Read Online And Yesterday Is Gone by Dolores Durando - Free Book Online Page B

with his long strides.
    As they neared the fence, the big ram charged.
    â€œShoot. Shoot,” Lupe screamed as she turned to face Carlos and looked directly into the deadly black eye of the thirty-eight. As the unaccustomed sound of the gunshot scattered the sheep, the smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Almost carelessly, he dropped her limp body into a nearby wheelbarrow and moved it behind the cabin.
    The men came down from work late that afternoon. The remnants of breakfast and the empty coffeepot greeted them as they opened the door to a cold, damp bunkhouse. Juan ignited the heater and looked for the can opener.
    Later that evening, Carlos lit the lantern and the wheelbarrow was pushed up the muddy path without the dinner basket Lupe had carried the last time she’d gone up there.
    Carlos dug steadily, the dim light of the lantern making ghostly shadows as it moved with each push of the wind.
    He hunched his massive shoulders against the driving rain as the hole grew deeper, and at last he was satisfied. He lifted her as though she were weightless and dropped the body in the muddy pit.
    He looked down at her and wiped from his face the rain that dripped around the brim of his hat.
    â€œYou laid with him in life,” he said with a grim smile. “Now lay with him in hell.”
    At daylight Juan headed out to feed the sheep. The sun broke through the clouds and a glancing ray of light glinted on an earring held fast in a congealed splatter of blood on the floor of the wheelbarrow.
    He shuddered, now knowing where Lupe slept.
    The tight fist in Juan’s gut tensed as he sensed the presence of his father before the tall shadow fell before him.
    Silently, Carlos leaned against the baled hay, lit a cigarette and watched his tall, slender son fork hay to the noisy sheep—his son who had the refined, beautiful face of the gringa woman who had born him. The large, dark eyes; the softly curved lips, the same elegant bearing. The hands that held the pitchfork with long, graceful fingers were the hands of his mother.
    I loved her with every breath that I took, as I loved him when she laid him in my arms, he thought.
    The memory cut like a knife, then the icy chill of revulsion flooded the past.
    How could I have sired this—this man with the ways of a woman? For years I knew it wasn’t true—not my son, then I thought it’s just a passing phase. I knew he would change, outgrow this foolishness as he grew older. His whiskers would mark him as a man…but now I see the truth. I would sooner he be dead.
    â€œWhere is the gringo? Your lover?” came Carlos’ scathing questions.
    â€œI loved him, but he was not my lover. Now he is safe—you meant to kill him, too.”
    â€œYes, and I am tempted to kill you, you maricón.” His frustration and rage struggled with his indecision.
    â€œYes, you could do that. But I will live in your mind as long as you draw breath.”
    Carlos stood, as if undecided, facing his son with only his rage and shame existing between them.
    â€œI’ll take you and that gringa whore to San Francisco in the morning, and if there is a God, I pray I’ll never see either of you again, in this life or in hell,” he delivered in his guttural Spanish.
    â€œAnd I will say amen to that—father.” The word “father” conveyed in the same scathing tone as Carlos had used for “maricón.”
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    The truck was on the road almost before daylight.
    Her coat pulled tight, the woman slouched against Carlos with eyes closed to the world. A small bag, loosely held in slack fingers, fell to the floor. No effort was made to retrieve it.
    Juan sat pressed as close to the door as possible, staring out the window at the fleeting landscape. They rode in a strained silence and it seemed to Juan that the trip was endless.
    Never had he heard the word “maricón.” How could he have known the