Trini saw Lupita sobbing in Tía Pancha’s arms. “We won’t have our first communion.” Tía Pancha was stroking the little girl’s hair, comforting her. “What’s the matter with you? There are churches in San Domingo. God is everywhere.” Yes, Trini believed that, anywhere where there was sky and hills and wind gathering leaves. Buti was pointing, “There’s Tonio!”
He came around the turn of the east hill, riding Sarif, waving at the children wildly. “He’s here, he’s here,” shouted Buti as they scrambled down from the rocks and waved back.
Shortly after, Sarif was harnessed to the wagon. Tía Pancha frowned and shook her head as she watched Tonio stack liquor bottles on the floor of the wagon. “He’s going to drink us into trouble.”
Tonio made a grab for her waist. She stood her ground and pushed him away. “You’re drunk already.”
“Not a drop, Pancha, not a drop.”
“You’re going to drink all that?” asked Buti admiringly. Tonio grinned and tousled Buti’s hair. “I’ll need them, kid, before this trip is over.” Buti was looking at Tonio with avid curiosity. “Did God make you out of clay like us, Tonio?”
“Sure.”
“With more than a touch of the Devil,” added Tía Pancha under her breath.
José Mario was closing the gate for the last time. He stood looking at the house he had built for Matilda; then he walked slowly toward them, shoulders hunched, steps reluctant. José Mario led them out of the valley. Trini and the children rode on the back of the wagon, while Tonio and Tía Pancha sat on the seat. José Mario did not turn back to look at the house once he had taken the reins and headed east. I know how he feels—Trini could feel his pain, a lifetime of memories being left behind. As they started across the valley, the house grew smaller and smaller. The hills were orange with the face of the sun. “Goodbye, wild wind, goodbye, wild wind . . .” became the rhythm of the wagon wheels, the rhythm of Trini’s heart.
When they came to the edge of the valley, José Mario told them, “From El Camino to Quirare, then we take the highways to Creel before we reach Nedia country.” Nedia country was the beginning of Tarahumara land.
Green hills rose and sank as the wagon rounded the hill that led to El Camino Real. The valley of Bachotigori, leading to cemetery hill, moss overgrown on headstones. Borders of grape hyacinths spread out along the wide edge of the road. From cemetery hill, Trini looked down at the town of Batopilas some miles to the east. A slight haze mixed with the brightness of the sun blotted out farmhouses, stores, the church, all familiar shapes. I want to stay, I want to stay, Trini told herself. She looked at the other side of the hill and there lay the valley of Bachotigori, with Matilda’s house standing empty. The wagon came to a standstill. José Mario was making his way to Matilda’s grave at the foot of the hill overlooking Sabochi’s cave. I never noticed, Trini thought, but Mamá’s grave is the only one that far down the slope. All alone. Mamá buried between the hill of the dead and the living valley. Papá was by her grave, pulling out weeds, touching the ground as if to touch Matilda herself. The graves never needed flowers, for the hills were bursting full of different blossoms, different kinds for different seasons. Now it was the time of the grape hyacinths. Papá looked across the valley to the house one last time. There was hurt in Trini’s throat. He was so alone without Mamá. But he never gave up. Duty, love, courage, all mixed together. The children ran to the grave to sit by Papá. Trini also went to him, quietly sitting down beside him, placing her head on his shoulder, whispering, “She goes with us, Papá.” After a while, José Mario shaped a question, soft like the wind. “Matilda?”
They all walked back in silence to the wagon. Then the sound of grinding wheels on gravel rounded cemetery hill and the valley disappeared before them. El Camino Real stretched out before them.
A day’s travel on the highway took them from green fertile hills to brush hills jutted with red stone, and the brightness of the sun faded gradually, colors breathing in and out until the dusk invaded as they neared Quirare. There they camped on open ground, built a fire, ate, then fell into a tired sleep.
* * *
Seventeen kilómetros from Quirare they came upon the mountain road. It climbed perpendicularly. It still smelled of night as morning seeped in at its leisure. By late morning, they were halfway up the barranca where the road ran very close to the top of high cliffs. The copper canyon. The feeling of peril was thick as the wagon made its way alongside abrupt chasms that looked down thousands of feet. Trini looked over to see the joining of two great rivers.
“Look, Papá!”
José Mario held back the reins. “The Basiquari and the Urique.” She looked down at the long windings of rivers. Along the sides of the mountain were written tales of time, waves and currents of centuries captured in rock. Where the strain of rock had been of silver light in Batopilas, now the reflection of the light against the rock was one of multiple colors.
“The rainbow lives here too. Look! Look!” Buti was shouting in surprise. An enormous giant of a rainbow, Trini decided. From a distance she saw, between cliffs, convoluted passages leading up to nature-made turrets; again, time spilled into stone. Then there were the rising mists filling an endless darkness. She melted in the bigness of things. Up, up, the mountain; then, at the next turn, there appeared an immense stone arch of reddish hue wavering on one side of the hill.
“It’s falling,” Buti hollered.
“It’s been like that for centuries.” Tonio informed them.
“What’s centuries?”
“More years than you can count, kid.”
Inside the arch, tall green pine rose, perforated by white light. Such bigness! Such beauty—all the work of God. Trini glanced at Tía Pancha to see if her aunt felt Him too. Yes, it was in her eyes. Then a sudden ridge appeared where foilage was dark green and thick and a field of nardos found its way into a cleft in the hill. Trini looked up, seeing something she had never seen before, white mountains. Buti and Lupita stared in amazement.
“Snow,” Tía Pancha spoke in a knowing voice.
They reached the top, a narrow road where the pine forest thickened. Then the descent, and far below Trini saw an Indian village scarred by a silver creek. “Is that where we’re stopping?”
José Mario shook his head. “No, we go to the next mountain, up to the village of Umira, then from there, forty-five kilómetros to Creel.”
“We’ll get there by noon tomorrow,” Tonio estimated.
They rested in a paraje where a spring suddenly appeared at the side of the mountain. It was much cooler than in the valley now, so Trini and Tía Pancha unfolded blankets and Tonio built a fire from pine branches. The smell of the smoke was delicious. Food tasted so good; after supper, Trini wrapped herself in a blanket and looked up at a cool blue sky.
“I’m sleepy,” murmured Buti from under a blanket.
“Is the barranca this beautiful?” Trini asked Tonio, who was sitting by the fire next to her.
“The green will disappear. Most of it is desert.”
Trini tightened the blanket around her and thought about Sabochi’s village. She looked toward José Mario, who sat against a tree smoking in the darkness. “Papá . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“Sabochi’s village . . . We’ll go there, won’t we?” She was full of the old dreams. José Mario was silent for a moment, his eyes glinting, his words coming hesitantly, “It’s out there. I’ve never been.”
“Sometimes