Streets of Laredo: A Novel (7 page)

"Come in--I'll feed you and give you coffee.

I can't do nothing about your other problems." "I'd rather have a bottle of beer, if you can spare one," Billy said, limping into the house.

"I seldom walk in the heat, and I wouldn't have today, but my horse escaped." "I don't keep beer in my house," Maria said. "You know that. You stay here. If you want beer you'll have to go to the cantina." "Well, what's the harm in beer?" Billy asked, wishing Maria didn't sound so stern. He didn't know why he had asked for beer, since he knew she didn't keep it. Maria had been wonderfully beautiful once; probably she was still beautiful. Because of his poor eyesight, all he could see when he looked at her face was a dim outline. He had to fill in the outline with his memories. When he was younger he had coveted her greatly. He would have married her, or given her anything, for a taste of her favors, but he had never tasted them. He still did covet Maria, although he couldn't really see her now, except in his memories.

"The harm is not in the beer," Maria told him. "The harm is in men. Drunk men. Some of them beat women. Some of them have beaten me. If you want beer, go to the cantina, but tell me your news first." "This is important news," Billy said.

He saw a water bucket sitting by the stove, with a dipper in it. He limped over and helped himself to a dipperful. The water was cool and sweet. Before he knew it he had helped himself to three dipperfuls.

"Don't you even know which direction Joey went?" Billy asked.

Maria didn't answer. She didn't like to answer questions--not about her son Joey, not about anything. What she knew was hers; no one had a right to it, unless it was her children, and even their rights had limits. Much of what she knew was for no one to know. It was hers, and by knowing it she had survived. People were curious; women were even worse than men, in that respect; but that was not her problem.

"Where does the wind go?" she said. "Joey's young. A thousand miles isn't long to Joey." "No, and a thousand miles might not be far enough, either--this time," Billy said.

Maria just looked at him. He was in disgusting condition, filthy and drunk. His weak eyes dripped rheum down his cheeks, which were red from years of drinking. But he had been loyal to her and her children for many years. Billy was the only man who had been good to Joey, when Joey was small.

He had bought Joey his first saddle. He just walked up with it one day and gave it to Joey, when Joey was six. It was Joey's happiest day, the day Billy brought him the saddle.

Maria was with Juan Castro then, her second husband, and her worst. Juan Castro was so jealous that Maria never dared tell him that Joey was her son, so she pretended he was her dead sister's child. Even so, in that same year, Juan Castro sold Joey to the Apaches. Maria was away in Agua Prieta, helping her mother die.

When she returned to Ojinaga and found her son gone, she was wild. She told Juan Castro she would kill him the first time he went to sleep.

He beat her--he had beaten her many times--and left. Maria never saw him again, but she didn't have to kill him. His own brother did it, in a fight over a horse.

At that point, she went to Billy Williams and begged him to go trade with the Apaches to get her son back. Maria had never sold herself. She had never been with any man she didn't want.

But she was desperate; she offered to be with Billy Williams, if he would go save her son. She had never said such words to a man before. She considered herself a modest woman. She had picked badly, when it came to men, but she had picked for love.

Joey was her firstborn, and she knew the Apaches would kill him if he angered them, or else they would trade him themselves, farther and farther north, so that she could never find him.

Maria didn't want to live if Joey was lost, and yet, she had her children to raise, the two she had by Juan Castro. Rafael, the boy, had no mind and would die without her care; Teresa, the girl, was bright and pretty and quick, but born blind. Rafael lived with the goats and the chickens.

Teresa, his sister, was never far from him, for she was the only one who could understand Rafael's jumbled words.

Maria knew she wouldn't have the strength to raise her damaged children unless she got Joey back.

If she lost her firstborn, she would give up.

She would whore, or do worse than whore.

Billy was said to be a good scout, since he could talk the Indian tongues. For the sake of her children, she didn't want to give up.

So she went to Billy Williams and offered herself. To her surprise, Billy Williams, who had often pursued her and even tried to marry her, looked embarrassed.

"Oh no, that wouldn't be right--I couldn't have that," Billy said. He tilted his chair back, as if to remove himself from the slightest temptation.

For a moment, Maria felt hopeless. She had nothing else to offer, and now the man was refusing what he had often sought.

"It wouldn't be right," Billy repeated.

"Don't disturb yourself about it, Mary. I'll find Joey." He found Joey, far to the north, in the Sierra Madre, but the Apaches wouldn't trade him. All he could tell Maria was that Joey looked healthy and could speak Apache better than he could.

A year later, when Maria was so unhappy Billy feared she would die, he went again to the Sierra Madre; but again, he had to return and report failure. He had taken enough money that time to buy Joey, but Joey was nowhere to be found.

He had escaped, and even the Apaches couldn't catch him. Since then, no one had caught him.

He showed up in Ojinaga a week after Billy's return, just as Maria was slipping into hopelessness.

Later, Joey claimed that it was his years with the Apaches that enabled him to rob gringo trains so easily. The Apaches held a hard school, but they knew much. Joey learned what they knew, and he had not forgotten it.

"Tell me your news," Maria said. "I'm here and Joey's not." "The railroad's hired Woodrow Call, that's it," Billy said--he was glad to have it out.

"You know who that is, don't you?" "I should--he hung my father and my brother," Maria said. "And my brother-in-law. My sister's a widow, because of Call." "Well, that's who they've hired," Billy said. "It's a compliment, I guess. A railroad wouldn't spend that kind of money on just any bandit." "Do you know Call?" Maria asked. The name sent a chill through her. She had loved her father and her brother. They had done no more than take back horses that the Texans had taken from them.

No living man had caused her as much grief as Woodrow Call: not the four husbands, three of whom beat her; not the gringos, who insulted her, assuming that because she was a brown woman, she was a whore.

Now Call wanted Joey. He wanted her firstborn.

"I know the man, but the acquaintance ain't real fresh," Billy said. "I rangered for him about a month once, but he turned me out for drinking on patrol. I'm older than he is, and I've drunk when I had a thirst, all my life. It don't affect my vigilance much, but the Captain didn't believe me. Or didn't like me or something. He turned me out." "Would you recognize him?" Maria asked.

"Why, yes. I expect I would," Billy said.

"If he comes here, show him to me," Maria said.

"Why, so you can kill him?" Billy said.

Maria didn't answer. Billy knew better than to repeat the question. Repeating questions only made Maria close up more tightly.

"What was your last husband's name?" he asked, changing the subject. "It's slipped my mind." "Roberto Sanchez," Maria said.

"I don't see him--did he leave?" he asked.

"He left," Maria said.

"That makes four husbands, by my count," Billy said. "The two mean ones and Benito and this one. I don't know if this one was mean." "Why are you counting my husbands?" Maria asked. Despite herself, she felt some amusement. Poor, skinny, and blind as he was, Billy still had some life in him. He was still interested in her, enough to want to know if her husband was around. Life still amused him. Once, it had amused them both, a lot. They had danced together, laughed together. There were times when it still amused Maria, but those times were rare. It interested her, though, that an old man with no money and almost no eyesight could still derive amusement from the things humans did. And he could still want her.

"I just like to keep track of your husbands.

It's my pastime," Billy said. "Why did Se@nor Sanchez leave, if I ain't prying?" "You're prying," Maria said.

"My feet hurt, tell me anyway," Billy said.

Maria smiled. Billy couldn't see the smile, but he could tell that her tone was a little less severe. He wished he could see her face. All he could see was a sort of outline.

"He left me because he didn't like me," Maria said.

"Why, he married you--why didn't he like you?" Billy asked.

"He liked the way I look," Maria said.

"He mistook that for me." "I sympathize with him, I've often made the same mistake," Billy said. "I'm sure I'd make it again, if I could see better." "I think Joey went to Crow Town," Maria said. She didn't want to talk about her husbands, or her dealings with men.

"Crow Town, good Lord," Billy said.

"Joey is young," Maria said. "He likes such places." "I'm old, I don't," Billy said.

"I'd almost rather crawl off and die than go to Crow Town." "Who said you had to go?" Maria asked.

"Woodrow Call has hung enough Mexicans," Billy said. "I better go and warn Joey. Swift as he is, he might get away. If my going to Crow Town will help, then I'll go to Crow Town." "You don't listen," Maria said. "You don't let me talk, and when I do you don't listen.

I'll go to Crow Town myself." "You'll go?" Billy said. "How long do you think you'll last, in that stink hole?" "Long enough to warn my son," Maria said.

"No, I'll go. Joey relies on me to keep him informed about lawmen and such," Billy said.

"You lost your horse," Maria reminded him.

"Well, it ain't the only horse," Billy said. "I can get another horse.

"I doubt even Woodrow Call would go to Crow Town," he added. "Everybody that lives there hates him. He'd have to kill the whole town." "You've forgotten how he is," Maria said.

"If he's hired to go there, he'll go. If they sent him to kill Joey he'll go wherever Joey is." "Well, I mean to get there first, even if I have to walk," Billy said. "The man turned me out. I can't forget it." Thinking about Crow Town gave him such a terrible thirst that he limped off to the cantina and bought two bottles of tequila. There was an outhouse behind the cantina that afforded him a little shade, and he sat down in the shade and drank one bottle rapidly. Midway through the second bottle, as he was about to pass out, a vaquero came riding up, leading Billy's lost horse.

"I found your horse, old man," Pedro, the vaquero, said.

Billy found that the mere thought of his horse, not to mention the sight of him, to the extent he could see him, made him furious. The willful beast had caused him not only discomfort but embarrassment.

For a man of his prestige to have to walk into a one-saloon town such as Ojinaga was little short of disgraceful.

Without hesitation, but not without difficulty, he managed to extract his pistol from its holster. His hand didn't seem to want to go where his brain told it to. His hand often rebelled in such fashion when he was drunk. But he eventually got the pistol more or less firmly in his grasp, and without worrying too much about aiming, he emptied it in the direction of Pedro and the horse. Of course, he had no wish to injure Pedro, who was a decent vaquero. He only meant to shoot the horse, in the head, if possible. But the only casualty of the fusillade was a little white goat who happened to be standing idly by, just in the wrong spot.

"Gracias," Pedro said, tipping his hat to the old man who leaned against the outhouse wall.

"That's one less goat to get in my way." Pedro was a little disgusted. The old man had once been a renowned scout. He had been good enough to track Indians, it was said. He had once been a notable shot, too. Now he couldn't hit his own horse, at a distance of twenty yards. In Pedro's view, it would be better for such men to die and not go around shooting other people's goats.

Later, Billy found a bush that offered better shade than the light outhouse. He finished the second bottle of tequila and took a little nap. When he awoke, with an empty bottle and an empty gun beside him, Maria was kneeling by his legs. She seemed to be looping a rope around his legs. Her spotted mare was standing with her.

He could just make out the spots. Then he was being dragged, slowly. If the dragging had been rapid, it would have upset his stomach. When the dragging stopped, he was behind Maria's house, near the pump. Before Billy could give the matter more thought, he found himself under a waterfall. Cold water was splashing in his face. He felt he could drown, if he wasn't lucky, from the flood of water. But when it stopped splashing, he was not drowned. He tried to raise up and bumped his head hard on Maria's pump. She had been pumping water in his face.

"I have to go find Joey," Maria said.

"Look after my children. Don't let anything happen to them." "Well, I won't," Billy said. "Are you armed?" "No, I don't like guns," Maria said.