Last Train from Cuernavaca (17 page)

Angel rode along the rim of the canyon looking for a vantage point and shelter from the rain. She found both under two flat boulders taller than cathedral doors and leaning against each other like an affectionate pair of drunks. She reined her mare to a halt in the triangular opening between them.

Water had collected behind the upturned edge of her sombrero's broad brim and formed a moat around the conical crown. She tilted her head to the side to pour it off like rain from an eave.

She knew she should keep riding and not look back, but her curiosity about the
gringa
got the better of her. The woman had come to San Miguel alone at a time when merely wandering into the bushes to relieve oneself exposed a person to the risk of getting shot at. Either
la Inglesa
lacked the brains of a burro or she possessed her own pair of mule-sized
cojones.

Angel surveyed the area with her binoculars.

“¡Chinga!”
she muttered.

Centuries of foot and animal traffic had eroded the road below the surrounding land. Rainwater cascading from the rocky surfaces of the high ground channeled onto it and raced toward Cuernavaca in a muddy torrent. Anyone intending to travel it would need a boat. Angel was pretty sure the
gringa
didn't have a boat.

The top of
Inglesa
's dark blue umbrella descended the path from the village. The umbrella vanished, then appeared again beneath the patchy canopy of cedar trees. It bobbed across the bridge and headed for the road.

Inglesa
must have arrived here in a carriage, but none was visible now. Had she been fool enough to think the driver would wait for her in this storm? If he had stayed he would have been a bigger idiot than she. His coach would mire to the axles.

When
Inglesa
chose not to come with her, Angel thought she was rid of her. Her conscience had been serene. José's daughter worked at the
gringa
's hotel so Angel knew he would hear of the fray in San Miguel sooner or later. When he did, he would have to agree that Angel had saved
Inglesa
's honor and probably her life, too. That was more than Angel's comrades were willing to do for their own women.

It was a bitter thought.

Angel could still ride away. She could pretend she didn't know what happened to
Inglesa
after she refused the offer of protection. No one would be the wiser.

She watched the umbrella stop at the edge of the road. It turned one way and then another, as if considering its predicament. Behind it, the river spilled over its bank and rushed to meet the gully-washer in the roadway. The umbrella sought safety on a small rise of ground while the tide rose around it.

Normally Angel wouldn't have cared if a foreigner got her feet wet. Foreigners didn't care what happened to Angel's people. They came here to steal land, timber, oil, iron ore, and sugarcane. The only attention they paid to the
indios
was to work them to death.

But this wasn't just any foreigner.
Inglesa
had helped Antonio's family. She had provided income to their impoverished village. She had given Antonio's sister a safe haven. The Perez family referred to her as
“Mamacita.”

Angel loved Antonio Perez with such passion that the thought of him made her heart lurch in her chest as if tipsy on tequila. His family was her family. Their debt of gratitude was hers, but that didn't mean she had to be gracious about repaying it.

After seeing the devastation
el gobierno
had caused in San Miguel, no synonym for angry would suffice to describe what Angel was feeling. She was also cold and wet and in no mood for conversation. And though she wouldn't admit it, she resented the affection and respect the Perez family had for the
gringa.
She decided to let
Inglesa
go on thinking she couldn't understand Spanish.

She dismounted, wrapped her serape more tightly around her, and led the mare down the muddy slope. They both ended up sliding most of the way and arrived filthy at the bottom. That hardly improved Angel's mood, the color of tarnished gunmetal and stormy as the weather.

She would take
Inglesa
back to camp. Once there, the woman would be José's problem. Angel was certain she wouldn't refuse an offer of help this time. That notion proved she didn't know Grace.

 

Grace recognized where she was, but she couldn't remember how she got here. The day's events had sent her into shock. The road was her link to home and the transformation of it into a river deepened her confusion. She stared at the tumbling, umber-colored water as if it had nothing to do with her. For that matter, she now occupied a never-never land where nothing had anything to do with her.

Someone else had walked down San Miguel's desolate street. Someone else had been attacked by a rogue soldier. Someone else had seen a man's skull caved in with a shovel. Someone else had skirted a pair of corpses as if they had been logs fallen across her path.

The trees and rocks around her blurred. Her mind escaped its bone box and drifted above her body. From a height she looked down at a sodden stranger standing alone in the rain, holding an umbrella as if waiting to hail a taxi on a London street corner.

“Get a hold on yourself, Gracie old girl.”

Her voice echoed hollow in her head, but it called back her wandering self. She took a deep breath. She flexed her toes and fingers to reestablish relations with her body. Then she got down to the task of figuring out what to do.

This was when Rico should come splashing up the road on his big gray horse. She looked toward Cuernavaca, more than half expecting to see him. It wasn't a completely foolish expectation. He had rescued her before.

The rain's tattoo on the taut hump of her umbrella provided rhythm for her thoughts. Being stranded on foot ten miles from the Colonial had one advantage. Her everyday pack of petty problems had been reduced to one: find a way to reach home.

The downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started. For the first time since she had stared at the bare patch of the San Migueleños's ground in Cuernavaca's market, Grace felt relieved. She knew one fact about rain in Mexico. The water would soak into the thirsty soil and evaporate so fast it would seem like magic.

Sunset was only a few hours away and she couldn't wait for the tide in the road to ebb. She collapsed her umbrella, slid it into its case, and put the handle's looped strap around her wrist. She hiked up her skirts and stepped off the mound.

Using the tip of the umbrella for balance she set out along the road's margin. The water was the color and consistency of lentil puree, and she felt her way where it was shallowest. Even so, it filled her shoes and soaked her skirts halfway to her knees.

She didn't hear the splashing of hoofs until the horse was almost close enough to nibble the brim of her straw boater. She whirled and saw the same boy who had killed the two soldiers. Had he decided to rob her? She had learned fencing as a teenager, as many theater people did. She took a firmer grip on the handle of the umbrella and extended it like a foil. She knew the posture was ridiculous, but it was all she had. She made a mental note to buy a pistol when she got home.

He sat forward in the saddle and beckoned for her to mount behind him.

Grace retracted the umbrella to her side and shook her head.
“No, gracias.”
Surely he understood what those words meant. Even Mrs. Fitz-Goring knew that much Spanish.

She set out again, probing ahead of her with the tip of the brolly.

“Venga.”
The boy said. Come.

Aha! He did speak a little Spanish. Grace decided that if he intended to rob her, he would have to do it here where her body would be found. She wasn't going to ride off with him to be violated and murdered at his convenience.

She said again.
“No, gracias.”
She gave a small wave, signaling that she could take care of herself, and he should go on about his business.

She put down another foot, feeling for level ground under the mud. Was it her imagination, or had the water already gone down a bit? She should be able to reach the outskirts of Cuernavaca before total darkness. She could find some sort of transportation there. Arriving at the Colonial after nightfall would be best anyway. She wanted as few people as possible to see her in this filthy and disheveled state.

The boy loosed what had to be a string of Zapotec oaths. He had reined his horse around, ready to ride away, when the report of a rifle sounded from the direction of San Miguel.

“Bugger all,” Grace muttered.

Had the rest of the army patrol found the bodies of the two soldiers? And if so would they assume she and the boy were responsible? A spate of shots accompanied by shouts indicated that they had and they did. The shouts grew louder.

“Venga, idiota.”
The boy waved her toward him.

Grace assessed her predicament like the debits and credits in the Colonial's ledger, except that here every option required red ink. In one column were a lot of men more interested in shooting than asking questions. In the other glowered one surly young assassin smelling of sweat, horses, gunpowder, woodsmoke, and rancor.

“Cuernavaca?” Grace pointed at herself, then toward town. “Will you carry me to Cuernavaca?”

He gave an abrupt nod and Grace took the hand he held out to her. She was surprised by his strength as he lifted her off her feet. Using both hands, he hauled her across the horse's rump. He deposited her there like a sack of cornmeal with her hind end cocked in the air.

Without waiting for her to arrange herself into a more dignified position, he kicked the horse into motion. Grace grabbed the saddle and saddle blanket to keep from sliding off the other side and landing on her head. Hampered by her long skirt, she flailed and twisted until she was sitting sideways with both feet dangling off the horse's left side.

The ride was bumpy. She gripped a fistful of the boy's serape with one hand. With the other she tried to tug the hem of her skirt to within a decent distance of her ankles. When she had leisure to take note of her surroundings she realized two facts.

One: she had lost her umbrella and hat.

Two: this horse was not headed for Cuernavaca.

 

Only a coin toss could have decided whether Angel was happier to see her comrades or to be rid of
Inglesa.
The moon cast an opalescent glow over the trees and rocks when she reached camp. As usual, the men lay cocooned in their tattered blankets with the bare soles of their feet close to the fire. Their bodies radiated outward from the warmth like spokes from a hub. Once the rains began in earnest they would have to sleep in the nearby caves so they were taking advantage of fresh air and moonlight.

Angel roused them with a pistol shot. They swarmed to their feet, rifles in hand, but only Ambrozio Nuñez fired before realizing Angel wasn't
el gobierno
. Or maybe he did recognize her. Angel knew he would rather shoot at her than
federales,
but his bullet didn't come close.

She grinned at him. She had called him many names over the past months, but her current favorite was
cochi,
pig.

“Better luck next time,
Cochi
.” Then she gave him no further thought.

Angel tried to see her comrades as they must have appeared to
Inglesa.
She had to admit they were a menacing-looking lot. Each man carried enough weaponry to wipe out a platoon. The moon's light illuminated wolfish grins that exposed ranks of tobacco-stained teeth behind shaggy black mustaches. They must look terrifying to someone used to balls and picnics and tea parties.

Angel found some small satisfaction in that thought until the woman slid off the mare's rump and strode up to the men. As they surrounded her she asked, very politely in Spanish, if any of them knew José Perez.

Angel made an adjustment in her assessment of
Inglesa.
She sat a horse like her arse was eggshell, but either she had nerve or the arrogant sense of superiority that defined gringos. Or both.

Angel was glad to see José and Antonio weave through the crowd. José would take
Inglesa
off her hands, and she could spend time alone with Antonio. The prospect of seeing him had been the one sunny ray in this long, dreary day.

He must have felt the same. When Angel beckoned with a sideways nod, he left his father listening to
Mamacita
and went with her. He reached for her but she held up a hand to stop him.

She also wanted to get right to the kissing part of her homecoming, but she had business to take care of first. She glanced back at the camp. Someone had thrown brush on the fires and by their light Angel could see
Inglesa
deep in conversation with José. She was no doubt demanding to be returned to Cuauhnáhuac. For once Angel and English were in accord.

Angel turned back to Antonio. “We can leave her at the train station in Ajusco tomorrow.” Angel had given this some thought. The village of Ajusco was the most remote of the eleven stops the train made on its way to Cuernavaca.

Antonio sneaked a quick kiss before answering. “Fatso has set up barricades everywhere. We were afraid they had caught you.” He didn't have to tell her what misery that thought had given him. “The
federales
pigs are watching the train stations closely, and they're stopping everyone on the roads.”

“We have to get rid of her, Tonio. She doesn't know one end of a horse from another. She'll slow us down. And when Rubio finds out we have her, he'll send the entire army to take her back.”

“‘Del dicho al hecho hay un gran trecho.'”
It's a long way between saying and doing.

Antonio pushed Angel's sombrero off onto her back. He twined his fingers into her short hair and kissed her. Bewitched by each other they did not realize they were silhouetted against the starlit sky. They did not notice Grace glance their way. They did not see her eyes widen for a split second before she went back to explaining her plight to José and the others.