by John Horst
“Enough.” The general looked at Tolkenhorn’s desk, paged through the documents. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
It went on like this for several days. The girls stayed together said little, Rebecca ate almost nothing. They both would have looked more natural wearing black. Rebecca now had the habit of walking around the ranch, head down, saying nothing, oblivious to everything. She felt leaden, like everything, walking, even breathing was a nearly insurmountable task.
Marta watched her from a distance, knew there was little she could do, resolved to just be there, be in her presence and ready to offer any assistance, any words, or an ear, any kindness that she could. She thought a lot about Robert Curtin. She honestly liked the man and, although at first, was pleased to hear what Tolkenhorn had said about the engineer, soon regretted it as she was a good and loving sister and it was abundantly clear that the anguish her Rebecca was suffering was significantly greater than the benefit Marta could ever derive from Robert Curtin being a black hearted scoundrel.
Marta thought about the time on the ship, how happy and simultaneously sad she was to see her little sister being swept off her feet. Measuring the man, deciding whether or not he was worthy of such a prize. She had her trepidations. She felt good about that. She was a good judge of character, and Curtin had pulled the wool over her eyes, for a while, but not completely. She felt a little smug about that. She always knew there was something a little off, a little rotten about Robert Curtin.
She was so sad for Rebecca. Rebecca was the marrying type and now, she might give birth and have a bastard baby and have a much more difficult time finding a husband. She quickly dismissed that. They’d just do like all the other wealthy people who got tripped up. She would be packed off to a spa, maybe to Switzerland for her confinement, have the baby and call it a cousin when she returned.
Rebecca would probably not go for that, though. She was too pure. She would rather live in shame and alone than ever lie to her baby. She’d openly be the child’s mother and that was that.
And then, the realization of this made Marta even happier. Maybe they’d all be together forever, just the three of them, Marta and Rebecca and the baby. Hopefully it would be a girl. She loved all children but never could envision either herself or Rebecca giving birth to boys. Her fantasy babies were always, always girls. They’d be three happy little ladies living together forever. She’d teach the baby girl to be naughty and Rebecca would teach her to be good. They’d make another one of them out of the child. Another Chica. She’d be smart and beautiful and fearless. They’d teach her to ride and shoot, to operate a machine. She’d drive the automobile everywhere. She’d go to Stonefields and they’d stay at Abuelita’s house and visit her every chance they’d get. She was becoming happy at this prospect, this fantasy baby that she was sure to come.
She thought about Pedro del Calle. Was he a liar too? Maybe he was just a brush salesman or some other kind of oaf and a lout. Maybe he’d bought, or worse, stolen that marine uniform, maybe he had no education, and maybe he didn’t even like women. That would be her luck, be stuck on a romantic voyage with a homosexual. It was all so bizarre and the more she thought about it, the more her mind wandered and the more preposterous and fantastic her theories became.
She didn’t grieve for herself, though. She was happy at the outcome. She was definitely not the marrying type, she was certain of that. She felt a sense of relief and even stopped thinking about doing it now. It was as if the removal of both men from their lives had taken the burden away. She no longer thought or worried over sex and this was a significant relief to her. She wasn’t ready for such carryings on and she’d just as soon not think about men at all.
But even at this, Marta’s self-imposed celibacy, at least in her mind, didn’t last. Rebecca spent so much time alone now, wandering the ranch and going out for solitary rides that Marta soon found herself bored and restless. Rebecca wouldn’t even sleep with Marta these days, preferring her own room. But despite this, she was confident that Rebecca was onto the road of recovery from her grief. She knew Rebecca was strong enough not to be paralyzed by it, she’d not keep up the depressed mood forever and this was a great relief to Marta.
She was bored as all hell now and decided she needed a little trip, down to Tampico, perhaps even to Vera Cruz. She sat quietly at breakfast, across from Rebecca and daydreamed about it, soon felt her sister’s eyes on her. She looked up and smiled. “Eating a little better?”
Rebecca had. She’d taken at least some food now at every meal. She wasn’t eating enough, but at least it was something. She smiled at Marta. “Yes, better. Marta, I’m just a horrible stick in the mud. You look like you could jump out a window, you’re so bored.”
“Funny you should say that.” She lit a cigarette and worked on it. “I was thinking of running down to Tampico, some errands, just to keep busy. Why don’t you come along?”
“No, darling. You go. Go on, I’ll be all right. I think the trip’ll do you good. Why not go on down to Vera Cruz?” She gave an impish smile. “Bet Pedro would like to see you.”
“You can read my mind, can’t you darling?”
“I can.”
She set her clock extra early, would get an early start and, with a specific plan in mind, a specific purpose, she felt good, comfortable, and sleepy. She drifted off and thought of Pedro, the captain of marines. She wasn’t kidding herself. She wanted to see him, had to see him for what reason, she did not know, but she missed him terribly and resolved to make it her first priority.
At around two in the morning, the sound of shots tore through the very fiber of her being and she dropped, instinctively, to the floor, soon realized she was lying in glass. She reached up, retrieved the pistol from under her pillow, rolled to the wardrobe and grabbed her shotgun. Glass cut into seemingly every part of her body.
She waited a moment for more shots to come. She looked up at the pattern made by the shattered glass and surmised the shooter fired from just outside the window nearest her bed. Now the sound of footsteps running, shouting, several of the men from the ranch were rushing to her aid, guns ready, they were in her room at once.
She was bleeding and blood was now mixed with carpet and glass on the floor, Esmeralda was there, all concern on her face. Marta called out.
“I’m all right, I’m all right, just a few cuts from the glass. I’m not shot. Where’s Rebecca, where’s Rebecca?”
“I’m here.” Rebecca was now standing over her, a pistol in each hand. She looked wild, looked ready for battle. She looked on at Marta and began taking an inventory of her wounds.
“What happened?”
A ranch hand called out from the yard. “Señorita, out here, out here!”
It was Adulio, bloody and beaten, but otherwise likely to survive. He looked up, bewilderment in his eyes. He looked on at the sisters and smiled uneasily. “It was that engineer. I saw him. He was prowling around the veranda and he had a gun. He fired through your window, Señorita, and I tried to stop him. I didn’t have a gun and he hit me. When I was down, he fired at me, but missed. He must have gotten afraid and ran off.”
They smoked until morning. Rebecca spent most of the time picking glass from Marta’s backside as Esmeralda assisted. “I wish you wouldn’t sleep naked. Look at this mess.” She finished and washed the wounds clean.
Marta gave her a little smile, “I don’t usually plan to roll in glass of an evening. Sleeping naked is not usually such a dangerous proposition.” She gave Rebecca a little wink, “unless a man with a gun is around, and I don’t mean the kind old Curtin used tonight.” Rebecca slapped her on an uninjured part of her behind.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door and Adulio finally came in. He was bandaged around the head and blood had seeped through. He also had the beginning of a black eye and his jaw was swelling.
“Thank you, Adulio. I truly thank you.” She stood up to shake his hand and he waved her off.
“It was nothing,
Señorita, nothing. But the men have insisted, they are all taking shifts and will be guarding you and Miss Rebecca when you sleep. They know you need no guarding otherwise, and if the coward had tried it when you were awake, we all know, we’d be digging a hole for him this morning.”
“Go to bed Adulio. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Rest.” She patted his hand, felt guilty for treating him so roughly during her camping trip.
“As you please.”
Over breakfast, at which Marta ate and watched Rebecca sip a little coffee and pick at an egg or two, she brought it up.
“What do you say about that little ride, in the machine, down to Tampico? The two of us?”
Rebecca looked up at her, trying to make sense of what her sister had said. She was so distracted these days with her own thoughts that she only ever heard a fraction of what was spoken to her and she was too embarrassed to continuously ask Marta to repeat everything. She was now even more disturbed and distracted. How could he? How could Robert Curtin try to assassinate them? She was convinced that she would have been next, had Adulio not foiled the attempt. My God, the man was a monster, a genuine monster. She finally focused. “Oh, no, no Marta, you go. I’m not up for it.”
“That’s okay, don’t really much feel like it either.”
Rebecca was fully engaged now. It would be better, safer if Marta was off the ranch, she was certain of that. Curtin would likely not know she was gone, and he’d probably lie low, with the whole ranch now on full alert. They’d both be safe, she at home and Marta in Tampico. “You go, Marta. Go. Please. I’m just not going to be much company now. You should go. I’ll be all right here.”
So she did and the ride down was pleasant enough. She’d taken over some purchasing chores from Adulio and at least her trip had some real purpose. It was nice to be conducting some mundane business as it kept her mind off all the things that had been vexing her for so long.
There was big news in Tampico and it was good to hear so much about what was going on in Mexico and around the world. The raid of the train she attended with Zapata was big news. The rail cars were apparently filled with weapons from the US and it was a great scandal. There was talk of a congressional hearing and the US ambassador to Mexico had to do a lot of damage control. It definitely was a powder keg down here, and Marta was a little excited by it. She liked battle, she could not deny that. It was the purest act she’d ever committed, mortal combat, and it was when she felt so alive. Everything seemed to pale in comparison to fighting.
She spent the day wandering about, going here and there shopping, doing the business of the ranch and wondering about the revolution, thinking about battle. Before she could fully comprehend, she found herself at the dock, purchasing passage to Vera Cruz by mail steamer. She’d done this a few times in the past and enjoyed it. She suddenly wanted to see Del Calle.
It was an uneventful little trip and she spent most of it chatting with the crew. She usually avoided the officers. Most of them were too busy and frankly boring. They all had to do the little dance, sizing her up, carefully selecting their words. Was she a lady? Was she loose? Was she a high classed whore? Marta was difficult to read and gave a very strange, unorthodox first impression. Most educated men did not like it.
But the working men liked her well enough. They could see that she was different from them and it was clear to them that, even if she were a high classed whore, she was beyond their means. It was easy after that. Knowing where they stood made it easy. They never had to worry about bedding her, and once that was out of the way, some true human interaction could follow. She could chat and tease them and engage them in a way that was not possible for them with other women. And it was not just her charm and beauty that made her such fun. Marta genuinely cared for people. She talked to them, not at them, and she was engaged. She would tease them, but they’d never be the butt of the joke, she did not tease at others’ expense. She respected people, all people of all colors and stations in life and they responded in kind.
She wanted to know what it was like for them to make their way in life, survive, go on day after day when the same boring tasks stared them in the face. She knew she was privileged and with privilege and wealth come the greatest benefit, the benefit of not having to do boring and mundane things in order to get by.
She thought on this as she regarded a man dutifully scraping a rail on the forward deck of the ship. He was working diligently and singing to himself. She could hear the song, but just barely. He looked up on her and bowed his head slightly, then went back to his work.
“Ola, Señor.”
“Señorita.” He smiled broadly and returned his attention to the rail.
“How long have you been working on this ship?”
“Twenty-three years, Miss.”
“And this is what you do?”
“Oh, sí. I do this, and painting, scraping and painting and all the things that must be done to keep Mother at bay.”
“Mother?”
“Oh, sí.” He looked up at the sky, “Mother Nature. She is hard on a ship. She makes us pay dearly for the privilege of traveling her waters.”
“So, when you finish scraping and painting, then what?”
He looked down at the rail, looked forward at the yards and yards to go, shrugged and looked on at Marta. “Start over.”
In Vera Cruz she hired a taxi and called on Captain Pedro del Calle. He was not in and she was greeted by a sergeant with great chevrons covering his biceps. His uniform was so crisply ironed and creased that she thought it might crack apart at too much movement. He seemed to be having the same thoughts as he moved so little, only his head and mouth, really, as if too much movement would untuck the crisp shirt from the crisp trousers and he’d have to excuse himself, run back to his squad bay and rebuild himself for the day.
He looked on her and did not smile or speak beyond what was required. She was nearly a head taller than the man and, when she looked down on him, she looked at the top of his nearly shaven head. He was a fascinating man as he was two shades darker than Marta and he spoke with a heavy island accent.
He attempted to disengage, go about whatever task he had in mind, as there were many, as he was the top sergeant which meant that he did all the work while the officers signed the documents, taking credit for the work and he was the one who made certain, ensured, that the officers moved up the ladder to eventually become majors and colonels and perhaps even generals. He was at the top of his game and it was abundantly clear why. He did not have time for Marta del Toro.
“So, you work for Pedro?” Before he could answer she thrust a good Cuban cigar in his face. She’d already lit her own and the pungent odor was distracting him. He could not pass it up.
He looked at the cigar worth half a day’s pay and regarded the young lady in front of him.
“Yes.”
“Like that cigar? Romeo y Julieta. ”
“Yes.”
“From your homeland?”
“Yes.”
“Can you answer in more than one word sentences?” He amused her.
“Yes.”
He stood up and went to a file cabinet, pulled open the middle drawer and produced a bottle of Vat 69. He poured for both of them and they clicked glasses. “Your health.”
“And yours.” She drank it down in one swallow and resolutely set the glass in front of him. She appreciated the significance of such a gesture. The top sergeant did not do this for just anyone.
“That’s some of the shittiest Scotch I’ve ever had.”
He ignored the insult and poured again.
“What’s your name?”
“Sergeant Ramirez, but I’m called Top.”
“No, your Christian name.”
“Alonzo.”
“Alonzo. That’s a nice name. Why would they refer to you as a child’s toy? She knew the answer, but needed to tease him a little. He understood and would have smiled if it were in his nature, which it was not.
“I’m the top sergeant.” He regarded the many stripes on his uniform sleeve.
“Okay, Alonzo. What do you do for fun around here?”
He wanted to get back to work, then thought better of it. No wonder the Captain had been so distracted all these many days. “This is the United States Marine Corps, madam. We have no fun here.”
“Oh, come now, Alonzo. You’ve got to get the knots worked out somehow. What do you do, when you’re not doing this?” She looked down at the mountain of bureaucracy on his desk. It was an absurd collection of redundant paperwork. Paperwork that was vital to the operation of the military, the government, the machinations of a great serpent, monster that exists for the purpose of waiting to unleash a fury that may or may never be required. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. And waiting was too tedious so the waiting had to be filled with hours upon hours of mindless, useless completion and duplication, and writing and rewriting of forms. And this is what Top Sergeant Alonzo Ramirez did with great purpose and efficiency.
In his formative years as a marine he filled his days cleaning and polishing, ironing and folding, creasing and flattening, all manner of things, uniforms, shelter halves, bedclothes, rifles, bayonets, boots, leather belts and hat brims and holsters, year upon year, cleaning things that were already clean, straightening things that were already pin neat, and finally, finally, after twenty three years, he’d arrived, to this. To the constant, endless, unimportant paperwork of running a battalion or regiment, or company or squad of US Marines.
When the cigars were smoked and half the Scotch gone, she had him. He was talking freely and relaxing a little. They had the place to themselves. The captain was not there and, as it was Sunday, he’d let the men go to chapel. Most of them did not care one way or the other about chapel, but at least in chapel they could not be ordered to do something. It was the one afternoon, the few hours in a week when they could be fully assured that no command would be barked at them, no order would be given to perform some mindless, silly, redundant task.