Dorotea’s three sisters have been feeling restless for years. Since Ernesto and Julian left South to join the Mexican Revolution, they ached to go too, but their Mother was too harsh and there was some worry about what would happen to Dorotea if they left. So they waited. Biding their time until word came back their brothers were shot down by the same unit their eldest brother Xavier had joined, Pershing’s American Expeditionary force. This was too much to bare and something had to be done.
After months of planning they got a truckload of explosives from their contacts in Pancho Villa’s force. Now there was a real chance to strike fear into the Americano Government, hopefully could be a spark to return Mexican lands seceded in the Mexican American war 70 years before.
Their plan started with convincing their mentally challenged brother Roberto with flagging down a passing train with a torch. While distracted pushing stolen oxen cart full of TNT where the train had to cross into Mexico going west bound. For his trouble Roberto was shot in the guts, and instead of a troop transport or passenger train. What they managed to blow up was a Circus, unknowingly saving their baby Sister from a sad fate in a strange synchronicity. They were able to create some hysterics in Brownsville but the damage was minimal.
This enraged the girls. Their great act of war against the gringos only succeeded in filling the countryside with dying Clowns, Wounded Animals and Hungry Lions. Which through a haze of tequila and hashish gave a certain anarchistic glee. But too late to turn back, Pancho’s “Villaista” cavalry crossed the border and began to wage war while they quietly crossed the other way to their Mexican homestead on the outskirts of Matamoros.
They walked home with an uncertain mix of exhilaration and defeat, they came just into time to see their baby Sister chasing their Mother out the door of their home plunging a knife into her back and head. The girls just stood there with a look of confused mirth. Their Mother was always such a horrible bitch. Each one of them at one time felt the urge to kill their Mother who had took to selling them to passing laborers and Americanos since they first bled.
Fantasizing about murder, and actually witnessing it are very different. People don’t die with some regal dignity. It is unpleasant, pleading, shrieking and lashing out in panic. Soiling their pants and letting out horrible smells from punctured lungs and intestines which is all the worse for alcoholics and chain smokers. Dorotea was not winning a certain battle, their mother was wielding a broken bottle. For every stab Dorotea landed, her Mother got in several slashes at Dorothea’s face and hands.
By the time their Mother Reina collapsed and Dorotea was on top of her, now with a dull axe. Dismembering her mothers facial structure, not yet strong enough to cleave free the arms and head. She was just smashing in their Mothers sinuses and cheekbones into a gurgling mess of sharp white bones and unintelligible mess of pink meat and spurting blood.
Seeing enough they grabbed Dorotea, who was in such fugue state of feral murder she just started hissing and scratching at them. Not seeing anything outside of her own little world. Finally one of the sisters had to brain her with an empty steel milk jug. The girls looked at each other in shock. Before they could compose them selves or say a word “Roberto the Fool” came stumbling over the burning horizon making sounds like a dying chimpanzee. As they all lock eyes a gunshot reduces Roberto’s face and head to a splatter of blood and bone chips as his skull ceases to exist.
There is silence for a moment, before a sound like hundreds of horses rear forth from the darkness, turns out to be a half dozen comes battering down their corn field. US Cavalry come riding up like a tidal wave. The green clad Soldiers have bloodlust in their eyes. Their Commander says. “Burn the farm, take everything of value and interrogate the women.” The Soldiers drop their Rifles and walk up with their hands extended, ready to pounce.
The girls don’t skip a beat, grabbing farm tools, a scythe, a pitchfork and a shovel. With out a word begin fighting for their lives. In short order even with bare hands the three Marines that aren’t knocked out and bleeding from cracked heads, have the girls on the ground and begin pawing at their dresses. Thats the moment when shots ring out. Xavi in his US Army uniform, shooting from one knee, executes his fellow US Soldiers with a bolt action rifle.
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Xavi’s face is battered. He was taken prisoner for trying to plead for mercy to his own families farm. On the verge of being shot for insubordination, treason and giving aid to the enemy, he had managed to fight his way out of bondage. Now was firmly on his former units hit list. With no other option he had taken the Sombrero, Bandalero and Red Sash of the Villaista dead. Making him self now a Revolutionario. Where only 12 hours before he awoke to eat breakfast with his unit. Choices that will torment him the rest of his days.
Now with the family reunited there was just silence. As they looked at Dorotea, Their Mother and Roberto lying apparently dead in a circle. Tears in their eyes as their childhood home burns and the sky north glows on fire with sounds of battle. The world of their childhood is now a hellish glow of red to feed the circling vultures.
Sometime later the Sisters and Xavi watch Dorotea. Their mood gloomy, their deeds too dark to speak. They always were perceptive to each others feelings but now the silent procession moves with a sorrow that weighs heavy. Dragging Dorotea’s unconscious body behind a Baby Elephant that wouldn’t leave her side. They are moving West to join the Villaista Army.
The sisters cooking a broth from a Zebra they found dead on the road. Taking turns to wash Dorotea’s forehead with cool water. Dorotea dreams in a dark place. Somewhere her spirit travels a dark dream world. Learning the secrets of Heaven and Earth.
Perhaps it is Dorotea’s cosmic chastisement to live this day again and again in an out of body experience. Perhaps this is some dark poem by her Holy Guardian Angel to face the rashness of her actions. To take long and thoughtful glimpses at each moment, each tear drop and ray of light.
Her Astral body is back on the road. Walking to her home. This time the sky is like a great Astrolabe, drawn with steady hands each twinkling star and passing heavenly body above the night sky looked as if painstakingly drawn by skilled hands by a great Architect. A symphony of crickets and end of day song birds have joined to serenade her journey to abandon. Seeing things she was too emotionally bogged down to recognize as unnatural. Great processions of Ethereal Spirits fill the sky. Shades of heros and villans of every kind consort with Angels and Demons riding Chariots, ancient Kings and Goddesses standing beside the road watching in knowing silence.
Dorotea notices the Baby Elephant following behind her. She doesn’t know if its friend or foe so she stays ahead, any time she had slowed down to take a rock from her shoe or stumbling on her twisted ankle, the Baby Elephant turns around and flees in a cloud of dust. Only resuming its pace once she turns her back and is walking again. Coming to the farm its quiet, but smoke from the chimney shows someone is at home, likely her Mother. Dorotea stops at the shed where they butcher lambs and goats. Retrieving a large knife and a lantern.
Startled she hears a bell behind her from Navajo Jacob. He strokes her hand with his nose. She halfheartedly pets him. Looking up in the lantern light, all the eyes of the animals stare at her unblinking. She almost wants to just go inside and forget everything that has happened. She can’t let it go. What her Mother did was too evil. As she turns to continue her mission, their pet Ram Navajo Jacob bites the sleeve of her dress. Pulling her back, trying to dissuade her from bloodshed. She roughly pushes him away and turns towards the house. Dorotea climbs in the window of the bed bedroom she shares with her sisters. She can hear her Mother singing to her self in the kitchen. Peering through the door Dorotea sees her Mother Reina laying out a spread of Spanish Loteria cards made from the famous 1913 Edmund Sullivan illustrations of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát.
Surrounding her unfeeling Mother... the goods her body was traded for, booze, cigars and foreign delicacies like canned pineapple, caviar and Palestinian olives. Exuding a self satisfied joy, filling Dorotea with hate. She feels such contempt for the fat body, the rolls of her neck, her stubby legs, hairy chin and the comical red dress her Mother must have thought was seductive to drunken migrants. Her Mother sits at the table, pours her self a glass of Tequila but doesn’t drink it.
Dorotea has crept up behind her and just then her Mother stands up turning and face to face. They both share a feeling a shock, shame and discomfort. Before Dorotea can say a word her Mother looking down at the knife, lets out a cry of rage and darts forward clawing at Dorotea’s eyes. Dropping the knife there is silence for a second as realization comes to Dorotea, her Mother has been waiting for an excuse to kill her for her whole life. Muttering some curse too low to hear, her Mother grabs Dorotea by the hair, slamming her head into the beams holding up the roof, into a glass cabinet full of dinner ware and into a shelf of canned goods that collapses on top of them.
Dorotea reaches out for the knife and before a plan can even take shape plunges it deep into her Mother’s gut. Letting out a yelp, her Mother hops up off her chest recoiling towards the front door yelling. “Disgraciada!” “Bruja!” “Demonia!” While grabbing a Lantern, waving it around to keep Dorotea at bay. Climbing to her feet the agony of betrayal is too much for Dorotea. She screams a feral war cry and dashes up to her Mother plunging her knife into her Mother’s neck and hands blocking her pig face.
Her Mother throws the lantern at Dorotea’s feet, who hops over the torrent of flame. The Mother now panics struggles out side as Dorotea plunges the knife into her back over and over until the knife breaks cutting her fingers deep. Finding the axe she leaned against the front door before she snuck in. Something deep in her heart decides its time to kill her wicked witch mother once and for all. Cut off her arms and legs like a medieval Knight would do to a traitor who has wronged the people so deeply an example must be made.