The Hummingbird's Daughter (56 page)

Teresita turned and stared.

“All of them. Every moment of your life, every instant, looks like this. Do you see? You are always in a universe of choices. Any moment of your life can go in any direction you choose.”

“How?”

“Learn to choose.”

“How?”

“Learn to see. This is your life, what it looks like to God. Every second of every day.”

Teresita stood in the water and put her hands out to the globes.

“Most of us,” Huila said, “trudge in a straight line. All day every day, we march like sheep. Look straight ahead. What do you see?”

She stared into the globe in front of her.

“My own face.”

“We spend our lives walking into our own mirrors. All we see is ourselves as we walk down the road.”

Huila spread her arms.

“Look to the side.”

Teresita turned her head, and looked in the window of the train. Tomás was still asleep. Huila was gone.

“Huila!” she cried. “Where are you?”

“Beside you,” Huila’s voice said. “Where I have always been.”

“Don’t go!”

“I must.”

“Huila!”

“Look ahead.”

Teresita turned.

She saw a Yaqui fighter crouched behind a bush. He was holding a rifle. He was looking at the train.

“Wake up!” Huila said.

Teresita sat up. The train rocked. The rails clacked below her as the wheels passed over them. Her father was snoring. She looked around her, but there was no one else in the car.

“I have ruined us,” she said, awakening her father.

“True,” said Tomás. “It would have been better for business if you had not met God.”

“Forgive me.”

He offered her one of the People’s sayings: “No bad can befall us that does not bring us some good.”

“Do you believe it?” she asked.

“Why not!”

He reached over and patted her knee.

“Look at us now,” he said. “This nice train trip!”

Teresita said, “The lieutenant says the Indians will attack at sunset.”

“Yes. So he does.”

“He says we will enter a canyon then.”

“Ambush Canyon,” said Tomás. “Picturesque name!”

“We will slow down,” she said.

“And they will attack. Yes, yes. Everybody dead. Except you.”

They brought lunch in pots. Beans, potatoes. Tortillas, coffee.

After Teresita finished her lunch, she looked up to see Lieutenant Enríquez watching her through the door. He signaled her for permission to enter. She nodded.

“Now what,” said Tomás.

Enríquez came forward.

“We have a sick child,” he said. He seemed embarrassed.

“Oh?” she said.

“Not again!” said Tomás.

Enríquez ducked his head.

“It is the child of one of my men. He ate bad sausage, apparently. Quite ill. His mother thinks he might not survive the night.” Enríquez raised his hands. “I do not know what to do. They asked for you.”

“Bring him,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Bring him.”

Enríquez went to the back of the car and stepped out. They could hear him shouting to the soldiers on the flatcar.

“Father?” she said as they waited. “Did you enjoy any of it?”

“Oh, of course.”

“What was your favorite part?”

He thought back.

“The plum tree,” he said.

Enríquez came forward with a woman and a soldier. She carried a small bundle in her arms. They could smell the vomit and the shit.

The woman fell to her knees.

“Bless us, Teresita,” she said.

Teresita put her hand on the woman’s head.

“Give me the child,” she said.

The woman handed her the baby.

“He is green,” the mother said. “Will he die?”

Enríquez and Tomás crowded in. “Watch this,” Tomás said, suddenly surprised by pride in Teresita’s miracles.

Teresa opened the wrap and looked into the child’s contorted face. He grunted and fussed. He waved his little fists.

“He is very ill, mother,” Teresita said.

She placed her hand on his brow. She reached into his little shirt and put her hand on his belly. He cried. She passed her hand over him. She prayed. She held him close to her and whispered. He grew still. She looked at him and smiled. “He is asleep,” she said. “Give him cool tea. Té de canela, if you have it.”

The woman cried.

She grabbed Teresita’s hands and kissed them.

“Viva la Santa de Cabora,” the soldier said.

“That,” said Enríquez, “is all we need!”

The warriors were hidden along the entire length of the Cañón de la Emboscada. Martínez and his men had been able to collect more than a hundred fighters. People and Mexicans alike hid themselves behind boulders and creosotes. Riflemen hid on either side of the tracks. There were snipers in the mesquites. At the end of the valley, riders sat on fast horses, ready to rush the crippled train after the first volleys, to attack fast and pick off any soldiers not already dead.

“Kill no man,” Teresita said.

“You are insane,” Enríquez replied, “if you think I will allow the savages to slaughter the people on this train.”

“They will not.”

“They will.”

“They will hold their fire.”

Enríquez laughed.

“Miss,” he said, “I have fought Indians my whole life. They will not hold their fire. They will not show mercy. They will spare no one.”

“And I,” she replied, “have been an Indian all my life. I tell you they will not fire.”

He smacked his fist against the wall.

“Miss! You put me in an impossible situation! Must I remind you,” Enríquez said, “that my own family is in the back of this train? Would you endanger my children?”

“I will save you and your children,” she said.

“Miss!”

“That’s it!” Tomás proclaimed. “I have reached my personal limit!”

“I will make the warriors hold their fire.”

“I thought pride was a sin,” Enríquez snapped.

“Not pride,” she said. “Put me outside, on the flatcar. They will hold their fire.”

He shook his head.

“You want to die!”

“I have died before. I will die again. I am offering to spare you and your men. Put me out there!”

Tomás had found a bottle somewhere, and he was working hard at draining it.

Enríquez said: “Who do you think you are? You don’t give orders here. I do.”

“I know who I am,” Teresita said. “I know what I am.”

Her eyes made him look away. He felt slightly dizzy, as if Tomás had given him a drink. He did not know what to say to this filthy girl. He did not know how to look in her face.

Enríquez flexed his hands. He smoothed his whiskers. He pointed at her.

“Look,” he said. “I will give you one chance. I will put you out on the flatcar, if you so wish to be martyred. But the first shot from any savage’s gun will lead to a storm. Do you understand? We will decimate them all. No quarter.”

“They will not fire.”

“One bullet.”

“Agreed. One bullet.”

Enríquez shook his head.

“Give me a drink,” he told Tomás.

Martínez had passed the word down the line. Let the train enter the valley. It will slow as it climbs. Once the train is fully enclosed in the walls of Ambush Canyon, open fire from either side. Shoot at the soldiers first, then through the windows. Do not hit Teresita in the first car.

“Slow the train,” she ordered.

“Estás loca,” Enríquez replied.

“Do it. Slow the train before we get to the canyon.”

“Why?”

“So they can see me.”

“I must be as mad as you.”

“When we reach the mouth of the canyon,” she said, “you must order them to stop.”

“What!”

“The warriors,” she said. “They want us in the canyon.”

Tomás reeled out the door, said, “Are we dead yet?” and slammed back into the car.

“Father is drunk,” she noted.

“Who could blame him?”

Enríquez sent word ahead to the engineer. The train slowed. The brakes squealed loudly as the smokestack billowed great clouds.

“Here it comes,” the forward lookout shouted. A fighter nearby briefly rose and waved his arm over his head. They all took aim.