Part 4

"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.

5

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?"

The _Grillo_ was 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 cleaning _garbanzas_, 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."