The Hummingbird's Daughter (8 page)

—rebozo spun tight as a cinnamon roll, on her head, heavy water jug balanced upon it, riding her skull as if she were a donkey —

—fat bullets, cold as lizards, cold and greasy, cold and sliding on their grease into the receivers of rifles, and hands, dark hands, working the levers —

—laundry, stretched on river stones, foam moving down, down, down the river, white islands of foam, going down —

—maize dough in a ball, slapped by women’s hands, taking shape, disk of the sun, flesh of the sun —

—down —

—cottonwood fluff going

down —

—Huila, walking

through trees —

down —

—the Hummingbird, though she had no memory of seeing the Hummingbird, she knew who it was. “Mother,” she whispered, as the Hummingbird watched rain above a churning sea, coming

down.

In the dream, she traveled far.

Nine

HUILA HAD SAT ON A ROCK, and she had used a small knife to peel an orange: the peel had curled out and fallen to the ground in one endless piece, and Huila had spoken.
Your mother, child, was the prettiest girl on the ranch. She could make birds land on her fingers. It’s true. And they called her Hummingbird, Semalú, and she spoke the mother tongue but learned Yori when the troubles came and her own family was scattered. Your grandmother and grandfather were good people. Poor people. Your grandmother was funny, and she had the gift come down from her own mother. What gift? The only gift there is, child. The birthing and working of the plants. That gift. Your grandfather was Catholic, and your grandmother followed the old ways. She was Mayo, and her own mother was Yaqui. Your grandfather was Tehueco, and the soldiers put him in a tree before you came.

Your father? Ah, your father. You’re too young now to hear the story. But find Huila later, when you can hear what Huila has to say, and I will tell you about your father. Do you hope he is a prince, child? A king? I will tell you this much—your father is not a bad man. Just silly. You will soon learn that almost all men are silly. Even the priests are silly. But your father is a kind man, and he has many acceptable traits, and he even owns many wonderful things that someday you might have.

And he is very, very handsome.

Teresita lay awake, leaning against the redolent flank of the she-pig. The old sow’s vast heart thumped deep inside her, like the relentless tock of the grandfather clock she had seen in the main house. It seemed like weeks ago. The old pig, on her side, lazily offered her fourteen nipples to this small human shoat, and she drowsed happily, feeling the warmth of the child against her gut and her sides. One foot stirred slightly in her sleep as she dreamed of finding a broken door in the great storeroom larder across the road, and it sped up as in her dream she discovered sweet potatoes and gobbled them while her hundreds of lost piglets regrouped around her.

Teresita had tried to call up the sleep glow to stop her bruises from aching, but it was no use. Clumps of mosquitoes landed on her legs, but she didn’t even feel them feeding on her. The heavy air above her choked off the celestial light, but slow throbs of lightning pulsed red and gold far to the west, over the invisible sea. And the moon was up there, parted and orange, and a lone star burned near the curve of lunar glow. Teresita lay back against the sow and tried to see ghosts—the old women said you could see them out of the corners of your eyes—but concluded the flittering shadows above her were only bats.

“Hey!”

She looked around in the dark.

“Oye, tú!”

She looked over the pig.

“Who is it?”

“Me.”

“Who?”

“Me!”

He stood up. It was the skinny boy from the horse trough with the ridiculous big hat.

“Me!” he said. “Buenaventura!”

In spite of the stiffness in her back and legs, and the ache of her beaten body, she giggled.

“What kind of name is Good Luck?” she said.

“It’s
my
name,” he said.

He stood among weeds and small bushes, and his hat was glowing grayly in the moonlight. His arms were longer than his sleeves, and his wrists hung out from the frayed cuffs.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She started to cry.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he said.

He went to step forward, but a tree branch knocked his hat off. He scrambled to retrieve it, and he slammed it on his head. This made her laugh again. She was laughing and crying, wiping her nose on her dress.

He crouched by the fence and looked in at her.

“It stinks.”

“I know.”

“You should get out of here.”

“I don’t know where to go.”

He rested his arms on the crosspiece.

“I saw what happened,” he said. “You should get away in case she wakes up.”

“You were there?”

He held up a skinny little revolver. “I’ll shoot her next time.”

“No, Good Luck, no.”

“I’m an outlaw, you know. I’m not scared of shooting people!” He brandished the gun and tried to look fierce. “Soy un pistolero!”

“No.”

He stuck the gun back in his belt.

“You let me know if you want some cabrones shot,” he said. He sat with his back to the pig fence. “Me los acabo!” he boasted.

She sat against her side of the fence with her back pressed to his, only a plank between them. She started to cry again.

“Pinche life!” he said. He looked over his shoulder at her. “What are you called?”

“Teresita.”

He reached back over his shoulder. “All right, Teresita, try this.”

She reached up. He dropped a chunk of horehound candy in her palm. She put it in her mouth. They sat there sucking their candy together, not saying anything.

“I stole it,” he finally said.

And, after a while: “Pinches mosquitoes! Let’s get out of here!”

“I don’t know if I can get up.”

He got up and hopped over the fence and prodded the sow away with one worn boot and looked at Teresita.

“I been beat before. This was barely a spanking. You can always get up!”

“I can’t.”

“All right.”

He bent to her and heaved her from the ground and over his shoulder.

He blew air out of his nose.

“You peed on yourself!”

“Sorry.”

He handed her his hat.

“Take this.”

He managed to climb over the fence without dropping her.

The pig asked him, “Grut?”

“Where am I taking you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Better decide.”

“Take me to Huila.”

“The witch?”

“She’s no witch.”

“She’s a bruja desgraciada,” he insisted.

Teresita spanked him with his own hat.

“She is no witch!”

“Hnf,” he grunted as he started out.

His big hands wrapped around her calves as she bounced head-down over his shoulder.

“You’re fat,” he said.

She smacked him again with his hat.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” he warned.

They passed under the deep shadows of the peach trees.

“I wish I was dead,” she said.

“No you don’t,” he replied.

“I want my mamá. I want my papá.”

“That’s what everybody wants.”

The house was a great black hump against the night. No lights burned in any windows. He bent down and slid her off his shoulder like a sack of beans.

“Dad’s house,” he said. “Give him my regards.”

Dad? she thought.

“Don’t go!”

“Can’t stay.”

“Just a minute.”

He squatted down beside her and stared at the house.

“These rich men,” he said. “They don’t care about you or me.”

“He’s not like that.”

“They’re all like that.”

He picked up some pebbles.

“Where does the witch sleep?”

She pointed. He went to the black window beside the back door. He tipped his hat to Teresita and pitched a bunch of pebbles to rattle against the glass. He ducked down, but nothing happened. He threw more pebbles. Nothing. He took up a bigger rock and threw it hard: it smacked into the wall beside the window with a sound not unlike a rifle shot. “Son of a whore!” Huila’s voice came from within. “What hijo de la chingada is at my window!” Buenaventura whipped another handful of pebbles, and a match flared inside, and the wobbly yellow of lamplight resolved itself through the curtains. “Stay right there, cabrón! Stay right there! I have my shotgun, and I’m going to give you both barrels!” Buenaventura pantomimed broad laughter, putting both hands on his gut and rocking back and forth. “Just wait right there, buey! I’m coming! I’m coming out right now, and when I come out, I’m going to let you have it!” He scampered around like a monkey, making Teresita laugh. He did this little dance until the latch on the back door clacked loudly. He bent nearly double and ran into the bushes with a wave.

The door banged open, and Huila emerged, hair a wild tangle, lamp in one hand and shotgun in the other, veering in every direction.

“Show yourself, desgraciado!”

Teresita called out.

“Huila!”

The shotgun aimed in her direction. Huila raised the lamp and squinted out.

“Who is that?”

“Over here,” Teresita said.

“Quién es?”

“It is I, old woman,” Teresita called. “The Hummingbird’s daughter.”

Huila let the twin hammers down on her shotgun, and she set it against the wall. She stepped down from the small porch and said, “Child?”

“Here.”

Huila held out the lamp and walked to her.

“Oh, no,” she said. “What have they done to you?”

“I got spanked.”

“Yes,” said Huila. “Yes, you surely did.”

She pulled Teresita up and lifted her in one arm. Teresita wrapped her legs around the old woman, and she rode her hip back to the house. Buenaventura, watching from the bushes, nodded when the door slammed and the light was extinguished. Then he ran to the porch and stole the shotgun Huila had left behind.

“Apparently,” the old woman said, “I can’t escape you.”

She set Teresita on the white metal table in the kitchen. It was cold to the touch, but it felt good against the welts and bruises.

“Did you pee on yourself?”

“Sí, Huila.”

“Ay, niña,” Huila said, shaking her head. “No matter what happens to you, don’t ever pee on yourself. They always know they’ve won when you pee on yourself. I’ve seen grown men, when they’re tied to the post, pee down their legs in fear. I’ve seen them, when the noose is on their necks, letting water escape. Fear kills you twice, and it gives your enemy pleasure.” She lifted lids on clay pots and sniffed at their openings. “That’s why I don’t like pinches dogs! They fall over and wag their tails and pee all over themselves to let you know you’re the master. Pah! We have no masters!” She pointed at Teresita. “So no peeing!”

“I promise.”

“Good.”

Huila dipped some water from a bucket and went to the fire, which was a pulse of banked coals. She put the water in a pot and hung the pot on a black iron hook, then built a small pyramid of sticks beneath it. The fire sprang up when she blew on it.

“Nobody can build a fire like old Huila!” she said.

Doña Loreto had ordered some cherry pies from Guaymas. They had arrived in flat wooden cases, and only one of them had spoiled—it was alive in its slim shelf with maggots, and Loreto had sent it to the pigpen. But the other six pies were in fine shape, and Huila now took a long knife and cut a drooling wedge and put it on a plate and set the plate on the table beside Teresita. She handed the girl a fork.

Teresita sniffed the pie. It was red. For some reason she did not

understand, it made her nostalgic for her mother.

“Eat.”

“Sí, Huila.”

Teresita grabbed the fork in her fist and ripped a glob of pie loose and stuffed it in her mouth.

“God,” Huila sighed.

“What?”

The old one took the fork away from Teresita and opened her fist and turned her wrist and put the fork back in her hand, balanced on her fingers.

“This is how you hold a fork,” she said.

And: “You don’t have to eat the whole pie in one bite! Nobody’s going to take it away from you.”

And: “Chew with your mouth shut. If you want to live with donkeys, eat like a donkey. If you want to live among human beings, eat like a human being. You chew like a churn making butter.”

“Sí, Huila.”

“Milk?”

“Yes, please.”

“More pie?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, I might have a small bite of pie myself.”

Together, they scraped the whole pie tin clean.

“It hurts,” Teresita said.

“Yes.”

Huila cleaned the black pig mud out of the wounds. She had wrapped crushed cuasia in a cheesecloth, then soaked it in the hot water from the hanging pot.

“Don’t squirm.”

“Ay.”

Huila felt—what? What was it she felt in her fingertips? A flash of the golden sparks, perhaps. A sudden onrush of heat through the skin.

“Do that again,” she said.

“I did nothing,” Teresita replied.