The Promise of Jenny Jones (10 page)

Although the prospect frightened her badly, she realized that eventually she would have to speak to a stranger, would have to ask directions, a dangerous act she had been cautioned against all of her life. Thus far she hadn't mustered the courage to approach any of the people who jostled each other in the streets as the morning progressed, but she was uncomfortably aware that she attracted attention.

Her hair hung loose like the hair of the ragged girls she saw in the streets, a condition distinctly at odds with the rich fabric and workmanship of her traveling skirt and jacket. The campesinos' daughters wore hats only on Sunday, and their hats were made of plaited straw, not fabric like Graciela's. They wore shapeless dresses, nothing fashionable or trimmed with lace and braid.

Most telling, her fine clothing signaled that she should have been accompanied by a duenna or a family member.

That a richly dressed child wandered alone made her an object of curiosity and speculation. This meant that Jenny would experience little difficulty following her. She would be remembered.

Pausing beneath the shade of a log-and-thatch overhang, Graciela observed inquisitive dark eyes sliding her way. Wringing her hands and averting her gaze, she understood that she had to do something to hide herself, and she had to ask someone for directions. Both courses of action confused and upset her.

Always before there had been adults to make the decisions, adults to protect and care for her. Never had she been on her own or imagined that she would be. She was not accustomed to or prepared to rely on herself. Therefore, no solution leaped to mind when she wondered how she might evade the eyes and memory of the vendors ranged along the street.

Troubled, she watched a wagon rumble past, watched the driver turn on the seat to look at her, and she stamped her boot in frustration.

What would her mama have done to solve this predicament? Or Aunt Tete? Unfortunately Graciela could not imagine either her gentle mother or ancient Aunt Tete ever finding herself in a situation like this.

However, she experienced no difficulty imagining that Jenny might want to hide from someone. She considered this realization. What would Jenny do? Though it galled her to rely on the person she most hated, the very person she wished to escape, thinking about Jenny revealed the first inklings of a solution. Jenny would do whatever was necessary; neither pride nor vanity would stand in Jenny's way. Jenny would…

Gradually Graciela comprehended that she had been staring for several minutes at a barefoot urchin on the other side of the cobblestone street. The girl appeared to be about Graciela's age, but there the similarity ended.

She wore a formless dress that once had been white but was now gray with age and heavily soiled. Rips in the skirt showed flashes of bare leg, and a torn sleeve hung from her shoulder. Her hair had not known the touch of a comb or brush in recent memory, and dirt, twigs, and odd lumps were matted in the strands as if she had used the cobbles for her pillow. The girl was very dirty.

Lifting her hem, Graciela darted across the street, dodging offal, refuse, and horses and carts. When she stood before the girl, she noticed the child helda half -eaten tamale. The scent of roasted corn and meat made her stomach grumble.

"My name is … Theodora," Graciela announced solemnly. The girl slid an expressionless stare up from Graciela's fashionable little boots to the ruffles trimming the throat of her jacket, but she didn't speak. Graciela glanced at the corn husks peeled back from the tamale and swallowed hard. "What's your name?"

"Maria, Señorita," the girl said finally. Shy before the richness of Graciela's clothing, she focused on a point somewhere above Graciela's shoulder.

Graciela clasped her gloved hands against her skirt and watched two caballeros prance down the street. One had a saddle with silver inlaid on a wide pommel. Her cousin Emil had a saddle like that one.

"This is my first visit toDurango," she said. "I rode on a train."

Awe filled Maria's eyes. "You rode on the train?" The tamale forgotten in her hand, she stared as if Graciela had fallen from the pages of a storybook. "Where is your duenna?" she asked at last. Even a street urchin knew a personage such as Graciela was never left unattended.

"Iwas stolen by an evilwitch," Graciela explained, watching to see if Maria believed her.

"Oh!" Maria's eyes widened, and she nodded. "The same thing happened to my sister."

"I escaped. I ran away from the witch because she wants to cut my hair to look like a boy's."

Maria did not disappoint. The girl examined the shiny hair falling nearly to Graciela's waist and horror filled her eyes. A sense of satisfaction swelled Graciela's chest. Even a child of the streets knew it was wrong to shear a female's glory.

"I have an idea," Graciela said, leaning to whisper in Maria's ear. When she finished speaking, excitement danced in Maria's dark eyes, and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Bueno." Taking Graciela's hand, she led the way into a narrow alley and ducked behind a mound of smoldering trash.

When they emerged, Maria wore Graciela's finery and Graciela wore the filthy dress with the rips and tears, her gold locket pinned inside at the waist. Also, she had what remained of the girl's tamale. She finished the tamale in four hungry bites,then dropped the corn husks on the cobbles. As she had no napkin, she hesitated,then wiped her greasy fingers against the folds of the skirt she now wore. The clothing stank.

"Thank you," she said to Maria. Her traveling outfit was small for Maria, and a seam along the waist had already begun to unravel, but Maria gazed down at herself with blazing pride shining in her eyes.

When she finally remembered Graciela, she pointed to Graciela's hair and then to her own. At once Graciela understood. Sighing, hating it, she bent to the street and filled her hands with dirt, powdery sun-baked dung, and rotting garbage. The stench made her eyes water, but she rubbed the refuse into her hair. With a weak smile and a wave, she moved away from Maria, who had lifted her new skirt to inspect the first shoes ever to grace her feet.

Before she had walked half a block, Graciela turned her attention to her own bare feet. Aside from the tenderness of unhardened soles, she felt a rush of disgust when she stepped on anything wet, anything that oozed up between her toes. Revulsion shivered down her body when her bare foot came down on something warm and soft and smelling of dog.

Shuddering, she hurried blindly forward, not pausing until Maria was lost in the maze of narrow lanes and twisting streets behind her. Only then did she stop to catch her breath and dare to lift her eyes and carefully examine the people moving around her.

No one looked at her. No one paid her the slightest attention. She had become as invisible as the wind.

A jubilant grin curved her mouth and she swallowed a shout, celebrating her own cleverness. "She will never find me," she said aloud, pleased withherself . The town was too large and teeming with people, there were too many alleys and places to hide. And now, no one would remember her.

She had triumphed over her enemy.

Not ten minutes later a hand landed heavily on her shoulder, and a man bent to examine her face. "Hola, chica," he said in a hoarse voice that made her mouth go dry and her blood turn cold. If snakes could talk, they would sound like this man.

"You and me," he said, flicking his tongue at her, "we are going to be very good friends. Sí."

Possessive fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder.

* * *

Heart pounding, Jenny raced to the end of the block,then halted, spinning around to scowl back at the hotel entrance. Gracielamight have turned left instead of right.

"Goddamn it!" She struck her thigh with her hat, then jammed it on her head and glared up and down the crowded streets.

Not since childhood had she experienced panic this gut deep and overwhelming. Her heart galloped in her chest, she couldn't breathe,her hands trembled as if she had the palsy.

Think, she commanded herself, calm yourself and think.

Graciela couldn't have gotten far. Most importantly, she would be remembered, a kid alone wearing a fancy outfit that screamed wealth and status. That was the place to start; inquire about the outfit. Striding forward, she hurried from one vendor's stall to another until she was satisfied that Graciela had not come this way. Reversing direction, she tried another street and another, her shoulders as tense as rock until she located a mestizo woman selling blankets. The woman remembered Graciela.

From that point, it was as easy as following the beads on a necklace that would circle her right up behind the little snot. When she found Graciela, she would wring the kid's neck. Getting angrier by the minute, Jenny followed the trail until finally she spotted Graciela in the middle of the next block. Breaking into a run, she closed the distance.

And stopped abruptly when she saw the girl was not Graciela. The child wore Graciela's clothing, but she was filthy and she didn't move with Graciela's ladylike prissiness and grace. At once Jenny understood what had happened, damn it to hell.

Removing her hat, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and scanned the traffic moving in the street, the women strolling toward the mercado, baskets slung over their arms. Her gaze swept the street children and the ubiquitous dogs darting through carts and wagons, dodging among the flow of pedestrians.

Grudgingly, she conceded that Graciela was farmore clever than she had believed. And the kid was in far more danger than Jenny could bear to contemplate.

The sweat appearing on her brow had nothing to do with the sun blazing overhead. Her hands started to shake again.

Graciela could step in front of a wagon or a horse and be run down and crippled in the street. She could be dragged into an alley and raped and murdered. She could be abducted and sold to a child brothel; Jenny had heard of such places. A hundred unthinkable horrors could happen to a child alone and lost in a rough mining town of this size.

Trembling with anxiety and frustration, Jenny glared at the dirty little creature wearing Graciela's fine clothing. There was no point questioning her. The chase ended here, and Jenny knew it.

Swearing beneath her breath, she turned into a café and bought a cup of strong Mexican coffee, which she carried back to the street, sipping while she watched the rhythm of the town unfold, while she fought to control the panic boiling in her stomach.

She felt as helpless as she had felt sitting in her jail cell waiting to be executed.

Then Marguarita had appeared and calmly offered Jenny her life in exchange for a promise. Jenny had given her promise, her solemn word, and Marguarita had died; Marguarita had kept her end of the bargain.

A stream of cusswords blistered her tongue. Marguarita's part had been easy, all Marguarita had to do was die. Dying was a fricking piece of cake next to dealing with this kid.

A huge sigh lifted Jenny's chest.

If anything happened to Graciela, she might as well put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. Her life wouldn't be worth crap if her promise meant nothing, if she failed the woman who had died in her place.

Acid poured into her stomach, and she felt like throwing up. Leaning a hand against the café's adobe wall, she dropped her head and swallowed repeatedly.

All right. She knew two things. First, there was nothing she could do for the next several hours, nothing at all. Graciela was on her own, in the hands of God or whoever. Jenny had to accept that she was helpless to intervene; there was nothing she could do except hope like hell that the damned kid was lucky. Second, she knew where Graciela would be atseven o'clocktonight. That is, if Graciela continued to be as resourceful as it appeared she was, then Jenny knew where the kid was going. Please God, let the little snot be there atseven o'clock.

Straightening, she drank the rest of her coffee,then tossed the cup to a waiter. She needed food, but her stomach was cramping so badly that she doubted she could hold anything down.

Walking aimlessly, staring at each urchin she passed, she gradually settled her mind into accepting what she could not change. The best plan was to keep busy. Do the things she had planned for today before the fricking kid ran away and made her age ten years. That included buying boy's clothing for thekid, and a sidearm for herself. These chores would take about an hour.

This was going to be the longest day in her sorry life.

* * *

"Now aren't you the prettiest little thing."

Even the man's voice was hot and oily. His breath in her face smelled of chilies and cigars and something sickly-sweet that made Graciela think of liquid flame. His eyes frightened her badly.

"You're hurting me," she whispered, wiggling beneath the fingers clamping her shoulder. Darting a look toward the street, she realized that no one paid them any attention. Near the door of a leather store, a man backhanded a boy, and the boy shouted in pain. No one glanced in his direction either.

Heart thumping in her chest, she dragged her gaze back to the man kneeling in front of her, blocking her way. One hand gripped hershoulder, the other circled her ankle and slid up her bare leg to her knee.

Shock stiffened her body. No man had ever touched her so intimately, and she knew instinctively that it was very wrong.

"Would you like to come with me, chica? We'll have some food, something cool to drink."

"No." Her mouth was as dry as the desert air.

"Light skin, light eyes." The man's fingers inched toward her thighs and Graciela's stomach lurched. "We'll make a fortune together." A speculative gaze dropped to her mouth and he licked his lips.

With sickening clarity Graciela understood the man meant to do something bad to her regardless of her protests. She stared at his thick neck and wide chest and black dots of fear swirled in front of her eyes.

Panicked, she tried to think what to do. What would Jenny do? Jenny wouldn't meekly give up; Jenny would not let this man put his hot hands on her.

Pretending that she was Jenny, Graciela turned her head and bit down on the man's forearm. She held on until she tasted blood. At the same time she kicked out with her free leg and felt her heel strike something soft between his thighs. He shouted, and they both fell to the ground, rolling toward the hooves of a burro. In a flash, Graciela sprang to her feet and ran as fast as she could, skidding around a corner then another corner and another until she was gasping for breath and holding her side.