The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [92]
“I hope those blasted bees of yours don’t sting me,” said Aguirre.
From the back of the wagon came a contented murmuring.
“The bees are smoked down,” Tomás assured him. “They are tamed.”
“I don’t trust bees.”
“Bees are better than people.”
Tomás looked over at his bearded friend bobbling along inelegantly on top of his horse as if he’d been stacked there, his parts badly tied to the saddle. Aguirre’s hat even bounced, like a lid on a boiling pot.
“Bees,” Tomás said, “are excellent engineers, better even than you. They are hard workers—they certainly work harder than these lazy bastards that work for me. They are brave as Indian warriors. And they make honey. Far better than humans, my friend.”
Aguirre peered ahead.
“What’s that?” he said, interrupting Tomás’s entomological ponderings.
“Eh?”
Tomás looked down the road. There seemed to be two buggies parked before the main house.
“There is always something,” Tomás sighed, “interesting in every day.”
He accelerated his rattling wagon to a brisk trot, and he was worried to see Segundo in the road. Segundo looked chagrined. Tomás dropped the reins and stood in the box and shouted, “Qué pasa aquí?”
Segundo jerked his chin at the house.
“Her,” he said.
“Which her?” called Aguirre.
“The big her,” said Segundo.
“Loreto,” announced Tomás, already hanging his head.
“And her,” added Segundo.
“Who?”
“Her.”
Tomás looked.
Huila was sitting near the plum tree with Teresita.
“Her, Huila?” he said. “Or her, the girl?”
“Her, both of them.”
Buenaventura strolled up the road, whistling.
“Now,” Tomás said, “my day is complete.”
“What do you want?” Tomás asked the kid.
“Nada.”
“Why are you here?”
“Mexico is a free country.”
“It is my ranch.”
“I will inherit it!” Buenaventura shrugged. “Why can’t I take stock of my holdings?”
“Chingado,” noted Tomás. “Stay out of the way.”
Buenaventura started to reply, but Aguirre held up a finger as the two men dismounted and went through the gate.
In the courtyard, Huila said, “This girl needs to talk to you.”
Teresita started to rise.
“Not now,” said Tomás, heading for the door.
Teresita sat back down.
“Good day,” said Aguirre.
Teresita rose again.
“Buenos días,” she said.
She sat down again.
“Aguirre,” said Huila, “tell Don Tomás we need to speak to him soon.”
Aguirre tipped his hat as he went by, thinking Huila, too, was impudent.
Inside, Doña Loreto was walking through the parlor. She glanced up at Tomás and pointedly ran a gloved finger along one shelf. It came up black with dust. She shook her head and smacked her palms to clean her fingers. She pulled off her gloves. The children were storming up and down the stairs, yelling and hooting like Yaqui invaders.
“Please!” Tomás complained.
Juan Francisco slid down the banister, then stomped back upstairs. He sounded like thunder. Catastrophic poundings came from the upstairs bedrooms as the children launched themselves from the furniture and flew onto the beds.
“How rustic,” Loreto sighed, “it all is.”
She flipped through a few of the Engineer’s magazines on a table.
“Tu casita silvestre.”
This last elegance, this jape about the little country home, the little country cabin, was particularly pointed, and it drew blood like a paper cut.
Suddenly, Tomás’s day grew immeasurably worse when a thin cleric came from the kitchen, munching on a stack of sweet rolls.
“My son,” the priest said.
“Who are you?”
“Padre Gastélum,” the priest said. “Vengo de Zaragoza!”
But he was speaking Castilian, and he lisped the word: Tharagotha!
A Spaniard priest, no less! Tomás pulled a bandana from his pocket and wiped his brow. This was worse than any hostile Indian village.
“Why are you here now?” Tomás asked Loreto. “You have never shown the slightest interest in our ranch before!”
“I came to see if you had moved your whores into the house,” she replied, sweetly.
This seemed an astounding thing to say in front of a priest, but Gastélum from Tharagotha stood placidly, chewing his way through three pesos’ worth of pastry.
The engineer