near her, but that was impossible. The war had taken my brothers away, and so the school would take me away.
“Ready, mamá,” Deborah called. She said that in school the teachers let them speak only in English. I wondered how I would be able to speak to the teachers.
“¡Gabriel!” my mother called.
“Sí, Sí,” my father groaned. I wondered how heavy last night’s sin lay on his soul.
My mother took one last cursory glance at her brood then led the way up the goat path; we called the path from our home to the bridge the goat path because when we ran to meet our father after his day’s work he said we looked like goats, cabroncitos, or cabritos. We must have made a strange procession, my mother leading the group with her swift, proud walk, Deborah and Theresa skipping around her, my father muttering and dragging behind, and finally Ultima and myself.
“Es una mujer que no ha pecado…” some would whisper of Ultima.
“La curandera,” they would exchange nervous glances.
“Hechicera, bruja,” I heard once.
“Why are you so thoughtful, Antonio?” Ultima asked. Usually I was picking up stones to have ready for stray rabbits that crossed our path, but today my thoughts kept my soul in a shroud.
“I was thinking of Lupito,” I said. “My father was on the bridge,” I added.
“That is so,” she said simply.
“But, Ultima, how can he go to communion? How can he take God in his mouth and swallow him? Will God forgive his sin and be with him?” For a long time Ultima did not answer.
“A man of the llano,” she said, “will not take the life of a llanero unless there is just cause. And I do not think your father fired at Lupito last night. And more important, mi hijo, you must never judge who God forgives and who He doesn’t—”
We walked together and I thought about what she had said. I knew she was right. “Ultima,” I asked, “what was it you gave me to make me sleep last night? And did you carry me to my room?”
She laughed. “I am beginning to understand why your mother calls you the inquisitor,” she said.
“But I want to know, there are so many things I want to know,” I insisted.
“A curandera cannot give away her secrets,” she said, “but if a person really wants to know, then he will listen and see and be patient. Knowledge comes slowly—”
I walked along, thinking about what she had said. When we came to the bridge my mother hurried the girls across, but my father paused to look over the railing. I looked too. What happened down there was like a dream, so far away. The brown waters of the River of the Carp wound their way southward to the orchards of my uncles.
We crossed the bridge and turned right. The dirt road followed the high cliff of the river on this side. It wound into the cluster of houses around the church then kept going, following the river to El Puerto. To our left began the houses and buildings of the town. All seemed to turn towards the Main Street of town, except one. This house, a large, rambling gray stucco with a picket fence surrounding the weedy grounds, stood away from the street, perched on a ledge that dropped fifty feet down into the river below.
A long time ago the house had belonged to a very respectable family, but they had moved into town after the waters of the river began to cut into the cliff below them. Now the house belonged to a woman named Rosie. I knew that Rosie was evil, not evil like a witch, but evil in other ways. Once the priest had preached in Spanish against the women who lived in Rosie’s house and so I knew that her place was bad. Also, my mother admonished us to bow our heads when we passed in front of the house.
The bell of the church began to ring, una mujer con un diente, que llama a toda la gente. The bell called the people to six o’clock mass.
But no. Today it was not just telling us that in five minutes mass would begin, today it was crying the knell of Lupito.
“¡Ay!” I heard my mother cry and saw her cross her forehead.
La campana de la iglesia está doblando…
The church bell tolled and drew to it the widows in black, the lonely, faithful women who came to pray for their men.
Arrímense vivos y difuntos
Aquí estamos