Thirteen Senses (64 page)

Salvador nodded, then he went back inside. Lupe's whole left side looked cock-eyed. It was difficult for him to look at her without showing how worried he was. He silently prayed for her. Oh, how he wished that they'd used his mother for this pregnancy instead of a male
doctor Americano.

THE NEXT DAY,
Lupe had no feeling whatsoever on her whole left side. They called the doctor, and he came and gave her a shot. Now Doña Guadalupe was worried, too, and wanted to know what was going on, but the doctor, once again, just said not to worry and that everything was all right.

For two more days this continued, and neither Salvador nor Doña Guadalupe could find out what was going on from the doctor. Then Salvador had to leave to go on a whiskey run. While he was gone, Maria, Lupe's other older sister, came by with her husband, Andres, in a big rush and told everyone that she'd had this terrible dream that night and so Lupe's baby had to be baptized immediately!

“But what was your dream?” asked Doña Guadalupe.

“I can't tell you!” said Maria. She was upset and kept making the sign of the cross over herself. “All I know is that we have to baptize the baby RIGHT NOW! IMMEDIATELY!” she shouted.

“But just wait,” said Carlota. “I might not like Salvador, but you can't just do this without him.”

“I agree with Carlota,” said Sophia. “Dream or no dream, I will have no part of this, Maria.”

“Okay,” said Maria, “think as you like, but the baby's immortal soul is in danger, and with Lupe in her condition, she can't think straight, and so I'm not going to let my little sister's child's Soul go to Purgatory for All Eternity!”

And saying this, Maria—a powerful bull of a woman just like Salvador's own sister, Luisa—pushed past everyone and took the baby from Lupe, who was sound asleep, and said, “Come on,
mama,
quickly, you go with us, and be the
madrina
, and you be the
padrino
, Andres!”

No one knew what to say. It was all happening so quickly. And to baptize a child was a big event. What Maria was doing was completely against all customs. The parents were the ones who were supposed to choose who the godparents would be—not an aunt. An aunt didn't just come in and kidnap the child like this. But here was Maria, going out the front door and up the street to the church where Salvador and Lupe had been married, before anyone could figure out how to stop her.

And at the church, when the priest asked for the child's parents, Maria simply said, “Lupe, my sister, the baby's mother, is sick, and the father is gone! So they couldn't come, and we need to do this right now. Immediately!”

Seeing how anxious they all were, the priest took them to the small, dark room where they performed baptisms in the front part of the church. And when the man of God asked for the child's name, Maria didn't know what to say, but luckily Doña Guadalupe was here and so she stepped forward.

“I overheard Salvador and Lupe saying something about hortensia, the flower.”

“Oh, that's beautiful,” said the priest. “Hortensia. So, then, we'll baptize this child Maria Hortensia for the Blessed Mother.”

And so this was how Lupe and Salvador's first child was named and baptized—without either one of them being present or even knowing anything about the event.

WHEN SALVADOR CAME
in the following day and was told what had happened, he went into a screaming rage. “But how in the name of God could you have done such a thing?” he asked his mother-in-law, who'd met him at the front door and told him the news.

“I don't know, Salvador,” said Doña Guadalupe, feeling full of guilt and grief. “But it happened so quickly. Maria just came in, saying that she'd had this terrible dream and—oh, I'm so sorry, Salvador! I'm terribly sorry!”

“And that's how my daughter got the name Maria? Because of Lupe's sister Maria and her dream? Good God!” he screamed. He wanted to kill, to strangle Lupe's sister Maria, but he was able to control himself. He turned and got back in his car.

“But don't you want to see Lupe or the baby?” yelled his mother-in-law after him.

“NO!” he screamed, and he sped away in his grand automobile.

When Lupe awoke and heard that Salvador had come and found out about the baptism and that he'd left in a rage, she had them call the doctor.

“Doctor,” said Lupe, as soon as he arrived, “you must make me well today. I cannot stay here another day. I need to go to my own home and be with my husband.”

The doctor began to argue, but then seeing her determined look, he simply nodded. “All right,” he said, “but I don't like this.” And he increased her dosage.

WHEN VICTORIANO DROVE
Lupe and Maria Hortensia back to their home in Carlsbad the following day, they found the kitchen table broken into pieces but Salvador wasn't home.

Victoriano wanted to go to the poolhall in the
barrio
to ask if anyone had seen Salvador, but Lupe said no and asked her brother to please just stay in their little house and wait with her. She wasn't feeling well. But then, as the day began to darken, Victoriano became nervous.

“Look,” he said, “you stay here. I'm going to go and have a look around for him. Please, I know what I'm doing, Lupe.”

“Okay,” said Lupe. “But please don't be gone too long.” She was still having problems with the left side of her face. The shots that the doctor had given her had taken away the pain, but had not helped the situation.

“I won't,” he said, and drove off. He was afraid that maybe Salvador was out on a
parranda
and might come in all drunk with another woman. Salvador had been fit to be tied, when he'd left the day before. But asking around the
barrio,
Victoriano found out that no one had seen Salvador for several days.

SALVADOR HAD BEEN KILLING
mad the day he'd left Lupe's parents' home. He'd been helping Lupe's
familia
for months, and then they'd done this to him. He felt like everyone was taking advantage of him right and left. He'd had such big plans for his first child's baptism. My God, how could Lupe and her family dare do this to him! Then it hit him like a thunderbolt! Carlota must've been behind the whole thing. “Yeah, sure,” he said to himself. “That's what happened! That damn woman hates me and wants to ruin our marriage!”

Getting to Carlsbad, Salvador kicked the kitchen table again and again, then drank down a whole pint bottle of whiskey, grabbed an ax, broke up the table, then went out the door and chopped a fruit tree down, raging and screaming! All his life this had been his dream, to have a huge baptism celebration for his first born! He drank down another bottle, then got in his car and drove up the hill directly over to Palmer's ranch. He was going to talk to old man Palmer about Domingo's parole, face-to-face, without having Archie as his damn go-between.

“PALMER!” yelled Salvador, pounding on his back door with his fist. “Open up! I want to talk to you, MAN-to-MAN!”

Salvador's heart was pounding a million miles an hour. He knew damn well that if he wasn't drunk and so mad at Lupe's family, he would never have gotten up the nerve to do this.

All his life, Salvador had known how to handle men with guns and knives, but to speak to authority, especially to educated Anglo authority,

was still a thing so far beyond Salvador, that he was almost pissing in his pants as he pounded on this man's back door! And he and Chief-Deputy Palmer had drunk whiskey together and they knew each other, and yet Salvador was still frightened down deep inside. After all, this was a
gringo!

“Yes!” said Palmer, coming to his back door with huge, pounding steps. He was the only man in all of Carlsbad who was even bigger than Archie. “What the hell do you want?!” he yelled, opening the door. “Oh, it's you, Sal!”

“Yes, it's me!” shouted Salvador right into his face, not backing up an inch. “I want to know why you're charging me two hundred dollars to help me parole my brother out of prison!”

“Two hundred dollars!” shouted Chief-Deputy Palmer, rubbing his eyes. It looked like he'd been asleep. “What the hell are you talking about?! I told Archie two cases of whiskey and that I had to speak to you, because, well,” he said, yawning and rubbing his eyes again, “I talked to my cousin Jeffrey up in San Quentin, and the only way we can parole your brother early is for me to say he's an agriculture specialist—you know, one of these modern damn avocado doctors—and say that we need him down here for the avocado industry right now. I never said anything about two hundred dollars, Sal.”

“I'll be damned,” said Salvador, “my brother an avocado doctor!” He almost laughed, but his mind was still reeling in a liquor-kind-of-swirl.

Then instantly, he saw Archie in a whole new light. Why, that son-of-a-bitch half-breed had been hustling him, trying to do him out of two hundred dollars to put in his own pocket. And Archie was his friend, damnit, his best friend, and was always so ready to help his fellow
Mejicanos
and
Indios.
The dirty, double-dealing bastard was really a thief with a badge, just like Salvador had jokingly told him the other day.

“So what is it?!” said Palmer. “Did Archie tell you that I'd asked for two hundred dollars?”

It took all of Salvador's power to stop his thinking and look at old man Palmer in the eye. And, in this next millionth of a second, Salvador made a very important, far-reaching decision; a decision that would eventually help him become one of the most powerful businessmen in the whole area. “No,” he lied. “I guess, well, I just got it all mixed up.”

“Are you sure?” asked Palmer. The big man was really concerned.

Salvador took a deep breath, looked at Palmer right in the eye again, and he lied again, “Yeah, I'm sure, Palmer, it was my mistake.”

And why Salvador said this wasn't because he was a good guy and wanted to protect Archie; no, it was because he'd seen it in this big lawman's eyes—that even though he truly wanted to get down to the bottom of this situation—there was also fear in his eyes of finding out the truth.

And truth, his old mother had told him time and again, scared most good people even more than death.

“Okay, good,” now said Palmer, exhaling deeply and rubbing his eyes once more, “then Archie didn't ask you for two hundred dollars?”

“No, he didn't,” lied Salvador for the third time. “You see,” Salvador added, “my wife, Lupe, and I just had our first baby, and, well, the doctor says that she's having a little trouble, and so I'm just upset.”

“Oh, I see,” said the huge chief-deputy, looking even more relieved. After all, Archie was one of his main deputies and so he didn't want to think that he had a double-dealing deputy under his command. “Sorry to hear about Lupe,” he added, looking all relaxed now. “Come on in, Sal,” he said, opening the door wide open. “My wife, Mildred, is gone up to see her family in San Francisco, so the house is a mess, but if you don't mind that, then come on in and we'll have a drink to your baby. Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A beautiful little girl!” said Salvador proudly. “Looks all nice and wrinkled, just like my mother!”

“Girls are great,” said Palmer. “They hug and kiss you much more than boys. I got one of each. I'm sorry that Lupe is having trouble. I hope it's nothing serious.”

“Oh, no, the doctor said she'll be fine.”

“Good,” said Palmer.

They went into the kitchen. It was a big, expansive kitchen with a beautiful view all the way past downtown Carlsbad to the ocean. Salvador had never been inside a rich Anglo's home before. He now knew that he'd done the right thing to give old man Palmer what it was that he'd wanted to hear, and that was that Archie was okay.

“Mi hijito
,
”
Salvador's mother had told him more than a thousand times, “ever since the loss of the Garden people all over the Earth need to believe in something. Politicians in politics. Lawmen in law. Doctors in medicine. Soldiers in war. Businessmen in business. Men of the church in a church. And rich people in money. No one, and especially men, can stand naked without some belief that they are willing to even die for. So always give to
Cesar
that which is of
Cesar's
and here, from this Sacred Place of Giving, is where we, the people, can then perform miracles as well as Jesus Christ, Our Savior.

“This is the place where I was when I went to get your brother Jose released from prison in the middle of the Revolution. I had nothing but rags on these old bones, but to each—even our enemy—I gave them what they wanted, and they then opened their hearts wide for me, maneuvering doors open that otherwise would have been closed to a poor old Indian woman.”

Salvador could now see that this was exactly what he'd just done. He'd had the cunning to give this rich powerful Anglo what it was that he'd wanted, and it had then turned out just as his mother had said. Here he was now inside of a powerful
gringo
's home and this big lawman was washing his face with cold water at the kitchen sink as if they were best old friends.

Salvador couldn't stop smiling. Every day he lived, he came to realize how smart his old She-Fox
mama
really was. He'd come over here to this man's house in a wild drunken stupor, not giving a good shit about
nada
, and he'd ended up performing his first “official miracle” as a married man!

Having washed his face with cold water from the sink, Palmer took a hand towel and dried off. He looked much better. Salvador now very clearly understood what it was that rich, powerful people wanted above all else: peace and quiet. Palmer really hadn't wanted to hear that there were any
problemas
going on between him and Archie.

The big lawman now brought out a half-empty quart bottle of whiskey and served them each a good-sized shot. It was Salvador's product. For years, Palmer had been one of Salvador's steadfast customers.