Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
Salvador’s left eyebrow went up. “I’ll be damn,” he said. “Very good. Maybe you’re right. Hell, my father didn’t know how to think, either.”
“Most people don’t, Salvador. Not all people had a mother like yours.”
Salvador’s eyebrow arched up once again. “I’ll be damn,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. But no more talking, this is it, Epitacio. You get in the driver’s seat of the car and drive around to the front of the house, park, get out, and go to the front door. If everything is okay, you’ll see me inside of the house, already.”
“But how will you know to go inside or not?” asked Epitacio.
“Why, I’ll do what my sister did,” said Salvador, smiling. “I’ll throw a big rock in the window, and if there’s no shooting, we’re home free! Damn, I owe Luisa one for teaching me this.”
“That’s it!” yelled Epitacio, excitedly. “That’s it, Salvador!”
“That’s it, what?” asked Salvador.
“That you think!”
“That I think?”
“Yes,” he said excitedly. “Don’t you see it? Luisa threw a rock at your car and broke your window and even from this you think about it, and learn! And most people wouldn’t. No, they’d still just be so mad at their sister for ruining their car, that they couldn’t think about it any other way. See, you and Luisa have learned how to do this from your mother, how to see things so differently than other people see.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Salvador. “I think you’re right. I think, you’re really right.”
“And this, you and Luisa learned to do since kids, to think, to see all of life so clearly from so many different angles. And most people don’t know how to do this, especially not big, strong men who always try to get their way by force.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Salvador again. “I think you maybe really got something. Because my mother always said to us that the great cunning of the She-Fox came to her—not because she was so smart—but because she was so small. That the coyote was so big and strong that he never had to learn how to be cunning. Oh, you are one smart cabrón, Epitacio!”
The short little man got all embarrassed. “I was never brave, Salvador, and so I’ve had to figure out other ways to live, too.”
“I see, and you really love Luisa, don’t you?”
He turned red faced again, and nodded.
“Fat and round and warm, eh?”
“And smart, too,” added Epitacio. “She knows my weaknesses, but she doesn’t hate me for them. She forgives me my other women.”
“Then, about this other woman,” said Salvador. “Luisa knows?”
Epitacio breathed. “Luisa knows everything! She’s a bruja, a witch, you know, just like your mother. And believe me, I don’t mean this in an offensive way, but well, this is what we men call women who are so capable.”
Salvador nodded. “I guess you’re right. Okay, no more of this. Let’s get back to business, and do it, a lo chingon!”
And so Salvador checked both of his weapons, put them under his belt, then calmly lit another cigar.
Epitacio got in on the driver’s side, started the motor and drove the Moon around the field to the front.
Smoking with his cigar in mouth, Salvador now began walking directly up to the house in a steady, well-measured stride, watching for movement at the windows very carefully.
Once he was close, he quickly tossed his cigar, picked up a rock, and threw it through the closest window as he rushed up on the side of the house, getting in so close that now no one from inside could open fire on him.
Heart pounding, he held. He breathed. He could hear no shots or cops inside, so he then nodded to Epitacio, who was out in front. Salvador went crashing in the back door as Epitacio came in the front door. To their shock, there was a family of raccoons scrambling out a hole in the cupboards of the kitchen.
Salvador burst out laughing and laughing. “These raccoons, they were the eyes that you saw staring at you!”
“Oh, no, Salvador, they were great, big, huge eyes!”
“Sure, great big, grandisimos! Come on, let’s load everything up and get the hell out of here! I’m married, I’m not taking any more chances!”
It was almost midnight by the time they got back to Corona. It had taken five trips in the Moon to get everything out of the house and into the hills. And not one barrel of whiskey had been stolen. Everything was there, except for all the groceries that Epitacio had bought, which the raccoons had, of course, devoured.
Getting to Corona, Salvador stopped by the stone church before going home.
“Oh, you’re going to give thanks to Our Lady,” said Epitacio.
“No, not exactly,” said Salvador. “I’m going to give a case of this whiskey to the priest, and ask him for a little favor.”
10
LOVE was in the Air! Amor was Everywhere! The Wilds of Life, la Vida, were now leaping with the FIRES of HELL and HEAVEN Here Upon MOTHER EARTH!
THEN YOU LIED TO ME, Salvador!” shouted Lupe. “Oh, my God! And I asked you if you were a bootlegger, I asked you, Salvador! And you lied to me! YOU LIED!”
“Yes, I did,” said Salvador quietly, “you’re right, I lied.”
“Oh, Salvador, I feel like you drove a sword into my heart, I feel so much pain inside of me!” she said, with tears streaming down her face.
They were parked in a grove of oak trees just south of Temecula, about halfway between Corona and Carlsbad.
“Everyone knew, Salvador,” continued Lupe, “but I refused to believe them, because I trusted in you. Tell me, how can I ever trust you again? Oh, if I wasn’t pregnant, I’d leave you!”
And saying this, she stared at him eye to eye. “And, also, how dare you compare what you do to my mother having a drink now and then. What you do is dirty! All of my life my mother explained to us girls that liquor and cards ruined more homes than even war! I’d thought we were special, Salvador. I’d thought that people could look up to us in the barrio and we could—oh, I feel so dirty, so, so—my God! My God! Tell me, Salvador, at least you’re not a gambler, right?”
Salvador breathed and he breathed again. He could hear a little creek running down through the rocks beyond the oak trees. These were huge oaks with big, thick roots going down to underground waters of the streambed. These trees had seen a lot of life; a lot of floods and a lot of droughts. Their roots were exposed where the soil had eroded.
“Lupe,” said Salvador, “gambling is my main profession.”
Her eyes went huge! She tried to speak, but nothing would come out of her mouth. No, all she could now do was just sit in the Moon, staring at this man, this person whom she’d married, but didn’t know!
Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the feeling that he’d ever put his hands on her, or that she’d ever allowed his “thing” to come into her body.
She began to hiccup, and when he reached out to help her, she lunged at his hand, biting him with such power that she thought she’d torn off his fingers. Then she was out of the car, and running as he screamed in pain!
The whole world was whirling, turning, tossing!
The oak trees were swaying, dancing as she made her way through them, trying to run, but unable to get her legs under herself.
Oh, how she hated that she was pregnant!
She should have married Mark! Her sister Carlota had been right! Salvador was a no-good liar!
She could feel herself going crazy-loca as she continued running further and further into the oak and brush. Then the underbrush got so thick, that she had to get down on her hands and knees to crawl.
She stopped. She was pouring with sweat, and she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she’d been stabbed in her chest. She began gasping for air. She felt she was dying.
Then she thought she heard something. She held her breath so she could hear better, and yes, she could hear a waterfall. It sounded like the wonderful waterfalls they’d had back home in their box canyon of la Lluvia de Oro.
“No!” she screamed!
She got up off her hands and knees and took off as fast as she could, running through the brush crouched over, then leaping out and running in the open places just as she’d done back home when she’d been a girl and she’d gone racing up and down las barrancas with her pet deer.
And she was fast! And it felt so good to be free again, running in the wild!
Why, only the Tarahumara Indians back home, the greatest runners in all the world, had been faster and more capable than her! Salvador could never catch her! No man would ever catch her again! She was her mother’s daughter, after all, a long-legged Yaqui and she hated Salvador!
She hated that she’d ever loved him!
Salvador was leaping through the brush, trying to head her off. But he wasn’t watching where he was going and he went running off the embankment of the oaks and brush. The loco fool hadn’t stopped to listen for the waterfall. Out, out, out off the cliff-like arroyo with the stream way down below, he went screaming, “LOOOOOO-PEEE!”
Lupe ran out of the trees and brush to a large clearing at the edge of the steep, narrow wash and there was Salvador, still rolling and falling, and the little waterfall was about a hundred feet beyond him. “Loooooo-Peee!” he still screamed!
She could see that he was going to end up rolling into some cactus plants. She began to laugh, loving it as he hit the cactus, SCREECHING in bloody murder!
“Serves you right,” she said. “Maybe you’ll kill yourself! Good riddance!” But then she remembered Salvador’s mother and how much she liked her and she didn’t want him to die. What would she tell his mother? Tears came to her eyes.
“Lupe! Lupe! Please, help me! I’ve got cactus thorns all over me!” Salvador yelled.
“Good!” she yelled back down to him. “I hope they hurt!”
And saying this, she looked beyond Salvador, down into the wide, deep wash, and she could see the little stream and the small waterfall. She realized that never before in all of her life had she ever thought of killing herself. Never in all of their suffering back in the Revolution had anyone in her family ever thought of giving up on life, because, well, simply, they’d always had so much love and trust between them.
Trust, she could now see was, indeed, a very big word. Maybe even larger than Love.
Her eyes filled with tears and she thought of their wedding vows and of the words that they had used. They’d said that they’d promise to be True to each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to Love and Honor all the days of their Lives. And then they’d also said, to have and to hold for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death did they part. But never had the word “trust” been used. And yet she could now “see” so clearly that the whole wedding ceremony had been based on Trust. Trust was, indeed, a very important word, and she no longer had this with Salvador.
Tears continued coming to her eyes and she breathed and held, here on the edge of the arroyo, ignoring Salvador’s shouts for help, and she looked at the waterfall. It wasn’t a very large waterfall; no, it was just a little, tiny fall compared to the great falls of their box canyon, but oh—it would,
indeed, be so peaceful for her to now just jump off and go slipping, sliding with the water over the fall and have no more worries, no more problemas with these two ... so very important words, Trust and Love.
And she’d had both of these fine words with Salvador! Both of these heartfelt words. Completely! With all her Heart and Soul!
Her eyes continued crying, but no, she wasn’t crazy-loca anymore.
After all, her mother had told her time and again, that a Woman of Substance never puts all her Love in the man, but in her nest, in her family. For men were of the wind, the rock, the fire, and so they had no real understanding of the woman who came from the water, the tree, and the very Tierra Madre of the Earth, herself!
Then wiping her eyes, Lupe suddenly remembered the little song that she and the girls of her village had sung when they’d played jump rope.
“Who moves who?” the song had said. “Does the rock move the tree, or does the tree move the rock? Why, of course, the tree moves the rock, as little by little her roots reach for water and soil!
“Who moves who?” the song had continued. “Does the fire move the water, or does the water consume the flame? Who moves who? Does the male wind move the trees, the water, the sand, or is it the female trees and water and sands who heat up with the rays of the sunlight and leap up, gifting dance and meaning to the wind?”
“Who moves who?” Lupe now found herself saying as she stood on the edge of the deep arroyo. “Does the Mother Earth with her rich soil and great waters move the Father Sky, or does the Father Sky with his great clouds and storms move the Mother Earth? Why, it is God Who moves All! It is Papito Dios Who came down Here to this Tierra Madre through the Miracle of the Virgin Mary and moved the Hearts of all Humankind!”
Having said this, Lupe took a breath and felt so much better. Everything made so much more sense now. Everything felt so much more understandable.
Ever since she could remember, she and all the girls of her village had sung these songs that told them how strong and special were the Female Forces of the World.
Lupe could now see that Salvador had finally gotten himself free of the cactus, but he was still yelping in agony like a hurt coyote pup.
She paid him no attention, and sat down to take a little rest. She was tired. And she was with child, and so she was going to do as her mother-in-law had told her to do and not let these little ups and downs of life, la vida, disturb her.
Sitting in the shade of an oak tree, Lupe pulled up a blade of grass and began to chew on it. Yes, men were Fire and women were Water. Men were Wind and women were Soil. Men were Rock and women were Tree.
Breathing, chewing, humming, Lupe looked about herself seeing the great Mother Earth all around her and the huge Father Sky above her. And she saw the boulders in the creek below her moving the current this way and that way, and she saw the soil of the embankments holding the water and boulders in place.
Tears came to her eyes, but she was no longer upset. No, she was calm. A breeze came up and began singing in the tree branches above her. Lupe looked up and saw the great tree’s limbs dancing against the startling blue sky. She saw the leaves, the dark bark looking so beautiful against the infinite vastness of the Father Sky, and suddenly, Here in her Heart, she knew again why her mother had always explained to her—back in la Lluvia de Oro—that every woman needed her own Crying Tree in order to endure the hardships of life and marriage.
A great peace swelled up inside Lupe’s Heart-Corazón. And she could now “see” so clearly that water, boulders, roots, everything was all-intermingled together just like the hate and love, hopes and expectations that she had for this man Salvador whom she’d married for better or for worse . . . for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health until death did they part.
Tears of pure joy came to her eyes. Wiping the tears from her eyes she breathed and placed her right hand over her Center, holding herself, and she now too began to sing, just like the breeze in the trees. And her sweet, young voice carried out over the arroyo and up the steep mountainside above the rocky barranca, just south of Temecula.
Instantly, in her mind’s eye Lupe could now see that she and all her girlfriends from back in La Lluvia were no longer little girls playing jump rope, but grown women living life. And all over the Mother Earth—no matter where they were now located or what they were doing—Here in their Hearts, these women, her Sacred Sisters, were also singing these songs of their youth.
Songs that gave them Hope!
Songs that gave them Power!
Songs that kept them anchored on the Eternal Goodness of Life, la Vida, no matter ho
Songs that taught them how to move with ease and dexterity just like this little stream down below her.
And streamwaters could put out fire so easily, and so yes, Women of Substance had to be very, very careful of their Special Powers and not kill off the men in their lives, but work them, help them, nurture them, round them out like the river waters did to the stones, making them Smooth and Whole and yes, finally Complete.
This is what her mother had done with her father. This was why her father still adored her mother; she’d worked him, she’d forgiven him, and she’d never stopped loving him—even when he’d abandoned them.
This was a woman’s calling.
This was a woman’s treasure, the knowing of her own incredible strength!
Who moved who? Oh, what an innocent little song that had been that they’d sung back home while playing jump rope.
And so Lupe could now so very clearly see what it was that their mothers had done back home in their box canyon.
They’d stepped forward as Women of Substance in the middle of those terrible days of rape and plunder—called a Revolution by the men—and they’d come forth with the Power of Water crashing over a great fall, spreading Hope and Love, Wisdom and Warmth to All!
Tears poured down Lupe’s face, but no, she was no longer sad. She was happy! She was joyful! She was full of gusto! She now well-knew, deep inside of herself, that she wasn’t the first—or the last—woman to come to this painful “place” of deceit, where she felt like her truelove had lied to her about everything!
No, she wasn’t alone.
Why, right now, at this very moment, she could actually feel the Mother Earth, herself, breathing under her, as she sat on the ground underneath this Great, Old Tree!
She could feel the Mother Earth breathing and she could see the Father Sky smiling and she could hear the She-Tree singing in the soft, gentle breeze.
No, she would never panic again.