It was then that his stubborn stoicism gave way to cold fury.
Once in India, I had watched a cobra and a mongoose fight. I remembered how the mongoose danced around its prey, darting in every now and then to bite, while the cobra, its hood spread, swayed back and forth, almost lethargically, waiting for the moment to strike. They had told me that a mongoose almost always won the contest, but on that particular occasion the mongoose must have been slow, or the cobra too wily. I shall never forget how quickly it struck…
And now, when Lucas moved, his whole body became as supple and as deadly as that of a coiled snake. He had seemed to sway backwards, his right arm shielding his face, but suddenly his body, whiplash-quick, swerved aside, and his left hand slashed upward. He used the heel of his hand against Ramon’s wrist. I had time to notice that before the knife went spinning away in an arc. Ramon was holding his wrist, looking dazed, and it was Lucas now who held the knife, drawn from behind his neck.
I heard Jesus Montoya expel his breath in what sounded like a long sigh. “Ah!” And I could not tell whether he sounded relieved or disappointed.
It was only then that I noticed the cold breeze that had sprung up—the distant, intermittent flashes of lightning that would light everything for an instant in an eerie, steely glimmer; and even, in the background, the ominous growl of faraway thunder. How suddenly the moon had disappeared!
“Ramon…” Lucas said, and his voice was taut, husky with tension, “it is enough!”
But Ramon, I think, was past the point of reason, half-wild with rage and a sense of humiliation. “No!” he cried. “By Christ, it isn’t over yet! You’ve got a weapon now, use it!” With a growing sense of horror I saw his hand move down towards his holstered gun. “Your knife—my gun. Throw it—and throw it fast, Lucas, because I will kill you anyway if you do not.”
With an almost contemptuous ease and swiftness, Lucas threw the knife. It quivered, point down in the ground between Ramon’s booted feet, a split second before Ramon drew his gun and fired.
Twenty-Six
Remembering that night is still nightmarish. I can see again the flash of lightning that made it all seem like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, and I can hear my own despairing cry of agonized horror. I wake up drenched with sweat and see again how Lucas spun around, miraculously staying on his feet, to stagger against the adobe wall and slump over it, still on his feet.
His voice seemed to come from a long way off.
“Jesus God, Ramon! You’re still a lousy shot when you get rattled!” And I was so relieved that he was still alive that I began to sob—dry, tearing sobs that came from the depth of my being.
What happened next is a blur, and part of the nightmare. I know I beat at Montoya’s restraining arm, and cried out, “Let me go to him, let me go to him!” But he pushed me instead against Ramon, who stood there staring, with the smoking gun still held loosely in his hand.
I beat at him too, until he dropped the gun and held me by the wrists, some semblance of sanity, and of anger coming back into his face.
“Monster… animal!” I cried. “You are all animals, all the same! You… he… every one of you! I hate you all!”
“She is, after all, only a woman, and obviously not used to violence.” It was Montoya’s voice I heard, and it sounded deep and calm.
I twisted around in Ramon’s grip and glared at him wildly. “He’s dying! Isn’t that what you wanted? Why don’t you finish it?” I looked back at Ramon then, and my words were still wild, spilling out before I could control them. “You! You started it—aren’t you going to kill him to prove you’re a man? To avenge my honor? What are you waiting for?”
His grip on my wrists tightened until I almost screamed, but he looked over my head at Montoya, and his voice sounded flat and dead.
“I did not mean to go as far as I did! And yet I feel as if I had been urged to it for half of my life.”
Lucas had turned, and the patch of blood was spreading on what remained of his shirt. He clung to the top of the wall with one arm, until he was able to lean his back against it. He did not speak, I don’t think he was capable of speech at that moment, but his eyes caught the gleam of the lightning, and I thought they looked as green and pain-glazed as the eyes of a tiger I had shot once.
Jesus Montoya spoke, instead. “Take your novia back to the house, Ramon. There is a bad storm coming up, and I think we will have a cloudburst that will keep us all in the valley for some days to come. I will see to your brother.”
“You mean that you will kill him. You will finish what he started, will you now?”
I could hardly recognize my own voice, it was so flat and drained of emotion.
Montoya’s glittering black eyes looked into mine for a moment. “Once Lucas was closer to me than the son I never had. If I kill him, it will not be like this. Go now, you two. You are to marry and your place is with each other.”
I went with Ramon. It seemed there was nothing else for me to do. His painful grip on my wrists did not slacken, and he almost dragged me for part of the way to the house.
Elena met us in the hallway, and she had changed her velvet dress for a silken wrapper; her cloud of dark hair was down over her shoulders, her face pale and haggard.
“For God’s sake! What happened to you all? I heard shots, and I sent Jesus to find you… where is Lucas?”
“It was nothing, madre. We were having some target practice. And now Rowena and I have some things to talk about with each other.”
“Where is Lucas?” She almost screamed the words, and Ramon gave a travesty of a smile, his lips pulling back from his teeth.
“Lucas is with Montoya. I think that they have things to talk about too. For once, my mother, will you go to bed and stop interfering? Leave Lucas alone… leave me alone! When will a mother learn to hold back when her sons are grown up?”