The rancho was shut down. The workers’ bunkhouse stood empty except for a family of skunks that had made it their own. For some reason, Tomás had refused to have them shot. On some nights, Gabriela spied him out in the meadow, surrounded by their jaunty erect tails. A convention of varmints, he called it. “My only true friends.”
The lumber operation was still running, but only just. Segundo was doing manly duty as the manager, but his legendary cowboying and top-hand exploits did not prepare him for administrative duties. Gaby and his little Dolores spent many hours at night wrestling with the ledgers. Tomás no longer showed interest in these matters. “All these numbers,” he said, “give me a headache.” As long as they had enough money in the bank to keep them from the poorhouse, he was satisfied.
He often asked himself what he had left to prove. Nothing. To whom would he prove it? Nobody.
A shooting star fell copper to the west.
“Tomás! Tomás!” she cried. “Did you see it?”
“Sí, mi amor.”
“Wasn’t it pretty?”
“Sí.”
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“All right.”
“Would you like to eat?”
“Not really.”
The Sky Scratcher could once eat a side of beef and drink a barrel of beer. He had lost interest in riding too. Most of their horses were gone—sold off to the neighbors. She told herself that men of a certain age slowed down. Hips grew sore, bones more brittle. But she caught herself. Though it seemed that fifteen years had passed since Teresita’s terrible abduction and rescue, and her banishment from the mountain, it had really been a short time. Tomás was not an old man. Far from old. He just acted old.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him in tight.
“We got a letter from Juana Van Order,” she said.
“Oh?”
“She had news of Teresita.”
“Oh?”
The moon was making itself known now, and its glow was erasing some of the Milky Way from sight.
“And what do you hear of the living legend?”
She jerked at his waist in friendly admonition.
“Teresita is well. You know how she is.”
He blew air through his nose.
A laugh? She smiled. A laugh!
“Healing the sick,” she said.
“Our Lady of Perpetual Compassion,” he said.
“Now, now.”
“For strangers.”
He coughed up a bitter little laugh.
“Juana says she has sent her son to help her,” Gaby reported.
“A son?” He pulled away from her. “Which son?”
“Well, it’s that older one.”
“John?” he shouted. “The Saintess is living in sin with a drunken criminal?”
“Ay, no seas así,” she said. She hated it when he was in his impossible mode. “John is no criminal.”
“A lout who squandered his livelihood on gambling, whiskey, and whores,” Tomás replied. “A fine companion, I must agree.”
“Gordo.” She sighed. “Teresita cannot speak English very well. You know that. She asked for help, and Juana sent help.”
He stepped away and looked toward the bunkhouse—his skunks weren’t awake yet. Ah, to be a skunk! That was a life!
“Another miraculous healing is at hand, no doubt,” he said.
He walked toward the porch.
“I will sit,” he said.
She followed him.
“I am so proud,” he noted, “that my daughter is living in sin with a sot.”
He spit. For a moment, he reflected that whiskey, gambling, and whores could be found on his own résumé. But that was not the point.
She stood on the steps and peered up into the deep gloom of the porch. A match struck and his face flashed orange, his eyes staring cold at her as the cigarillo tip flared, then the light went out. The stink of smoke.
“Sometimes you make me wish I had gone away with her.”
She frightened herself—she heard the words escape her mouth and it was too late to stop them.
He took a drag of his smoke, blew it out, coughed.
“Be my guest,” he said. “Leave.”
Gabriela went in the house and softly closed the door.
Outside, Tomás Urrea let tears slip down his cheeks and drop toward his flailing heart.
Forty-Five
SHE EXPLAINED HER SITUATION as they walked. Her duties and her entanglement with the Consortium. He was appalled she would agree to work for no money. What kind of a confidence scheme was that? Some of the dirty dealers and cutpockets he’d known in Chicago called men like those in the Consortium sharpers. Damn holy girl, he thought. A fool.
“I need you to help me with English.”
He said, “You need a mite more than English, if you don’t mind my saying.”
He tipped his hat at ladies they passed, kept wary eyes on the men.
“I don’t need a man to rescue me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“We’ll see about that, Mrs. Rodriguez.” He smiled at a group of schoolgirls. “How do, ladies?” he asked. They giggled. “Teresita,” he said. “I’m a rougher cob than those muchachos running your show. It might be just what you need. I’ll be there if you need me.”
“Gracias,” she said.
Teresita thought he moved like a stalking cat. Gliding through the world, watchful, still, about to explode. She remembered how the buckaroos back home had all been known by nicknames: El Piochas, El Guasas, El Rubio, El Emba, El Chino Cochino. And she found herself thinking of John Van Order in this fashion. In her mind, she called him El Tigre.
The pianist in the lobby warbled “Bird in a Gilded Cage.” John thought that was appropriate as he collected his key and watched the hired zookeepers gather around Teresita. “Obliged,” he said to the deskman and tapped the key on the counter. He wondered if she even realized she was in prison. Hell, no, she didn’t know it. She’d been in prison back in Arizona too. He clenched his jaws in anger, watching these characters jostle her.
“Where have you been, Terry?” her assistant Mr. Smith was saying.
She had told him of these four men of the Consortium—Smith, the gunman Elias, the fixer Swab Dave, and Van Belle, her driver—but John did not approve of their familiarity or physical nearness.
He cut between Smith and his three compatriots as if he were riding a little cow horse and had placed himself at her side before they knew he was coming.
The Consortium employees fell back a half step.
“And you are?” Mr. Smith demanded.
“I’m Jesse James,” John replied. “And what business is it of yours where she was?”
“Pardon me?” said Smith.
“You heard me, pismire.”
“¡Ay, John!” Teresita said.
He cut a glance at her to suggest she remain quiet.
“You’re a bit bold for my taste, friend,” Elias offered.
“Ain’t talking to you, Daniel Boone,” said John.
He was still gazing into Smith’s eyes as if seeing something strange through them, something inside Smith’s skull.
“But if you insist on injecting yourself into this conversation, I will offer you my full attention. And it won’t be no neighborly chat,” said John.
Van Belle guffawed, and Elias gave him a dirty look.
“You’re no kind of white man, are ye?” said Van Belle.
“White enough to put you in your place, mule skinner.”
Now Elias laughed at Van Belle, and Swab Dave hoped there’d be a fight he could watch, being bored by all this holiness bidness.
“As for you,” John said to Smith. “You’re crooked.”
“I never!”
“I can smell it on you.”
“Well!” Mr. Smith looked to Messrs. Elias, Van Belle, et al. “We care for Terry’s well-being.”
“I don’t believe that is your role i
n this endeavor any longer.”
“Pardon me?”
“I’d say your job is to fetch us water when we’re thirsty or breakfast when we’re hungry or to wipe my boots when I step in shit.”
“I beg your pardon!”
John put his hand on Teresita’s arm.
“I’ll be watching out for Miss Teresita from here on in. You will be addressing her formal-like. None of your familiarity. You are her employees. A little show of respect is required.”
She didn’t understand a pinch of what was being said, but she knew anyway. El Tigre was magnificent. El Tigre was ten feet tall.
“Glad we cleared that up,” John said.
Elias and Swab Dave traded looks and stepped back. It was only a job, and not that good a job, and they were too smart to engage in needless dustups. But Mr. Smith, sheaves of telegrams from Mr. Suits burning in his pockets, was frantic. Bold as a bureaucrat, he blustered and filibustered and made the error of putting his hand on John’s chest.
John looked at the hand, looked at Smith, grinned, pulled back the hem of his coat, and revealed his holstered revolver.
“I keep five beans in the wheel,” he said, “and one chamber empty. Don’t make me clear leather, Mr. Smith,” he said reasonably. “Unless you fancy early retirement.”
They formed a tableau.
“I don’t mind walking away with four beans left. I ain’t a hoarder.”
Smith looked at the Consortium centurions. Beans? Elias shook his head slightly. Smith stepped away.
John smiled at the gathered representatives of the Consortium in a collegial fashion. It scared them all to their boots. He tipped his hat.
“Night, boys,” he said. “I’ll enjoy my room now. I feel a touch drowsy. And hungry. How about you all round me up a steak and some potatoes.” He took Teresita’s arm. “Ma’am,” he said, as if they were strangers. “Oh,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll have my trousers laundered.”
The Saint and the Tiger strolled away and ascended the great stairway.
“Good night, now,” he called. “Say your prayers, hear?”
She laughed into his shoulder.
“Cabrones,” he whispered.
She fell against him—it was delicious and dreadful, scandalous.
“Were you really going to shoot poor Mr. Smith?” she said.
“I ain’t shot this pistola ever,” he said.
“You!” she said. “Are so bad!”
“But I’m handsome,” he replied.
“That is debatable.”
He put his hand over his heart in mock sorrow.
“I thought,” he accused, “you were supposed to be a saint. Why are you so mean?”
She shrugged.
“I cannot lie,” she said.
His room was next door to hers. He bid her a chaste good night when he saw her in. He went to his own room and immediately opened the connecting door and stepped into her room. She was surprised, but not that surprised.
“Admit it,” he said. “I am the handsomest man in St. Louis.”
She nodded somberly.
“I admit it,” she said. “However, that is not saying much.”
Mr. Smith, scandalized, listened to their laughter through Teresita’s locked door.
Teresita managed to maneuver the laughing El Tigre back out the connecting door and then she threw the lock and tossed herself into her bed and kicked her feet in the air. He was such an idiot! She rolled over. She laughed into her pillow. He was so bad! He was so pretty.
Poor Harry, she thought. Having to compete with that. She thought she would write to Juana right away, but got no further than the idea.
Smith had gone to bed, so now she was the only listener. She heard the room-service waiter knocking on John’s door, and the rattling of the cart as his steak was delivered. And one more thing, but one she didn’t hear: John slipping the man a few coins to bring him a small bottle. “Just to help me sleep,” he said. The server nodded and winked and quietly glided out of the room.
Forty-Six
MR. SMITH DROPPED a silver dollar on the counter of the telegrapher.
SMITH TO SUITS / URGENT / SAINT BROUGHT IN PISTOLEER / ARRIVE HERE SOONEST.
Their first few days together were tremendously satisfying. They descended to breakfast each morning, a bit too early for his taste. But copper pots of coffee and platters of buttermilk splatter-dabs topped with blueberry compote cheered him. He took great rafts of bacon or sizzling links of German sausage on his plate. She enjoyed berries or melon bits sculpted into the shapes of flowers. One morning, the chef carved her a swan of apple, melon, and peaches. The Consortium lurked in the background, vigilant and fretful. Mr. Smith had assigned Swab Dave to spread folding money around the staff to ensure that word of the adjoining rooms not leave the hotel. For the sake of business, rumors of someone’s having midnight trysts with the Saint would not do, and these two were costing the company a small fortune. It was clear that Mr. Van Order, for example, had no intention of procuring a job.
Teresita was blind to them. She had not laughed so much since—well. Cabora? Before? Since the old Santa Ana rancho in Sinaloa? Since she was seven?
El Tigre was an awful, awful man. She made sure to keep the door locked between them, though he had taken to scratching at it and making pathetic meowing sounds late at night. “Go away!” She’d laugh. “You are insane. You are an idiot.”
“Good night.” He’d sigh through the wood.
“Do not bother me again!”
After a few moments of silence:
“Meow?”
These days were also times of meetings and confabulations between them. Of strategy arguments and long sheets of fancy hotel paper with figures and destinations scratched and crossed out. Walks in the night with endless arias of Van Order’s ambitions ringing in Teresita’s ears.
Their breakfasts were a refuge from their constant debate. Afterward, however, Teresita became busy with clients and newspapermen. The reporters gathered in the lobby; John had never seen anything like it. The little girl from Arizona grew taller, sedate, as dignified as a living statue of some kind of Roman goddess. He sat near her, not allowed to be in any way familiar, and translated their questions and her answers. She seemed false to him in those moments—indeed, he was pretty sure the whole saint thing was all a fine scam. Just more snake oil for the pan. He’d seen some world-beater scams in Chicago, and this one was as sweet as they came. What he couldn’t understand was why Teresita wasn’t rich. Where was the money going? There was surely money—he’d look around the hotel—damned loads of it. He wanted a bit better than to eat it up in pancakes. Even charging new trousers and starched white shirts on the Consortium’s ticket did not begin to bring him recompense.
And it was a bore. These reporters, whether from New York or Mexico City, all asked the same questions. How did she do it? Mr. Smith and Mr. Van Belle ushered these pissants in and out. Elias lounged around on a red velvet couch and smoked, looking at John with the same skeptical squint John had on his own face.
When did you first realize you had these powers? Are you a saint? Why do you suppose God chose you for this work? What can you tell us of Indian uprisings in your name? Are you the Queen of the Yaquis? Can you tell us a bit about your husband’s violent attacks upon you in Arizona?
John thought it would be funny to mistranslate, and it was only his feelings for Teresita that kept him from doing it. Yes, he imagined telling them she had said, I asked the Indians to kill everyone, especially the white people of St. Louis. They’re coming now. The reporters didn’t understand why John laughed sometimes.
After the morning’s interviews, Teresita was taken across town to a rented hall where she attended to the halt and the lame. Before she could leave the hotel, however, there was always a small gauntlet of fanatics to pass through. They hugged her, kissed her cheeks, offered papers and photographs of her for autographs. An ugly old picture of her standing awkwardly beside a chai
r and surrounded by flitting cherubs appeared. “Where did you get this?” she asked the woman. “It must be a collectors’ item now.” She signed everything. John had no interest in any of this. He’d seen plenty of that in Arizona. It made him queasy. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t know whether he could believe it or not. He would be happier in her company if she weren’t some kind of lady pope—though, of course, in that case he’d have to do more than eat above his means and relate her stories in English to those desperate for a narrative. He should be with her, but he just couldn’t do it. Besides, these pilgrims were mostly Mexicans come up the river to work on building the World’s Fair. Gypsies—that and Indians and mumbling Missouri plowmen who didn’t need to speak. They all could point to their sores, tears in their eyes.
Sometimes these believers, having stumbled upon him before Teresita had escaped the hotel, asked for his autograph. As if his very nearness to Herself imbued him with renown. He would gladly sign their papers with a flourish: Yours, Baron Ephemeral von Yarb. Yet as she moved onward, John could feel himself being forgotten. By the time she neared the doors, it was as if he had never come to her at all. The distance between them multiplied until he was left in the lobby, discarded.
Only Elias was left there with him.
“What the hell,” he finally said on the third day.
“Pardner, I been asking myself that for months now,” said Elias.
John had never seen anything quite like Teresita, he had to admit. The way she loved those people. At the end of the day, her hands and skirts were filthy, and she smelled, smelled of poverty. He had made a deal with life that he’d not smell that way again. But there it was, painted across her body by the sweating unbathed kneelers, the wormy kids, and the haggard ladies. Overlaid on that was the cigar stench of the rich, the curdled perfumes of their wives and daughters with their expensive bellyaches, pennies and double eagles and limp dollar bills going into the coffers at the door.
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