She reached deep into herself, calling forth every bit of her energy—wounded or not—and channeled it into calling Beto back.
“Regresa, Beto,” she called. “Regresa.”
A gasp.
Nena’s eyes flew open at the sound, at the feeling of Beto’s chest rising under her hand.
The man’s eyes fluttered open. He searched until his eyes fell on Nena; he frowned as if he were trying to square her presence with their surroundings.
“Buenas, Se?orita Magdalena,” Beto said weakly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
A laugh burst from Nena, high and breathy and spurred by sheer relief. Stars speckled the edges of her vision; she set a hand down on the ground to brace herself against a rush of light-headedness.
Beto made to sit up, but she clicked her tongue.
“Easy,” she said, waving him down. “You’re wounded. Lie still.”
He obeyed. A thin sheen of sweat veiled his brow and darkened his hair; his shirt stuck to his chest.
She placed her hand on his brow. It was warm to the touch—much too warm.
A fever was fine. A fever she could fix. She had ample herbs for that. Stars fading from her vision, she reached for her bag and began to sift through it.
She cast a look over her shoulder. A few of the vaqueros who had accompanied her carrying Beto lingered a few paces away, whispering as they watched her.
“Could someone bring me hot water, please?” she called.
“I’m burning up, aren’t I?” Beto asked.
“It is good,” Nena said. Her voice shook with relief. He was conscious, he was speaking, he was making sense. Those were far better signs than the fever. “Your body is fighting hard to burn away any remaining venom.”
“Venom,” Beto repeated slowly. For a moment, there was no sound in the tent but the crush of stone against herbs as she worked to make another poultice. “Was it a rattler?” he asked at last.
She stopped. Even in the shadows, confusion was evident on his face. “Do you not remember what happened?” she asked.
“I remember seeing the steer,” he said. His gaze drifted toward the top of the tent. He frowned. “I remember seeing you and Duarte. Seeing that you were angry with Duarte.” A smile crept sly across his otherwise wan face at the memory. Nena’s face heated with a rush of embarrassment. “You know, I’ve never met a better man, but he can’t express himself for shit. You ask him how he feels and it’s like he never learned how to speak.” He laughed softly. “One time, years ago, we had to stay in Laredo because he cracked a rib or two breaking a meste?o for some spoiled, silver-heeled hidalgo. Duarte charges through the nose for breaking, but for that beast? I swear it was not enough. That horse had the Devil in her eyes . . .”
This was the part of a patient’s recovery where Abuela would meet Nena’s eyes with a knowing look. Exhaustion and fever left them either silent and weak or loosened their tongues, making them prone to chatter. It was evident that Beto fell into the latter class. As she cleaned the wound on his arm, Nena listened to his rambling, grateful that he soon left tales of Néstor behind and wandered into a story about the Devil riding through the chaparral on horseback until he cursed the blistering heat of Tejas and returned to Hell for respite.
“Do you remember anything else about tonight?” Nena asked as she bandaged his arm with clean cloth. “You took the water jug from me and walked to the riverbank.”
“I did?” Beto’s face creased with concentration. “Ay, chihuahua.” It came out on the same breath as a frustrated sigh. “I don’t. I . . . can’t. I saw you and Duarte, and the next thing I knew I was here, feeling like I have the worst hangover of my life.” He lifted his uninjured arm and ran a hand over his face. “There was only darkness, se?orita. Just darkness.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
CASIMIRO ESCORTED HER back to her tent to stand guard; she nodded her good night and slipped into the tent. She lay in the stuffy dark for what felt like hours. She shifted her body from one side to the other as she listened to the sounds of camp and Casimiro carving something small to pass the time as he stood watch.
There was only darkness, se?orita. Beto’s words clung like thorns.
She forced herself to try to remember what happened the night when Néstor disappeared. She had slipped out of the house, desperate to see Néstor. He waited for her with the shovel gleaming like the silver they sought in the moonlight. They walked hand in hand toward the spring . . .
Then she was in her own bed, Abuela’s white braids brushing her arm as the old woman ran rosemary over her body and called her back, her voice soft and rhythmic as an incantation. Regresa, Magdalena Serrano de León. Regresa.
The voice of Ignacio’s wife, Elena, wove through her memory alongside Abuela’s: Dios mío, I thought you were dead.
Wasn’t that what this strange sickness looked like to the untrained eye? The body stiff and unmoving, frozen by venom?
Abuela thought it was a venomous bat whose bite stunned its prey like the sting of certain scorpions. For did the attacks not all happen at twilight or in the depths of night?
For months, Nena believed it.
But that did not explain the bull, and the bull had to be connected to what happened to Beto. She knew it in her gut.
Long past midnight, as the rest of the camp wound down into unsettled sleep, as exhaustion finally began to tug at her consciousness, footsteps approached her tent. She heard a crunch of gravel as Casimiro rose; a soft exchange of greetings. One voice in particular caught her ear.
Néstor.
She felt a swift prick of shame at how sharply she had spoken to him. Perhaps she was too harsh. His friend was wounded, after all—he was bound to be upset.
That is what happened to you. It was all my fault.
She rolled onto her back, her fingertips lifting to brush the scar at her neck.
As Casimiro’s footsteps retreated, she heard Néstor sit and settle into his watch. Only a thin flap of fabric separated her from him; he was so close that she could hear his steady breathing.
Without her noticing, the rhythm of her inhales slowed to match his. Soon, it slowed further, and further still, until sleep finally claimed her.
14
N?STOR
MATAMOROS, ESTADO DE TAMAULIPAS
SMOKE FROM THE army camp on the plain of Palo Alto rose high into the night, the light from hundreds of fires dyeing the sky red as a sunset. The Escuadrón Auxiliares de las Villas del Norte had joined General Arista’s forces there with the Mexican infantry and the Morelia and Puebla battalions. A taste of brine rode the breeze from the gulf; it carried with it the smells of an army gathering. Smoke. Gunpowder. Sweat. These soured Néstor’s mouth as he cleaned saddles, lingering even as he spat in the dirt to rid his mouth of the taste.
His forearms ached. Beto was still weak from loss of blood and the shock of the previous night’s attack. He was barely able to ride his own horse the two hours it took them to join General Arista’s forces, much less help Néstor. No matter. Néstor needed movement to still the anxiety humming in his bones like a swarm of mosquitoes. It did little good. Nothing—no matter how hard he worked, how little he slept—could stop Nena’s angry words from looping through his head. The way she whirled at him with spark and flint almost made him wish for the first part of the journey to Matamoros, where she brushed him off coldly. At least then she was not calling him a liar. At least then he had some hope of being able to speak with her and make amends.
It was only as the words fell from his lips that he realized he should have planned it better, he should have anticipated how ridiculous it would sound to say you died to someone who stood right before him, her lovely cheeks reddened with anger, her chest rising and falling as she breathed. As alive and beautiful as anything on God’s green earth.
But he had been caught off guard. He hadn’t expected to have that conversation then. His mind was still on the cattle carcass.