Crossing Purgatory (15 page)

The sun overhead now, walking in his own shadow, Thompson did not notice Captain Upperdine's approach.

“Making progress,” Upperdine called out. Thompson laid the scythe across the humped grass and walked to Upperdine.

“Some. Those were Genoveva's relations?”

Upperdine nodded. “He's already asking about you. Wanted to know who was mowing his grass.”

“His?” Thompson asked.

“He over-seeded last fall. Thought the field might hold moisture and produce good hay for my stock.”

“Well,” Thompson said. He removed his hat and swiped his forehead with his sleeve. “He was correct. But, I guess if he was worried about his field, he should've planned on being here when it needed mowing.”

Upperdine laughed, shook his head. “Genoveva asks that you noon with us.”

Thompson glanced about. “I've grass to cut.”

“It's important to Genoveva,” Upperdine said.

Thompson replaced his hat and pulled the brim low. “I'll be along, then.”

W
HEN
T
HOMPSON ARRIVED AT THE
Upperdine house, he washed his face and neck at the trough and cleaned his boots at the scrape. Before entering, he removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Inside, they were already at the table, chatting quietly in Spanish but apparently waiting on him before eating. He stood awkwardly by the door until Genoveva glanced up.

“Thompson, come,” she waved him over. “This is Señor Benito Ibarra, his wife, my cousin, Señora Teresa Ibarra, their daughter, Señorita Paloma, and los muchachos, Benjamin and Alejandro.” The boys flanked Genoveva and she caressed each in turn as she introduced them.

Thompson bowed slightly to Benito and Teresa. “Pleasure,” he said. Benito rose and returned the acknowledgement. He stood no taller than Thompson's shoulder, his face etched and furrowed as an arroyo, of indeterminable age, dark hair streaked with silver, his expression courteous but guarded. Teresa smiled at Thompson, her face open and welcome. Paloma kept her eyes fixed on her plate. Her features, what he could see of them, looked finely carved, but the mask of her face was sharp and scowling. Although they had freshened and cleaned the dust from their clothing, the family looked haggard, run-down. Even the boys were sunken-eyed and hollow-cheeked.

“Here,” Upperdine said, waving to a seat beside him, opposite Benito. Genoveva said grace and they all ate in silence and with enthusiasm for a few moments: a stew of chicken with carrots, squash, and onion, spicy eggs cooked with dried beef and chilies, bread, tortillas, and, on the sideboard, a crumb cake sprinkled with cinnamon. When the eating slowed to a more leisurely pace that accommodated conversation, Teresa and Genoveva began chatting quietly at the opposite end of the table. Upperdine fished a chicken leg from his stew. “This man here's been a whirlwind since we come in off the trail,” he said to Benito.

Benito regarded Thompson with polite neutrality. “Yes, I've already seen him at work.” It surprised Thompson that in his presence, the men switched to English.

“Wait until you see what he's accomplished with your irrigation ditch,” Upperdine said. He gnawed at the chicken leg and then set it on his plate and pointed a greasy finger with emphasis.

Benito's expression tensed and with great deliberation he sipped at his coffee. Thompson began to understand why Upperdine was so insistent he noon with them. Eliminate surprises, set boundaries, test nascent relationships. He put himself on guard.

“My
acequia
?” Benito asked. “What do you know of my acequia?” He still held his coffee cup near his lips, sipped, set it down with care.

“Nothing of the mechanical works,” Thompson said. “But you laid out the course, and I just continued from where you'd left off.”

“How far?” Benito asked.

“To the windbreak at the far end of the field. And a start on the secondary ditch, edged out with a spade, maybe a third complete.”

Benito stared at Thompson as if suddenly unable to comprehend his language. He turned to Captain Upperdine. “This is not possible.”

“He don't sleep much, seems to me,” Upperdine said. “Went over there just after dawn the other day to see about help with the cutting and he was in that ditch, going at it hammer and tongs, lathered up like he'd been digging for hours.”

“When did you return home?” Benito asked.

“Few weeks back,” Upperdine answered.

“But even night and day …” Benito began, and then seemed at a loss for words.

Thompson shifted in his chair, glanced toward the door. “I am restless at times,” he said. “Ill-suited to inactivity. So, I work.”

“I figure we can both use the help,” Upperdine said.

“I have no money to pay,” Benito said.

“Please,” Thompson said. “I ask nothing. I'm just here to lend a hand for a time.”

“You do not intend to stay?” Benito asked.

“I haven't given it much thought one way or the other,” Thompson said.

Benito appeared to relax. The grip on his coffee cup noticeably eased.

“Forgive me for sounding sharp,” Benito said. “It's been a tiring journey. It will be good to unpack, settle into the placita.” He smiled wanly.

“The placita, now there's another story,” Upperdine said, his voice rising. Teresa stopped talking with Genoveva and inclined her ear toward the men's end of the table. Paloma shot Upperdine a questioning scowl. Upperdine leaned back in his chair, apparently pleased to be the center of attention. “I returned from the trail with many surprises for Genoveva.”

Upperdine briefly recounted the Lights' travails, the women now openly following his conversation. Benito listened solemnly, did not interrupt. Teresa occasionally clicked her tongue.

“Where is this unfortunate woman and her son?” Teresa finally asked.

“Well, that's the point,” Upperdine said. “I offered her a room for the winter in your placita.”

The table went quiet. Teresa stiffened. Even the boys knew to still their fidgeting. Thompson studied Benito, could not read his expression. He looked drained, his face gone slack. Thompson sensed his dilemma. The enormous inconvenience of hosting strangers while settling his family into a new home must surely give him pause. But Upperdine was their benefactor and the cost of incurring his displeasure might also prove great. Thompson hadn't a clue how Benito might manage. In the short time he'd known him, first by the works he'd begun, and now in the flesh, this Mexican had managed to incur his respect, mild ire, and, now, sympathy.

“When is she due?” Teresa interrupted the silence.

“Not long, I think,” Genoveva answered.

Again the silence returned, the room stuffy with tension.

“Only if it is no imposition,” Upperdine added.

“They are welcome,” Benito said, finally, his tone accommodating if overlaid with a note of resignation.

An audible gasp startled them all. Paloma, flushed, pushed from the table with such violence that her chair toppled to the floor.

“Esto es imposible,”
she sputtered.

“Sit down,” Benito said. “And speak English in the home of our host and his guest.”

“¡No!”
Paloma shouted and continued her outbust until Benito stood and slammed his fist onto the table. His slackened face turned hard, his eyes searing. “You insult our host. And you dare dictate who I might invite into my own home? My home.”

Paloma hurled her napkin to the table and stormed from the house. Benito turned to Upperdine.

“I apologize for my daughter's outburst. Her behavior is unforgivable.”

“She's had troubles,” Teresa said.

“Unforgivable,” Benito said.

“Enough,” Upperdine said, raising his hands, palms extended. “The girl's worn out. Her emotions are frayed. Let's talk no more of it. Sit. Finish your coffee.”

They sat for a moment, and then Teresa said, “Señor?”

Benito nodded, once, sharply, and Teresa followed after Paloma. Genoveva ushered the boys to the hearth where she produced a box of wooden blocks decorated with colored letters. “Play,” she said. “Write your names for me.” Then she hurried to join Teresa.

“I'd best be to the field,” Thompson said, rising. He went quickly to the door.

14

U
pperdine and Benito remained at the table when the others departed. Shortly, Genoveva returned, gathered the boys and led them outside to help feed the chickens and collect eggs. Upperdine watched them go and reached for the coffee pot and poured himself and Benito another cup. “You've had a long journey,” he said.

“A long journey,” Benito repeated.

“But uneventful?” Upperdine asked.

U
NEVENTFUL
?
B
ENITO THOUGHT
.
A
FEARFUL
wife sick for home before even losing sight of the Plaza
.

From the hilltop, Benito sat on his haunches and looked back across the valley of his ancestors: the Plaza del Arroyo Seco two miles distant rising from the treeless plain; the fields cultivated in wheat and corn; the orchards climbing the slopes in neat rows like misty green clouds against hillsides rusted by the early sun. Beyond, rutted badlands stretched out into the far distances, the gullied flanks of hills, the deep arroyos and wind-carved faces of bare, red rock.

Teresa stood beside him, weeping quietly. Paloma, dressed in black mourning costume already dusted red at the hem, stood away from the others, dour. The two boys played with a scorpion they'd found under a rock, tormenting it with sticks.

“Can we keep it, papa?” Benjamin asked. “We'll show it to Severo when we get home.”

They didn't understand. He shook his head no, stood, and turned from the valley and walked to the cart.

“How do you know this is the right decision?” Teresa asked.

Benito thought of the Plaza, the slow decay, the buildings and the residents both reflecting a faded vigor: the whitewashed adobe graying, cracking; the moustaches of the men graying; the marginal fields gray with alkaline and dust. A fading world. The fifth son of a modest farmer, the land divided between so many over the generations that it now provided meager subsistence for many, prosperity for none. Other than a garden plot that in good years provided food and a sack or two of surplus peppers to trade in Taos for sugar, he'd inherited one of the apple trees and the two east-pointing lower branches of one pear tree. The ancient pear tree had produced a stingy yield in recent years and he knew that soon it would fail completely and he would have even less to pass on to his offspring.

“There is no other choice,” Benito answered.

Of course there was another choice. They could remain and hope for the best. They could, like the others, make do, eke out subsistence from their private garden and their share from community fields. He wanted, dreamed of, more.

Until this past spring, before the trouble, he'd been hopeful for the future of his daughter, Paloma. After all, he had much say about who might court her. He was respected, the Plaza looked to him for leadership. She would marry well. But the two boys, what of their future? They were born long after they'd given up hope for additional children. Benito and Teresa had married in '34, and almost immediately they were blessed with a pregnancy, and almost as quickly cursed with a miscarriage. Twice more, and then came Paloma in '40, feisty and temperamental from her first day, conditioned in the womb to assert her existence. The Ibarra family celebrated, Benito's stern father smiling over the child, his mother encouraging Teresa, “There, see, a blessing. Now, it will come easier, the others, the boys.” Years passed, nothing. It was as if Paloma had drained all fertility from Teresa's body. Then, during her fortieth year, Paloma nearly of age, Teresa became pregnant and delivered without complication a boy, Benjamin. And another, Alejandro, barely a year later. When her cousin Genoveva sent invitation to join her, a field and a plot on which to build in exchange for help with the crops and the animals, he'd set his mind.

“No other choice,” he repeated, as much for his own reassurance as for Teresa's.

U
NEVENTFUL
? A
BITTER
,
HATE-FILLED
daughter, incautious, with unpredictable temper
.

They approached Santa Fe in the afternoon of their second day on the trail. As they entered the plaza, Paloma grew even more withdrawn than had been her disposition of late, her back stiffened and she walked with her eyes focused straight ahead, without seeming to notice the commotion swirling around them. Past the siesta hour, a quiet sun gave off soft light, buildings beginning to cast shadows onto the open courtyard. Food vendors and assorted peddlers congregated under the covered sidewalk of the governor's palace and attracted a bustle of citizens, women flirtatious in immodest, colorful dresses with fitted waists, men carrying silver-tipped canes and outfitted in tailored suits, a few American officers in full uniform, polished buttons and waxed moustaches. Military rulers and property owners, Benito thought; patrons, men and women of wealth and influence, puffed and proud. Their vainglory insulted him; same flesh as he, same blood, yet elevated to gods by virtue of birthright and possession.

Benito hurried his family through the square, past charcoal sellers, a Navaho offering silver bracelets and pottery, fandango parlors, a mercantile. At the far end of the plaza they approached four American soldiers tossing coins into a ring drawn in the dirt and rolling dice. As they passed, Paloma stopped abruptly, turned to face the soldiers, and spit at their feet.

“What the hell,” one of the soldiers said.

“I believe she likes you,” another said, poking the first in the shoulder.

“I got a coin here, for your favors,” from the third. “Come sit with us.”

Benito took Paloma firmly by the arm and pulled her away. The first soldier came up to Benito and blocked his way.