I understood what she said and so I went away somewhat comforted in the knowledge that at least Ultima did not fear Tenorio’s plotting. But often at night I awoke from nightmares in which I saw Tenorio shooting Ultima as he had shot Narciso. Then I felt relief only after I crept down the stairs and went to her door to listen, to see if she was safe. She seemed never to sleep because if I listened long enough I could hear a swishing sound and then a humming as she worked with her herbs. I had been close to Ultima since she came to stay with us, but I was never closer or more appreciative of her good than those weeks when I was sick and she cared for me.
Diecisiete
Aleluya! Aleluya! Aleluya!
The Holy Mother Church took us under her wings and instructed us in her ways. By the end of March we were well on our way with our catechism lessons. There was no more exciting experience than to be on the road to communion with God! School work grew monotonous beside it. Every afternoon when the school bell rang we ran across the school-grounds and over dusty streets and alleys to the church. There father Byrnes waited for us, waited to instruct us in the mysteries of God.
The spring dust storms of the llano continued, and I heard many grown-ups blame the harsh winter and the sandstorms of spring on the new bomb that had been made to end the war. “The atomic bomb,” they whispered, “a ball of white heat beyond the imagination, beyond hell—” And they pointed south, beyond the green valley of El Puerto. “Man was not made to know so much,” the old ladies cried in hushed, hoarse voices. “They compete with God, they disturb the seasons, they seek to know more than God Himself. In the end, that knowledge they seek will destroy us all—” And with bent backs they pulled black shawls around their humped shoulders and walked into the howling winds.
“What does God know?” the priest asked.
“God knows everything,” Agnes whispered
I sat on the hard, wooden pew and shivered. God knows everything. Man tries to know and his knowledge will kill us all. I want to know. I want to know the mysteries of God. I want to take God into my body and have Him answer my questions. Why was Narciso killed? Why does evil go unpunished? Why does He allow evil to exist? I wondered if the knowledge I sought would destroy me. But it couldn’t, it was God’s knowledge—
Did we ask too much when we asked to share His knowledge?
“Papá,” I asked, “the people say the bomb causes the winds to blow—” We were hauling the piles of manure we had cleaned out of the animal pens during the winter and dumping it on the garden plot. My father laughed.
“That is nonsense,” he said.
“But why are the storms so strong, and full of dust?” I asked.
“It is the way of the llano,” he said, “and the wind is the voice of the llano. It speaks to us, it tells us something is not right.” He straightened from his labor and looked across the rolling hills. He listened, and I listened, and I could almost hear the wind speak to me.
“The wind says the llano gave us good weather, it gave us mild winters and rain in the summer to make the grass grow tall. The vaqueros rode out and saw their flocks multiply; the herds of sheep and cattle grew. Everyone was happy, ah,” he whispered, “the llano can be the most beautiful place in the world—but it can also be the cruelest. It changes, like a woman changes. The rich rancheros sucked the earth dry with their deep wells, and so the heavy snows had to come to replenish the water in the earth. The greedy men overgrazed their ranches, and so now the wind picks up the barren soil and throws it in their faces. You have used me too much, the wind says for the earth, you have sucked me dry and stripped me bare—”
He paused and looked down at me. I guess for a while he had forgotten he was talking to me, and he was repeating to himself the message in the wind. He smiled and said, “A wise man listens to the voice of the earth, Antonio. He listens because the weather the winds bring will be his salvation or his destruction. Like a young tree bends with the wind, so a man must bow to the earth—It is only when man grows old and refuses to admit his earth-tie and dependence on mother nature that the powers of mother nature will turn upon him and destroy him, like the strong wind cracks an old, dry tree. It is not manly to blame our mistakes on the bomb, or any other thing. It is we who misuse the earth and must pay for our sins—”
“But what is sin?” Florence asked me.
“It is not doing the will of God—” I ducked my head and gritted my teeth on the fine sand the wind carried.
“Is it a sin to do this?” He threw a finger.