Lena Stopp (1976)
I ALWAYS TOLD Turtle when I was raising her, “If a man acts like a child, then send him back to his ae-jee and let her straighten him out.” She hardly ever listened to me—mostly, she would make a sour face and turn away—but when things got bad with Everardo, she finally did. Turtle wasn’t much for talking but her emotions barked like a bluetick—you could tell. And sometimes I’d say things like, “Just because you look more Kiowa doesn’t mean you can forget you’re Cherokee,” and she’d scrunch her brow. I’d throw back my head and laugh a good one. Tla, mostly, I liked to tease her about Everardo. The last time he stayed out all night, I told her, “That’s what you get for marrying a sqaw-nee.”
She’d driven around Lawton like a ski-lee on a broomstick and found Everardo at a cousin’s house half drunk and oosa-tle. She dragged him into the backseat of her car, let him pass out next to Ever—he was just six months old by then—and drove south out of Oklahoma. She headed across Texas and down into Mexico. Come to find out, Everardo hadn’t seen his parents in over ten years. Turtle had just gotten her per cap money from the Kiowa Tribe, $1,500. She meant for that au-dayla to pull double duty: fixing Everardo and getting her a home.
Aldama, Chihuahua, was filled with desert and large mountain chains, unlike Lawton, which was flatter than the back of my head. There was Mount Scott just north of Lawton, but it looked more like a groundhog had dug a mound of dirt out of the Southern Plains. Turtle told me how it wasn’t even a real mountain compared to the ones in Chihuahua.
As they drove into his hometown, Everardo’s eyes finally popped open, with the familiar sound of dirt kicking up underneath the car. It sobered him instantly. Turtle said his face aged backward twenty years as they drove up to his parents’ house. His mother, Lucia, had no idea her skee-ni son was about to arrive. I shouldn’t be like that. He wasn’t skee-ni. Just a selfish ouk-seni. But when Lucia opened the front door to find an older version of her baby boy, she embraced him in such a long hug that when she let go, he was five years old again.
Lucia did not waste any time. She began wrapping pork tamales, and wrapping Everardo in question after question, like about his brother, Augustine. He told her about Augustine and his new girlfriend and that they were getting married. Lucia pulled out homemade marzipan candy and shoved pieces into Everardo’s mouth, feeding him like a skaw-stee little toddler. She told him about his cousins living in Riverside, California. They worked as maids in the motels and their children learned English in the schools.
My grandson, Ever, took to Lucia because she did to him what she had done to his daddy. Shoved marzipan into his mouth. Turtle said Ever scrunched up his little brow, smacked his gums a bit, and then a smile spread across his chubby face. Sure enough, he crawled into Lucia’s lap like Christmas come early. The funniest part of the reunion was watching Everardo eat, or really, watching Lucia watch Everardo eat. She hadn’t seen her son in a decade, so she pulled tamales from the pot and served them fresh, still steaming. Turtle said Everardo cut the smallest chunks with his fork, and slowly placed each bite onto his tongue. There he was, just like his baby, smiling from ear to ear as he chewed those tiny bites. Lucia held Ever in her lap at the kitchen table and didn’t take her eyes off Everardo for a minute.
Turtle had fallen for Everardo because if he wasn’t laughing, he was smiling. Lucia told Turtle about the pranks he used to pull as a boy, how he’d trick his younger cousins into eating habaneros. Then he’d laugh as their faces turned red. One time he tied a row of firecrackers to a cat’s tail. Everardo and his friends laughed until the cat ran straight into a neighbor’s house. The firecrackers did slide off the cat’s tail, but they dropped inside the living room. Everardo and his friends had to work off payments for new furniture. “This is the son that turned me into an old goat,” Lucia said. She and Everardo laughed with different pitches but in the same rhythm.
His father, Javier, came home a few hours later and nearly lost his breath. He thought he saw the ghost of an ancestor, Everardo Francisco Carrillo, who was rumored to be an early Spanish governor of their hometown, Aldama. Then he nearly fainted when he realized it was a shapeshifter posing as his son. He hugged Everardo and then pulled him back by the shoulders to look at him. Hugged him again and then pulled him back again. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
Javier wanted to show Everardo how his childhood home had been upgraded. New cement on the walls and floors. Then Javier took him outside to show him how he painted the cement walls pink at his mother’s request. He pulled out a ladder and made Everardo climb onto the roof to see how he had personally cut the rain gutters and laid the sheet metal.
Everardo’s parents had a large home—four bedrooms with a living room and kitchen. His parents and his family had hand-built it all. Even the upgrades. It was a community effort. Turtle told me how she admired the way Everardo’s family worked together to build what they needed. She listened carefully as his father explained how he used chicken wire between cement layers. There was something about the way Javier relived the building of the home. Next thing, Turtle started daydreaming. Everardo had promised her a house. One day, he always told her, over and over. But “one day” said everyday sounded more like “never.”
Then Everardo’s aunt stopped by to borrow sugar and coffee from his mother, and word spread like mountain winds cutting through the valley. Every night a cousin or an uncle or an old friend stopped by to visit with Everardo and to meet his wife and child. They bombarded him with questions, “What kind of work is in Oklahoma?” and “How are the cousins doing?” and “Do you have your own home?” Everardo answered accordingly, except when it came to the last. When relatives came to the question of having his own home, he told them he had a house in the middle of Lawton. According to the bull spilling out of Everardo’s mouth, he had to mow the lawn all summer. “You wouldn’t believe how much grass there is,” he’d tell them. Everardo told them about a vegetable garden in the backyard and a flower garden off the sides of the front porch. “It’s easy to grow in Oklahoma,” he said, “The soil is good.”
Turtle only spoke a few phrases in Spanish and a handful of words, but she understood clearly all the bullshit Everardo told his family.
It was a lie she held for their entire trip, and it only pissed Turtle off the more she thought about not having a home of her own. She wanted nothing more than to turn the lie into truth. By time the week was over she was ready to get back to Oklahoma. On the last day, Everardo’s ae-jee asked, “Just one more hug, please?” again and again. They were leaving Mexico, or trying to anyway. But Everardo couldn’t deny his mother. She hadn’t seen him in ten years. Lucia hugged Everardo, Turtle, and then Ever. Only to ask again right after. Then hugged them in the same order.
On the day they were to leave, Javier suddenly needed help with some last-minute work around the yard. A hole needed to be dug for a pig roast the following weekend. Then he needed help replacing a cracked window. He had Everardo hand him tools as he shimmed the busted window out and slid the new one in. When they finally climbed inside their car, tla, Lucia stopped them again. She hurried toward the house yelling, “You need this for the road.” She walked back out of the house with a can of green beans and her only can opener. Everardo tried to turn it away, but his mother said, “No, no, take it.” She reached inside the car window and placed the items on his lap. Then she leaned over to give him one more kiss on his forehead.
On the drive back, Peguis Canyon was wrapped inside a dark shadow, like the mountain chain was witched. Between the growing darkness and desert, Turtle couldn’t even tell which way was north. The night grew so dark it was almost like the sand itself turned black. A place where ski-lees gave birth to demons. Everardo had trekked the highway in his younger days. He seemed to know this part of Mexico well. Turtle focused all her attention on rocking Ever; she wanted him to sleep—the drive would be easier for everyone that way. Once they cleared the canyon, Everardo found a Mexican folk music station. The quick strums from a guitar mixed with a dancing violin made Ever’s eyelids slowly fall. Turtle’s head rolled on her neck from the long serenades between singers. Soon the darkness covering the desert looked like the darkness behind her eyelids. She tried to stay awake, pulling her eyes open and blinking repeatedly. It all started to blur. The night, the desert, the car.
Suddenly, headlights lit up the highway.
Three police cars sat parked side by side and spread across both lanes.
Everardo quickly stopped the car. Turtle didn’t fully understand what was happening until she saw three Mexican policemen standing at the front of their car. She wanted to tell Everardo not to get out. But she couldn’t speak. She was aus-guy. He climbed out of the car and met the policemen at the front of the vehicle. Turtle watched as he handed one of the officers his identification. This officer was the tallest of the three and wore a metal badge. The other two had similar gray uniforms, but without badges. Everardo told the badged officer he was traveling from his parents’ home in Aldama, that his wife and son were in the car. Then the officer asked if he was smuggling contraband into the United States. The officer didn’t wait for Everardo’s response, and asked “Do you have any American money?” Everardo pulled a twenty dollar bill from his pocket, saying, “It’s for gas back to Oklahoma.” The badged officer snatched the twenty dollar bill out of his hand, and told Everardo to follow them back to the police station. They wanted to search the car for drugs.
Turtle said she felt sick to her stomach, and there was something skee-ni in the air. Everardo drove their car behind the badged officer while the other two police cars followed. Soon they arrived at an old, abandoned gas station just off the state highway, a converted store made into a police station. The town of Presidio was about thirty miles ahead, which meant they were only thirty miles from the U.S. border.
They huddled together outside their car, holding each other like tumbleweeds caught on a barbed wire fence. Turtle rocked her oos-di and kissed him on his cheeks. Thankfully, Ever slept. Those ou-yoee grabbed bags of clothes from the backseat and tossed them out. Next they yanked the spare tire from the trunk and threw it onto the ground. Turtle was mostly scared for Ever. She said she thought about running as fast as she could into the night. She just needed to make it to the U.S. border. Surely, the American officers would help her. She was American. Her father served in the Korean War.
Those skee-ni little assholes forced Turtle and Everardo to pick up their belongings that were strewn all over the ground. Turtle climbed into the backseat of the car and carefully laid Ever down. She was grateful when he stayed asleep. He stirred a few times as if he were hungry, but she was able to soothe him. Turtle tucked him into a blanket—not so much to keep the cold out but more to have something weighted on top of him: it always seemed to help him sleep.
Carefully, Turtle climbed out of the backseat and hurried to help Everardo pick up their clothes and stuff them back into the bags. They returned the spare tire to the trunk along with the tire jack. When she bent over to place the things into the car, she noticed those nasty policemen looking at her and smiling, like three horny desert dogs. She tried her best to hurry. She didn’t like them looking at her.
Here she picked up papers that were thrown from the glove box, and she had to chase an envelope toward the policemen. “Do you want me to help you?” the badged officer asked. Turtle snatched up the envelope, hearing their coyote cackles behind her. By the time all the papers were back into the glove box, Turtle was mostly aus-guy for Ever—afraid he’d be missing—so she hurried into the backseat. She had her window down and heard the badged policeman say to Everardo, “Do you know how much money we can get for this car and all the stuff you have?”
“I’m trying to get my family back to Oklahoma,” Everardo said.
The badged officer shoved Everardo to the ground. “Where’s the money?”
“I don’t have any more money,” Everardo said, on his back and hands out.
The officer looked at Everardo’s boots. “I bet I can get some money for these,” he said and reached out to grab them. Everardo tried to pull his feet away but the officer caught the tip of a foot and yanked the boot off. Everardo came back around with his other foot and kicked the officer in the side of his knee. The officer stumbled and nearly fell but caught himself before he landed on the ground. Then he lunged forward and kicked Everardo in the side.
Turtle said she almost screamed but quickly held her breath. Ever was sound asleep. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up and call attention to their hiding place in the car. She wiped her tears as soon as they hit her cheeks. She looked around but could only see darkness and the police station. She knew she was close to Texas, close to the U.S. border, but not close enough to know which direction. She couldn’t follow the road or else the policemen would catch her. She had a hand resting on Ever’s back, and she tried her best to not cry out, to not wake him up.
On the ground, Everardo cringed against the pain in his side.
That awful badged officer pulled out his gun, smiling like a damned ski-lee, and aimed it directly at Everardo’s head.
Everardo said, “No, please. My wife and son are watching, no, please.”
“Maybe I’ll take all of it,” the officer said. “I’ll sell your wife and son, too.”
“God, please,” Everardo begged.
The officer paused, stepped back, and holstered his gun.
Right then, Turtle told me she thought they would release Everardo. There was something about Everardo’s call to God. It made the officer change. She said it seemed to frighten him. He stepped back, stood next to the other two policemen, and postured long enough to give Turtle hope. But then he yelled out into the desert and commanded the two policemen to attack. Everardo curled up into a ball as the two men sent the tips of their cowboy boots into his back, sides, and legs. Everardo used his arms to cover his head, but it didn’t stop the men from stomping their heels onto his hands and arms.
“Please, stop!” Everardo yelled.
The officer pulled the two men away and he climbed on top of Everardo. He pinned Everardo’s arms down with his knees and slammed his fist into Everardo’s face left and right until he went unconscious, but the officer continued, Everardo’s head slung around on a loose neck with each hit.
Turtle knew if they killed Everardo then she and Ever would be next. They wouldn’t leave witnesses. She scooped up Ever. She got out of the car and ran toward the three men. Turtle slid down to her knees in front of the officer. In perfect Spanish, she said, “For God and my son, please stop. Spare us.”
The badged officer was at eye level with Turtle. He paused mid swing.
Tears fell from Turtle’s eyes.
Everardo’s bloody face and gashed head lay between them.
Ever was now wide awake in Turtle’s arms, looking out from underneath the blanket. His eyes caught the officer’s eyes. He was so close to the violence, too close to the rage. Oos-dis weren’t supposed to be around such things. They could be witched. Their spirit forever altered. A witching was almost incurable.
“I have money,” Turtle begged, and she quickly rifled through Ever’s blanket, fumbled with the snaps on his pajamas, and pulled out a tan-colored envelope, the same one that held her Kiowa per cap check. She showed the officer $1,400 in twenties and hundreds. “Take it all,” she begged. “But please leave us at the border.”
The officer looked at Ever in Turtle’s arms and then at the wad of cash in Turtle’s hands. ...
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