The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 44was provided for La Brujita in which she was to practice her trade, bare of everything except for afolding wooden cot. In this way, sensible Americans would not have to be offended by the sight of amagic that they could not understand.If La Catrina was jealous of Jose for the time that he spent in the stockade, she did not show it.After every visit to the stockade, Jose slipped back into the adobe-and-canvas shelter that was his andsilently slipped his tin box out of his gear. He always opened it with hands that trembled slightly withtrepidation, but each time the same sight greeted him: The sugar skulls were still smiling at him. Therose was still in bloom, still fragrant, still as fresh as if it had been cut that very morning. Jose wouldsmile and wonder where La Catrina was and when she would come to him, and then close the tin andslip it back into his pack.Jose had hoped La Catrina would come to him once he was back in Mexico, but it was not tobe. At the beginning of August he found out he was to be transferred back to Camp Furlong inColumbus, New Mexico, the same post at which he had started his army career. The 1 st Aero Squadronby this time had only two of their original eight aeroplanes still operational, the rest having been lostdue to the harsh conditions that the desert and the altitude imposed on them. The two planes and asmall number of soldiers and pilots to operate them would stay with the expedition in Mexico, but mostof the squadron was going back to Columbus to test new planes and new materials. Jose was to gowith them.Once again equipment was packed and trucks were loaded, and Jose took his perch on top of apile of crates as the order to move out was given. The ladies in the stockade lined the barbed wire oftheir enclosure, waving to the small column of trucks and cavalrymen as they pulled out of the campand started their journey back to America. Jose would miss the ladies, but he thought that America wasno place for them; it was too cold there, and they would wilt like flowers taken from the hothouse. Hewaved back, blew them a kiss, and turned his attention to the road in front of him as the trucks of the

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 45convoy began to clank forward.The trip back to Columbus would be a few hundred jarring and noisy miles, and would bebroken up into two days. Jose was not looking forward to the ride, tossing around inside the mobiledust storm that was the convoy, lurching and swaying over roads that were sometimes rutted moredeeply than the axles of the trucks trying to travel over them.At the end of the first day the convoy pulled to the side of the road so that the drivers could restfor a few hours. The trucks were positioned so that they straddled a ditch that ran parallel to the road,making a position that the soldiers could sit or lie in with the trucks themselves providing overheadshelter. There was not going to be a fire; the light would be visible for miles across the desert, andmight attract Villista attention to the lightly protected column. Jose climbed down from his perch andshook the stiffness out of his legs. The white alkali dust of the desert covered the trucks and all of thesoldiers, making them look like ghost soldiers wandering the desert. Jose had some water in hiscanteen, and took a pull on it before splashing a little into his face to rid himself of his dusty, clownishmakeup. Dinner was crackers and tinned meat, and Jose could not stop thinking to himself that thiswas not how a merchant prince should be dining on his caravan.After dinner Jose climbed back up to the top of the crates on his truck and looked up at the stars.They were compelling, endless, a sea of lights into which he felt he might fall upwards at any moment.New Mexico and America seemed far away to him, another whole day of bouncing along through thedesert; the stars seemed both close enough to grasp and yet tantalizingly out of reach. Once again Josefound himself in his most familiar daydream, that of sailing through the air on a magic carpet with LaCatrina. The stars turned into an eternal field of wildflowers through which the pair sailed, Joseplucking the choicest and tucking them into the band of his lover's hat amongst all the roses.Time always dropped away from Jose when he was in the midst of these reveries, and this nightwas no exception. Lost among the wildflower stars, Jose was the last to hear the drumming hoofs of

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