The Hummingbird's Daughter (48 page)

Pilgrims came to Aguirre to offer him eyewitness accounts of Teresita’s miracles.

One day, a wagon bound for San Antonio reined in before his house. He stepped outside with a pistol tucked in the back of his pants and a cup of coffee in his hand. A skinny Mexican, almost black from the sun, sat on the bench. In the back of the wagon, his flea-bitten family peered at Aguirre. An old woman reclined on a pile of blankets and scratched the sad ears of a mongrel dog.

“Señor Lauro Aguirre?” asked the skeletal mule skinner from on high.

“Yes?” said Aguirre.

“We have come from Cabora,” the man said.

“Who was sick?” Aguirre asked.

“My mother,” the man said, gesturing with his chin at the old woman in the back.

“You were healed?” Aguirre asked.

“Sí.”

“May I ask what ailed you?”

“An issue of blood,” she said. “Out of my insides.”

He nodded.

“Down here,” she added, touching herself between the legs.

“Yes, I understand.”

The driver said, “That tall one, the man at Cabora.”

“Don Tomás.”

“That one. He said you might pay us for our story.”

“Did he.”

“We asked for money to get home on, but he said we could sell you our story for your periodical.”

“That rascal.”

The people in the wagon said nothing.

“Well,” said Aguirre. “You might as well come in.”

They came off the wagon with great rattlings and noise.

“I suppose,” Aguirre sighed, “Tomás said I would feed you, as well.”

“Oh yes. We haven’t eaten,” the old woman said. “And we’re thirsty.”

“I hope your story’s good,” he said.

“It is,” she replied. “I hope your money’s good.”

He laughed.

“It is, old woman,” he said. “It is.”

The house was small and yellow. Behind a cement-block wall, two fat dogs danced and yipped. Geraniums bloomed in old cans. One rosebush. The screen door was crooked, the wire mesh rusted dark. The stucco walls were faded, though the white trim was still bright. The gate in the block wall was hung on springs, and they made
yoiiiing
sounds as Aguirre pushed the gate open for them. His fingers were black with ink. The dogs nipped at the woman’s ankles. She kicked them away.

In the house, the smell of old cooking and burned coffee. Cigarettes. Coughing. Their voices were old, dry as the desert around them.

The old woman was nearly blind. She sat in an orange chair, and even though it was hot, she asked for a blanket to tuck around her knees. Her thin hair was white, pulled back tight over her skull. Her cheeks were sunken, and her teeth were gone, causing her lips to flap. Aguirre thought of the wonderful Mexican word for being toothless: molacha.

Her eyes were cataract blue, clouded and rolling. She held a rosary in her lap, and beside her, on a small tray, Aguirre had placed a cup of coffee that sat in a puddle collected in a saucer. Her family crowded into the corners like anxious sheep.

“Teresita,” the old one said.

“Yes,” said Aguirre.

The old one closed her eyes. A clock ticked. Two of the old woman’s family looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

She reached out her hand.

“Señor,” she said. “Come closer.”

He stepped forward.

“Five pesos,” she said.

Her family sucked in air, as if they’d burned their tongues.

“Tell me first.”

“Ten pesos.”

“First, your story.”

Aguirre opened his notebook.

“You were there,” he said.

“Claro. Claro que sí. I was there.”

She coughed, took a sip of coffee, set the cup down at an angle, spilling more into her saucer.

“La Santa touched me once, and I was healed.”

She smiled.

“I bled for thirteen years, señor, and she touched me, and the blood stopped. Glory to God.”

Her family muttered
Gracias a Dios
in their corners.
Bendito sea Dios.

“She was friendly, La Santa. She touched everybody. She was walking through our camp. We all camped there. It was like a holiday. We slept under our wagon. And she came walking along, and I saw her and I went up to her and she put her hand on my face and said, ‘Hello.’”

“That’s all?”

“That is all, señor. What more do you want?” She drained her cup.

“Mother,” said the blackened Mexican, “tell him about the caballero.”

“Caballero?” said Aguirre.

“Don Antonio,” the old woman said. “He was a bad one, that boy. Handsome. A Yori, son of a landowner. He lived in Alamos, he said.

“Pues, Don Antonio had been visiting Hermosillo on business. Who knows what—Yoris are always throwing pesos on counters and making demands.” They laughed.

“Now, Don Antonio had a wife—I’ll call her Meche because I can’t remember what the señor said her name was. Meche was younger than Don Antonio, and sly as a cat. Muy viva, esa muchacha. Eh? She married Antonio’s money instead of Antonio. Do you understand?”

Aguirre nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Antonio was no angel, either. Men.” She blew her slack lips out in disgust. “Antonio had women all along the road.” She shrugged. “That’s the way it always was. And I am sure he had women in Hermosillo. That is what everybody at Cabora said. Where was I?”

“Antonio and his wife.”

“Pah! Wife! So Antonio came riding through the countryside, on his way to Alamos. He pulled up at the ranch and said, ‘What is this?’

“‘A pilgrimage,’ we told him.

“‘What kind of pilgrimage?’ he demanded.

“‘A pilgrimage to see Teresa Urrea, the Saint of Cabora!’

“Now, Don Antonio knew Don Tomás—all of those hacendados were cut of the same cloth, you see. As the old men always said, ‘The same cactuses bring forth similar flowers.’” She adjusted her blanket over her knees. “They were alike, those boys. Muchas mujeres. Mil mujeres!”

The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“And Don Antonio, hearing the daughter of Urrea was a saint all of a sudden, laughed in our faces. ‘What!’ he yelled. ‘The daughter of Tomás Urrea, a saint?’ He had been drinking, of course. All those men drink. He was bold. He insulted the pilgrims. He said, ‘Any woman who eats food like me then sits on a toilet like me is no saint!’

“Then the gentleman took his blankets and went to sleep.”

“And then?” said Aguirre.

“Well, then everybody woke up. It was morning.”

“And what did Teresita do?”

“Ay, ay, ay—that was rich, what she did!”

“What was that?”

“Oh well. She came out like every day. First, she prayed in her little chapel. Then she went in the house to eat. Then she came out to us. Like every day.

“On this day, she stood on the porch, and she called out, ‘Don Antonio!’ Everyone turned, looking around. He was saddling his horse. ‘Don Antonio!’ she cried out. He said, ‘Me?’ His face went white. ‘Me?’ he asked.”

The old woman smiled at the memory.

“He went forward. He looked like a little boy in trouble with his teacher, dragging his feet. Everyone was silent, watching him. When he got to her porch, he said, ‘I am Antonio.’

“Teresita said, ‘Señor, I wanted you to know that I eat only fruit and vegetables.’

“They say he flinched as if slapped.

“Then she said, ‘As for the other matter—the bathroom. I have no control over that process.’ He backed away from her, but she said, ‘Another thing, Don Antonio. Your wife is sleeping with your best friend in Alamos. She lies in his arms as we speak. And they plan to surprise you when you return home. Look behind the door, for he will be there with a machete, and he will kill you as you enter.’

“That Don Antonio tore out of there as if devils were pinching his ass!”

The hermanita laughed so hard she started to cough. Her son stepped forward and patted her back.

“You know,” the old woman said, “they say he got home early and caught his friend in the bedroom, and the machete was right beside the bed!”

Aguirre paid them fifteen pesos.

He ran the cautionary tale of Don Antonio on the second page of the Sunday edition. It appeared under a headline he had plagiarized from his own letters to Cabora:
DOUBTING THOMAS
!

Fifty-three

THE GOVERNOR OF CHIHUAHUA, the
licensiado
Don Lauro Carrillo, was encamped not three miles from Tomóchic in his Papigochic demesne. His pack mules formed a bucolic remuda downslope, stoically nose-tied to a drooping rope among the ponderosa pines. Six tents yellow as tallow formed a fine square, and the pickets assigned to guard duty sat upon folding chairs imported from Bavaria. At the eastern edge of this canvas plaza, a well-stocked fire burned at all hours. Here, Carrillo sat and read his reports, he sipped his fine liquors, and he debated and boasted endlessly with his honored guest, Don Silviano González, jefe político del distrito de Guerrero.

Señor Carrillo was on his yearly tour of the great state of Chihuahua, his personal fact-finding mission. It was the only way for a dedicated governor to really see for himself what the state of his state was. But it was also a grand opportunity to escape the Municipal Palace, to brush off the minor functionaries that buzzed around him like gnats, and to escape his wife and children. May God bless them and keep them!

El Señor Carrillo rode his horses and drank as much as he wanted. He ate what he wanted. He went where he wanted. He carried English rifles in cherrywood cases and killed what he wanted. When he wanted women, his assistants found him fine whores from the towns he passed through. Don Lauro would have liked to tour all year long.

Don Lauro Carrillo dragged el Señor González from natural wonder to vast astonishment like a mad tour guide: Behold, my dear colleague, our red canyons, our violet vistas, our terrifying chasms, our velvet expanses! Our eagles soar, our bears roar, our lions vanish like golden smoke, our red wolves wail at the moon. And only the Chihuahuan moon is so big in the sky, is it not so? Only the Chihuahuan moon is orange and close. The Sierra Madre! Burning desert at her feet, and snow upon her crown. Surely, she is the queen of the continent!

They rose through the terrible levels of the Sierra Madre on trails yellow with dust upon the crimson and violet and gray faces of the mountains. Mule trains thinned down to single file as they descended, their fat packs brushing the knees of Carrillo’s ascending riders as they minced along the narrowest parts of the precipice. Don Silviano often leaned out and frightened himself by looking down into dizzying abysses where thin white-silver ribbons revealed themselves—ribbons that were rivers surely a mile below.

Now, they rested.

Don Lauro poked at the fire with a whittled branch. On a small folding table imported from Paris by the last governing body to have vacated Chihuahua City, they had decanters of brandy and tequila. Don Silviano jotted notes in his journal and the sparks whirled above them.

“Gastélum,” he said.

“Nasty priest!” replied Don Lauro.

“Will he be able to enact your plan, my friend?”

“He must, my dear Don Silviano!”

“He has no choice.”

“Claro que no.”

They sat back, extended their feet to the fire. A brisk
toc-toc-toc-toc
came from behind them. Don Lauro lifted a finger.

“A woodpecker!” he announced.

Don Silviano bent to his journal and entered in it:
A festive woodpecker sounded in the trees behind us, its industrious hammering representative of Nature herself bending toward the construction of a New Mexican Republic—God Himself putting Nature on the Díaz plan!

Don Lauro poured them each a copa of amber liquor.

“To Gastélum,” he said, raising a toast.

“To Tomóchic,” replied Don Silviano.

They had met Gastélum two days before. He had been directed by post to come into the camp above Tomóchic. There, he had dined on wild turkey and roast potatoes. The governor had preserved his finest bottles of champagne for his illustrious guests, and he had prepared a cot in a solo tent for the good father. It was the most comfort the priest had enjoyed in many weeks.

As they had sat in front of the fire, enjoying Cuban cigars and warming their feet after supper, sipping coffee-and-rum, Gastélum had worked off his redolent boots. His stockings were filthy and worn to the consistency of a particularly clotted cheesecloth. One of his toes had gone bad on him, and he hoped the fire would dry out its endless seeping. The governor and the jefe político tried to combat the scent of Gastélum’s rancid toe with well-aimed puffs of their cigar smoke. Soon, they each found subtle ways to move their seats away from the padre. Don Lauro called for fresh socks. An assistant appeared quickly with white cotton stockings from the governor’s own trunk.

“Lord bless you,” said Gastélum.

He peeled his own decomposing socks from his feet and then, to the horror of his companions, threw them in the fire.

“Good God!” Carrillo let slip. As Don Silviano noted in his journal:
The noxious plume of Father Gastélum’s richly spoiled flesh wafted downwind to, no doubt, drive bears and coyotes into a panic—great fleeing migrations could probably have been heard if we had listened!

Freshly socked, well fed, smoked, half-drunk, and warmed by good coffee, Padre Gastélum felt the Holy Spirit near to him. When Governor Carrillo told him of the plan, it seemed providential. Surely, the hand of God moves in bold strokes.

And, truly, the plan was simple. The church in Tomóchic was known to hold artworks of great interest. A series of twelve oil paintings had been arrayed around the interior of the chapel. No one knew whence these canvases had come, nor whose hand had painted them. The heretics of Tomóchic believed angels themselves had painted these icons, since Tomóchic was the seat of “true religion” in opposition to Rome. The gall!

It was Governor Carrillo’s rare genius to recognize that the recent miraculous enthusiasms gripping the tribes of the desert and the mountains had come to Mexico City’s attentions. And it had also occurred to him that the Indian wars festered and refused to die. And it had further occurred to him that the great leader himself, General Porfirio Díaz, God grant him long life, was a Christian man. His proposal was, then, succinct and breathtaking: would it not serve the Lord and the great state of Chihuahua if they conspired to steal these religious canvases from the rebels of Tomóchic and present them as a gift to the great leader?

“With this gift,” Carrillo told his guests, “presented to the great leader’s bride as a gift from me, I can be assured of procuring her support and affections. And with these, I can retain the governorship in perpetuity!”

“Why,” said González, “you will win every election.”

It had been so clear, so audacious, that the three men had laughed out loud and drunk toasts late into the night.

Now, in Tomóchic, Gastélum prepared for his most important sermon. Upon reviewing the state of the chapel the night before, he had been appalled to discover the carved wooden statue of Teresita, the girl-witch, still there; its painted blue eyes as vacant as a devil’s. Painted! He had heard that such an abomination was in the offing, but he had not expected to actually see it in its obscene niche. He had gone about blowing out the candles at the statue’s feet.

Raging, he had called on the jefe político of the village, Don Gregorio—as if one of these peasants could be called a Don! Gastélum knew that Don Gregorio was a drunk and an adulterer, perhaps the only real sinner in town. It was God’s unique wit to use such a man to do His divine will.

Don Gregorio handled civic duties while Cruz Chávez was busy being Pope. He had balked when Gastélum had first told him of the plot, but Carrillo had sent a bag of Mexican coins, and when Gregorio’s puffy eyes saw so many golden eagles, he blinked and blinked and nodded sadly.

Now the church bell rang, and Father Gastélum went into the church and waited for the flock.

July 1891—Tomóchic

My Dear Teresita:

I greet thee as Pope of the Sierras and as Your Representative to Mexico and the Tribes of the North. (It is me, Cruz!)

Bad situations have befallen us in Tomóchic, your mountain home should you ever choose to come. Forgive me the length of this letter. It is going to be more of a newspaper than a letter! But by God’s will you will be able to read it all and forgive my orthography and grammar!

The heretic priest Gastélum came to our village and preached a sermon full of viper’s poison directed at you! I will ask your forgiveness for reporting such unpleasant things, but you must know what the Enemy says about you now. We arose in defiance of the Roman papist! But first, I will relate as best I can the sermon he preached:

—Today’s sermon (he began), The Satanic Practices of Miss Teresa Urrea.

We stirred in our seats, and some of the men tried to rise, but I gestured them down.—Sit, brothers, I told them.—Let us hear what the papist says.

—This young woman is an infernal abortion. She is Satan incarnate, for who is better to portray Satan than a rebellious woman? Her practices are diabolical. Her healings are an empty work of the devil! Nothing more! Proof that this young woman is Satan in the flesh? She preaches against the teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles!

We cried out. We shouted. But he continued.

Terrible things. I don’t even recall what he said. He spit his poison for an hour or more, and the warriors grew still. For they had resolved in their hearts to allow me to confront and rebuke this despot.

I stood as he tried to leave the pulpit. My first shout froze him in his steps, and I addressed him firmly:

—Señor Priest (I said) from what we have heard thee say (I used the Usted form to show what scant respect I had left for him) we have seen that thou dost not know what thou is saying! (He gasped. It was resounding, like a slap!) If thou knew what thou wast saying, thou wouldst see that the Saint of Cabora does not preach against the teaching of Jesus Christ, but she herself commands us to go forth and
live
the preachings of Jesus Christ! (The people gathered around me cried “Amen” to this, I promise you!) The Lord God Himself has put before us a great example, a great teacher, and that is Jesus Christ! If we follow His teachings, if we live His words, then we will be in the footsteps of the Master and in this way we might too be as obedient as Jesus.

Gastélum put his hand over his heart as if I were stabbing him.

—Idiots! he cried.—She only says that to trick you! She has ensnared you with words! You have been seduced by a harlot! (Forgive me, Teresa, but that is what he said.) You will all fall into Hell in the hands of demons.

—Perhaps we will, sir, I replied—I knew then he could do nothing to me or my people: Gastélum had no power of God on him at all.—Perhaps. But if she is evil, why are her actions purely generous, acts of charity and pity? Love. And thou and the rest of thine priests only preach hatred. Why is this? You hate all who are not Romans, and all you conspire to do is to take our money!

—Tithes! he cried.

—She has never asked a tithe of us! yelled Rubén.—She has only given succor!

I interrupted him:—Can you tell us why Satan would advise people to love God and their neighbors while you, who are representatives of God, advise us to hate anyone who does not follow your religion?