Tortuga by Rudolfo Anaya

Author:Rudolfo Anaya
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781504011808
Publisher: Open Road Media

15

The sun was a golden eye peering over the mountain’s hump. I sat up in bed and watched the golden spears cut away the white frost on the hill. In the valley plumes of smoke rose from the nestling houses and I knew people were awake and stirring. I felt their tired bones cracking with old age and rheumatism as they moved about in the dark shadows. I thought of Ismelda getting ready to come to work.

The flaring light of the golden eye grew intense, sparkling. It seemed to dissolve away all shadows and horizons. My shell and the hump of the mountain disappeared, and for a brief instant the sun and the mountain and I danced and revolved around each other.

I sang to the sun, a crazy song. Not a chant, like Jerry, just crazy words. I laughed. Today was a special day.

Today I get my chair, I thought. It was one more step on the road to freedom. I flexed my arms. I knew I was ready for the chair, and I had kept after Steel until he gave in and agreed. I bent my knees and touched my legs, and at the same time old man Maloney came in, grumbling and cursing as he gathered the bedpans and urinals. I paid no attention to him. It was only a matter of time and then I would get crutches, and I would be free of the bed. I thought about all the things I wanted to do, and one strange, forboding thought kept pressing the others out of my mind.

Come and see me when you can, Salomón had said … there’s something you should see …

When I told Mike about my thoughts he shook his head and turned away, but he didn’t say anything. I told Ismelda how I felt and she said that I had to trust Salomón, and then she added that there were no tears at the roots of sadness, that Salomón had said that tears are for the living, the lovers, and those who rage at life.

“Does he want to see me cry?” I asked myself. I touched my legs, stretched as far forward as I could with the weight of the burdensome cast, then lay back on the bed.

“I’m sick and tired of you little bastards making a mess in the bedpans!” Maloney cursed. He meant me and Buck, but he looked at me. “Do you think I enjoy picking up your crap every morning, picking up the mess! Goddamned little bastards!”

“Ah, lay off Maloney,” Mike yawned and sat up in bed, “Tortuga and Buck have to use the urinals at night … you know they can’t get up. Do you think they like it any better than you do?”

“I’d give anything to be able to get up,” Buck cursed from his bed, “my bandages are so wet and crappy they’re beginning to rot.”

“I can smell it,” Sadsack moaned, “spare us the description. I can smell Tortuga, too. The inside of his cast

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