The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [177]
“Kill them,” he whispered to her through the bars of his cage. “You can do it.”
“Father, please.”
“Remember what you did to Buenaventura! Do it again.”
“I must not.”
“All right. Don’t kill them. Just . . . just paralyze the bastards. Do it! Blind them!”
She turned from him.
“If you love me, you will kill these pigs. Kill them.”
“No,” she cried. “No, no, no!”
“Shut up,” her guard snapped, kicking her cage.
The soldiers parked Teresita’s wagon near a small stand of trees. They rolled Tomás down the road. “Teresa!” he called. “Teresa!” He called to her until he was out of sight.
She heard a faint trumpet bleat.
“Here he comes,” said her guard.
“Who?” she asked. She was on her knees in the cage, turning to keep her eyes on him as he circled. He pulled his horse back.
“The general,” he said. “General Bandála.”
They all laughed.
“He will want a look at you,” the rider said.
“That’s not all he’ll want,” called another.
They laughed again, and she watched them slap each other on the back and the arm.
For the second time, Cabora had been destroyed. Passion had torn apart the fences, had trampled all the crops. The gardens were moldering dung heaps. Windows on Segundo’s house were broken by angry youths fleeing the cavalry. Dead dogs lay in the distance, dead burros. A lame bull limped near the tumbled beehives, a bullet hole visible in his haunch. The People, those of them left, hurried to El Potrero and hid in their shacks. The vaqueros stood around, seemingly stunned by blows to the head. It was a dead place of inaction. Even the few chicks that walked across the Alamos road seemed dirty, covered in dust. The gates to the main-house courtyard were open. One of them was pulled off its hinges and hung at an angle.
The men from Tomóchic put José down outside the gates. The little plum tree had been uprooted. As Cruz stepped up to the door, a young girl hurried out, carrying a silver platter. She saw Cruz and gasped and dropped her tray and ran back in the house.
Segundo came out. He put his pistol in Cruz’s face. He said: “You.”
“What has happened here?” asked Cruz.
Segundo pulled back the hammer. Cruz watched the cylinder rotate.
“The end of the world,” Segundo said.
Cruz stared at the pistol.
“Do not think,” Segundo continued, “that you can come here to take anything.”
“Take?” said Cruz.
Juan Francisco came out behind Segundo.
“Who is this?” he said. Then, seeing the silver platter, he said, “What is this?”
“I am Cruz Chávez,” Cruz announced. “I am a friend of Teresita.”
Juan Francisco shook his head.
“Spare us any more friends,” he said.
He stepped out, picked up the platter, and walked back inside.
Cruz sat on the step and put his head in his hands. Segundo saw he had dried blood on his shoulders and down his back.
“Are you shot?” he asked.
Cruz shook his head.
“My brother.”
Segundo heard the groaning coming from beyond the wall.
He lowered his pistol.
He went to the wall and peeked over.
“That cabrón is in a grave state,” he said.
“Sí. Mi hermano está grave.”
Segundo holstered his pistol.
“It is all ruined,” Cruz was saying. “All ruined.”
Segundo put his hands in his pockets.
“Those damned pilgrims,” he said. “They destroyed everything.”
“And Teresa?” asked Cruz.
Segundo shook his head.
“Gone.”
Cruz put his head down.
“All ruined. All ruined.”
After a few moments, he rose. He went out the gate. Segundo watched him. He stood in the road and faced his men. “Teresita,” he told them, “has left. Things here,” he gestured with his left hand, “have ended.”
Segundo was amazed to see the men fall to their knees and weep like children. They rested until dusk, then they trotted away. Cruz, as ever in the lead, cried all the way into the mountains. José, left behind, moaned as Segundo had him put on the porch.
General Bandála came forward in the midst of a troop of heavily armed men. He rode directly to Teresita’s cage and peered in at her.