The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [97]
She was also expected to ask questions about the bizarre imaginings of Edgar Allan Poe. And Tomás enjoyed hearing her opinions about problems of the day.
On her second night in the house, he offered her a sip of brandy. It made her cough and splutter. He slapped her on the back. She declined a puff of his cigar.
“The issue this evening,” he told her, “is Buenaventura. I see him as a liability.”
“Why, Father?”
“He’s a rotten little bastard!”
“He has had a rough life.”
“Is that supposed to be my fault? Don’t answer that!”
“What would you do?”
“I’ll cast him out!”
“Really?”
“I want him off Cabora!” Tomás announced. “Measures must be taken!”
“Try showing mercy,” she suggested.
He puffed and regarded her.
“Mercy is your strongest feature, Father. Remember the Yaquis.”
He smiled. The Yaquis.
“Hmm.”
He took another sip. Puffed and blew smoke in the air. The grandfather clock started to chime.
“All right,” Tomás said. “But he doesn’t come in my house. To me, he is just another vaquero. He is nothing to me!”
Teresita knew this was bluster, but Huila had taught her to let men babble.
He picked up a leather volume and said, “Tonight, Poe’s tale of Arthur Gordon Pym.”
She crossed her legs under her, partly to hide her bare feet.
“Is it ghastly?” she asked.
“Oh yes! Quite.”
Item I: Proper Horseback Riding
No more pulling up her skirts and straddling a horse! Tomás almost fainted in shock when she opened her legs and mounted. It was absolutely indecent. Teresita was instructed in the absurd and insulting method of sidesaddle riding, where her abysmal petticoats and velvet skirts and knee boots dangled like atrophied limbs off the side of a boring little striding horse.
When Tomás wasn’t looking, she pulled up her skirts and raced Segundo all the way down the Alamos road to the Cantúa turnoff.
Item J: Absolutely no spitting or nose picking!
Item K: No mention, at any time, of her monthly female situation.
Item L: Pets
After she was discovered with a baby pig in her bedroom, followed by the barn cat and three dogs, she was prohibited from having pets in the house. The pig, loyal and in love, waited on the front steps for Teresita to come out every morning. Tomás started out by kicking at the little beast, but ended up feeling fond of him. He often took bits of his breakfast out to him. It was Tomás who named the pig General Urrea.
Item M: The People
Although Tomás recognized her deep connection to the workers and the vaqueros, she was urged to refrain from hanging out in the bunkhouse or in El Potrero, the workers’ village. It was unseemly for the daughter of the patrón to be seen in these huts. This was an order she ignored.
Secretly, it pleased him.
Item N: Romance
Absolutely not!
Item O: Servants
No matter how much he cursed at her, Tomás could not break Teresita of the habit of making her own meals and even, shocking as it was to everyone, serving the maids and cooks. She even washed the dishes.
Item P: Herbs
She was allowed her collecting of noxious weeds as long as she hung them to dry in her own room and not in the kitchen.
Item Q: Church
“Mass?” Tomás cried. “Goddamn it!”
He arranged for one of Gastélum’s troublesome circuit-riding priests to deliver Mass in his barn every Sunday. Teresita ordered him to attend, but Tomás spent every Sunday morning out with the bees. She wasn’t going to make him kneel in a barn! Not to a celibate freak!
Still, he did concede to the occasional Bible reading to be added to their postsupper literary sessions. Aguirre came in quite handy on his visits, since he seemed to know the infernal volume the way he knew his engineering texts, and he and Teresita could spend boring hours debating Elijah and Elisha