Chapter 20 Deliverance
The continuous pealing of the bell was somehow comforting as Teresa
struggled vainly with her bonds, even though her breasts were throbbing from the
pain caused by the diabolical forks. She prayed that her swollen nipples might
somehow shrink, so that she could free her breasts from the forks's talons, but
the pressure of the prongs was unrelenting. Teresa puzzled over the paradox
that the tender tips of her breasts, which were capable of bringing such
pleasure to men, women, and babies, should have brought her so much pain.
By a stroke of luck however, her breast bondage was, while painful, no
longer dangerous. When Jack had lifted her by the breast carriage, and then set
her down again, the strain on the ropes had evidently caused them to loosen
slightly. There seemed to be no danger of tissue damage owing to loss of
circulation.
In her seated position, the chiles Jack had jammed inside her began to
bother her again as well. But at least, she thought, the two villains were
gone. She would survive. When the bell had first begun to rung, she had been
sure that she was going to die, even though the men had not intended to kill
her. She must remember to thank Padre Eusebio for coming to la iglesia early --
he had saved her life.
It was not until El Viejo, old Hector who had accompanied her on the guitar
on the night she had danced for Ernie, arrived at the cantina a short time later
that she was finally freed from her bondage.
The one-legged guitarist tried his best not to stare at Teresa's nakedness,
but it would have taken a blind man not to notice the splendid voluptuousness of
her nude body, and the tell-tale marks of rope, belt, whip, and cane that
covered the front of her body. It took the old man a while to take the carving
knife and hack through the efficient cocoon of ropes that secured her limbs.
The old man was a bit puzzled by the labyrinth of white cord that encircled
Teresa's sumptuous breasts, but at last they too were liberated, and he covered
Teresa's nudity in an old serape.
Plagued now only by the diabolical nipple forks, she asked Hector to bring
some lard, and then, while he was out in the kitchen, she extracted the awful
chiles from between her legs and threw them as far away from her as she could.
When Hector returned with the lard she was able, after some difficulty, to
reach under the serape, lubricate her swollen nipples and remove the punishing
forks. She shushed the old man when he peppered her with questions. She would
tell him the whole story later, she said, but she swore him to secrecy for the
moment as she still feared for the safety of her brothers.
Hector reluctantly agreed, and at her request helped her heat some water on
the fire which Ernie had lit on the wooden stove. They mixed some of the heated
water with some of the water in the tub that Jack had dunked her in, to prepare
a primitive bath. When the tub was full of steaming water, Hector patted Teresa
gently on the shoulder and gave her a quick comforting kiss on the cheek. And
then he left to join the others who were beginning to arrive at the cemetery,
allowing her to bathe in privacy.
After gargling endlessly with salt water to remove the foul taste of the
semen of los norteamericanos from her mouth, Teresa slipped the serape from her
shoulders. She contrived a vinegar and water douche, which burned more than a
little in the aftermath of the chiles, but it was worth it to rid her body of
any trace of her ordeal.
When she was finished with that intimate cleansing, she sank blessedly
into the tub, after pouring in a liberal dose of a healing powder that Mama
Nita, her African great-grandmother, had told her about as a little girl. Mama
had jokingly called it Balm of Gilead, and told her how it had come in handy
many times after the terrible floggings of the old slavery days.
The steaming water was a godsend to Teresa, gently soothing the beautiful
body that had been abused from neck to knees. She scrubbed every inch of skin
that the animals had touched, hoping to purge her body of their foul maleness.
She washed her still-damp hair twice, trying to erase the memory of those awful
choking moments when her head had been immersed in the water earlier. And then
she simply sat and soaked in the steaming tub for the better part of an hour,
letting the heat, and Mama's restorative, comfort her aching body.
When she had finally begun to feel nearly human again, instead of like a
tortured animal, she rose and toweled herself dry in front of the tall mirror
in the bedroom. She studied the dozens of lurid marks on her lovely body, while
she brushed her shoulder-length black hair. The cane marks on her breasts,
bottom, and legs were the worst; they would take some time to fade away
completely. Strangely, there seemed to be only faint traces of the tall one's
terrible broad belt -- what had he called it? -- Black Betsy -- yes, that was
it.
She dressed slowly and began putting her ransacked bedroom back together,
anxious to return to some sense of normalcy. She could hear wagons full of farm
workers and their families pull up across the street for the fiesta as she
cleaned. The high-pitched laughter of children and the bird-like chattering of
the women, old and young, rippled through the surrounding area.
When she had finished cleaning the bedroom, Teresa started in on the
cantina itself, re-arranging the chairs and tables, cleaning up the glass from
the bottle Jack had broken, and returning the items Ernie had disturbed in his
search to their proper positions. She peered out through the window now and
then. The sky had cleared and healing sunshine poured in, warming her body. It
promised to be a beautiful day.
When she was done with the bar she turned to the kitchen which she had
nervously been saving for last. Hundred of pinto beans were scattered across
the floor, the result of Ernie having kicked over the half-full burlap bag that
had once held fifty pounds of them. Teresa's hands trembled as she swept them
up, and restored everything in the kitchen to its proper place.
It was only when there was nothing else left to do that she summoned her
nerve, and knelt down on the floor next to the bag of beans. She whispered a
silent prayer and thrust her right hand deep into the sack.
There were only about ten pounds of beans remaining in the bottom of the
bag, and she breathed a long sigh of relief as her hand soon touched something
solid amidst the loose rattle of the countless pinto peans.
"Gracias, Guadalupe" she murmured prayerfully, as she removed the cigar box
that she had hidden at the bottom of the sack of beans. Teresa looked up
cautiously to assure herself that she was unobserved, and then she opened the
box.
It was all there. Almost two hundred dollars. The money she had been
saving for three years. That she had earned by dancing for men with lustful
eyes, that she had earned by enduring the touch of their filthy hands. Her
ticket out of Piedras Negras. Had it been only Ernie Gibbs' fifty dollars at
stake, she would not have thought twice about giving him the money. She had had
to summon up reserves of courage that she didn't know she had possessed to
withstand his cruel inquisition. For she would have endured almost anything
rather than surrender her dream. It was just at the moment when Ernie's knife
was two inches from disfiguring her beauty that she was about to confess the
whereabouts of the money. And she had been spared, thank God, at the last
moment, by the bellringing of Padre Eusebio.
For some inexplicable reason, she had kept Ernie's money in a separate
envelope -- the bills, both American and Mexican, and a few coins. She had
gleefully counted the money several times last Saturday night and had mentally
converted the value of the pesos into American dollars. She would never forget
the total -- fifty-three dollars and seventy-five cents. Teresa set the
envelope on the table and absent-mindedly returned the cigar box to its hiding
place. Then she took a last quick look in the mirror to make sure that none of
her bruises were visible. In her longish dress, only one or two relatively
innocuous streaks on the calves of her legs were visible.
Anxious to thank Padre Eusebio, she strode toward the door of the cantina.
When she closed it behind her, she slapped her forehead lightly in
self-reproach. She had forgotten to put the envelope with Ernie's money back in
the cigar box before putting it away. Not wanting to take the time to dig into
the sack of beans again, she hastily slipped the envelope into her handbag and
started across the street. It was a sunny but breezy morning, and Teresa used
her left hand to hold the skirt of her dress down over her bare legs as she
gingerly began to make her way toward the mission, dodging the puddles that
dotted the muddy street.
A number of local men were busy chopping at the weeds that surrounded the
old church; most of the women busied themselves tending the rain-dampened graves
in the cemetery. They placed strips of cloth on the wet ground and knelt on
them while they pulled weeds, and placed small wreaths of flowers next to the
headstones. For two days each year, at least, the abandoned mission was
beautiful once again. More than a few of the mothers and grandmothers' eyes
were wet with autumnal tears as they paid their annual respects to their
angelitos, the little ones that the cholera had taken from them.
Each year it seemed that birds came out of nowhere for El Dia de Los
Muertos; the trees around the mission were full of them, their songs bright and
beautiful. Children chased each other cheerfully in their childhood games,
while their mothers admonished them as mothers always do, "tenga cuidado" -- be
careful.
Here and there dark-eyed young maidens smiled shyly at dark-eyed young men.
Teresa remembered having received her first kiss from a boy behind this very
church at one such fiesta when she was 13. After last night, that fleeting
embrace and chaste kiss seemed to have happened a lifetime ago.
Later, las senoras would bring out the food they had brought in the wagons,
and for two days there would be a fiesta grande -- it was one of the great
holidays of the Mexican calendar.
Just then Teresa saw Padre Eusebio, the aged Franciscan who had been their
pastor in the old days. Teresa knew that he had taken the name Eusebio from
Padre Eusebio Kino, the Italian-born Spanish missionary who, generations ago,
had done so much for the people of the region. As she stared at his lined face,
it occurred to Teresa that despite the youthful sparkle in his eyes, the old man
had to be eighty now, perhaps more. The white-haired old priest was staring
wistfully up at the once beautiful steeple that surged upward above the
belltower. The breeze rustled his flowing brown robe. High in the sky the same
breeze caused the bright morning sun to take refuge behind a patch of billowing
cotton.
"Buenos Dias, senorita," the padre greeted her, the warmth of his smile
doing its best to take the place of the missing sun. And feliz cumpleanos! --
it is your birthday, today, is it not? Each year you grow more beautiful,
Teresa. You must have had your beauty rest last night."
"No, Father," she blushed, wondering what the good-hearted old padre would
make of the horrors that she had undergone last night. "Pero, gracias."
"It is true, my child," he chuckled lightly. "I'm sure you have to fight
off the young men."
Teresa returned his smile; the old man was wiser than he knew. She was
grateful that he knew nothing of her dancing; her manner at the inn was quite
different when one of the men brought his wife or children. At such times she
was a friendly waitress, nothing more. It was only after the women and children
were safe in their beds that Teresa changed into the alluring clothes and
Hector's country ballads gave way to the sensuous rhythms that she danced to.
"It is so sad, Teresa, is it not?" the old man asked as he gestured toward
the church. "That we can no longer keep this beautiful iglesia open. Do you
remember how lovely it was when you were a child? The fresh flowers on the
altar. The way the flames from the candles seemed to leap upward to heaven?
But," the old Franciscan whispered despondently, "since the cholera came, the
people are poor. Except for Montoya and a few of the landowners. But they do not
care about the church."
The conversation seemed to have aged the old man ten years. Teresa
noticed that his hands were trembling. He continued, "I do not think I will
live to see candles on that altar again." The white-haired padre's shoulders
shrunk in dejection.
"Si, it is very sad, Father," Teresa replied, only half-listening. His
reminiscences having been completed, Teresa took it upon herself to broach the
subject that had caused her to approach him.
"Padre Eusebio, I have come to thank you for arriving so early this
morning. I heard the bells before dawn. They..." Teresa paused, trying to
find the right words. "They meant ... a very great deal to me this morning. I
... I seemed to hear them in my soul. Gracias."
The ancient, brown-robed Franciscan gave Teresa a puzzled look. "My child,
you must be mistaken. The muddy roads delayed me. I did not arrive until just
after dawn. In fact, I arrived here just as I saw Hector approaching your door
from the other direction. I did not begin ringing the bell until then."
"But Father, we..., I mean I ... heard the bells clearly. Someone else
must have gone into the church before you."
The priest gave her a kindly smile, and took Teresa's hand and patted it
gently. "You must have been dreaming, Teresita. Or perhaps you are mistaken
about the time. There was rust in the lock of the church door when I opened it.
I had some difficulty turning the key. No one has been in the church since this
time last year."
Teresa's studied the face of the devout old man intently. He was old, but
still in full command of his faculties. But if he had not rung the bells that
had driven off her attackers, who had?
The beautiful young woman stood there in the breeze, her dark hair swirling
around her shoulders, trying to make some sense of it all. Just then a sudden
gust of wind pushed the giant cumulus cloud that had been obscuring the sun to
the east. Teresa felt the sun's radiance bright on her face and warm on her
body. It seemed, somehow, to draw the soreness from her. She and the old priest
looked up almost at the same moment; the shining steeple of the iglesia seemed
to point directly at the dazzling sun. The shrill, joyous sound of small
children at play echoed behind her.
Teresa knew, then, that it was no human hand that had tolled the bells of
Piedras Negras in the dark pre-dawn hours. The souls of the Angelitos, the
little angels, had interceded for her, and spared her.
Teresa felt her body trembling as she stared upward at the cross for a long
moment. Then she reached out and placed a hand on the old Franciscan's shoulder.
"Padre Eusebio, I have something for you." Teresa reached into her handbag and
withdrew the envelope that held Ernie's money.
"A few nights ago I was sweeping under a cupboard and felt the broom catch
on something heavy. Somehow a man's wallet had been kicked under there and
gotten wedged in the corner. There was no way to tell whose it was." Teresa
took a deep breath and went on with her fabrication -- God would forgive such a
lie, she felt sure. "I think it must have happened when some men from Texas
passed through a few months ago. Several of them got drunk and started a
brawl."
Teresa glanced up at the radiant sun above. "In any event, Father Eusebio,
I want you to have it. I want you to take it and reopen the iglesia here so
that the people do not have to travel all the way to Magdalena each week. It is
hard, especially for the old ones and the mothers with infants."
Padre Eusebio sifted through the stack of bills in wonderment. "Are you
sure, my child? This is a great deal of money."
"Father, I'm sure it is not as much as you need. But I will," she paused,
looking for the right word, "speak to Senor Montoya." Teresa remembered how the
heavy-set rancher's hand had lingered longingly in her soft cleavage when he
tipped her a few nights ago. "I think I can persuade him to assist in this
worthy cause."
There were tears in the old Franciscan's eyes. "Teresa, I don't what to
say. Es maravilloso. It is wonderful, a gift from heaven. How can I thank you
enough? What made you do this? You could have kept the money for yourself."
Teresa smiled at the joyful white-haired padre. "It was las campanas,
Padre, the bells. The bells spoke to me in the night."
"Yes, I know," she said, as he began to protest once again. "Perhaps I
heard them in my dreams, Padre. But I did hear them. And this is what they
have told me to do."
Just then, Teresa and the priest heard loud voices behind them, some
distance up the road. A number of adults had children had gathered in a circle.
When Teresa moved closer to the commotion she saw that it was her brothers,
Carlos and Pepe, surrounded by onlookers.
Carlos and Pepe, considerably the worse for wear, told their story (or as
much of they could of it without incriminating themselves). How two
norteamericanos had ambushed them, beaten them, stolen their money and taken
Pepe's ring the night before, and left them tied in a deserted miner's cabin in
the hills.
As a few of the men prepared to give chase to the two gringos, Carlos
asked Teresa if the two banditos had come to the cantina. Teresa gave old
Hector, who was watching her closely, a warning glance, and simply shook her
head 'no'. It would not be right to speak of such a terrible ordeal in front of
all these women and children. There would be time enough to tell her story
later, whether or not the gringos were caught.
Shortly, a small posse formed, and the men mounted their horses, and rode
off toward the old road that led from Santa Maria Magdalena to Nogales. But
Teresa held out little hope that they would catch her tormentors, and in fact
the improvised posse returned the next day empty-handed, but still in plenty of
time to enjoy the second day of the celebration of the Dia de los Muertos.
