Trini. Estella Portillo Trambley

want his sympathy. She went up to Chimac blindly, stroked the baby’s head, asked in an alien voice cut with hurt, “What’s his name?”

      “Chirachi, Chio.”

      Chimac’s contentment tore at her; a flood of anguish, strange invasions filled her. The sun burned pain, spirals of blue and orange light glassed her sight. I mustn’t faint, she told herself. She turned away from the young wife and in confused defiance called out, “Come on, Buti, Lupita!”

      She broke into a run, the children following. Soon she had left them far behind. She stopped, waiting for them, noticing that their little faces were wet with perspiration. She led them down a path, slackening her pace. Buti’s chatter came through, “They’re playing ball, look!” He was pointing to a noisy dusty game with boys holding long wooden scoops that kept the ball in the air. Trini did not want to look; the noise was bruising. She quickened her step again toward the curve of huts that led to the arroyo, passing an old man making a parrilla of iron tubing. Trini’s eye caught a trail of goat droppings snaking up to the old man sitting in the sun. She laughed, her laughter caught in a whimper. Nothing has happened. What I see does not exist. My valley must be near. Where are the hills? Remember the hills, Sabochi? Remember the fig tree? This is empty, empty land. It is not home, said her empty, empty heart. Faint veils of vapor rose from cooking pots, and ashes scattered in the wind before her. Buti was yelling, “You walk too fast!”

      She didn’t answer. She wanted to escape them, to go back to Batopilas. A whirlwind grew in her, something she could not stop. Yes, yesterday there had been no Chimac, no Chio, no Sabochi. No Sabochi? Gone, gone, gone . . . She swallowed her desperation, running and running against the dirt wind. She was past the arroyo now. She ran far beyond it with eyes closed, with a mouth of dust. She ran until she could run no more, her lungs about to burst.

      Finally, she fell to the ground and cried like a little child, sobbing loudly, her sobs mixing with the howling wind. She cried until she was spent. Then she sat, knees drawn up, held by her arms, head to one side, and stared blankly ahead. Her body opened up to peace, floating, silence restoring the world. Sights and sounds came back. The horizon. The river. She got up and continued her way aimlessly toward the river.

      Gone, gone, gone. Tears again. They came silently this time. Now she was by the water’s edge, the rustle of leaves and the beating of birds’ wings moaned, gone—gone—gone . . . Another whimper grew inside her, but she stifled it. The sun blazed—gone—gone—gone . . . She looked around and soon recognized the spot. There before her were the trees backed by huge boulders. She remembered the dark bultos against the moon. She looked up, frightened by the tree limbs, now bare, that danced to the wind’s whine. The men were gone. Gone—gone—gone . . . The face of farce again! She wiped her quiet tears and tried to think of Chimac and the baby with calm. Vapors dissolving like the sponge, pulverizing. Death and life, green and desolate, cut by pain, loss and gain. Recovery sang in her veins, for no other reason than the surge of new energy in her body, the mind seeding new hope. Nothing stopped, all things went on, and with an elation born out of the sadness, a resilience born out of blindness, she turned back, feeling almost lightheaded.

      She was el pollito, the little girl kicking dust along the road. She picked up a stone and threw it in the air. Then she looked for pretty stones, colored ones wearing the shades of her rainbow rocks. Every time she found a pretty one, she rubbed it clean on her skirt, putting it in her pocket. The sound of instinct hurrying in the blood. A name came to her lips—Chimac—Chimac—Chimac . . . What a pretty name. Like music. And the pain? Gone—gone—gone . . . almost gone.

      Chimac, Chimac, Chimac—it was like the waterfall in Batopilas. She ran past the arroyo. She found herself in the midst of cooking fires, naked children, lean, starved dogs, milling people at their labors. She began to walk faster and wondered what had become of Buti and Lupita. When she came to the cenote, she looked around for them. They were not in sight.

      She would walk back to Sabochi’s house. She looked up to see Chimac walking toward her with Chio in her arms. Chimac smiled and called out, “Trini!”

      Trini pulled back the blown hair from her face. One hand still held the colored stones. Their eyes met. Dear God, I must move without feeling, she told herself. Chimac was before her holding the baby against her shoulder. Pretty Chimac. Trini opened her hand and Chimac looked at the colored pebbles, then Trini let them fall out of her hand, like a spilling rainbow, one by one. They both laughed; Trini asked, with great seriousness, “May I hold Chio?”

      Chimac put the baby in her arms, and they both walked back to Sabochi’s house in silence.

       7

       Land of the Tarahumara

      Four men stood talking at daybreak. The wagon had been loaded with comestibles for the long journey ahead. Isidoro and Tonio were tying a goat to an extra horse.

      “You cannot kill it for food,” Sabochi was explaining to José Mario. “The goat is a message to the ahau of Bucoyu. It says you are a friend.”