All the Wind in the World Page 4

  As Bruno lights his cigarette with a match and I toss down nickels, Leo throws down his cards and leans forward to draw a small X in the dirt between his feet.

  “Did you know that Cabeza de Vaca was, like, right here?” Leo asks, pointing to the ground. “Did you know he told the Indians that he was a healer? He said they wouldn’t get sick ever again if they just became Catholics. He also said that when he was lost for weeks, the thing that saved him was a burning bush.” He laughs, too loudly, and waits for a reaction that never comes.

  “A burning bush?” Leo urges. “Like Moses? He saw a burning bush like Moses. And there were other people, too—telling lies that went across this country, across the ocean to Spain, up into the stars, and even deep down into this dirt.” Leo swipes his hand through the air, side to side, up and down.

  I can’t help but laugh. He looks like a terrible, lazy wizard trying to conjure a spell.

  “You think this is funny, Sarah Jac?” he asks.

  “I think it’s really funny.”

  Leo shrugs. “Fine. But I’m right. That’s what happened with Odette over there. Her and her bleeding maguey. There were all those lies in the ground that got sucked up into the roots of the plant. She freed them with her blade.”

  I show my hand. It’s a winning straight.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in stuff like that.” I bend over to collect my winnings. “Ghosts and curses and shit.”

  “I don’t believe in curses,” Leo says, rising to stand. He takes a step forward and looms over me. “But I believe in lies. And liars.”

  His eyes are very clear, not dull and unfocused like I’d expect them to be since he’s been taking pulls from his flask all night. Leo’s revealing himself to be tricky, hard to read. I can’t tell if he’s trying to threaten me or let me in on a secret. I have enough secrets of my own. I don’t need any of his.

  “You’re a very philosophical drunk, you know,” I hear James say.

  “And quite the historian,” Bruno adds.

  “I’m right,” Leo replies, swaying like a reed in the wind. “You’ll see.”

  ONCE WE’RE FINALLY alone, huddled shoulder to shoulder in the cold, James and I count our winnings: four dollars and fifteen cents.

  “Just enough for ice skating and cocoa,” James says with a smile.

  He’s right. For the three of us—me, him, and Lane—to go skating on the frozen pond in Chicago and have cups of hot cocoa, it cost exactly four dollars and fifteen cents.

  I love James for remembering this thing I forgot. I love the quiet thrill he gets in his eye when he knows he’ll win a hand. I love him, my partner.

  So I surprise myself when I say, “Odette’s the one.”

  James’ smile twitches, then vanishes. He dips his head. “She’s a possibility. But I was also thinking that maybe we don’t have to do it this time. The others here, they seem alright.”

  I’m silent, and James knows what this silence means. I disagree. Hard hearts. He might not always like it, but it’s true. In our world, you hide your bruises; you don’t let people know you have weak spots. It’s like asking for trouble. Everyone knows two people in love will do anything—stupid things—to save each other. And everyone, no matter how alright they initially seem, will take advantage of that.

  “She’s pretty,” I say.

  “She’s gullible,” James shoots back. “It helps that she looks nothing like you.”

  “Helps with what?”

  “Your jealousy. I don’t want to be your cousin, Sarah. And I don’t want to come on to some poor girl who thinks that a maguey cactus can bleed. I don’t want to be with her when I could be with you.”

  I’m conflicted. I think back to my grandmother: what would she say if she were here with me under this big moon, a fugitive fleeing one field to hide in another? She was goodhearted like James, but she was also crafty, a tactician. She had her rules, good rules, that she would remind my sister and me of when we would help her do things around her farm—shoeing horses, picking grasshoppers off the lettuce crop, and securing the wire fence.

  She would say:

  When you go somewhere new, the first thing you do is locate the exit.

  Plan your escape even if you think you’ll never have the need for it.

  Leave before you’re left.

  Once, Lane was bit by a barn spider she was trying to catch in a jar. I had to hold her down while my grandmother lanced the wound. She was not gentle about it. She wanted to make sure that Lane learned her lesson, that thoughtless curiosity could get her hurt, or worse.

  Your gut and your heart are not the same thing, my grandmother said, squeezing the blood and pus from the wound. Know the difference. Know which to follow and when.

  What would she tell James?

  “We have to learn from our mistakes,” I say. Then, again: “Odette’s the one.”

  My words hang tense in the air for a moment, strung like the tiniest wire, but soon enough James reaches out, finds my hand and holds it.

  “Maybe,” he replies. “But not yet.”

  four

  The next morning I break my own record: thirty-­eight magueys down in the first two and a half hours of a harvest day. I’m proud of myself. It feels good to be out in the sun working again and to have a fresh start.

  Two and a half hours may not be exactly right, though. That’s just what it feels like. Unlike with the train whistle back at Truth or Consequences, I can’t tell time out here, but I’m sure that soon I’ll be able to read the signs—the slant of the shadows cast off the handle of my coa like a sundial or the direction the birds fly.

  James has been working in a row just down from mine, but we don’t speak until the midmorning water break when he comes and hands me a tin cup. It’s hot to the touch because it’s been out in the sun, and it’s full of warm water that tastes like coin money.

  “Have you noticed the color of the mountains?”

  It’s such a typical James question.

  I sigh and look—not to the mountains, but to James. He’s filthy. His hair is all mucked up, standing on end. There’s a grimy smear across his forehead and what appears to be a small, crusted-­over cut near his ear.

  He smiles—just barely. “They look like they’re dusted with copper.”

  Finally, I turn to face the mountains, and, yes, that’s exactly how they look: dusted with copper. Shimmering and beckoning. Glowing in the sun. My grandmother once told me about how people in the past flocked to mountains like these to search for gold. They rarely found it. Most of them drove themselves crazy with desire and died, but I can’t blame them for believing this land was bursting with treasure. Treasure, not lies.

  “You finished?” James gestures to my water cup.

  He takes it from me just as the foremen start blowing their whistles, signaling time to get back to work. His fingertips brush against mine but don’t linger.

  ABOUT AN HOUR after our short lunch break, the sky darkens. The wind changes direction, gets stronger and cooler, and out in the western sky, charcoal-­colored clouds above the mountain range start to blink with lightning.

  This sliver of time without full-­on sun is when the owner comes out to survey his fields. He’s on his white horse again and accompanied by his overseer and a girl about my age I assume is his daughter. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s the same girl—willowy and pale—who I saw yesterday out near the house. They bring their horses to a stop several yards down the row as one of the foremen approaches them. He points to specific workers and then gestures grandly out to vast fields. This is the owner’s treasure: not gold bursting from mountains but healthy maguey plants bursting from the earth. The owner nods often. The girl does nothing. The overseer’s two mastiffs, both the color of the storm clouds over our heads, have come along as well. They lie down in the dirt and pant. One barks. It sounds like a steel door slamming shut.

  The wind that’s been torturing me all morning proves to be only a minor inconvenien
ce to the girl. She sits tall in the saddle, never angling her cheek away from the grit that flies in her face. She doesn’t wear a hat because she won’t be out here long enough to need one. The wind gently catches her hair, the color of which matches the dusty copper of the mountains. She’s dressed in riding clothes: a crisp, chalk-­white shirt, black pants, and knee-­high black boots. If she were closer, I’d be able to see her eyes shining with pride, a different kind of pride than the one I feel after cutting maguey all morning. Mine is a pride earned; hers is pride easily received, as if she’d held out her open palm during a storm and then took credit when a raindrop fell to the center of it.

  Her horse is gorgeous, an even better animal than her father’s white stallion. It’s the color of over-­milked tea. Its mane and tail are matte black. There’s a mark on its hindquarters, a white circle the size of a dinner plate. The horse kicks impatiently at the ground. I wonder if it’s fully broken and how fast it can run. Pretty fast, I’ll bet.

  When the four of them—the foreman, the overseer, the owner, and his copper-­haired daughter—start to make their way down my row, I strike the maguey with the force and precision of a worker whose arm muscles haven’t started twitching from fatigue. For the sake of both my pride and my pocketbook, I hope they notice my skill and the quality of my work, but when they pass behind me, they’re speaking a proper dialect of Spanish I’ve never been able to pick up, so I have no idea if it’s me they’re talking about.

  Suddenly, I hear one of the horses squeal, and just like that I’m taken back to the dust storm at Truth or Consequences. My heart flies up into my throat as I spin around and see the girl’s horse twist and stutter-step out of the row and right into the sharp spines of a maguey. I look to the sky. It’s dark, but there’s no dust. The brown horse squeals again. On the ground there’s a rattlesnake uncurling just a couple feet away from the horse’s front hooves. It must have burrowed under a maguey as the clouds came in, and now it’s angry about being disturbed.

  I expect the well-­bred daughter to scream, or at least yelp, but she’s composed as she tries to calm her nervous horse. The snake slides forward, eyeing a strip of muscle on the horse’s thin front leg. It shakes its rattle and opens its jaws to snap. I rush forward, bring down my coa, and, with one clean swipe, sever the snake’s head. Stepping over the still-­twitching body, I grab the horse by her bridle. She tries to toss her head away, but I hold firm.

  “Shhh, girl.” I kick the snake’s head away. “You’re fine. See? I killed it.”

  I don’t want to look at the girl, so I keep my focus on the horse. She’s calming, but it’s obvious she’s young. There’s a wildness in her eyes.

  “Your horse needs more breaking,” I say. “It’s not good when they’re so skittish.”

  “Thank you, young lady,” the owner says, cutting in. “We’ll be on our way.”

  A moment passes. I nod, releasing the horse and stepping back so that the owner and his daughter can continue past. Finally, I pull my gaze up and note how unruffled the girl still seems. She lifts her chin, just slightly. This is the tiniest bit of recognition and gratitude she can spare. That gesture is honestly more than I expected.

  Before turning back to my work, I glance over and notice that James is trying to stifle a grin. I can’t help but smile as well.

  See? I want to say. See how helpful I can be?

  WE’RE AT THE end of our afternoon water break when Odette pulls me aside. She lays her tool in the bed of one of the trucks so she can take both my hands in hers, interlacing our fingers as if we’re childhood friends.

  “So,” she says, pinning me with those big, saucer-­shaped eyes. “Your cousin . . .”

  Odette casts a cautious glance over her shoulder to where James is leaning against his coa, talking to some other workers. Just then the foremen start blowing their whistles, signaling us to get back to work.

  Odette doesn’t let go of my hands, but instead squeezes them harder. Her grip is strong, but I can still feel her trembling. “He was so kind to me, and . . .” She falters. “I mean . . . Can you give me any advice? Any way that I might go about trying to . . . you know?”

  Yes, I know—because this has happened before, in other camps. She wants James to want her.

  For the briefest instant, I regret suggesting Odette as the one. Maybe we can find another. Most girls who’ve lived this life, in fields and on trains, are either tough as leather or free as air. Odette, though, is thin and brittle to the point of breaking. I can feel it in the way her hands are shaking. I can see it in the way hope and desperation flicker in her eyes.

  “I think that you . . .” I give Odette’s hands a squeeze. She’ll think it’s to reassure her, but really, it’s just to buy me time to find the right response. “I think you should just . . . just . . . go for it. He’s always liked girls who know what they want.”

  Odette exhales, softens. “Thank you, Sarah Jac. I really appreciate it.”

  The foremen blow their whistles again. Odette drops my hands and grabs her coa from the truck bed. As soon as she turns away, I look to James. He’s not smiling anymore. His frustration hits me like a wall of wind.

  Dinner is quiet, only some halfhearted chatting around a halfheartedly built campfire. Most of the jimadors rush to shovel down their undersalted beans and stale cornbread and head to their bunks before the chill of night sets in. From my seat on a wooden bench near the dwindling fire, I watch as James approaches, holding his plate. He takes a seat next to me and angles his legs slightly to one side; our thighs don’t touch.

  “How much did you make today?” he asks.

  “Forty-­eight cents.”

  He’s impressed. I can tell by the little clucking sound he makes in the back of his throat.

  “Did you see Leo at all?” he asks.

  I didn’t, and I’m surprised I didn’t. If Leo was in the fields, I’m sure I would’ve noticed. He’s mouthy and tall and kind of hard to miss.

  James motions with his head as he stuffs a piece of cornbread in his mouth. Leo is at the end of the mess line, waiting to get his dinner. Even from yards away, I can see that his eye is prune-­colored and swollen shut. There’s a gash across his eyebrow.

  “Were you there for the fight?” I ask.

  James shakes his head and swallows his food. “It must’ve been late last night after we’d already gone back to the bunkhouse.”

  Dustups at camp are common, and in the short time that we’ve known him, Leo has proven to be both loose-­lipped and a sloppy drunk. So it wasn’t Leo getting into a fight that surprised me. “Even injured, they would’ve made him work,” I say. “Back in Truth or Consequences, they made that one lady cut maguey with a broken hand.”

  “They did,” James replies. “They did make him work. Just not in the fields. He’s working with the horses up at the ranch house. Apparently, he has experience with that kind of thing.”

  How James would’ve learned that Leo got a job working at the house so quickly, I have no idea. But that’s beside the point. James knows I’d shovel shit all day if it meant I could be near those horses.

  “Speak of the devil,” he says.

  Leo approaches carrying a dented pewter bowl full of food. Up close, his eye looks even worse, swollen and wonky as if the socket’s been busted.

  “I fell,” he says, shoveling a spoonful of grayish beans into his mouth.

  “Naturally,” James replies.

  “So you work with the horses?” I ask. “I saw a couple in the field this afternoon.”

  Leo’s eye twitches as if it’s painful to chew. “With Gonzales and Farrah?”

  I nod, filing those names away.

  “I heard about what happened with you and the rattler,” Leo says. “That new horse, the brown one, it’s young and nervy, and apparently has a habit of getting loose and running away.” He pauses. “Listen, my face hurts like mad. Do either of you have any pulque?”

  “No, sorry,” James says. “What was Gonz
ales doing out there?”

  Leo shakes his head and goes in for another spoonful. “Admiring his bountiful crops, most likely. Can you blame him? Seriously, you two don’t have any alcohol at all?”

  I don’t answer. I’m staring into the fire thinking about how glorious it must be to work with horses all day, to brush their coarse hair and lead them in laps around the practice yard. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see James draining what’s left of his water. He stands, tells Leo, “Let’s go find you something to numb that pain,” and pats me on the shoulder. It’s a gesture so lacking in intimacy that it spoils my daydream.

  “See you in the morning, Sarah Jac,” he says.

  As the two of them head off, I hear Odette call out James’ name. Both James and Leo turn at the sound and then head in her direction.

  I wonder if James will take Odette to some corner of camp tonight. Will he get tipsy and kiss her the moment they find themselves alone? Or will he sit with her for a while, thumbing the strands of her long corn silk hair, telling her fake stories about the fake adventures that he and I spent night after night making up together? She won’t know those stories are fake. She’ll be so won over by him. She already is so won over by him.

  The whole time he’s with her, he’ll be thinking about me. He’ll be thinking, We’re such tricksters, Sarah. I told you we can’t be the good guys all the time.

  I stay where I am and keep staring at the campfire, but since no one is tending it, the logs all collapse onto one another and turn to smoking embers within minutes. The sun hasn’t even fully set yet, but this day feels long. I stand, and, after handing off my dishes to the kids in the mess crew, I make my way back to the bunkhouse and fall asleep faceup on my cot.

  A dream about my grandmother using pliers to fix the gaps in her wire fence shifts into a nightmare about me suffocating during a dust storm. Just as I’m taking what I’m sure is my last gasping breath, I’m jolted awake. Someone has their hand clamped down over my mouth.

  Five