Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) (4 page)

Maria looked hurt and Juana regretted her
comment. “Why not take some new ones?”

Maria considered the girl’s suggestion. She
looked around. She’d not thought about it until now.

“The son of a bitch owes it to you, Maria. He
took away,” she pointed at Maria’s midsection, “you know, that.”

“We should take the money, too.” Maria was
emboldened by Juana’s comment.

“You’re right.” Juana searched and found a
money box. She handed it over to Maria.

“You take half, Juana.”

“No, it’s yours. The dirty devil owes you.” She
looked around. “We should get new clothes.”

“Someone’ll see us with them, that’ll never
do.” Maria thought about the pretty dress she wore briefly. It looked and felt
nice on her.

Juana suddenly had an epiphany. “Let’s take it
all.” She smiled at Maria.

“How?”

“Sanchez has a wagon. His horse and wagon
showed up this morning. The wagon’s outside and the horse is at the stable,
where we met.”

Maria considered it. Her mind raced. If they
took everything from the store, certainly it wouldn’t all fit in one wagon, and
it would take all night to do this.

“We’ll be caught and what do we do with a wagon
full of stolen things anyway?”

“No, no, Maria.” Juana put up a hand. “That man
who got killed, that’ll keep pendejo Pedro busy most of the night. No one’ll be
around here until morning. We can take the stuff that we want, stuff we can
easily sell. I know of a man by the sea. He is a fencer.”

“A what?”

Juana smiled at Maria’s continued ignorance. “A
fencer. He buys things, no questions asked. He’ll buy our things. We’ll be
rich.”

Maria was beginning to sober up from the beer
and now she had a headache. She looked at Juana and then all around at the
store. “Okay.”

By sunrise they were plodding west. Just as
Juana thought, no one caught them; no one even came down the street while they
were cleaning Sanchez out. By midmorning she’d counted all the money. They had
nearly three hundred pesos. They also had three outfits each, two hats each,
five shotguns, six rifles and half a dozen six shooters. They had many boxes of
ammunition. They had ten dozen bottles of beer, five cases of whiskey and ten
boxes of cigars.

This was all Juana’s idea. She had considered
very carefully what the men liked most at the whore house, other than the
whores, and it was always whiskey, beer, cigars and guns. She was certain the
fence would pay them well.

Maria regarded the horse. He was a fine animal
and she’d regret giving him up.  She loved horses though she’d never known or
even ridden one. He was a nice horse and Maria had a way with him as she had
with all animals. Goats, sheep, dogs and cats always loved Maria. Now she could
add horses to the list of animals she could control, mesmerize, and she didn’t
know why. She was just good with animals. 

They had candy and beer for breakfast and
afterward smoked a couple of cigars. It was getting hot and they put their new
hats on. Maria was now having a little fun, driving the wagon as Juana fiddled
with their treasure.

In short order, she emerged with a six shooter
and began looking through the boxes of cartridges to find a match. She finally
found the right ones and loaded the gun.

“Do you know how to shoot?” Maria looked on as
Juana pointed the gun at her own belly. Maria turned the muzzle away.

“Sure. You just pull on this.” She pointed to
the trigger and suddenly blew a hole through the carriage floor between their
feet. “Oops.”

“Juana. You’re going to kill us.” Maria stopped
the wagon and got down. She took the gun from Juana and remembered the little
man shooting the bully through the head. She gripped the gun. It felt right.
She turned away from Juana and the wagon and spotted a rock on the ground. She
pointed and fired, shattering the rock and throwing pieces of it into the air.

“Ay chingao. You are good!”

Maria tried again and repeated her performance.
“You did this before.”

“Never.” Maria was proud. “Here, you try.”

She helped Juana and the child fired, actually
missing the ground in front of them. They looked at each other and shrugged.
They got back in the wagon and rode on.

Maria handed Juana the gun but she pushed it
back. “You take it, carry it, we might get robbed.” She laughed. “Robbers
getting robbed.”

“Are there bandits around here?” Maria scanned
the horizon around them, doubtfully.

“Maria, there are always bandits around here.
Everywhere. This is a poor country and bandits are all over.”

They would not reach the man who’d buy their
goods for at least another two days and they decided to camp. Maria took them
off the road for a good distance and drove into an arroyo. They’d not be seen
now and they settled in for the night. They decided to eat better and left the
candy and beer alone. They found canned peaches amongst their booty and had
them with a chicken and rabbit Maria killed with one of the rifles. She liked
shooting the rifle better than the six shooter. It was great sport.

Juana looked up at the sky and then into the
little fire Maria had made with her flint and steel. Maria did not think to use
the box of matches as she’d only ever used the flint and steel. No one in their
little village was rich enough to own matches. Maria and the old woman were
even too poor to have their own flint and steel, they just kept a fire going
all the time. The nice woman with the mean man used to loan them the flint and
steel if they let the fire go out.

“What are we going to do with the money we get
from the fencer?”

Maria considered this as she stared into the
fire. She hadn’t thought about it.  “What do you think we should do?”

“Let’s start our own whorehouse.”

Maria thought about that. She didn’t want to
have a whorehouse. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, in her heart, in the
pit of her stomach, she knew she didn’t want to have a whorehouse.

“No. I don’t want that. No.”

Juana shrugged. “Okay. What then?”

“How about goats?”

“Goats?”

“I’ve kept goats. I know them. We could have
goats. We could buy some and breed them. Soon we’d have many and then we’d sell
them. We could sell the milk and make cheese, too. I know how to make cheese.”

“Okay.” Juana sat back and pushed herself into
one of Sanchez’s nice blankets. It was getting a little cold and she moved
closer to Maria. They were soon sound asleep, tired from their night’s thievery
and long journey to the sea. They held each other and it was a good feeling.
They had dreams of canned fruit and good cigars and brightly colored candies.

They rode for another day and slept another
night in the desert. By midday of the third day they came upon a settlement and
the people were friendly. They traded for a hot meal and learned how to get to
the little shop by the sea. They’d be there by midday next. It was exciting and
as they slept in the barn, under a carriage, Maria could feel something moving
under her head. She looked up and saw Juana sliding a six shooter beneath her
makeshift pillow. She smiled into Juana’s eyes.

“Just in case, Maria, just in case.”

The store was not unlike Sanchez’s store, but
it backed up to the Gulf of California. The girls thought it must be the ocean
as they did not know of such things. It was beautiful and they’d never seen
such water.

The shop owner was a kindly looking man who was
really a snake, but a wily snake who had learned to survive among thieves by
treating them well—all of them, even if they were of the diminutive variety.

He was famous throughout the land and this is
how Juana knew of him. She’d learned a great deal from the whores and their
clients. Bad men liked to talk and brag, and what better place to brag in than
a brothel?

He walked out of his store with his little
customers and eyed the goods. They were high quality and he knew where they had
come from. He looked the horse and the wagon over as well. He looked at the
girls and surveyed their clothing.

“I’ll take it all and trade with you for some
burros and clothes. You don’t want to be caught in any of that.”

He pointed at them and they looked down. Maria
was a little disappointed, then disappointed in herself for not thinking of it.
It would take a lot of thinking and planning to be a successful bandit. She was
glad she’d be out of the trading business once this transaction was completed.

Now it was Juana’s turn to be clever. “Mister,
here is what we need.” He looked at her and listened intently.

The man liked the girls and he turned out to be
a good man, despite his trade. There was so much wickedness in the land and the
man, by one set of circumstances or another, found himself in the business. It
was essentially easy, as the government was corrupt and he need only pay tribute
to the local authorities in order to ply his trade.

He had an assistant, a young woman who was very
pretty and she too was kind to the girls. It was as if she’d known what they’d
been through up to this point in their young lives. She invited them to dine
with her and the man and to sleep inside. There was a little room in the garret
and it had windows on either end. The sea breezes made sleeping comfortable.

They slept together and Maria felt good again,
just as she had in the whorehouse bed, but this one was even better. It did not
stink or sag and the covers weren’t red. They were white and bright and clean
and smelled good because the fence’s assistant hung them out in the ocean
breeze to dry.

The pillow was the best, though. Maria had
never felt such a pillow. It was made of good goose down and cradled her head
and neck. She wondered if maybe they should just stay with these people. They
could work and help out and let the people keep all the money from Sanchez’s
goods. Then Maria would not really be a thief because she hadn’t profited from
the goods. She’d just transported them and the fence took them and let them
stay as a favor. She fell asleep dreaming of this as Juana snored softly in her
ear.

But it would not do for them to stay there. They
ate breakfast and listened to the man as the pretty assistant moved about,
completing various tasks. The man held court and lectured them on being bandits
and on the various dangers they would encounter. The girls sat, wide-eyed, as
they’d not considered the many things the man spoke of to them. They could not
begin to imagine how much danger was involved and it made Maria wish she’d
never done any of it.

The assistant sensed it and moved up behind
Maria’s chair. She stroked her head gently and Maria got a flutter in her
stomach like she’d never known. She sat, frozen.  She didn’t want the woman to
stop stroking her head. She started to ask why they couldn’t stay here forever
when the man started speaking again.

“You two could go up north.” He lit a cigarette
he’d just finished rolling and then regarded the assistant who was becoming too
attached to the girls. The fence was not an old man and he didn’t want the
assistant distracted with young girls. Besides, he’d grown up in a house full
of girls and didn’t want that right now. He continued. “With the money you two
have, you could go up to Texas or even Arizona or California and live well for
a while. No one will try to find you.”

Maria could see it in his eyes. She and Juana
were not wanted or welcome here. She glanced over at the pretty woman, now
keeping busy with something at the stove. She looked back at the man smoking.
It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t like the mean man at the village, and he wasn’t
like the rurale, Pendejo Pedro, and he wasn’t like Sanchez. He was just a man
who did not want to take in two girls and she couldn’t fault him for that.

“Gringos are all assholes.” Juana looked at the
man and then at Maria. She was pleased with herself for such a bold
declaration. She sat smugly finishing the food on Maria’s plate.

“What are gringos?”

Juana laughed and looked at the man. “Maria is
from the country. I think she lived under a rock. She knows almost nothing.”

The man nodded, knowingly. “The Americanos, the
ones up north. They’re not all assholes, just most of them.”

The pretty assistant came back and wanted to
know what they were talking about. She blew air between pursed lips. “No, this
is not a good idea. They would not do well up there. They have no English and
they are too dark. The Americanos don’t like Indians. Look at what happened
with Custer.”

The man ignored her and stood up. “Well, maybe
so.” He was not really interested in what they would do next, as long as they
were not living with him. He wandered outside and left the three of them alone.

The assistant took them down to the shoreline
and they swam in the big water for the first time in their lives. Maria loved
the saltiness and they stayed in the surf for the rest of the day. The pretty
woman watched them.

“You two are very lucky young girls.”

They stopped and looked at her. They wondered
if she meant because of the money and it was if she read their minds.

“You have each other and that is a good thing.”

They pulled themselves out of the water and sat
down next to the assistant. She had something to tell them and they respected
her. She was a kind young woman and they wanted to please her.

“What will you do?”

Maria spoke up, automatically, before Juana
could open her mouth. She was not convinced that Juana had given up on the brothel
idea and didn’t want her to tell the assistant about it. “We’re going to get
goats.”

“I see.” She liked this idea. Maybe they’d go
into a village and out of the path of the bad men. She continued. “I want you
two to remember some things.”