The Hummingbird's Daughter (50 page)

Fifty-five

THE END BEGAN QUIETLY. Enríquez, in his command tent beyond Cantúa’s old restaurant, took out his fountain pen and parchment. The pilgrim his men had arrested swung in the alamos trees, already attracting crows eager to eat his eyes. Enríquez had eaten a platter of beans and broiled pork. He drank milk with the meal. Then he sat at his small folding table and composed his report of the policing action at Cabora, the estimated number of hostiles—he put the number of indigenous rebels conservatively at twenty-five hundred out of an occupying force of eleven thousand supporters. He recommended immediate action—though, if possible, leniency for Tomás Urrea and his household in the ensuing unfortunate campaign.

Enríquez sealed the letter with wax and delivered it to a courier, who rode fast and delivered it to a mounted patrol that took it on to Navojoa. There, the letter was given to a telegraph operator, and Presidente Díaz was reading its contents by suppertime on the fourth day.

That was not all that he read. Padre Gastélum had written a blistering letter to Rome demanding the excommunication of the heretic Teresa Urrea, of her father, and of Cruz Chávez and all his apostate flock in Tomóchic. He had followed this with a telegram to Mexico City reporting on the brewing uprising in Tomóchic.

At Gastélum’s urging, Governor Carrillo had included a report with the stolen canvases. In this report, he warned of the revolt now starting to sweep the Indian of the Papigochic. Valuable mining and timber lands were at risk should yet another Indian war be allowed to ignite. Worse yet because it was a war of fanatics, inflamed by the witch, Teresa Urrea of Sonora. These reports had arrived within days of the Enríquez telegram. Díaz was swift to respond. A force of one hundred riders from Chihuahua and Sonora assembled. They united in the desert and began their ride to Cabora to put an end to the insurrection.

At dawn, Cruz Chávez and a light militia party began to trot down the banks of the River of Spiders, and by eight o’clock they were dropping out of the sierra. The men were indistinguishable from the land that held them. They stretched their bodies between the boulders of the slopes, lay in the pathways of snakes without moving, allowed lizards to slink along the lengths of their weapons, felt the small claws pluck at their knuckles as the reptiles of the valley took the sun on the stocks of their Winchesters.

And they inserted themselves into the bushes and stands of nopales, settled into languid crouches that became comfortable as they configured themselves to match the twists of the branches and trunks, as they let the cool squares and triangles of shade soothe their backs, the creases and ripples in their clothes matching the shifting patches of shadow until they vanished.

And they settled themselves along the trunks of alamos and willows, along the crooked pillars of the pines and the wilder, more passionate extremities of the mesquites. Their rifles, wrapped in tattered cloth, tied with flowers and weeds, grasses and leaves, lay along their quiet bodies like branches and deadfall. They sucked pebbles and chewed grass.

Indians on the road had warned them that this was the spot. Those riders of the government who sought to silence the power of God—and the daughter of God—with bullets would pass by here. All armies ultimately crossed this nearly dry streambed.

They were the Tigers, and they waited like tigers, still. Some closed their eyes. Some watched. All of them periodically glanced at Cruz Chávez, settled near the road, in a triangle of boulders not ten paces from the brook that tossed green and yellow worms of sunlight into the low branches of the trees. The men dreamed as they waited.

“I sent her a letter,” Cruz said. “She knows our troubles.”

The men made assenting sounds, grunts, clicks of their mouths.

“We will stop the cavalry before it can do harm to her or to our village,” he said. “Then we will go to her, and she will bless us. She will get our paintings back. She will give us our blessing back, you’ll see. And we will carry her back to Tomóchic! No one would dare enter our valley then!”

“Viva Teresa,” they murmured. “Bless us, Teresita.”

When Cruz rose, they would all rise with him, and they would be shooting.

They had been told the cavalry was coming. Riders had sped to Cabora and warned Tomás. He rushed to Teresita’s chapel and took her by the arms and hurried her upstairs to her old room in the tower. It smelled like Segundo now.

“They’re coming,” he said. “It has begun.”

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Stay in your room. Promise me,” he said. “Do not come out of your room until I come for you.”

He looked out through her shutters.

“I don’t know what the army wants. If they come to take you away, your fanatics . . .” He looked at her and shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your followers might revolt. You can imagine the bloodbath . . .”

He looked back outside.

“I don’t want anyone hurt,” she said.

“I know.”

“Not even the army.”

“I know.”

He slammed the shutters closed, latched them.

The twenty-eight Tigers lay in the landscape for many hours. They whispered prayers of thanksgiving. They whispered Christmas hymns, and they dreamed of roast goose, ham, fresh soup, dried corn. They dreamed of their wives. They dreamed of the toys they would carve for their children, looked ahead to the Day of the Three Kings, when all children received gifts along with Jesus himself, back behind them so far in time. They promised themselves to kill quickly, cleanly, so they could return to their homes, their beds, their families, their church.

Buenaventura appeared on the porch. He had his old .44 pistola in his belt. A new repeater rifle.

“You!” said Tomás.

“Me.”

“Where have you been?”

“Around.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“They won’t be taking my ranch away from me!” Buenaventura boasted. His father cocked an eyebrow.

Tomás’s security force was complete. Ancient Don Teófano wore a scowl and held his shotgun across his knees on a bench on Teresita’s new house’s porch. His niece sat on the step with a machete, a pistol, and a hunting rifle. Her husband manned the guard hut in the corner. Two vaqueros lay on the roof with rifles. Juan Francisco was behind a wagon parked to the east of the main gate of the big house. Segundo hid behind the wall on the west side. Shooters crouched on the main house’s roof. Tomás stood on the porch, and Buenaventura stood beneath him. He looked for plums on the little tree, but couldn’t find any. Inside, Gaby and the maids and cooks all had revolvers. They passed them among themselves, trying to figure out how to use them.

Tomás looked at his pocket watch.

“Wait for it,” he called.

They didn’t wait long at all.

The cavalry appeared in the shimmering distance—a double column of horses, standards flying above in a ripple of violent color. They appeared and faded inside their own cloud of yellow dust, like ghosts riding out of fire. Their trumpets warbled across the llano, steely insectile sounds, piercing and drifting away with the relentless hot wind. As the column neared, the ground began to reverberate with their coming, the four hundred hooves of the big steeds shaking the pebbles, feeling like a heartbeat through the feet of the People.

Rurales galloped out to join their comrades. Pilgrims slunk away from the house. Hundreds of them dropped into the arroyo and crouched in fear. Many more simply moved outside the fences and took up a position of curiosity, looking innocent and blank as the soldiers passed, as if they had bought tickets to a bullfight. Those most loyal to the Saint of Cabora took up their arms and faced the horde. Old rifles, rusted pistols, bows and arrows, lances. Old men held hoes and pitchforks.

Buenaventura said, “Papá? I don’t mind dying!”

“Who are you calling Papá, cabrón?” shouted Juan.

“No one is dying today,” Tomás grunted as he mounted his stallion.

“I am not afraid!” Buenaventura cried.

“I am,” his father replied.

He rode among the pilgrims, saying, “Calma, calma.”

Segundo watched the far edge of the crowd. At least his eyes were still good. His men rode among the pilgrims. They talked to them as they would have talked to spooked horses or jittery cattle. Soothing them. Calming them.

“Stay cool,” Segundo said. “Don’t get excited.”

“I’m not excited,” said Buenaventura.

“Liar.”

And Tomás continued crooning to them all until the cavalry leader rode through the main gate.

“Calma, señores, por favor. Calma.”

Emilio Enríquez rode at the head of the column. His men drew their rifles from their scabbards as one and rode with their fingers on their triggers. Tomás turned his stallion sideways in their path and sat with his hand on the butt of his revolver.

“Welcome back, Captain Enríquez!” he called.

Enríquez smiled at him. “Major,” he said.

“No!”

Major Enríquez dipped his head.

“At your service, Don Tomás.”

“A promotion,” Tomás said. “In honor of this precarious duty, no doubt?”

Enríquez dipped his head again.

Tomás reached over and shook his hand.