Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) (25 page)

She urged Alanza along a little faster. The
weather was good, not too hot. She wanted to get to the little hamlet and find
out how to get to the mule man’s place. She was ready now. She felt the little flutter
in the pit of her stomach again and was ready to see him.

She made a nice camp and had some of the food
Uncle Alejandro’s cook had packed for her. She bedded down and talked to Alanza
who’d drifted off to sleep. Maria could hear her rhythmic breathing. She didn’t
mind that Alanza had abandoned her. Her dear one had done her good service all
day and deserved some rest.

Maria began to drift off and thought about what
to do next. She wasn’t sure but it would have to happen the next day. She’d be
there by midday and she’d have to go ahead and do it, whatever it turned out to
be.

She found the washerwoman who gave her
directions to the mule ranch. She was pleasant enough but a bit odd, as if the
washerwoman knew here was someone, one of her kind, and she’d kick the bitch,
Pilar, out and be the new lady of the mule ranch. This pleased the washerwoman,
so she was especially helpful to Maria.

Maria continued on her way and after a time saw
the entrance to the ranch. It was a vast spread, more austere than Uncle
Alejandro’s, but a good ranch and obviously very rich. Maria could tell this
was a rich man’s place. She suddenly felt weak in the legs. She had never, even
in battle, felt this way.

She stopped Alanza. They found an arroyo, out
of view of any travelers who might make their way to or from the ranch. She got
down and ate a leisurely lunch. Alanza grazed.

This was nice land, a little south of the red
rocks, but she could visit her Indios babies easily from here. It also wasn’t
far from Uncle’s place. She suddenly thought all this was preposterous. She was
already thinking in terms of being the lady of the house, knocking the bitch,
Pilar, off her little throne. How could this be? She’d never thought about
things in this fashion, ever. Now she was planning on a grand scale. She had to
have some mescal! This was making her insides shake and she did not like it.
She did not like this feeling one bit.

One mescal led to another and soon she was
sleeping like a newborn babe. When she awoke, it was fully dark and the moon
was high. Off in the distance she could see silver moonlight shimmering on the
mule man’s hacienda. She stood up and was a little woozy. She drank a lot of
water and a little more mescal and this steadied her.

She got on Alanza and felt better. This was
actually the best of all possible things. She would not have to be presented to
the bitch, Pilar, or the mule man’s uncle, or any of the hands. The mule man
would not have to be embarrassed that a wild Mexicana had come calling on him
in the middle of the day.

She rode. Alanza seemed to know she needed to
be extra quiet, like a great housecat. They were soon at the hitching post
outside the rancher’s door. It was grand and Maria was impressed. It looked to
have a woman’s touch and likely not that of the bitch, Pilar. More like a
refined lady and she thought that the mule rancher or his uncle must have, at
some point, had a wife. A woman had most definitely had a hand in all this.

She tied Alanza off and had a look around. She
could see well despite the fact that no lamps were burning. Everyone was in bed
for the night. She wandered to a big window and peered in. It was the mule
man’s bedroom and he was there, sleeping peacefully with his mouth agape. Now
he looked about a hundred years old and Maria thought all this an idiot’s
errand. She watched him some more and he turned and closed his mouth and was
facing her and no longer looked a hundred years old. Now he just looked like
himself, old, but not so old as to be decrepit.

Maria pressed her face against the pane of
glass, hands cupped on either side of her head. She could make out the bedroom
and, it too, had been decorated by a woman. No man would have tassels on his
lampshade, she thought. Uncle Alejandro’s lampshades had no tassels. Uncle’s
room looked as a man’s room should. It was masculine and this man, this mule
man, was sleeping in a woman’s room.

She now turned and looked the ranch over. It
was well appointed and well maintained. She could see the bunkhouses for the
ranch hands, and the barn and corral. It was all in order. She wandered around
the perimeter of the house. It had a long overhang and would be cool in the
summer. There was a veranda with table and chairs and she thought it would be
good to eat and watch the mules in the corral. It was how they spent their
days, breaking and training mules, and then coming out onto the veranda and
having their meals. She imagined the gringo conversations here. They likely
didn’t differ from any of the vaquero or hacendado conversations. They likely
talked of the same things.

She found the door and turned the handle. It
was not locked and she entered the vestibule. It was cool inside. It smelled of
mesquite fire from the hearth and the food from the last meal cooked by the
bitch, Pilar, and candles and coal oil lamps. It was a nice smell of a nice
home that was nicely maintained. It had a good feeling and Maria suddenly felt
overwhelmed by it all.

She felt desperately that she needed to be here
tomorrow, set up house, live here, spend the rest of her days here, but that
could not happen so soon. She’d have to make it happen. She could not just tell
the mule man that it was going to happen. She had to make him make it all
happen.

She wandered through the halls, found the
uncle’s room and listened to him snore. He seemed to be a nice one, too. He was
even more ancient in sleep than the mule man, but kind looking. The bitch,
Pilar, was not in his bed. She’d likely fornicated and moved to her own room.

Maria thought about Pilar. Pilar would hate
her. She’d hate her for her youth and beauty and manly dress and common
manners, and charm. She’d be the one to win over. If she was at all decent,
she’d protect her men as a mother bear would protect her cubs. Maria would have
to be careful with Pilar. She didn’t want to oust her completely; she needed
the woman to keep the uncle happy and keep the place running. Maria had learned
from Juana in this respect. Juana told her, as the head of a hacienda, you did
not cook or clean or work. You managed the place and kept the men happy. And
this is what Maria would do with the help of Pilar.

She now moved onto the mule man’s room. He
turned toward her and she thought she’d been caught. She did not want to be
shot and this was a real possibility. Even alfeñique gringos kept a gun under
their pillow. But he didn’t shoot her. He kept sleeping and Maria was able to
wander around his room.

The woman was there, in a picture, along with a
child. Now she felt sorry for the gringo. These people were dead. It was the
only logical explanation and it made her sad. She looked around for more things
to see, more things to stall her but they just weren’t there. She had to do it
now.

“Pendejo… Pendejo.” He had not dreamed of the
Mexican girl. “Pendejo!” He felt a shove and sat up in bed. Maria stood over
him with mescal on her breath. She was impressed that he was not frightened. He
was completely calm and recognized her right away.

“Oh, hello.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why are you
in my room, standing over my bed?”

“I missed you, Pendejo.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” He looked outside, realizing
that it was dark. “Most folks come calling during the day.”

Maria had to start the act. She began walking
slowly around the room, looking at things, picking up pictures. “You have a
nice place, Pendejo.”

He smiled at the absurdity of having a young
señorita in his bedroom.

“Who are these people, Pendejo?”

“That is my wife, and the little one, my
daughter.”

“They are dead, Pendejo?”

“Yes.”

“That is sad.” She put the photos back. “So…
what are you doing, Pendejo?” She began fidgeting with the lampshade tassels by
his bed.

“Well,” He yawned. “I can tell you what I am
not doing.” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat at the edge. “I
am not sleeping.”

She grinned, “You are funny, Pendejo.”

“What is your name, Chica?”

“Oh, I go by many names, Pendejo. Why don’ you
guess, and I will tell you what is right?”

“Jezebel?”

“No.”

“Lorelei?”

“No.”

 “Ophelia?”

“No.”

“Lucretia?”

“No. But I like that name.”

“Chiquita.”

“No.” She grinned. “You called me that last time.”
She ran her thumbnail across her teeth.

“Diablo?”

“Now, you are being silly, Pendejo. And I would
be Diabla.”

“I give up, Chica.”

“That is it! I am Chica.”

“I doubt it.”

“What is your name, Pendejo?”

“Arvel.”

She laughed. “That is a funny name.”

“I am a funny man.”

She yawned. “You
are
a funny man,
Pendejo. Why don’ you get angry with me?”

“I don’t know. I think you are funny, too.”

“I am tired, Pendejo.”

“Then you should go home and go to bed,
wherever that might be.”

“I am thirsty, Pendejo.” She suddenly wanted
him. She knew this would do it. Either she’d be in or out after this and it was
just as well to get it over and done with.  “Would you get me some water?”

“Oh, you are a lot of trouble.” He stood up and
reached for a robe.

“Ay, chingao! Wha’ happened to your back,
Pendejo?’

“I got blown up in the war.”

“What war?”

“The great rebellion between the states. You
know, the Civil War.”

“Ah, sí, I know this war, the war where you
gringos tried to rub each other out.”

He grinned. “Yea, that war.”

“Ay, you are a mess, Pendejo.” She stretched,
catlike, “I am tired, Pendejo, and thirsty.”

“Yes, I know.”

He sauntered out to get her a drink.

She acted quickly, shucking her clothes and
jumping into bed, pulling the covers to her chin. She turned to the window and
feigned sleep.

“Oh, you are a lot of trouble.” He muttered
under his breath as he watched her sleep. He curled up on the divan at the foot
of the bed. He dozed off and began to dream.

She waited, then realized he was lying at the
foot of the bed. She was beginning to wonder if he was not a stupid gringo.
“Pendejo.”

“What?”

“What are you doing, Pendejo?”

“Not sleeping.”

“Come to bed, Pendejo. I am cold.”

“It is sweltering, Chica.”

“I am cold.”

His mind raced.

“I am afraid, Pendejo.”

He laughed.  “You, afraid? I think not.”

“You do not like me, Pendejo? No?”

“No… Yes, I like you Chica. Like I like a pit
of rattlers.” He sat up, then stood to face her. “It is not appropriate,
Chica.”

“What is this, appropriate? What does this
mean?”

“Proper.”

She knew now that she loved him completely.
This was a man who did not take such things lightly. This was a man who’d not
been with a woman for a long time, yet he was not weak. He did not jump on her
like he was some rutting bull. He was a man who didn’t run with the whores and
this is what made Maria love him all the more. He’d be a good one and now she
felt vulnerable and silly, naked under the covers. She took a deep breath.  But
it had to be. It had to be this way and she went forward. She played her silly
game and went on.

“Ay, you are a fool, Pendejo.” She looked into
his eyes and pouted her lips, like someone who had not gotten her way. She
hoped he would not see her trembling. She lifted the covers and scooted away
from him, making room for him in the bed. Maria tilted her head, beckoning him.

“My God.” 

She awoke at dawn, her brown skin contrasting
sharply against Pilar’s crisp white sheets. She was the happiest she’d ever
been in her life. He was good. He loved good and he was gentle and expert at it
and it was a thousand times better than with Crisanto, which was not really
Crisanto’s fault because he was mostly dead. But it was better than Maria could
ever have imagined it would be.

She stretched again, enjoying the comfortable
bed, a bed better than Uncle Alejandro’s and better even than the lady fence’s
bed because it had the mule man in it. He was good and she could not get enough
of him.  She looked up at him, her head resting on his arm, “Pendejo, why are
you looking at me?”

He was fiddling with the earring dangling
nearest to him, and then the bangles on her wrist. He laughed. “I was thinking
of something funny.”

“What, Pendejo?”

“ ‘And I will visit upon her the days of
Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her
ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith
the Lord.’"

She wriggled more deeply into the bed, turned
on her side facing away and pressed herself against him. “You are funny.” She
fell into a deep and restful sleep.

The Mule Tamer

John C.
Horst

Arvel Walsh had gone down early to meet the
posse. He could not sleep and decided to head to town instead of lying in bed,
staring at the ceiling. The story told to him by the chattering young hand about
the slaughter kept him awake. By midnight he was dozing in a small room at the
end of town. He leaned against some rope hanging on the wall of the cramped
quarters, the air dense and still, rank with the odor of horsehair and rawhide
and hemp.

He regretted his decision, now, as he recalled
that old Will Panks had removed the bed just recently. Arvel had to try to get
a little rest sitting on the dirty floor.

Will was a good man and a good friend whom
Arvel had discovered living under the floorboards of the dry goods store’s
porch in the middle of town.  He was an utter wreck when Arvel first came upon
him.

Most of the folks who’d come upon Will were
afraid of him and thought him either an old drunk or addle-brained. Arvel
learned that he was neither and had a mind sharper than most. He was a
prospector trained in geology and civil engineering. One day, due to a slight
error in calculation, he made a misstep and ended his career by breaking his
back in the desert. He crawled miles and ended up, penniless and without means,
in Arvel’s little town.

Arvel set him up in the shack which was not, at
the time, more than a lean-to at the very edge of town. Will was a proud man
and would accept minimal help from Arvel and no financial aid, whatsoever.
Slowly, with constant hard work, Will was able to regain control of his legs
and now walked stooped over in a permanent crouch.

He earned his living making rope. As he got
money he’d add a wall here and a window there. At some point he’d found an old
rolltop desk in the desert, the discarded flotsam from a prairie schooner, let
go by an overzealous traveler. He found a chair on a burning heap and rescued
it and, until recently, had an old featherbed in the cramped quarters.  It
eventually became quite homey and kept Will out of the elements. As his health
improved, his fortunes did as well and he now was able to live rather
comfortably in the only boarding house in town.

Arvel was just drifting off when the barrage of
gunfire jolted him to his senses. He peered through the cracks in the door. A
rider, Mexican, judging from the saddle and sombrero, was racing up the street,
firing in every direction. The miscreant stopped to reload, just feet from the
shack’s porch.  Arvel grabbed one of the ropes hanging on the wall and slowly
opened the door. When the rider holstered the first gun, Arvel stepped out onto
the porch, threw his loop and jerked.  The rider was pulled free from his
saddle and landed on the ground, neck first. The horse galloped off and Arvel
walked up to his prisoner.

The offender was a woman. Arvel picked her up
and quickly threw her over his shoulder, grabbed her hat and rushed inside the
shack. A Mexican would not be popular now. He eased her down onto the floor of
the shed, tossed her hat aside, and began looking her over to see what damage
he had done. She did not appear to be more than twenty. Her loose fitting
outfit, despite its manly style, could not betray a well-proportioned frame.
She wore a print cotton shirt, bright red scarf and striped brown vaquero
pants. Her black boots were stitched ornately.  Her gun belt carried a pair of
silver-colored Schofields with fancy ivory handles. A matching vaquero dagger
hung in a sheath in front of the holster on the right. The rig bore an
abundance of polished conchos. Her tanned skin contrasted with the many bangles
running up each arm.

Arvel smiled as a memory of his wife teasing
him suddenly returned. When they made their forays into Mexico, the dark
beauties never failed to turn his head and she loved to give him a hard time
about it.

He suddenly regretted harming the girl. She was
lovely and reeked of tobacco and spirits and human and horse sweat and earth.
Like the whores in Tombstone, she was alluring and off-putting at the same
time. He nearly forgot her transgressions as he watched her. He was right to
stop her from shooting up the town. At least he did not put a ball in her.

 Her face bore a peaceful expression as she lay
there on the dusty floorboards among the bits of hair and hemp. It was a face
formed by the centuries mingling Spanish and Indian blood.  A small scar under
her bottom lip added to her beauty and imparted a not insignificant suggestion
of danger. She sighed as he removed her gun belt. The little viper would be
more difficult to defang after she had awakened. 

He removed her scarf, wetted it from his
canteen and began cleaning the dust from her face and arms and decided it
better to leave the rest. He turned his attention to her rig. He fumbled with
the latch on one of the six shooters; they were a type he had seen only a few
times. He never had much use for six shooters. The gun sprang open, ejecting
cartridge cases into the air and clattering on the floor. The girl awoke at the
commotion.

“Ay, chingao!” She felt her head and sat up slowly.
She looked around the room, and then at her captive. “Pendejo, what are you
doing?”

“Waiting for you to wake up.” He placed the gun
back in its holster, and set the rig down, out of her reach.

“Ay, look at my clothes.” She took the damp
scarf and began brushing herself off. “Did you wipe me down, Pendejo?” She
looked at him suspiciously.

“I did.  But not where I shouldn’t.”

“What?”

“Not on your private parts.” He smiled at her.
She amused him. “Are you trying to be hanged, or are you just stupid?”

She rubbed a knot on her head with her scarf,
then looked at it for blood. “Ay, my head is sore.” She looked at him again.
“What are you talking about,
gringo
?”

“Do you not know of the troubles?”

“No.” She was trying to focus. “Are you some
kind of law, mister?”

“No.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it,
offered her one. She refused it and pulled out a cigar, leaning forward so that
he could light it. “So you don’t know about the murder of the family outside of
town?” He had not given it any thought, but was now wondering if she might have
been part of it.  She was unfazed.

“No, I know nothing of any murder. Ay, you
really hurt me, Pendejo.” Rubbing the back of her neck, she looked around the
room. “So, I am not arrested?”

“No.”

“Where is my horse?’

“Beats me. Tombstone by now, shot dead, not
certain. It ran off like its hind parts were on fire, heading south. Heard lots
of shooting, so the towns’ folk were probably shooting at it. What kind of
stupid stunt was that anyway, shooting up the town?”

She rubbed her head then picked up her hat. “I
don’ know, Pendejo, when I drink some mescal, I do some things.” She stood up
and stretched her back, blew smoke at the ceiling of the shack. “I really gotta
go, Pendejo, will you let me go?”

“Not without a horse.” He looked at his watch.
The posse would be meeting up just before sunrise. “I tell you what, let me go
find your horse and you stay here. Don’t leave, understand?”

“Sí, I understand.” She reached for her gun
belt and looked for his reaction. He let her.

He walked out of the shed, onto the porch, and
looked around for activity. Further down the street people were milling about.
He untied Sally and mounted up; he rode south in the direction the horse had
galloped. He passed several townspeople and no one seemed to pay him any mind.
They had been through a lot, with the murder of the family nearby and now some
crazy pistolero galloping up and down the street, shooting up the place.

They were all on edge and most were armed. Many
had been drinking all day and into the evening and Arvel was certain if they
found the young woman, they’d all be regretting their actions in the morning.
He rode a quarter mile out of town and soon spotted the fancy saddle reflecting
moonlight.

The girl’s pony was an equine version of her
mistress, beautiful and dangerous. She looked up from browsing as Arvel
approached. He spoke to her calmly and she went back to feeding. He grabbed the
reins and the filly willingly followed. Sally had a maternal influence on
horses; they liked to follow the mule.

Back at the shed, the outlaw girl was prying on
a locked drawer of Will Panks’ rolltop with her big knife.  Other drawers were
upended, papers scattered on the floor and desktop.

“Hey, stop that!” He pushed her away and began
straightening up. “So, you’re a thief as well as a drunkard?”

“I need money, Pendejo.”

“Has working or getting married or doing
something honest ever crossed your mind?” Arvel continued to put the place back
in order.

She spit on the floor. “I don’ need to work and
I don’ need a man. I take what I want, Pendejo, like you
gringo
s take and take from the people who have been
here for hundreds of years. You are just as much as thief as me.”

He laughed. “Well, you have a point there.”

She looked him up and down. “You are a strange
gringo
, Pendejo. You don’ look very much like,
like…”

“Not very tough?”  He smiled. “I know, I know.
I’ve heard that before.”

“Why are you not so mean to me, Pendejo? Most
gringo
white men don’ want nothin’ to do with me.
They avoid even to look at me.”

“I think you’re funny.” He smiled.  He looked
at his watch again. “You’d better beat it out of here.”

“Why so secret, Pendejo?”

“What’s this Pendejo?”

“Oh, I don’ know, it just seem to fit.”

“It wouldn’t be good if the people around here
caught you. They’d likely string you up, just for good measure. A bandit gang
of Mexicans and Indians killed a whole family just outside of town. It was
pretty bad. The leader wears a gold sombrero. Maybe you know him?”

“Ay, chingao, sí, I know him, Pendejo. He is
mal puro. One day, I will meet up with him and kill him, but he is like smoke,
he is hard to catch.”

“We’re meeting in a couple of hours to go after
that gang.”

“You, Pendejo?” She chuckled. “You better not
go after bandits, or they will be digging a grave for
you,
especially
Sombrero Del Oro.”

He was growing tired of her impudence and took
her by the arm. “I appreciate your concern, Chiquita, but I’ll be just fine.
How old are you, anyway?”

“Guess, Pendejo.” She eyed him devilishly. She
liked the attention he was giving her.

“Sixteen?”

“
Hah
! I have twenty-six years, Pendejo.”

“Well, you won’t have twenty-seven years if you
keep this up. Now, get on your horse and ride. Don’t stop.” He tossed a
half-eagle at her. He didn’t know why. “And I don’t want to hear from or see
you in these parts again.”

She turned to leave, then grabbed him and
kissed him hard on the mouth. She thought for a moment, and kissed him again,
harder this time. It was the first good kiss he’d had in five years. “You kiss
good, Pendejo.”  She was gone.

* * *

Olaf Knudsen had come to the states twenty-two
years ago. He was not married when he arrived and had only the clothes on his
back and twenty one dollars. He worked in New York City for five years; seven
days a week in a textile factory. After work, he went home and worked another
three hours every night assembling ladies garters. His diet was salted fish and
cabbage, not because he could not afford anything else, but because, by so
eating, he could save more than sixty percent of his wages. He shared a bed
with five other men. Two men shared one bed every eight hours. He dreamed of
owning a dairy farm, and after five years, had enough money to purchase
everything necessary to move west and pursue his dream. He picked up a nice
wife along the way, and soon had a burgeoning family. They all had one purpose,
and that was to make a successful farm. What took a lifetime of sweat and
dreaming and toil was destroyed in less than an hour.

Arvel sat Sally and smoked. In the past twenty
four hours his life and the life of everyone else in the region had been turned
upside down. They had lived peacefully and uneventfully for years. No Indians,
no miners, no gamblers, no Mexican bandits. The community had slipped into a
quiet complacency, and that suited Arvel Walsh just fine.

He was working on five mules nearly
simultaneously when the young man came riding up to his ranch, out of breath,
flush with excitement, to tell him the news of the Knudsen family. He was
amused by the boy, who was young and hungry for adventure. Arvel thought that
he was not unlike himself thirty years ago, but now, well into his forties,
hearing of this kind of excitement only made him sad. He was sad for the
Knudsens, of course, but he was also sad that his mundane, complacent, normal
life had been disrupted. He was getting used to the sameness of the days, and
the only excitement that he now experienced was when a hand got kicked by an
overexcited donkey, or horse, or mule. Everything was humming along nicely for
Arvel Walsh, until now.

Posse
Comitatus

The men Arvel had been waiting for gathered just
before sunrise. Since no one had been taken captive during the previous day’s
slaughter, it had been pointless to give chase after sunset. Twelve men
responded to the request by the deputy sheriff. The fellow in charge was a
small man, no more than twenty five years old. He had been one of the deputy
sheriffs for around six months and had proven himself in words only.

He had a fine Stetson and a fancy gun rig. His
six shooter was bright nickel and the grip had a naked woman carved garishly on
the outside panel. Many cartridges, more than fifty, were snugly fixed into
loops across the front of his belt as he wore his rig with the buckle in the
back. He had a giant knife, like an overgrown Bowie, with an ornate handle
which stuck, menacingly, in front of the six shooter’s holster. He looked
uncomfortable and out of place in these clothes, as if he’d put them on to have
his portrait taken. His scarf was a bit puffy and too tightly tied around his
neck and tended to creep up over his chin as he moved. He continuously pulled
it back into place.