The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [77]
Bees were better companions than people.
When he came to their hives with great jugs of sugar water to fill their feeder trays, he told himself they recognized him and greeted him with affection. They boiled out excitedly, and they did seem to know him, fanning him with their wings, tenderly plucking at his face and hands with their hooked feet. He was never stung.
He took a pound of honey to each Indian village. In time, he dreamed of three hundred hives. Five hundred. One day, he would do away with horses and cows and only ride herd on vast tides of bees.
Gold poppies. Desert rose mallow. Chihuahua flax. Buffalo gourd. Menodora. Twinleaf. Desert gold. Ghostflower. Chuparosa.
Los vaqueros did not understand this flowery phase of Don Tomás’s life, and they didn’t trust the insects. Bees, to buckaroos, were evil little beasts that stung horses and cows on the rump and started mad dashes through cactus bottoms. To hell with bees, brother.
They just waited until he came back from the hives and stared, slightly nauseous, when he came to them with a dripping chunk of honeycomb in his mouth, honey drooling down his chin, dead bees and grubs stuck to his lips. He’d look up at them, chewing away like a skinny bear, and he’d say, “What?”
Between the beehives and the Arroyo de Cocoraqui, there were arrayed fields of hay, henequen, tomatoes. Beyond these were several alamos trees where the goats and pigs had pens. North of the pens began the great corrals and barn complexes. To the west was the vast plain where the cattle wandered. To the east of the corrals was El Potrero. Between the barns and the main house was the long bunkhouse where the vaqueros snored and played cards, their kitchen attached to the east. The new rendering plant was far to the east, where its stench could not overwhelm the main house. Tomás had created a factory of tallow and lard, candles and oil and glue. On the west side of the main house was the residence of the caballero de estribo, the top hand. There, Segundo lived—in his opinion, like a sultan. He had such astounding things as a couch and beds, and a cook and a girl to boil his britches and hang them out to dry in the air. In Segundo’s palace, the orders were simple: coffee all day, at any hour. Coffee and cookies and lots of beans. No honey. Much beer. The inescapable Buenaventura often invited himself into Segundo’s house and managed to end up in the guest bed without being given the least indication that he was welcome. Buenaventura amused him, like some stray dog stealing eggs. And he eyed the boy’s Urrea face and thought his dark thoughts, until one night after they’d drunk many bottles of beer Buenaventura had confessed his secret and Segundo had gone off to sleep not at all surprised. This made him happy. A real man was never taken by surprise by anything.
On the brink of the arroyo stood the great main house. It was a full three miles from the hives, but the bees had no problem finding its walls. Rebuilt with adobe and pine planks from the Tarahumara Mountains of Chihuahua, the house spread two wings east and west from a tall center residence accessed through a flagstone courtyard that was shut off from the ranch by two swinging wooden gates. In the middle of the courtyard, Tomás had recently planted a plum tree. Around it, benches and a pair of small fountains made a sheltered sitting spot for Huila and any guests who might come to visit. Tomás had had the