Then, as she was about to take the baby back inside so the old women could cleanse him of the birthing blood, Maria looked around for her children.
Several times during lulls in the labor, she had gone out to speak to them briefly. They sat with the goats between the shoemaker's house and the butcher's shed. While the butcher was butchering the pig, Maria's children were just sitting.
'It's cold. I want to go back to Se@nor Call,' Teresa said, each time. She was sullen, as she often was if her mother denied her her way.
'You can come in where I am, only sit in the kitchen,' Maria told her.
'No, I don't want to sit in that kitchen.
I would rather be cold,' Teresa replied.
Then the crisis arrived, and Maria forgot about the children. Once when Negra was screaming, she heard the cowbell and was reassured. She had to concentrate on what she was doing, and she could not listen every moment for a cowbell when the little room rang with the full screams that came with a birth.
Now, though, with little Jorge safely born, she turned to look for Teresa and Rafael and didn't see them. The goats were still there, but not her children. She ran to where the goats were, scattering them in her fear. Then she saw the cowbell lying in the dirt. Joey had taken it off Rafael--why hadn't she known he would?
Fear chilled Maria so, that she almost dropped the baby. She ran with him to Jorge and thrust the baby into his hands.
'Take him to the sisters,' she said. 'Did you see Joey?' 'No--how do I hold him?' Jorge asked.
Maria had no time to instruct the new father; he would have figure out for himself how to hold his son.
She ran to the butcher, who had taken the pig's hooves and ears and was putting them in a sack.
Most of the pig had been cut up. Parts were heaped on a bloody table, and other parts were piled on strips of sacking.
'Did you see Joey?' Maria asked.
'You are bloodier than I am, and I've butchered a pig,' Gordo told her. He was a little disgusted with the woman, for she had blood all over her arms. Still, she was shapely, and she was his neighbor. When she cleaned herself up he thought he might go visit her, perhaps taking her a little sausage. He might ask her to make him menudo or some other tasty dish.
'No, Joey wasn't here,' he told her.
Maria knew better--Joey had been there.
She had to have help, and there was only Gordo, the butcher.
'He was here. He's taken my children,' Maria said to him. 'Come and bring a gun, don't wait!' In the desperate hope that Teresa had disobeyed her and taken Rafael home, Maria ran to her house. She had her knife in her hand.
Call was laying outside the back door when she got there. He had hobbled out, using a chair for a crutch, and he had a pistol near him. But the chair was too short to be a good crutch, and he had fallen again. He was lying on his back. His leg was bleeding, and his eyes were open.
'Did he come?' Maria asked.
'He came--I can't do anything,' Call said.
'I can't do anything,' he said, again. He was so weak that she could barely hear him whisper, and it was surprising that he could even have hobbled the few steps he had.
Maria felt fear shaking her, more powerful than any fear she had felt in her life. She did not have time to move Captain Call back to bed.
She grabbed his pistol.
'What did he say, se@nor?' Maria asked. 'Did he say anything?' 'No,' Call said. 'He came in and looked at me and left. He's wounded.' 'Not wounded enough. I have to take your gun,' Maria told him.
Call lay in helplessness. He had wanted to kill the boy, but he had no strength and no way. The boy had simply looked at him insolently for a moment and left. He was not a large boy, but he had a cold look. Call had rolled off the bed, pulled himself up with the chair, and found his pistol. But it was no good. He was too weak, and he soon fell. The world was swimming, and he couldn't see well. He could not make himself rise, and even if he had risen it would have done no good. Joey Garza was gone.
Call was helpless and he had failed, again.
Maria felt helpless too, because she didn't know where to look for her children. Joey could not have gone too far, since it had only been a short time that she last looked out and had seen Rafael sitting amid his goats. But where had he gone? If he had put the children on a horse, she would have no chance of catching them. She could not track a horse, and no one in the village could, either. Joey might take her children far away, where she could never follow or find them. She ran to the cantina. Two vaqueros were there drinking. Perhaps one of them had seen something.
But the two vaqueros were very drunk. They looked at Maria with disgust, as Gordo the butcher had.
'Go wash yourself, you stink!' one vaquero said.
Maria raised the gun at him. It was the wrong moment for a man to tell her she was not clean enough.
When they wanted her she was always clean enough, even if it was the time of the month when she was bleeding.
She didn't shoot the vaquero, though; she didn't have time. She just pointed the gun at him and saw his eyes widen at the thought that he might be shot by a filthy, dirty woman. Then she ran outside. As she ran she heard a
