AT DAWN ON Sunday morning, a day after the Christ had spoken to Diego, he and Luz and Mundo and the T-Birds began their climb up the Juárez mountains. Diego led them, his feet dancing as though a tune was playing in his body.
“It’s a little steep,” Mundo said.
“I thought you were a man. I thought you could take it,” Diego wrote. He stuck the note in Mundo’s hand and kept climbing.
“This is harder than yesterday,” Mundo said as they stopped to drink some water. “There isn’t any road here. At least yesterday there was a road.”
“Sometimes people make their own roads.”
Luz read the note over his shoulder and laughed. “That’s for damn sure, Dieguito, but it doesn’t mean their roads take them anywhere.”
Diego shrugged his shoulders, drank some water, and kept climbing.
When they slopped again, Mundo said something to Luz, then walked up to Diego, “Hey Diego, I don’t think we’re gonna make it to the top.”
“Quit complaining,” Diego wrote. He was still angry with him and Luz for not believing. They were just humoring him. He kept climbing.
Luz held on to Mundo’s shoulder. Diego looked back occasionally to see if everyone was all right. The T-Birds were talking to each other, but Diego wasn’t interested in what they were joking about. He could see them laugh, and he could see Mundo and Luz speaking to each other, but he just climbed higher not caring what they were saying to each other. They probably thought he was getting like Crazy Eddie.
When they reached the top of the steep mountain, they took a rest and smoked cigarettes. Diego pointed to the statue of Cristo Rey on the other side.
Luz nodded. “Diego, you’re going to be very disappointed when we don’t find anything up here. If we find anything at all, it will be Carlota’s bones.” She puffed on her cigarette. “But at least it’s beautiful up here, Dieguito—just beautiful! I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never been up here. At least you brought me up here, Diego, but please don’t cry if we don’t find anything. I hate to see you cry.”
Mundo watched Luz speak, then looked at Diego. He said nothing.
“Get the shovels,” Diego wrote. He gave the note to Mundo. Mundo called the T-Birds over. Diego walked around the back of the mountain and found a level place along the steep slope. He stood on the place and nodded. Mundo handed him a shovel, and he began digging. Mundo and Indio joined him. El Güero shook his head and looked at Luz. El Guante smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
The dust stuck to the sweat on Diego’s skin as he dug, and after an hour’s work he was covered with dust and sweat. Mundo looked at him and laughed. “Look at yourself, ese.” Diego laughed and kept digging.
After digging a hole about six feet deep, Mundo stopped. “Time for a break,” he said. He climbed out of the hole and took a deep breath. Luz handed him a cup of water, and they both looked down at Diego who continued working. “Come and take a break—have a cigarette and some water. The sun’s too goddamned hot. C’mon, take five.” Diego wasn’t watching him, just kept digging. Mundo tossed a light pebble at him, hitting him on the back of the head. Diego looked up. “Take five,” he said. Diego climbed out and took a cigarette and some water from Luz.
“Look, Dieguito,” she said, “enough, ya basta. You’re tired. Two pilgrimages in a row is too much for anybody. There’s nothing here, Diego, just a lot of brown sand.”
He took a pad out of his back pocket and wiped off the dirt. “The statue didn’t lie to me,” he wrote.
“It was a dream, Dieguito. Dreams don’t always mean what we think they mean.”
“Dona Luz is right, Diego. We dug six feet and there ain’t no jewels. That Carlota took them with her, got it? She didn’t leave nothing for us.”
Diego looked away from him.
Luz grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to turn around. “It’s only a story, mi Diego, just a small lie our grandmothers made up, that’s all.”
Diego pointed toward the statue and jumped back into the hole. He kept digging like a wild man. “Please,” he prayed, “please.” The tears and the sweat stung his eyes until he couldn’t see.
He dug until he was drenched in sweat and dust. He stuck in the shovel with the whole force of his body, again and again, feeling his muscles ache. “Please,” he prayed, “please,” The shovel went in and out of the ground, in and out until, with one last forceful jab into the earth, Diego felt the shovel hit something hard, something more solid than sand. He dropped the shovel and began jumping up and down. He waved his hands in the air. Luz and Mundo and the T-Birds watched him as he looked up at them and pointed toward the end of the shovel.
Mundo jumped in and began digging with him until they slowly uncovered what appeared to be an old coffin. Diego said nothing, though his disappointment was obvious to Luz and to Mundo. “All this for a coffin,” Diego wrote.
“There might be something in there,” Luz said.
“Bones,” Diego wrote, “some rotting bones.”
“I say we open it,” Mundo wrote.
“It’s bad luck to disturb the dead,” Diego wrote.
“We’ll say a prayer,” Luz said. “What have we got to lose?”
Mundo motioned his friends over. “Help me pull her up.”
“We’ll pull it out,” El Guante said. “We can get it.” The T-Birds helped Mundo and Diego out of the hole and lifted the box out into the open air.
No one said a word as the coffin was lifted out of its place. Luz made the sign of the cross. Indio, El Guante, El Güero, and the others stood around the coffin and stared at it. Mundo poked at it. He looked at Diego and Luz—then looked at the coffin. “You open it, Diego, you should finish what you started.”
Diego’s hands trembled—and for a moment he was unable to move. He placed his hands on the coffin and slowly opened the lid. He shut his eyes, waited, took a deep breath, and then opened it. He stared at the skeleton. So that’s it, he thought, this is the treasure, a skeleton. He walked away from it. No one said a word. Diego looked across at the statue of Cristo Rey and threw his arms in the air. He wanted to curse the statue, to drag it down with his bare hands and break it until it became as fine as desert sand.
Mundo caught him by the arm. “It’s OK,” he said, “no big deal. Doesn’t matter, ese. We found something, huh?”
Diego did not bother to look at his lips. He did not want to be consoled. Diego laughed, just laughed and laughed, tears running down his face. Luz and Mundo listened to the echo of his laughter as it swept across the valley.