Heaven Is a Long Way Off (18 page)

T
OMÁS
G
UERRERO,
a boy from an insignificant village on an unimportant stream flowing east from the Sierre Madre Occidental, had one strength. He knew absolutely what he had to do.

His father had taught him the meaning of the name Guerrero, warrior. Now the men of this family grew corn, beans, and chiles in their fine irrigated fields, and the children looked after their few goats. It was a good place, and the men of this village had for generations defended their families and their village against many enemies. With bow and arrow, with spear, with club they had acted when necessary as men, as
guerreros
, warriors. That was the blood that coursed through the body of Tomás, and through his mind and will. At this moment he bore a warrior's courage, a warrior's determination, and a warrior's fierceness.

He was waiting only for complete darkness. He had walked most of the day. He followed El Camino Real for a mile or two so that his tracks would be indistinguishable from others, and then walked through the sagebrush, through the trees, across rock, wherever he would be hard to track. He didn't know who was more likely to come after him, the men who would make him a slave again, or the foolish woman who would make him into a household servant or a farmboy. He was determined to elude everyone until he fulfilled his purpose. He kept the cleaver stuck down the back of his pants, covered by his loose shirt. He didn't want anyone to know he was bringing trouble.

At midmorning he made a wide circle around the city of Santa Fe. No city was important. What mattered was carrying himself as a man.

Once this afternoon he stopped to ask directions. He found himself uncertain which road led along the plateau to the rancho of the don, the man who arrogated to himself the power to own other human beings, to subordinate their desires to his own, to use them as his playthings.

A simple man who was cleaning an irrigation ditch told Tomás, “The road is there, beyond those fields and across the creek.” The way to the rancho of the powerful man Tomás despised.

Later, when he got to the top of the rise and looked down at the rancho, he saw that it would be hard. First Tomás observed, noting everything and memorizing the arrangement of buildings, tracks, and gates. Then he crawled to the creek, concealed himself in the willows, and waited. When he saw a clear chance, he sprinted to the back side of a building. Then he crept behind a wagon. He slipped into a corral with some horses. At last he got into the barn and up into the loft, where he could see into the casa. These movements took him all afternoon, but he was very, very patient. His father had taught him that the first strength of a warrior, as for a hunter, is patience.

He was frustrated. From the loft he could see into the courtyard and through windows into the kitchen, the dining room, and even the room where rich people sat prettily and received their guests. He had seen two such houses in his lifetime, yesterday and today, but he was smart and able to put the layout firmly in his mind. He would be able to find his way around this one in the dark. His stomach was sour with contempt for the rich who lived in high style while others plowed their fields, planted, and did all the other labor that supported the
ricos.

He was burning with two questions: Where was this particular
rico
now? And where was the human being he intended to make his slave?

In the rooms Tomás could see from this perch, he got no hint of an answer to either question. And now that the sun was down, the sky fully dark, and the house lit only by candles, he could see less.

On the other hand, the darkness would make it possible for a warrior to approach undetected, and to enter in stealth.

He climbed down the ladder and padded softly between the stalls. He inhaled the musty smells of straw, dung, and hay, and looked at the dark shadows of the necks and heads of the horses sticking over the stall doors, peering at the intruder.

The night was brighter than the barn, even though the moon was dipping toward the western hills. He moved quietly and told himself he had the confidence of a warrior. No one would be stirring now, unless the cook came outside. The don was probably at his meal in the dining room—with
her,
Tomás supposed. Even wicked men liked the company of a pretty woman.

Otherwise, probably, the don was alone. The children must be grown and gone. All afternoon he'd seen no family members at all, only the cook and a serving woman near the house, and elsewhere just field hands. He wondered if they were slaves. He hadn't seen the don, or her. It drove him mad to picture how they were probably spending the hours.

Already he had decided how to make his approach. The house was two long wings that made an
L
, and the two walls of the courtyard completed the square. He ignored the front door, far to the front left. He tiptoed past the gate into the courtyard, which gave access to the door that led to the kitchen. He treaded quietly along the wall outside the courtyard, where he had seen ovens, a well, and at the far end a fountain and ornamental plantings of cholla and chamisa. Facing the courtyard where the two wings met were several windows. He wondered what that room was—where the master slept, with a view of his garden? He circled around the back of the house to the far corner and tiptoed all the way to the back corner, where the two wings joined. He was only guessing, but…

Yes, there was a small door here.

He slipped the cleaver out of his waistband and held it high. From now on he must be totally alert and completely ready. If he came on an enemy unexpectedly, he knew what to do. His father told him over and over.

“When I was a boy, or barely a man, fourteen,” his father said, “we fought the Apaches. They came to steal our families, many of them. They rode into the village in the middle of the day, when the men were working in the fields. They rushed into our houses and seized our women and children. If the men ran in from the fields in time, they killed them. Even the boys my age, if we tried to fight, they killed us.

“My older brother, not yet married, he had walked into the village to get food for the men. When the Apaches came, he was stepping out of the door of our house. He threw down the food and fought with his knife. I grabbed a cleaver from the kitchen and rushed to fight beside him. He screamed like a madman and swung his blade in every direction. I did the same, I became a
loco.
By that fighting, I learned a great lesson. The Apaches shot their arrows at us and threw their spears, but we stood untouched, warriors. As a result they did not go into our house. We were too much trouble. They stole children from the neighbors instead. So if ever you must fight, Tomás, do it like a
loco
. In his madness, a
loco,
he is protected by the saints.”

Tomás took off his sandals and set them down. Barefooted would be quieter. He squeezed the handle of the cleaver and gently opened the rear door. He stood outside a moment, listening. Nothing.

He eased his head in the opening and peered down the corridor straight ahead. Nothing that he could detect, but the corridor was dark. He slipped through the doorway and stood very still, looking down the other corridor. There warm candlelight flowed through two open doors, making the hall a checkerboard of darkness and light.

Good,
thought Tomás,
probably I will find them in the dining room.
He breathed deep.
Like thunder and lightning I will fall upon him, and I will bless her like a warm rain.

He glided along the inside wall, his back to it. When he came to the first door, he stopped, waited, and quieted his heart. Slowly, he craned his neck into the entryway. To the left his vision was blocked by the door, which stood half open. In the middle of the room there was a long table, apparently for dining. Against the wall at the far end stood a high cabinet with glass doors and full of plates, bowls, cups, and glassware. Tomás felt a spurt of disgust for people who owned many sets of dishes, while a family like his had to eat from cheap bowls of clay.

Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open and a serving girl walked briskly through, carrying a covered dish. Tomás jerked his head back. He didn't know whether she'd spotted him, and his heart pounded.

By her footsteps he could tell she walked to the left end of the table, the one hidden from view. Words were spoken—“Here you are, sir” in a female voice, and in a man's,
“Gracias.”
He let out a huge sigh. Evidently, the girl hadn't seen him. The footsteps tick-ticked again, her figure appeared with her back to him, and she disappeared into the kitchen. From there an older woman's voice said something sharply, and the younger woman's gave a clipped answer.

I am within a few steps of her now.
He pictured her sitting meekly next to the old man, answering meekly when spoken to, obeying when instructed. She had been obeying since they were stolen from their home, which drove him mad.

Yet at the same time he loved her.

Can I do it?

He crossed to the outer wall. Then, facing the dining room, he crabbed sideways across, visible to anyone who might raise their eyes in his direction.

No one was there to look. He couldn't even see the don and his sister at their places at the table.

He slid swiftly to the far door to the dining room. This door also stood ajar. And he found a blessing—he could peer through the crack between the door and the facing.

At the head of the table sat the don, alone.
Where is she?

He slumped in his chair, picking at his food without interest, staring at the dark windows that bordered the courtyard garden. His sallow complexion looked even more yellow in the candlelight.

Diablo, where is she?

He scoured his memory of the other long hall, the one on the left.

He half ran back down the hall—foolish speed, he knew. He sped by the other dining door without hesitation. Not before the corner at the end of the hall did he slow down.

He glanced down the hall and jerked his head back. Nothing but gloom. The first door stood partly open, and moonlight pooled on the floor. The far end of the corridor was inky.

He walked silently to the open door and peered in. The window facing the courtyard let in enough light to see. A small, plain bed, a table, a wardrobe, nothing more. Pole rafters held a flat ceiling. Candles stood in their wall holders, but he had nothing to light them with.

He slipped on to the next door, closed. Slowly, quietly, he pushed down on the flat handle. When it stopped at the bottom of its turn, he waited. The mechanism had been silent.

He eased the door open, waited. No one shouted, no one rushed at him.

He poked his head in. The room was identical to the other. Neither appeared to be in use. He closed the door and went on. Maybe the don lived alone in this big house.

He stepped quietly to the last door on this hall. He'd guessed that this was the large bedroom, for the master and his…woman. He reminded himself that he didn't know.

He palmed the handle, turned it, and held it down. After a deep breath in and out he opened the door and stepped in.

And glimpsed a figure. In front of the big window on the opposite side, aglow in the moonlight, hung the nude body of a woman.

Tomás weaved the few steps forward. He looked up at the head, and the cord that suspended her from the rafter. He reached out and touched the hand. Cold.

That cold coursed through him, pumped by his own heart.

“¿Maria?”

A voice in the corridor!

“My dear?”

The horror.

Tomás jerked his head around and saw the glow of candlelight. He froze.

Two candles came into view, each held by one hand. Behind them in the soft aura of light was the face of Don Emilio.

Aghast, Tomás turned back to his nude sister. Her head was crooked forward and her small feet dangling above the floor. The breeze from the window made her black hair stir against her limp forearm.

“Maria!” screamed Tomás.

As he screamed, he whirled to Don Emilio. Two faces, stunned, glared at each other.

“Murderer!” bellowed Tomás.

All of his rage at life raised the cleaver straight over his head and with both hands Tomás swung savagely down onto the don's skull.

H
E SIMPLY MATERIALIZED
in the doorway. One moment Sam saw an empty rectangle, the next a space filled with the dirty, skinny, bloody form of Tomás.

Paloma rushed to him and embraced him. Then she threw a look at the dining table that quelled everyone there: Do not ask this child any questions, not yet. Quickly she pushed Tomás through the dining room into the kitchen. “Scrub this boy in hot, soapy water,” she told Juanita the cook, “and bring him right back to the table. He's probably starved.”

Tomás gave Rosalita and Lupe, the serving girls, a funny look. They giggled, probably at the idea of him being stripped down and washed vigorously. Juanita, with her grandmotherly age and sergeant style, would be perfect for that.

In a few minutes Paloma got things arranged. She dispatched Flat Dog, Julia, and the infants to their casita. Pedro tagged after them. She reheated the stew of pork and green chiles herself and popped the tortillas into the warming oven.

Tomás sat, clean and in a robe of Paloma's. Juanita took his clothes, dirty and speckled with blood. His eyes darted from Paloma to Sam to Hannibal. Sam was sure the boy felt outnumbered. Which was good.

“All right, Tomás,” said Paloma, “what has happened?”

Sam watched Tomás decide how to play it. He decided on defiance. “I killed the
diablo.
” His lips curled as he said the words.

Rosalita put food in front of Tomás, and he pitched in.

“Killed who?” said Hannibal. They had ridden to Armijo's rancho, had talked to Cerritos, and knew the slave trader was in disgustingly good health.

“The one you call Don Emilio.”

The adults flashed their eyes at each other. Why Emilio?

Tomás ate enthusiastically and gave them a weird, quivery grin.

Sam looked at Tomás and thought,
This attitude isn't going to last long.

“I killed him with the cleaver.” Tomás picked up the big knife and threw it flat onto the dining table, where it clattered, quivered, and grew still. The blade was caked with dried blood.

The boy looked at them with what he intended as pride.

Sam put a hand on his arm. “Why?” he asked.

“Why?” Tomás looked down at his plate. He dropped his spoon into his bowl of stew. He stared at it. Then he dumped the whole bowl in his lap. He stood up, food dribbling down the robe. Maybe he tried to scream the next words, but they came out as a series of hiccups. “Because the
hijo de puta
killed Ma-ma-ria.”

Then the tears burst forth. Tomás wept, he sobbed, he shook convulsively.

Paloma put her arms around him. Sam patted his shoulder. Hannibal watched Tomás's face closely, tenderly. Then, slowly and patiently, the three adults drew the story out of the child and put it together:

The girl that Cerritos raped in front of everyone, the one “not good enough for you yet,” she was Maria Guerrero, the older sister of Tomás. And all the other men had raped her, as often as they wanted, at least one every night, since…

“Maria, she…”

The first time they raped her, Tomás threw himself on her attacker. They laughed, beat him, and then did everything they wanted to do with her loudly, mocking him and laughing. When he threw himself on the rapist again the next night, they held him fast, brought him close, made him watch, and then beat him senseless. After that they separated the two completely. They were not permitted to walk together, to talk, even to sleep near each other.

Tomás did not know what would happen when they finally got to Santa Fe. He was hoping they would be sold to the same family and could escape together.

“But Cerritos, he made a point of it. When he sold her, he did not want anyone to know I am her brother, know she had any family nearby. Cerritos, he said these words, ‘A tasty morsel, unprotected…'”

Hannibal and Sam looked at each other and reached an understanding. To help this boy they needed to know…

“You walked to Don Emilio's rancho?”

“Yes.” They realized he'd seen it when they went to get Lupe.

“Then what did you do?”

Tomás had honest pride in the next part of the tale. He told how he watched, figured things out, approached, sneaked through the casa until he found the don at his table, explored the rest of the house in the dark, and discovered…

“She was in his bedroom. Naked. He came down the hall calling her
‘Querida.'
”

A term of endearment—Sam felt it like a sting.

“I knew he soiled her all day long.”

Sam sensed something wrong. “She was still in his bed?”

“No, she…No, she…” And he wailed and sobbed again. Some minutes and much soothing were needed to get the next part of the story.

“She was hanging in the moonlight, naked, by a cord from one of the rafters.
Muerto.
”

For long moments no one could speak. Tomás looked from face to face. There were no words.

“You said he came down the hall?” This was Hannibal.

“Yes, just after I found her. Perhaps he heard me and thought it was her. He came carrying a candle in each hand. They showed me my target, they framed his head for me. I took that cleaver and…” He pointed to the big knife, raised his hands over his head in a double fist, and swung them viciously down. The blow rattled the dining table, and the equilibrium of his listeners.

“Are you sure she is dead?”

“I touched her.”

“Sure he is dead?”

“I split his brain in two.” The words danced to dark music in Tomás's eyes.

Sam, Paloma, and Hannibal looked at each other, understanding.

“My child,” said Paloma, “you must rest.” She put an arm around his shoulders and guided him toward the doorway. “We will talk about everything tomorrow.”

 

S
AM AND
H
ANNIBAL
spent the next day in Santa Fe and came back with a different story. “We didn't have to ask anyone,” said Sam. “It's the talk of the town.”

Paloma brought cups of coffee. As she started to sit, she said, “Wait, I'll get Tomás. He's done nothing but sleep all day.”

“Maybe that's not such a good idea,” said Sam.

“It is,” said Paloma. “If he's old enough to kill a man, he's old enough to hear what comes of it.”

When Tomás was across the table from them and fully alert, Sam started to give him the news.

Tomás held up a flat hand. “I don't care about the
cabrón
. Tell me about my sister.”

Sam said gently, “We brought her body in the wagon. We stopped at the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the priest said the proper words over her.”

To Sam the words felt like thrown stones.

Tomás's face was naked.

Paloma said, “Tomorrow, if you want, we will bury her outside the chapel here.”

“Good.” Tomás looked lost for a moment. Then he said with a twisted smile, “Now tell me about the
viejo hediondo.
”

“Don Emilio is barely alive,” said Sam. “No one knows whether he will live or die. He mumbles but says nothing that makes any sense. The doctor says maybe he has a fractured skull, or maybe he's only missing a big piece of scalp on the left side of his head. Either way, he's weak from loss of blood, and he has a high fever. No one will know anything for several days.”

“Unless I get at him,” said Tomás.

“Stop that,” Sam said. He gave the boy a hard look.

“I will kill him,” said Tomás bitterly.

“You won't,” said Sam.

Tomás lashed out. “He might get well. He might remember me.”

“You don't know what it is to kill a human being.” Sam wished he didn't.

“He might send the
policia.
”

“We'll plan for that.”

Paloma held Tomás's hands and looked deep into his eyes. “We will protect you.”

Sam added, “No more killing.”

He watched Tomás's face carefully, and later he thought the boy's expression was relief.