He would defend the boy’s bees for him, because they were his, because they had arrived with him, because although Simonopio had always had hands to take care of him and godparents to watch over him, Francisco—on his monotonous rides from ranch to ranch—was plagued by the thought that the bees were the boy’s primary guardians. Killing them would be like killing a piece of Simonopio. It would be like orphaning him.
