The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [29]
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She started to cry.
“Oh, don’t do that,” he said.
He went to step forward, but a tree branch knocked his hat off. He scrambled to retrieve it, and he slammed it on his head. This made her laugh again. She was laughing and crying, wiping her nose on her dress.
He crouched by the fence and looked in at her.
“It stinks.”
“I know.”
“You should get out of here.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
He rested his arms on the crosspiece.
“I saw what happened,” he said. “You should get away in case she wakes up.”
“You were there?”
He held up a skinny little revolver. “I’ll shoot her next time.”
“No, Good Luck, no.”
“I’m an outlaw, you know. I’m not scared of shooting people!” He brandished the gun and tried to look fierce. “Soy un pistolero!”
“No.”
He stuck the gun back in his belt.
“You let me know if you want some cabrones shot,” he said. He sat with his back to the pig fence. “Me los acabo!” he boasted.
She sat against her side of the fence with her back pressed to his, only a plank between them. She started to cry again.
“Pinche life!” he said. He looked over his shoulder at her. “What are you called?”
“Teresita.”
He reached back over his shoulder. “All right, Teresita, try this.”
She reached up. He dropped a chunk of horehound candy in her palm. She put it in her mouth. They sat there sucking their candy together, not saying anything.
“I stole it,” he finally said.
And, after a while: “Pinches mosquitoes! Let’s get out of here!”
“I don’t know if I can get up.”
He got up and hopped over the fence and prodded the sow away with one worn boot and looked at Teresita.
“I been beat before. This was barely a spanking. You can always get up!”
“I can’t.”
“All right.”
He bent to her and heaved her from the ground and over his shoulder.
He blew air out of his nose.
“You peed on yourself!”
“Sorry.”
He handed her his hat.
“Take this.”
He managed to climb over the fence without dropping her.
The pig asked him, “Grut?”
“Where am I taking you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Better decide.”
“Take me to Huila.”
“The witch?”
“She’s no witch.”
“She’s a bruja desgraciada,” he insisted.
Teresita spanked him with his own hat.
“She is no witch!”
“Hnf,” he grunted as he started out.
His big hands wrapped around her calves as she bounced head-down over his shoulder.
“You’re fat,” he said.
She smacked him again with his hat.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” he warned.
They passed under the deep shadows of the peach trees.
“I wish I was dead,” she said.
“No you don’t,” he replied.
“I want my mamá. I want my papá.”
“That’s what everybody wants.”
The house was a great black hump against the night. No lights burned in any windows. He bent down and slid her off his shoulder like a sack of beans.
“Dad’s house,” he said. “Give him my regards.”
Dad? she thought.
“Don’t go!”
“Can’t stay.”
“Just a minute.”
He squatted down beside her and stared at the house.
“These rich men,” he said. “They don’t care about you or me.”
“He’s not like that.”
“They’re all like that.”
He picked up some pebbles.
“Where does the witch sleep?”
She pointed. He went to the black window beside the back door. He tipped his hat to Teresita and pitched a bunch of pebbles to rattle against the glass. He ducked down, but nothing happened. He threw more pebbles. Nothing. He took up a bigger rock and threw it hard: it smacked into the wall beside the window with a sound not unlike a rifle shot. “Son of a whore!” Huila’s voice came from within. “What hijo de la chingada is at my window!” Buenaventura whipped another handful of pebbles, and a match flared inside, and the wobbly yellow of lamplight resolved itself through the curtains. “Stay right there, cabrón! Stay right there! I have my shotgun, and I’m going to give you both barrels!” Buenaventura pantomimed broad laughter, putting both hands on his gut and rocking back and forth. “Just wait right there, buey! I’m coming! I’m coming out right now, and when I come out, I’m going to let you