The Last Karankawas(73)

Yet Cesar stands before her now, bearing the marks of her own power. When he first appeared a week after his death, she told him firmly, “You do not speak. Do not say a word to me. I am here, one of the last Karankawas. And I have taken your voice.” Cesar’s spirit obeys. In death he is more docile than in life, when he insisted upon her loyalty with the back of his hand. Ya no. She is the one with his loyalty now. His palms and fingers that used to crack across her lip or wrap around her throat, his mouth that opened for shots of tequila and bourbon or to call her bitch, whore, maldita bruja—they lie quiet, sealed. His once-booming voice is silent while hers throbs with power. Would this be possible in her real life? And if not, which life would any of them choose? She knows for herself, and she has chosen.

Their granddaughter is walking on the wall, heading as she always does for the statue. Cesar turns toward her and nods, and Magdalena knows he, too, sees the images flickering behind her eyelids, a future unspooling like gold thread and arranging before her: Carly driving over the causeway, Carly coming back. She will learn. She will accept the fate of her blood, like the island will accept its own, a truth Magdalena knows and always has: to be swallowed up by the sea. Algún día. Not yet.





state of Texas


State in the southern US, bordering Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mexico, and the Gulf of Mexico; spans 268,597 square miles, second-largest state in both area and population.

State of Republic of Texas, declared on March 2, 1836; individually governed entity whose independence is to be protected and defended ferociously even generations after its annexation into the United States.

Republic of Tejas; Spanish adoption and pluralization of Caddo word táysha meaning friend.

Home to 28.9 million people, including 5 million immigrants.

Home.

Immigrants.

See also:

“Lone Star.”

Six flags (history, not theme park).

Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto (Battles of).

Austin, Stephen F.; Houston, Sam; Crockett, Davy.

Oil.

Slavery.

Football.

Rebellion; revolution; oppression; independence.

Canyons, plateaus, tumbleweed-strewn mesas stretching into the setting sun. El Paso mountains. Lubbock dust.

Long fingers of concrete scraping the sky, freeways knotting and unknotting, exhaust and potholed asphalt and streaked rubber from countless cars. Houston strip malls. Dallas gallerias.

Austin (see: other).

Piney woods, close clusters of elm and ash standing like sentinels. Rivers green or brown, still and stagnant or fast-flowing, tumbling over rocks, rushing cold. Lined farmland, corn, winter oats, wheat, cabbage, sweet onion. Unlined ranchland, mesquite-thick, thorned, cactused. Ocean Sea Gulf. Water: fresh, salt, none.

Mexico; America; other.

None of the above.

All of the above.





statue, “Place of Remembrance”


Memorial for the eight thousand dead during the hurricane of September 8, 1900, dedicated in a September 2000 ceremony to commemorate the centennial. Cast by a local sculptor (Editor’s note: Don’t worry, don’t worry, BOI). On their walks along the Seawall, Carly makes it a point to stop at the statue, no matter how loudly Jess sighs or how much her grandmother rolls her eyes. Jess parks his truck (Magdalena prefers the lift, the height, over Carly’s Corolla) in front of the statue. Magdalena climbs down and descends the Seawall steps—carefully—to the beach and the Gulf. Jess escorts her and then wanders off for a raspa from the stand, dreaming already of the tiger’s blood syrup and the shaved ice. Carly prefers pickle juice, which he hates, but he’ll bring her some anyway. He’s like that, Jess is.

It is 2006. The tourists not scared off by hurricane season, not spooked by last year’s Katrina or Rita, pulse along the brown-sand beach or beneath bright umbrellas. Seagulls wheel high above, calling out. Carly tells the tourists by the ones who toss chips into the air to attract more, more, more. Above her, the sun beats down so heavy it feels like liquid, like a rainstorm soaking through her bathing suit and cutoffs. She breathes in the salt and stink of the ocean.

From this high on the wall, she can see Magdalena wading into the surf. Foam about her ankles. She is lifting her face to the sun and moving her mouth, and Carly wonders if she is thinking of the Karankawas who once roamed this place. Magdalena raises her hands in praise, or in seeking.

Carly stops in front of the statue, ten feet tall, the metal now oxidized to a pale, muddy green. Why she loves it so much, is so moved by it, she couldn’t say. Three bronze figures—a woman, a man, and a child, pressed together for warmth, all three naked from the waist up. The man is staring at the sky, chin raised high, one arm stretched up with the hand turned as if cupping rainwater. Some call it a powerful pose, though Carly doesn’t think so; he looks angry, his upturned palm empty and demanding.

She prefers the woman, cradling her child close to her breast, her chin against its curly hair. Her hands are tender, long fingers soft where they rest on the child’s bare back. Some say she is resigned to her fate, but Carly looks at the high forehead and the lines of her brow and sees a quiet, iron pride. Like she has made a choice for herself, for them all, and she will see it through. The woman’s gaze Carly follows until she is casting her own along with it, down to the pink sandstone in which she and the three green figures are submerged, sandstone that cuts them off at the waist like water rising, rising, still rising.