The Woman in Red

As ran the course of my life, the omens came, and with them came trouble.

One morning while my father and I were preparing for our day’s labor we heard my mother call out from the house. We dropped the tools that we had been packing and ran to her side. She was standing in the kitchen, staring at a little black bird with a bright red belly, sitting on the back of a chair, his little head rhythmically bobbing up and down.

“This is bad. Very bad.” My mother crossed herself as the color left her face. “There are spirits here.” She crossed herself again. “Something terrible is going to happen.”

I slowly walked up to the bird so that I didn’t startle him, setting one foot cautiously in front of the other. The bird turned his little head toward me. His eyes, as black as his feathers, shone brightly under his white-streaked brows. Gingerly I reached out toward him, stroking his little chest. The bird didn’t move or flinch. Our eyes met and for a moment I felt a kinship with this creature. Moving slowly, I scooped him up in my hands and carried him outside, where I released him back to the wild where he belonged.

It was a hot January day when my father volunteered to figure out where the leak was coming from in the community storeroom, where our small village’s produce and dried meats were stored during the rainy season. Any amount of moisture in that hut and we would all be starving for the rest of the season.

I volunteered to go with him, but he wouldn’t let me. “You’re too small. You might get hurt.”

“Just last month I helped catch a wild bull.”

“And you nearly got yourself trampled.” He gathered his rope and hammer. “You are eleven years old. You will have plenty of time to risk your life chasing cattle and climbing on top of rickety sheds.” He kissed the top of my head and left. I sulked, wishing I could go with him. They may have let me help rope the bull, but it was only because I was quicker with the lasso than the rest of the gauchos we rode out with.

Later that morning I was out at the stables, grooming the horses, when the news swept in like a rushing storm destroying everything in its path. The whole village went running to see the damage to the storeroom. Bile rose in my throat as I began pushing forward.

“He was walking on the roof,” one of my neighbors murmured. “They say he fell.”

“Of course he fell; that roof was so brittle that I don’t think it could even support the weight of a bird.” Their words died on their lips as they looked down, noticing me for the first time.

Weaving through the crowd that gathered, I made my way to the center of the room. It was only when I gasped at the sight—my father, white and waxen as he lay impaled by a beam through the abdomen—that I think I screamed. I couldn’t tell. Lurching forward, I tried to grasp his outstretched hand. That’s when one of the gauchos grabbed me. He threw me over his shoulder and carried me out the door.

The next day family, friends, and other kin gathered for the processional to bury my father. They hollered and cried, thumping their chests and pulling at their hair. My mother led the group, the loudest mourner of all. When the horse-drawn carriage came to a stop, she threw herself over the coffin, beating the lid as she exclaimed, “How could you leave me?” Two women pulled her away, her wails a low fog rising above the crowd of mourners.

I stood in the back, watching the spectacle that played out before me. People crowded around me as the whole village pushed past me to follow the casket. Clinging to a tree, I did my best not to get swept away by the current of faces that moved toward the graveyard. Looking around, I could no longer see my mother or my sisters. Suddenly, I felt alone and scared in this sea of people.

Their noise was a cacophony that made me feel disoriented. Their sweat clung to my nostrils as I was jostled along the pathway. I had to leave. I was feeling myself go mad. Fighting through the procession, I made it to the river, my pulsing lungs on fire, and collapsed by a tree, gasping for breath. This world suddenly felt cold and dark without my father. He was the only one who understood me.

That was when I heard the footsteps behind me. I turned my head sharply, expecting it to be a wild animal, only to see Pedro, the village drunk. He smiled; half of his teeth were missing, and I could see his tongue in the gaps.

“Such a little thing. So sad that you are all alone now.”

“Go away, Pedro,” I said, looking back at the river but keeping watch on him from the corner of my eye.

He swaggered over to me and took one of my braids in his hand. “Such pretty long hair you have.” He let the braid slip through his dirty fingers. “Such a shame that you don’t have a father to protect you anymore.”

“Leave me alone, Pedro.” I went to move away but he grabbed me by the arm, throwing me against a tree.

“You do not speak to men that way.” He was so close I could smell his cologne of alcohol and urine. “I should teach you a lesson.” He pressed me up against the tree as he fumbled with his pants.

I began to struggle. He pinned me harder, licking my cheek. “Be a good girl.” His words were thick and wet.

Instinct kicked in and I stopped struggling. I went limp, slipping through his clutches, and ran faster than I had ever run in my life back to our house.

Most of the guests were gone by that point, but my mother was just outside our front door, having said goodbye to someone. I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her, feeling safe in her strong embrace.

“Anna, what has gotten into you?”

I buried my head in her neck, unable to bring myself to speak. When I finally did, I told her everything. Her face went from pale white to crimson. “That louse. You are lucky you were able to get away.” She held my head in her hands in order to look into my eyes. “You have to be careful. We no longer have your father here to protect us.”

That night I lay in my bed with my older sister Maria snoring beside me. It felt like there was a chasm between us. Even though we were only three years apart, she acted as if she were one of the adults. We had never been close, but the ways we expressed our shared grief for our father felt like night and day. Where I felt stripped bare, she turned inward. Maria wanted to be left alone to the point that she would sneer whenever I came around. Now, as I lay beside her, I couldn’t sleep, the events of the day racing through my mind. I stared at our thatched ceiling. Maria snorted and rolled over. I couldn’t help but think, Why do we need a man to protect us? I worked alongside the men, doing the same work that they did. I could ride a horse better than most of the men of our village. I was given the most stubborn horses to break. My father was the one who taught me. The day that he had discovered that I had a natural affinity for horses was one of the best days of my childhood. And perhaps the most stressful for him.

I could taste the hay and horse sweat that the hot November air had carried through our encampment. The horse shook her black mane every few minutes. Her eyes were wild, darting from person to person, her breath loud and heavy with her anxiety. Whenever one of the men tried to approach her, she would rear up, kicking out in an attempt to defend herself against their whips. I stood next to my father, who sighed heavily. “That is not how you break a horse.” My father had his methods, and this wasn’t one of them.

When the men were preoccupied with their siesta, and taking a break from the horse, I approached the pen slowly, holding out my shirt like a basket in order to carry all the figs that I had collected. She stood there regarding me; with every step I took she stomped her hoof and let out an angry whine. I stood by the fence and watched her as I put one of the soft fruits to my mouth.

The horse stomped in protest again. So I turned my back to her and continued to eat. It took only a few moments for her to come to me. She nudged my shoulder with her muzzle. When I didn’t respond, she nudged me harder, pushing me forward. I turned to look at her. We stared at each other until she quickly dipped her head. I smiled, holding one of the figs out in the palm of my hand. It was gone in an instant. Then another. Before I gave her a third she had to let me pet her. She shied away at first but by her seventh and last fig, her head was in my hands, letting me rub her as she sniffed for more food. At the sound of a cracking twig, she ran away, making laps around the pen. I turned to find all of the men, including my father, watching me. An old man leaned in toward my father, whispering something. My father grimly nodded and strode over to me. “It’s time for you to get in there with her.”

I had watched him break a horse a hundred times, horrified at the prospect of doing it myself. He nodded toward the horse as she nervously trotted around the pen.

“She’s going to try to break you more than you are going to try to break her,” my father explained. “Do not let her know she has scared you.” The horse’s ears were back as her large nostrils flared, releasing angry huffs. My father paused, staring down at the horse. “And for the love of God, don’t turn your back to her.”

Hesitantly I climbed over the faded wooden fence and stood there watching her. She shook her head, letting out angry huffs and snorts. Then she charged me. I stood my ground as she came barreling toward me, just like I had seen the men do. And at the last minute, she broke off, running the perimeter of the fence. I breathed a sigh of relief as I readied myself for her next attack. This dance between gaucho and horse was one I had seen many times. We continued like this for most of the afternoon, until she stopped, panting and huffing. She stomped her hoof into the dirt like an angry child. I made shushing noises as I approached her. Slowly I reached out a hand and stroked her sides. I was patient as I worked the rope around her. She trusted me and I wasn’t going to violate that trust. I was my father’s daughter.

Now as I lay beside Maria, I wondered if I would ever be trusted to work like that again. I could rope a calf in ten seconds, the fastest in the village. Was I not as good as the gauchos because I was a woman? I certainly did not feel that way. Why should I be treated any differently now that I no longer had a father to watch over me? I punched my pillow and rolled over. I needed to do something. That’s when I decided that the next day, I would be the one to teach Pedro a lesson.

I spied the louse the next morning from a distance as he was doing his job, if you could call it that. He was a lazy farmhand who worked only if his boss was watching. He sat in the shade of a decrepit old pine tree, too focused on his drink to care about the oxen that were tied to the trunk with a thick rope. Years of termite damage made the pine slouch to the side like an old man in need of a cane. This was going to be too easy.

I kicked my horse in the hindquarters and she took off at a run straight for the oxen, who at this point noticed us. Their beady eyes grew large as they stopped chewing. The oxen pulled, trying to run away, bringing the tree with them, roots and all. Pedro, seeing this and seeing me, came right into my path with his arms raised in an attempt to stop me. He was just where I wanted him. I reached back and struck him with my whip, as hard as I could across his face. He cried out as if I had chopped off a limb. Blood seeped through his fingers and down his arm.

“Father or no father, you do not get to touch me.” I turned my horse and galloped away.

A few hours later the constable showed up at my door. He brought my mother and me to the justice of the peace, Senhor Dominguez, to discuss my incident with Pedro. Senhor Dominguez was known as a fair man, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. He was short and bald with a little black mustache that made him look official. My mother and I sat stiff-backed in our chairs on the other side of the desk. The air was thick and hot even though his windows were open.

“I understand that you attacked Pedro this afternoon and damaged a very old tree.” He looked down his nose at me. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

I stared at the dark spot on the wall above his head. He looked over at my mother, who shrugged. “I wasn’t there but I am sure that totó got what he deserved.”

He shook his head. “Luckily for you Pedro’s reputation precedes him. I suppose you have to protect yourself somehow.” He shuffled the papers on his desk. “Your father was a good man. I always enjoyed our talks. Just do me a favor and next time you try to teach someone a lesson, please don’t make such a mess. We’re still cleaning up after the oxen.”

When we arrived home, my mother made the decision: We were moving eighteen miles away, to Laguna at the coast, to be closer to my godfather. We would be safer there.

I hated Laguna. The city was a crowded jungle of houses that ran along the horseshoe bay. I could feel the heat that radiated off the homes painted in bright hues of blue, green, and yellow. The only things the houses had in common were the clay roofs that were baked into a deep red from the Brazilian sun. The people always yelled, one voice over the other trying to make itself heard.

Though every village had its gossips, Laguna’s were malicious. I was a favorite subject for them. How can a fourteen-year-old girl with no father walk the streets with such pride? Women whispered as I walked past them, their hands discreetly over their mouths, pretending they didn’t want me to hear.