Carmen Boullosa - Texas - The Great Theft

“This was early in the morning. Rafa and I had practically forgotten we were punished. Beneath the burning sun we were bored, there was nothing else for us to do, trapped up there. Then thirst joined boredom, and boy, was I thirsty. That’s when the Comanches showed up. It happened in the blink of an eye, and it filled me with violent emotion, I began to clap with excitement.

“The Comanches galloped steadily past, sewing the earth with arrows, without slowing, leaving cross stitches, chain stitches, garter stitches in their wake, but not as skillfully as seamstresses, their stitches were hurried and uneven, they were howling and laughing hysterically — they looked drunk.

“But my surprise and the excitement was followed by fear. Rafa and I threw ourselves down on the rooftop so they wouldn’t see us, we knew all about the Comanches — who didn’t know about them? I raised my head to watch them. Rafa didn’t. He had clasped his hands over the back of his neck as if he were handcuffed, like the raccoon we kept chained in the back garden. I realized Rafa wet himself, because his pee trickled over and wet my skirt. I didn’t dare lift it out of the way or move over.

“Before covering my face I got a good look at them: the Comanches were naked from the waist up, covered with black paint, moccasins on their feet and legs covered in tight, flesh-colored, fringed leather pants. They had nice saddles. The chiefs wore large feather headdresses, crests that cascaded down to their horses’ hooves.

“The federales had left town to hunt them down, leaving behind a small detachment which was still sleeping. Someone had given them bad information, maybe a spy bribed by the savages. But that wasn’t really necessary, the guards were confident that there was no danger. At the store I had overheard things that weren’t appropriate for girls or ‘señoritas,’ but I have the ears of an Aunt, I knew that the federales were the brothels’ and saloons’ best customers, though they only ever paid on credit — their pay was so slow to arrive that, when it finally did, they had already spent it all, so they always charged against their future wages without a care. But when their captain was in town they packed the church, in front of him they acted like little saints, or should I say big ones.

“Some Comanches had put flaming rags dipped in oil on their arrows. They followed these with arrows carrying bladders filled with turpentine. Some houses caught fire. I didn’t see it, but some say they threw pouches of gunpowder too, though from up there I could see all the way to the Town Hall, the back of the marketplace, and the jailhouse. It was like I had ten eyes.

“The only noise was the sound of their ululating war-cries, and the sound of their spurs. Otherwise the town had turned silent as death, as if all the Castañans had had their tongues torn out.

“Rafa began to cry when the bullets started flying. The Comanches ducked behind their horses without slowing down but they stopped howling. They had made it all the way to the church and the Town Hall and were galloping up and down the main street. They reached for their guns and began firing at those of us who were trying to defend ourselves from windows and doors. Bodies were falling left and right, some into the street. Without dismounting, a Comanche slit the throat of Don Isaias, the store owner. It was as though they each had six hands, shooting arrows with two, cocking and aiming their Remingtons or Colts (I don’t know what kind of pistols they were, but they sure fired a lot of shots) with two more, and slitting throats, scalping people, and hacking out tongues with the last two.

“One Comanche jumped from his horse’s saddle to the ground, grabbing the body of some poor soul who had just been wounded by one of his arrows in mid-air — Don Cesar, from the pharmacy — castrating him and stuffing what he’d just hacked off into the poor soul’s mouth. Even, then, riddled with arrows, Don Cesar was stirring. The Comanche bound his feet with a rope, remounted his horse, and galloped up and down the street, dragging him behind and whooping all the while, as the other Comanches began to dismount.

“They broke into the homes that weren’t on fire. Folks say they committed all kinds of atrocities against the residents: raping women, even old ladies, mutilating the men and scalping them for trophies, which they tied to the tails of their horses. They killed only those who put up a fight or resisted.

“From where I lay, in the silence broken occasionally by the cries of one of our own or the ululations of the Comanches, I could see the air filled with feathers from our mattresses. Some Castañans fled their homes only to be riddled with arrows, out of the fire into the frying pan.

“All the while the Comanches were ululating and roaring with laughter.

“That’s when one of the Comanches, whose face I couldn’t see, grabbed my sister Lucita and put her on his horse. He wore a long, white feather headdress, and had very long black hair. That was something new, because they had used to shave their heads; they must have been filthy, the Comanches, they even ate lice, they never used soap, yet they removed all the hair from their bodies. Now the fashion had changed, and long hair was their thing, but they continued to remove the hair from their bodies.

“What I already knew, along with Lucita and Rafa and all the children in Ciudad Castaño, is that the Comanches kidnapped boys and girls, taking the ones that looked the best and adopting them. They took the smartest ones from the ranches to look after their horses. I never understood how they selected adult women, because they made no distinction based on looks, they kidnapped ugly and pretty women alike. They married their captives without concern for the fact that they had already raped them, and they continued to treat them cruelly, like their own women. They enjoyed that. Folks didn’t talk about it but we all knew. One woman who returned from captivity because her people paid a ransom to an Indian trader — this was before the Texan Indians made a business of it — took it upon herself to recount her misfortunes in horrifying detail on nights when the moon was full, it was as though she lost her senses. She ran through the streets screaming, banging on doors to make sure we all heard her. Folks say she did this naked, but I never saw her; no matter how many times I peeked out on the balcony I laid eyes on her only once: she was filthy, like a savage, and she was violently shaking the ivy the Pérez family had grown over the screen that hid their milk cow; she shook the ivy branches, and her madness was quite a sight; who knows, maybe she did take her clothes off when she told her story, she was already exposing herself with her voice. But I never saw it.

“When the Comanches grabbed Lucita I heard Papa yell. He had hidden because if they found him that would be his death sentence, but death’s one thing and losing your daughter is another, that’s why he yelled, giving himself away, and let fly a hail of bullets which riddled the horse and its rider, the savage who had grabbed Lucita falling to the ground. If Papa had let him get away with his prize, that’s where things would have ended, the savages would have gone their merry way, but no. They gathered around the front door of our house. Another savage grabbed Lucita, shouting at the top of his lungs. Rafa stood up in his wet pants and he began jumping up and down and screaming like a lunatic. An Indian stood up on his horse’s back and in one leap, an incredible feat, he landed next to us as if he had flown. He didn’t have a headdress, his long hair was matted and gathered up like a nest on his head. He picked Rafa up by the shoulders and tossed him down into the street, where one of his accomplices grabbed him and put him on his horse, then he jumped down and landed on his horse’s back and they galloped away at full speed. The one who held Lucita let her go, who knows why, he didn’t like her or he got distracted.