“Teresa Urrea?” said the rider.
“Sí.”
“The one they call the Saint of Cabora?”
“It is I.”
The cavalryman looked at her. He sneered, shook his head.
“You? You’re nothing!”
He laughed. His men laughed.
“She’s not even pretty,” a rider shouted.
“Age?” the officer demanded.
“Nineteen.”
“All this trouble, and you are a stinking little girl?” He was disgusted with this whole thing—with Indians and fanatics, with messiahs and criminals, with this niña and her hysterical father. “Shoot her,” ordered the officer.
Rifles rose.
“No!” Tomás shouted.
He stepped in front of her and opened his arms even wider.
“No!”
“Move aside.”
“Shoot me first.”
“I’m telling you to move aside, señor.”
“If you shoot my daughter, let the bullets pass through me first.”
“You have no charges against you.”
“Kill me first.”
“Sir.”
“Kill me.”
“Chingado!”
They moved in, began kicking him, trying to break Tomás away from Teresita. But he gritted his teeth and took their boots to his ribs and his head.
“Suéltala, pendejo!”
“Vas a ver, buey!”
They rained curses down on father and daughter.
“Te vamos a dar una madriza, cabrón!”
“Mátenlos a patadas!” they started to yell. They wanted to see the two of them kicked to death. But one of the riders came to his senses and said to the officer, “He’s a friend of Major Enríquez.”
“Eh?”
“The major has slept in his house,” the rider warned.
“Shit!”
The officer called off his men, using his reins to flog the nearest soldier’s back.
Tomás had a line of blood running down his lip. He and Teresita were breathing like winded animals. And still he did not let go of her.
“You will not step aside?” the officer asked.
“Never.”
“Damn you.”
Tomás took handfuls of Teresita’s clothes in a tight grasp and pulled her against his back.
The cavalrymen looked at each other. They shrugged. Tomás heard one say, “Let’s kill him and the bitch and go home.”
The horses moved together. The riders conferred. “She’s just a witch. Kill her.” The officer shook his head, muttered.
He turned his horse back to Tomás.
“You are making my life difficult,” he said. “To take your daughter to prison, we’d have to ride to Guaymas. Look how tired we are. And she’ll only die on the gallows there. Or she’ll die on the road. You would save us all a lot of trouble.”
Tomás stood his ground.
“I will accompany her to prison!” he announced.
“For what reason?”
“I am directly impeding the doing of your duties. Am I not? Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I’ll let you take my daughter off alone?”
The cavalryman sighed. “A bullet would be kinder than the rope,” he said. “And I will have to requisition a wagon for her. And another for you! Come now!”
“We will go to the prison,” Tomás said. “And if they hang her, I will dangle on the rope beside her.”
The officer shook his head, laughed.
“Have it your way,” he said. “But if I get bored with you on the ride to Guaymas . . .” He held up his finger, aimed at them, and made a pistol-shot noise with his lips.
They waited out the night inside the ranch house. Tomás berated himself. He should have ridden on. He should have vanished in the hills. He thought he could preserve something of his life, something of Cabora. Teresita shushed him. But he was beyond consolation.
By midmorning, two crude wooden wagons had appeared. They looked like lion cages from some abandoned desert zoo. Tomás was thrown roughly into his. Teresita was lifted by two soldiers. She briefly thought of making herself too heavy to lift, but did not, for fear that they would harm her father.
Next came the days on the open roads. Hands tied. Kicked and cursed at, sunburned, infernally thirsty. When she went to relieve herself, the soldiers