Thirteen Senses by Víctor Villaseñor

my own for the afternoon,” he said. “I’m sorry to talk to you in this way, but I’m in a hurry, and I don’t have time to have you tagging along with me today! Maybe tomorrow you can come with me, okay, mama? ”
    â€œNo, it’s not okay!” shouted the old, toothless woman. “I’m getting my shawl and rosary and I’m going with you right now, and that’s that!”
    She set her hoe by the front door and hurried inside her tiny one-room shack, got her shawl and rosary and was out the door. Salvador rolled his eyes to the heavens. But there was just no arguing with this stubborn, old Indian woman when she got like this.
    Luisa’s two older boys Jose and Pedro were in a rocky field beyond their two houses, playing baseball with the other neighborhood kids. At thirteen years old Jose Leon—who’d been named after Luisa’s first husband Jose-Luis—was a big, strong kid who was already taller than Salvador. But Pedro, on the other hand, at eleven years old was small and cute like Luisa’s second husband Epitacio, whom Luisa now lived with in the run-down, four-room house in front.
    Epitacio worked part-time for Salvador.
    Salvador had trained Epitacio Leon in the art of making liquor, but Epitacio had nothing to do with the selling of the whiskey. Epitacio, Salvador had found out to his surprise, was a good, solid, hardworking man who didn’t complain about the long hours of the distillery process, which often had to go around the clock for seventy-two hours at a time. But for the sales of the bootleg whiskey, Epitacio didn’t want anything to do with it. He hated guns and violence and also Luisa didn’t want him to have anything to do with it.
    Luisa had already lost her first husband to violence, and so she didn’t want to lose her second. Plus, Epitacio Leon also just wasn’t that brave when it came to weapons and strong-arm competitors—even though his last name was lion.
    Juan Salvador now waved to Luisa and Epitacio, who were out in the back working on their chicken coop, because—not only were their chickens getting into Doña Margarita’s garden—but lately the coyotes were also killing their chickens. Salvador helped his old mother get in his Model T truck and they were off.
    When Salvador made deliveries, he never used his beautiful, ivory-white Moon automobile or his fancy suits. No, that kind of showy stuff was only for the movies as far as he was concerned. For deliveries, Salvador liked to look like what he was, a worker, a deliveryman, and so he dressed in his oldest, dirtiest clothes and covered his barrels of whiskey with horse manure so no one would ever suspect what it was that he really did.
    Cowshit, he’d found out the hard way, was too wet and didn’t wash off the barrels very well. Chickenshit smelled too strong. And why chicken-shit was so strong was because birds—chickens, hawks, turkeys, all birds—didn’t pee separately, so when they crapped they were also peeing at the same time, making it a very strong manure.
    Horseshit was best, Salvador had found out, and not just for hauling whiskey, but for his mother’s plants, too. It was a weaker shit. Horses didn’t have two stomachs and rechew their food like cows or goats—all split-hoof animals, except the pig family—and they, also, pissed separately. Knowing your shit could really help a man or woman in more ways than one, Salvador’s mother had told him all of his life, and he could see that she was absolutely right. A person’s shit told you not just what that person was eating, but if they were relaxed and taking the time to chew their food. Farts, pedos, these were also a very telling story.
    Getting on the highway, Salvador headed southeast into the hill country between Corona and Lake Elsinore. There he turned off the road into some oak trees, got out, walked around, made sure they weren’t