Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) (19 page)

The pair leaned forward and the severe looking
man’s partner hissed in Maria’s face. “We know you had a fellar planted behind
us. He was signaling.”

“That’s a lie.” One of the whores spoke up and
Maria nodded to her without taking her eyes from the men. She should not have
won so much, she thought to herself. She should have heeded the old man’s
advice, but what was done was done and now she’d have to deal with it, she’d
have to move fast.

“Gringo. The only thing I did was count some
cards, play a good game. If you are too estupido to do the same, then you needa
make a better living doing something else.”

“Count cards! Hah, never seen a pepper belly
could count beyond ten.” He leaned forward and Maria could not see his hands.
Patrons began to move away, out of the path of any lead that might fly.

The severe looking man finally spoke. “You just
go ahead and put that money back, Chiquita. You can keep what you brought to
the table, but leave the rest. We’ll see that those other fellows get theirs.”
He looked at his partner. “Lou’s right, never seen a Mexican yet can count,
never seen a Mexican yet who wasn’t a cheat.”

Maria stood up and leaned forward. She pressed
her silver hideout gun against the severe looking man’s nose and cocked the
hammer back. “I know how to count to five, gringo. There are five bullets in
this gun but I only need one to send you to hell.” Maria glanced over at the
whore who’d come to her defense. “Lady, go get my six shooters, bring them
here.” The whore quickly, happily, did as she was told.

Maria holstered one and now had the other
cocked and pointed at the severe looking man’s partner. “I don’ play for fun,
boys. If you don’ wanna lose money, you maybe should play with matchsticks or
beans. Tha’s how I learned.” She called out behind her. “Gringo barman, get
aroun’ here where I can see you.” He did and now Maria slowly backed out of the
bar. She made it past the skinny whore swinging above her in the cage, who was
grinning broadly at the outlaw Mexicana. She kissed her palm and then blew it
at Maria, looking on in delight.

The men were not finished with Maria. One of
the bouncers appeared, a big ten-gauge pointed at her head. She looked him
over. “Don’ do this, gringo. They don’ pay you enough.” The man didn’t move.
“Please, gringo, don’ make it so you go to hell tonight.” He remained unmoving
and Maria regretted having to kill him.

He did not really want to fight, she could see
this in his eyes and he shook like a dog passing peach stones. He did not even
have the presence of mind to prepare the gun; the hammers weren’t even pulled
back. The poker players and barman were making their move and Maria fired,
punching a hole through the bouncer’s head. She fired next at the severe
looking man’s partner, hitting him once in the chest; the barman took a lead
pill to the neck. The smoke was thick and patrons were scrambling for cover.
The severe looking man stood, stubborn, not going for his gun and not trying to
hide. Maria hesitated. She did not want to kill if she did not have to.

“Finished, gringo?” She could see it in his eyes.
She could see that he could not be left behind. He’d give her trouble and she
remembered the vaquero’s warning, “Never hesitate, Maria, never hesitate.” And,
as if on cue, the severe looking man went for his gun. Maria killed him with
one shot.

She ran for the door and was quickly outside.
Alanza was not where she’d tied her. She looked up and down the street. She’d
have to escape on foot.

“Lady! Lady!” It was one of the whores who’d
preemptively prepared Alanza and was waiting in an alley. Maria ran up and in
one motion was on her beloved pony. She reached down and touched the woman’s
face. “Thank you, lady.”

The whore blushed as she’d not been called a
lady in a long time. Maria reached into her blouse and grabbed a handful of
bills, thrusting them into the prostitute’s hand. “Here’s for you, lady. Get
out of this business; get away from this terrible place.” And she was gone.

She rode north through the night and at
daylight stopped to check on her winnings. She had over seven thousand dollars
and was thrilled. The American money was worth a lot more than the pesos. She
would very soon be a wealthy hacendada.

As she rode she thought about the whores and
this made her sad. The Mexicans were not really much better, but the Americanos
were horrible to the women. Putting them in cages, like wild beasts, was
probably the most upsetting. It was demeaning and it was humiliating when the
gringos made fun of Maria. She knew she dressed strangely, like a vaquero, but
does every woman who is outside of the norm have to be considered a whore? It
made her angry. The thought of the Americanos being so mean to her for being
Mexicana made her angry, as well. Maybe Juana was right, maybe the Americanos
truly were all assholes.

She rode on into the desert and found an
abandoned ruin on the side of a high hill. It reminded her so much of her
cave-home all those many years ago. She hobbled Alanza and resolved to explore
in it for a while. It was fascinating in its similarity to her old home in
Mexico and this was something that made her realize how small her world really
was. The US was not really a different land. It was the same. The desert was
much the same, the Indians from all those many years ago were likely, more or
less, the same. They built the same way with the same T-shaped doors and wall
construction; all pretty much the same. It made her think hard about it all.
She wondered at how similar it was before the white people came. Was it better
then? Did the white men bring the greed and ugliness? They brought the guns and
the horses, the old man told her that. Before the guns and the greed and the
horses, was it better? Probably not. The old man told her the stories of the
old Indians. They had the same weaknesses, the same cruelty, the same selfish
aspirations, the same lust for gold. It was just being human and humans had a
huge capacity for wickedness.

Maria thought some more about the gaming men.
When she was in Mexico, the men she’d beaten weren’t so cowardly. Of course,
she’d not played for such high stakes. A man can lose a little and swallow his
pride, but a man can’t lose a lot, particularly from a Mexican, and a woman,
and walk away so easily. She thought hard about that. She’d have to be careful.

She evaluated her performance at The Cage. She
did well, but she’d blundered twice; first, by being too greedy herself. She
had her goal and should have quit when she’d reached it. And, she’d hesitated
killing the severe looking gringo. She should have just shot him and been done
with it. But all in all, her fighting was good. She did not shake or get scared
or nervous. Her vision was clear and her aim deadly accurate. She decided that
it was a grand success and resolved not to make the mistakes again.

She camped at the ruin and enjoyed it. There
was good water there. The place was phenomenal as it was so intact. Just like
her cave in Mexico, it looked as if the inhabitants had moved out only the day
before. Someone had been mucking around it recently, though, as there were
ladders of recent construction about. Maria figured it had been visited
recently, probably by travelers like her, too intrigued to pass it by.

She bedded down in one of the little apartments
looking west and watched the sun go down. It cooled off and she needed a
blanket. She stared at the stars and thought a lot about where her life was
heading. She was content to be alone; liked the adventure. She was pleased to
meet the whores and was sad for them, as she possessed a primordial revulsion
to prostitution. She was no prude and did not have disdain for it because of
the implications of sin. She had decided that was just another of the silly
rules created by the padre to keep everyone under the church’s control. No, it
was the demeaning nature of it that she found so offensive. Many of the men who
used whores were ugly about it. They did not treat the women with respect.
There was no tenderness or love in any of it. And, added to the lack of respect
and treatment of the women, she learned from Juana and the old man that many of
the men brought horrible diseases to the whores. They, in turn, passed the
diseases on and soon, many people were afflicted and eventually some died or
were driven to madness.

She thought about the skinny woman in the cage.
Who’d willingly put themselves in a cage? And she was there on display for all
the world to see. Her most private part, set out like meat in a butcher’s
window. It made her very sorry for the whores but she didn’t have disdain for
them. She didn’t blame them. So many had to do it to survive, they had no other
recourse.

But it angered her to be labeled as one of
them. To Maria, being a whore was kind of like giving up, and she’d never, ever
give up. She’d fight, scratch out a living, survive but she’d never resort to
that. She loved making love but being a whore was not about making love. It
was, to her mind, giving up a part of yourself, the most important precious
part of you, the part that made babies, made life and it was just giving up and
letting that part be poked and prodded and inoculated with diseases and
degradation. She would never ever be a whore and she resolved that men who
called her whore would pay for it one way or the other.

The Red
Rocks and the Indios

Maria wandered further north with Flagstaff as
her ultimate goal. She loved this land of Arizona. So often she could travel
for miles and never see another human being and this suited her well. She was
happy to be alone with her thoughts and was happy with how things were going in
her life. As Bronagh said, she needed to get the wanderlust out of her system
and this is what Maria was doing. She was a wandering Irish Mexicana and this
suited her well.

She made it to a small settlement and was told
that money would be paid for deer or elk. Although she didn’t need money as her
bankroll was now huge, she thought it would be fun to hunt for a bit. Maria
liked industry, liked to have a purpose or task and she thought a little market
hunting would be a good way to pass the time as she meandered further north.

What she did not expect was the fantastic,
almost mythical, land of the Red Rocks. Nothing in her life had prepared her
for this. Maria was certain that the place must have some kind of special aura
about it. It simply felt different, as if there was some sort of cosmic or
magnetic pull on her very soul.

She decided to camp here for several days,
glorying in the strangeness of the place. Oftentimes, she’d ride Alanza into a
canyon or to the base of a magnificent mountain and just sit, listening to the
nothingness of the desert and wondering if she had not found her final place,
the place where she’d live out the rest of her days.

At one point, the wind picked up and she and
Alanza took refuge in a cave system. There she found petroglyphs of elk with
Indians hunting them. It was prophetic and she felt even more tied to the land.
Wasn’t she an Indian, really? She was called a Mexicana, but her dark skin, the
little village where she lived, the way she grew up, scratching out an
existence, making baskets. It was all a very strange realization, as she’d not
thought of herself as an Indian. The Indians were the Apaches and the Sioux and
the others from el Norte, the ones who wore paint on their faces and feathers
in their hair. But the more she thought on it, the more she wandered about, the
more evidence she saw; the drawings on the rocks, the ruins in the mountains,
the pottery shards on the ground, all these things led to her identifying
herself as an Indian.

She looked at the stick figures stalking the
elk. They had no weapons, but if they had, would they be spears or throwing
sticks or bows with arrows? She considered her fancy rifle. It was really the
same thing when she thought about it. They hunted to survive, and she hunted to
survive. They likely hunted for pleasure, for community, just to show their
gods that they could do it. Show that they could and would make it in this
unforgiving land. And wasn’t that what Maria was doing? Making her way, showing
her God that she could do it, that she’d survive in the most unforgiving land
on the planet, without help, without a man? She’d thrive; flourish in this land
or in the most horrible saloons or the most desolate mountains, wherever she
found herself, she’d survive and flourish.

When the wind died she was able to hunt. She
would recreate the act that was played out over the past many hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of years. She leaned forward and patted Alanza. “They didn’t have
you back then, my darling.” Alanza snorted and tossed her head.

She settled on a young mule deer and in short
order, was dressing it out. She sensed a presence and retreated, hid and waited
and was surprised by the diminutive figures standing around the deer carcass.
The children could not have been more than four or five, alone in the middle of
nowhere. Maria approached them and nodded. They nodded back and then regarded
the deer on the ground.

They had no Spanish and Maria did not speak the
language of these Indians. They knew a few English words and through some
rudimentary speaking and much sign language, Maria learned that they wanted the
offal, which she happily gave up.

They all worked together and Maria resolved to
bone the animal outright and gave the skin, head, everything but the meat,
heart and liver to the children. They were pleased. They were so excited to
bring something better than a rodent or rabbit or hare back to their families.
This would make a feast.

Maria watched them. They were getting
everything red with dirt and she imagined what a mess it would be by the time
they got back home. She signaled to them to bring her along and soon they were
amongst a group of lowly hovels made of natural materials and a few sheets of
discarded corrugated metal.  This is where the children lived.