After a while, they fell exhausted to the ground, eating the rest of the figs and counting fig leaves. Trini went back to the rainbow rocks and pointed out Sabochi’s cave to El Enano. There it was, where cardones and pitayas grew alive in yellows and pinks.
“You can’t speak, can you?” asked Trini as El Enano explored the colored rocks. He shook his head and seemed sad, but only for a second. He pointed to his ears, his eyes, and afterwards wove patterns in the air, fingers making hieroglyphic sense. Buti was tugging at Trini’s hilpa. “Can he get us some cheese, please, Trini?”
“Why not?” Trini climbed down from the rocks and motioned for El Enano to follow her. He ran with rhythmic little soldier strides, following Trini and the children into the kitchen, then into a pantry where a wooden table was used to make cheese. José Mario, when making cheese, always kept part of the milk. Trini helped with the heating of the milk and the draining of the whey in a canoa. Matilda had pressed the curds and cut them on the table. The cheese was stored in molds, sarsos set on open shelves built around the pantry. José Mario sold part of the cheese in Batopilas.
The sarsos were too high for the children to reach, but it was no trouble for El Enano. In the dark, cool pantry, with its smell of chile and dried meat, Trini handed a knife to the dwarf and pointed to the cheese. El Enano put the knife between his teeth with a flourish that delighted the children. Then, balancing himself along the edge of a shelf, he climbed from one to the other with great agility. At the top, he pulled a sarso out and sliced off a chunk of cheese. He held it high over his head and grinned down at them, poised on one foot on the edge of the top shelf. The children held their breath. He winked and made a gesture of a drop to Trini, who held out her hands to catch the cheese.
But the little man did not climb down. Something held his attention. He reached behind the sarso and pulled out a bultito, holding it high over his head as he had held the cheese. There was the pose, the wink, but he did not drop it. He put the blue bundle between his teeth and the knife inside his belt and made his way down to the children. Trini put the cheese on the table and held out her hand. It was Matilda’s blue bundle. El Enano gave it to her with great seriousness. Her eye caught the yellow sprig embroidery stitched so carefully. Trini knew full well what it contained. Sitting on the wooden table, Buti and Lupita were around her as she untied the bundle on her lap. There they were—delicate spirals, woven strips of spider forms, tiny pieces of silver and gold. These were not the deliberate openwork design of goldsmiths. These were natural falling formations of metal grains, spontaneous sprinkles of melting metal. Through the years, one piece at a time, these had been gifts from José Mario to their mother, for in the past he had done his own founding. Trini remembered how as a little girl she had watched her father straining gold dust. It was not his gold and silver, for it belonged to Mr. Johnson, the mine owner, but José Mario kept some of the ore in the house to melt for the americano. There had been cotencias full of silver ore and gold waiting to be melted. Trini remembered playing dishes with the piles of trochados, the silver dollars used by José Mario to pay the mine workers. That had been so long ago. The delicate designs in the bundle were not worth very much, but they had been precious to Matilda because they were gifts from her husband.
“¡Miren!” José Mario would say, holding the most exquisite and fragile of labyrinths, more complex and mysterious than the one built by Daedalus for the Minotaur. Matilda, busy in the kitchen, would come in to watch the quick happenings in silver and gold. When the forms hardened, José Mario would hold them up, then put them in Matilda’s opened hand. As he dropped them silently in her palm, their eyes would meet, and he would say, “Pa’ la mamá.” Matilda’s eyes would light up with contentment.
Now they were on Trini’s lap, bits of silver and gold, memories without sadness, love breathing whole. The children laughed and talked about Mamá, precious, funny little incidents, surprisingly not forgotten. After a while, Trini took the tiny molds and put them back in the bultito.
From a distance, El Enano watched the children fingering their memories. In his own eyes was the feel of centuries. The newfound intimacy belonged to the children alone. He did not intrude, but slipped through the kitchen door and walked across the yard. Lupita looked up, the first to notice the absence of their new friend. He was gone.
“Chihuahua belongs to the Indians,” José Mario was telling Sabochi, his eyes distant, his voice solemn. “But then the white man came . . .”
“Not to Cusihuiriachi,” laughed Sabochi.
“Long ago, the Indians in this valley looked upon the light in the barranca as the sacred ground of gods. Over there, near the mines.” José Mario pointed to the mountain east of the valley. “There was a pure light shooting up from the gash.” He sighed. “Turned out to be gold, only gold.”
They were sitting and smoking on the high terraced milpas where the whole family had come to seed the cleared land. Clearing it had taken two weeks. The seeding was easier, for plowing the milpas in Bachotigori was not necessary. The tropical climate on high ground made the earth giving and rich. The people of the valley planted after the winds of February, everyone sharing the crops for miles around. No one person owned the land. José Mario’s family had planted lentils, beans, and, around the hill where Sabochi’s cave was, they had planted chile piquín.
The children sat in a rock enclosure on the edge of a ravine. A patch of sun touched Trini’s face as she looked over to where her papá and Sabochi sat deep in conversation. Since his return, Sabochi had been the children’s “mother.” But, more importantly, the gate was no longer locked. Sabochi often took them to explore the hills, following paths that led to streams making their way to the mother river. Sometimes they would come across sweet smelling clusters of wild herbs. The most exciting thing to Trini was discovering silent, shadowy recesses of mountain similiar to Sabochi’s cave. The whole valley was theirs when Sabochi was home.
“Times are changing,” José Mario was saying. “There’s no more gold now. Water is seeping into the mines. The gods have left the valley, Sabochi. Now, you watch the alemanes and the americanos leave Batopilas. The mountains will again belong to the descalzos. But it is a different mountain now.” José Mario, his small, thin frame leaning against a rock, closed his eyes to visions past and future.
That evening Sabochi had his own news as he prepared huacavaques for the family. José Mario stirred the white pozole while Sabochi cut tripe. Trini mashed red chile into a pulp.
“I will be leaving for Quirare,” Sabochi was saying as he expertly and rhythmically cleaved a knife into the long strips of tripe. “Isidoro came to my cave last night, all the way from Cusihuiriachi. My father is very ill. I must go back.”
“For a long time?” There was dismay in Trini’s question.
“I cannot say, pollito. I’ll be back if . . .”
It hung in the air. “If . . .” He’ll come back. I know he’ll come back, Trini assured herself. He always comes back.
“Who’s going to be our mother?” Buti asked. Trini felt impatience with his question. She ordered, “You and Lupita set the table now.”
Lying on her petate that night, Trini stared into the darkness, restless, her pores alive to the balmy air of a coming spring. She whispered in the darkness, “I don’t want you to be my mother, Sabochi. Not any more.” She choked back tears, feeling a darkness enfolded in a deeper dark.
*