Country of the Bad Wolfes (81 page)

In her letter to Bruno, Marina tendered everyone's condolences on the loss of his family, and their regret at not having had the chance for better acquaintance with Felicia and the boys. She conveyed the twins' gratitude for his informing them of Mauricio Espinosa's death, and told him he could share her letters with Vicki Clara and tell his sisters all he wanted about the twins. But, knowing Vicki would read the letter, she made no reference to Bruno's concern about her frail health. She reported that Remedios was doing very well in her pregnancy and the child was due in the spring. She described the house the twins had built in Brownsville and told of the one they were building in the wild palms downriver at the place they called Wolfe Landing. She told about Brownsville, about its residents, an almost equal mix of Mexicans and Anglos and all of them inclined to public conversation in bellows. Though smaller than Tampico it was louder and had even more cantinas. And more dogs. She had never seen so many dogs at large. Sometimes she heard parrots in the trees and sometimes saw a flock of them streak over the patio in a colorful flash, and in such moments she missed Tampico terribly. And of course Buenaventura.

Bruno passed Marina's two letters to Vicki, who was ecstatic about them. She was in the library reading the letter to Josefina yet again when John Samuel happened by and asked who it was from, and she said an old school friend. As she saw it, if the twins wanted John Samuel to know anything about them they would ask her to tell him or they would tell him themselves. As Bruno had expected, she was delighted to correspond for both of them with their kin across the border. She
addressed her letter to Marina but directed it to all of them. She said how happy she was to know they were unharmed. How wonderful it was that Marina and James Sebastian were married and had a son! And Blake married too and also to soon be a father! She knew Remedios must be very lovely and precious and she could hardly wait to meet her. How good to know the family was still growing—but dear God, how the years were flying! She made no reference to the medical troubles Bruno had mentioned, but she wrote at length about Juanito Sotero. Told how handsome he was and how strong, how accomplished in his studies. About his excitement to be going to military school in the coming fall. Her only concern about him was that his attitude had become so serious. Oh, he enjoyed his sports and he had friends, yes, but to be frank, she rarely heard him laugh. She did not mean to suggest he was solemn, because he was not—his smile was lovely and not infrequent. It was only that he seemed less a child than a very young and purposeful adult. As though the death of his brother had ended his own childhood. How silly she must sound, she wrote, to have such concern about a son so healthy and intelligent. He had been thrilled when she told him his uncles were alive and well. In the years since the twins' departure, she and Juanito had sometimes made a game of imagining where they might be and what they might be doing. Juanito asked if she were going to tell his father what they had learned about Uncle James and Uncle Blake, and she said she wasn't. She gave no explanation and he did not ask for one, but only said he wasn't going to tell either. In closing, she wrote, With love to you all, my dear sisters and brothers, including my baby nephew and the niece or nephew soon to join you. Vicki Clara.

Marina wrote Vicki in March with the news that she was again pregnant and had been for about four months. This one was no accident. James Sebastian was so pleased with Morgan James that he wanted another son. She had told him they could try but she wasn't sure she could conceive again, and even if she did he should keep in mind that it might be a girl. He said that would be all right with him. And, just like that, she was pregnant. What in heaven was going on? Who would have thought another seed could sprout in this old pot? As for Remedios, her baby was due any day. And Vicki should see the twins now! Twenty-three years old and handsomer than ever. At the end of the letter, the twins had added a few lines of their own to Vicki, each penning an affectionate greeting and lamenting the eternity since they'd last had the pleasure of her dear company. They were pleased Juan Sotero was doing so well and asked her to convey their proud salutations to him. They invited her and Juanito, together or when each might have the chance, to come and visit them in Brownsville. Nobody mentioned John Samuel.

In that first letter to Vicki, Marina addressed her as she always had, as Doña Victoria, and was chided for it in Vicki's next letter. Sisters, Vicki wrote, are never so formal with each other. Marina loved her for her graciousness.

That spring they received their first letter from Sofía Reina Wolfe y Blanco, addressed, at Bruno's suggestion, to Marina Colmillo de Wolfe. It was a brief and affectionate missive conveying Sófi's admiration for the twins, having heard so much about them from her brother. Marina wrote back that they were all very happy to make her acquaintance, if only by way of letter, and told her of their great fondness for Bruno. This correspondence would continue for seventeen years, during which time Sófi and María Palomina would learn much about their relatives at the border and the Wolfes would come to know a good deal about their kin in Mexico City. But some things, of course—such as the history of Sófi's marriages—could not be told in a letter and would have to wait those seventeen years before becoming known to the whole family.

Came the fall and Juan Sotero kissed his mother goodbye and shook his father's hand and entered the gates of El Colegio Militario de Veracruz. By which time there had been two more additions to the Wolfe family across the Río Bravo. Remedios Marisól had borne Jackson Ríos at the end of April, and then a little more than three months later Marina brought Harry Sebastian into the world. Now Remedios was pregnant again. Mother of God, Marina wrote to Vicki, we are like a bakery of little Americans!

But Harry Sebastian's birth, like his brother Morgan James's, had been hard on Marina, and because the danger of another pregnancy would be graver yet for a woman of nearly forty, she and James Sebastian had agreed to have no more children. She would resume taking precautions, but if there should be an accident she would certainly seek the help of a curandera, a choice that of course had its own hazards. In all honesty, Marina confided to Vicki, I will be so very happy when I am dried-up and no longer have to be so careful. May it happen soon soon
soon
.

They finished the river house two weeks before the new year of 1895. A large single-story with four bedrooms, a big kitchen and spacious central room, a wide verandah all around. When they brought the wives out to see it, Marina said it was pretty and she would live in it if it were in town. Remedios liked the house too but if Marina would not live there neither would she. They were amenable, however, to occasional visits. After taking the wives back to town, the twins allotted themselves a rare day of leisure. They went to Point Isabel and took the
Marina Dos
out for a sail. They had missed the sea very much, and by that day's end they were decided that one way or another they would again have a beach house.

There was still much work to do at Wolfe Landing. They would next build a stable for the mules and some horses and maybe a dairy cow, and then assume the harder job of constructing a dock along the bank. And there was still a bridge to
build over Nameless Creek. They reckoned they could finish it all by April but it would actually take them until July. They had months ago used up the money in the valise and had since then been making regular withdrawals from the bank. By their estimation, those funds would be nearly depleted by the end of the year. They hadn't even had time to explore the several other of their palm groves east of the clearing, about three square miles of them, by their reckoning.

One night as they sat by the campfire at Wolfe Landing—an evening nearly silent but for a soft soughing in the palms—they heard a faint but distinctive sound they had not heard since their days on the Río Perdido. A sequence of low rasping grunts, coming from the darkness beyond the northeast corner of the clearing. James Sebastian said if it wasn't a bull alligator he would eat every hat in Cameron County. “Let's go see,” Blake said.

They tucked the Colts in their belts and took up firebrands and went into the palms. It was a dense stand and the firelight was bright against the trunks as the twins wound their way through them. They had gone about twenty yards and almost walked into the resaca before they knew it was there, catching themselves short at its bank. They could not make out the other side, which in the light of the next day they would see was some forty yards distant—and see too that the resaca was crescent-shaped and they were near one of its ends, the other end out of view behind a stand of palms. But standing there in the darkness, they saw the red glowings of alligator eyes on the surface of the black-glass water. They had read that there were alligators in the region—and no crocodiles—but they would give no thought at all to taking hides. They'd had enough of that trade. Yet they liked knowing the alligators were there in that big nearby resaca, and thereafter always listened for their gruntings in the hushed darkness of still nights.

Some weeks later they found a dead man floating in the river reeds where they were constructing the dock. A young mestizo, shirtless and shoeless. Brought down by the current from who knew where, though it could not have been very far, as he had not been long in the water, the eyes not yet eaten, the lips yet intact. There was a small bullet hole above his ear. His pockets were empty but he was no peón—the pants were part of a suit, the hands unscarred, two fingers showed pale bands where rings had been.

The only adequate ground for a grave in that lowland was Wolfe Landing, but they were not about to bury anyone there not family to them. But they had an idea. They bore the body to the resaca and looped one end of a rope around its ankle and lashed the other end securely to a tree and set the corpse in the water. The next day the rope was slack and the dead man gone.