Shame the Stars Read online

  “You stay out of this, Joaquín,” Papá said, pointing a finger in my direction. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “But it does concern me.” I sat forward and planted my forearms firmly on the table. “As an American citizen, as a tejano. It concerns me to watch our people be mistreated and robbed, to have their spirits trampled on.”

  Ignoring me, Papá got up and paced the length of the porch. Then, coming back to the table, he said, “Do you see what this does? It makes trouble, Rodrigo. Joaquín would never talk to me like this if he hadn’t been reading this nonsense in your paper.”

  “This isn’t nonsense,” Don Rodrigo said. “This is our plight. Our gente are suffering, and it’s our job to help them!”

  “The only thing you’re going to accomplish by printing these riotous stories is to get yourself killed, Rodrigo,” my father warned. “And then, what’s your family going to do without you? Go live in Colonia Calaveras like the rest of those poor souls whose husbands cared more about politics than their own families? Thanks to men like you, selfish men chasing rabbits into dark holes, those destitute women and children have no one to protect them, no one to provide for them. Is that what you want? To expose my comadre and goddaughter to that kind of existence?”

  “My wife and daughter support me.” Don Rodrigo’s lips trembled almost as much as his words. “They are fully aware of the situation, and believe me, they are just as concerned as I am about our people.”

  “Do me a favor,” Papá said, leaning over the table and speaking in a low, ominous tone. “Don’t bring this into my house. I can’t tell you what to believe or even what to print. If you want to endanger your family, that is very much your business. But as long as you keep printing that garbage, keep it off my porch and out of my sight.”

  “What is going on here? What’s all the yelling about?” Mamá asked as she came out of the house holding the casserole dish of capirotada in front of her. Doña Serafina and Dulceña were flanking Mamá. Silently, the women set down dishes and flatware on the table as Mamá put down the dessert and placed the matching yellow potholders beside the steaming hot dish of capirotada. The sweet, spicy scent emanat­ing from the bread pudding mingled with the bitterness in my heart, causing my stomach to twist and churn as I looked into my father’s displeased face.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, comadre,” Doña Serafina whispered. She waved for Mamá to sit next to her. “You know how these men get when they’ve had too much whiskey. They think they can solve the problems of the world in one afternoon.”

  “It’s brandy.” Papá picked up his glass and swirled the amber liquid around before bringing it to his lips and drinking the last of it down. Then, as if disgusted by the taste of it, he went back to pacing, his boots scuffing the wooden planks resentfully. “And it’s not nothing. I meant what I said, Rodrigo. If we are to remain friends, if we are to ever sit at my dinner table together again, I don’t want to see another one of your incendiary rags in my home.”

  “Acevedo! Is that any way to speak to our guests?”

  Mamá’s shock propelled me into action as she stood up at the table. “I’m sorry, Papá,” I said. “But you’re not being very fair to Don Rodrigo.”

  Papá pointed at me with his free hand. “Joaquín, I’ve heard all I need to hear from you today.”

  “No, you haven’t.” Then it all came rushing out, everything I hadn’t meant to tell him. “This is all my fault, Papá. You’re mad about that poem, but the fact is I wrote it. It’s the way I feel. It’s what I’ve seen. What I want others to see. Don Rodrigo didn’t know anything about it. I mailed it without a return address to the print shop. I’m sorry if it offends you, and I’m sorry it’s made you so angry you feel like banning the newspaper it’s printed in.”

  “You did what?” My father’s voice boomed. His massive frame loomed over the table, over me. His face turned bright red, and he picked up the paper one more time, as if he needed to read it again to believe it.

  “¡Ay, Joaquín!” My mother, who was standing beside Papá, took the paper away from him and reread it. “What were you thinking?” Mamá finally asked, putting her right hand over her throat.

  “I’m sorry, compadre, if I had known — ” Don Rodrigo began, but my father was so enraged that he didn’t let him continue.

  “What?” Papá asked, gritting his teeth. “What would you have done? Thrown it out? Brought it to me? Do us both a favor, Rodrigo — get out of my sight. Go home. Get off my porch and get off my land!”

  “Acevedo!” Mamá’s voice trembled with unshed tears. Then, taking Doña Serafina’s hand in hers, Mamá continued, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. Please don’t go. I’m sure we can work this out.”

  “Of course! It’s just a misunderstanding.” Doña Serafina patted my mother’s hands.

  Don Rodrigo got up to leave. “I know you’re upset right now, Acevedo. But in time, perhaps you’ll see.”

  “In time, you’ll understand what you’ve done here.” Papá slammed his fist against the table, startling Dulceña and her mother. “If this gets out — If Munro gets wind of it . . .”

  “Munro would never hurt you. Your blond hair and green eyes guarantee you that much!” Then, because my father’s face turned even redder, Don Rodrigo apologized. “I’m sorry, Acevedo. That’s a reflection of him, not you. Listen. As far as my family and I are concerned, this conversation never happened.” Don Rodrigo put his hand to his heart. “On my word of honor, neither I nor anyone else in my family will ever repeat the details of it.”

  “Go home, Rodrigo,” my father repeated. “Stay away from Las Moras and take your damned paper with you!”

  Excerpt from a handbill for the “Plan de San Diego,” 1915

  A cry of indignation and rage has sprung up from the very depths of our souls at the sight of the crimes and assaults committed on a daily basis against the defenseless women, old people, and children of our race by the bandits and contemptible Texas Rangers who patrol the banks of the Rio Grande . . . The moment has arrived. It is necessary that . . . we resort to our weapons and the cry of “Long live the Independence of the states of Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, and parts of the states of Mississippi and Oklahoma, which from today forward will be called the ‘Republic of Texas.’” Join our comrades in arms who are already waging the battle, proving their valor and patriotism.

  ¡Viva la Independencia!

  Tierra y Libertad

  First Chief of Operations

  Luis de la Rosa

  Second Chief of the General Staff

  Aniceto Pizaña

  Chapter 1

  The letter came in the same manner as all the other letters, unexpectedly and without a clue as to the identity of its deliverer. It just simply appeared, slipped under the door while I was getting ready for the day. It was going to be a grueling one, seeing as we were getting the herd ready for the annual cattle drive up to Fort Worth.

  While the rest of the men gathered equipment, the wranglers picked the best horses for the remuda, making sure they were healthy and strong enough for the long cattle drive ahead. Doña Luz put together provisions, while Papá, Manuel, and I worked with the cattle and Trueno, the stout steer Papá had chosen to lead the herd. I named him Trueno because of the perfectly shaped lightning-bolt mark on his forehead. So far, he was proving to be a good pick for lead steer. The herd was willing to follow him as they grazed in the morning and were driven down the trail throughout the day, to get them used to the grazing and driving system.

  After the cattle drive, Papá would concentrate on digging a well and setting up an irrigation system in the easternmost part of the property because he was going to expand and plant a hundred more acres of sugarcane next year. But I wouldn’t be at Las Moras for that. Like Tomás before me, I was expected to go off to school in the fall. For me that meant MAC, or Michigan
Agricultural College, to be precise. The letter of acceptance had arrived in late April, just before graduation, and my parents couldn’t have been happier. In their opinion, MAC was the best place I could go because it would provide the knowledge and skills necessary for me to succeed as the future head of Las Moras.

  I wished I shared their enthusiasm. But I truly believed they were sending me there to keep me as far away from Dulceña as possible because, whatever else had happened in the last two years, our families had never managed to mend their relationship. If anything, they’d become even more estranged. My parents made it very clear they did not condone my attachment to Dulceña, so they weren’t going to make it easy for me to see her after I left Las Moras. I could have gone to Austin, to the University of Texas, like Tomás, but suddenly that wasn’t good enough.

  “But what’s wrong with going to school in Austin?” I had asked when Papá first refused the idea of my going there.

  “UT is a decent college, a fine college, even,” Papá said, shaking his head and moving papers around on his desk. “But our money would be better spent making sure you have the best agricultural training in the country, and MAC has that. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re going to Michigan. It’s in your best interest. It’s in the best interest of Las Moras, and that’s what matters.”

  He wouldn’t listen to me, but if you asked me, Austin was just a bit too close to San Antonio and Our Lady of the Lake College, which is where Dulceña would be enrolling in the fall. But I wasn’t about to argue with my father. He could refuse to pay for me to go anywhere else but MAC, but that didn’t mean he could make me stop loving Dulceña.

  Regardless of it all, to be honest, I just couldn’t see myself going off to college anymore, not when it meant leaving my family and the girl I loved behind at such a tumultuous time. What if Las Moras was raided by bandits? What if someone got hurt? Who would get word to me if there was an emergency? Because no matter how fast I could ride, even in an automobile, it would still take days to get back home.

  No. It was obvious to me. I couldn’t leave just yet. Not until the politics in our world changed. The Plan de San Diego, drafted by revolutionaries in Mexico and brought in by Basilio Ramos through Texas, was discovered by US authorities in January. The manifesto called for a rebellion in Texas, and a rebellion was what US lawmen were getting. Across the southern United States, from California all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, but especially in South Texas, tejanos were raising arms, fighting for their rights. While Mexican bandits caught up in their own civil war were crossing over to the United States, pillaging small Texas towns and blowing up railroads, tejanos dealt with wrongful accusations, unlawful raids, and the hanging of relatives suspected of working with Mexican revolutionaries. This turbulent time had created the tejano rebel, a new breed of outlaw, a Texas Mexican fighting to keep his land and his dignity in the place he had called home long before it became part of the United States. Until Mexican revolutionaries stopped trampling on American soil and Rangers stopped accosting and killing innocent tejanos, my family wasn’t safe and I couldn’t leave.

  Papá would probably disagree with me, but I couldn’t ignore it. It was a conversation we would need to have very soon, before he and Mamá packed my bags and tried shipping me off to college.

  With so much on my mind, it was taking longer and longer to get ready in the mornings. When I heard someone stop outside my door that day, I turned and saw the pink envelope sliding quietly across the wooden floor, stopping five feet short of my bed, where I sat pulling on my work boots.

  I launched into action, grabbing the letter off the floor as I rushed to the door. But when I peeked outside, there was no one in the hallway.

  Standing on the threshold, I felt the weight of the envelope in my palm and traced the single letter on its front with my index finger. The J was handwritten in an elaborate script. There was no mistaking it. It was from her.

  “Joaquín?” my father called. I jerked, hiding the letter behind my back as he rounded the corner. He caught me standing there half in and half out of my room with only one boot on. He glanced down at my feet and frowned. “Are you almost ready?”

  I shook my head, sliding the letter into the deep side pocket of my work pants. “Not just yet.”

  “Well, come on, Son. We don’t have all day.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just give me a second. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Papá grumbled to himself, like he didn’t know what to do with me anymore, and I sighed, closing the door behind me. In the privacy of my room, I fought the urge to tear the envelope open, deciding to read what was surely a long letter when I got back for almuerzo, the second meal of the day, which was usually followed by a short afternoon nap. I would certainly have time to read it carefully then.

  The fact was I hadn’t seen much of Dulceña since March, when her parents pulled her out of school to finish her education at home under the instruction of a pretentious Parisian tutor, Madame Josette, who had very high standards and only tutored the “best-behaved children” — meaning the wealthiest families in town.

  However, Dulceña had not been pulled out of school for the privilege of being tutored by a certain Madame Josette. No, the truth was Don Rodrigo was afraid. With tejano rebels attacking ranches and small businesses all over South Texas, in retaliation for the part Anglo immigrants played in the matanza — advocating, sometimes even demanding the “evaporation” of numerous tejanos — the Texas Rangers practiced their own brand of vigilantism. They deputized anyone willing to fight on their side and summarily killed Mexicans and tejanos alike without bothering to bring them in to be tried in court for their crimes.

  Attempting to shed light on the plight of innocent tejanos who had fallen victim to the Rangers, Don Rodrigo’s reporting in El Sureño had changed the way he was perceived by the Anglo citizens of Monteseco. The anonymous threats he received almost daily in the mail, coupled with random acts of vandalism to his print shop, made him withdraw Dulceña from school to have her educated at home. I thought for sure Dulceña would object to this turn of events, as I was strongly against it myself. But she wasn’t going to fight it.

  “I know my father’s afraid for me, but it’s not fair, keeping me holed up in the house,” she had admitted when I brought it up on that last day before she stopped going to school. We had been standing side by side behind the schoolhouse with a handful of classmates milling around, courting each other, while our teachers kept an eye on us from afar as they supervised their younger charges playing on the open field. “My time would be better spent helping my father in the print shop. I’d rather be interviewing victims and writing editorials than sitting around with the women all day waiting for him to come home to let us know what is happening.”

  “Have you told him how you feel?” I asked.

  Dulceña nodded and lowered her voice. “I tried talking to him about it, but he’s not having any of it. He says it’s better for me to stay home with my mother and Madame Josette — who’s a very sweet person by the way — but she and my mother just don’t understand what I’m going through. I have so much to offer the world, both as a woman and as a reporter. Things are changing in this country, and our role as women has to change with it if we’re to keep up with the times. I think Madame Josette understands, but she doesn’t want to anger my parents, so she just nods and agrees with everything they say.”

  “I wish I could do something,” I whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it.

  She leaned in and rested her head on my shoulder the way she used to when we were kids and our families were still friends. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine.”

  I continued to hold her hand longer than appropriate, but I couldn’t help it. “I’m going to miss you,” I said. This felt like good-bye.

  “Oh, we’ll still see each other. I’m sure of it.” She smiled up at me even as her eyes welle
d with tears. “Where there’s a will — ”

  “I’ll write to you,” I promised.

  Dulceña nodded, her dark eyelashes fanning her cheeks as she lowered her gaze and stirred the dirt with the toe of her blue satin shoe. She squeezed my hands between hers. “Private letters?” she teased. “Secret messages? Clandestine notes?”

  “Something like that, yeah.” I rubbed the tips of her fingers gently.

  “And will you ask me to sneak out at night and rendezvous with you too?”

  I leaned in and said, “Better yet, I’ll climb up to your balcony and abduct you — whisk you away to Neverland, like in Peter and Wendy!”

  “Only if I let you,” Dulceña said. “I’m no Wendy, you know. I have my own adventures in mind.”

  Her declaration startled me. I had never thought about Dulceña’s plans for herself outside of my love for her and my desire to marry her someday. “What kind of adventures?”

  “Oh, there’s so much to consider! The possibilities are limited only by what we dare to dream.” She looked out to the horizon. “Just think of it, Joaquín. Out there, past the valley and beyond the gulf, is a whole other world with different countries and different cultures and different perspectives. Did you know that in Africa there are immense herds of wild beasts that roam the plains as far as the eye can see? Someday, when all this nonsense with the Plan de San Diego is over, when our world is right-side up again, I am going to travel. I’m going to pack my bags and go see this great big world and write all about it, like those reporters in the magazines my father reads.”

  “Yeah, well, there are countries where women aren’t allowed to travel alone,” I said, feeling my face flush even as I spoke the words.

  Dulceña turned away from me then. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.