DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (23 page)

Winter settled in gently, as usual. Light snows brushed Paradise Valley on occasion, but the season was never as harsh as what they’d known in Ohio. Once the winter wheat sprouted, the pace of the farm slowed. The women took to their quilting and sewing and a hundred little household improvements that
had been set aside for calmer days, while the men spent their time mending fence and harness, cutting firewood, and making trips to Saltillo to market a plentiful harvest. When the weather permitted, there were wells to be dug, shops and sheds and chicken coops and smokehouses to be built, all the projects they had put off in the warmer seasons when they were in the fields from daylight to dark.

At Christmas Rachel put on the same kind of show with her school children that Miriam had always done, yet it wasn’t the same. Her pupils were almost all Amish now. When Miriam left, most of the Mexican students—as well as her extraordinary gift for teaching—went with her.

Rachel did the best she could with help from Leah and Barbara, and even the new children, being Amish, behaved themselves well enough. But the eagerness, the fun of learning, the sense of discovery, was all but gone.

The week before Christmas, Emma and Levi went to visit Miriam.

“Now, we won’t be exchanging any gifts with Aunt Miriam, but that doesn’t matter,” she told little Mose. He was in the front beside his dat, peering over the seat at her while she held the two smaller ones on her lap in the back. “Miriam says there’s going to be a big party with lots of children and a
piñata
!”

Mose’s tiny hat tilted and he looked up at her with eyes as serious as an adult’s. “What’s a piñata?”

Holding the reins, Levi looked around at Emma and frowned. “Will Miriam and Domingo provide the piñata?”

She smiled. “No, we thought of that already. Miriam said she would make sure someone else brought the piñata and everything in it. She knows the rules, Levi.”

He gave her a sly grin. “Jah, and it looks like she’s learning to bend them as good as you.”

“It’s called a
posada
,” Miriam explained. There were already a bunch of people gathering in her yard, setting tables, putting out food and drink. “For each of the nine days leading up to Christmas the children march from the church to a different neighborhood in the village. Two of them dress up like Joseph and Mary, they put the girl on a burro, and all the children follow them, singing while they go door-to-door asking for shelter. Everyone refuses, except for the house that has been chosen for the day. Today is our day.” Miriam beamed. “It’s going to be a big fiesta.”

Levi went to put the buggy away, leaving little Mose to stand by himself in the front yard, watching two old men clinging to opposite sides of a rickety wooden stepladder. They were hanging a paper-mache piñata from a cottonwood tree and arguing over how high to hang it.

Emma and Miriam carried the two younger babies to the house. “Look at him,” Emma said, nodding toward Mose. “He never hears anybody argue like that at home. It scares him a little, but he can’t turn away from it. Mose likes for everybody to get along.”

Domingo leaned down beside the three-year-old and said, “Pay them no mind. Those two old men are the Castillo brothers. They have fought like that for sixty years, but they are only playing. They never really get angry unless someone
else
gets between them.”

Emma stepped inside the front door of Miriam’s house and froze, gawking. “Miriam, I guess I’ve never seen the inside of a Mexican house at Christmas before. This is really
something
.”

“You mean the
nacimiento
—the nativity scene. Jah, I was a little surprised myself.”

There was no Christmas tree, though in a corner stood a leafless limb from what looked like a dogwood, festooned with balls of cotton and draped with brightly colored bows and ribbons, and there were potted poinsettias scattered around the room. But the real attraction was a nativity scene that took up nearly half of the front room. The backdrop was made mostly of painted paper, sawdust pastures rising from the middle of the floor, soaring into red mountains that climbed halfway up the wall. The foothills were covered by a village of thatched huts and little houses surrounded by fences and trees, complete with hand-carved wooden people, farmers and shepherds in the fields, women haggling with a grocer, men watching a blacksmith shoe a horse, and children fishing in a blue pond beside an old man while a dog treed a hissing cat.

In the center, in a little hole of a cave, were Mary and Joseph holding Baby Jesus beside the manger. A red rooster crowed the arrival of the Christ child. There were sheep and chickens and cows, and a farm girl on a stool, milking. When Emma looked close she even saw a flock of ducks on the pond.

She stuck her head out the door. “Levi, come look! You’ve got to see this.”

Miriam gave them a tour of the miniature town, showing off the intricately detailed figures. Even the faces were painted, each of them bearing a different expression.

“Domingo made the landscape and carved some of the figures,” Miriam said proudly.

“Only a few,” Domingo said. “The nacimiento has been in my family for a long time—ever since my mother was a child. My grandfather and my uncle added to it every Christmas for years. It was given to my mother when she married, and now
she has given it to me.” He put an arm around Miriam and smiled.

“It is our proudest possession,” she said.

Domingo laughed dryly. “It is our
only
possession, Cualnezqui.”

There was a little uproar outside, and the singing of children drifted faintly down the street as Kyra and Domingo’s mother crowded into the little house along with their aunt and uncle, Paco and Maria.

“Wait till you see the children,” Miriam said. “Behind Joseph and Mary there will be wise men and shepherds and angels and a hundred other children, all dressed up.”

The singing drew nearer as the throng of children paraded down the street, until from inside the house Emma could hear the thumping of shepherds’ staffs in time with the music. Silence fell as the procession stopped outside the front door.

Miriam flung the door wide. Father Noceda stood between Mary and Joseph, dressed in his full cassock and holding the reins to the burro. On a signal from the priest a hundred children began singing their request, asking for shelter for the night.

From inside the house Domingo’s kin sang their answer: “ ‘Welcome, holy pilgrims, to our humble home. While it may be simple, our gift is from the heart.’ ”

Thus began a celebration such as Emma and Levi had never seen. A band comprised of musicians with guitars and horns and a squeeze-box played bright music while men and women danced and ate and drank, and children flocked to the piñata. Emma was surprised at first to see Miriam commanding and controlling a hundred Mexican children, but then Domingo’s mother whispered to her, “See how the children love and respect their teacher? Not even Father Noceda commands their attention as Miriam does.”

Three-year-old Mose got a few whacks at the piñata as all
the smaller children went first. Miriam didn’t blindfold the little ones. When one of the older boys finally shattered the paper sheep, candy and little gifts flew everywhere. Miriam stepped back out of the way while the children swarmed. She ended up on the sidelines next to Emma.

“Is Levi okay?” she asked.

Emma looked around for Levi and spotted him standing alone, well clear of the festivities. “Jah, he’s just a little uncomfortable around all this craziness. Leave him be. He’ll get used to it after a while.”

The party went on for hours, the Mexican peasants of San Rafael celebrating the coming of Baby Jesus as only peasants can. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, a squad of soldiers rode down the street and trotted their horses right up to the food-laden tables in Miriam’s yard.

The band stopped playing, and complete silence fell as Domingo worked his way through the crowd and stood in the path of the captain’s horse. Everyone else backed away in fear except Father Noceda, who came and stood at Domingo’s shoulder. Even the children remained quiet.

The captain stayed in the saddle, his hands crossed calmly on the pommel as five armed federales fanned out in a V behind him. Ignoring Domingo, Soto fastened a hard glare on the priest. “What is the meaning of this, Padre?”

Noceda shrugged. “It is a posada, Captain. You are Mexican—surely you have seen a Christmas celebration before.”

The captain rolled his eyes. “Sí, I know it is a posada, priest. It is not
my
ignorance that concerns me, but yours. Perhaps you are unaware that it is against the law to hold a religious ceremony in public.”

Father Noceda’s shoulders rose in a prolonged shrug as he spread his hands. “Does this look like a religious ceremony,
Captain? To me it only looks like a Christmas party for the children.”

The captain didn’t smile. Climbing down from his horse, he kept his eyes fastened on Father Noceda. He moved casually and gave no warning, so it came as a complete shock when he whipped his pistol from its holster and struck Father Noceda in the head with it. The priest collapsed in the dirt as if he’d been shot.

Domingo stepped between them, but before he could do anything the pistol was in his face, the barrel jammed under his nose. Domingo raised his hands very slowly, palms out.

“My quarrel is not with you,” the captain said coldly, “but with this peon of the pope.”

The priest shook his head and raised himself up on an elbow, touching fingertips to the blood on his forehead. Kyra rushed over and knelt at his side, holding his head.

Captain Soto kept his pistol pressed to Domingo’s face as he glared down at Father Noceda. “Article 24 of our constitution expressly forbids religious ceremonies outside of the church.”

Noceda winced, touching the gash on his head, and without looking up he muttered through clenched teeth, “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to give me back my church.”

Soto laughed out loud, but there was a sneer in it. “Insolent to the last, I see. Perhaps, Padre, a fine will change your tone. Article 130 forbids a priest to wear his cassock in public. If I am not mistaken I have warned you about this before. The fine is five hundred pesos. Deliver it to my office. You probably already know how to find my office—it used to be your home.”

Father Noceda looked up at him and started to say something, but Soto wagged a finger in warning.

“No, no, no, priest. If I were you I would not speak. The law also says that if a clergyman complains against a government official”—Soto pressed a hand against his own chest—“and I
am
a government official, you can go to prison for five years. One more word and I will have my men drag you away in chains.”

No one said anything. Domingo’s eyes made his contempt perfectly clear, but even Domingo would not start a fight against six armed soldiers with a hundred children in his yard.

The captain lowered his pistol slowly and stepped back, pointing a finger at Domingo to warn him to stay where he was. But he wasn’t finished with Father Noceda.

“Your time is over, priest—your power broken. Superstitions like yours have left our country destitute, but our presidente is putting an end to that. You are going to find that Mexico no longer belongs to European priests and Italian popes, but to
Mexicans
.” He swung up into his saddle, but before he turned the horse away he spat at Father Noceda. “You have until the end of the week to pay your fine, Padre. Don’t be late.”

Chapter 19