The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

Recommendations

Info

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 12been right all along. And then, once more, Jose Montoya slept in the desert.He awakened to find the captain from the day before standing over him, nudging him with hisboot and looking disgusted. The captain's disgust was aimed at the lieutenant who had been ordered torelease Jose the day before: It was not hard to distinguish a bump on the head dealt by a lieutenant'spistol from the broken, shattered, charred and shot-up bodies of Villistas that were also lying in thedesert. The Villista attackers had been repelled with devastating losses; the federalistas were nowtaking advantage of the peace following their victory to bury the Villista dead before they began to reekof decay and lost dreams. To the captain and his men, that meant throwing the slain into whicheverartillery crater happened to be closest.Jose's head hurt fiercely as he got to his feet and began the walk back towards Agua Prieta. Histhroat was so dry that when he tried to swallow it stuck halfway, and he had to walk the rest of the wayback in that condition. The scene he was passing through was clearly the aftermath of the events hehad witnessed last night, and as he neared the line of trenches around the city he once again saw thespotlights which had played such an important part in the victory of the night before. They were nolonger mysterious, and Jose no longer had much interest or curiosity about either them or the machineguns. In fact, the only thoughts he could sustain for very long were about La Catrina.He was very much in love, as he thought love to be in his teenaged mind. He searched hismemory for any stories of anyone he had heard of ever having met La Catrina before, but his memorydidn't store any such accounts at all. He decided that perhaps the Fancy Lady had feelings for him, too,if he were the only man that she had ever shown herself to. Could that be possible? He had no way tobe sure of her love. He did not know when he would see her again. Nonetheless, he had determinedthat this was a great love that would go on forever.As he passed by the vendors and candy shops and all the merchants in the marketplace on the
The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 13way home, he found that he was still in possession of his wallet and bought every candied skull andpapier mache skeleton he could afford. The vendors were happy to be moving merchandise the dayafter El Dia de Los Muertos, and parted with their various goods at reduced prices; so much so that bythe time Jose reached his house he had acquired more than an armload of purchases in remembrance ofhis beloved La Catrina, and had to spend his last bit of money hiring a boy to help him carry everythinghome.At his house, he found Severa Gomez and Concepcion sitting in the front room. Because hehad been absent since well before the battle, the two women had fed each other’s fears to the point thatboth began believing he had somehow been killed in the fighting. Jose's arrival at the house did notinitially convince them otherwise. With his filthy, bedraggled appearance and the minor but bloodywound on his head, both Severa and Concepcion initially believed that he was an apparition come tovisit them from some mass grave on the battlefield; it was only when he physically let them touch himthat the two women believed that he was alive and among them. Collecting up all of the treasures hehad purchased on his way home, Jose went upstairs to wash and go to sleep.It's March 1916, and Jose Montoya is still running. It has been almost two months since hecrossed the border into America and started calling himself Joe. It was the middle of January, in themiddle of a moonless night, when he slid out of bed, got dressed in his best new suit of clothes,bundled up his skulls and skeletons and a shaving razor, and crept out of the door and over the border.Within a day of leaving Agua Prieta he had arrived at El Paso, Texas, bought papers that madeboth the name Joe and his American citizenship dubiously official, and talked his way into a job withthe railroad, trading, although he didn't know it, on the good name of Alfonso Montoya, his father.Alfonso had known for some time that Jose had plans to leave Agua Prieta far behind, and had spreadword up and down the rail lines on both sides of the border that he would consider it a favor to be
Page 5 and 6: The Long and Storied Life of Jose M
Page 11: The Long and Storied Life of Jose M
Page 63 and 64:
The Long and Storied Life of Jose M
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111:
show all

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?