“Deborah!” she called. “Get up. Get Theresa cleaned and dressed! Ay, what a night it has been—” I heard her murmur prayers.
“Ay Dios,” I heard my father groan as he walked into the kitchen.
The sun coming over the hill, the sounds of my father and mother in the kitchen, Ultima’s shuffle in her room as she burned incense for the new day, my sisters rushing past my door, all this was as it had always been and it was good.
“¡Antonio!” my mother called just when I knew she would and I jumped out of bed. But today I was awakening with a new knowledge.
“There will be no breakfast this morning,” my mother said as we gathered around her, “today we will all go to communion . Men walk the world as animals, and we must pray that they see God’s light.” And to my sisters she said, “Today you will offer up half of your communion for your brothers, that God bring them home safely, and half—for what happened last night.”
“What happened last night?” Deborah asked. She was like that. I shivered and wondered if she had heard me last night and if she would tell on me.
“Never mind!” my mother said curtly, “just pray for the dearly departed souls—”
Deborah agreed, but I knew that at church she would inquire and find out about the killing of the sheriff and Lupito. It was strange that she should have to ask others when I, who had been there and seen everything, stood next to her. Even now I could hardly believe that I had been there. Had it been a dream? Or had it been a dream within a dream, the kind that I often had and which seemed so real?
I felt a soft hand on my head and turned and saw Ultima. She looked down at me and that clear, bright power in her eyes held me spellbound.
“How do you feel this morning, my Antonio?” she asked and all I could do was nod my head.
“Buenos días le de Dios, Grande,” my mother greeted her. So did my father who was drinking coffee at the big chair he kept by the stove.
“Antonio, mind your manners,” my mother urged me. I had not greeted Ultima properly.
“Ay, María Luna,” Ultima interrupted, “you leave Antonio alone, please. Last night was hard for many men,” she said mysteriously and went to the stove where my father poured her some coffee. My father and Ultima were the only people I ever knew that did not mind breaking their fast before communion .
“The men, yes,” my mother acknowledged, “but my Tony is only a boy, a baby yet.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and held me.
“Ah, but boys grow to be men,” Ultima said as she sipped the black, scalding coffee.
“Ay, how true,” my mother said and clutched me tightly, “and what a sin it is for a boy to grow into a man—”
It was a sin to grow up and be a man.
“It is no sin,” my father spoke up, “only a fact of life.”
“Ay, but life destroys the pureness God gives—”
“It does not destroy,” my father was becoming irritated at having to go to church and listen to a sermon too, “it builds up. Everything he sees and does makes him a man—”
I saw Lupito murdered. I saw the men—
“Ay,” my mother cried, “if only he could become a priest. That would save him! He would be always with God. Oh, Gabriel,” she beamed with joy, “just think the honor it would bring our family to have a priest—Perhaps today we should talk to Father Byrnes about it—”
“Be sensible!” my father stood up. “The boy has not even been through his catechism. And it is not the priest who will decide when the time comes, but Tony himself!” He stalked past me. The smell of gunpowder was on his clothes.
They say the devil smells of sulfur.
“It is true,” Ultima added. My mother looked at them and then at me. Her eyes were sad.
“Go feed the animals, my Toñito,” she pushed me away, “it is almost time for mass—”
I ran out and felt the first cool touch of early autumn in the air. Soon it would be time to go to my uncles’ farms for the harvest. Soon it would be time to go to school. I looked across the river. The town seemed still asleep. A thin mist rose from the river. It blurred the trees and buildings of the town, it hid the church tower and the schoolhouse top.
Ya las campanas de la iglesia están doblando…
I wanted not to think anymore of what I had seen last night. I threw fresh alfalfa into the rabbits’ pen and changed their water. I opened the door and the cow bounded out, hungry for fresh grass. Today she would not be milked until the evening, and she would be very heavy. I saw her run towards the highway, and I was glad that she did not wander towards the river where the grass was stained—