Streets of Laredo: A Novel (67 page)

Soon after Lorena and Billy Williams left the village, the shoemaker came for Maria. His name was Jorge, and he had a very young wife--too young, Maria thought. Her name was Negra. Her parents were rough people; they had married Negra to Jorge when she was only twelve. Now, barely thirteen, she was with child, and her time had come.

Jorge urged Maria to come to his wife quickly. Negra had already been in labor for more than a day. Maria had been to their home six times to check on her already. It was her practice to check often when a child was coming. She did not like surprises, although she often got them. There was no way of knowing how a birth would go until it happened--birth and death were alike in that way.

It was not a day when Maria wanted to leave her children. With luck, Billy Williams would be back that night or the next morning with the wounded man. Maria wanted to stay near Rafael and Teresa in case Joey came. The shoemaker's house was not far, but it was not her house, and Joey was quick in his evil. There was no one in the village that Maria could trust, now that Billy was gone.

Captain Call was feverish, and he mumbled words that made no sense. Sometimes he was conscious, but he was too weak to even lift his head. When he had to relieve himself, Maria and Lorena had taken turns assisting him. He tried to fight them off with his one hand, but they helped him anyway, directing his water into a jug. Maria would have to do it herself now that Lorena was gone. And Call would accept all other attentions only from Teresa.

But Call could not help her guard against Joey, for he was too weak and in too much pain.

If Joey came while she was helping Negra in her labor, Joey would probably finish off the Captain--with a knife, with a rifle butt, with anything handy.

"Maria, she is screaming--I'm scared," Jorge said.

Maria got ready to go. Negra was only one year older than Teresa, and she was small in the hips. It would not be an easy birth, and if Maria was not skillful, both Negra and her child might die. Maria felt a deep uneasiness: she could not refuse to help a child have a child, just because she was worried about Joey. Negra's baby was there, and Joey was not. She had to go, but she was very worried. She took her sharp knife with her when she went, and she made Rafael and Teresa go with her. Rafael drove his goats the short distance to the shoemaker's little house.

Teresa was very reluctant to leave Call.

"I want to stay with the old man," she said to her mother. She had taken a great liking to Captain Call, and he to her. Teresa was the only one who could get him to eat in his few moments of lucidity. Teresa would sit by him for hours, whispering stories in his ear and bathing his face with a wet rag to cool his fever.

"You can't stay with him, not now," Maria said.

"You have to stay near me. We will be back this afternoon, I hope. Then you can be with the old man." "But he might die if I leave," Teresa said. "I am his nurse." "But I'm Negra's nurse, and we have to go now," Maria said. "Bring your chickens. Don't worry about the old man. He will be here when we get back." Before she left, Maria took a cowbell.

Their cow had died, and she had not been able to afford to replace her. When they all got to the shoemaker's house, Maria put the bell around Rafael's neck. It was a little awkward; the bell was for a cow, not for a boy. But Maria didn't know what else to do.

"Stay where I can hear the bell," she told them both. "If your brother Joey comes, ring the bell and run to me. Do not let him catch you, whatever you do." Rafael took a few steps amid the goats, and the bell tinkled. He began to moan.

Rafael was easily frightened, for anything out of the ordinary upset him. A bell around his neck was out of the ordinary, and it made him feel anxious.

"I don't want you to be too long," Teresa told her mother. "I want to go back to see [email protected] Call. He is my friend." "He was not your grandfather's friend," Maria told her, but right away she regretted saying it.

Teresa knew nothing of those troubles, and besides, bringing Call into the house had been Maria's decision. She had not expected Teresa or anyone to make friends with him, but Teresa often did things Maria would not have expected her to do. Teresa found a little storybook of Joey's and pretended to read it, although she could not see. She made up her own story while holding the book.

"I like [email protected] Call--do not talk bad about him," Teresa warned.

"I'm not talking about him, I'm talking about Joey," Maria said. She caught her daughter's face in her hands and brought it close to hers. Often that was the only way to get Teresa's attention when she was being willful.

Only when she felt her mother's breath on her face would Teresa heed her.

"I have to help Negra have her baby," Maria said. "I want you to be careful and if Joey comes, you run. Your brother doesn't make jokes. I'm afraid he will hurt you if he comes." "I will run away from him if he comes," Teresa told her mother casually, as if she could not imagine such a thing happening to her.

"Run, but make Rafael ring the bell," Maria told her daughter. "Make it ring loud, and I will come. Don't forget." But she was afraid that Teresa would forget.

Teresa wasn't afraid of her big brother.

Rafael was afraid, but Rafael might not be able to remember to ring the bell if he became frightened. Some days, Rafael could not remember anything at all.

While Maria was talking to Teresa, Negra screamed. The scream poured out of the little hut into the empty streets of the quiet town. Gordo the butcher heard it; he had just butchered a pig and was hauling it up so he could gut it. The pig had screamed too, when he hit it in the head to kill it. The butcher had been drunk the night before, forwith his wife dead he was lonely. He drank often, and in the mornings his work was not always precise.

Gordo had not struck well, and the pig screamed when he hit it and when he cut its throat. He had not noticed before that the wild scream of a dying pig was so much like that of a woman in labor.

"Maria, can't you come?" Jorge begged.

"Negra is dying." He came out of the little house shaking. His face was tortured with worry. Maria had seen many husbands in such pain. They did not know that their wives were not really dying; though sometimes the husbands were right--the wives did die, and their babies too.

Maria knew she could not delay any longer.

She had to do her work, but she could not make her worry go away.

It was six hours before the baby came. Negra had been in labor a long time, and Maria's fear was that the young girl would become too weak to help.

The girl's small, unprepared body would have to force the baby out without help from the mother's will.

Already, Negra's will was almost exhausted. Maria had to sit with her patiently, soothing her and coaxing her to rest between pains. Negra was terrified of the pain; she thought she must be dying.

Maria soothed her and explained to her that it was the necessary pain of childbirth.

"Soon you will have a fine baby," Maria told her. The water finally broke, and Maria became hopeful. The baby was turned properly and did not seem to be too large. She had sent Jorge away. She did the work with two women, old sisters who had made their lives together. They were crafty old women, and greedy. Each wanted to outlive the other so as to get the other's possessions. They had seen many children born and were indifferent to Negra's pain. From time to time they smoked tobacco, in little cigarettes they rolled themselves. Soon the floor of the little room was littered with cigarette papers the old women had dropped. But they knew the business of birth and helped efficiently when the pains came. Their names were Juana and Josia. Some people thought they were twins, for they looked very much alike. But each denied being the other's twin, and each claimed to be the younger sister.

"She was two when I was born," Juana claimed.

"She is a liar, she will go to hell," Josia said. "She was already three when I was born." Maria didn't particularly like the old sisters. They were rude to one another, often having loud, harsh arguments just when the young mothers needed quiet. But they were the only ones she could find who knew what to do during difficult births, and so she called them in. They looked at life with skeptical eyes, which sometimes irritated Maria. She felt she knew as well as any woman that life was a thing of sadness; but it was not all sadness, and there were times for hope. And one time for hope was when a baby was being born.

Maria herself always began to have hopes for the babies she birthed, as soon as she saw them.

Perhaps as they grew they would be lucky, have health, find good women or men to marry, rise above poverty, and be spared disease and loss. Few were spared. But each time when the baby was in her arms and the moment of peace came, Maria let her hopes rise. She smiled at the little child and bathed it in warm water. She wanted to welcome it to life; perhaps it would be one of the lucky ones.

So it was when Negra's baby finally came--it was a boy. Maria was tired, but she liked the look of the little male child. He cried with spirit, the spirit of life. Maria smiled at him and whispered to him. He was to be named Jorge, too, after his father. He was a fine boy, and Maria could not help smiling at him. The mother was asleep, too tired to need her smiles. The little boy wiggled and cried, and Maria took him outside to show him to his father. The tortured look left Jorge's face and he looked at his son with surprise, the surprise men so often showed when they saw that a living human had been created from the actions of love--actions they had taken long before and perhaps had forgotten.

"This is a good boy, I like the way he wiggles. He will give you lots of trouble when he grows up and can walk," Maria told him.

Then, as she was about to take the baby back inside so the old women could cleanse him of the birthing blood, Maria looked around for her children.

Several times during lulls in the labor, she had gone out to speak to them briefly. They sat with the goats between the shoemaker's house and the butcher's shed. While the butcher was butchering the pig, Maria's children were just sitting.

"It's cold. I want to go back to [email protected] Call," Teresa said, each time. She was sullen, as she often was if her mother denied her her way.

"You can come in where I am, only sit in the kitchen," Maria told her.

"No, I don't want to sit in that kitchen.

I would rather be cold," Teresa replied.

Then the crisis arrived, and Maria forgot about the children. Once when Negra was screaming, she heard the cowbell and was reassured. She had to concentrate on what she was doing, and she could not listen every moment for a cowbell when the little room rang with the full screams that came with a birth.

Now, though, with little Jorge safely born, she turned to look for Teresa and Rafael and didn't see them. The goats were still there, but not her children. She ran to where the goats were, scattering them in her fear. Then she saw the cowbell lying in the dirt. Joey had taken it off Rafael--why hadn't she known he would?

Fear chilled Maria so, that she almost dropped the baby. She ran with him to Jorge and thrust the baby into his hands.

"Take him to the sisters," she said. "Did you see Joey?" "No--how do I hold him?" Jorge asked.

Maria had no time to instruct the new father; he would have figure out for himself how to hold his son.

She ran to the butcher, who had taken the pig's hooves and ears and was putting them in a sack.

Most of the pig had been cut up. Parts were heaped on a bloody table, and other parts were piled on strips of sacking.

"Did you see Joey?" Maria asked.

"You are bloodier than I am, and I've butchered a pig," Gordo told her. He was a little disgusted with the woman, for she had blood all over her arms. Still, she was shapely, and she was his neighbor. When she cleaned herself up he thought he might go visit her, perhaps taking her a little sausage. He might ask her to make him menudo or some other tasty dish.

"No, Joey wasn't here," he told her.

Maria knew better--Joey had been there.

She had to have help, and there was only Gordo, the butcher.

"He was here. He's taken my children," Maria said to him. "Come and bring a gun, don't wait!" In the desperate hope that Teresa had disobeyed her and taken Rafael home, Maria ran to her house. She had her knife in her hand.

Call was laying outside the back door when she got there. He had hobbled out, using a chair for a crutch, and he had a pistol near him. But the chair was too short to be a good crutch, and he had fallen again. He was lying on his back. His leg was bleeding, and his eyes were open.

"Did he come?" Maria asked.

"He came--I can't do anything," Call said.

"I can't do anything," he said, again. He was so weak that she could barely hear him whisper, and it was surprising that he could even have hobbled the few steps he had.

Maria felt fear shaking her, more powerful than any fear she had felt in her life. She did not have time to move Captain Call back to bed.

She grabbed his pistol.

"What did he say, [email protected]?" Maria asked. "Did he say anything?" "No," Call said. "He came in and looked at me and left. He's wounded." "Not wounded enough. I have to take your gun," Maria told him.