Tempered Magazine December 2013 // January 2014 // Issue 01 | Page 46

had their first child together. And

throat and let the blood rest at El

then their second. Her husband felt

Tío’s feet. She turned away when

he wasn’t doing enough. He had

they said El Tío wanted more, that

heard about Simon Patiño, “El Rey

he wasn’t sated. She quickened

del Estaño,” the man who had more her pace when she heard he stole
houses than he knew what to do

a newborn from the hospital and

with, all across the world. He told

returned to the mine. She was gone

her these stories, and they teased

before they described the final

her brain. Her thoughts twisted to

gruesome sacrifice.

gluttony. Her body was living in
poverty. He told her he could be
like Patiño. Her mind was wrapped
up in this possibility. That he’d do it
for her. When he told her, his eyes
grew wide, and his right eyelid
disappeared. She didn’t realize she
wouldn’t see it again. She told him
she loved him and escaped out of
her body and into her dreams.

They said when he walked into the
mine, he was like a human magnet.
Wherever he’d look, the tin would
appear. He still rented out the
mine back then, paying the state
company fees to go in but reaping
the profit himself. Word spread fast
that some campesino was making
it big. He moved away from the
mountain, upgrading houses. His

That’s when it started. She heard

fingernails began to split, and she

the story of his covenant with El

picked up the splinters.

Tío, but she ignored the chatter. He
bought her a silver necklace, and
she closed her ears to the stories
of his sacrifice. She tried not to
listen to them say he slit a rooster’s

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They were beyond rich. The
state mining company didn’t like
Piscoya’s riches. They took over
his mine. She told her husband to
stand up to them; he told her to