“Yes, I’m sure.” Tonio’s voice was tinged with guilt.
“Strange.” José Mario was still puzzled.
He ordered everyone into the wagon. They broke camp and Tonio wasted no time getting back on Sarif and leading the way. As they turned the hill, Tonio made his way north. While they circled speedily, Trini noticed the river crawling southward in an opposite direction. To the north, she could see the shapes of the village huts clustered together and the swirls of smoke from the chimney fires cutting the late afternoon sun. To the south the river was lost in an area heavy with trees, huge boulders, and brush.
Suddenly, José Mario stopped the wagon, peering toward the river. Tonio, ahead, whirled his horse around.
“What’s the matter?”
“Look.” There was the beginning of distress in José Mario’s voice. “People.”
José Mario started on his way, this time picking up speed. Tonio led the way, urging the horse into a run. The murmur of the river began to fill the air even as they neared the village. It looked deserted. Dusk was falling and the breeze had the rawness of night wind. José Mario halted by the side of a storage shed in the center of the village. Around it were the corrals, one with horses, one with goats. Tonio pointed, “See, Chema, how can they miss one goat.”
“You know better!” José Mario jumped off the wagon and shouted orders to Tonio. “Untie the goat and put it back. Now!”
Tonio quickly did as he was told, fumbling with the knots that secured the goat to the horse. José Mario led the horses to a water trough. Tía Pancha asked, “Is there time to fill the cannisters?”
“Are you mad, woman?” José Mario’s voice was strained, desperate. “We must make a run for it now.”
He was right. José Mario was looking toward the river. The whole horizon was enveloped by moving tangled figures. Trini felt her body jolt forward as José Mario turned the wagon around. Trini looked up to see Tonio running with the goat toward the corral, throwing the goat over, then making his way to Sarif. He leaped on the horse and led the way out of the village.
The supply horses were forgotten as the wagon made a sharp turn and followed Tonio in the darkness. Tía Pancha’s tina and the cannisters teetered to the edge, then fell out, tumbling and rolling down the path. Trini could see the scattering of possessions along the road. Pots rolled, bounced, a desolate clanging filled the dusk. The box with her bultito lay in the dust! The clatter of falling things mixed with the growing shouts of Indians. She was too full of terror to think of loss. The night air hit her face sharply and the road heaved before her. She heard Tía Pancha’s prayers between sobs.
They were racing in the gloom, heading toward the hills. Even the darkness could not save them. She felt the taste of tears and dust as she clung to Buti and Lupita, cowering at the end of the wagon, their little bodies shaking with fright. Trini reached out and put their heads down, as her body felt each twist and jar. Tía Pancha held on to the back of the seat. José Mario urged the horses to race into the darkness of the mountain.
When they circled the hill, Trini looked up to see rising boulders that covered the open ground. No one in sight. José Mario stopped and listened to the silent dark. It wasn’t long before they heard it, horses’ hooves like driving thunder. José Mario drove the wagon down a slope to open ground again and, from a distance, Trini could now make out a group of riding men amidst swirls of dust that rose heavy in the gloom. The wagon hung at a fork in a broken hill. Lupita began to cry.
“What do we do now?” Tía Pancha cried in distress.
“Everybody off.” José Mario’s voice sounded unusually calm. He pointed to trees at a distance. “Over there.”
He ran ahead leading the way. Trini scrambled off, helping Buti down. Tonio was beside her now, leading Tía Pancha and Lupita toward heavy brush. Suddenly, Tía Pancha cried out, “Dios nos salve!”
She was pointing to the top. The shadows of horses and men covered the entire length of the hill, and riding toward them were still more dark bultos of angry men.
“Hide!” was the last whispered order from José Mario. Disoriented in the darkness, Trini soon lost track of the others. She found herself alone. Running along a trail overgrown with brush, she found her way to the shelter of a cleft between two boulders. She flopped to the ground and stretched out flat. Loud shouts hit the darkness. There was a blur coming toward her. Suddenly, she saw the figure of an Indian only a few feet away. She held her breath. She could make out an arm a few inches from where she lay. She saw the figure holding still to listen, then he turned and ran the opposite way as a scream cut the darkness. It was Tía Pancha. Now the voice of Buti crying, then the explosion of Tonio’s angry curses as he struggled with his captors. Trini raised herself and made her way quietly out from the heavy brush.
From behind a boulder, she saw a shadowy group of men. One of them hissed an order, then they separated like fingers on a hand. Trini found her way to the main road. Her hands felt sore, scraped, and a tight sense of nausea filled her. She stumbled toward some kind of an ascent, heard the falling of debris behind her. She looked down to see the shape of a face looking up at her, and a hand that reached and covered her ankle. She felt herself falling, gasping for air. She lay, a tired heap upon the ground, then felt herself being lifted. She tightened her grasp on a man’s arm, and in the darkness her teeth dug into his flesh. He cried out, cursing, and dropped her to the ground.
Trini tried to run, but another Indian grabbed her around the shoulders as she kicked and hit. They pushed her down a slope to where a group waited. There she saw Tonio struggling with three braves. She heard her father’s long, drawn-out, gasping cough, and when she saw him he lay on the ground, breathing in little short whistles. Papá, poor Papá!
It was no use. They were all prisoners. Curses and cries punctured the night air as they were pushed and shoved into the wagon.
“Salgazanos! Die!”
The Indian’s face was smoldering with anger. He pointed to the two dead bodies hanging from a tree, two suspended shapes swaying slightly in the night breeze. Trini wanted to cry out, but found no voice. Lifeless, heads hanging, the two men lost shape against the looming, giant boulders in the background. A group of men held Tonio and José Mario. One man had José Mario’s hands pinned back, another pulled his head back by the hair so that José Mario’s gaze would fall on the hanging men. Tonio, struggling against the men who held him, was also forced to look at the dead men.
They were by the river’s edge, where the Indians had led the wagon in the darkness. Tía Pancha and the children huddled in the wagon. The children emitted soft, frightened whines. Trini saw Tía Pancha turning their faces away from the sight of the two hanging sculptured bultos.
“It was just a goat, damn you,” Tonio shouted, as a scudding howl of wind swallowed his words. A Tarahumara held Trini’s wrists in an iron grip. He stood before her, erect with recoiled head. His face was in shadows, but bits of light, rained by a moon through trees, fell on the huge hands that held her. She twisted her body to make him let go. Wrenching pain. She looked to where her father stood between two captors. He stood wary, rigid. He turned his head toward the spokeman and asked sharply, “Is this Cusihuiriachi?”
There was no answer.
“You’re not going to hang us!” yelled Tonio, suddenly raising his tied hands and hitting the man next to him on the side of the face. The force of the blow threw the man to the ground. Tonio broke free from his captors. He ran into the darkness in great leaping strides, three braves following as he cleared bushes and rocks. Then they caught up with him and dragged him back. The moon slid eerily behind a cloud; the hanging men were lost in the shadows of the gaunt, black rocks.