The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [181]
“N-no. Gracias.”
He watched the lice move across the top of her head.
“Are you really holy?” he asked.
“Do I look holy?”
He leaned back, stretched out one booted leg.
“Not today,” he said.
When his cigarette was done, he pushed her backward with his boot and closed the door.
Kill them, she heard her father whisper.
And when the guards came with their rotten food and their obscenities, she knew she could kill them. She could open her mouth and speak the words, and they would, all of them, fall to the floor and squirm until they were dead.
“What?” said Pepe on her twenty-first day in the prison.
She shook her head, strings of wet hair hanging wild before her face.
She smiled.
“God bless you,” she said. “Lios emak weye.”
He dropped her plate and backed out of the cell.
She was laughing.
Night.
A cool wind had finally sought out the prison, coming in from the sea with its smells of waves and fish, distance and salt. But she did not feel it, so hot was her fever. She slept on the floor, curled like a dog, the way she had slept a million years ago under Tía’s table. She shook with the heat of the fever, clutched herself. The floor rolled, heaved, a carpet on water, tossing in waves. She woke ten times a night. Awoke now, afraid. She pulled her feet closer to her body, as if something could grab them.
She pushed herself up, pressed her back into the stones.
“Quién es?” she rasped.
She pulled her torn skirts tight over her knees. She no longer smelled of roses—she had only the scent of meat and sweat, animal fear.
“Who’s there?”
A knot of deeper shadow stirred at the end of the cell.
She squinted in the dark.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
A sigh.
She pressed herself harder against the stones, but there was no place to go.
The shadow moved again.
“Am I dreaming?” she said.
It stretched, tall as a man. Then that shadow man stepped forward. A slant of moon coming through the slit window caught his face. He stared at her for a long while. Then he smiled.
“Cruz?” she gasped. “Cruz?”
He put his finger to his lips. Shook his head.
“What are you doing here?”
She rose to her knees, reached for him.
Vague smell of smoke.
He held out his hand, motioned for her to stay where she was. He shook his head. Then he put one finger near his eye. Tapped his eye.
Look.
Watch this.
She followed his stare, as he turned and looked at the far wall.
The stones there were flickering, as if candles had been lit in the cell.
“Cruz?” she repeated.
He pointed at the wall.
She watched.
The flickers expanded, grew long and bright. They burned blue, red, green, white. Brown. Yellow.
They formed and re-formed, knotting and furling. And, as if they were clouds creating images, the flickers quickly resolved themselves into a picture. It was a mountain valley. A river cut through the center, and small corn patches grew on one side, and across the river, a great cave. Then houses appeared. Then a church. She heard the bell ringing.
She knew this was Tomóchic.
Cruz and his warriors appeared, running with their weapons. The populace, small as ants, hurried about the village. Men clutched their hearts and heads and fell. Women and children and old men were hurried into the church. The big wooden doors closed.
She saw an image of a statue of her.
Fire appeared on the mountain peaks—gouts of flame and smoke.
The tiny houses before her exploded: fireballs bloomed where the houses had stood, and in the hearts of these little firestorms flew chairs and dogs, tables and babies.
She saw the Mexican army ringing the village, troops pouring down the peaks. Small cannons loaded with grapeshot. They fired, but all she could hear were low gasps. And the cannon shots dismembering Tigers—heads and arms flew from their bodies. The cannons shot balls, nails, coins. Walls flashed from white to red as men evaporated.
She saw Cruz and Rubén in the Chávez house—she knew it was the Chávez house. They fired through splintered windows, fired although they were wounded, starving.
Then the church was burning.
The army had set