Thirteen Senses by Víctor Villaseñor Page A

being followed, then he took some brush and brushed out the tracks of his Model T truck and headed downstream, driving alongside the dry riverbed.
    Parking in some thick brush, his mother got out and stretched her legs and Salvador went down into the dry riverbed with a shovel and dug up a stash of six ten-gallon barrels of whiskey.
    Salvador had been running-in-panic for the last six weeks. His ex-partner Julio, a good man, had gotten himself killed, along with his crazy, arrogant, foul-mouth wife, then Salvador’s older brother, Domingo, had gone to prison just days before the wedding.
    La bootlegada was no joke. Bootlegging was a dangerous business. Salvador had had to lie to Lupe a few days before they’d married about all his businesses. Lupe and her family really had no idea what it was that he did for a living. They all thought that he was an honest manure hauler, who worked moving fertilizer for the different ranches in the area.
    In fact, just before their wedding, Lupe had finally straight-out asked Salvador if the rumors were true that he was a bootlegger, and he’d looked at her right in her face and said no.
    Having loaded the six barrels, Salvador was unable to turn the Model T around in the loose, sandy soil. He let a little air out of the rear tires, then getting better traction, he was now able to turn the truck around and get back on the two-lane dirt highway.
    Just this side of Riverside, Salvador pulled off the two-lane highway into a horse ranch where he knew the Mexican ranch-hands very well. But coming up to the barn, he saw that there was a group of young Anglo cowboys moving cattle into the corrals where he normally stopped to get his load of horse manure to cover his whiskey barrels.
    â€œDamnit!” said Salvador, hitting the steering wheel.
    â€œWhat is it?” asked his old mother.
    â€œWell, usually there’s no one around this time of the day, so I was figuring I could just pull in and get the horse manure I needed to cover my barrels. But now, I see that I don’t know all these cowboys, except for that one Moreno brother, so I can’t have all these gringos see my barrels in the truck, and—oh, if only I would’ve gotten the manure first like I usually do, but I was in a hurry so I thought that I’d save time by getting the barrels first, then this way I would’ve had to unload the manure, load the barrels, then put the manure back on the barrels.”
    Doña Margarita laughed. “What have I told you a thousand times, mi hijito ? There are no ‘ifs’ in life. For if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle! And laziness, remember, is always the first step to letting the Devil near.”
    â€œNo more, mama, please,” said Salvador, gripping his forehead. “Not now.” He quickly put the truck in reverse and got back on the highway “Also, I didn’t know how many barrels I’d find in that riverbed. That damn Julio and his stupid, greedy wife stole so many barrels from me, that I really don’t know what I have or don’t have.”
    â€œMay God bless their souls,” added his mother, making the sign of the cross over herself, “and forgive you for speaking of the dead without any compassion. Lack of compassion, this is the next step after laziness to letting the Devil near.”
    Salvador just shook his head, truly wishing that his mother hadn’t come along. This was all she ever talked about, the Devil this and the Devil that, and God this and God that, and all these lessons that we mortals had to learn from life or we’d get the shit kicked out of us.
    Then, they were just coming into downtown Riverside, when a police car suddenly came up behind them, signaling for Salvador to pull over.
    Salvador’s whole heart leaped into his mouth!
    He thought of going for his gun and shooting the cop. But no, absolutely no! There was other traffic on the highway, and he had no fight with the