Grave of Hummingbirds by Jennifer Skutelsky

his napkin and dabbed his mouth. Then he held up his hand, a gesture that drew everyone’s attention. He raised his voice so he could easily be heard above the stifled conversations of the people who sat nearby. “Would you care to explain exactly what you mean by that? You’ve come for Esmeralda?”
    “You know what I mean. I’ve come to buy her.”
    Rufo sneered. “Gregory Vásquez Moreno, savior of beast and bird and all of us—our doctor—from the kindness of his heart. He has come yet again, as he does every year, to buy a doomed horse. To make savages of us as he pleads for change. Cholo. ” He spat the word. Gregory was a cholo, having moved from where he’d been born and settled in a place he no longer belonged. But many people were cholos today, and only Rufo’s bitterness framed the insult. “You try so hard to set yourself apart, you shame us.” He turned his back on Gregory. “You are no more civilized than I, my friend.”
    “Rufo—” Gregory began.
    But the governor wouldn’t let him speak. “He thinks he’s better than us. He owns a good piece of land, and that sets him above us. We’re barbarians, primitive. In his mind, we’re stuck in the Dark Ages. He won’t tell you that, he’d never admit it, but I’m telling you. The doctor is educated. Worldly. He made some clever investments and has never looked back. He’s behind the renovations to the school library. They say”—he dropped his voice—“they say he can talk to the gods, and if you can believe it, they listen to him.” Rufo’s face, ugly with the truth he had the sudden courage to reveal, relaxed. He mumbled something into his coffee. “Sit down, Doctor.”
    Gregory didn’t move. “I haven’t come to argue. I want to pay for Esmeralda and go.”
    “It’s too late. They’ve already taken her.”
    Gregory persisted. “Then let me bring her back. Please. It will not be a great loss if I take her.”
    “No, but maybe you will learn. You will learn that your money cannot make miracles. You will learn that you have no power—that you can’t change what we’ve been doing for two hundred years. You’re arrogant and misguided.” Rufo lifted his cup. When Gregory just stood there, the governor added, “Hear this, you ineffectual prick, because I’ll say it only once. Carrying on the way you do? You don’t only shame us, you shame yourself, and Nita.”
    With that, Gregory grabbed Rufo by the lapels of his Windbreaker and hauled him out of his chair. Taken by surprise, the governor pulled away and, stumbling back, overturned the table. The strangers staggered out of the way, and people scattered as Gregory dragged Rufo across the shattered ceramic plates and leftover food.
    Rufo broke Gregory’s hold on him and lashed out with his fists. Gregory fell, and the governor kicked him repeatedly in the ribs until Gregory grabbed his ankle and toppled him. With a knee on Rufo’s chest, Gregory wrestled the man’s face to one side with a flat hand and mashed it into the concrete.
    It took the combined effort of four men to pull Gregory off the governor. He and Rufo stood panting, straining to get loose so they could tear into each other again.
    “Rufo, for God’s sake,” Manco said. “Let him have the damn horse. Use another one.”
    “No.” Rufo spat a bloody glob at Gregory’s feet. “It’s too late. Go home, Moreno. You’re finished.”
    “You’ve said many things today you’ll regret,” Gregory said. “Damn fool!”
    “I regret nothing.”
    The woman stood to one side and held on to her son. Her fear acted like a splash of ice water in Gregory’s face.
    “I’m all right,” he said. “Let me go.” He jerked his arms free.
    “Rufo?” Manco said warily.
    The governor nodded curtly, and the men released him.
    Gregory felt a gentler hand on his shoulder.
    “Come,” someone said. “Come away. Come.” It was Father Alfonso.
    Gregory stooped to pick up the bridle he’d brought, and with a last