The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [50]
“Sit down, child,” Huila scolded. “You don’t see the other children squirming around like worms.”
And, later, “Teresa! You’ll fall out and break your neck!”
But Teresita could not sit still. And Huila herself was lost in the morning, hypnotized by the rolling of the wagon, the hips and breasts of the hills around her, the heat of the sun. Huila, in her mind, was seventeen. She had not yet been burdened with medicine and cures. She was dancing in the arms of her first love, his breath hot in her ear under the orange light of a rising moon. She smoked her cigar and thought of his hands, thought of him naked, felt him throb within her as if a great heartbeat had fallen between her legs . . . gone now, lost all these long thirty years. Gone to dust. But alive in her chest, strangely alive on her body, as if his touch had tattooed her skin, ghost love.
“Girl!” She puffed. “What did I tell you?” Puff. “Don’t come crying to me if you fall and kill yourself!”
Huila. Chugging through the morning like a little flesh locomotive, leaving gray whorls of smoke behind her in the haunted air. Then they heard the approaching whine of a thousand buzzing wings.
Huila’s wagon came around a bend to a scene of great wailing.
Doña Loreto’s old carriage was pulled off to the side of the road, and Don Tomás sat astride his horse, looking down with vague curiosity. Don Lauro Aguirre held a small pair of eyeglasses before his small eyes and peered down. Segundo had dismounted and stood, bent at the waist, also peering down at Buenaventura as he kicked and screamed, rolling around in the dust with his arms wrapped around his head.
Buenaventura bellowed curses: his famous new bowler hat lay in the dirt, out of reach.
They had ridden into a fast-moving swarm of yellow jackets. The wasps had come down the road in a buzzing, golden cloud, expanding and contracting as they came. For some reason, they had widened around the front riders, then clapped together like great hands around Buenaventura’s head. They had stitched his head with stings and exploded away, cutting west and veering over the mustard blossoms.
“Bees!” Tomás said. He shrugged. “I get stung every week.”
He and Lauro muttered to each other as Buenaventura sobbed and cussed.
Huila had Teófano pull her wagon over. She creaked down off the bed and took Segundo’s hand to hop to the ground.
“I’m getting older than the sun,” she said.
“Domestic bees,” Tomás lectured, “would know better than to sting a boy like this.”
Buenaventura sucked in a hitching breath and let loose a pathetic wail.
“Good God,” said Tomás, “you’d think this cabrón had been shot.”
“He’s just a child, compadre,” Don Lauro said. “His wounds are urticant.”
“They’re what?” said Tomás.
“What did he say?” said Segundo.
Huila bent over the boy.
“Move your hands,” she said.
“No.”
“Take your hands off your face.”
“No!”
“Desgraciado,” she said.
He took his hands away from his face.
“Good,” she said.
She took his chin in her hand and turned his head back and forth. She wiped the tears and snot off his cheeks and lips with her cuff. The stings were red and swelling.
“Hurts,” he said.
“You were born to suffer,” she said. “Your only choice is to endure it.”
Tomás raised his eyebrows at Aguirre. Aguirre nodded appreciatively.
Huila took a few more puffs of her cigar, then took it out of her mouth and held it in front of her. “Go ahead and cry,” she said. “It’s all right.” Then she extended the cigar toward his face. He screamed in panic.