The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel Page 28

  The women and children with Old Pancakes had been loaded on the train in Tucson. Sometime after the Apaches arrived at the island fortress off the Florida coast, white men from a school for Indians in Pennsylvania had come to take away their children. The Indian school in Pennsylvania was in damp country, and many of the Apache children fell ill and died. The Apache scouts, those betrayers of their people, got loaded on that train too. Those scouts who had enabled the U.S. soldiers to evade ambushes and traps, those scouts willing to sell the locations of the Apache camps, those scouts had gone to prison with the Apaches they had once pursued.

  Calabazas had begun to notice that he did not sleep as much as he once had, and he identified that characteristic with old age. As the human soul approached death, it got more and more restless and more and more energy for wandering, a preparation for all eternity where the old people believed no one would rest or sleep but would range over the earth and between the moon and stars, traveling on winds and clouds, in constant motion with ocean tides, migrations of birds and animals, pulsing within all life and all beings ever created. Calabazas had not thought very often about warriors because they had died out when he was still a small boy. But he could not forget Old Pancakes. The last years Old Pancakes had been proof of the surprises and the sheer wonder still left in this world. Shrewd Pancakes had made the best of the situation. And if the whites wanted to pay him to ride spotted ponies in Wild West shows and wave an unloaded rifle over his head as the character the white journalists called Geronimo, then that was okay with the old man. Because he had seen a lot of changes throughout those years of struggle. As a boy he had ridden with the great man the whites called Cochise. But he had also heard what the great man had said before his death. Guns and knives would not resolve the struggle. He had reminded the people of the prophecies different tribes had. In each version one fact was clear: the world that the whites brought with them would not last. It would be swept away in a giant gust of wind. All they had to do was to wait. It would be only a matter of time.

  Calabazas woke in the middle of the night from a dream in which the old ones long dead had gathered for a celebration.

  “Drink up!” they all told Calabazas. “We are drinking to celebrate your wedding! Congratulations! What a lovely bride!” But in the dream Calabazas tried to tell them he was already married. He tried to find Sarita, but she was not in the room. Then through a half-open door, Calabazas saw the bride in her dress; the bride turned, but she was not Sarita, the woman he had married. She had Sarita’s body, with the big ass and small breasts, and the small, lovely hands. But the face was Liria’s, her sister’s.

  TWO SISTERS

  CALABAZAS GOT UP and made coffee. Another sign of old age. Brewing coffee long before sunrise. The dream that he was married to Liria and not her sister, his wife, Sarita, was the longest-running dream Calabazas had. Calabazas shaved while the coffee boiled. He had never dreamed the actual wedding before, probably because that had been the decisive moment, when both he and Liria should have spoken up. Because long before the wedding Calabazas had been in love with Liria. Liria had loved him too, but she had also been confused and frightened by her betrayal of her sister. Sarita was the eldest, the one the other children looked up to and had to obey. Liria had been just a girl, and falling in love with her brother-in-law-to-be had terrified her.

  Calabazas folded the chrome legs of the shaving mirror and cleaned up the razor before he poured himself some coffee. It had been going on so long between Liria and him that even if he called Sarita by Liria’s name, Sarita answered and no longer even bothered to get angry or hurt. Because Calabazas had lived up to his side of the bargain; he had accepted responsibility for Sarita, as his wife, but also for the others, Liria included. The bargain had been made by representatives of both family groups, representatives who sometimes traveled to Sonora to be certain that Calabazas’s elder brothers and sisters were satisfied with the terms. There had initially been friction because the Sonora Yaquis felt the Tucson clan had adopted a somewhat haughty attitude. But already Calabazas had proven himself to be a brilliant businessman, expanding his import-export business year after year. He had taken the whole family, cousins and stray in-laws, and looked after them. Despite the thefts from both private citizens and the city of Tucson, the Brito family had managed to keep a sizable parcel of land along the Santa Cruz River.

  Old man Brito, as he got older and his mind became less clear, imagined thieves were stealing his property. But when Calabazas or one of the others questioned the old man, he could not tell them what items were missing or stolen. Sarita’s theory was simple. Her father’s family had lost a great deal to the first whites who had settled in Tucson. The terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had guaranteed protection for all land titles granted prior to the arrival of the U.S., but the treaty had been violated again and again by whites greedy for the best land. Sarita and Liria never spoke of what the family had lost without great bitterness. Any talk about the lost land caused Sarita to become furious with him, Calabazas. At first Calabazas had tried to reason with Sarita, gently reminding her the anger she was feeling was for criminal acts committed years and years before. How could Sarita be angry at him?

  At first Liria had refused to discuss her sister at all with Calabazas. Liria had been so upset about committing adultery with her brother-in-law that she would hardly speak to him at all even when they made love. It had taken almost a year before Calabazas had managed to get Liria to succumb. From the beginning something powerful had pulsed between them whenever they had looked at one another or whenever one spoke to the other. The strength of this feeling had caused them both embarrassment and apprehension. Liria used to glance nervously over her shoulder. Calabazas thought Liria had acted foolishly. Years later he realized her instincts had been correct, and they should have let the truth be seen. Sarita would have recovered and would have married again. Toward the end, old Brito had confused Liria with Sarita anyway, and for weeks at a time, old man Brito had embarrassed them because he thought Calabazas and Liria were husband and wife, and Sarita was still engaged to the neighbor boy who had died.

  Day and night Calabazas had schemed, locating faint trails through dark volcanic rock and thick spiny bushes and cactus that figured in all his dreams. He preferred to do all the border crossing himself, but in time, as his clanspeople in San Rafael grew larger crops, it became clear Calabazas would have to hire help. The family and clan in San Rafael were getting ambitious too. They wanted to guide “travelers” north across the border for a small fee. The business of guiding strangers through the deserts of the south had been going on for longer than anyone could remember. The so-called “explorers” Cabeza de Vaca, Estevan, and Coronado could not have lasted more than a few days without the assistance of Indian guides. Without a guide, the traveler might die of heat and dehydration within sight of a cluster of rocks and mesquite where wild desert pigs and coyotes had managed to scratch water holes.

  Calabazas told his relatives to do whatever they wished. Himself—he avoided human cargoes. Too many things could go wrong during a crossing. Ten or twelve gunnysacks full of marijuana could be hidden in the limbs of mesquites or behind big boulders. Gunnysacks or boxes could be abandoned, left for weeks. But human beings—there they were. What did you do with them? Calabazas had always had the philosophy it was better to put in-laws to work for you, even if they were always borrowing against their wages. Working for you, they were automatically tied up with what happened to you. It made the prospect of betrayal less likely. They might not like Calabazas. They might say behind his back that he was nothing but a parasite, and an opportunist, taking advantage of all the land the Brito family had along the river. They might complain that Calabazas thought he was better than they were, when here he was the one born in Mexico and not a legal citizen. They might have any number of slights, injuries to pride or reputation, blamed on Calabazas. But unless one wanted to betray and destroy the entire clan, nobody was going to sel
l information. No one was going to talk.

  Calabazas realized they could stay with the marijuana and do reasonably well. In the beginning marijuana had been all they could afford because smuggling goods demanded up-front money. During the Second World War, Calabazas had concentrated on truck tires, and spools of copper wire, he brought across the border. The truck tires were worth many times the amount Calabazas had paid in Mexico.

  Calabazas had always seen his marriage to Sarita as an arrangement with the family, as well as an arrangement with Sarita. Calabazas had exceeded all the wildest dreams of Sarita’s clanspeople. Husbands, brothers, cousins, and their in-laws only needed to ask and somehow Calabazas found them jobs.

  Years later Calabazas could look back on that day with Sarita and laugh at himself. Because in those days he had been such a cocky bastard. He had thought back then he could “read” what was going on inside a person. How wrong he had been about Sarita!

  Calabazas refilled his cup and stepped outside to watch the sun come up. Around at the front gate he thought he could hear the car doors opening. Liria had started going to six-o’clock Mass with Sarita. Did they pray for him? Did they pray for continued success for the family business? Very likely they prayed for that. But sometimes Calabazas wondered what they said to one another, now that they were getting older. Did they ever talk about what went on years before?

  Calabazas had been so cocksure of himself he had never suspected Sarita. Out of the blue sky the bolt struck him. Sarita went to Mass every day at the downtown cathedral. Sarita had spent Saturday afternoons helping the women of the altar society wash the altar cloths and priests’ vestments. Calabazas suddenly remembered that as Liria was telling him about Sarita’s unusual devotion to the Church and to the altar society, he had sensed something strange. According to Liria, Sarita had been a goody-goody who had no time for high school dances. After school Sarita had walked downtown to assist the priests’ housekeeper with the evening meal or to finish washing up noon dishes. There had been six priests as well as the monsignor.

  How stupid! How blind! How arrogant! A more humble man would have seen it. Sarita had been in love with the monsignor when she had married Calabazas in the cathedral. Her lover had given the Mass and his blessing to their marriage. All of this Calabazas had not seen because he had been in love with Liria.

  Calabazas had started laughing then. He could remember the strange reaction of his beloved uncle and aunt to the wedding.

  GAMBLING DEBT

  THE BRITOS HAD SENT an invitation to Calabazas the day after he had arrived at his granduncle’s house in Tucson. Old Brito was notorious for his gambling debts. In fact, Calabazas seemed to remember that at Chalky Place camp they had laughed over Brito stories that had come filtering back from Tucson. Of course when Calabazas had arrived, he had found his poor granduncle needing someone to chop wood for him and someone to fill and carry the big milk cans of drinking water.

  Old Mahawala had warned him to “watch out for Brito,” but at the time, Calabazas had not been able to imagine what she meant. “Cards and dice, cockfights, dogfights, that old Brito was always there, taking on everyone. Making wild claims.” Old Brito had been dark, wiry, with his top front teeth missing, and he kept an ancient revolver, almost as tall as he was, shoved down the front of his baggy trousers. That old Brito! What a troublemaker he got to be! No wonder they ran him out of San Rafael. But old Brito had saved his best trick—the big horse race—for last. Everyone was there. People had come up from Sonora because two of the horses running were from Mexico. Hands were full of fifties. They all made bets. The women sat on lawn chairs under bright-colored umbrellas although the sun was beginning to get low in the west. Old Brito was everywhere making bets. His sore hip never seemed to bother him when he was gambling. There had been four horses. The horse from Hermosillo was a big black one, and outclassed the others. But old man Brito had been taking bets all afternoon on a shaggy-looking gray horse owned by four Tucson men. The gray horse won the first race by a head, and old Brito had jumped up and down until the gun in his pants almost dropped on the ground. But for the second race, Brito bet on the black horse. Brito got a lot of money that way, betting on the black horse when everyone thought the gray would win again. By this time, the sun had just about disappeared, and a breeze was coming up from the river. The racetrack was near the riverbank, where the sandy soil was raked and packed just right.

  The men at the starting line dropped their arms and the horses leaped down the straightaway. Oh, how the women in those days loved to shop for the paraguas, the parasols. Umbrella crazy they all were. The women went to the races to show off their umbrellas and to keep an ear cocked in the direction of the clusters of husbands and sons laying down their money. Calabazas had never forgot the festive scene at the races. The women and their gorgeous parasols might have been a dream garden of giant flowers, blossoming with turquoise roses and pink paisleys and parrot-green vines of leaves and buds covered with brilliant reds, yellows, and lavenders.

  It had been a good start, but then a gust of wind off the river caught a bright-orange umbrella and tore it from the hands of a horrified woman. It had been as if all time had slowed down so that one could look at the racehorses exploding down the straightaway, head to head, and at the same time one could see the glorious orange umbrella above the heads of spectators. The umbrella paused, as if waiting for the racehorses to catch up with it before it began its descent. The orange umbrella floated down onto the center of the racetrack just in front of the finish line, where it caused a terrible pileup. Although three of the jockeys were thrown, none of the riders or horses were injured.

  Brito had leaped onto the track an instant after the horses had collided at the finish line. He had whipped out the huge old revolver, which was so heavy he had to hold it in both hands. It had been one of his blind furies, which he claimed later he did not remember. As the riders brought the panting, foaming racehorses back down the track, Brito took aim and fired. He hit the jockey on the black horse in the thigh. The black horse half-reared, and the wounded rider slid off into the arms of the horse’s owner. Brito fired at the jockey again but managed to hit the owner in the arm. By then everyone had scattered, running hunched close to the ground, heads down. The sun had set and the night coolness with the damp smell of the river began to settle over them. All the umbrellas had disappeared from the spectators area, and the woman who had lost the orange umbrella had fled by way of the old riverbank path.

  Brito had got himself deep in trouble because the owner of the black horse from Hermosillo had not come up to Tucson alone and had many relatives in Tucson. Before it got dark that day, word had gone out that friends of the wounded were in the mood to squash the little worm Brito. So Calabazas had paid off the irate Sonorans. Old Brito had worked a deal: Calabazas would marry Brito’s eldest daughter, Sarita.

  Had old Brito and his wife already suspected Sarita and the monsignor?

  MARRIAGE

  SARITA WAS ALWAYS SERIOUS and quiet, as if her attention were focused far away. Later of course, Calabazas realized that had been precisely the case. Sarita had fallen in love with the monsignor, who must have begun fondling and petting her the first time she had volunteered to help the women of the altar society clean the cathedral.

  Now Calabazas could look back and laugh. But at the time, the discovery of Sarita and the monsignor had been a terrible shock. It had been on the afternoon old man Brito died. Calabazas had returned early from one of his “business” trips. It had been a Wednesday afternoon. Sarita would be at altar society until six. Liria and Calabazas had time to go off to the back wing of the house if they wanted. Calabazas had been relieved to see that Sarita had gone to wash the priests’ dishes. He had had a lingering urge all morning to take Liria to the back room and push up her skirts.

  The advantage of the massive L-shaped adobe house was that the back wing was separated by three-foot adobe walls from the front of the house. The back wing had two entrances,
and if someone knocked at one of the doors, anyone inside the back wing could leave by the door on the other side of the building unseen by the person knocking. Liria kept a jungle of hollyhocks around the brick terrace of the back wing. A number of times Liria had had to hurry out one door and into the tall stands of hollyhocks and cosmos while Calabazas calmly pulled on his pants and picked up his woodworking tools to open the door to Sarita or Old Brito’s nurse. It was understood that Calabazas had possession of the back wing to prepare wooden crates with false bottoms or to clean the rifles and pistols.

  But on this afternoon Calabazas had only just pushed himself into Liria, between her thick, smooth thighs, when there was a frantic pounding on the door to the terrace. Calabazas could tell by the light pounding it was the day nurse. He gave Liria two quick parting thrusts before he slid off her and picked up his pants. But Liria leaped up too because the nurse said the old man had fallen. Calabazas followed the nurse to the sitting room where old Brito lay gasping in the middle of the floor. The old man’s eyes were closed, but his mouth was open and his lips were making sucking, smacking sounds as if the old man were no longer a creature of air but a strange fish pulled up from the depths. Liria knelt over old Brito.

  Her eyes were full of tears, but she was calm when she asked Calabazas to go after Sarita. Liria held her father’s hand and watched his mouth, which frantically sucked at the air while his lungs wheezed and rattled in the bony, heavy chest. The skin on the hand was as soft and smooth as a newborn baby’s, although the dark-brown pigment of the skin had faded in freckles and splotches. The day they had stood at each elbow with the old man at the grave for their mother, Liria and Sarita had known that it would not be long before they lowered their father’s coffin into the ground.