Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
“Andres can drive you,” said Maria. “He can take you where you want, but where will you go, Lupe? This fancy car will be recognized anywhere you go.”
“I don’t know,” said Lupe. “If only we could just get to Corona and maybe hide before they start looking for us.”
“No, Lupe,” said Maria, getting her sister out of the car, “you’re not going anywhere. Just look at you, mi hijita. You’re all burned, Lupe. This is exactly what my dream was all about when I came and took Hortensia to be baptized. You and Salvador and your child were burned to death in your home! I’ve been praying for you every night since. Ask Andres, he’ll tell you! For weeks I’ve been telling him that you and Salvador need to get out of your bootlegada business,” she said, making the sign of the cross over herself. “Come, we got to get you and Salvador into the house and get some pig fat on these burns.”
“But what will we do with the car?” asked Lupe. “They’ll see it here.”
“Andres,” said Maria, “you get in the car and drive it off right now!”
“But to where?” asked Andres.
“You figure that out! Now go! Go! And far, too. And leave it. Just leave it!”
“All right, all right, I’m going,” said the small-boned man. He was really scared, but he knew better than to argue with his wife, who was a bull of a woman, just like Salvador’s sister, Luisa.
Andres got in the Moon and drove off as Maria helped her sister and Salvador and their child into her house. Andres was so scared that he wasn’t driving any better than Lupe, swerving from side to side. Another fire truck was speeding down the gravel road with a sheriff’s car in fast pursuit. Andres almost hit the fire truck, and went off into a ditch as the two screaming vehicles shot past him.
By the time Andres got to the highway, he was sweating nails, but he now did a brilliant move. And not because he’d figured it out, but because, simply, luck would have it that he saw no traffic toward the south, and so he turned left, going toward San Juan Capistrano.
INSIDE, UNDER THE LIGHTS, Maria saw the immensity of Lupe’s and Salvador’s burns. Only their child, Hortensia, wasn’t burned like Maria had seen in her dream.
Salvador was finally becoming conscious and the first thing out of his mouth—once he realized that Lupe and Hortensia were alive—was “Lupe, did you get my gun and our money?”
Lupe nodded. “Yes, Salvador, I got them both,” she said.
“Good,” he said, “good, then we’ll be okay.”
And saying this, he dropped back off into unconsciousness.
“Men,” said Maria, putting an herbal pack on Lupe’s face, “they’re such fools! Who thinks of guns and money at a time like this? He’s lucky to be alive!”
“I do,” said Lupe.
“You do what?” said Maria.
“After wrapping up Hortensia in a blanket,” said Lupe, “I don’t know why, but I thought of Salvador’s gun and our money even before—God help me—I thought of my husband.”
Maria laughed. “Really, but that’s awful, Lupe! Whatever possessed you to think of a gun and money at a time like that?”
Lupe shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You did good,” whispered Salvador.
Both women turned to see Salvador. His face was all swollen and blistered with burns and his eyes were closed and covered with soot. He looked awful.
“You did good,” he repeated, “you did very good. Promise me, mi amor, that you’ll always think first of our child and your survival before you think . . . of me.”
“Oh, Salvador,” said Lupe, getting up and coming to his arms, “I didn’t want you to hear that. I feel so terrible that I first went after—”
“Sssssh,” said Salvador, reaching for Lupe with his eyes all swollen and closed, “you did good, querida; in this world of men, a woman needs a gun, and money. My sisters, my mother, I couldn’t help them. I was only ten years old.”
“This, I can understand,” said Maria. “Only women like me, who are stronger than any two men, got a chance without a gun. You’re right, Salvador, but I’m surprised that you know this.” Maria made the sign of the cross over herself. Her terrible nightmare had, indeed, been turned around by Lupe and Salvador’s Love for each other. In her dream she’d seen her baby sister and her familia burned to death.
ANDRES DROVE THE MOON to the train station of San Juan Capistrano, parked, glanced around, then got out of the vehicle and ran for the train that was headed south. He pretended to get on the train, but he slid between the cars and disappeared into the little Mexican barrio of San Juan on the other side of the tracks. Then he headed north on foot.
It was daybreak by the time Andres came walking into his yard. Victoriano’s truck was parked in front. Every day Victoriano came by to pick up Andres so they could go to work together. This day Victoriano and Andres decided to not go to work and stay home and fix the porch that Lupe had run into and keep working around outside in case the authorities came by asking any questions.
Twice that day the sheriff’s cars came shooting by and once it looked like they were going to stop, but they didn’t. It was evening before Salvador was clear-headed enough to ask Victoriano to contact Archie.
The next morning when Victoriano came by at daybreak, to pick up Andres so they could go to work, Lupe took her brother aside and asked him to please drop her off at her house on their way to work.
Victoriano glanced at Salvador. He was sound asleep on a mattress on the floor in the front room. “Have you talked this over with your husband?” asked Victoriano. Lupe shook her head. “Well, then, no,” said Victoriano, “I can’t take you back there without his agreement. My God, Lupe, you two are lucky to have gotten away!”
“All right,” said Lupe, refusing to discuss the matter, “then I’ll walk. It’s not too far.”
Victoriano looked at this baby sister of his. Ever since she’d been a child she’d been hardheaded, especially once she’d made up her mind. “All right,” he said, “we’ll drive by and if it looks safe, I’ll drop you off. But why in God’s name do you want to go back?”
Lupe didn’t know how to explain it to him. But the night before the explosion, she’d taken off her wedding ring—either while she’d been doing the dishes or washing up to go to bed—and she wanted to go back and find it. Also, she’d left her Colonel’s card. The card that her first love had given her when she’d been seven years old . . . back home in their box canyon in Mexico. All these years she’d kept her Colonel’s card along with her rosary and the rolling pin for making tortillas that her mother had given her when she’d also turned seven years old. And of course, she wanted to get Salvador’s gun and their money from the tree fork. Oh, how she hoped to God that the authorities hadn’t found them.
She got in the truck with her brother and Andres and they drove down the road to where Salvador and Lupe had set up their distillery. It was the longest couple of miles Lupe had ever traveled in her life. Each tree, each clump of brush stood out, looking at her as if they were alive. She remembered back to their box canyon, to the day when she’d hid in the thick foliage down by the creek as the shooting and killing and raping had gone on all above her in their village. She’d hid there for so long praying for God to please help make her invisible that she’d finally seen the foliage all about her breathing in and breathing out.
Three times Lupe and her brother and Andres drove by the old burned-down ranch house before they pulled into the driveway. Up close, Lupe could see that all that was left of their house was the rock chimney of the fireplace and the iron stove in the kitchen. The rest of the place had burned to the ground. It looked like the fire had also almost gotten to the barn, which was across the yard. The ground itself in front of the house was covered with ashes. Pieces of the distillery were all over the place. The initial explosion had been devastating!
“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Victoriano.
Lupe nodded, saying, “Yes.”
Andres g
She just didn’t know how to explain it. But after she’d made the decision to go down that hallway to get her daughter, the whole world had slowed down, and she’d then seen everything with such utter clarity. She wasn’t alone anymore. It was as if she now had a holy self friend, hovering above her about twelve or fifteen feet in the air, and this Holy Self Friend had a Vision and a Voice of her own, telling Lupe and showing Lupe what to do so clearly.
Like right now, at this moment, Lupe could hear a car coming, and this Voice from deep within her was telling her that it was the law and so she should hide immediately.
Without question, Lupe did what this Voice told her, slipping into the barn.
Looking through the cracks of the barn door, Lupe saw that it was Archie and another car with a couple of officers whom she’d never seen before. She thanked her Holy Self Friend and watched these officers get out of their vehicles along with Archie—who towered over them—and go over to the house and kick around in the ashes. Twice Archie looked over toward the barn. Each time Lupe cringed, closing her eyes in concentration, and prayed with all her might that they didn’t come over to the barn and find her.
Then the lawmen were gone, just like that, and Archie, too. That’s when Lupe knew that someone was, indeed, watching her from above. She turned and saw that behind her was a big-eyed owl in the rafters of the old barn watching her.
Lupe began to hiccup. The owl, el tecolote, was a very powerful omen among her mother’s people, the Yaqui. Quickly, she made the sign of the cross over herself.
All morning Lupe looked through the ashes of the burned down ranch house for her wedding ring and her Colonel’s card, but she couldn’t find either one. Everything was gone. They had nada, nada, nothing left. No clothes, no shoes, no furniture, not even their cooking utensils. Everything had been burned or blown to pieces. Tears came to Lupe’s eyes. She felt like once more her whole world had been destroyed. But she didn’t lose hope. The Voice within her kept her calm. Without knowing it, Lupe was now instinctively learning to work her Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Senses.
In the early afternoon, Lupe walked across the yard and got Salvador’s gun from the tree fork along with the money, and started for her sister’s house. She walked across the fields and through the orchards, keeping away from the roads.
The moment Lupe walked in through the front door, Salvador went into a rage. Seeing how upset her husband was, Lupe started laughing.
“This isn’t funny!” yelled Salvador.
“Oh, yes, it is,” said Lupe. “How many times were you gone for days without a word, Salvador, and I was supposed to just stay home and keep my faith in God and not get upset?”
“That was different!” yelled Salvador.
“Why, because you’re a man?”
“Yes! I mean, no, but because, well, I was out working, bringing home the money!”
“So what I do isn’t important, then?”
“Well, no, I’m not saying that, it’s that, well, Lupe—damnit, I don’t want you going back there again, and that’s that!”
“Salvador, I’m going back tomorrow,” she said, calmly fixing her hair with her fingertip as she’d seen her mother do when dealing with difficult situations with her father.
“But why in God’s name would you do that!” he yelled. “You already brought back our money and my gun!”
“Because,” she said, “I didn’t find what I was looking for.”
Salvador stared at her. “And what is this that you’re looking for?” he asked.
“Salvador,” she said, “I lost my wedding ring in that fire and . . . and I’m going back to find it.”
He took a big breath. He’d worked so hard to get her that ring. It was a real diamond. Harry, his Jewish friend from Santa Ana who’d made their wedding clothes for them, had helped him get it. This diamond was the first in their families’ history. “But Lupe, I’m afraid for you,” he said quietly. “I’ll buy you another one someday.”
“No, Salvador,” she said, “that would not be the same.”
The tears were flowing from her eyes. He didn’t know what to say.
“I’ll go with you, Lupe,” said Maria.
“Oh, no!” said Salvador. “Don’t say that, Maria! Talk some sense into her! Diamond or not, a ring is just a ring! Didn’t you do enough when you took our daughter to have her baptized without us!”
Maria walked right up, getting into Salvador’s face. “You will not intimidate me with guilt or reason, Salvador! Do you hear me, my baby sister dragged you out of burning fire, turning disaster into a miracle just like our mother, against all reason! My baby sister es una mujer de poder! I will go with her tomorrow if she goes, and THAT’S THAT,” added Maria.
There was nothing more Salvador could say. He could barely move without screaming in pain. And Maria was every bit as powerful and stubborn as his sister, Luisa. These were women that would’ve been better off being men. They had tanates so huge that they dragged on the ground!
For three days Lupe and Maria went every afternoon with Hortensia to the burned-out house up the road and searched among the foot-deep ashes. On the third day, Lupe not only found her wedding ring, but miracle of miracles, she also found the rolling pin that her grandfather had made for her mother. And she found her rosary, too.
Suddenly, Lupe remembered that she’d taken off her wedding ring and placed it and her rosary alongside of the rolling pin on the windowsill of the kitchen above the sink as she’d begun to do the dishes after dinner.
And she’d found the three of them together, ring, rosary, and rolling pin! This was, indeed, a sign straight from the Holy Creator!
Lupe gave a grito of gusto to the sky, then made the sign of the cross over herself with the crucifix of her rosary, giving thanks to the Mother of God to whom she’d been praying every night since the fire.
Maria also made the sign of the cross over herself. There were no accidents.
The old Mexican saying was really true, las extremidades del humano son las oportunidades de Dios!
18
And so Adam and Eva stepped forward, not blaming each other but united in Love, Respect, and a Natural Awe for One another—REFLECTIONS of the CREATOR.
SALVADOR WOULD NEVER SEE Lupe the same ever again. She just wasn’t the same young, innocent girl that he married. Coming in that afternoon with their wedding ring all intact, she walked up to him with her eyes glowing with a power he’d never seen before. Her whole body moved differently.
“Look, Salvador,” she said, with tears of joy running down her face, “I found our ring.”
“My God!” he said.
“And she found the rolling pin that our mother gave her, and they were both with her rosary.”
“It’s a miracle,” whispered Salvador.
“Of course,” said Maria, making the sign of the cross over herself. “I told you so. There is no other way for us women to survive, but in the making of miracles.”
Lupe now moved with the grace of an inspired woman, el eje, of her familia.
Salvador watched Lupe scrub the ring with such care and love and devotion, that it brought tears to his eyes. He was truly in awe of Lupe. From her would come all of his children. From her would come their whole future. His mother had been absolutely right. The lessons that Lupe would teach him about Life, la Vida, would dwarf his in the end.
He felt so proud to be married to this creature that just the curve of her hips, her breasts, the tilt of her neck sent chills of fire to hi
Once the ring was scrubbed and clean, Lupe brought it over to Salvador—who was still lying down on the mattress on the floor—and he took it. admired it, kissed it, and put it back on her finger, then kissed her fingertips, his eyes glowing.
THAT SAME NIGHT Archie came by and asked which one of them had been over at the house a few days back and had been hiding in the barn.
“And I can see that it wasn’t you,” he said to Salvador, “because you’re still pretty well fuc—I mean, screwed up, but one of you was in there.”
“How do you know that someone was in the barn?” asked Lupe.
Archie looked at Lupe and licked his big, loose lips. “An owl told me,” he said.
Lupe turned all red.
“Look,” he said, “you can’t take any more chances like that, Lupe. It’s a good thing the two guys I was with don’t talk owl. You see, Domingo has disappeared on old man Palmer, revoking his parole, and so maybe I can turn this whole thing around and pin it on him—the damn fool—since he’s going back to prison anyway. But you two are going to have to get the Hell out of the whole area so I can pull this off. You see, the sheriff’s department of Orange County has decided to make an example out of you, Sal, and is combing the whole area. Can you travel, amigo?” added Archie.
“Do I have a choice?” said Salvador.
Archie only laughed.
“No problema,” said Doña Margarita, who’d come in a few hours earlier and she was attending to Salvador’s and Lupe’s burns with chicken fat and herbs and having them drink gallons and gallons of her special tea. “They won’t have to travel very far to disappear.”
“Whadda you gonna do,” asked Archie, laughing, “kill ’em with your medicine weeds or use your witchcraft like Salvador told me you did to make those barrels of whiskey disappear?”
Refusing to be insulted, Doña Margarita looked straight up at the huge, towering lawman and said, “No, Archie, when you need miracles, you go to God, but when you need protection from the law, you go to the man who owns the law.”