Country of the Bad Wolfes

CORRESPONDENCE

The reply that came some weeks later was not from Josefina but from Bruno Tomás. It arrived on a Thursday but Marina did not open it until the twins arrived for their weekend visit—then read it aloud to them and Remedios.

Bruno explained at the outset that as mayordomo he had been given her letter by the hacienda postal clerk because its addressee, Josefina Cortéz de Quito, was deceased, and had been for almost two years. Bruno wrote that although he and Marina had not been well acquainted, he knew of her close friendship with Josefina, and he wanted her to know that her death was the sort everyone hoped for himself—of painless old age and in her sleep.

Though this news should hardly have been unexpected—Josefina had been old since before the twins were born—Marina lay the letter on her lap and wept into her hands. Remedios shifted her chair closer and placed an arm around her, her own eyes tearful. The twins gazed at the floor. After a minute Marina dried her tears on her skirt hem and Remedios gave her a handkerchief to blow her nose. She loved the two of you with all her heart, Marina said.

The twins nodded, aspects solemn. Then Blake Cortéz said, “It’s a lowdown shame. Had her whole life ahead of her.” He tried to restrain his grin but failed. James Sebastian snickered.

Marina was incredulous. You think this is amusing?

The twins struggled to contain themselves but broke out laughing. The women gaped. Then looked at each other in horrified perplexity at their own sudden urge to laugh. And then they too were guffawing.

Oh my dear God, we are terrible, Marina gasped, her hands on her face. Terrible. James said they probably could have got a good price for her from a museum. You are so evil, Marina said, both of you.

They all laughed until they were gasping and their ribs could stand no more. And Marina once again had to dry her eyes and blow her nose before she could resume reading the letter.

Bruno apologized for violating the privacy of the letter, but the envelope had borne no identification of a sender nor address to which it could be returned, and Josefina had no known next-of-kin to whom he could pass it on. The postal clerk told him it was the first letter ever to come for Josefina Cortéz in all his years at the job. It made Bruno even more curious that the postmark was of Brownsville, Texas, as many years ago his older sister had lived there for a few months. Even before he read the letter, he had a strange feeling it might be news from or about the twins, and he nearly shouted when he found he was right. He was very happy to know, after all these years, that the twins had escaped the gunmen Espinosa had sent after them. And of course very happy to learn of their marriages.

My most sincere felicitations to you, my dear new cousin Marina, Bruno wrote, and of course to James Sebastian. And my congratulations on the birth of Morgan James. Please convey my warmest wishes also to Blake Cortéz and his bride Remedios and for their coming child.

“The man sent pistoleros to get us?” Blake said. “Damn.”

It was clear from Marina’s letter, Bruno wrote, that the twins did not know Mauricio Espinosa was dead, and it was a pleasure to be the one to inform them that Mauricio had been assassinated only three days after his brother’s murder of John Roger. No one had ever learned who the assassin was.

Marina looked up from the letter. Three days, she said.

All this time we’ve been hiding from a dead man, Blake said.

How were you to know? Remedios said. How was anyone to tell you? You hid so well nobody could find you.

“Yeah,” said James Sebastian. “Joke’s on us.”

Bruno said Marina’s letter also implied their great trust in Josefina to keep all information about the twins in confidence, and he promised he would keep their confidence too. He said he liked his life as mayordomo and admitted that he and John Samuel had a good rapport in attending to hacienda business. But apart from business they spent little time in each other’s company and he did not feel it his duty to inform him about his brothers. He told of the brief siege of Buenaventura by the Espinosa gunmen and of John Samuel’s conviction that his brothers had been captured and killed. But neither he—Bruno—nor Vicki Clara had ever believed the twins were caught. After the siege, Bruno had gone with some men to the cove and found that the house had been burned down to the piling foundations. The dock too had been destroyed. But they found no bodies or parts of bodies nor any sign of a grave and so were pretty sure the twins had not been there when the place was razed.

The cove house, James said. Bastards.

As for Vicki, Bruno was sorry to report that for the past three years she had been in poor health more often than not. She slept little. She lacked appetite and had lost much weight. Her vision troubled her and she now wore thick spectacles to read. As they knew, she was not one to complain, but she had mentioned she sometimes got severe headaches that seemed rooted at the back of her eyes. John Samuel had at last persuaded her to have a medical examination. The doctor said her nerves were exhausted and prescribed a nightly soporific and a diet of dried fruit and boiled eggs. That was a year ago. The regimen seemed to have had no effect.

About Juan Sotero the news was cheerier. The boy at fourteen was as smart as they come and an excellent athlete. For the past year he had been set on becoming an army engineer, an aspiration prompted by a book he’d read about the road-making ingenuity of Yankee engineers under Captain Robert E Lee during Mexico’s war with the United States. John Samuel had of course been opposed to a military career for his son. He wanted Juanito to succeed him as patrón of the hacienda. It was fine with him, John Samuel had said, if the boy wanted to become an engineer, but why must he be one in the army? He could get his education at the university in Mexico City, and if he wanted to build roads he could build them at Buenaventura—God knew the place could use them. But in Juanito’s view the only thing better than being an engineer was being an engineer and an army officer. Vicki Clara was insistent that her son would choose his own vocation, though she had in private told Bruno of her own disappointment in Juanito’s choice of the army. Ever since the horse accident, Bruno wrote, things had changed between Vicki Clara and John Samuel. She was no longer reluctant to express differences of opinion with him and could be firm in defending them, and he seemed determined not to argue with her. In any case, and no matter what else one could say of him, John Samuel was not a stupid man. He understood he could neither force nor persuade Juanito to devote himself to a vocation he did not want, and so next fall Juan Sotero would attend a military school at Veracruz.

Not until near the end of his letter did Bruno tell them—in a single sentence that looked to have been scrawled in such haste it was nearly illegible—of the deaths some years earlier of Felicia Flor and his baby sons. And in the next sentence asked the twins’ permission to show Marina’s letter to Vicki, who would be greatly relieved to know they were alive and well. She was a far better writer than he and he was certain she would be happy to do all the letter writing for both of them in the future. Besides, the correspondence would be good for her spirits. He also asked if he could share the information with his sisters. Gloria Tomasina, he told them, lived with her husband Louis Little on his father’s hacienda near San Luis Potosí, and it was by means of the Littles’ close friendship with Porfirio Díaz that she had been able to end the siege of Buenaventura. His younger sister Sofía Reina still lived with their mother in Mexico City, but she had always had a keen interest in the Wolfe family and would be eager to learn what had become of the twins and that they were well. He closed with, My love to you all. Your most affectionate cousin, Bruno Tomás Wolfe y Blanco.

“We got a cousin whose in-laws are friends with Díaz?” James said. “That’s some friend to have.” Díaz had first become president when the twins were six years old.

Marina wanted to know if they would return to Ensenada de Isabel, now they knew Mauricio was dead. The twins said no. When their father died, the whole place, cove and all, became the property of she-knew-who. It wasn’t home anymore.

Well, what of Bruno’s request to share the letter with Vicki? Of course he can, James Sebastian said. And he can tell his sisters as much as he wants to, Blake said. They neither one cared whether anybody told John Samuel anything. But nobody would.

None of them could know Josefina’s death had not been so serene as Bruno supposed. For a great many years she had believed that life could produce no more surprises to someone her age, and then Marina and the twins were gone and she was astonished to discover that even an ancient relic such as herself—who had known every variety of loss and believed she had learned to endure them—could miss anyone so much. She was lonelier than she had thought it possible to be. There was a great stone weight in her withered breast that every day grew heavier until she felt it would crush her heart. As, finally, one night, it did.

In her letter to Bruno, Marina tendered everyone’s condolences on the loss of his family, and their regret at not having had the chance for better acquaintance with Felicia and the boys. She conveyed the twins’ gratitude for his informing them of Mauricio Espinosa’s death, and told him he could share her letters with Vicki Clara and tell his sisters all he wanted about the twins. But, knowing Vicki would read the letter, she made no reference to Bruno’s concern about her frail health. She reported that Remedios was doing very well in her pregnancy and the child was due in the spring. She described the house the twins had built in Brownsville and told of the one they were building in the wild palms downriver at the place they called Wolfe Landing. She told about Brownsville, about its residents, an almost equal mix of Mexicans and Anglos and all of them inclined to public conversation in bellows. Though smaller than Tampico it was louder and had even more cantinas. And more dogs. She had never seen so many dogs at large. Sometimes she heard parrots in the trees and sometimes saw a flock of them streak over the patio in a colorful flash, and in such moments she missed Tampico terribly. And of course Buenaventura.

Bruno passed Marina’s two letters to Vicki, who was ecstatic about them. She was in the library reading the letter to Josefina yet again when John Samuel happened by and asked who it was from, and she said an old school friend. As she saw it, if the twins wanted John Samuel to know anything about them they would ask her to tell him or they would tell him themselves. As Bruno had expected, she was delighted to correspond for both of them with their kin across the border. She addressed her letter to Marina but directed it to all of them. She said how happy she was to know they were unharmed. How wonderful it was that Marina and James Sebastian were married and had a son! And Blake married too and also to soon be a father! She knew Remedios must be very lovely and precious and she could hardly wait to meet her. How good to know the family was still growing—but dear God, how the years were flying! She made no reference to the medical troubles Bruno had mentioned, but she wrote at length about Juanito Sotero. Told how handsome he was and how strong, how accomplished in his studies. About his excitement to be going to military school in the coming fall. Her only concern about him was that his attitude had become so serious. Oh, he enjoyed his sports and he had friends, yes, but to be frank, she rarely heard him laugh. She did not mean to suggest he was solemn, because he was not—his smile was lovely and not infrequent. It was only that he seemed less a child than a very young and purposeful adult. As though the death of his brother had ended his own childhood. How silly she must sound, she wrote, to have such concern about a son so healthy and intelligent. He had been thrilled when she told him his uncles were alive and well. In the years since the twins’ departure, she and Juanito had sometimes made a game of imagining where they might be and what they might be doing. Juanito asked if she were going to tell his father what they had learned about Uncle James and Uncle Blake, and she said she wasn’t. She gave no explanation and he did not ask for one, but only said he wasn’t going to tell either. In closing, she wrote, With love to you all, my dear sisters and brothers, including my baby nephew and the niece or nephew soon to join you. Vicki Clara.

Marina wrote Vicki in March with the news that she was again pregnant and had been for about four months. This one was no accident. James Sebastian was so pleased with Morgan James that he wanted another son. She had told him they could try but she wasn’t sure she could conceive again, and even if she did he should keep in mind that it might be a girl. He said that would be all right with him. And, just like that, she was pregnant. What in heaven was going on? Who would have thought another seed could sprout in this old pot? As for Remedios, her baby was due any day. And Vicki should see the twins now! Twenty-three years old and handsomer than ever. At the end of the letter, the twins had added a few lines of their own to Vicki, each penning an affectionate greeting and lamenting the eternity since they’d last had the pleasure of her dear company. They were pleased Juan Sotero was doing so well and asked her to convey their proud salutations to him. They invited her and Juanito, together or when each might have the chance, to come and visit them in Brownsville. Nobody mentioned John Samuel.

In that first letter to Vicki, Marina addressed her as she always had, as Doña Victoria, and was chided for it in Vicki’s next letter. Sisters, Vicki wrote, are never so formal with each other. Marina loved her for her graciousness.

That spring they received their first letter from Sofía Reina Wolfe y Blanco, addressed, at Bruno’s suggestion, to Marina Colmillo de Wolfe. It was a brief and affectionate missive conveying Sófi’s admiration for the twins, having heard so much about them from her brother. Marina wrote back that they were all very happy to make her acquaintance, if only by way of letter, and told her of their great fondness for Bruno. This correspondence would continue for seventeen years, during which time Sófi and María Palomina would learn much about their relatives at the border and the Wolfes would come to know a good deal about their kin in Mexico City. But some things, of course—such as the history of Sófi’s marriages—could not be told in a letter and would have to wait those seventeen years before becoming known to the whole family.

Came the fall and Juan Sotero kissed his mother goodbye and shook his father’s hand and entered the gates of El Colegio Militario de Veracruz. By which time there had been two more additions to the Wolfe family across the Río Bravo. Remedios Marisól had borne Jackson Ríos at the end of April, and then a little more than three months later Marina brought Harry Sebastian into the world. Now Remedios was pregnant again. Mother of God, Marina wrote to Vicki, we are like a bakery of little Americans!

But Harry Sebastian’s birth, like his brother Morgan James’s, had been hard on Marina, and because the danger of another pregnancy would be graver yet for a woman of nearly forty, she and James Sebastian had agreed to have no more children. She would resume taking precautions, but if there should be an accident she would certainly seek the help of a curandera, a choice that of course had its own hazards. In all honesty, Marina confided to Vicki, I will be so very happy when I am dried-up and no longer have to be so careful. May it happen soon soon soon.

They finished the river house two weeks before the new year of 1895. A large single-story with four bedrooms, a big kitchen and spacious central room, a wide verandah all around. When they brought the wives out to see it, Marina said it was pretty and she would live in it if it were in town. Remedios liked the house too but if Marina would not live there neither would she. They were amenable, however, to occasional visits. After taking the wives back to town, the twins allotted themselves a rare day of leisure. They went to Point Isabel and took the Marina Dos out for a sail. They had missed the sea very much, and by that day’s end they were decided that one way or another they would again have a beach house.

There was still much work to do at Wolfe Landing. They would next build a stable for the mules and some horses and maybe a dairy cow, and then assume the harder job of constructing a dock along the bank. And there was still a bridge to build over Nameless Creek. They reckoned they could finish it all by April but it would actually take them until July. They had months ago used up the money in the valise and had since then been making regular withdrawals from the bank. By their estimation, those funds would be nearly depleted by the end of the year. They hadn’t even had time to explore the several other of their palm groves east of the clearing, about three square miles of them, by their reckoning.

One night as they sat by the campfire at Wolfe Landing—an evening nearly silent but for a soft soughing in the palms—they heard a faint but distinctive sound they had not heard since their days on the Río Perdido. A sequence of low rasping grunts, coming from the darkness beyond the northeast corner of the clearing. James Sebastian said if it wasn’t a bull alligator he would eat every hat in Cameron County. “Let’s go see,” Blake said.

They tucked the Colts in their belts and took up firebrands and went into the palms. It was a dense stand and the firelight was bright against the trunks as the twins wound their way through them. They had gone about twenty yards and almost walked into the resaca before they knew it was there, catching themselves short at its bank. They could not make out the other side, which in the light of the next day they would see was some forty yards distant—and see too that the resaca was crescent-shaped and they were near one of its ends, the other end out of view behind a stand of palms. But standing there in the darkness, they saw the red glowings of alligator eyes on the surface of the black-glass water. They had read that there were alligators in the region—and no crocodiles—but they would give no thought at all to taking hides. They’d had enough of that trade. Yet they liked knowing the alligators were there in that big nearby resaca, and thereafter always listened for their gruntings in the hushed darkness of still nights.

Some weeks later they found a dead man floating in the river reeds where they were constructing the dock. A young mestizo, shirtless and shoeless. Brought down by the current from who knew where, though it could not have been very far, as he had not been long in the water, the eyes not yet eaten, the lips yet intact. There was a small bullet hole above his ear. His pockets were empty but he was no peón—the pants were part of a suit, the hands unscarred, two fingers showed pale bands where rings had been.

The only adequate ground for a grave in that lowland was Wolfe Landing, but they were not about to bury anyone there not family to them. But they had an idea. They bore the body to the resaca and looped one end of a rope around its ankle and lashed the other end securely to a tree and set the corpse in the water. The next day the rope was slack and the dead man gone.

Blake and Remedios’s second child, César Augusto Wolfe Delgallo, was born on the thirtieth of April, exactly one year, to the day, after his brother Jackson Ríos. Marina wrote the news to Vicki Clara, from whom there had been no word in nearly six months. When the first four months had passed without response to two of her letters, Marina had written to Bruno Tomás to ask if anything was wrong with Vicki. But in the two months since, that letter too had gone unanswered.

In May came a letter of bleak tidings from Bruno. Vicki Clara had kept secret the worsening condition of her vision until it became apparent to everyone that she could barely see at all. John Samuel had taken her to four different doctors, including two in Mexico City said to be the best eye surgeons in the country. They all agreed there was nothing that could be done to arrest her vision’s accelerating degeneration and predicted she would be blind by spring. And she was. Bruno had not informed the twins and their wives of Vicki’s trouble before now because he had been hoping for some miraculous recovery to report. Juan Sotero had wanted to withdraw from the Veracruz academy and come home to care for his mother, but Vicki dictated a stern telegram forbidding him from doing so. She had asked Bruno to convey her apologies to their Texas kin but she could not bring herself to dictate a letter. She felt it was too unnatural, Bruno wrote, to tell someone what to write for her, felt it was too contrary to the personal nature of a letter, and she simply could not do it. She said she would understand if they should feel the same way about someone else having to read their personal words to her, and she absolved them from any obligation they might feel to continue writing to her. She had excellent caretakers who were never beyond range of her summon. Her great regret was that she had not learned to play a musical instrument and so could not entertain herself that way. She passed her mornings listening to the player piano, her afternoons sitting in the patio shade and, as she liked to say, letting the sensations of the world come to her, its smells and sounds, its feel under her feet and to her hands and face. In the evenings after dinner Bruno read to her. Poetry, novels, and—in much lower voice, lest John Samuel venture into the room while he was at it—letters from their Texas family. John Samuel had offered to read to her and Vicki thanked him but said she preferred Bruno to do it and gave no explanation. In private Bruno told John Samuel he hoped he was not in any way intruding on his prerogatives by reading to Vicki Clara. John Samuel assured him he was not, that he appreciated Bruno’s help in making his wife comfortable as possible. He was unaware how clearly Bruno perceived his relief that he did not have to do it himself. Except when being read to, Vicki preferred solitude, even at mealtimes. She had joked to Bruno that what she needed was a blind friend, then wept and apologized to him for her self-pity. John Samuel would sit with her for an hour every evening before dinner, but if they ever had a conversation Bruno never heard them at it.

“God damn it,” said James Sebastian.

“I agree,” Blake Cortéz said.

Marina continued to write Vicki a monthly letter with bits of family news, and the twins added a few words at the end of each one. Bruno would read the letters to her as many times as she wished to hear them. He kept his promise to her never to tell Marina or the twins of the tears the letters prompted from her blind eyes. If they find out they make me cry, she said, they may think it a kindness to stop writing.

What neither the Mexico City doctors nor John Samuel told her was that the blindness had been caused by a cancer in her head. They believed the information would only add to her dejection. But as the severity of her headaches worsened, she knew—everyone knew—she was in a grave way. Her power of speech began to falter, then failed altogether, and she was reduced to communicating with chalk and slate until she lost the capacity to spell even the simplest words. She had trouble remembering things. The pain worsened by the day. She locked her jaws against the impulse to scream. Laudanum had been of help for a time and she took larger and more frequent doses of it until it was of help no more. The anguish of her final weeks beggared description. Her sightless eyes were monstrous bulges for the pressure of the growth behind them. Bruno would spare his Texas kin this detail and others even worse. At last, on a bright November afternoon, in answer to her prayers and to the blessed relief of everyone in the casa grande—as the open window admitted birdsong, the faint laughter of children playing beyond the patio walls, the insistent barking of a distant dog—she died. The entire hacienda turned out for the funeral. Not even at John Roger’s requiem service, Bruno wrote in a letter, had he witnessed such an outpouring of grief. Looking every inch a grown man in his cadet uniform, Juan Sotero gave the eulogy for his mother and then returned to Veracruz that evening. John Samuel placed a floral wreath atop the coffin before it was lowered in the ground but did not speak during the entire ceremony.