His father's eyes flashed with wild anger; his mouth twitched; his jaw dropped; his decayed teeth showed. He raised one hand but it shook, and he shoved it underneath his sheet and tried to sit up. His Adam's apple rose and fell; he gulped and rolled on his pillow. He tried to get one leg out of bed but could not. Patches scabbed his sight; he shook his head but saw his father riding a white range horse. With great difficulty, Fernando made out that Gabriel had returned to his bedside.
"Get out," Fernando managed. "Get out!" he shrilled.
"It's time Raul managed Petaca," said Gabriel kindly. "You must see it his way. You need to rest." He was alarmed by the man's tortured face.
"I am dismissing Pedro Chávez," said Raul. "There will be no more killings on my hacienda."
Fernando's eyes were bloodshot; they flicked from left to right; tears oozed at the corners.
"God damn you!" he said hoarsely. He puckered his lips to spit, wanting to catch them both.
"It's time our sick were cared for, Don Fernando," said Gabriel.
"Shut up," said the old man.
They waited a few moments longer by his bed. A burro screeched and hollered in a field. A cloud passed over the sun. The old man coughed and faced the ceiling, one hand clenched; the other, beneath the sheet, trembled.
Raul tapped Gabriel's arm and they went out.
In the patio, Raul said, "It's done now."
"He took it hard," said Gabriel.
"When it came time to tell him, I couldn't spare him," said Raul.
"Such hate," said Gabriel,
"He tried to spit on us. Did you see his lips?" asked Raul, resenting the scene, feeling he would never be able to forget it.
"Ssst, Raul. It's bad enough."
"It won't be bad for our people."
"I know ... I know," said Gabriel.
"Tomorrow our people will have grain."
"Tomorrow, yes ... tomorrow," said Gabriel. He brushed flies from his bald spot and scanned the sky, his gold rims twinkling. "It has gotten cloudy. It may rain. The corn needs rain. I must go, Raul. I must talk to others."
Walking away, he felt for the small bronze cross he wore on a neck chain. The cross was buried in the hairs of his throat. He prayed as he walked, fingers enclosing the metal. He prayed for the hacienda people; he asked help for the old man; wisdom for Raul; let good come of this transition, no additional anguish.
In his room, the door closed, a candle lit, he knelt on the bare tiles before the mountain crucifix: as he knelt, a lovely bone figurine appeared on the barren wood: the figure had hung in his mother's house in Padua, very old, very yellow, very fragile. A women knelt beside him, in this illusion, wrapped in a threadbare shawl. It was cloudy and sultry and the Italian light filmed the room; the woman was speaking.
Strange he could not recall her face, only the form, wrapped in blue cloth. The sound of her voice was also lost.
"Mother," he said aloud; then he pushed aside his longing for Italy and his home and family and began to pray:
"Jesus, help us. We are many here. Bless us with a special mercy. Take us to your sacred heart; we are your children ... the haciendas are headed for troubled times. Help us to be decent to one another."
Sitting in his living room, Raul tried to rationalize his own actions. It still seemed illogical he had waited so long before assuming authority. Slouched in a red plush chair, he regarded his son, writing at the desk, doing an assignment given him by his school. Vicente would return to his school in Colima on Monday. A brass candlestick, holding five candles, burned beside the boy; the back of his blond head was toward Raul. Raul listened to the scratch of pencil on paper. Now and then Vicente sighed. He was ten, attractive, sweet-mannered, bright, and kind. He said he wanted to become a priest—"like Father Gabriel." Raul hoped he would change his mind and administer Petaca someday. How quiet Vicente had become since Raul had taken over the hacienda! It was as if he understood the gravity of the changes; the responsibilities. Yesterday at breakfast, Chavela had spouted, as she served: "Is it true? What will happen? Is that why Don Fernando won't eat? You know he won't eat anything at all. Why, he won't talk to me!"
Vicente had dug impulsively at his sliced pineapple. "You leave things to Papa," he had said.
Raul went over his decision, blaming the delay on his character. He saw the old Christ face and knew Alberto had sprung the latch, though other things had contributed their influence. He had been too slow, like so many Mexicans—willing to see men suffer. Afraid to stop their suffering. Afraid to be myself, he thought. When have I been myself? At school, abroad? No, I was a foreigner there, reticent, shy. This is home—Petaca—with its evasions, its ignorance. That's it. Perhaps I'm ignorant, ignorant of life's meaning and my own purpose!
A week or more before in Colima, the fat, ignorantlicenciadoDon Pascual had had something to say: "Mark my words, Raul, we're in for trouble. Far off, lost as we are in Colima, men are angry. When men grow angry, they're like bees, and when they swarm anything can happen. Mark my words!"
The Don Pascuals can be right. I must watch my step. I must reform old ways slowly. And he remembered that he had done nothing slowly as yet. Could he learn to work slowly? He brushed his hands restlessly over the arms of his chair.
True, Fernando had refused to eat. He had not summoned Pedro. He talked to no one.
Vicente had gone to him and given him water. He had lingered around his bed and talked; discouraged and embarrassed by his grandfather's silence, he had wandered out of the room.
"Why is he like that, Papa?"
"He'll be all right in a day or two," Raul had assured him.
Caterina came into the living room, took a book from the corner bookcase, and strode out, unaware of her father and brother. She was slender, dark, olive skinned. She liked to parade about with her wavy hair loose over her shoulders. She loved scarlet dresses and had one on. Only thirteen, she was a rare sight on an hacienda. Raul wondered if she had chosen a book to read to her grandfather. She was fond of him—blind to his cruelties, oblivious of his ugliness. She found in him something no one else could find.
If he continued his starvation, he would soon die.... Fernando Medina, El Clarín, starving himself! It didn't make sense. Perhaps Caterina would induce him to eat. She could coax better than anyone.
Raul was tempted to follow her, but instead he got up and paced the room, walking noiselessly. In front of the fireplace he lit his pipe, flaring the head of the match with his thumb-nail. Vicente smiled at him and he grinned back.
"How are you doing, boy?"
"Almost done."
"Good for you. Is it hard?"
"Hard enough."
Raul drew reflectively, enjoying the sweet warmth of the Cuban tobacco. He kicked idly at the pelt of the mountain lion beside the hearth. Dust and ashes puffed from the old, dried hair. On the mantelpiece, a great beam of unpeeled cedar, between a pair of crystal candle holders, lay the lion's tail, torn off by Vicente and Caterina during some game.
Walking the length of the room, Raul tried to concentrate. There was only concern: where to begin? Who needed help? How much corn and wheat were to be allotted? Yesterday, he and Velasco and Hernández had worked with the sick. He had put men to building huts behind the stables; the stable hands must have places of their own and not continue sleeping with the cattle. He had men clean the well that watered the stock. Carts had gone to Colima for lumber. Tomorrow he wanted repairs to begin on the granary roof. He wanted to speak to Gabriel about reconditioning the schoolroom, he wanted to see Salvador about the oxcarts.
Where to begin ... the thought haunted. It seemed to him a million beginnings could add up to nothing. Most of all, he wanted to reassure his people. Life at Petaca would have to even out over a long stretch of time to reassure the peasants.
Fussing with his pipe, he crossed the patio to look at his father. Fernando lay asleep, hand over the edge of his bed. A book lay open beside him, almost ready to slip to the floor. Perhaps Caterina had read to him. Raul smiled, as he took in an empty soup bowl under the bedside table lamp ... bread crumbs peppered the floor.
Going to the veranda, to the intricate grilled gate that closed the front of the house at night, he saw a bonfire across the cobbled court, near the far wall. Flames bloodied the wall and the turret on top. Men huddled close and seemed to be heating tortillas or makingtacosover embers scraped from the blaze. Someone began to pluck a guitar, and Raul caught the glint of wood and strings. A man sang: "Es de los que bailan grande obligación darle a su pareja ..."
When had his people known freedom. Had it been under the last Indian emperor, Cuauhtemoc? Had it been under Moctezuma? Had it been at Chichén Itzá or Palenque? Surely, in some bygone age, his people had been freer and suffered less. Men still worshiped the old gods. A while ago, at the base of the volcano, at a place called Ojo Blanco, he had discovered an altar encrusted with blood. Turkey blood, said Manuel, since feathers had gotten stuck in the black crust. Deep inside a granite niche, a stone figure had grinned apishly.
"Toltec?" he asked Manuel.
"I don't know, Don Raul."
Higher up the volcano, on the seaward side, his men had reported other altars, through the years. On his own climbs, Raul had come across other idols, one a bloated thing of obsidian, the glass unpocked by time. Had these men known happier days?
The moon shone brightly, and it was chilly. He wanted to stroll along the lagoon and yet felt he should not walk alone, not for the time being. As a boy, he had played along the lagoon, speared frogs, sailed boats, waded and swum. As a boy ... What about Vicente? Would anyone molest him? Of course not. Then his own risk was an exaggeration.
He got a jacket, went through the garden, and opened a rose-trellised gate that led to the shore. First one frog and then another plopped into the water. A night bird startled him by whirring off from sedges near his feet. He stood still, his heart pounding. At once, he called himself a coward, but as he began to follow the shore, he realized someone was trailing him. He stopped, his hand on the trunk of a primavera tree and waited for the man to approach.
"Coming ... coming," came Manuel's voice. Raul broke into a chuckle.
"Why are you following me? Haven't you anything better to do?"
"You need company."
"I suppose I do. A night bird scared me. I'm an old woman."
"It's no time for an old woman to be about alone," laughed Manuel.
"I'm not going far."
"I brought this," said Manuel, tapping his revolver.
"For the frogs," said Raul.
"Not tonight," Manuel said.
Raul walked on, across clumps of grass that had wiry tops.
"I think we're overdoing this gun business ... too much precaution."
Raul was touched by Manuel's solicitude. Who else, beside his children, cared so much at Petaca? Even if there was no danger, it amounted to the same thing. Their walk took them through cane, and a snake slid toward the lagoon, its gray-white body sparkling, as if carrying dew or pieces of spider web. He and Manuel had routed many a snake along this shore. Ash, eucalyptus, pepper, jacaranda, primavera, tabachin and palm grew here. His grandfather and father had planted them. Close to the shore some of the trees had not done well, but on higher ground all were superb. Paths wound among them. Where moonlight scraped a circle on the ground, Angelina had placed a rustic table and chairs.
Raul sat on a log, and Manuel crouched on his heels, his back against an ash tree.
"Were the men having tortillas in the court?" Raul asked.
"Yes ... they hadn't had any for several days."
"Salvador came tonight, to live at the hacienda," said Raul.
"I know," said Manuel. "He'll be a lot of help."
"Do many know of my decision?"
"Most of them, I think."
"How do they feel about it? What have you heard?"
"I've heard only good things: some are very pleased, even excited."
Manuel moved closer and squatted beside Raul. For a while they were silent, listening to the waves and the night sounds.
"It's beautiful tonight," Raul said.
"Perhaps it's too beautiful. The charcoal makers, who came down from the volcano today, say smoke is seeping from the crater."
"If there were much smoke we would have seen it ... wouldn't we?"
"Perhaps," said Manuel.
"You sound pessimistic. What is it? Tell me why you followed me?"
"Pedro is here," he answered, after a pause.
"You know that for a fact?" asked Raul, stiffening.
"I saw him. He came from Manzanillo."
"Where did you see him?"
"In the stable, with other men."
"Did you speak to him?"
"No. He's drinking. He's out for trouble." Manuel spoke with a peculiar emphasis, recalling Pedro's drunken brawls, Raul's displeasure, Don Fernando's disregard. Manuel took time to pull a grass blade and poke it between his teeth, and then said, "He's very drunk."
The moon floated directly overhead, a spray of cloud in front of it. Something shook the dried fingers of a palm—a bird.
"Pedro came to talk with Don Fernando," said Manuel.
"I won't stop him," said Raul.
"I hear he says he'll never leave Petaca."
"He talks big. He's afraid."
"No—he's not afraid. Don't make that mistake, Don Raul!"
"Pedro has to leave.... I won't put up with him," he exclaimed.
In his mind's eye, Raul saw Pedro roping cattle in their corral, his lasso pinning a yearling. In the corral and on the range he had no rival. But as overseer, his cowpuncher skill meant nothing. He had not the slightest concept of what cooperation meant.
Returning, they took the road that led straight to the hacienda and entered the feudal wall through a seldom used gate. Raul said good-night to Manuel and lingered on the terrace, beside the swimming pool. Lighting his pipe, he reminded himself he must fill his tobacco pouch. The pool was flecked with jacaranda flowers, bats zoomed. Elbows on the adobe wall, Raul searched the volcano for a sign of smoke. High on the flank, nearest the ocean, he detected a red spark; perhaps a charcoal burner's fire. In the living room, he put his pipe on the desk, filled his pouch, and blew out the candles.
During the night, Caterina called him:
"Papa, Papa ... come."
She was having a bad dream and he rubbed her legs and stomach and quieted her, kissed her cheek and tiptoed back to bed. Sleep would not come and for a long time he contemplated the starry windows. Angelina lay curled in a kitten's ball. Suddenly, clearly he heard an owl cry. Before he could restrain himself, he sat up. Angelina stirred and muttered. Ridiculing superstitions, he lay still and tried to plumb the stars.
In the morning, the children got up first and dressed happily.
Caterina dashed down the stairs singing, her loose slippers clumping the tiles. "Soy la golandrina ... soy la golandrina..."
Almost at once she rushed back up the steps, screaming:
"... Grandpa's fallen on the floor! I think he's dead! Grandpa's lying on the floor ... quick, quick. He's fallen out of bed!" she cried, repeating herself till her mother hurried down. Caterina hid her face in her pillow and sobbed. Raul threw on his robe and got into his slippers.
A gentle rain trickled across the window glass of his father's window. Shadows, formed by the water on the pane, shimmered on Fernando's face. His features seemed a little less ugly. He groaned, as Angelina propped up his head and gave him a drink.
With his hand on a bedpost, Raul contemplated his wife. Her face was tender, and she spoke sweetly. Her attitude helped him feel compassionate. Together, they placed Don Fernando in bed and covered him. How pitiful, shut off by sickness and age. His hate had raised walls around him. It was more than hate, Raul knew. In Guadalajara, three or four months ago, he and his father had attempted to locate a pump suitable for irrigation. After a futile day they had gone to the nearest cantina, a fairly disreputable place. His father had ordered drinks. Then, when the waiter had gone, he had turned to Raul:
"I can't forget it, even here! I try to get away from it. I drink to get away from it; I ride like hell to get away..."
"What are you trying to get away from?"
"You're not that stupid, Raul! After all these years! Christ ..."
Swiftly, he had gripped Raul's hand with cold fingers.
"It's my father ... I often see him. I thought you knew."
In Fernando's eyes, in the cantina, there had been the glaze of fear. Fear and regret had cut him with their termites. Nobody cared for him, unless it was little Caterina. She had not seen Flores dragged behind a horse, across a field and back again, across a field and back again ... she had been in school in Guadalajara.
Chavela brought a tray of breakfast things, and Raul left the room as Angelina began to wash the old man's face, saying: "Come now, you're all right. Come now."
In the patio, Vicente ran up to Raul and asked, "Is Grandpa dead?"
"No, son, he fell on the floor."
"Shall I go in?"
"If you want to. Mama's there. You don't have to go inside."
With a frightened face, he dashed off.
As Raul crossed the patio, Gabriel appeared. He spoke, and Raul nodded significantly toward the bedroom. Gabriel limped past. Raul did not stop, but walked onto the veranda, to find Pedro Chávez, squatting on his heels by the steps.
Pedro was six foot two, about thirty-six, a Yaqui, with square shoulders, big arms, big hands, big legs and feet. His facial tissue folded thickly across sharp bones and he had the swarthy complexion of Sonorans. Deep-set brown eyes glared past a Mongolian nose. He wore his hair long, and strands of it hung over his plaid shirt and buckskin vest. A single silver button dangled loosely on his vest and other silver buttons ran down the seams of his black trousers. His feet bulged in a pair of chamois-colored boots. He carried a Colt and had a belt of cartridges.
Seeing Raul, he grinned a nervous grin (it was as if he had nothing to do with the grin) and his eyes blazed.
"I hear Don Fernando is worse," he said, continuing to squat disrespectfully on his heels. He spoke with obvious contempt.
Raul held himself straight.
"When did you hear that?" he asked.
"Last night. They say he won't eat," said Pedro.
"I just came from his room. He ate last night ... I've been wanting to talk to you. This time is as good as any. I've taken over the management. I want you to leave Petaca." Raul realized he had spoken too rapidly. He stopped.
"I'm not leaving here," Pedro snapped, eyes on the floor.
"I order you to leave Petaca, at once," said Raul, accenting each word.
"I couldn't do that. It's my job."
"I never hired you."
"But your father hired me." Pedro talked slowly, the Yaqui way, clicking each syllable.
A brown cricket crept over the red tiles, crept near Pedro's boots, crawled on, circling a little.
"You're no longer employed here. Go to the Banco Nacional in Colima. I'll write a note to the bank. They'll pay you off. Manuel will give you my note for the bank."
"Haven't you any money here?"
"I'll pay you through the bank. I want it that way. That way there's no question about a record of payment."
"I refuse to leave Petaca."
"I'll speak to the rurales."
Pedro lashed with the flat of his palm and smashed the cricket. He continued to squat, though he swayed on his heels.
"I'll tell the rurales to remove you. They know how. You'll rot in jail a while. The police will appreciate my attitude. You have your choice. Now, get out. I've had more than enough of your killings. When Flores was tied behind a horse and dragged across the ground, you whipped the horse. I should have killed you myself then. God knows, I wanted to."
Raul paused to wet his lips. Pedro glared at the floor between his legs. "You've killed four of our men, two without provocation. I'm not running that kind of hacienda."
"I get the work done," Pedro muttered.
"I can get the work done without beatings and killings. Don't be a fool, Pedro. Your job is over. My father can't keep you against my will. Go back to being a Yaqui sergeant."
"I'll see," said Pedro.
Raul jerked at his belt. The angry gesture made Pedro look up; it annoyed him to be reminded that Raul was unarmed; then he reconsidered that thought—his right hand stole toward his Colt: a secretive, instinctive movement: his hand had performed the same movement on the hunt or when among brawling men: the timing would be perfect. Raul had begun to turn away; instantly, instinctively, he whirled around.
"Get out of here!"
Raul's stony face moved Pedro. He got up, hitched his trousers, hitched his belt, snuffed, examined the cricket stain on his hand, and stalked off, his spurs nicking the stone steps. He had a cowboy sprawl, a cowman's gait; he strolled toward the corral, rolling a cigarette as he walked, feeling the weight of his Colt, insensible to everything but the urge to kill.
Early Sunday morning the wind began to howl. It beat off the delicate jacaranda blossoms until the garden pool wore a top of flowers. On the terrace, a strip of honeysuckle tore loose and wrapped itself around the stone Christ. The sky became a mushy gray, and later in the day the clouds oozed rain, then hail. Hailstones, the size of parrots' eyes, flicked at bougainvillaea, jacaranda, cup-of-gold, and oleander until the garden had little brilliance left. Everything was green and wet, and the wet green clambered from within, a threat, a tropic impulse.
Raul recognized the force. He felt it also in the sky as he stood at Caterina's bedroom window on the second floor. From there, the volcano seemed to knife the sky at a peculiar angle, with a peculiar pressure. As he stood by the window frame he felt a tremor. The tiled floor shifted, swayed, lowered, raised, stopped. It was a mild quake and Caterina did not awaken. Her rag elephant fell to the floor from her bed. Eyes on the volcano tip, Raul waited for a belch of smoke. It did not come. But another quake came. Remaining by the window, he lit his pipe and listened to fumbling rain and hail.
Caterina had been seriously ill for six days. Dr. Velasco and Dr. Hernández had puzzled over prescriptions. Nothing had helped the acute diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. Her temperature had shot up, then had fallen. Dr. Velasco called it "tropic fever"; Dr. Hernández said it was "black fever." New medicines had been used effectively in Guadalajara, and Dr. Velasco had gone for them, reassuring everyone. He would be back on tomorrow's train that arrived at nine P.M., if it pulled into Colima on time.
Sitting by Caterina's bed, Raul noticed her pallor, how it seemed more pronounced in her hands than in her face. The fingers felt lifeless. Cupping his hands around hers he tried to warm them. He began to rub. This morning they had gone through the motions of a card game during the storm and suddenly, about half through the game, she had said, "My fingers hurt, they're so cold. Papa, let's never finish our game."
Taken by surprise, he had had to blink back his tears.
A dozen jobs had kept him from her since then. Coming out of the wind and hail, he had found her alone. The Colima nun, her nurse, had gone downstairs to eat. Raul liked being alone with Caterina. Hearing the storm, watching it from her window, he thought of things they had shared: the moth and butterfly collection (Lucienne's idea), horseback rides, boating on the lagoon, fishing.
She had a tiny bronze cannon that had been mounted on the garden sundial pedestal. She had found it during a visit to Guadalajara and had insisted that Raul install it for her and, for a while, she had primed it faithfully. It had "boomed" each sunny noon, the sunshine igniting the powder through a magnifying glass.
Some of her dolls were ranged on the floor beside her bed, toppled bodies, Swiss, African, Chinese, Mexican. She called one "Flaco," one "Negro," another "Henry." ... He had never known all their names.
Caterina stirred. Breathing fast, she rubbed both hands roughly over her face, and her lids fluttered open.
"Papa," she said.
"Yes, dear."
"Where am I?"
"In your bed."
"I dreamed ... I was in school."
"In Guadalajara?" he asked.
"Yes.... Oh, Papa, don't send me back to school."
"Why? I thought you liked the school and the Sisters."
"I can't go, and it's too far."
"Not now," he said.
"Papa..."
"Yes?"
"Oh ... Papa..."
Tears came.
"Papa..."
"Yes."
"When shall we go on a picnic?"
"Soon," he said. "Maybe next week. Where would you like to go?"
"'Way up the mountain."
"Up the volcano on horseback?"
"Yes," she said, liking her father's bushy hair and eyebrows.
"We'll do that—all of us. Soon."
She shivered and closed her eyes. It seemed to her that all the window frames and doorways were merging. It seemed as if the floor had tilted.
"Papa ... have the nurse change me."
"Again?"
"Yes."
"I'll call her."
He went to the patio window and called, and Carmela answered immediately.
Back at Caterina's side, Raul said: "Carmela's coming right away. You know, Caterina, I think the sun will be out soon. The hail has stopped. The wind's rough but it may blow off the clouds."
She did not respond.
As he waited for Carmela, he thought about the timbre of her voice, how frail it had become, frightened, hurried.
Carmela changed her and made her comfortable.
"Thank you, Sister," Caterina said.
"You're welcome, dear."
Carmela, a whipcord woman, could have carried the Master's cross. She had a dusky mustache above Mayan lips. Her hair was sheep-thick and done in twin buns that had long pins sticking in them. Tufts of hair grew in each of her ears. She walked with a rustler's tread—years of convent living and nursing had not tamed her tread. Yet she had the essence of sanctity in her face, and people said that she never lost patience.
When she left the room, Raul sat on the bed at Caterina's feet.
"She's nice," Caterina said.
"Big," he laughed.
"Papa ... when will my stomach stop hurting?" She began to cry and covered her face with one arm. "Oh, Papa ... Papa ... ask God..."
"What is it?" asked Carmela, returning.
"Pain."
"Deep in your stomach?" the nun asked, pushing back her white collar.
"Yes."
"Let me give you more laudanum," said Carmela, going to the medicines on a tray at the dressing table.
"No. It makes me sleep. No. No-ooo."
"Sleep is best for you. It'll make you strong," the nun said, vigorously rattling the bottle and spoon; she yanked the cork from a blue bottle sniffed the contents and said, "Ah." Her starched clothes sounded the same as the rustle of distant hail.
"No..." Caterina said feebly.
"Please," said Carmela.
"Papa ... no!" (Frightened)
"Then later," said Raul.
"Yes, Papa."
The syrupy medicine went back into the bottle.
Gusts swirled through the garden, and the rain-heavy foliage bent low; window curtains fluttered, their red and white cotton billowing now inside, now outside.
"Papa, can I give Mona to Lucienne? I want to. Papa, will you read to me?"
He did not answer her question about the dog. Mona had been Caterina's pet for over two years. What was her insight into his relationship with Lucienne? Was she expressing approval ... did she feel she was about to die?
"Yes, yes, I'll read to you. What would you like? Your Grillo?"
TheGrillowas an Italian book about the adventures of a cricket.
"Yes, Papa ... Grillo."
By the time he found the book, she had fallen asleep. The cricket, printed in orange on the cover of the novel, crept away from his hands. Sparks of lightning whisked over the blue and white pattern of floor tiling. He laid her book lovingly on the circular table, cluttered with the child's things: cutouts, a sewing kit, some dried figs, doll dishes.... It was a small corner room, with white enameled furniture. Above her bed hung a pastel portrait of her mother. The portrait, done with too obvious care, was gilt framed, and dangled from a long wire. The picture began to sway.
"Another quake," said the nun, from her chair by the window. "That's the third."
They stared at each other questioningly. Sister Carmela fingered her beads, and shivered. She hated quakes, and remembered the devastation caused by the last big shock in Colima.
The quake lasted a little longer than the others; the dolls rocked together on the floor; a dish clattered; someone shouted, "Don Raul, Don Raul!"
Stepping to the window on the patio side, Raul saw Salvador.
"A tree has blown down on the stable. Can you come?" Salvador shouted.
"I'll be down."
Raul went down the stairway. Angelina stood on the bottom steps, a cup of broth in her hands.
"Raul, there was another quake.... How is Caterina?"
"No better. Her stomach pains her a great deal. She's asleep."
"I'll go up anyway. Maybe she'll wake soon and have some broth."
They passed one another without really seeing one another.
"Your father wants to know how Caterina is," Angelina said, as she went up.
"I'll tell him."
He crossed the hail-splattered patio to his father's room, resenting the chill. Fernando had ordered his bed moved—to avoid seeing the distorted landscape. He now faced the patio and Raul paused in the doorway, sensing his father's gaze.
"How is she?" he asked.
"I'm afraid she's worse."
"You're afraid, poor boy! Why don't you do something to help?"
"Velasco has gone to Guadalajara. He'll be back with new medication tomorrow."
"You'll let her die."
"Not if we can help it."
"I'm going up to her room."
"You couldn't make it up the stairway."
"Men can carry me," he said savagely. "Or have all the men at Petaca become too weak!"
Raul turned to leave, but waited a moment.
"Raul—will Caterina want me?" The old man asked humbly, his voice normal.
"It might help her."
"Then?"
"I'll arrange for you to be carried up later."
At the stable, Salvador and others were stacking roof tiles knocked off by the fallen eucalyptus. Branches of the huge tree lashed at the men, and the air smelled of oil from the bruised leaves and bark. Someone inside the stable bawled an order; cattle shuffled; a hinge of wind opened and closed. Raul inspected the tree, recalling its shaggy beauty, and fought the gale as he climbed between branches. Someone began to chop at a branch that had gouged the roof. Salvador tapped Raul's arm.
"I'll get men with a bucksaw," he said.
"Have them saw the trunk close to the roots ... about here," said Raul, indicating a bruise on the tree. "Cut it there and then it can be yanked away from the stable wall."
"I'll bring some oxen," said Salvador.
"Put a chain to a whippletree and drag it off."
"Some of the wall may crumble."
"Have the grain moved to a dry place. That should be done right away. You can saw the tree a second time, nearer the top; that'll free two sections." It seemed impossible, measuring the stabbing roots, wet and naked, that the tree could have toppled. "I'm going back inside, to be with Caterina. She's not doing well."
Salvador nodded sadly, the wind tearing his hair, his three hundred pounds impressive, soaked with rain.
"May God help her," he said.
Raul felt the kindness in Salvador's voice; he needed kindness and assurance. He was shaken by the storm, the quakes, and Caterina's condition. Gripping his hat brim, he entered the house through the kitchen. Inside, by the door, near the adobe oven, a boy of five or six sat at a low table, eating. He glanced shyly at Raul. Servants broke off talking. Raul pulled off his hat. A woman was cleaninggarbanzas, another was grinding coffee, and others were washing clothes. They bowed. The smell of coffee surprised Raul; it seemed so unrelated to his troubled world. He patted the boy's head, and asked:
"Will someone find me two men? I want Don Fernando carried upstairs."
His hand on the child's chair, he thought of other peasant children, many of them beautiful: how many died every year of diarrhea or dysentery on the hacienda, on every hacienda? He asked himself whose boy this boy might be. Such a calm face. A little embarrassed by his own emotions, he returned to Caterina's room. He told himself that no one escaped death, that death came even to God's house.
When Caterina had had her broth, Don Fernando was carried upstairs, an easy trick with Manuel at one side and Esteban, a young fellow, a Coliman, very tall, very thin, at the other. They brought him in a chair and set him beside Caterina's bed. The wind still lashed, and Fernando shivered under his blanket. The two sick ones grinned at each other. Fernando reached out, patted Caterina, then straightened and sank back in his chair. He frowned, cleared his throat and rumbled, imitating someone:
"Get up, pretty princess, I command you." He clapped his hands softly and at once hid his shaky arm. "I, the magician of El Rey del Mundo, bid you get well. Chia, chia ... hear the magic word." Laughter transformed his miserable face. "Come, little one, we'll go to the castle with the gold door."
Raul and the nun smiled, smiles of apprehension.
"My king, I shall obey," said Caterina, her eyes aglow, holding her hands out to him. "Oh, king let us visit the castle."
"At once," said the magician.
"At once," whispered the girl.
"When I was a boy," Fernando began, his voice full of tenderness, "I got sick. The same trouble as yours. Just as bad, and I was seven or eight. I remember it very well. Papa rode to Colima for a doctor, and bandits beat him up on the way home—his mozo ran away and left him, when he saw the bandits closing in. Remember that story?"
"Tell it again."
"The men beat him and stole his horse and he began to walk home, limping along, because he had been so bruised and hurt. It was a long, long way, maybe ten miles. Dark. Cloudy. Pretty soon he heard a horseman. He hid behind a cactus bush. It was the doctor, following him, going as fast as he could to Petaca. He was astonished to find Papa, walking, all bruised and hurt. He helped him and they got on the doctor's horse and rode home...."
Sometimes Caterina had thought about the bandits; sometimes she had wondered how badly hurt Great-Grandpa had been. She wanted to question her grandfather now, but her head throbbed.
Fernando studied her face, considered its pallor, the feebleness of the eyelids, the tremble in the lips. Her throat pulse fluttered.
"Raul and I will stay here with you," he said.
"Raul," Fernando said.
"What is it?" Raul replied.
"Bring me morphine."
"She wouldn't take her dosage."
"I'll give it to her."
"She wouldn't take the laudanum," Raul said.
"Bring the morphine," said Fernando.
Raul's shoes rubbed slickly on the tiled floor.
"A spoon..."
"Here's a spoon."
"Caterina—a little dose, for Grandpa?"
"Yes."
"Raul, lift her head."
"Take it, child.... You'll be all right."
"Yes ... Gran'pa."
The face trusted him. She swallowed the medicine and sank back on the pillows.
"Rest now and we'll go to the castle together and I'll tell you how I found a tiny statue of the Huastecas. You haven't heard that story.... We were riding horseback through a barranca in San Luis Potosi; men had been digging a ditch for irrigation...."
Most of his life he had lacked the power of affection, except with Caterina. He bowed his head; he could say no more; he felt beaten, dried, useless. Life would have been all right had he been able to reach outside himself. Carry me downstairs; put me to bed. The fool. The old, ugly fool. Tired. Carry me.
When Don Fernando was taken away, Angelina began her vigil, she and the nun. She heard workers sawing the eucalyptus, observed the moon's climb, felt the nip of the night air, dozed fitfully in her easy chair. Awake, she prayed for her girl, a faithless prayer, since she believed Caterina fatally ill; she had seen too many children pass away with fever and dysentery to have any illusions. Doll faces—looming through a bad dream—wept and pled for Caterina. Chapel music sounded ... there was no God, not really ... only wandering....
The nun stretched on a cot and snored, her responsibility forgotten. Toward dawn, the birds began, high-flying parrots and then the garden orioles. The caged birds in the patio answered, and a strange bird, in the grove behind the house, scraped tin note against tin note.
Vicente, sleepy eyed, yawning, padded in, barefooted. He stood silently by his sister's bedside. Until now, he had shunned her room unless she asked for him. Ever since Grandpa had been confined to his bed, Vicente had feared death, and, alarmed by Caterina's white face, her stillness, he had kept away. After a glance he stole downstairs, into the kitchen, hungry, cold, uneasy.
The chapel bell clanged its stiff bell for Mass and, after Mass, Gabriel went to sit beside Caterina. She brightened, finding him there, wiping his glasses, smiling.
"Were you here all night?"
"No, I just came in."
"I thought I saw you all night ... holding a candle ... for me."
"No, my angel, that was your mother who was with you."
"I don't remember her."
"You were sleeping."
"I want to get better."
"You are better. I can see you're better today," he lied.
"Has Doctor come?"
"He'll come shortly, with new medicines. Let me call Carmela. It's time for you to eat. Then I'll come back and read to you."
"I'm not hungry."
He hoped food might strengthen her; her anguish filled him with pity and love. Such a sweet child. The small face had darkness working from within—around the eyes, inside them; their own personal magic had dimmed. Her lips moved stiffly.
What was it his mother had said? When the sight darkens, the shadow of the cross is beckoning. He shook his head, sorely troubled. His fingers drummed on his knees. He wished Dr. Velasco could arrive, by some miracle, before nightfall.
Gabriel got up, determined to help. "Carmela, Carmela," he called from the window.
"Yes."
"Can you bring the child something to eat? I think she should have something."
"Right away, Padre. I'll heat something, some atole. I'll be right along."
Sitting on the foot of her bed, he began to talk to her:
"Delgado's cleaning the pool.... You should see the jacaranda blossoms scattered on the water, flowers and leaves too. Did you hear about the eucalyptus? It blew down, the giant one beside the corral. They had to saw it into sections and drag off the pieces with oxen...." He found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. Perplexed by the gravity of her illness, he tried to ransack his brain for some old remedy. Carmela came with a tray and he rose and said good morning to her.
By coaxing, they got Caterina to eat some thinatole; but then, in a little while, she vomited, and knotted under the covers, shivering with anguish.
By the time Dr. Velasco arrived, pounding in on a weary, sweaty horse, she had been dead several hours.
The doctor slapped his forehead and turned away, his black kit on the desk, the new medicines bulging in his coat pocket. Only the nun was there, in the darkened living room, to see his despair. For a long time they sat there together, saying little.
While the nun fussed with Caterina's hair, Raul sat in the easy chair and listened to Angelina sob, her sobbing padded by the thick stone walls of her room and heavy doors. Something in her had snapped: she said it was the end: she meant, he thought, that she would never see Caterina again: as for him, he felt he would find his child someday; and yet he asked the question: Where? Just now she would not hopscotch in the patio, squeeze his hand during Mass, fill his pipe, dash to meet him after a full day in the hacienda campo, giggle at supper. Sitting stiffly, watching Carmela arrange Caterina's hair, he tried to deny weariness. He felt as if he had ridden horseback for days. He prayed to St. Catherine, remembering how lovingly they had christened the child in her honor.
Suddenly his wife ceased sobbing; the nun left the room; a door closed; the ramrod of silence jabbed him. Death was silence. Sitting erect, he observed a cinch strap of blackbirds over the stable roof where the eucalyptus had crashed. Strange they flew silently. Blackbirds werehacendadobirds: he had often thought of them that way: they were the black plunderers. Rapacious, yet not so rapacious as the owl.
Without glancing at Caterina, he walked out, walked down the stairs blindly, asking himself whether he had attended to civilities, telegrams to be sent from the Colima office, a notice for the Colima paper, the casket, the grave prepared. His hand on the wrought-iron railing, he sensed his own mortality....
What was life for?
The burial was to take place before sunset.
During the afternoon, the chapel bell had tolled intermittently and alarmed pigeons had flown about. Even the livestock had become restless. Small boys, Caterina's friends, had yanked the bell rope, their ragged shirts and trousers flapping dismally.
Manuel and Salvador carried the casket out of the chapel, following a path through the grove. The flowers on the box caught at branches and twigs, falling, littering the route. Bougainvillaea, cup-of-gold, roses, lilies, jacaranda blossoms that had survived the wind, rain and hail. As the men put the casket down by the grave, a hummingbird dived and clicked at the flowers; the men stared sadly; the ebony rapier poked; the red-green-blue feathers throbbed; then a second and third hummingbird whisked the blossoms.
At the morning chapel service, the ceremony had been touching because Vicente had raced from the room, sobbing. Gabriel had not said the right words: his mind had turned back to Italy and his reminiscences of the death of a childhood friend had indicated more than he had intended of the transience of life, the beauty of childhood. Peasants had crowded the chapel: men in white, women with bluerebozosover pink and white blouses and skirts, half clad children.
Someone had heaped bougainvillaea over the altar and on top the mango-shaped glass dome that protected the jeweled virgin of Petaca. A wreath of pink and white carnations had leaned against the casket. Candles had burned on the altar and at the ends of the coffin. The virgin's jewels, her rubies and emeralds, gleamed.
Lucienne von Humboldt had come first. From her hacienda, Palma Sola, by the ocean, she had driven to Petaca in her blue and yellow victoria, scarred and bitten by sea air. The black she wore made her seem older than twenty-six, and accentuated her auburn hair and the Germanic character of her face. Her hazel eyes, glossy thick hair, and rose-colored skin impressed everyone.
Baroness Radziwill and her big family had arrived next, a wreath of evergreen on the carriage top. She had placed a gold plated candleholder for Caterina and lit it herself. A beautiful woman in her sixties, with gray hair and black eyes, she had a motherly manner with everybody.
Count de Selva had come with his fat wife and three sons. As workers gathered in the forecourt, afoot and horseback, the Count had remained in his carriage. His servant had cleaned off the mud-spattered coat of arms on the doors and had polished the blue running boards and fenders. An obese, asthmatic man, de Selva preferred to wait until the chapel ceremony began before showing himself; he had come only out of respect for the Medina family, scarcely remembering Caterina.
Lucienne removed a ring from her handbag and buried it among the flowers on top of the casket, Manuel and Salvador waiting in the shade of a palm tree. She nodded to them and said:
"I put it in there. She wanted to ... I had promised it to her." She did not care whether they understood her.
She wondered if anyone realized the courage it had taken to come here. Was Angelina defiant? Was she terribly bitter? Her face, so forlorn, had filled her with compassion. She should never have come to Petaca ... her city friends meant so much to her.
Neither man spoke; it was not for them to comment. Manuel admired Lucienne for her love of Raul and her affection for Caterina, and he appreciated the hundreds of kindnesses she had shown him through the years. They had been friends since her girlhood. Her beauty filled him with pleasure. Noticing her black dress, he recalled her recent return from Europe, the hatboxes, suitcases full of gowns and high-heeled shoes ... things she had forgotten for her garden. Anyone who appreciated plants and flowers as much as she appreciated them had a place in his heart.
Raul found Lucienne by Caterina's grave, and her black clothes startled him. They shook hands, their eyes lowered; he could not bring himself to look at her; he had merely glimpsed her at the chapel service.
"I'm sorry you lost her, Raul," she said.
"A lovely girl," he said, as if he had memorized the words.
"Such a dear child. I loved her."
"She wants you to have Mona," he said.
"Mona, her little dog?" she asked, hoping that a few words, any words, might lessen his strain. Such a sad, dark face.
Palm fronds laddered the space behind her.
"You taught her to collect plants and butterflies."
"Did I?"
"Now God has taken her...."
"I wish I thought so, Raul."
"Don't say that," he objected.
"You know how I feel, you know what I believe. I can't lie, even at this time." The gentleness of her speech took away its offense. "I wish I could believe in immortality. It would be my comfort too, you know. I need that comfort."
Raul fingered his pipe in his pocket. It was not often he resented Lucienne's Teutonic independence, her foreignness, her atheism. Glancing beyond her, he felt the sorrow of his friend Manuel, expressed in his face, stooped shoulders, and bowed head. He looked at the raw burial place, the palms with their tattered greens and browns, fronds over the headstones and markers in this family plot. A mound of vines hid his grandfather's stone, and the same vines in exuberance scrambled toward the newly upturned earth that would cover Caterina. Raul determined to have the cemetery cleaned and properly tended: by the end of the week the graves should be cleared and reornamented with shells.
Men were approaching, carrying Don Fernando, who had refused to attend chapel service but who had demanded to be brought to the grave. The men stumbled over roots; Fernando cried out; lizards fled under vines; birds soared away.
The Radziwills and de Selvas walked together and Father Gabriel and Angelina followed; then the peasants, like white ants, sifted through the grove. Vicente, ashamed of himself, had hidden in the stable.
They were a courageous-looking lot. The sunburnedhacendadoshad the bodies of people who live outdoors, for even the asthmatic Count had been a stockman. The powdered women stood out among the peasants who needed only a feather or two to put them back a thousand years. Fine faces, buck faces, pretty girls, hags with tortilla cheeks, all gazed with sympathy at the grave of the child.
A bright cloud hung over the group, its shadow twisting toward the slope of the volcano. Shadows flecked the grove, the bent heads, the casket and its wilting flowers; other shadows fled across fields where oxen grazed. Gabriel said a few words and prayed and Angelina wept, clinging to Raul's arm, hating his black, hating Lucienne. She longed to return to her room and hide her grief, to be away from Lucienne's auburn hair, her placid face. Had she never known tragedy? Why had she come? Not out of respect! No, no ... to see Raul, to bribe him away, to laugh at her sorrow ... let me go, Raul. I'll go back alone!
Slowly, everyone began to leave the grove.
Raul thought himself the only one left, and then he saw his father in his chair among the trees. A great iguana peered at him from a palm immediately behind: its iridescent greenish head and dark eyes faced the ground, the tongue licked out. Click, click, ssh, ssh, said the blackbirds.
"Shall I call the men to carry you?" asked Raul.
"No," growled Fernando. "I told them to leave me here."
A flock of parrots fanned through the wood, loros, with red on their shoulders, yellow daubs on their beaks.
"My wife's gravestone is the parrots' roosting place," said Fernando. "She gave up her fight too soon. They'll not dump their excrement on my grave any sooner than I can help it."
Raul kicked at a scrap of palm and admired his courage.
"Death is for fools," the old man spluttered.
"Then we're all due to be fools," Raul said.
"Light a cigarette for me."
Raul's wax taper flared and dropped among the fronds and and grass.
"Caterina was no fool," Fernando retracted. "But you shouldn't have buried her in her scarlet dress."
"What would you have liked?"
"That doesn't matter."
"Your men have come to carry you."
"Let them wait. I came to sit and think. I'm old enough to sit and think. Over there is Pepe. He called himself 'The Tiger.' Under that crooked palm is Mama; I was glad to see her go because she never had a well day. There's Papa—the man I murdered. He'll be glad to see me go." The old man's voice was blown by the wind. "I counted them one day last year ... quite a lot of them buried there. The jungle has us under its vines and lianas and rot...."
"I'll have this place cleaned next week."
Fernando guffawed.
"You'll have it cleaned. What for? Can you keep back the jungle? Are you thinking of Caterina? The jungle has her already. This palmera stretches all the way to the Pacific. You can't stop it, boy.... Neither can you change the hacienda."
"I can try."
"I'll stop you whenever I can. I've decided to have a special chair constructed. In my chair I can look after the hacienda."
"No, Father. Your day is past. It's my job!"
Fernando spat. "You and your radical ways. God, you can't run this place!"
"Why not?"
"Everyone will laugh at you."
In the tree behind Fernando, the iguana decided to climb higher, its head waggling, tongue forking.
"That's the least of my worries. I'm thinking about the people and their chance to live as men ought to live."
"They're not men," said Fernando, coughing over his cigarette.
"They've been called animals, many things. I think they're men."
"You'll ruin Petaca ... I could summon a lawyer and preserve my control. I suppose you could declare me physically or mentally incompetent. It would be touch and go, maybe one bribe against another. I'm not that kind of fool. We'd lose Petaca. I'm not that far gone."
"The courts are no place for us," said Raul, knowing how easy it would be to expose the Medina crime; he began to walk away, thinking of Caterina, disliking the conversation, the grizzled face of his father.
"I hadn't finished speaking," said Fernando.
"I don't want to listen."
"I've talked to Pedro."
"I told him he had to go."
"He'll stay," the old man croaked.
"Let's keep sane," said Raul, curbing his emotions, shutting down on his voice. "You must accept my way; hostility will finish Petaca. We have to settle things between us. It's time I had the administration. You've had your day. There never has been any mutual planning, so now I have to work out the problems alone."
"I tell you, you'll ruin Petaca!" Fernando exclaimed; his cigarette had died out, but he still held the stub between his fingers.
Parrots jabbered and a few of them roosted in the iguana tree.
"Get me out of here, before the parrots use me for a headstone!"
"I wish we could work together."
"That's sentiment—not sense. I've never wanted to work with you or anyone. In Europe, you picked up ideas. Hell, I know what men are. I know what life is!" He shouted for the men who had been lugging him; his voice broke and became that of an old woman. "Get me out of here," he quavered.
Raul followed a palmera path that wandered toward the ocean. He thought: I won't forget that place with the old man's talk squirming among the graves. Tomorrow I'll go back and see whether her grave has been taken care of ... maybe I'd better go back later tonight....
From a hill, the hacienda resembled a small fort, disguised among garden and trees. The volcano blocked the horizon, dragging an ugly purple scar above the green valley and dark green lagoon. Where banana trees fanned into a screen, Raul sat down, overcome with grief. The banana leaves, shaking in the wind, chopped his thoughts to fragments: he saw the open grave, Caterina in her red dress, the chapel, and Vicente running away, Angelina crying: it would have been better to have put Caterina in a buggy and taken her to Colima, as sick as she was. How stupid to have become dependent on Velasco and Hernández.
What is wrong with people? he thought. He felt more and more confused. The shaking leaves irritated him; he felt shut in, dominated by the grove. Shortly, he rose and walked through the palmera, to find the spade sticking where the workmen had left it. It was dusk now and fireflies blinked yellow and green. One of the bugs flickered about him, as he began to shovel the dirt onto her coffin. Stars were brilliant ... fronds motionless now. The spade rasped. The box sounded hollow. Raul brushed away sweat. The smell of the fresh earth choked him and he leaned on the handle, remembering that she had dashed after fireflies, shouting, bottling them, sharing them with Vicente.
Salvador found Raul leaning on the spade and, without a word, took it and went on filling the grave.
"Let me have a cigarette paper, Don Raul," he said, as Raul started off.
"Of course," said Raul, and gave him paper and tobacco.
As Raul passed the corral, Chico neighed. Head over brick wall, he called and Raul thought of a night ride and then dismissed the idea. While he stroked the horse's head, Manuel joined him and they lit cigarettes: as the match flared, they studied one another, read one another's minds, a communication without words.
Raul inhaled deeply, and said:
"I know a sculptor in Guadalajara and I'll have him make a bronze figure for Caterina's grave. The next time I go to Guadalajara, I'll visit his studio. I want the figure of a young girl carrying flowers. Our family burial plot is as cheap and ugly as the fields. It doesn't have to be."
"Caterina deserves something good," Manuel said.
Raul patted Chico's nose and distended lip, and the horse bobbed his head, snuffling.
"I must go and be with Angelina now," Raul said. "I don't know where she is: is she in her room?"
"Father Gabriel's with her. In the living room."
"I'm glad of that. I'll join them."
He felt tempted to mention the owl's cry in the night: no, that would be unwise: peering at the sky, he imagined broad, dark wings headed for the lagoon: the bird would glide low, searching for a frog in the sedges, a snake, a toad ... a child.
Lying in the palmera, Raul wiped his handkerchief over his face. The August heat sopped matted fronds of trees, trickled down lianas, webbed ladders of foliage. A cooked iguana revolved on the bamboo spit in front of Raul. Manuel, squatting on his heels, turned the iguana over a tiny fire. Raul sat up and removed his revolver from its holster and began reloading, cursing the border fracas that had taken them so far from Petaca. As he shoved in a greasy bullet, the earth commenced to rock, trees shook, lianas bent.
The men gaped at one another. A growl drummed underneath them, drummed at the palmera, rattled rocks and seemed, somehow, part of both earth and sky. Raul felt the sand give underneath him and sprang up, revolver in hand. The palm next to him, a tree many years old, leaned over, and then the growl passed farther away and disappeared.
"That was a bad one," Manuel said.
"The volcano," said Raul.
Another shock reached them as they ate their iguana: the sand heaved, palms waved like flags; numbness hung in the air; the sun died out; birds cried as though in pain. A full-growntigrerushed past Manuel, crazed with fear. His plunge sent up a flock of birds that cackled insanely.
"Let's get where we can see the volcano," said Raul, stuffing his mouth.
"Listen," said Manuel.
A volcanic explosion sounded like air passing through a bamboo tube.
"I'll see about the horses," cried Manuel.
They were yanking at their ropes as Manuel raced toward them, whacking foliage aside, hoping he could get to them before they broke away. He tied them to a ceiba, where they had some sort of forage.
Another explosion told Raul the volcano had let loose; he planned to push through the palmera to the closest hill and take stock of the eruption. With his hunting knife, he sliced more iguana and, putting on his hat, lunged after Manuel. Rolling their eyes and snuffing, the horses dragged at their reins and kicked. Raul grabbed Chico, and handed Manuel a chunk of meat.
"We can eat as we ride," he said. "Let's make for the nearest hill. Maybe we can see what's happened."
As Raul mounted, yellow cup-shaped primavera flowers spattered his saddle, hat, and shoulders. The tree, loaded with blossoms, had been a landmark for the last few miles. Manuel swung onto his horse, took a mouthful of iguana, checked his rifle in its scabbard, and nodded to Raul.
Here no trail cut through and both horse and rider had to worm ahead, a slow, painful ride, Chico rebelling, fighting back at fronds and lianas. Parrots sputtered and he snuffed and threw his head. When he tried to plunge through bamboo, Manuel dismounted and swung his machete.
"We'll have to do it slow. You take my horse, Raul."
A great hive of maggots, a brown clot, in the arms of a red birch, broke as Manuel swung the knife. Sweat dripped from his face and arms. He stopped to peel off his shirt and knot it around his waist. His Negroid features, streaked with dust and pocked with leaf fragments, had whitened. He worked with big long sweeps of the machete, realizing haste was futile. His eyes became slits, and he called back at Raul:
"There ought to be a place to break through soon ... soon now."
"You ride, Manuel. I'll cut."
"No ... you ride," said Manuel, wheezing as he chopped.
"I wonder what happened at Petaca?" Raul said.
"Plenty."
Raul left his saddle and slashed with the bone-handled knife and a load of ants sprayed over him. He backed away, shouting:
"Next time, I'll look, and then cut."
Before long, they reached a hill strewn with wreckage from a forest fire: old palm logs humped the sand and rocks; the horses walked across fronds so burned and fragile their ashes rose in spurts. From the crest they saw the volcano.
A black horse's tail, some twenty thousand feet long, arched above the peak. The smoke seemed too enormous to be moved by any wind. Lower, behind other mountain ranges, ranges that flanked the cone, black teeth of rain gaped, ready to bite into the earth.
Neither Raul nor Manuel spoke. Faces streaked, their white clothes filthy, they merely looked, steadying their horses. A chain of yellow traveled through the volcanic smoke and then the flame became red and gradually bloomed into more smoke.
"I've never seen so much smoke," Raul said.
"Lava must be pouring down," Manuel said, recalling his mother's sobbing, when he was a boy; the peak had threatened them then and the ground had trembled drunkenly. Some said she had been all right till that day. Some said a man had quarreled with her, beaten her, and hurled her into a corner of their hut. Manuel reached into his pocket for a shred of iguana and chewed it and said:
"What do you think ... Do you think it will get worse?"
"I don't think so. The cone is blown open now." Raul sat erect, his face set. "We have a long way to go and I'm worried about Petaca."
They soon found a trail and trotted their horses, horses and men swaying to avoid lianas and thorned branches. Manuel had his machete in its case. He slouched over the pommel and munched iguana, as if it were chewing gum. Thirsty, he wanted to drink from their gourd but something kept him from taking a sip.
Early that morning, men had fired on them as they searched for Farias, missing along the del Valle boundary. While completing his check of the upper corn crops in Sector 11, he had been taken prisoner, he and his son, Luis.
For Raul and Manuel, it had been a dismal and useless search; the hacienda people had said they knew nothing about Farias and Luis and yet someone had tipped off Raul, telling him Luis had escaped and gone back to Petaca.
Again they rode through cactus country, sandy but free of boulders, the cactus tall and strong, with lianas and vines swinging from the top of one to the top of another, a desolate camouflage, suggesting primordial days.
Sky had darkened appreciably and explosions indicated further eruptions, yet no quakes rumbled or shook the ground. When the riders topped a ridge, long-tailed, blue flycatchers winged from cactus to cactus, and parrots clattered in a forgotten language. An iguana slept on a log ... all seemed normal here.