Dr. Brinkley's Tower (20 page)

Working together, the two of them also created a life story for her character. Rose Dawn, it seemed, governed a mystical order in Guatemala, communicated telepathically with eagles, had astral-travelled to most parts of the earthly plane, was married to the spirit of a highland wolf, viewed
time as an artificial construct, had made peace with the dark side of humanity, and enjoyed keen memories of each of her past lives, which, at this point in her rebirth cycle, numbered in the several hundreds. Many, it seemed, had coincided with the age of the pharaohs.

— The most important thing, Brinkley told her, — is that you never give Rose Dawn's life story in one whole chunk. Commit it to memory, and let little bits and pieces of it come out with time. You'll entrance your audience that way. With time, they won't be able to get enough of you.

— Dr. Brinkley?

— Yes?

— How do you know all of this?

Brinkley threw back his head and laughed. His eyes turned to slits and they sparkled with light. — Ah, Violeta. I have worked hard, I have applied myself, I have lived purely, and I have seen results. I do prize industry above all else, you know. That is all. There is no mystery, Violeta.

— You have been so kind to me and my mother, Dr. Brinkley. And to my town also.

That's when she saw it: his grin abandoned his features, leaving behind a man who looked, if only for one second, flustered and self-conscious.

— Please, was his response. — Call me John.

The following Saturday, at two minutes to five o'clock in the afternoon, Violeta Cruz found herself sitting in broadcast booth number two of Radio XER, listening to the tail end of Dr. Brinkley's health lecture over a small, crackly speaker
mounted on one wall. On Saturdays her show would replace Farmer Jeb's daily agricultural report. There was a table in front of her, and on that table was a microphone. She wore a pair of headphones. Meanwhile, across the river in Corazón, every man, woman, and child had heard that one of their own was going to be on the air. Each and every one had, in turn, managed to place themselves within earshot of a working radio. Some, like the hacendero Antonio Garcia, were doing so alone, in the privacy of their own homes. Some, like the lowly residents of the ejido, were gathered by the dozens around barely working hand-cranked radios. At least one, a village ex-priest named Alvarez, was dead drunk and spitting invective, his shirt front messed with spilled liquor.

Violeta listened to Brinkley sign off —
May the Good Lord put wind in your wheat and lead in your pencil
— followed by some fiddle music that slowly faded to static. She then heard Dr. Brinkley's voice again.

— Now today, my good listeners, ol' Dr. Brinkley is proud to announce a new feature on the Sunshine Station from Between the Nations, a feature you are sure to find most edifying and entertaining. Rose Dawn is the high priestess of the Sacred Order of the Maya, a mystical order from the Petén province of Guatemala. Thanks to the miracle of modern travel, every Saturday at five o'clock she will be right here, in our Roswell Hotel studios, offering spiritual counsel to those who most need it.

Violeta heard a swell of organ music accompanied by a sound made by waving an unfolded coat hanger in the air. This went on for a half-minute, and when it faded the doctor said: — Good day, Rose.

— Buenos días, Dr. Brinkley.

— I trust your journey to the lovely town of Del Rio, Texas, occurred without incident?

— It did, sir. It was most comfortable.

— And I trust your empathetic powers are at their sharpest …

— Ay sí, doctor.

— Well, in that case, Miss Dawn, we have our first caller, a Sam Wesler of Stillwater, Oklahoma, on the line.

A strange voice came through her headphones. It belonged to an older man, and it quavered with emotional pain.

— Miss Dawn?

— Sí, said Violeta. — How I can help joo?

— Well, said the voice, — it's just that, well, two years ago, my wife of forty years, she died of heart problems.

— I see.

— And now, out here on the farm, I often feel as though she's … jeez, Miss Dawn, I can barely say it, I feel so foolish … but I often feel as though she's with me. I can't explain it any better than that, except to say that sometimes, when I'm out milking the cows, I think I can hear her voice, speaking in the breeze. And at night, when I'm reading my paper, I'll feel a presence in the room, coming from where my missus always sat to do her knitting. Other times I hear footsteps coming from upstairs, and occasionally at night I'm woken by the creaking of doors opening and closing. Could you tell me … is my wife still with me or am I just a crazy old man?

Violeta paused for two or three seconds, feeling not at all guilty about what she was about to do: Dr. Brinkley had taught her that hope was a rare thing, and blessed was the
person selfless enough to grant it to others. She lowered the pitch of her voice and spoke without reflection or intonation.

— Meester Wesler, I haff conferred telepathically with the other priestesses of the order, and with spirits who are existing in places we can no understand. Among us, we have reached a conclusion.

She paused for three or four beats.

—Joo
, I am happy to say, are no alone.

THE HACENDERO GALLOPED THROUGH SCRUBLAND
and plains and full-blown desert, where the wind blew sand over his tracks and the only way to keep his bearings was to watch the position of the sun, the moon, and the stars. Perched atop Diamante, he galloped in blazing, untempered heat and in the shadow thrown by the sierra. He followed arroyos till they trickled to nothing, and he slept in a bedroll under the stars, missing neither Corazón de la Fuente nor the insecurities that plagued him in his old, molested mansion. In this way he rediscovered his love for all things Mexican and his reasons for never having returned to España, even during the horrible throes of the revolution.

He marvelled at buttes and crags, and he washed himself in small clear-water cascades. He rode so far south that the land gave way to pine trees and walnut groves, and he journeyed so far west, in the direction of Sonora, that the land he knew — a land of palo verde, mesquite, and prickly pear — turned into a world of saguaro and cholla and barrel-shaped cacti. Another
time, after a week of near solid galloping towards the eastern horizon, he and Diamante made it all the way to the Gulf of México. Here the hacendero dipped his boot heel in the salt water and then turned around. They spent that night camped in the desert and returned home via a slow, winding depression that took them through Mexican villages, Mormon communities, and Kickapoo settlements composed of nothing but animal-hide tepees and mangy, teat-swollen dogs.

The hacendero had never been happier. His mind had cleared and his muscles felt young. He smelled aloe and creosote and jojoba and, coming upon an iguana that had expired under a rich red sun, the stench of meat turning putrid. He saw desert turtles, mountain bear, wild boars, wolves, raccoons, pumas, beavers, bell vipers, sidewinders, armadillos, scorpions, tarantulas, dwarfed guacamayas, enough voles to fill a canyon, and buzzards so inquisitive they would trail the hacendero for hours on end, providing shade for his sunburnt, reddened neck. One night, with a single shot from his Smith & Wesson, he dropped an old buck with a rack the size of a wood stove. He spent that whole afternoon making jerky over a low, smouldering Indian fire. He would have spent a good deal more time at it had Diamante not started to snort and glare at the hacendero and stamp the earth with his front hooves. It was, the hacendero knew, his way of saying
Dios mío, I'm a horse. You going to ride me or not?

Early one evening he returned to his hacienda after riding Diamante through the valleys and chasms that crisscrossed the Sierra del Burro. It had been a good day. The mountains had been full of eagles, and he had seen a wild ram leaping from one pillar of rock to another. Diamante, meanwhile, had
ridden on the verge of wildness; as usual, the hacendero's arm muscles hurt from reining in his stallion whenever the terrain turned too steep or pebbly. They were about twenty metres from the paddock's wire gate when Diamante, for no reason that the hacendero could discern, pulled up to a standstill.

— What is it, caballo? he asked while patting his animal on the flank.

Diamante whinnied, fought the bit, and tiptoed backwards. In response, the hacendero lightly spurred his horse. Diamante sprinted forward a few dozen steps and then veered to the side before stopping once again.

—
Diamante!
the hacendero shouted, and this time when he spurred the stallion's sides, the horse snorted and fought his bit and turned in circles. The hacendero dismounted and took Diamante by the muzzle and stroked him between the eyes.
Eso es
, he kept saying.
Eso es, mi caballo.
Eventually, Diamante's breathing calmed and the lather on his coat dissipated into the tawny dusk.

The hacendero was truly puzzled. He looked in every direction, and saw nothing that might have spooked his horse. Yet every time he drew Diamante towards the opened paddock, the horse would take three steps, whinny, and try to shake free from the hacendero's gloved hand. This went on and on, until finally he managed to get the horse in through the wire gate. Suddenly Diamante broke from his owner's grip and darted towards the rear of the paddock, where he stood in the lee formed by the back of the hacendero's home.

Antonio approached his horse and asked: — Did you see something you didn't like in the desert? Maybe I should give you a few days off. That's it … you're the type of horse who
doesn't know when to quit. Still, you always look so happy when I saddle you in the mornings …

For the next three days, the hacendero lavished his stallion with attention. He brushed him thoroughly, using a special gnat-trapping comb he'd ordered from a livery in Houston. He fed Diamante his favourite oat-and-molasses cookies, and he personally inspected Diamante's hooves for cockleburs, cactus needles, and bits of glass or nails. He found nothing, which didn't surprise the hacendero, as he was extraordinarily careful with his horse whenever the terrain was littered or rocky. He then tried mucking out the enclosure himself, thinking that his horse would be soothed by being near the person who cared most for him. He also hoped that all this extra attention would cause his stallion to forget whatever it was that had alarmed him.

Instead, he achieved the opposite. On the second day of not riding out, the hacendero noticed that Diamante rarely ventured away from the wooden rear wall of the paddock. Whenever he did, he stayed in the exact centre of the yard, as though afraid of the front and sides of his enclosure, both of which were formed by metal fencing topped with barbed wire. His condition worsened. In the middle of his third day away from riding, Diamante erupted, charging in circles around the paddock. Just as suddenly, he stopped, raked his head against the earth, and galloped towards the corner of the paddock where Beatriz spent her days, mindlessly chewing. Without the slightest provocation, Diamante nipped the bereaved old mare in the haunch. Beatriz screamed, and by the time the hacendero had raced out of his home, it was Beatriz who was charging around the ring, her eyes wide
with fear. —
Diamante!
the hacendero yelled as he ran after Beatriz. — What have you done?

That afternoon the hacendero hired the Reyes twins, Alfonso and Luis, to build a small wooden enclosure within the paddock, where Beatriz could be protected from Diamante's electric disposition. For wood, the hacendero instructed the boys to tear up floorboards from the hacienda's great room, which had been partially de-walled by misdirected artillery fire during the revolution and was now partitioned off with old bedsheets. The Reyes brothers went right to work, their strong backs useful when it came to the more stubborn planks. Unfortunately, what Luis and Alfonso possessed in the way of muscle was counteracted by their lack of building skills: Beatriz's enclosure turned out rickety, vaguely lopsided, and marred by several large holes. Still, it did the job. Beatriz entered willingly, pleased to have a place to take refuge. When the hacendero followed his not-so-secret path to Madam Félix's House of Gentlemanly Pleasures that night, he did so with the knowledge that his aging mare would probably still be alive when he returned the next morning.

When the hacendero next attended to Diamante, he found his horse standing as still as a figure cast in marble. He called the horse's name, unnerved when Diamante did nothing but gaze bitterly towards the horizon. Then, when the hacendero approached and took Diamante by his halter, he noticed that the horse had been rubbing himself against the rear wall of the enclosure, and his left flank was now pinkish and raw. For
the first time the hacendero felt genuine annoyance with his prize stallion.

— What is it, caballo? What in the name of God is the problem?

Again he looked around, struggling to see what might be spooking his horse. It was as if there were ghosts, unseen and ferocious, tormenting the poor animal. The hacendero's heart was beating hard, and he was short of breath. He turned back to his horse.

— That's it, he said. — We're going for a ride.

The hacendero marched through the yard and opened the padlock that hung on the door to his small adjoining tack room. He picked up his favourite saddle — the one with embroidered silk string roses — and carried it into the paddock. He put it on Diamante, the horse snorting and whinnying as his owner tightened the straps. He then took Diamante by the bridle and tried to lead him to the wire fence that separated the paddock from the wilds of the Coahuilan desert. Diamante took two or three steps and then planted his forelegs. The hacendero swore and jerked hard on the bit, a movement designed to bring pain to Diamante's mouth. The stallion jerked his head so fiercely that the bridle slipped out of the hacendero's gloved hand. In the same instant the horse whipped his head back around and bit the hacendero's still raised forearm. Thankfully the hacendero had withdrawn his arm just enough that Diamante's mouth was filled only with a length of riding jacket.