Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) (9 page)

“But it’s a six shooter.”

“Ah, and how many toes does my little Maria
have?”

“Ten.”

“If you load six bullets in the gun, you might
end up with only nine toes.” He laughed and closed the latch on the revolver.
He handed it to her as he wagged his finger from side to side. “And don’t cock
it until you are ready to fire.”

She nodded.

“Now, go put it back.”

The old woman harrumphed. “Under the pillow is
no place for a gun.”

The old man sat down and waited for Maria to
return from her room. He continued. “All little girls should learn guns. Then
no one can bother them.”

With that, he placed a leather bag on Maria’s
plate. She opened it and looked at the pile of coins. It was nearly as much as
what she and Juana had originally been paid by the fence.

“For the asses.” He grinned. “The padre is a
good burro trader, Maria. You must thank him for that.” He nodded at the
fortune before her.

It was more than she ever imagined they would
bring. She put the money back in the sack and they ate. The old folks were so
good to her. She loved mealtime because they talked and laughed and there was
always plenty of good food to eat.

Afterward, the old man helped Maria with her
numbers, then they played cards.

The old woman didn’t much like it as he was
teaching her all the bad games, the ones played in the saloons and gambling
houses. It was not for a young girl growing up in a church to know. But the old
man liked numbers and cards and saw no harm in it. He grabbed Maria’s bag of
money and poured it onto the table. He counted out half for each of them and
slid her pile in front of her, he took the other one.

“Now, my girl, I am going to show you how to
make some money without breaking your back.”

He started out with the old standard, veintiuno.
Maria was a good student and by bedtime they each still had half the money.
Maria neither won nor lost. The old woman was impressed, the old man was a good
player and he was not patronizing the child. Maria was holding her own.

When it was finally time to go to bed the old
man put the money back in the sack and handed it to Maria. “Is there anything
you want to buy with your fortune, Maria?”

She looked herself over. Her clothes were good
enough. The old woman had taught her how to use the fancy soaps to keep them
clean. She finally had a thought.

“I’d like shoes.” She got up and let the old
woman kiss her good night. It made the woman happy and Maria obliged. The old
woman became serious.

“No more secrets, child.” She hugged Maria a
little tightly. “And be careful with the gun. We finally found you and don’t
want to lose you.” She nodded.  She suddenly looked strange, as if she might
cry. She sent Maria off to bed.

Maria lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and thought
about what the old woman had said. They finally found her? What could she mean?
They didn’t know her. They could not have known her or known her situation.

She grew sleepy and thought of the boy in the
suit and the priest and veintiuno. She thought of the six shooter under her
pillow. That was a stupid thing to have it cocked just under her head.
Sometimes she felt very stupid. But she was ignorant and not stupid. She could
learn. She learned the veintiuno and now how to keep the gun and later she’d
learn to shoot properly. Tomorrow she’d go to the fancy store and let the boy
find her shoes that fit and she’d wear them in the church from now on. She’d
never go barefoot in church again.

Two winters passed and Maria no longer thought
much about traveling to the sea to visit the fence’s pretty assistant. She’d
grown nearly ten inches during this time and was blossoming into a beautiful
young woman. The boys in town had difficulty concentrating on their work
whenever the pretty church girl was around. The old woman and old man were
constantly by her side, teaching her, nurturing her and, perhaps, even
overindulging her a little from time to time. She still dressed simply, but
Maria had a way of making the most humble outfit look beautiful.

She’d taken to keeping many animals and had a
knack for it. The old man even arranged for her to have a horse, something
Maria had dreamed of possessing ever since she could remember. He’d let her go
off into the desert alone and she’d ride and ride. Sometimes she’d ride for so
long that it was well after dark before she returned home, much to the
consternation of the old woman.

Maria loved her horse as much as she loved the
people of the church. The old man said that when animals loved a person it was
a sign that the person had a pure heart and it seemed that all animals loved
her.

She learned many things from the priest
including how to read and write in both Spanish and English. She wasn’t the
best student but now she could easily get by in el Norte. She let the priest
baptize her and she took her first communion. She learned about confession, and
told the priest most of her sins. Not all, as she had difficulty really
believing most anything she’d ever done much of a sin.

She even made peace with Paulo, the man she had
clobbered with the candleholder. He was gruff and grumpy but she won his heart.
It was the way of it with Maria; she had found her voice, lost her timidity.
She was blossoming into a fine young lady and she turned heads and hearts
constantly, wherever she went.

And none of this was lost on Crisanto or his
father. They were both attracted, in their own way, to Maria. One was falling
in love and the other was continuously revolted. Maria enjoyed it all
thoroughly.

One day Maria was working with some horses when
shots drew her to the back of the fancy store. The old man was teaching
Crisanto to fire a six shooter. This amused Maria very much, as Crisanto was
inept at just about anything that required dexterity.

They’d set up bottles on a fence and Crisanto
stood, one hand on his hip and the other pointing a big six shooter. He fired
and missed, fired and missed, fired and missed. He was disgusted as he reloaded
and Maria sauntered up beside him. She waited and let him fire and miss again
before she picked up a rock and hurled it at one of his targets. She smashed it
easily. He looked at her, humiliated, then turned his attention to the next
bottle. He fired and missed. Maria threw again, shattering the next bottle.

“Maria, we’re going to run out of bottles.”

“Someone needs to break them.” She grinned.

“It’s easy enough to throw a rock. Shooting a
gun is entirely different.”

She shrugged. “No it’s not.”

“It is.”

“No, it’s not.” She turned and ran to the
church, retrieving her own gun. She nodded to Crisanto. “Go on, try again.”

He fired and missed. Maria fired and shattered
the target. The boy turned and looked at the old man in disgust. It wasn’t the
teacher, since the old man had taught Maria, too, at least rudimentarily. Maria
could shoot a gun as naturally as she could throw a rock.

“How do you do that?”

Maria shrugged. “I just do it.”

He was completely frustrated now and fired
wildly and too fast at the bottles, missing every one. He opened the gun and
tore at the empty cartridge cases.

Maria smiled, “That’s even worse.”

“You do it, you’re so smart.”

She fired quickly and killed four more bottles.
She deftly reloaded and fired again and killed five more. She looked behind
them and spotted a rifle propped against the trough. “Oh, with a Winchester
it’s even easier.”

She grabbed the rifle and began shooting again,
this time shattering the pieces of the broken bottles until there was nothing
more to kill down range.

“That’s a nice rifle.” She handed it to
Crisanto and picked up her gun. She walked, a little too provocatively, back to
the church and the shooting lesson was ended for the day.

They played cards that night and the old man
laughed and told the old woman all about it. Maria had by now added faro,
Mexican Monte and poker to her repertoire. She beat the old man constantly and
he was proud of her.

She just finished taking all his beans, as now
they played strictly with the old woman’s foodstuffs instead of with real money
which was safely in the town bank, when the old woman spoke up.

“Easy on the boy’s heart, Maria.”

Maria grinned. “Oh, I won’t hurt it too badly.
I just want him to make his father take it back.”

“Take what back?”

“Calling me bad things. Calling me a savage.”
She spoke to her cards and did not look up. She laid out another winning hand.

It was the first time the old woman had heard
of the insult, though she was not surprised. Now, she grinned at the
humiliation of Crisanto, though it really wasn’t the boy’s fault that he had an
ass and bigot for a father. In fact, Crisanto wasn’t anything like his father.
He was sweet and kind and just a little frail. He was a good boy and they all
loved and felt a bit sorry for him.

The old woman looked back at the work she was
doing, and continued. “Crisanto’s father has an idea that he is superior. He
believes he has Spanish blood.” She pretended to spit. “He’s no more Spanish
than the Pope.”

And the old man interjected, to add weight to
the old woman’s statement, “He’s Italiano, you know.”

Maria smiled. Everyone knew the pope was
Italiano.

“And he’s a shop owner.” The old man picked at
a bean and did not look up. “Shop owners and church girls do not mix, Maria.”
He smiled at her with love in his eyes. His Maria was better than the owner of
the grandest shop in Mexico. He shrugged. “Some people are very small, Maria.
They think that having us broken into castes makes them bigger.”

He got up and headed for bed, kissing his two
favorite girls on the head. “You keep at him, Maria. He might finally learn
some humility one day.”

Maria dreamed a little of Crisanto that night.
He was a good boy, just as the old woman had said, and she liked him very much.
She felt a little guilty for showing him up with the shooting, but she couldn’t
help herself. She liked the way he looked at her when she shot the gun so well.
She could feel his eyes on her when she walked away, swaying her hips like
she’d seen the women do at the brothel. It made the men very funny. She fell
asleep thinking of these things and slept until morning.

She awoke earlier than usual. She felt that she
was wetting the bed. She’d never wet a bed in all her time that she could
remember and she jumped up to use the chamber pot. When she was finished she
looked in it and there was blood.

She got cleaned up and went back to bed. It was
very early and she needed to think. What was this? She’d not experienced this,
not bled, since the bastard Sanchez, the shop owner, had abused her.

She wasn’t in pain this time, though. It didn’t
hurt. She jumped up again and there was more blood. She’d not be able to go out
like this. Her dress would be ruined.

She considered her situation. Did a man come in
and abuse her in the middle of the night? She looked around and her door was
secure. The old folks had made her bar it now that she was older. They were
just too afraid of something bad happening to her. It was still barred. No one
had been in her room.

She thought about the Virgin Maria. Could this
have happened? That was preposterous. She could not be another Virgin Maria. She
was not a virgin, as Juana so annoyingly reminded her many times. But it seemed
the only logical explanation. A man had not abused her, yet she was bleeding,
just as she had when she’d been abused those many years ago. So, did an angel
do it? Or God Himself, or Jesus?

She was a good girl, there was no doubting
that, and now she was a good Catholic. She took the communion every Sunday,
even if she didn’t really believe she was eating flesh. And she went to mass
all the time and she was good. Did Jesus want to start a family and he’d chosen
Maria? She was an Indian. The real Virgin Maria was very pale, so that did not
seem to make sense. But the Virgin Maria was poor and from a lowly family, the
priest told her that. Maybe the Virgin Maria was like an Indian in her land.
So, maybe it wasn’t preposterous.

She looked through the cracks in the shutters
and could see the day was dawning. She sat on the chamber pot again and bled.
She got cleaned up and made herself a bandage. She had to go see the priest.

He was worried when he saw her at his door. She
did not look well. She was very pale. He got her to sit down.

“What is it Maria?”

She did not know what to say to him. Her theory
seemed ridiculous now that she was sitting before him. “I, I , no. Nothing
padre.”

She got up to leave and he stopped her.

“Maria, tell me.” He was so kind to her. She
loved the old priest and now he looked especially sad. She felt it was her
fault that he’d start the day so sad. He usually started the day fairly happy,
then got sad as it progressed. There was no telling now how sad he’d be at the
end of this day if he started out badly.

“I, I think that God or Jesus or an angel has
visited me in the night, padre.”

He nodded. “I see. And how, what form did this
visit take, Maria?”

“I think I’m going to have a baby, padre. I
think, they did, you know, that.”

“Why do you think such a thing, child?”

“Because, padre, I am bleeding, down there. And
it happened only once, a long time ago. When I…” She looked away, said nothing.

“What is it, Maria?”

She’d never told anyone about the time she’d
been abused. Only Juana and the yellow-haired whore knew of it. The priest knew
nothing of her past. She wondered how he would react to this news. She was
committed now and had to tell him. “I, a man did that to me, padre. When I was
ten and I bled, so I thought perhaps...”

He stood up and grabbed her up in his arms. He
held her for a long time. She could feel him crying. She pulled away and looked
into his eyes. “Why are you crying, padre?’

“This is such a wicked, wicked world, Maria,
and what you have told me makes me very sad. I love you very much, Maria, and I
did not know such wickedness happened to you. I am sorry, child. I am sorry.”

This caused Maria to be confused. It wasn’t the
padre’s fault and there was no reason for him to apologize. “But what of the
visitation, padre? Did this happen?”

He finally smiled. He took her by the hand and
led her back to the old woman. “No, no Maria. You are a good girl but you are
not the next Virgin Maria.” He called to the old woman and spoke into her ear,
in a hushed tone so that Maria could not hear.

The old woman smiled and nodded to the padre
and turned her attention to Maria. She waited for the padre to leave and when
they were alone, the old woman hugged her and kissed her on the forehead.  “My
darling little girl. Today you are a woman.”

“Come on, Crisanto, catch up!” She rode hard in
her vaquero outfit, Crisanto lumbering along behind her. They were chasing
mustangs and Maria was catching up. This was the best sixteenth birthday a girl
could have and Maria was pleased with her new outfit, much to the chagrin of
the old woman. The old man had bought it for her.

She was splendid in her trousers. She had not
had trousers and this made riding difficult. She now wore trousers and tall
boots and a lovely print blouse. She wore a short vest and a straw sombrero.
The old man even got her a gun belt and big knife. He promised her that one day
he’d get her a Winchester. He called her his beautiful vaquero.

She looked on from the top of a cliff, down at
the valley below as the beasts ran off in a cloud of dust. Crisanto finally
made it to her side. He was winded. “See that one, see that one, Crisanto?” She
pointed at a black filly with a white diamond between her eyes. “That one is
magnificent. If you catch that one for me, I’ll marry you!”

She was joking but the words struck the young
man through the heart, like a thunderbolt. He looked at her smiling at the herd
of wild horses as they ran off. His heart pounded in his ears and he felt that
he might fall over. He was more in love with Maria now than he’d ever been in
his life, and he’d loved her since the time she’d given him the black eye in
the church those many years ago.

She pulled her sombrero off and shook out her
hair, letting the raven tresses fall onto her shoulders. She knocked the dust
away from her hat. She’d become more beautiful than any young woman in the
village. She was more beautiful than even Crisanto’s mother and his mother was
famous throughout the land for her stunning features and lovely hair.

He handed her his canteen and she drank and let
the water run down her front and onto her breasts. He was nearly incapable of
speech as he stared at her, until he blurted out, nearly incomprehensibly, “Maria,
marry me.”

She looked at him. She knew the day would come
and knew what her answer would be. She smiled coyly at him and gave her reply.
“Crisanto, you know that is not possible. You know that your family will not
have this. It cannot be.”

It was easy for her to say this because, though
she liked Crisanto very much, she did not love him and did not care to be the
wife of a shop owner.

He dropped his head, dejected. “I cannot please
you and I cannot please my father. I cannot please anyone.” He miserably turned
his horse toward home. He was a good boy, a young man, really, since he was now
nineteen years old and Maria felt sorry for him.