Amigoland

35

The next morning Socorro waited outside in the hall while Don Fidencio finished getting dressed and taking his medicines. A few minutes later he opened the door and asked her to please come reassemble the cane; he had been looking at it before going to sleep and had managed to fold it but now couldn’t make it extend all the way back to its original setting. A cane two feet tall would be of no use to him.
When they finally made it out of the room and down the hall, his brother was at the front desk, paying for one more night. A young boy, standing on a milk crate, was working the front desk for his father. He smiled when the old man ambled up to the counter.
“You have a message, Se?or Rosales,” the boy said, holding up the small piece of folded paper as proof. “I wrote it down myself.”
“For which Se?or Rosales?”
“The man told me it was for the one who couldn’t remember where he came from.”
Don Fidencio handed the boy the tip he was obviously waiting for and then opened the note.
I found what you were looking for.
—Isidro
_______
They traveled in the same direction as the previous day, passing the furniture store and Pemex station, but once they had left the center of town, the driver veered onto a country road and a mile or so later crossed a wrought-iron bridge. Don Fidencio rolled down his window to get a better look at the low-flowing river. Two enormous Montezuma cypresses, their trunks flared at the base and ending in long horizontal roots, rose from the muddy shore on either side. Farther downstream a rope bridge hung high above the water, with a couple of slats missing and others dangling like loose teeth. The window had been down only a few seconds when Don Fidencio caught a whiff of the putrid water and hurried to roll it back up, but then stopped midway when they were across the bridge and he sensed something else lingering in the air. With his nose wedged in close to the top of the window, the old man took a couple of cautious sniffs before he allowed himself to breathe deeply.
“Oranges?”
“Over there.” Isidro pointed to a grove that now bordered the dirt road. Young men leaned forward on rickety ladders that edged up to the trees. “When I was a boy, that was all they grew here.”
“I used to have one in my backyard,” Don Fidencio replied. “An orange one and a grapefruit tree, but the grapefruit went with the hurricane.”
“Those are bad, the hurricanes,” Isidro agreed. “What year was this?”
“In the year nineteen sixty-seven, that is one detail I never forget.”
The driver was about to ask another question when Don Celestino leaned forward. “And you trust this woman’s directions?”
“My tía, the only sister left from my mother’s side of the family, was born not so far away from there and only moved closer to town when she married my tío.”
“Maybe you should have brought her with you.”
“I invited her, but she was already going to mass. No, it was better that way, for you to have more space.”
“We could have left my brother behind,” Don Fidencio said. “He never believed the story anyway.”
“My tía said that she had also heard stories like the one about your grandfather.”
“You see, everyone believes the story except for my little brother.”
“But that it happened in this place, El Rancho Capote?” Don Celestino asked.
“No, only that there used to be a ranchito by that name, but with time, more and more people left and then they changed the name to El Rancho De La Paz. For that reason, we couldn’t find it.”
“And these people who left, did she say the Indians took them?”
“No, those ones, the gringos came and took.” The driver glanced into the rearview mirror. “You know, to go work on the other side.”
The grove ended and the dirt road turned to caliche. They could feel the rocks and pebbles ricocheting off the rusted chassis, at times hitting just below their feet. Don Fidencio placed both hands on the dashboard to keep from bumping against the door every time the driver jerked the car this way or that way to avoid a pothole. He slowed down some when they came across a large pen with a pair of sheepdogs keeping a vigilant watch over a flock of goats. Up the same road, a lone coyote trotted out of the brush and across the way, ducking under a barbwire fence into a cleared field, and then pausing to look over its shoulder at the old man in the passenger seat.
The road ended at the edge of a scorched field that stretched out as far as they could see. To the right a pair of tractor tires formed arches on either side of the dirt road leading toward a dozen or so cinder-block houses. As soon as they crossed into the ranchito, a small pack of dogs of various sizes and mixed breeds rushed toward the taxi. A mangy chow barked at Don Fidencio’s door, causing him to reach for his aluminum cane until he realized the window was rolled halfway up.
At the first lot, a skinny woman was hanging her laundry across a clothesline to one side of the house. She stayed looking at the idling taxi, a clothespin dangling from the corner of her mouth.
“Buenos días,” the driver called out.
The woman responded to his greeting with a half nod.
He waited to see if she would approach the car or at least call the dogs off, but she stayed put. The clothespin shifted slightly, as if she might be gnawing on its end.
“What a good day to be washing clothes, no?” The driver pointed up at the clear sky. “There’s a good breeze. Already I can see the sun will dry your clothes very fast, maybe not even half an hour.”
“You want her to wash your socks?” Don Fidencio said.
“I was only trying to be pleasant.”
“Be pleasant some other time,” the old man said. “For now just ask her if this is the right place.”
The driver turned back toward the woman. “These gentlemen and the lady are looking for El Rancho De La Paz.”
The clothespin bobbed slightly, which he took to mean yes. A black goat was now sniffing about the basket of wet clothes.
“The one that used to be El Rancho Capote?” he called out.
The woman only stared back and, without turning, kicked the goat just as it started chewing the edge of her wicker basket.
“Ask her if there’s a family by the name of Rosales.”
The driver did, and the woman cocked her head back while using the tip of her clothespin to point somewhere down the road. He waved to her before easing off the brake and coasting away. Most of the remaining cinder-block houses were single-story, each with its own fenced-in lot. After a while the dogs fell back and quieted. At the end of the dirt road, they came upon a two-story house with a corrugated metal roof that was roughly thatched over with dried-out palm fronds. A cypress with a trunk more than half the width of the house filled most of the lot. In its sprawling shadow rested a small gray truck with a rusted-out bed and a front grille guard made of metal pipes. Lying beneath the engine, a German shepherd mix raised its head from the cool dirt and let out the first of many aimless barks. A woman wearing a black skirt and a washed-out Six Flags T-shirt was picking chiles near the front gate.
“Excuse me,” said the driver, “these people have come from the United States and are looking for El Rancho De La Paz.”
“This is it here,” the woman said, clutching the chiles in her apron. “What are they looking for?”
“Just to see it,” the driver answered. “They say their family came from here.”
She stayed where she was and ducked so she could peer into the front and back seats. “From which family, there are only a few of us that stayed?”
“Rosales,” the driver replied. “They say they come from the Rosales family.”
“I used to be Rosales many years ago, but I became Rosales de Gomez, by my husband.” She stretched her neck as she stood back up. “Only he was one of them that left.”
“Can they speak to you?”
“Maybe it would be better if they talked with my grandmother,” the woman said. “Let me go see if she can come outside.”
They waited for the woman to call off the dog before they opened the doors. After being in the taxi so long, Don Fidencio took a while to unbend his legs and get to his feet.
“Feo!” the woman called out. “Feo, come here!”
On its stiff and bowed legs, the dog finally lumbered over to where she stood. Since the animal had no collar, she grabbed it by the scruff.
“He bites?” the old man asked.
“Not anymore.” She pried open the dog’s mouth so he could see the gaps between its missing teeth. “Those days have passed.”
The old man wasn’t so convinced and kept his distance.
“Don’t be afraid,” the woman said, then took his unsteady hand in hers and together they stroked the dog’s head and back. “You see?” The dog sat with one leg curled under and sticking out between the other three legs, and then after a while it let itself drop to the ground and lay in the dirt.
Socorro and Don Celestino sat under the tree on a wooden bench while Don Fidencio sat on a kitchen chair with its front legs wrapped with duct tape. Isidro had stayed in the taxi, where he was now resting. With most of the clouds having drifted, the large tree provided enough shade for them to sit comfortably. The old man gazed at the massive trunk and its horizontal roots that stretched outward from the base like the hoof of some prehistoric creature that had come back to roam the earth.
“But last night you said you would call in the morning,” Don Celestino said, continuing their hushed conversation from the car.
“If it was so important, you should’ve called her.”
“She’s your mother. She’s not related to me, remember?”
“Yes, I know,” she answered, though not as hushed.
There was more they both wanted to say, but just then the screen door opened and the woman came out, guiding her grandmother by the arm. The two women shuffled forward in halting steps, as if the grandmother were dragging a heavy load and having to gather her strength between each stride. At first her milky eyes stayed pointed downward, until the left one began drifting over to one side and then up toward the thick branches of the tree. Her silver hair was parted in the middle, and in the back formed into one long braid that reached her waist. The flowery housedress fit loose around her body but stretched out for her sagging arms.
Her granddaughter helped her to sit down in the one remaining chair and then find the first waiting hand. “Socorro De La Pe?a,” her guest said. “Thank you for coming outside to meet us.”
“How rare it is for people to come visit our home.” The old woman glanced over her shoulder, unaware that she was looking at the tree.
“And your name?” Socorro asked.
“I have been here so long and raised so many children that everyone calls me Mamá Nene.” She seemed to want to say more but stopped so she could reach out for a cobweb she had noticed hanging in front of her and then did it again, several more times, gently plucking at each thread of the web, before her granddaughter could take hold of her hand and bring it back down so she could continue greeting her guests.
Don Fidencio looked over at his brother, who was staring back at him. He could already imagine what he would be saying in the taxi, that the whole trip had been a waste of his time, all this way so they could meet an old blind woman who didn’t make any sense, especially when there was a building full of them back where they had started the trip.
“We just stopped by to see the ranchito and meet some people,” Don Celestino said, “before we have to head back.”
“Why rush off so fast, after all the effort it must have taken for you to get here?” the old woman replied, shaking his hand. “Besides, Carmen says that you’re a Rosales, like us.”
“Yes, Celestino Rosales.” He patted her hand before making room for his brother. “This was something we all wanted to do, to come and visit where our family came from.”
“And you are right about the effort to get here,” Don Fidencio said as he took his turn shaking her hand, “but I knew we would find it.”
“You traveled a far distance, then?” Mamá Nene was still holding on to his hand with both of hers.
“Yes, for me, very far,” he answered. “I am not so young anymore to be traveling these long distances. You know how it is, getting on and off these buses, never stopping long enough to rest.”
“Then you should sit for a while, no?” she offered. “When Carmen told me there were some people by the name of Rosales, I said to her, ‘Since when has a Rosales come this far to visit us?’”
“And to think that at first these two wanted to stay and not come. ‘But how can we, Fidencio? Look how far it is, and then at your age!’ As if I were already dying. I had to lower my head like a calf they wanted to drag away from its mother. And this I told them from the beginning, that we needed to go, no matter what, that it was important, that I had made a promise to come back. If they’d let me, I would have walked all the way here. In my life I’ve walked farther than most people will ever know.”
Mamá Nene reached out for her granddaughter’s hand. “Did you hear him?”
“Yes, what a journey to make, and so far.”
“More than two days on the bus,” Don Celestino added. “There was no direct service from Matamoros, so then we had to go part of the way on one bus, and without papers because the office was closed, and then stay in a hotel because there were no buses until later that night.”
“No, the name, the name.” The old woman turned back toward her granddaughter. “I thought you said you were listening?”
“I heard him,” Carmen said. “How funny, no?”
“And why funny? You say it like it was just another name, another Rosales.”
The granddaughter rubbed her shoulders and smiled at their guests. “These people only stopped by to say hello.”
“Of all the places they could have stopped to say hello, and then with such sacrifice to get here?” she answered. “You think I would not recognize the name Fidencio Rosales?”
“Yes, but you are confusing the man with someone else. Remember that the one they took was many, many years ago?”
“Then why did he come back? For what?”
“That was our grandfather, the one you want to remember,” Don Celestino tried to explain. “We came to see the place where he was from.”
“We never stopped from hoping, always waiting for this day,” the old woman said, her voice quivering as if she might not be able to continue. “My father, he always told us that the boy would come back.”
“We can leave if this is going to upset her.” Socorro was standing near the granddaughter. “We didn’t know this would happen.”
“She gets confused, but then it usually passes.”
“I know who you are.” The old woman groped about until Don Fidencio again offered her his hand. “I know, I know.”
“No, se?ora,” Don Celestino said. “The boy you are thinking of was our grandfather. My brother was named after him. There are two Fidencios, you understand? The one who went away, and my brother, who is the grandson of that boy. Two different Fidencios, the old one and the young one.”
The old woman nodded and smiled but without looking in the direction of the person speaking. “My father was also named after you. That was why he never lost the hope that the uncle he had heard so much about would one day escape and return to this place.”
“Forgive her,” the granddaughter said. “Sometimes I have trouble changing her mind.”
“And you, talking to them like if I wasn’t here!” She brushed her granddaughter’s hands away from her shoulder. “I know what I’m saying.”
Don Celestino stood up first and signaled to his brother that it was time to leave. Socorro grabbed her purse from the back of the chair where it had been hanging.
“We waited,” the old woman mumbled. “That I do know, that we waited.”
Don Fidencio looked at her for a moment. It did seem such a far distance to travel only to now turn around and head back. They’d been rushing for the last four days. Rushing to leave the nursing home, rushing to pick up the girl, rushing to cross the bridge, rushing to the pharmacy, rushing to the bus station, rushing to get ready in the morning, rushing to find this place. What would it hurt to stay for a while longer and visit? She was still holding his hand.
“How nice to arrive somewhere and know people have been waiting for you,” he said.
“We knew that with time you would find your way back. I remember they used to talk about how smart a boy you were.”
Don Celestino motioned to his brother, trying to get his attention, but the old man ignored him altogether.
“So many years since the afternoon they took me from my home. It was difficult, a long journey back to this place. But I needed to return before it was too late.”
“My grandfather was Magarito, your younger brother — the one they were able to hide when the Indians came. His son was my father. I remember at the end of every day he would look in that direction, to the north.” She paused to point off into the distance. “One day I asked my father why, ‘Why always that way?’ and he told me it was an old habit, from watching his own father do the same thing. He would stand there and wait until it was dark and he could see no more.”
“Yes, of course, my little brother. At least he was able to escape.” He glanced over at Don Celestino, who was sitting again since it appeared they weren’t leaving anytime soon. “But how many were there that died the day they took me from the circus?”
“You mean to say the festival for the harvest?”
“There was a bear, I remember,” Don Fidencio said. “A black one they kept on a rope and that did tricks, made the people laugh.”
“A stranger, a foreigner that nobody had seen before or knew from where he came, some said he was a Russian and others said he was French, but it was on the last day that he showed up. My grandfather said he spoke another tongue nobody had heard, and the only way he knew for how to communicate was to pass around his dirty hat. He had brought the animals, but it was for the festival.” The old woman tilted her head down toward her dress and held a piece of frayed fabric between her thumb and forefinger.
“And the others?” Don Fidencio asked.
“They tore off the top of tío Osvaldo’s head, and when he was still alive, I heard, but from other people, not from my grandfather. There were some things he would not talk about.”
“Of what he saw?”
“That, and that your mother had hidden him in the hay that the stranger had brought for the animals. He always felt bad that she’d had time to do this for him and not for you. Maybe both of you would have been safe.”
“She did what she could, my mother. She held on to her children the best that she could. I never blamed her or my brother for how things turned out. There was nothing more they could have done.”
The old woman smiled. “But tell me, why did it take you so long?”
He looked over to Don Celestino for some idea of how to answer, but his brother only raised his eyebrows, the same as the old woman.
“No, if someone should have felt bad, it was me. I was the one who saw the Indians when they were far away, but for some reason I stayed with my mouth shut. I watched them getting closer and closer until it was too late, and then they took us away. A cousin of my father had moved to the other side, and he was the one who took me in. As far as we knew, nobody had survived the tragedy that day.” He paused to shake his head for emphasis, then realized the old woman wouldn’t know either way. “And by the time I was old enough to come back, I had already married and made a life for myself. But I never stopped telling the story to my family, to my children, to my grandchildren. Even then I kept wanting to come back, but the years, they got away from me.”
The old woman half smiled and made as if she were gazing toward the sky. “Still, late or early, I give thanks to God that He brought you all this way.”
Don Celestino stood up and held his hand out for Socorro. “I wish we could stay longer, but we only came for a short visit.”
“All this way and so quickly you want to leave again?” the old woman said. “I was thinking you would stay the rest of the day, maybe even spend the night. We have room for all of you. Tell them, Carmen. Take them and show them where they can rest after coming so far.” She turned to one side and then the other, as if unsure where she’d left her granddaughter.
Socorro was helping the old man to his feet. “We would stay longer, but now after four days we need to go back.”
“And how can you compare your four days to how long ago it was that they took the boy away from here?” The old woman shook her head.
“Why not at least stay for lunch?” Carmen asked. “I can make more nopalitos con papas for everyone.”
“That would be nice,” Don Celestino said, “except we have a driver who brought us here and he must be in a hurry to get back.”
But when they looked toward the road, Isidro had reclined his seat and was sleeping peacefully behind the wheel.
Most of the small kitchen was visible with only the light from the faint bulb above the sink. Carmen lit the gas stove and heated the two covered pans that sat on the burners. With a match she lit a third burner for the comal so she could make the corn tortillas. On the counter sat a molcajete half full with a pulpy chile verde.
“If we had more people come to visit, maybe her mind wouldn’t get away from her as much.” She handed Socorro one end of a tablecloth so they could spread it over the long wooden table.
“For things that happened so long ago?”
“More because she has trouble remembering what was good.”
Together they scooted the table across the cement floor until it was more toward the center of the room.
“But all of us pass through times like that, no?”
“Yes, I suppose, but it gets worse when it feels like all you can remember was what made you sad.”
Socorro took care of setting the plates and glasses on the table, and adding a fork and paper napkin from a roll on the counter to each setting. When the food was almost ready, Carmen brought out a pitcher of fresh orange juice from the refrigerator. She was about to call the others when Socorro asked to use her bathroom and then followed her upstairs, taking care with each step since there was no railing or anything to hold on to until the cement stairs reached the beginning of the second level and the door to the bedroom. A brand-new air conditioner, its thick cord lying unplugged to one side, jutted out from one of the windows. On the night-stand sat a portable stereo the size of a small suitcase, and at the foot of the bed two fruit crates held up a brand-new television. The music was turned down on the stereo, but the display panel continued to pulsate with a prism of colors. The only other piece of furniture was a small dresser topped with six or seven framed photos.
“Is this your family?”
“My son and his wife in Chicago, but the baby I still need to meet. And this one over here is my husband from the last time he came here for a few days.”
In the photo they were standing outside near the tree and he had his arm wrapped around her shoulder, though neither one of them was smiling for the camera.
“It must be hard to be so far away.”
“I had to accept it. Worse was when my sons told me that they wanted to follow him. And what could I do, if already they were men? Sometimes it feels like that’s all I do, wait and wait for them to come back.” She ran her hand along the edge of a smaller frame.
After she showed her guest the bathroom, Carmen walked back down to finish preparing the meal. Socorro washed her face and neck in the sink and then used a little water to pat down her hair. With the taxi ride and sitting out in the yard she could feel the thin layer of dirt, most of which was gathering into a grayish soapy water in the sink. Before long she heard Carmen calling everyone inside. As much time as it usually took Don Fidencio to eat, she wondered how long they would be here. She thought that later, when they got back to town, she would go ahead and buy a phone card. Her mother would be upset that she hadn’t called again, but more just because she had gone on the trip. She wasn’t interested in discussing this with her; she was calling only to let her know that they were coming home tomorrow. Later she would have to promise never to do anything like this again. For a few weeks she might have to come home a little earlier, before dark, just to not worry her. She could take care of herself, but her mother must have still been concerned those times she arrived after dark, as she had been doing for the last few months.
She ran her fingers through her hair one last time and was about to use a plastic clip, but then remembered that he preferred her hair down. As soon as she had it down, though, she wanted it up. She brushed it back and for a while tried to find some way to keep her hair up but also down, neither one of which was pleasing to her now.
They sat on long wooden benches that were on either side of the kitchen table. Sunlight now flooded in from the side door, which had stayed open with only the screen to keep the flies out. Carmen served each of the plates with the nopalitos con papas, then pulled the last two tortillas off the comal, wrapped them in a kitchen towel, and placed them at the center of the table. Her grandmother waited patiently for her to explain where everything was on her plate.
“There’s no comparing a meal made at home,” Socorro said once she had taken her first bite. “All these days we were going to restaurants or buying food to take on the bus.”
“Maybe this will convince you to stay longer,” Mamá Nene said. “We have waited such a long time for this man to return and you want to take him away again so soon.”
“Believe me, I am in no hurry to leave, not after what it took us to get here,” Don Fidencio said.
“Then stay the night and you can rest here. Carmen will fix up the other bedroom for you.”
He looked to his brother.
“Remember that we need to get back, Fidencio.” He motioned toward the side door and the road, where Isidro was still sleeping in the taxi.
“But this afternoon?”
Don Celestino glanced over at Socorro and then finally looked back at his brother. “No, probably not today. But for sure in the morning.”
“So you come for him early tomorrow, now that you know how to find the house, and from here you can leave to the bus station.” The old woman cuffed the table with the palm of her hand. “That way at least we can hear more of his story.”
“There isn’t that much to tell really,” Don Fidencio said, and continued chewing.
“The Indians take you with them and you come back here so many years later, and there is nothing else to say?”
He tried to stall, think of some way to change the subject, but the old woman was holding her milky gaze on him. He wondered how he thought he could ever get away with pretending he was his grandfather. And then he realized he had just accepted the old woman’s offer to spend the night.
“I wish there was more I could still remember, but so many years later.” He shrugged with his palms open to everyone else at the table.
“You remembered how to get back here to this place,” the old woman said.
And what was he supposed to say to this? He kept chewing his food, hoping that if he took long enough the old woman would forget she’d asked him a question.
“The other day you told us some more of the story,” Socorro said. “Maybe you can tell her how you rode on the horse with the army chasing you.”
The girl must have thought she was being helpful. He set down his fork and looked toward the door at the light streaming into the room. A moment later he shut his eyes as he began to speak. “They had run the horses most of the night and stopped only two times to let them drink water. I had to ride on a horse with the same Indian who had shot my father with the arrow. This one must have been the leader because he rode in front and told them what to do. I wanted to jump down and run away, hide somewhere in the dark, but a little girl had screamed earlier when she saw that the army was following us. She stopped screaming when they cut her throat and threw her body down. I could hear the other horses trampling over her, how it sounded when her bones were breaking under the hoofs.”
“Desgraciados,” the old woman said. “For that reason they had wanted to run them off. That, or kill them all. Nobody wanted them around, not here or over on the other side.”
“And later when they stopped, maybe because of what happened with the little girl, the rest of the children, they wouldn’t let them get down from the horses, not to drink water or just to stand up, for nothing. And what could we do, if none of us spoke their language?” Don Fidencio quieted after this. The others assumed he was trying to recall more details of his story, but after a long pause he opened his eyes.
“And the rest?” the old woman asked.
“Who knows?” he said. “That’s all I can remember, after all this time.”
“But you said the other part like it happened only yesterday.”
She had stopped eating and was facing him again. It was clear to him that she wasn’t going to let it pass until she heard everything that happened, whether it actually did or not.
“What I can remember is that as soon as they crossed the river, they left me there and rode off. And from then on, my life was on the other side.”
“And the others?”
“Those ones, they took with them to the north. I stood there and watched the dust rise from the horses galloping away. The army crossed the river later, but they were still too far behind.”
“But tell me why you, if they had taken so many other children?” she asked, her palms open now as if she were waiting to catch something in her arms. “Why not one of the other boys or girls? You said there had been at least six more.”
Don Fidencio rubbed at the stubble on his chin. Now she was asking him questions he had few answers for. It seemed reasonable to want to know and yet he couldn’t recall if his grandfather had even told him this part of the story.
“Sometimes God has a plan for us,” Socorro offered.
No one disputed this, but as the moment passed so did any of the influence her words might have had.
“Maybe it was so the army would stop to help when they saw a little boy that was left behind?” Don Celestino said. “They couldn’t keep chasing after them and just leave him there. At least one or two of the soldiers would have to stop for him.”
The old woman crossed her arms. “Maybe so, but it still doesn’t answer why this little boy.”
“If he was older than the rest, maybe they only wanted to keep the younger ones that were easier to control,” Carmen said, though barely loud enough to be heard.
“And tell me, since when has it been so difficult for a man to control a young boy?”
Except for the old woman and Don Fidencio, everyone had managed to eat all of his or her meal. Carmen offered to pick up his plate with the others, and though he could have kept eating, he slid it toward her. What was the point? Without so much as looking in her direction, he could feel the old woman’s eyes fixed on him.
“Ya, some more is coming back to me,” he said finally, then removed the paper napkin from his shirt collar and again closed his eyes.
“I told you that they wouldn’t let us get off the horses. Riding and riding, it must have been more than twelve hours without eating or sleeping or stopping to make water, and that last one was something I had needed to do for a long time. My father had bought me an agua de naranja earlier that day. Imagine how hard this was, and then for me, who before then had never been on a real horse. At first I thought that I could last until we got to wherever they were taking us, but things changed when the sun started coming up.” He paused at this point, as if unsure whether to keep going. He could hear dogs barking off in the distance, but otherwise the room was silent, waiting. “I meant for only a little to come out, only to relieve some of the pressure from not making water for so long. But no matter how much I wanted to stop right then, it kept coming, until I could see my pants filling up like a balloon. Maybe it would have passed, but the Indian felt the sides of his legs getting wet. I had wet the horse, too, only it had been running all night and was already sweating. He grabbed me by the hair and yelled at me, telling me something in his words that I would never understand, but I knew it was bad. I thought he was going to hit me or throw me to the ground and I would get trampled like the little girl. How was I to know what he was capable of, and then so angry? We rode this way for at least another hour, with my wet pants stuck to my legs and other places where I could feel my skin rubbing against the sides of the horse. I thought there would be some relief when he reached the river, but it took time because they were looking for a good place to cross. It had rained hard only days before and the river was high. I could see the current was strong, taking with it tree branches and a large black dog that at first looked like it was swimming but then went to one side. With all that water rushing in front of us, I felt that I wanted to go again. From where, I don’t know, since they had not given me anything to drink and only an hour earlier I had let go a stream of water, everything inside me. I was afraid of what the Indian might do if it were to happen again. Throw me into the river to drown? I was lucky that before long one of them found a good place to cross and they all turned the horses in that direction. As soon as we entered the water, my pants began to fill up again, only now it was washing away what had happened to me earlier. The Indians were moving through the river slow and with much caution, waiting for the horses to get their footing before making them go forward. The animals were struggling against the current. I remember the Indian wrapped one arm around my chest and held on to me tighter than he had since he had put me on the horse. This man who had killed my family and now he was protecting me. And me, after thinking all night of how I might escape, I was holding on to him as if he were my father, the one who had brought me into this world.” He stopped to wipe the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “The horses struggled more when we finally reached the other side and they had to climb out of the river. By that time the army was not so far behind. I thought the Indian wouldn’t be mad anymore because the river had rinsed everything away, but with the morning sun the smell was still there. Then he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the ground, and there he left me.”
Don Fidencio sat back and crossed his arms. No one spoke for a long time, unsure if he would remember more.
Finally the old woman dropped her hands to the table. “At least we should give thanks that it turned out in this manner, that they didn’t take you away to live with their people.”
“Still, the way it happened,” he said.
“Some other way and you might never have returned to this place.”
He knew he had made up most of what he’d said, but now he wasn’t exactly sure which part this was. Maybe his grandfather had told him some of these details. He wondered if he hadn’t confused some of his own story with the one he’d heard as a young boy. Or if it wasn’t the other way around. If it wasn’t really his grandfather’s story mixed up with his own, which would mean he might not have had the accident in the yard and then the other one in the hotel room. It was possible, he thought. And why not? Why couldn’t he have imagined one for the other, then mixed up which was which? If he had trouble knowing when his dreams weren’t real, why couldn’t the same happen when he was awake? But then he remembered that one of the accidents led to him being locked up in that place and all because of The Son Of A Bitch, whatever his name was. So no, it had happened to him at least once, that he could clearly remember. But the rest?
No one had said anything for the last minute or so, making the silence and its uneasiness all the more obvious. It seemed the only thing left for him to do now was open his eyes.