Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) (8 page)

Suddenly she had a great deal of energy and she
resolved that she would do this thing. She would travel back to the fence’s
shop and sell all that she had back to him and the pretty assistant and she’d
live next to them, nearby so that the man would not be cross with her or feel
like she was a burden to him, but she’d be near the pretty assistant and they’d
be friends.

She thought hard about this and decided that
she’d not tell Juana of her plan. She didn’t want to disappoint Juana. She knew
Juana had the best intentions and that she loved the whores because that was
the only life she’d known. The whores were good to her and she’d not had anyone
do it to her yet, like the bastard Sanchez did to her, so Juana didn’t think it
was such a terrible thing. But Maria knew differently.

Maria didn’t know why, but she could not resist
the pretty gold candle holders on either side of the alter. She looked around.
No one was in the church. She looked up and saw the likeness of Jesus nailed to
the cross, just as Juana described it. It was horrible and she wasn’t sorry
that she’d not known of Jesus before. She was not certain any of this could be
right. What kind of God would let his son be tortured and treated in such a
way? It made no sense.

She took the candles out of the holders and set
them carefully down on the big table. She’d not need them as they wouldn’t
fetch a good price and they’d be cumbersome to transport to the fence. She
turned and nearly ran into the tall man.

“Where do you think you’re going, little
bitch?” He grabbed her by the arm and squeezed hard, hard enough to hurt Maria
and leave a mark. This made her angry and she clubbed him across the head with
one of the sticks. He stumbled but didn’t let go. He was a tough one.

She raised the holder high. She’d do a proper
job of it this time and knock him senseless. Someone grabbed her arm from
behind. She could do nothing now but wait to see what her captors had in store
for her.

“Well, now.” She looked at the man behind her.
He had a funny accent, one she’d never heard before. He was dressed all in
black so she figured he must be a priest. The other was dressed in peon
clothes. He was a worker in the church. He was bleeding profusely from the blow
to his head and he was very angry at her.

“Padre, let me take her, I’ll give her to the
rurales.” He sneered as he blotted the wound on his head.

“No, no.” He looked down at Maria and gave her
a kind smile. “If she promises not to fight or run away, I won’t let the
rurales have her.”

Maria stopped fighting and stood still. She
could only think of pendejo Pedro, the rurale, and did not want to be anywhere
near such men. She looked up at the priest, into his strange blue eyes and
nodded, promising not to fight or run away.

“Good, good.” He looked up at the peon. “Go on
back and have Agata look at your head, Paulo. I’ll take care of this little
one.”

Maria watched the man stride away. The priest
turned away as well and began fixing the candles, putting them back in place.
Maria thought for a moment and started to drift toward the front door of the
church. She could get away.

“Hungry?”

She stopped and looked back at the old priest.
He was not like any of them. He had pale skin and tan hair with a good amount
of gray on the sides. He had pale blue eyes and he was tall, more than six
feet.

“A little.” She wasn’t really. She’d been
eating well enough but thought it sounded better if he thought she was
starving.

He stood back and regarded his work. The
candles were now back in their proper place. “Come with me.”

She followed him and was soon in a kitchen with
an old woman and the man she’d clobbered. He looked at her, then away. The old
woman grinned.

“Agata, this is…”

“Maria.” She looked down at the floor.

“Maria. She needs something to eat.” He patted
Maria on the head and walked away. Paulo soon followed and she was now in the
church’s kitchen, alone with Agata, the cook.

“Will he be all right?”

Agata snorted. “Oh, you hit him on the head.
Everyone who knows Paulo knows his head is full of rocks. You didn’t hurt him
any.”  She grinned and winked at Maria. “Just his pride.”

Maria looked at the food being prepared for the
evening meal. There was pie. She’d never had pie in her life. She was suddenly
hungry and looked up at the old woman. She was afraid to be so bold as to ask
for some of it. She thought of another question. “Is he your husband?”

“Hah!” The old woman startled Maria with her
energetic response. “No, child, my goodness no.” And at that, as if on cue,
another old man came in. He was holding his hat and some work gloves. He kissed
his wife on the head and smiled broadly at Maria.

“Ah, a visitor.” He bowed to Maria as if she
were an important, grown up person, which gave Maria a little flutter in the
pit of her stomach.

“Yes, Maria. She wanted to know if Paulo was my
husband.”

The old man smiled broader. “Hah, little Maria.
In his dreams. He wanted her but I got her.” He pinched his wife on the cheek.
“I got her.”

They were nice people and Maria was feeling
good. Maybe she would stay here and not go to the sea. She blurted out, “What’s
to become of me?”

The old people shrugged. They weren’t certain.
The padre said nothing to them.

“You’ll have to ask the padre, my girl. But not
now. He’s busy. At dinner.”

By the third day the padre was still busy and
it seemed that Maria was just absorbed into the family. She was one of them, as
if it had all been arranged. She didn’t ask about it again. She liked the old
people and she liked the place. They’d given her a little room with a bed. It
was clean and bright when the window was not shuttered and nice and cool and
dark when it was. It was quiet there and even at night, in bed, she could sense
people around, not like at the cave. Juana’s ghost didn’t even bother her.

She felt safe there and had her little gun that
she didn’t tell anyone about. She hid it under her pillow but didn’t really feel
the need for it. She slept soundly and didn’t even try to bar the door.

She took to doing chores for the old woman; she
thought it would be a good idea to be useful. She’d earn her keep and, since it
was getting along toward winter, she didn’t find traveling by burro all the way
west so attractive now.

Anyway, there was a lot to do and she found
herself in the church more and more often in her free time. She looked through
the hymnals and the bibles. They had all sorts of writing in them. Maria knew
well enough that it was writing but couldn’t read. She quickly decided to learn
how to do this over the winter. She also saw gringo words thereabouts and
decided she wanted to learn to read them, as well. One day she’d go north to
the US and she planned to learn the lingo used up there.

When she was finished with the books, Maria
would examine the decorations in the church. It was a simple, yet
well-appointed country church. It had several statues, of course, of Jesus
being crucified, but also of the Virgin. She liked that one. She liked the
Virgin’s blue rebozo and the kind look on her face. She was pale like the
priest so she thought that the Virgin must be from the same stock as the
priest. She certainly was no Indian.

All around the church there were little wooden
plaques made up with what Maria later learned were depictions of the
crucifixion. These were called the Stations of the Cross and Maria found them
sad and intriguing. She was fairly caught up in all this when she saw the old
priest standing at the back of the church, watching her. He beckoned for her to
sit beside him.

“Do you like the church, Maria?”

“I do.”

“Is it like yours?”

Maria was a little confused. “I don’t have a
church. I don’t have religion.”

“Oh.” He was shocked and realized now that she
must have been very isolated, likely from one of the poorest of the villages.

“Have you been baptized?” He could tell by her
expression that she had not. He smiled at her. “Would you like to be?”

“I don’t know what that is. What is baptized?”

He grinned. “When you take Jesus into your
heart. When you become a Christian.”

“Oh.” She sat quietly for a while. She wanted
to ask the padre a thousand questions but didn’t really know where to begin.
Finally, she decided to ask him one.

“Are you a gringo?”

“I’m an American. From Chicago.”

“Why are you here?”

He nodded. “I don’t know.”

She looked at him, deep in his eyes. What a
strange answer to give. He did not know? How could a grown man not know why he
was in Mexico?

She decided not to pursue that and, instead,
reached over and picked up a hymnal and opened it. “Would you teach me to read
this? And to read in your language? The language of the gringo?”

He smiled at her and patted her hand. “I will.”

“And, may I stay here? You can sell my burros
and have my things and the money they will bring if I can stay here.”

“You may.”

It appeared to Maria that he would cry and she
wondered at his sadness. He continued. “You will keep the money from your
things, little one. You will keep them for your dowry.”

He smiled again because he could tell that
Maria did not know what a dowry was. “For when you are grown and get married
and have a family.”

He stood up. He had things to do. “Agata says
you do the work of two men, anyway. I think you will earn your keep.”

He patted her gently on the head and it felt
good to Maria. It gave her a warm feeling deep in the pit of her stomach, much
like when the fence’s assistant touched her hair. It was the best feeling she’d
known in her life. She watched him walk away and then looked back at the
hymnal. She wasn’t stupid, just ignorant, and she could make the ignorance go
away. She felt a little bit of happiness.

She stood up and wandered around again, since
she was alone. She liked the smells of the church, the candles mostly, and the
hint of the incense that was burned during special occasions. She did not yet
know of all the grand celebrations, but she liked the odors. She wandered to
the baptismal font and looked it over. It was empty now but she could tell it
held water and she wondered what was in store for her when she got baptized.

Her daydream was interrupted by a tug on her
hair and Maria wheeled, instinctively striking as hard as her small fist would
allow. The boy fell backward onto the stone floor of the church and held his
eye. She stood over him, glaring, determining what he was about.

He got up slowly and she pulled her fist back,
ready to strike again. The boy backed up and put up a cautionary hand. “I, I,
don’t hit me again!”

He was a nice looking boy, well dressed in a
grey suit. He wore a tie and nice shoes, not boots or sandals. His collar was
stiff and his hair had been neatly combed. He was a head taller than Maria and
a bit older. He had thought he’d have some fun with the new peasant worker of
the church but now stood as if he were before the padre himself. He looked her
over and Maria stood a little straighter. She had him now.

“I, I was just having a little fun. You didn’t
need to hit me.”

“I don’t like to be touched.” She regarded him.
He was a handsome boy, almost as pale as the priest. “What’s your name?”

“Crisanto. You are Maria.”

She felt funny that he knew her name. “How old
are you? Why are you dressed this way?”

He grinned. He liked that she was interested in
him. “I’m thirteen.”

He looked at his clothes and realized how
differently they were dressed. “I, my father makes me wear these clothes. He is
the shop owner of the town. He, we have a station to represent.” He blushed a
little as he regarded Maria’s bare feet.

“I’m eleven,” she lied. She wouldn’t be eleven
for several months. She wasn’t certain why she said such a thing. She
instinctively turned her back on him, pretending to do some work, moving away
just quickly enough so that he’d follow her.

She began moving the hymnals from one end of each
row of pews to the other and Crisanto began to help her. There was no purpose
in this, but Maria wanted him there and this would give them a chance to talk
while they worked.

“Where are you from?”

She shrugged and did not look up. “Just
around.”

“Where’s your family?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.” He began rubbing his eye as it was
swelling. It would be purple by morning and Maria regretted hitting him.

“Are you going to live here, at the church?”

“I guess.” She looked at him and liked the look
on his face. “What do you care?” She didn’t know why she said that to him
either.

“I, I don’t, I just…”

He was interrupted by a terse call from the
back of the church. “Crisanto!”

“Yes, father.” He cringed and turned away, to
the rear of the church toward the man who was standing there, arms crossed,
looking severely at them.

The man was remarkable in that he was a taller
and older version of the boy. He wore a matching outfit. They looked very odd
in this respect and Maria wondered at it. How did they get everything to match
so well? He waved his hand, gesturing for the boy to come more quickly.

“This is the new girl, Mar…”

“I see well enough who it is. Come away.” He
looked at Maria with obvious scorn and ushered the boy out. She could hear him
as they walked through the vestibule. “You stay away from that. Damned country
Indians. Don’t know why they let them in here, and barefoot. Savages.”

They were gone.

Maria sat at the dinner table and was surprised
to find her six shooter on her plate. She knew it meant something bad and
waited. The old man wandered in and looked at his wife. They looked at Maria
who kept her eyes fixed on the gun.

“My girl, your six shooter was cocked, under
your pillow.” He grinned a little devilishly. “If you’d a flopped a little
hard, bang, no more Maria!” He picked up the gun and regarded it. It was a good
one and he wondered how she’d acquired it. “Do you know how to use this,
Maria?”

She looked up at him. “Oh, yes.”

“And you were taught? By whom?”

“Oh, no one. I just figured it out.”

“I see.”

The old woman shook her head from side to side.

“I’ll show you.” He sat beside her and opened
the latch. This Maria already knew but she was gracious and allowed him to show
her as he loaded cartridges into each of the cylinder’s chambers. He got to the
fifth one and stopped there. He held up one of the bullets. “Only five, Maria.”