The dogs were trying to get on the hood of the car to reach Tony; Pete activated the windshield wiper spray to repel them.
“You’re a real war hero,” Tony snarled. One of the dogs ate his left shoe.
“I could just drive us out of here,” Pete said. “You could hold on.”
“Boy, don’t even think about turning that key.”
“Are you sure this is it?” Pete asked.
“Damn pelicans,” Tony said. The promise of a miracle was rolling off him thick now, and the owls were swirling down low over the top of the Mercury. From Tony’s vantage point on the roof, he could see a row of small elf owls sitting on the roof of one of the metal-sided garages. They had big eyes and long legs, and although they were not laughing at him, it was close enough for Tony’s skin to crawl.
From the safety of the driver’s seat, Pete looked for signs of human life. He found himself looking at someone who was looking back.
A girl stood watching him from the porch of a small cabin. She wore a beautiful wedding dress and a very sad face. Her dark hair was pulled back into a smooth bun at the base of her neck. Her dress was wet, and so was her skin. This was because, despite the porch roof, it was raining on her. Rain originated from nowhere and spattered on her hair and face and shoulders and clothing, then ran off the stairs and formed a fast-running rivulet into the brush. Every part of her dress was covered with monarch butterflies, their orange-and-black stained-glass wings likewise soaked. They clung to her, unable to do anything but slowly move their wings or climb across the fabric. Butterflies are fragile fliers and cannot fly in the rain, or even in the dew. Too much water makes their wings too heavy to fly.
This was Marisita Lopez, one of the pilgrims. It had stormed around her ever since she had experienced her first miracle, and now rain constantly poured on her head and out of her eyes. It was not as beatific as one might imagine to live under continuous precipitation in a desert. The ground, instead of enjoying the sudden influx of moisture, was ill-prepared to accept it. The water pooled and ran away, striking down seedlings in its path. Floods, not flowers, followed in Marisita’s wake.
Here was a thing she wanted: to taste vanilla without crying. Here was a thing she feared: that the prettiest thing about her was her exterior.
Pete didn’t know it to look at her, but she had been preparing to make a terrible decision directly before they’d arrived. Now she could not act until the night had quieted again.
Rolling down his window, he called, “Can you help us?”
But Marisita, absorbed in her own dark night, withdrew into the building behind her.
He called again, “Is there anyone out there?”
There were. There were aunts and uncles and grandmothers and cousins and babies, but none of them wanted to welcome the pilgrims. It was not that they wanted to refuse these newcomers a miracle; it was simply that every bed was already full. Bicho Raro was brimming with pilgrims who couldn’t move on. And since the Sorias could not offer a room, there was only the miracle to attend to. Daniel would handle it, and the rest of them wouldn’t have to leave their warm homes or risk any contact with the pilgrims.
At that moment, however, Daniel was creeping back to the Shrine while Beatriz and Joaquin remained in the truck with the radio, trying to time their own return in such a way that it would not raise questions.
Because of this, Tony and Pete might have spent quite a long time on top of and inside the Mercury, if not for the fortuitous arrival of another vehicle.
The rescuers were Judith, Beatriz’s older sister, and Judith’s new husband, Eduardo Costa, coming down from Colorado Springs. Eduardo was driving his brand-new Chevy stepside pickup truck. The general agreement was that Eduardo loved the truck more than Judith, but at least he took good care of both. The two of them—three, if you counted Judith—had not been anticipated in Bicho Raro until the next day but had decided to take advantage of the cool temperatures to make the drive after sundown.
Judith used to be the most beautiful woman in Bicho Raro, but then she’d moved, and now she was the most beautiful woman in Colorado Springs. She was so beautiful that people would stop her on the street and thank her. She had gone to school to learn how to make her blue-black hair do whatever she wanted it to do, and now she made other women’s hair do what she wanted it to do in a small hairdresser shop where she worked with several other women. Her lips were the same rosebud as her younger sister Beatriz’s, only Judith painted hers a bloody red that set off her flawless brown skin and gleaming dark hair. She had been wearing artificial eyelashes in the womb and when they had fallen off in the birth canal, she had lost no time in replacing them. Where Beatriz took after their father, Francisco, Judith was more like volatile Antonia.
Here was a thing she wanted: to have two gold teeth where no one could see them but she would know they were there. Here was a thing she feared: having to fill out forms before medical appointments of any kind.
Eduardo was the most handsome of the Costas, which was saying a lot, but he was not so handsome that people would stop him on the street to thank him. The Costas were cowboys and bred quarter horses for the rodeo. The Costas and their horses were all fast and charming, and could turn on a dime faster than you could say ¿Qué onda? They were also very good at what they did, and neither the Costas nor their horses would ever kick a child. Eduardo wore clothing even fancier than his wife’s—bright red cowboy shirts to match her lips and tight black pants to match her hair and blocky fleece-collared leather coats to emphasize her shapeliness.
Here was a thing he wanted: for singers to pause in their singing to laugh during a verse. Here was a thing he feared: cats lying on his face and smothering him while he slept.
Judith and Eduardo took stock of the scene as they pulled into the compound. The enormous wood-covered Mercury, the Italian American perched on top of it, the square silhouette of Pete inside, the slobber of dogs drawing picturesque arcs across the diorama.
“Ed, do you recognize that car?” Judith asked.
Eduardo removed his cigarette to say, “It’s last year’s Mercury Colony Park in sunburst yellow.”
Judith said, “I meant, do you recognize the man on top of it?”
“Then you should have said, ‘Do you recognize the man on top of it?’”
“Do you recognize the man on top of it?”
Eduardo framed Tony DiRisio with his headlights as he approached—Tony shielded his eyes—and peered closely. “No, but I like that suit.”
One of the dogs had just gotten ahold of the left sleeve of the aforementioned white suit, and Tony, accepting discretion as the better part of valor, allowed the dog to have the entire coat rather than his left arm.
“It’s just like Mama to leave them out here,” Judith said angrily.
“I bet she’s making one of those flowers.”
“Don’t talk about her,” Judith said, even though she had been about to say the same thing herself.
The Chevy nosed up beside the Mercury. It was just high enough that Eduardo Costa and Tony DiRisio were now eye to eye. Eduardo honked his horn to startle one of the dogs off the hood of the Mercury. Then he removed the cigarette from his lips and gave it to Tony.
“Hola, traveler,” Eduardo said.
Judith patted her hair and leaned into the conversation. “Are you here for a miracle?”
Tony sucked the cigarette, then flicked it at one of the dogs. “Lady, it would be a miracle to get off the roof of my car.”
Eduardo leaned out of his window and called into the Mercury, “Are you here for a miracle, mi hijo?”
Pete started. “I’m here about a truck.”
“He’s here about a truck,” Eduardo told his wife.
“Papa should shoot these dogs,” Judith replied.
“Bullets are too afraid to hit them,” Eduardo observed.
He took his time lighting another cigarette and smoking it as they all watched him. Then he kissed his wife, stroked his mustache, opened the door of the truck, and jumped lightly out, his sharp cowboy boots raising dust as he landed. Antonia’s dogs turned to him. An owl hooted. A creature howled from inside one of the distant cabins. The moon smiled cunningly. Then Eduardo hurled down his cigarette butt and began to run. Man and dogs flew across the yard into the dark.