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By Root 1052 0

was cured by giving him a single blinder, which forced him to follow just one of his badly crossed brown eyes. This solution meant that he was blind on his right side when wearing his eye patch, and Tomás had to rely on precise spur work to keep him from tumbling off hillsides or falling into bogs. But once controlled, El Tuerto was a magnificent stallion, taller than all the other horses on the ranch, with the hair of a French courtesan. Any other rancher would have made El Tuerto into a plow horse, or would have shot him, but Tomás had seen his glory right away. “If he were a woman,” he’d told Segundo, “I would marry him.”

“Sure, boss,” Segundo had replied. “Everybody likes blonds.”

Aguirre steered the little wagon toward the house, and Tomás rode beside him, regaling him with tales of the quotidian wonders of his life. “Yes, yes,” Aguirre repeated, “yes, yes.” Huila passed before him, her new shotgun under her arm. She didn’t even glance at him, but trudged into the distance.

“The curandera,” Aguirre offered.

“That’s the one.”

“She looks cranky.”

“When doesn’t she?”

“Say, Urrea, my dear cabrón. I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are there Indians hereabouts? Do you have the red man working for you?”

“Claro,” Tomás replied. “It’s their land.” He thought better of that comment and amended it: “It was their land.”

“Apaches?”

“No.”

“Yaquis?”

“A few. But we’re pretty far south for too many Yaquis.”

“Who, then?”

Tomás blew air out of his mouth.

“Quién sabe. Let’s see—Ocoronis, some wandering Pimas, I think, or Seris—far from home if they are here. I know there are Tehuecos and Guasaves in the bunch. The Guasaves come up from Culiacán looking for work. We have Mayos.”

“Mayas?” cried Aguirre. “I thought the Maya to be in the far south! A jungle people! Are these not the realms of the barbarian Chichimeca? The Dog People who laid waste to the temples and the pyramids? Are there Mayan ruins here?”

These fucking lectures.

“Not Mayas, pendejo. Mayos. O! May-o!”

Aguirre drew up before the main house and put his reins down on the seat and set the foot brake.

“Good Lord, man,” he sniffed, “there is no need to get huffy.”

By the time Tomás had collected his thoughts to insult Aguirre again, the Engineer was knocking at the door and calling for Loreto.

Inside, Loreto had already lined up her children. Aguirre had never really noticed them, except to note that there were several. He had not counted them, and he couldn’t remember their names. “Yes, yes, good to see you, how do you do,” he intoned, like a priest unloading wafers or shaking hands after Mass. Children, yes, certainly. He moved on to Loreto and clutched her hands, crying, “You remain as lovely as peach blossoms in spring!” He then baffled yet delighted Loreto by slipping into Italian for a moment, calling her a fiore di pesca. He lifted her hands in his and kissed them, taking the opportunity to smell her skin. Loreto! Blossom of warm sugar! Sprinkled with cinnamon and vanilla! Loreto! Angel of Ocoroni!

“My,” she said.

“Aguas,” Tomás warned, which was his way of letting them know he was watching, invoking the ancient and honorable warning offered in Iberia when Spanish maids were about to toss the chamber-pots’ contents out the windows.

“Pardon me,” Aguirre said, taking a final surreptitious sniff: garlic and bacon! “I always lose my head when confronted with your lovely bride.” Loreto felt a rush of embarrassed joy, for in claiming to be powerless over himself in the face of her beauty, he had not only absolved himself of adulterous guilt, but complimented her so deeply that she could never explain it even to herself, while equally complimenting Tomás as the most macho man in the region—the man who had landed this astounding powerhouse of beauty and grace, the delicious Loreto! Aguirre basked in this small coup as he stood straight and beamed at everyone.

Tomás slapped him on the back, which was a signal to all others to vanish into the far regions of the house. “Who can blame you, my beloved son of a whore?” Tomás said, all the while implying that he