Thirteen Senses (34 page)

The tears were flowing from his old eyes. “Forgive me,
querida,”
he said, taking her hand to his lips and kissing her fingertips once more. “Please, forgive me for abandoning you.”

At this point, the Devil stepped forward to put the words of resentment into Lupe's mouth so she wouldn't give forgiveness to her father, but Doña Margarita was a warrior of the highest order, and so when the Devil stepped forward, she leaped, shoving a long branch of rose thorns up his ass with such power that
el Diablo
jumped aside. Lupe was freed.

“But, papa,
there's nothing to forgive,” said Lupe, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Everything has worked out for the best. You're here with us now, and I love you very, very much.”

“Really,
mi hijita,
you forgive me and . . . and you love me?”

“Of course,” said Lupe, “with all of my
corazón
I love you and I forgive you and . . . and, well, we have a surprise for you,” she added, turning and taking Salvador's right hand.
“Papa,
Salvador and I . . . are going to have a baby.”

“A BABY!” shouted the old man with a flood of tears bursting forth from his old eyes! “A baby,” he repeated with such joy. “A little baby from my baby! Oh, what a miracle life is! Good God, I'm so happy to have lived to see this Holy Day!”

And Don Victor strained to sit up in bed, so he could take Lupe into his arms. Quickly, Salvador moved forward, helping the old man to upright himself. He could feel that Don Victor's back had become nothing but bones.

“Oh,
mi hijita, mi hijita!
” said the old man, taking his daughter in his arms. And he held her, with his eyes closed for the longest time, breathing deeply, then he opened his redshot eyes—from crying so much—and he saw Salvador looking at them. “Oh, aren't women wonderful? Eh, Salvador, aren't they the true wonder of our lives?” The tears streamed down his face, but he didn't bother to wipe them away. “I love you so much,
mi hijitos.
Both of you so very much.” He pulled Lupe in closer to himself as he stretched out an old, wrinkled-up hand to get hold of Salvador, too. “You girls and your mother are the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. Oh, my God, my God, I love you so, so much! And now here you are married and with child. These are the true riches of life, but I just couldn't see them until now that it's almost too late. God forgive me, God forgive every man who's ever abandoned his home!

“Salvador,” he now added, “you are now going to be a father, the one who protects and keeps your home alive and full of love against the ways of the Devil, who's so quick to deceive us men with dreams of glory and—”

But Don Victor wasn't even able to finish his words.

For hearing these jewels of wisdom coming from one who'd been on his way to Hell, the Devil became so enraged that he SCREAMED, kicking the window open and rushing out of the room!

A sweet, delicious breeze of fresh air came into the room, surprising everyone how the old window had just suddenly opened up by itself—a window that obviously hadn't been opened in years.

Salvador breathed in deeply, totally accepting Don Victor's words that yes, he, himself, was now the responsible father of his home.

And outside—much to the Devil's disbelief—here was Doña Margarita still after him. And she now grabbed hold of the Devil by the throat, with such force and conviction of Soul that she half choked him to death before he could escape, howling as he went—up, up, over rooftops and toward Heaven before he realized where he was going, and so he quickly shot back down into his own domain of Eternal Damnation!

Doña Margarita was flying through the clouds, laughing
con carcajadas
!

“Almost got you, eh,
Diablo!?!
I surprised you so much that you almost went to Heaven again, instead of Hell!”

“You son-of-a-bitch—no, DAUGHTER-OF-A-BITCH!” screamed the Devil back at Doña Margarita.

“Oh, come on, why curse me any longer,” she calmly said to him. “Admit it, you're in love with me.”

“IN LOVE WITH YOU!” screamed
el Diablo,
spitting in disgust at the leaping red-orange flames all about him. “I hate you! Look, what I've done to you and your children, you stupid, ignorant INDIAN WOMAN! I've raped and killed and starved and mutilated your children for hundreds of years! I DID IT! I found ways to get it DONE!”

“Yes, I know,” said Doña Margarita with tears coming to her old, wrinkled-up eyes, “and I ... I forgive you, Don Lucifer.”

“But you can't forgive me, I'm the Devil! YOU MUST HATE ME!”

“Hate you?” said Doña Margarita oh, so softly. “But how can I hate you? For you, too, once came from God. Come, my poor, lost Child of Darkness and let me hold you, and hug you, and mother you with Love. You must be so tired and weary with all the bad, evil deeds you do. Come, let me mother you.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!
VIEJA CONDENADA!”
screamed the Devil. “You will not trick me again! Oh, I pray to God for the day all you ignorant, backward
Indios sin razón
are finally killed off the face of the earth, so I can then be free at last to do as I damn well please in the name of progress and greed and—stop it! STOP BLOWING ME KISSES, you imbecile! Jesus, I hate you!”

The Devil stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly, realizing that he'd just used the Sacred Name of “Jesus” and before that . . . he'd, well, actually prayed to God . . . and so
el Diablo
now slapped himself across the mouth, and took off for the depths of Hell, hoping to find some peace at last!

And Doña Margarita was left here with clouds all about her and tears running down her face. For truly, she could see that her Love was finally beginning to get to the Devil, himself.

She made the sign of the cross over herself, thanking
Papito.

And God smiled.

LEAVING THE HOSPITAL
, Salvador and Lupe drove back across town to get her things from her parents' house, so that they could then drive over to Corona to see Salvador's mother and tell her the news of their baby. Carlota and Victoriano, who'd just come in from working in the fields, were both eating at the kitchen table like young, starving wolves!

“Hello,” said Salvador, smiling happily. “So how does it go?”

“Hot as always for those of us who work for a living!” said Carlota.

“Mi hijita!”
said Doña Guadalupe.

“Oh, don't
‘mi hijita'me
,” snapped Carlota angrily. “Victoriano and I work hard while the princess, here, and her no-good, fish-poisoning husband do nothing all day long!”

“Fish poisoning?” said the old lady, surprised by this remark.

“Yes, I told you,
mama,
Salvador tried to poison me with a fish when we went to dinner to Long Beach and he talked Chinese, hiding the truth of his actions from us.”

“Oh, Carlota,” said Lupe. “But how can you talk like this? You ate no fish, and we who did, didn't get poisoned.”

“See!” yelled Carlota. “That's how tricky the Chinese are! But I knew, I knew, that's why I was smart enough not to eat any fish!”

No one knew what to say. Carlota's logic was one of a kind.

“Excuse me,” said Victoriano to Salvador, “but I need to know if you've seen
Señor
Whitehead lately?”

Mr. Whitehead was a local farmer for whom Victoriano had been working for several months now.

“No,” said Salvador, “in fact, I haven't seen him for quite a while.”

Originally, Salvador had introduced Victoriano to Mr. Whitehead, months before he and Lupe had gotten married. Whitehead was a drinking man that Salvador had met years ago through the Moreno brothers from Corona. For more than ten years, Whitehead had been one of the top foremen for old man Irvine, but then a few years back, he'd bought some property and started farming on his own. He'd planted an orchard of oranges and started growing tomatoes, cucumbers, string beans and other vegetables.

Whitehead was a good man. Anyone who'd ever worked for him had nothing but the highest respect for
el hombre.
Whitehead paid all of his workers on time, and he never tried to cheat them on their hours, as did so many of the other farmers in the area—including old man Irvine.

And Irvine was one of the largest and richest landholders in all the area. His place stretched from the sea of Newport to the mountains of the Trabuco Canyon on the back side of Orange County. Originally, Irvine's place had been a Spanish land grant, just as the O'Neil place and the huge Santa Margarita
Rancho
had also been Spanish land grants.

“Why do you ask?” asked Salvador.

“Because Whitehead is gone,” said Victoriano. “No one has seen him in days. And his wife is worried, not knowing if he's . . . well, last year she said that he got himself a few bottles and tried drinking himself to death, when he lost that crop of oranges.”

“Yes, I remember that,” said Salvador, thinking back. “And there wasn't a freeze or anything to kill those orange blossoms. Strange. Very Strange.”

“Exactly,” said Victoriano, “and this afternoon his wife asked me to go and find him for her. Poor woman, she told me last time they found him in a hotel room out by Long Beach on 17th Street, and he was just about dead. Could you help me, Salvador? My little truck isn't running very well. I think I loaded my
troquecito
a little too much too many times.”

“Of course, Whitehead is a good man,” said Salvador, taking a deep breath. “But what happened? Did he lose another crop?”

“Yes, his string beans, and now . . . they're going to lose everything, his wife said.”

“String beans!?!” said Salvador. “But tell me, how in the hell can a man lose string beans?
Ejotes
are tough, especially in our climate here, they always manage to live! Damn, what bad luck!”

Salvador kissed Lupe good-bye, and he then followed Victoriano out the door.

“Good riddance!” yelled Carlota as Salvador and Victoriano went out the door.

“Carlota!” said their mother in a stern voice. “You will do the dishes for being so disrespectful!”

“No, make her do them! She's not working! I'm too tired!”

“But not too tired to insult a guest under our roof!”

“But he's no guest anymore! The no-good is her husband now!”

“Start washing! Now!”

“Oh, I could kill with this frying pan!”

“Salvador,” said Victoriano once they had gotten away from the house, “his wife also told me that he took his gun.”

“His gun?” said Salvador, opening the door to his Moon. “But what would Whitehead do with a gun? He's one of the nicest, easiest-going
gringos
you'll ever meet.”

“Yes,” said Victoriano, “but the rumors in the
barrio
are . . . that, well, old man Irvine poisoned his crops.”

“No!” yelled Salvador. He also knew old man Irvine very well. And Irvine could be tough, but this was beyond words!

“Yes, they say that old man Irvine's still so mad that one of his best foremen quit working for him and went out on his own, that he actually got the county sprayers to poison Whitehead's crops when they did their seasonal spraying for insects.”

“I'll be damn,” said Salvador. “But how did you find out?”

“Because, Salvador,” said Victoriano, “one of the men who actually did the spraying is
Mejicano,
and he talked, saying that he had no idea what they were doing at the time.”

“Then you think Whitehead took the gun to kill Irvine?”

“No, Salvador,
Señor
Whitehead is one of these good guy
gringos de todo corazón
who doesn't believe that the Devil lives inside people's souls, even if he saw him eye to eye, staring him in the face.”

Salvador nodded, and they got into the Moon and took off. Salvador knew exactly what his brother-in-law was talking about. It just seemed like some
gringos
were so good-hearted that they couldn't believe the simple fact that the Devil lived Here on Earth as sure as the Sun came up and the Sun went down.

“Well, then tell me,” said Salvador, “why would Whitehead take a gun with him if he isn't going to kill Irvine?”

“To kill himself,” said Victoriano.

“WHAT!” screamed Salvador, almost driving off the side of the road, this surprised him so much! “But no man ever thinks of killing himself!”

“Among the
gringos
they do,” said Victoriano, making the sign of the cross over himself. “His wife is going crazy. They've lost everything.”

“So what! Most of us live our whole life with having nothing!”

Victoriano laughed. “Yes, us, the Mexicans. But among the
gringos,
Salvador, most of their lives they've always had something, so nothing is something that they know nothing about.”

“Well, okay, but to kill yourself over nothing, it just makes no sense.”

Victoriano nodded. “I agree.”

“My God, my God,” said Salvador. “Then you mean, that this poor crazy fool is really suffering over maybe ending up with nothing?”

Victoriano nodded again. “Exactly.”

“But still,” said Salvador, “how can he think that killing himself is the answer? Shit!” yelled Salvador, hitting the steering wheel and the muscles of his neck coming up like thick cords. “Hell, I'd kill Irvine in a second, then burn his house down, and drag his body through the streets behind my car for all to see, having
gusto a lo macho cabrón,
before it would ever even enter my mind to kill myself!”

“But of course,” said Victoriano, laughing, “you're un
Indio sin razón,
not a good-hearted
gringo!
”

Hearing this, Salvador burst out laughing! Oh, life,
la vida,
really was so full of wild contradictions. Hell, he'd actually started thinking that only
los Mejicanos
had any
problemas!
Why, the poor
gringos
were all caught up in the struggles of living, too!