The three Henry women have no idea what happened in Bruneville today. Though three of them are in town, only two have come to Elizabeth’s house. The one who hasn’t come is strikingly beautiful, her name is Sarah Ferguson (the daughter of Georgette Henry); she and her sister have lived with their aunt since their mother died in ’49, and from their aunt they’ve learned to enjoy riding, betting, card games, reading, and writing.
Sarah made an appointment with Jim Smiley weeks ago. They agreed to meet on the banks of the Rio Grande, in Mrs. Big’s “Casino.” “It’ll be a great night!” Sarah wants to play at least one hand against the most famous cardsharp in the land; it’s a stroke of luck they’ll both be in Bruneville at the same time, she can’t pass up such an opportunity.
She’s known as Doña Estefanía throughout the land: in the ranches, hamlets, and cities of the Valley and the plains, in the riverports and seaports, in both Indian and cowboy camps. She owns half the world, or at least this world we’re in. And she’s Nepomuceno’s mother.
She’s an important woman. Some folks talk about her famous bad humor, others talk about her incredible acts of generosity, and still others talk about her miserliness. There’s not an Indian or a Mexican who doesn’t consider her the owner of everything she lays her eyes on. And there’s not a gringo who wouldn’t like to steal what she has, many of them think she’s an incompetent who has not served the region well (and that’s how they justify their theft, saying it’s “in the region’s best interests”). The Negroes think she has magical powers. The Mexicans think she has the Midas touch. The Indians despise her, she’s responsible for the obliteration of entire settlements, they think she’s a force of evil. For Father Vera, the parish priest in Matasánchez (who occasionally gets confused and calls it “Matagómez” or “Matamóros” because mata means kill in Spanish), Doña Estefanía is a saint, an angel, or a cherubim, depending on how much she puts into the collection plate. She doesn’t give a penny to the (pathetic) Catholic church in Bruneville, so Father Rigoberto thinks she’s a witch and a heretic.
Who’s right and who’s wrong?
People examine the clothes she wears down to their last stitch, the horses in her stables, the size of her herd (which has grown, thanks in part to Nepomuceno’s lasso), everything she owns, even her chapels — which look more like churches — her silos and feedstores, her furniture, her various carriages, her jewels, and of course everyone talks about her cooking. “She has the hands of an angel.” “It puts you under a spell, eating from her kitchen.”
She, however, thinks of herself differently, and we should let her speak for herself. But Doña Estefanía doesn’t exactly think of herself. She thinks in terms of the domain of the Holy Spirit, about rain, livestock, her vaqueros’ skill, and the transport, payment, and treatment of the animals in the slaughterhouse. We’ll soon come to see her point of view and how she views herself.
Doña Estefanía doesn’t see herself as an important woman. She doesn’t even see herself as a “Doña.” She refers to herself by her nickname, “Nania.” Nania is what her father called her. Nania had a white pony, “Pretty and little like you, and her name is Tela” (which means “web” in Spanish). Her father had a cabriolet made for her; he called it her “spider.” “Let’s see my Nania with her Tela and her spider!” She learned how to drive it all by herself in a heartbeat, her face protected from the sun by a veil (she couldn’t hold both her parasol and the reins at the same time). White gloves on her hands, of course.
But she preferred to ride her pony, despite the fact “that’s not for Nania, young ladies shouldn’t ride.” Sometimes it occurs to her that she has three children and has been “blessed” with two more — usually only at Christmas-time, when she can’t avoid them — because her daughters-in-law and her sons’ quarrels irritate her.
Up at Rancho del Carmen, Nepomuceno’s two stepbrothers, José Eusebio and José Esteban, are near the headwaters of the Río de la Mentira, which some inaccurately refer to as Río del Carmen. They have stayed behind at Rancho del Carmen to protect Doña Estefanía, and all three of them anxiously await the Bruneville judge’s decision on the lawsuit over her land.
But the brothers don’t stand around awaiting the news, because they’re both men of action. At the crack of dawn they went after more than a hundred head of cattle that had been stolen by King’s men the previous day. The tracks were still fresh, that’s why they were in a hurry; it wasn’t the rainy season and the wind wasn’t blowing. They were lucky, the cattle thieves were just a stone’s throw away. But they didn’t want to confront them; they preferred to play their own trick on them, take back the livestock and return to the corral before they had a chance to rebrand them. Here’s how it went down: while the cattle rustlers were sleeping, the brothers shot them so they wouldn’t have a chance to resist, and took back Doña Estefanía’s cattle, returning in time for breakfast: delicious huevos rancheros made with soft tortillas, tomato salsa, and soft yolks.
Some folks say they’ve stayed at the ranch with Doña Estefanía because they don’t want to get involved in the dispute — they know that suing gringos is playing with fire — but the truth is that deep in their hearts they do care about the outcome of the lawsuit. Despite the fact it’s not their property, they cherish the hope that if they remain on good term with their father’s widow they’ll get a piece of it, especially now that Glevack is gone, they always knew he was a bad egg, but they were clever enough not to confront him directly, they just said he was a freeloader and a scumbag behind his back — when all is said and done, though, they were deeply loyal to her and were willing to risk their hides for her.
There’s also no doubt that Nepomuceno’s not afraid to tangle with the Texans, he’s taken them on before, he couldn’t just stand idly by and let them steal his mother’s land by manipulating the law in order to create Bruneville, selling what wasn’t theirs to begin with.
The news arrives, without the oranges, garlic, or onions Doña Estefanía had ordered. Two of her vaqueros deliver the details of what has transpired. They carelessly left the mule at the dock — who knows what the Rangers are going to do with it, by now they’re probably screwing it from behind. Let’s not worry about the oranges, they all eventually got picked up; but the onions and garlic were left behind, and that was just careless.
It goes without saying that Doña Estefanía and the two brothers aren’t pleased by the news.
It’s true Glevack was bad news, but compared to the Texans he seemed as harmless as a dead, plucked chicken whose beak had been chopped off.
Those damn Texans, they accepted land from the Spanish and then the Mexicans, signing documents swearing they were Catholics and would be loyal to their government, but at the first opportunity they claimed that the Mexicans were oppressing them (what!?), that the Catholics were intolerant (seriously!? Compared to the Protestants?!), that they weren’t free, and so on and so forth. They had already profited from the land that had been given to them, selling it off in parcels — in violation of the aforementioned contracts — at exorbitant prices, and they had already grabbed huge swaths of land, claiming they were exercising their legal rights. But owning slaves is the real issue: Mexico forbids it on principle, while Texans deem it a God-given right.