The Hardest Ride Page 3

  She looked at me, staring into my face with her snapping black eyes. After a piece, it seemed like she’d decided something about me. She nodded sharp and stepped up to Burro. Glaring at me, she stooped over, locked her hands together, and stood back up.

  “Oh, you expect me to give you a boost. Well, I guess you need help, you being so puny.” Sincerely hoping some cowpoke didn’t happen along, I bent over, locking my hands. I ain’t never figured myself doing this for a Mex gal.

  Sitting on Burro, she pulled a wicked-looking boning knife out of her sleeve and dropped it in her bag. Well, crap. I’d best mind my manners.

  She nodded, and I took that as permission to mount and off we rode. For someone who don’t say much, she surely says a lot.

  Chapter Five

  “What in the blue blazes am I doing?”

  I keep looking back, and she always still there on Burro. Least she weren’t talking none, not that I would of understood much. Least there wasn’t any rain.

  The sun dropped in the west, and I kept plodding along. The old punch said I’d get to Uvalde sometime around dark. Well, it was nearing dark, and I’d ain’t seen no sign of nobody, much less a town. I’d crossed what I judged the Frio River.

  I was ready to call it a day. What with the dark clouds, night would fall dark real quick. I was played out, and I was sure the girl was too. Burro gave a bouncy ride, I expect. That girl must be having some powerful troubling thoughts. Must be tough after what she saw. She’d moved them dead Mexes—her ma and pa, and little brother and sister. I couldn’t even think about having to do that, especially a girl doing it, even if she’s just a Mex.

  I didn’t need no town. Probably wouldn’t be able to give the girl away at night no how. I headed for a grove of trees to hide in. The girl slid off Burro, so I could lead the animals into trees. She started fetching firewood, lots of it. I unloaded, hobbled the animals, and laid out my bedroll. Then she built a fire. Kind enough of her to pitch in. I figured I could share some grub with her, what there was of it. I was aiming to provision-up in Uvalde. It seemed strange, though, I’d never shared food with a Mex, excepting Tío Pancho.

  The girl piled leaves and laid her blankets on them. She only had two blankets and a heavy serape. Taking the lid off her big pot, she started stirring it and sprinkling something in from little cloth bags. I took out my skillet and the square of bacon I had left. When she saw it, she was on her feet and motioned for me to give them over to her. She must be making some kind of stew and was willing to share. I could do that, I guess. Cutting the bacon up, she started frying it in the skillet, then dumped it in her pot, grease and all. I put on the graniteware coffeepot. When the fire burned down to orange coals, she spooned whatever was in the pot into my skillet. She kept stirring it with a big wooden spoon. It smelled good. I was getting real hungry and no longer distressing about breaking bread with a Mex.

  I pulled out some hardtack squares and offered them to her, but she shook her head and took out some tortillas. They looked a lot better than tasteless hardtack jawbreakers. She laid them one at a time on a little frame of green sticks she’d fashioned and sprinkled water on them. They ended up soft and hot. With a sideways glance, she offered some.

  “Gracias, señorita.”

  She smiled back.

  “Mi nombre es Güero.” I pointed to my hair. She sure don’t talk much. “What’s your nombre?”

  Her smile changed to a sad look, and she pointed to her mouth, shaked her head, and pointed to her mouth again.

  “You can’t talk?” pointing at my mouth, then her.

  She shaked her head again.

  “That’s a damn shame.” I wondered how that came to be. Heck, she couldn’t even tell me her name. A woman what can’t talk, according to some fellas, was a first-rate deal, but it made me sad. Well, I bet she never got her mouth washed out with lye soap for saying dirty words. I surely had when I was little, sometimes for only speaking my mind.

  I filled up my tin cup with coffee, and she had a little cup-size clay bowl. It was colder, and we put away a couple of cups. She did make a face when she tasted my coffee, but that ain’t bother me none. I didn’t much like it my ownself.

  I hung one of my blankets over my shoulders. She wrapped her serape around hers.

  My mouth was watering by the time the stew was ready. It smelled plum good, sharp and spicy. I handed my tin plate to her, and she filled it and her own bigger bowl.

  In the firelight, it looked like frijole beans, but sure smelled different. She wolfed hers down with the wooden spoon.

  I loaded up my spoon with the thick frijole beans. Here goes nothing, me eating with a Mex. Poking it into my mouth, my eyes musta popped open wide, for the girl laughed for the first time. Her laugh sounded kind of strange. I ain’t never tasted nothing like those frijole beans. I shoveled in three more spoonfuls before I said, “Niña, what in dickens you put in these?”

  She looked at me with a smug crooked smile from under her shawl. Fire flickered in her eyes like lightning. That shoulda told me something about her then.

  Those frijole beans were spicy and sweet. I could taste the bacon and ham, but I’d no idea what all else was in it. There were all sorts of bits of something else, green and red stuff the best I could make out. She spooned the stew onto a tortilla and rolled it up, and ate it that way. I tried that too. She gave me a second plateful, but she didn’t eat no more. Chow always tastes better when you’re real hungry and even more gooder when the air’s cold and the grub’s hot. Those frijole beans would of tasted good no matter what. We had more coffee, and I rolled a cigarette. She watched that real close, how I did it.

  I leaned back against my saddle and burped, causing her to laugh. Then she burped too, and we both laughed. Well, the sky hadn’t fallen because I supped with a Mex gal.

  “Your frijole beans, they’re mucho bueno, señorita.”

  She gave me a little smile. Collecting up our eating gear, she poured in a little water and scrubbed them down with sand. She put the lid back on the bean pot with a wire bale clamp.

  Cold as it was we collected up more wood. Then she crawled into her blankets. It was going to be mucho cold tonight, and she sure didn’t have much of a bedroll. I had plenty so I got up and spread a wool blanket and my gum blanket over her. Her head came up real quick-like when I did that. She nodded and buried her head under the blankets.

  “Buenas noches, niña.”

  She answered with a grunt.

  I sat there a spell, thinking about that girl’s family lying back there for the coyotes, what she must be thinking. I thought about that old punch, him looking for his woman, and me finding this girl. I guessed she was tagging along with me for her protection. That’s only natural, I don’t blame her. Don’t know why she trusts me, but I guess she does, some. I thought about what that thin boning knife might feel like slipped between my ribs. Yeap, I’m going to be the perfect gentleman.

  Just what the hell am I going to do with her? I thought about those frijole beans. She didn’t mind sharing her chuck, I guess because I added to the pot. Tossing a couple of long-burning logs on, I bundled up knowing sometime in the night I’d freeze out and have to chuck more wood on the fire.

  I woke later. The fire was barely burning. I listened to a strange sound and tried to make it out. The girl was sobbing, a deep moan that kept on. The pain flooded around us both. I’d wanted to do that once, wish’t I could, for I’d lost something too, a long time ago.

  Chapter Six

  It was a gray morning. I was shivering cold, but my need to pee drove me from under the blankets. The girl was blowing life back into the fire, and she was shaking more than me. After piling on wood, I loaded up the coffeepot. She opened the bean pot and spooned them into the skillet. I was surely looking forward to them frijole beans for breakfast.

  “Buenos días,” I said, and she sorta smiled back. I could see in her eyes she’d had a rough night. I turned away when she frog-squatted in the weeds doi
ng her business. She carried an armload of wood when she came back. I trotted around to warm up while she stirred them beans.

  Dipping hardtack in my coffee, I jawed on that while she served out the frijole beans. They were as good as last night. She cleaned up our gear, and I loaded up. We were both feeling better, but she showed me the bean pot, and it was empty.

  “Alimentos. Uvalde. ¿Comprende?” I’d get some grub in Uvalde.

  She nodded with a little more of a smile.

  I didn’t say nothing about unloading her in town. How could I? No words for it. It would be for the best.

  We were on the road and soon passing nesters’ houses, and within an hour we were riding into Uvalde. Adobe and board buildings and tents lined the mud streets filled with cowboys, railroad workers, sheepherders, farmers, lint-backs, goatherders, and riffraff. A lotta buildings had board fronts, but adobe backsides. Freight wagons and teamsters lined the main street. Uvalde sat midway on the San Antonio-Del Rio Road. I watched two of them riffraff stomping a Mex into the mud with a scart goat tied to his leg. Folks stopped and watched. The girl stayed real close to me lavate all wide-eyed.

  Near one of the plazas was the Presbyterian meeting house. I headed over with the girl following, hoping she’d not figure out what I was up to. There were two men in suits out front, and I asked of the preacher.

  The tall one said, “I’m Reverend Bridges of the First Presbyterian Church, and this is Reverend Johnson of the Baptist Church of Christ. They’re using our meeting hall until they can raise their own building,” he added.

  The Baptist preacher asked, “Who is this girl and how old is she?” real uppity like before I could proper introduce myself.

  “Well, that be my problem, Reverend. I don’t know her name. You see, she can’t talk.” I tried to tell the tale, but they kept interrupting me and each other getting in a confab about “morality.” They must not been in Texas too long. This morality business was something new that ain’t taken hold in these parts.

  Then the Presbyterian sin-buster started preaching about why I should get out of Uvalde post-haste. “At night this town is infested with sheepmen and cattlemen, who often come into town filled with whisky, and sometimes fight each other and even the sheriff if he comes out of his office. Drunkenness and faro gaming and cock-fighting are common sins as is the too reckless use of the six-shooter. The railroad workers are from the slums of New York, as wild and desperate a set of men as I have ever seen.” He was looking a little wild-eyed by this time.

  “Last Sunday a gang of roughs tried to stampede my congregation by firing a pistol inside the church, while drunken men tried to climb through the windows. Son, you should save yourself, rid yourself of this harlot, and leave this den of sin before you are tempted to partake.” He sounded real sure of that.

  I wasn’t sure what a harlot was, but by the way he said it, I didn’t like the girl being called such. “Yes, sir. That sounds like good advice to me. But my problem is I can’t be dragging this Mex girl around Texas. I’m hoping one of your good churches could show pity and take her in.”

  That was met with a long silence and empty stares. Then one of them said, “Seeing she’s a Mexican you might find the Catholic church more receptive,” and then they real fast excused themselves for important business.

  An American-speaking Mex pointed me to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church at another plaza. We tied up outside and walked into the cool, dimly lit church. I wasn’t sure of what to do, but the girl quickly walked up the aisle, crossed herself, and got down on her knees. I stood in the aisle looking around. It was real quiet, kind of pleasing. There were pictures on the walls, of some half-naked fella toting a cross and candles burned on a corner table. Even though we’d come to another church I was hoping she still had no idea what my aim was.

  A man in a long black coat, almost looked like a dress, came from a side room. “May I help you, my son?” He had a quiet face.

  “Ah, yes, sir.” I told him my name, and he said he was Padre Bernard. “I got this girl here who can’t talk none, and her family was murdered by injuns.”

  “Let us speak elsewhere. Please come this way.”

  “Will she be fine leaving her here?”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  We went into a little room with a table and chairs. He offered me a glass of gin-clear water poured from a fancy glass jug. “Please tell me your story, son.”

  “Yes, sir. Yesterday I was riding along minding my own business, and I come across this Mex family all dead…”

  I finished up telling him she was a hard worker, a prime frijole beans cook, and could do about anything needing done. He was quiet for a while and seemed to be thinking deep. Finally, he said, “Son, your act of kindness and the protection you’ve offered this girl is a pious act. You will be blessed.”

  I didn’t know what that’d get me, but I guess it was supposed to be good.

  He looked a little nervous. “Unfortunately I am afraid we cannot take her in.”

  That was surely a letdown, but I didn’t say nothing because the padre was being so understanding about it all. “I gotta ask, Padre, what am I supposed to do with her? Nobody wants her.”

  “You do have a problem my son, and I sympathize. Possibly, you can find a Mexican family willing to take her in.” He paused and looked at me closely. “You need to make sure it’s a good family, or it would be like putting her in slavery. I hope you simply don’t abandon her on the road. That would be a terrible fate.”

  “I thought that’s what you were supposed to be concerned about.” I felt bad saying that. “Sorry, Padre.”

  He looked sad, but met my eyes. “I understand your feelings, but we simply do not have the facilities or funds to take in orphans. I have no staff, and it certainly wouldn’t be proper for her to remain here with me.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I hope you understand.”

  I was guessing maybe his wife wouldn’t like it.

  “I don’t know what to do with her, Padre.”

  He stood, so I guess that meant I was going. “You are on your way to Eagle Pass, you say?”

  “Yes, sir. I got a job lined up.”

  “There is a larger Catholic church there, and there are many Mexicans. Perhaps you’ll have better fortune.” He looked thoughtful. “Be warned my son, the Methodist circuit-riding minister described Eagle Pass as a Sodom-like city.”

  That could be good or bad, I thought.

  We walked back into the chapel, and the girl was still kneeling and praying. I turned to the priest. “I wish I knew what to call her.”

  The priest was watching her. Holding his elbow in his hand and touching his fingers to his chin, he said, “There is the story of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke, two sisters who offered hospitality to Jesus and His disciples. Mary listened to the Christ as He talked, but Martha was left with all the work. When she complained, Jesus told Martha not to worry about small things, but to concentrate on what was important. We think the girls may have been orphans.” He looked at me and said, “Martha might be a good name to bestow on her. In Spanish, it is Marta. I’ll pray for you and Marta on your journey.”

  That didn’t mean much to me, but I thanked him anyway.

  “And son…”

  I turned, “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re an admirable young man, as I said. You have undertaken a graced effort. I’m sure you will do what’s right.”

  That didn’t mean much either. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good things will come to you.”

  Sure, I bet. The padre walked over to the girl and spoke to her in whispers. Don’t know what he was telling her, maybe what her new name was or giving her some kind of blessing. I went outside and was as much at a loss of what to do as before. I guess all I could do was take her along to Eagle Pass and hope for the best.

  She came stomping out glaring at me, and I boosted her onto Burro, after making sure no one was looking. What’s wrong now? “What if I call you Marta,
that fine? Tu nombre es Marta. ¿Está bien?”

  She arched an eyebrow, still frowning.

  The priest said, “I told Marta her new name. She seems to approve.” He nervously fingered the cross on his chest. “I also told her you were trying to find her a new home. Vaya con Dios, hijo.”

  Oh no. It was my turn to frown. That ain’t going to help. No wonder she was giving me the mean glare. Her eyes were so big and dark.

  “Lo siento.”

  She turned her head away. Saying I was sorry wasn’t good enough, I guess. “Fine then, Marta. Let’s go get us some alimentos and leave this sinful town behind.”

  She kept glaring, making me feel unhappy about my ownself.

  Chapter Seven

  I found the Nueces General Store. Bodeguita was painted on the sign’s bottom so Mexes knew what it was. It held the fresh and musty smells of a general store. I knew what vittles I needed to stock up, but Marta had her own idea for what would go into her bean pot. She stomped up to the counter all put out looking and ignoring me. The shopkeep was smiling, “Buenos días, señorita.”

  Marta nodded and pointed at the shelf with sacks of pinto beans.

  “She don’t talk,” I said.

  “You must be blessed.” The fella took down a five-pound sack. Marta slit the top with her boning knife, sniffing them. She pointed at airtights of tomatoes holding up three fingers. “She knows what she wants, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I walked around looking at things and came across a box of hand mirrors. I picked one up. Maybe this could be a gift to Marta and might make things right. I’d never given a gift to anyone. Made me feel queer.

  Marta got a package of salt, some dried green things, salt pork, a lump of ham and another of white bacon—sow belly—a two-pound sack of rice, some onions, a bunch of jalapeños, and a sack of harina—tortilla flour. It surprised me that she got a small can of coal oil. I didn’t know why, but I figured there was no point in arguing about it. I added a pound of Arbuckles’ Ariosa coffee, soda crackers, a package of twelve boxes of matches for a dime, and Bull Durham cigarette makings—a five-cent sack would make thirty-three rollies. “The Cheapest Luxury In The World” the package said.