“We found Morales half-dead in la plaza. How do you know him?”
“He came up the mountain with the US Cavalry while I was in my finca.” Vicente accepted the cup the policeman brought him.
“That makes sense,” the captain said. “The Americans have been protecting their guides. Letting them rob the Spanish hacienda owners and not doing anything about it.”
“Why would they do that?” Vicente took a sip of café and was soothed; it was delicious, definitely Puerto Rican coffee.
“The Americans hate the Spanish.” The captain removed a folder from the desk drawer. “And they won’t help them unless it affects American interests.”
“I never killed a man before.” He spilled a drop of coffee on his shirt.
“He’s not dead yet.” The captain opened the folder.
“That’s good,” Vicente said.
“And even if he dies, who can say it was your bullet?” The captain looked down at the report. “You know who the others were?”
“It was dark,” Vicente said, “but Morales has that voice that rasps against your skin, so rough that you check for blood.”
“These bands have even ambushed la Guardia Civil,” the captain said, “but because they blacken their faces, it’s not so easy to capture them. Sometimes they rob their own relatives and they don’t recognize them.”
Yelling could be heard from the other rooms in the station. Vicente’s hands started to tremble again.
“It’s probably lucky that you shot him, Vega,” the captain said.
“How so?”
“Some of these bandits have been known to disrespect the women in the family,” the policeman said. “The shame has led to a suicide or two.”
“No me digas,” Vicente said. “Of the husband or the wife?”
“Mostly it’s the husband who kills himself, sometimes it’s the father if it was his daughter who was assaulted. The shame a man suffers when his women have been violated.” The policeman shook his head. “Can’t say I’d blame him.”
“I’d kill the man first.” Vicente picked up the coffee cup again, and this time his hand didn’t shake.
San Juan
December 14, 1898
Dear Valentina,
¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo to you and yours! How are you, my dear sister? Please kiss my handsome brother-in-law and your children and tell them that their Titi Elena sends love from the whole family and especially from los abuelos.
Since Mamá’s nervous breakdown, I must employ an additional servant. Fortunately, servants ask for very little—room and board and perhaps a few coins—the country is full of unemployed people. How dull are the duties of an ama de casa. I don’t know how you’ve tolerated it all these years. Or do you spend your days staring out the window at the flamboyán?
Only last week, the Americans gave out flags to all the schoolchildren. Such a to-do en la plaza! Business is beginning to be very profitable for us, despite the devaluation of the peso. It seems I’ve inherited Mamá’s accounting skills. Ernesto has learned a few words in English and much of our trade is American. Many of the soldiers can read, and do they write letters! Ernesto and I have talked about one day traveling to Paris to buy papier à lettres. Don’t be jealous, it’s only a dream.
All my love,
Elena
P.S. I send the usual Christmas package with a few extra things for you. Thank the American soldier who loves to write his mama!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HAPPY 1899!
She sipped the cognac, loving the way it glided down her throat, its delicate warmth still on her lips. She and Vicente sat at the table and finished off Dalia’s French brandy. In the fading light, she felt a rush of feeling for her husband; it wasn’t the usual lust, no, not that, or even love, but something akin to gratitude for their years together, that they had each other when they had lost Evita. Then Vicente told her the merchants wouldn’t lend them any more money. “That’s bad news for us,” Vicente said.
Valentina braced herself.
“We can’t take out a loan against the farm.” He rubbed his eyes.
“Why would we want to do that?”
“You know that we don’t have any money, Valentina.” He stared inside his glass, at the golden liquor. “This year would have been a pretty good year for us. We would have been able to settle our debts and survive until next year.”
“But we can’t sell our coffee,” she said.
“We can’t sell our coffee, nobody can. And the only way we can get money without selling land is to mortgage it.”
Valentina got up and brought the kerosene lamp to the table. A moth fluttered around it. Vicente caught and smashed it between his palms.
“The merchants and the Americans are buying up land cheap when the debtors can’t pay off the loans,” he said.
She poured the last of the cognac into their glasses. When Vicente had told her that they had to have a serious talk after the children were asleep, she’d gotten out the bottle from where she kept it on a high shelf hidden behind the small tin of Spanish olive oil and the big tin of American lard that had long been used up and where she now stored a small bag of flour.
“We could go to your parents.”
“Valentina, no. We can’t.” He picked up his glass.
“They’ll help us. I know they will.”
“Papá is in the same situation. And he has three women to support.”
“What about Luisito? He’s your brother. Or Elena? I can write her.”
“Querida, no. Luisito is in bad shape, too. And Elena has helped us enough through the years.”
“Then—” Her voice shook.
“We need a miracle.” Vicente raised his glass.
She raised hers. “To a miracle.”
They finished the last of the cognac.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A MYSTERY IN UTUADO
Vicente had just left his mother after an errand for Valentina—to ask Gloria for annatto seeds from the achiote tree that grew in front of the family home—when several men approached on horseback. He was surprised to see that they were from la Guardia Civil.
“Buenos días,” one of the policemen said. “Are you Raúl Vega?”
“Vicente Vega, his son, a la orden.”
“Is your father home?”
“No.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“When will he return?”
Vicente shrugged.
At that moment Raúl Vega rode up on his horse, seemingly unsurprised to see policemen. The policeman who had first spoken to Vicente asked if Raúl Vega knew a man named Claudio Mora Ruiz.
“Somewhat,” Raúl Vega told them.
“We’d like you to come with us to town to answer a few questions,” the policeman said.
“I was on my way home.”
“We insist, Don Raúl.” The policeman put his hand on his gun. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“I’m not one to make trouble,” Raúl Vega said.