The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [69]
For some reason, Aguirre blurted, “I beg your pardon?”
“Good morning,” she said.
He held the sheet up to his chest.
“B-buenos días,” he stammered.
“What do you read at night?” she asked.
“Of late, I have been revisiting the Quixote,” he said. The chickens clucked. The dogs scratched. Aguirre thought: What a very peculiar scene.
“May I see it?” she asked.
“The book?” he said.
She nodded.
He sat up straighter and tried to pat his hair down with his hands. He fingered his whiskers. Then he took a clay cup and sipped water from it. He put the cup down and picked up the book, smiled at it once as if it were a well-known friend, and handed it to her.
The book was heavy in her hands. Its cover was soft leather. She liked the way it felt to her fingers. The letters were bright gold.
She touched the title with her finger.
“This?” she said.
“The title,” he explained. “Don Quixote de la Mancha.”
She touched the first, small word.
“This?”
“Don,” he said.
“Don. Like Don Tomás?”
“Or Don Lauro,” he said, hoping to remind her of his own standing. The child was strangely familiar with him. It barely seemed respectful.
“Don.” She smiled. “Tell me the letters.”
“D-o-n,” he snapped, looking about to see if anyone was watching this absurd little school lesson.
“D!” she breathed. “O! N! Don.”
She laughed. It was her first word. She had learned to read a word.
He took the book back and riffled the pages. He stopped. “There,” he said. He showed her the page. “Look here,” he said. He pointed to a line.
“What does it say?”
“Urrea.”
“Where?”
He pointed out the letters to her.
“Is this Don Tomás?” she cried.
“No, no. This is hundreds of years ago. But it is Don Tomás Urrea’s ancestor.”
“There is an Urrea in this book?”
“Yes, there is. And Don Quixote notes that he is quite powerful.”
“Is there an Urrea in every book?”
Aguirre laughed.
“Heavens no!” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, hopping off the bed. “You should get up, Don Lauro. It’s getting late.”
She put the book down, waved once, and ran off in a whirl of yapping dogs.
Twenty-one
SEEMINGLY LOST on the red plain, his long shadow merging with the tormented wrenchings of the black cacti and ocotillo, came the lone rider. His sombrero formed a dense oval of shadow around his face, and his knife at the base of his spine threw sparks where it peeked from its deerskin scabbard. When he came upon pack trains, he tipped his hat, and when he approached other solitary wanderers or small lines of Indians, he unsheathed his rifle and held it across his lap.
Tomás had eaten rattlesnake in a small group of Apache hunters, hunched down with them around a small smoky scrub fire. They wore loose baggy pants and red bandanas around their heads. They had great handsome noses and crinkly eyes. The skins of the snakes were pegged out in the sun, and the pale violet and pink meat was skewered on sticks and turned in the flames. They ate off their knife blades, and they gestured at Tomás with their blades, and pointed to the fire and to him, and they all laughed. “You bastards,” he said. They all knew, without sharing words, that it would be greatly entertaining to place him in a fire and watch his meat sizzle, too. The Apaches muttered to each other and laughed, rubbing their faces and shaking their heads at this foolish white man. They liked him. He made them coffee. They liked that, too. When it was time to part, they tied a fat rattle to a thong and put it around his neck. They stood around threatening him with their knives and giggling, and he pulled out his rifle and pointed it at them. Everybody thought this was hilarious.
He slept that night off the trail. He tied the stallion to a paloverde tree. He had heard of these trees, but had never seen them. They didn’t seem to have much in the way of leaves. Their trunks were