The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [65]
“Good,” he said. “Gracias.”
She tipped her head at him.
“What have you decided?” Huila asked.
Tomás combed his whiskers with his fingers.
“We stay,” he said. “We rebuild.”
There arose a murmur, though no one could tell if it was dread or assent.
“Some of us don’t want to remain here. It is haunted,” Huila said.
“Ay, María Sonora,” Tomás sighed. “Don’t you think all Sonora is haunted? Have we not seen strange things all the way from Sinaloa? Haunted!” He barked out a laugh. His riders also laughed; the People did not. “I have several ranches. Some of you may go work at Aquihuiquichi, and at Santa María. All right?”
Huila nodded.
More murmuring.
“And you will be rebuilding Cabora,” Huila offered.
“Soon,” he replied. “Soon. But Engineer Aguirre will be in charge of the ranch in my absence. He has my full authority—you will follow his orders without question, as if I myself had spoken.”
“And you?” Huila called. “Where will you be?”
“I?” said Tomás. “I am going to go talk to the Yaquis.”
Now, as Tomás rode alone into the hills, he remembered their cries of fear, their arguments and shouts. Huila argued with him, and the People begged him not to go. But he had already battled Aguirre and Segundo all night. He had overcome the will of his vaqueros and their endless rounds of debate that had ruined his sleep.
“For God’s sake, you idiot—take armed riders with you!” Aguirre had cried.
“No.”
“It’s suicide, boss,” Segundo argued. “Don’t go alone. Let me ride with you, at least.”
“No.”
“They’ll kill you,” Aguirre shouted.
“I don’t think so.”
Tomás had a sense that the Yaquis would respect his boldness if he rode into their midst with no hired guns around him. And if they weren’t impressed, he didn’t want to see more of his men killed. Besides, Yaquis weren’t horsemen like Apaches or Comanches—he knew he could outride any warrior that might come after him, and he wore two revolvers and carried a shotgun and a Winchester in scabbards on either side of his saddle. He’d shoot his way out if he had to. Or he’d go down shooting.
“I am a good Catholic,” he joked. “They will join me in a rosary.”
His leaving had been nearly silent. Tomás took his firearms and a huge fighting knife on the back of his belt. He wore his silver concha black pants, a pair of rawhide chaps, and a big sombrero. In his saddlebags were two sacks of gold pesos to pay ransom for the stolen women. He had ridden out of the camp on the far edge of the red sunrise.
When he got to Alamos that afternoon, he was delighted to see cantinas and restaurants and trees. He fed a few peanuts to a great white parrot in a hibiscus tree. He ate chorizo and eggs, calabaza and papaya, a bowl of arroz cooked in tomato sauce with red onions sprinkled over it, coffee and boiled milk, and three sweet rolls. He went to the botica and bought some stomach powders in case the chorizo loosened his bowels, and he bought seven cigars and a tin of tobacco—he had read that Indian caciques liked tobacco. He turned his horse over to a stable and went to the hotel off the plazuela. There, he took a room and paid for a bath. He soaked himself in the steaming water, scrubbed the smell of cows off his body. The water, when he rose, looked like bean soup in a mug.
“I am a pig,” he noted.
Pulling on clean trousers and a white shirt from his mochila, he looked in the mirror and slicked back his hair. Downstairs, he enjoyed a shot of tequila and a lime, then sat down to a game of poker. He paid the chanteuse for three songs. Then he made his way to his cousins’ houses and sipped tea and dandled children. At midnight he rose to his room and fell in the feather bed and slept like a weary angel. At dawn, he dressed and sat down to a breakfast of fruit and bolillo rolls and ham steaks with green chiles and four eggs. He bought stout boots, had a haircut, and waited for the telegraph office to open. He sent Don Miguel a quick note: “Cabora burned! Rebuilding. I negotiate with renegades. Aguirre and Segundo in charge of rancho.”
As he rode out of town, he stopped at La Capilla,