Steven Havill - Scavengers

“I can do this,” Teresa said.

“I know you can, Mamá . But the last time you were here, you broke your hip.”

“If I do that again, just roll me in the river and let it go at that.” She stopped with one hand on the van’s front fender, the other on her walker. “You wouldn’t think that ten feet is such a distance.” She pointed a finger to the north without releasing her hold on the walker. “You remember all the time you spent in that little village you built down in the trees?”

“Sure.” The fist-size adobe houses, with roads, fields, gardens, and various other fortifications, lasted until one of the infrequent rains melted them into amorphous lumps, ready for urban renewal…or until Frederico Diaz conducted a raid from his town farther upstream.

“Francisco and Carlos would be right at home there,” Estelle said. “I’d like to go look at the Villa stump before we go.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s still there.” Teresa nodded at the front door. “Let’s see if there are any surprises.”

Estelle knew exactly what she meant, since the little house offered protection for all kinds of creatures, and even a brief term without human interference made the zoo’s residency all the more likely. Estelle stayed at her mother’s elbow until they reached the door. The wooden latch lifted effortlessly.

Teresa wrinkled her nose at the strong odor of skunk. “Probably nesting under the floor,” Estelle said.

“Well, he can have it, then,” Teresa said, waving a hand in dismissal. She turned away. “There’s nothing there anyway.” Estelle pushed the door fully open and stepped across the threshold.

“It would be good to air it out for a while,” she said. “Let me get the back.” She crossed the tiny living room and kitchen and pulled the brass bolt to open the back door. The rush of cool air brought the scent of cottonwood leaves.

“It’s not so bad,” Teresa observed. She stood in the front door, both hands on the walker, nodding. A simple white kitchen table remained, along with two straight chairs and a small braided rug in the living room. Various nails projected from the wall, some supporting shadows. An unadorned crucifix hung by the front door.

Estelle looked into the tiny bathroom and bedroom, both neat, tidy, and vacant.

Teresa shuffled to the nearest chair and sat down carefully. “I was born here, you know,” she said.

“I know, Mamá . And I know you always loved it here.”

“That a house should stand so long.”

“That too,” Estelle laughed.

“I’m as old as the hills now.”

“Not quite.”

“I feel like it, sometimes.” Off in the distance they heard someone’s voice raised, but couldn’t distinguish the words.

Estelle sat in the other chair, elbows on her knees. “I brought some munchies along, Mamá . Are you hungry?”

Teresa shook her head. She was smiling, and pointed out the door. At the same time, Estelle heard the pounding of feet on the earth outside. In a moment, a teenager appeared in the doorway, a hand on each side of the jamb as if holding herself back from catapulting inside.

“Tinita,” Estelle cried, and was out of her chair and to the door in three steps. She wrapped her arms around the young girl in a ferocious hug and swung her off her feet. “Look at you,” she said, finally releasing the girl to arm’s length. Tina Diaz blushed. “ Mamá , look at this one.”

Teresa Reyes stretched out both hands to Tina, who had been greeted into uncharacteristic silence.

“I didn’t know you were coming down today,” Tina said when she’d caught her breath. “You didn’t tell us!”

“Secrets, secrets,” Teresa said. She sat holding Tina’s left hand in both of hers. “And you didn’t tell me that you’d grown into such a beautiful woman.”

Tina ducked her head. “ Papá said he saw your van drive by. He’s talking with Capitán Naranjo. The capitán stopped by for lunch.” She beamed at first Teresa and then Estelle. “He asked if you would come to the house.”

“Which ‘he’,” Estelle almost asked.

“Oh yes,” Teresa said. “But just for a moment, Tinita. We’re tired, and we need to return to Posadas. This police officer here,”-she winked toward Estelle-“she’s more busy than any five people. I’ve taken too much of her time already today.”

She pulled her coat more tightly around her frail body. “I need the sun,” she said. “This house has winter in it.” She pushed herself out of the chair. “Why don’t you help me out to the car, hija ,” she said. “My daughter has a couple of things she needs to look at, and then we’ll be along. You can tell el Capitán that she won’t be late for their meeting.”

She turned and smiled at her daughter. “Sometimes young hearing in an old head is a nuisance, don’t you think?”

The Diaz family welcomed Teresa Reyes and her daughter as if the Mexican family had been waiting a decade for that very day. In the dining room, a large, slab-topped table was covered with food and drink, but the ponderous, high-backed wooden dining chairs had been drawn back against the walls, well out of the way so that people could circulate around the table and then, with plates full, retire to the comfortable study in the adjoining room.

None of the rooms of the Diaz home was large. All were low-ceilinged and round-cornered with walls fortress thick. The house included no space wasted in hallways. Instead, a tour of the home would pass through each room on the way to the next, the entire affair encircling a simple inner courtyard.

In the study, a narrow, deeply set window looked out on the tiled courtyard, and with great solicitation, Teresa was guided to a comfortable love seat by the window. Her oxygen tank was placed reverently by her side.

With a weary, almost theatrical shake of her head, Teresa declined the first offers of food and drink, but within minutes Estelle saw with amusement that her mother was enjoying a substantial plate of food-along with a remarkably robust tumbler of dark red wine.

The Diaz home was a wonderfully cluttered museum of the woodcarver’s trade, and the study had become the focal point for the exhibition. Carvings ranged from tiny, whimsical creatures of the desert to large, prancing horses standing nearly four feet high. Each creation became a member of the family until it was sold but Estelle could see that several pieces on a shelf behind Roman’s desk were obviously cherished family members of long standing. Roman had first touched knife to wood half a century before, at age six. The first horse he had carved, a grotesque little creature with ponderous head and wire legs, still pranced on a brass base on his desk.

Folded in the comfortable, aromatic support of a leather chair in Roman’s study, well-fed and with a glass of wine in hand, Estelle let her eyes roam around the study as the conversation drifted from topic to topic.

“Now, you must tell me…” was Don Roman’s favorite introductory expression as he grilled Estelle about her family and life beyond Tres Santos. Rather than a mere two years, the last visit with the Diaz family seemed several lifetimes distant, and Posadas now very far away.

Of the eight Diaz children, all but Roberto were home, and at various times made their appearances. Through the blizzard of reminiscences, Estelle made a point to glance Tomás Naranjo’s way for the first signs of impatience. But Naranjo was as relaxed as if he were spending a week with his good friends. Soft-spoken and self-effacing, the state policeman spent most of his time in conversation with Mateo Diaz, the second eldest of the children-a thin, arthritically bent young man of perhaps nineteen or twenty.