Rise Do Not Be Afraid Read online

  The third was not dreamt or named. The third received no blessing from the priest, only those of its mother and father, tears. Again, a January burial almost exactly one year removed from the two. He built a fire with wood from his woodpile, pino, piñon, aspen, cottonwood and cedar. He built the fire on the llano on a hill where the earth took its time. He built the fire in a place where there is far sight to the east and shelter from the winds always blowing from the west. Here the earth rises slowly, almost imperceptibly, until it reaches two small cerritos, again a place he once loved in youth. At the base of the southern cerrito he built that fire of five woods, starting slowly like his abuelita used to do, with palitos of aspen, soft as reeds, and then adding pino chopped thin and full of ocote, until the flames popped and the fire began to glow from its center, its heart of embers where the soft stringy cottonwood would rest and begin to burn like shriveling paper. Of all the wood the cottonwood burns the poorest, but it is the wood of the riverbank, the wood that is in abundance, the only wood truly from home. Therefore, the cottonwood is necessary and almost sacred. He built the fire of five woods on an imperceptible hill where the earth took its time, finally adding the piñon, which burns hot as coal. Then he added the cedar, which scented the llano air with its smoke.

  His abuelita saved buttons, empty coffee cans, band-aid tins, jelly jars washed clean, rags from torn shirts, she saved and saved because in her world there was nothing like poverty, rather it was a wealth of necessity. There were always too many needs to be met and sometimes there were only mismatched buttons to fill the gaps of her and her children’s existence. Nothing was ever thrown away after only one use. There was always a reason to save what no one else wanted.

  Sometimes that part of her found its way into him, the part that took the cold ashes of the third and delicately scooped them into an empty coffee can, washed clean by the sweet well water of his abuelita’s empty house. He brought the ashes to their mother. She placed the can safely in her closet.

  The dark circle where the fire burned is buried beneath a mound of fine, yet heavy, llano soil. On the mound he placed thirteen stones in the shape of a cross, knowing that nothing would disturb them.

  Sometime during the summer that came to the valley of Santa Rita, he took the ashes of the third to the highest place he knew, the place where water is born, the place where the river and the acequias begin. He trusted the third to the water. What begins up there, in high western mountains named for a saint, will flow north into the river of stones and then move east as it drops toward the valleys and meadows of his home. From the meadows, human hands will divert the river’s blood into hundreds of acequias, two of them passing the place where the other two are buried; finally the water will meet itself again and continue east toward an even older river that flows south and cuts a gorge of black volcanic rock in two. West of that dark rocked gorge the earth slowly rises toward the place where the dark circle of the third’s fire looks east and thus completes everything without ever entering the sky.

  The hardest question for him to answer was also the most common.

  “Do you have any kids?”

  There was no easy way to answer. No matter how much he ignored them, everyone around him would not cease. They talked of everyone else’s children unaware that words, like questions, hurt. There was no easy way to answer the simplest question. Yes, required many words. No, was a lie. He chose yes because he had not done the work that remains even after the builder has left. He chose yes because there were stories in the highest places, in the water, in the places where the earth begins slowly to rise. There were many names known only to God.

  How the Word Should Rise

  The word should come like water rising, something slight as the thin notes of a violin played by a little girl standing on a stump, her soft grainy song floating over an open field of grass. The word should come like snow falling for the first time. It was October 1958, when the snow began during that first week. From up high the herders began to move their borregas toward the lights of town. Ramon Fernandez did not come down that year. Some said that they should go for his body with the first melt of spring. Nomio, with the huge hat and beautiful boots, told the others that he would gather the body the next day. Too much snow they said. Too many words uttered about two bodies rather than one. He assured them that he would deliver Ramon Fernandez to his home.

  Nomio received his enormous hat and shiny boots from God. They were always clean, the envy of every man in Santa Rita. Here, the roads, in the right light of morning, just after the earth has exhaled its warm breath into the cold morning air, just as the sun hits the dirt and gravel, the roads begin to sparkle as if from diamonds. It was these very roads that convinced Nomio to gather the body of Ramon Fernandez.

  “Ramon Fernandez is nobody.” They told him.

  Nomio would later attribute his actions to the limping fences or the abandoned buildings of home, but in the deep well of his being it was the roads lined with broken bottles that put him on his palomina mare that morning.

  Venus burned in the clear morning. His breath mingled with the breath of his best horse. They rode west toward Venus, and like the fog of their breathing the two were one and moving quickly. In the valley there was no snow; Nomio reined the palomina in. He said nothing, but patted her neck, his palm telling her that the day would be long. She was his best horse and therefore knew him better than any human. She slowed to a fast walk as Venus burned itself into the horizon of the San Juans. The day would be clear. The snow would be wet. They turned southwest toward los brazos.

  Ramon Fernandez had not always been nobody. The women of Santa Rita remembered that he could dance well. He carried a wooden rosary in one pocket, a small knife in the other. Ramon Fernandez, before he was nobody, was like the people of Santa Rita, rich with no money. The tragedy began long before the diamond roads caught the sun.

  Before there were roads and fences you could look west from a field that belonged to Ramon's father. A person could look west along the path of the rio where horses worked their tails in the pre summer heat, the mosquitoes laddered themselves in the warm air and the lirios bent soft purple toward the clover and brome. The water from the river rose in the acequias slowly, cold as its winter mother.

  “La acequia está viva.”

  Ramon would shout it toward home and his daughter would jump on the stump of an old cottonwood outside their adobe. Her Christmas gift was only slightly too big for her, but she loved its four strings, its hollow body, its thin voice, her own small distorted reflection in the lacquer and so she would play for the water rising into the meadows, for her father standing in the cold water. She played and played the only song she knew. It was something sad, her father’s song.

  It was the girl that Nomio remembered as la palomina entered the bare and ivory aspens. He wondered if word had reached her. Nomio wondered about her violin and what songs, if any, she still played.

  The Lamp of Your Body

  People always say that the people of Santa Rita are different. They say it in a way that is good. They speak of themselves as though the mountains do not let anything but the snow and wind in.

  There are five ingredients for tortillas. Too often the people think of themselves as only one ingredient. The truth is that the people of Santa Rita do not like to be called Mexican.

  “We don’t speak Mexican Spanish”

  “We don’t even speak Spanish Spanish”

  “There is no one in the world like us.”

  Of all the words only those last ones are probably true.

  Start with flour, the kind our abuelita scoops out with a tin cup, always the same cup, always the same tin cup balanced in her hand, not really measured but weighed by the soft thin fingers of her hands holding the tin cup, balanced really between the farmer’s grain, the earth’s rain, the acequias rising, the counterclockwise walking of the horses in the mill, balanced there between what has been mentioned and what has been forgotten.

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p; Then take those same hands, feel the papery skin, feel the ridges of her nails, feel the veins rising on her hand. Take those same hands and knead in the manteca, the same manteca the little boy strained into the empty coffee can our abuelita saved, the same manteca from the marano whose hair is scalded off with boiling water, whose skin is cut into squares on a Saturday afternoon, invite all your vecinos, build a fire beneath a great black caldera, let the pig hang in the soterrano, but bring the squares of cuero and drop them in the caldera, play some music, put pico de gallo in a clay bowl, send the youngest into the house for some cut lime and some salt, everyone talk as the chicharrones crackle, give your vecina con las tortillas de maiz the spot closest to the fire, place the chicharrones in the tortilla, a little pico too, some lime, and then the salt, then down. Let everything cool and then send the youngest boy to strain the manteca into old coffee cans and empty jars. Later, our abuelita will knead it into the harina poured from the tin cup.

  Add the salt, the same salt our abuelita sent the youngest for that Saturday. This too she will measure by the balance of it in a cupped hand. She’ll think of Jesus. “I love you like bread loves salt.” She’ll think of the oceans, the dark boats with white sails that her father’s name came over on, she’ll think of waves coming ashore, she’ll think of her ancient mother’s home and the things they would trade for salt, she’ll think royalty, she’ll think of Neruda’s ode, she’ll think of how she measures her own life in her hand, she’ll think that of all the beauty in the world, salt is the one Jesus chose for love.

  The next ingredient is often the most forgotten, like the Indio in us; it is small but no less important than the others. Our abuelita will cup it between two of her fingers, again a balance, the bequenpaura there above the bowl is the difference between crackers and perfection. Don’t forget the espauda because it colors your blood and makes you love the earth, sometimes it makes you quiet but mostly it makes you rise perfectly.

  Then there is the lamp of our body, our abuelita’s eyes and all the water they have seen, the softness of them like the lakes of los brazos, or the darkness of them in a spring river passing, but mostly her eyes are warm and many colored rings of an old and beautiful tree that records the water for each year of its growing. The water must be warm like when all of us were born. The warm water must be mixed in slowly like the patience of snow melting in May and finally warming in July. The water is what makes this place different, the water is the only ingredient we add in doses, not too much, slow and warm, the water must be added slow and warm, the water is the part the men understand, the water is what our abuelita will save for last, the body is mostly water, the body’s lamp is water that pools in the eyes, it is proof of pain, happiness, love, loss, it is warm and must be kneaded into the rest of our lives. Without water there would be no trinity of left hand right hand comal. Watch as our abuelita, the part of our being that respects the earth, slowly adds water to her mixture, watch as the water makes the table and bolio necessary, watch as the tortilla spreads itself over the wooden table like water running into a field.

  The lamp of our body is the eyes. Watch the water. It makes us possible. It makes this place and people rise together and not be afraid.

  The Cost of Five Sparrows

  The crickets were singing wildly in the adobe walls. Samuel and Elle sat at their wooden table smashing piñon with a shared bolio. Both of them were old, neither wishing to risk their precious teeth on the dark brown seeds.

  “You hear what they’re saying,” he asked?

  “That they will be leaving soon, now that it is getting cold.”

  “Yes that, but the other thing.”

  “How do you think they know that?” Elle popped four piñon into her mouth, the smashed shells, sucked off their salt, rising in a small mound to her left.

  “The moon I suppose. That is how I would know if I were them.”

  “You think he will be okay?”

  “What’s all the damn banging in here?” It was Aresando, Samuel and Elle’s son.

  “Sorry mijo. We are nervous. You know how your mom and I get when they sing so loud. We had to do something. Piñon?” He offered it in his round hand as though it were spare change. He offered it the way a father offers things to a son before the son has grown and left. Maybe now that Aresando was back from the war the two of them could fish together again.

  Aresando did not acknowledge the offer. He was looking far beyond his father, far beyond the cricket-filled walls.

  “He is traveling,” Elle whispered.

  Samuel brought the piñon back into his closed hand. He held it there like the small round seeds of a wish.

  “Do I, pues what should I do?”

  “Let him go. He’ll be back soon.” She placed a piñon in front of her and with one whack the bolio split the shell. The piñon was roasted perfectly. She brought the cracked seed to her mouth, tasted the salt and lingered on it, her lips pursing, her tongue working its way into the cracked seed like melt water into a frozen stone.

  “Como agua,” she said. “He will be back.” She pounded another seed.

  “Como agua,” he repeated.

  “People think I’m crazy, but I don’t believe that crickets speak to me. I don’t even believe I can talk about someone while they are standing right in front of me. I don’t think I can talk about someone who is standing right in front of me and not think they heard me. Now that is crazy. Me, I’m just out of place.” Aresando walked to the only door in the house. When he opened it, the moon reflected in the glass above the doorknob. He walked into the late summer night, past where the moon would allow his mother to follow with her eyes.

  “Close the door Viejo. They will tell us where he went.”

  “There is too much out there. How could they keep track?”

  “The moon. Just like you said.”

  Aresando was out of place, but he was crazy too. He walked into the night. It was 1953 and the dreams of the hands were still with him. It was the dreams that made him crazy. It was the dreams that made him walk toward the notes of Apollonio’s crooked guitar, the sound floating through the cantina door and into the night.

  He hadn’t been born crazy. He was born on Palm Sunday, 1932. Samuel left the house late on the Saturday, which preceded the celebration of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. Samuel walked down to the corral he had built with his father when he was ten. That was a good year, but he didn’t think of that. He saddled their only animal, a dark mule he had named Baby. He whispered to the mule as he saddled her. He apologized for coming so late in the night, for bringing her out in the cold. It was going to snow. The air was flat and almost warm. It was the dead air before a big snow. He explained to Baby that Elle needed Mana Virginia, that their boy was being born.

  Samuel walked the three miles quickly. Inside Virginia’s house the light of a kerosene lamp was already jumping and reflecting into the night. She met him at the door, ready before he even asked.

  El Sanador was named Raphael Parra. He was a great healer with an even greater horse, a great black horse, taller than most men. The horse had long legs that moved beautifully, strong. The horse never grew tired of bringing the old man to the villages. Raphael Parra lived in Tres Piedras, a 30-mile ride to Santa Rita. Raphael means God Heals. Likely, Raphael Parra’s mother had named him appropriately back in 1860, the 29th of September. San Rafael, the patron saint of the blind and of travelers had blessed Raphael Parra with a different kind of sight, a second sight. He had also blessed him with the most beautiful horse anyone had ever seen, so the old doctor could travel well. It was 1902 when Raphael Parra used his second sight to pick Virginia. This sight of his had told him that he only had ten years left, he even knew the day, the 19th of December. It also told him that his great black horse, Oeste, would die within the year.

  San Rafael always traveled with a staff, a stick really, that he showed Raphael in a dream. It would be raining; twins being born in San Miguel. In the dream he cut through the
trees, because it was raining and because it was quicker. San Rafael showed him the stick in the dream, placed it in the tall grass next to some aspen. He placed the stick-on top of the hill, right before the descent into San Miguel. Raphael saw it in his dream, the same way he dreamt the twins being born.

  Raphael rose from his wool filled camalta. He knew as he saddled the black that this was the last time. The horse knew too. Neither protested the rain or the will of the patron saint. Oeste glided over the wet rocks and chamizo. It was a twenty-three-mile ride to San Miguel, only twenty to the top of the hill. Raphael saw the spot, recognized the aspen trees clearly, one had Dios Es Amor carved into the white bark, the other tree proclaimed that R F loved N T. It would have been easy enough to veer away, but the saint’s stick would move with them, even the people without the dream sight knew this. Oeste was moving fast. He was beautiful in the rain. With his left hoof the great black horse came down on the end of the saint’s staff and it shot up as Oeste glided into it, the opposite end of the staff found the animal’s belly, the weight of the great horse driving the stick cleanly into the body where it broke in two. As Oeste fell, the broken end, with the impact of the wet earth and the horse’s body, razored upward into the heart of the most beautiful horse anyone had ever seen.

  Raphael had seen the horse’s death and his own long before he ever met Virginia. He had seen her too, also in a dream. He knew that Virginia had the same sight as he. He pretended to teach her so the people of Santa Rita would come to her without hesitation, but the earth was already in Virginia, she knew innately, like the earth’s spinning, what healed.

  Virginia placed the zalea beneath Elle, the tanned side up. Samuel waited in the only other room of the house, the kitchen. Something told him to boil water. He filled every olla in the house and put them on the wood stove. The kitchen seemed made of steam. Virginia worked in the other room at the pace of the earth. The boy would emerge only when everything was ready.