When Luz opened her own eyes, she was in her white bedroom, lying across her bed, beside her altar with its dried marigolds, beneath her ceiling, so still in its blankness.
Was it possible? Yes, Luz decided, it was.
Her visions were changing, growing into something larger, something greater than pictures in the leaves.
TWENTY-FOUR
The Sharpshooter Simodecea Salazar-Smith
The Lost Territory, 1895–1905
Simodecea was in her spacious trailer when Pidre and the photographer knocked. She looked at her reflection in the hanging mirror, straightened her black braid woven with colorful ribbons, fiddled with her ruffled vestido, white and lavender lace all down her chest. She applied one last dab of rouge before reaching for her fringed gloves, the deerskin delicate and malleable against her hands. She considered her collection of guns before reaching for her Remington shotgun, hoisting the familiar weightiness of its Damascus double barrel, the engraving of her own name etched into the receiver. She stepped out of the trailer into the Animas sun.
The mustached photographer had traveled by railcar from that northern city, Denver, and he stood sweating beside Pidre outside the trailer with his accordion-like camera, a white backdrop, and a wooden chair centered in the landscape. Pidre offered Simodecea his hand, but she ignored the gesture and stepped down from her trailer in a wave of drapery, her skirt sweeping red soil. Simodecea lifted the fabric from the ground, shotgun and lace filling her palms.
“Here?” she asked, stepping beside the wooden chair, turning her chin until she felt the white backdrop bouncing sunlight over her face.
The photographer wiped his wet brow with a dirty kerchief from his breast pocket. He squinted. He wore a two-piece suit and he hunched over the camera to see Simodecea upside down in the glass plate. He twirled his jacket over himself and his camera, where he remained for a long moment. He then reemerged and twisted his mustache. He consulted with Pidre. “Standing or seated?”
Pidre made his fingers into a square. He peered between his own frame and shook his head. He wore a deep purple tunic and wide cotton trousers, and his clothes trembled with mountainous wind as he walked toward Simodecea. The air was fragrant with juniper and sandstone, the constant perfume of gunpowder.
Simodecea smiled. “What say you, boss?”
Pidre held his fingers to his mouth. His hair was violet black in the sunlight, longish to his shoulders. He took a seat on the chair, and Simodecea could see the lightness of his scalp. He then stood and pointed to the ground. “One leg on the chair,” he said. “They’ll see more of the dress that way.”
“And the gun. Hold it high,” the photographer said.
Pidre flashed her a tender smile and retreated from the camera’s eye.
Simodecea watched as the cloudless sky grew crowded with two hawks that soared toward the red theater. There was a meadow marked with wildflowers. The other performers’ trailers sat in various areas, some lower, some higher in the grassy land. Simodecea hoisted her shotgun and prepared herself to hold its substantial weight for the duration of the photograph. Images were important promotion, Pidre had explained. Keeps them telling stories about us.
“My goodness,” the photographer said, as he peered at the glass plate. “Wow. You make for a striking image. One, two, three.” He stepped aside and pressed the shutter. “Hold, hold, hold.”
He took three photos in that pose, and each time Simodecea imagined that her gaze spoke for her. What did she have to say? She laughed inside her mind. I’m a damned good shot, her eyes told the world.
As they finished, Simodecea breathed and dabbed her face with rice paper, absorbing the oil and sweat she was accumulating.
“Now,” the photographer said, checking his brass pocket watch. “Why don’t we get one with the two of you? After all, it’s Pidre’s Extravaganza.”
Pidre had stepped through the meadow and was turning a blade of grass between his index finger and thumb. He spun the blade and smiled. He held the grass to his mouth. He blew. There was a sound like a quacking duck. Simodecea laughed.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he hollered, knee-deep in purple flowers. He walked swiftly through the tall grass as if he were wading in the river. Pidre bowed slightly upon entering Simodecea’s space before the white backdrop and wooden chair. He smelled of the morning cook fire. He was several inches shorter than Simodecea, and she offered to sit in the wooden chair.
“No, I like you standing,” said Pidre. “It shows your stature.”
Simodecea smiled and caught herself wanting to once again check that the Remington wasn’t loaded. It wasn’t and she knew it, but it made her nervous to stand with a gun beside a man. Sometimes she wondered why her gift had given her so much when it had gutted her life just the same. Pidre reached up and rested his elbow against Simodecea’s shoulder, the pose of business associates.
The photographer retreated beneath the cloak of his jacket, checking his focus once more. Simodecea looked straight ahead. She could smell spearmint leaves on Pidre’s breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this close to anyone, let alone someone who smelled so sweet, and this thought made her sad.
“Look this way, you two,” the photographer said. “Wonderful. Perfect. Hold, hold, hold.”
As the camera clicked, Simodecea relaxed, loosened her joints. Pidre glided his arm briskly off her shoulder. He looked into her eyes, an unpredictable softening warmth.
* * *
—
Animas grew by the day. There were more mines, more farms, more trains. Within several months of opening, Pidre’s Extravaganza had sold out weekend shows. Pidre had hired performers from across the region, some he’d convinced to leave other shows, and others who had auditioned for the first time. There were snake charmers, tea leaf readers, dancers and acrobats. Simodecea at first didn’t enjoy being rooted in place. She had always traveled, but Pidre was a gifted businessman, and she and the other performers respected him and counted their earnings. Sometimes when they didn’t have a show, if the moon was full, Pidre made a great feast with the hornos and bonfires and an underground barbecue pit. He welcomed undertaking the traditional chores of women. He baked the breads and served his compadres hearty plates of beans and bowls of brisket stew, all while wearing a dusty leather apron.
There was a summer night when they all sat together in the meadow on woven rugs, their bedrolls and sheepskin, tin plates of food. The fire dancers were beautiful and moved their bodies like serpents. Simodecea had become friendly with two of the younger girls, and they brought her clay pitchers of mezcal. They had both had a recent night with a Greek miner. I’ve never felt anything like it, the prettier one said. She was named Sabina and had a beaklike nose that was handsome in its uniqueness.
“What did he do?” asked Simodecea amid the crackling of fire and pulsating crickets.
“It wasn’t what he did,” chimed in the other. “It’s what we did to each other.”
They all three laughed, and Simodecea noted the musical sounds of their throats. She excused herself from the ground and stood with her tin cup in search of the water bucket.
The bonfires were blazing against the night. There were sounds of crackling cedar. Simodecea stepped near conversations, the lumped bodies speaking softly in the dark. The stars were heavy though hidden by firelight. The cottonwood trees along the center ditch stood in fashionable poses, limbs elegantly resting this way or that. Through the grayish air a far ways off, Pidre stepped away from the party. He cut across the meadow, continuing beyond his temporary cabin adjacent to the adobe home he was in the midst of building. Simodecea stood in the grass and told herself no but then told herself yes.