The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [64]
“Oh, they are. You see, for some reason, the Yaquis allowed some Jesuits to come into these regions. There were eight Yaqui centers, towns that the Jesuits made into missions. And—perhaps God, that old trickster, was really at work after all—the Jesuits allowed the tribe to exercise its own rituals along with the new Roman high jinks. Imagine, Lauro—deer dancers in the Mass. A native Easter!”
“Some might see that as heresy. Sin.”
“Sin! Shit.” Tomás walked quickly—Aguirre had to hurry to catch up. “Why was it not a sin to impose Roman rituals on a Hebrew religion? If there is a God, do you really believe he speaks Latin? No seas tonto. It was the genius of the Jesuits to handle these people in such a fashion. And when the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico, they left behind their religion. Now they’re back.”
They walked into the crowd of cowboys, bumping into the redolent horses as they shifted in the uneasy dark. The scent of gun oil hung between the flanks of the animals, and the sharp scent of leather, and the many kinds of sweat and fear came off the men like cigarette smoke. “Boss,” the men said, some of them startled, as Tomás slipped past them. “Boys,” he said, patting them on the leg, the knee, as they sat their horses. And when he’d made his way into the middle of the men, he stopped. They all stopped. They waited.
It was Segundo who finally spoke.
“So,” he said, “what are we going to do?”
“I, for one,” the patrón said, “am going to sleep.”
Nineteen
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, as Don Tomás prepared to deliver his orders to them all, Teresita walked from camp to camp, watching the People ready their breakfasts. Huila had sent clay bowls full of beans and nopal cactus fried in eggs to the men at the ruined ranch house. Some of the locals had provided weird huge flour tortillas, and the men at the main-house ruins suspiciously wrapped their beans in these wads of what seemed to them to be wet laundry. Segundo found the tortillas de harina squishy and deeply improper, though by his third bean and cactus burrito, he started to enjoy them. Their rich taint of lard felt good and greasy in his mouth.
Tomás chose to remain loyal to his little corn tortillas. There was only so much he was willing to concede to el norte.
Most people ate beans. Fried beans or boiled with a gristly wad of fatback. Some ate bolillos that they dipped in their coffee. The two workers from Rosario’s silver mines—Guerrero and Millán—fried the last of their little green bananas. Millán dangled one before his button fly and invited passersby to bite it. And eggs, hitting melted lard, spread their hiss through the wagons like water spilling over stones. The world smelled like food, and Teresita closed her eyes and went from delicious cloud to delicious cloud, her stomach singing and burbling, her jaws tingling with hunger.
At Huila’s fire circle, she squatted down in the dirt with a tin plate balanced on her knees, and she scooped up slimy cactus and eggs with chunks of tortilla. The folded triangle of tortilla in her right hand served as a spoon, and the rough triangle in her left served as a scoop that moved choice bits around her plate. She had used spoons and forks before, but not often.
Huila set a mug of coffee before Teresita—the skin of boiled milk humped in the middle, raised by steam. Teresita lifted the cup with two hands and sipped. The old woman had already stirred in her traditional five spoonfuls of sugar. Teresita raked in the milk skin with her teeth and chewed it. After breakfast, she helped wash dishes. Then she set about beating blankets and shaking out dresses. She kept busy until lunchtime, but before she could examine the frying pans to see what they’d eat, riders approached.
Here came Segundo again, and with him, Don Tomás. The Engineer wore a checkered suit and his silliest top hat. Two vaqueros brought up the rear.
Tomás carried an empty bowl, balanced on the pommel of his saddle.
Huila stood.
“Buenos días,” she said. “Did you like your breakfast?”
Tomás tossed his bowl to one of the workers