happened. When he saw me with my uncle he stopped and motioned.
“Pedro, may I see you a minute!” he called excitedly.
“What is it, brother Juan?” my uncle Pedro asked.
“Trouble!” my uncle Juan whispered hoarsely, but his voice carried and I could hear, “trouble in town! Tenorio’s daughter, the one who has been sick and wasting away, death has come for her!”
“But when?” my uncle asked, and he turned and looked at me.
“I guess it happened just after we came to the fields. I heard it just now from Esquivel. I met him on the bridge. He says the town is in an uproar—”
“How? Why?” my uncle Pedro asked.
“Tenorio has taken the body into town, and like the madman that he is, he has stretched out the corpse on the bar of his saloon!”
“No!” my uncle gasped, “the man is insane!”
“Well, that is a truth that does not concern us,” my uncle Juan agreed, “but what does concern me is that the man has been drinking all day and howling out his vengeance on la curandera, Ultima.”
When I heard that the hair on my back bristled. I had seen the devil Tenorio murder Narciso, and now there was no telling what he might do to avenge his daughter’s death. I had not thought of Tenorio all summer even though the man lived on the black mesa down the river and had his saloon in town, but now he was here again, plotting to bring another tragedy into my life. I felt my heart pounding even though I had not moved from where I stood.
My uncle Pedro stood looking down at the ground for a long time. Finally he said, “Ultima helped restore our brother’s life—once before she needed help and we stood by idly. This time I must act—”
“But papá will not like—”
“—The interference,” my uncle Pedro finished. Again he turned and looked at me. “We indebted ourselves to her when she saved our brother, a debt I will gladly pay.”
“What will you do?” my uncle Juan asked. His voice was tense. He was not committed to act, but he would not interfere.
“I will take the boy, we will drive back to Guadalupe tonight—hey, Antonio!” he called and I went to them. He smiled down at me. “Listen, something has come up. Not a big emergency, but we must act to help a friend. We will drive to Guadalupe immediately after supper. In the meantime, there are only a few hours of work left in this day, so go to your grandfather’s house and pack your clothes. If anyone asks why you are back early, tell them you got time off for being such a good worker, eh?” He smiled.
I nodded. The fact that my uncle would go to Guadalupe tonight to tell of what had happened with Tenorio lessened my anxiety. I knew that my uncle treated the matter lightly so as not to alarm me, and besides, if Tenorio was drinking it would take a long time before he gathered enough courage to act. By that time my uncle and I would be in Guadalupe, and Ultima would be safe with my uncle and my father there. Also, I doubted that Tenorio would go to our house in Guadalupe. He knew if he trespassed once again on our land my father would kill him.
“Very well, tío,” I said. I handed him the hoe I had been using on the weeds.
“Hey! You know the way?” he called as I jumped over the acequia.
“Sure,” I replied. He was still making light of the matter so as not to arouse my suspicions.
“Go straight to your grandfather’s house—take a rest. We will be in as soon as this field is done and the tools collected!”
“¡Adiós!” I called and turned up the road. Once the road left the flat river bottom it got very sandy. Lush, green mesquite bordered the road and shut off most of the horizon. But in the west I could see the summer sun was already low, hovering in its own blinding light before it wedded night. I walked carelessly up the road, unaware of what the coming darkness would reveal to me. The fact that I would be back home in a few hours excited me, and it put me so much at ease that I did not think about what Tenorio might do. As I walked I gathered ripe mesquite pods and chewed them for the sweet juice.
Half a mile from my uncles’ fields the narrow wagon road