Three Wishes by Lisa Tawn Bergren, Lisa T. Bergren Page B

This was a serious business, from start to finish. But then, if you didn’t have a Walmart down the road, it all would be pretty much up to you. We exited the end of that building, and I saw there was an arc of smaller shelters, open to one side. In three, men were working on various leather goods, creating rope and bridles and, in one, what appeared to be a saddle. In the next two, fires blazed, and two blacksmiths hammered across their anvils. In neither shelter could I tell what the end product might be.
    The girls led me up a hill. Across from it, in a shallow valley beside a stream and a grove of oaks, was an entire village, with hundreds of small huts. “The Indiancera,” Francesca explained. “This is where the workers live.”
    “And you said you have over a hundred people who work for you?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she said. “They work in the fields and orchards, or across the hills as goatherds and vaqueros. Others, as you have seen, work at tanning or tallow-making—”
    “And tooling leather!” Estrella put in.
    “And others work in the villa,” Francesca went on.
    We walked down the dusty path and into the village. Chickens scattered before our feet, and doleful looking little children stared at us as we walked by. A mother pulled one into a hut, glancing back at us, partially in fear. “Do they like it here?” I asked.
    “Well enough,” Estrella said, looking momentarily sad for them. “They are dreadfully poor, but they are better off than when we weren’t here. Now they have some steady food, work, shelter. When my grandfather came, they had none of that.”
    “But were they…happier?”
    Her delicate brows rose and met in the middle. “Happier? How would I know that?”
    “Of course,” I hurried on. “I suppose I was only musing aloud.” Unless you’re a time traveler too and can tell me for certain …
    “The priests brought them the sacraments, introduced them to the Holy Writ. If they were solely graced by that, then they are better off than before.”
    “Of course,” I repeated, but as I stared into the dark, dusty doorway at a woman with a tiny baby at her bare, sagging breast, I wasn’t certain at all.
    On the far side, by the stream, were big cauldrons full of boiling water, in which women dipped clothing and then set them steaming on big rocks to rub clean. Some held bars of soap, scrubbing into the cloth—dresses and shirts and sheets and long underwear. Others carried the clothing to a long line strung between the trees, clipping them against the breeze to dry. Never had I been more thankful for my abuela’s old washing machine and dryer that took forever. This, this was work like I’d never considered before.
    You put a hundred-plus people together on a ranch, and there’s some serious laundry. But the women here were singing, in a low, dissonant tone, which made me feel oddly welcome. It was as if I knew the tune, but couldn’t quite place it. Children ran through the laundry hanging over lines, shrieking in glee, and mothers swatted them away but smiled as they did so. Here was a more familiar form of family, of work, of joy, which comforted me and made me smile with them. Maybe it was just that jobs on the ranch varied, as they did everywhere, and some were happier than others. Those in the big villa, after all, seemed pretty content.
    The girls walked me through the oak grove and then up the next hill. Before us were acres upon acres of corn and wheat, planted as far as the eye could see, with irrigation trenches running in neat lines at perfect intervals. Men and women alike moved in and out of the crop parcels, carrying baskets for gathering and hoes and picks and shovels. Now that I thought about it, this was what the blacksmiths had been working on—more farming tools.
    “This is about as far as we can go and still get back before noon,” Estrella said. “We should head back now, or Mamá will become worried.”
    Thoughts of Doña Elena—and her last