Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer)

by Horst, John

  He jumped up and patted her gently on the knee. “This calls for a celebration, my little one. A celebration!”

  He looked about, not certain what to do next. Then he remembered and, pushing the dress on her, pointed to a little room. “Go, go change, child.”

  She did and when she returned she looked very pretty. She was quite pleased with herself, despite the fact that she was still barefoot. He’d laid out some things on the desk, a fancy drink of yellow liquid and some candy and a cake. She’d never tasted anything so wonderful in her life.

  He chatted constantly but she couldn’t respond. She listened and ate and drank. She looked down at the pretty blue cloth covering her legs and she became dizzy with the excitement; overwhelmed and happy, warm and tingly all over. She wanted, for some reason, to sleep.

  Chapter II: Alone

  She awoke; it was hot and nearly dark. Something wet was splashing her and, as she looked up, whatever it was splattered into her eyes. It burned terribly. Whatever was being thrown on her had gotten into her mouth and it tasted horrible.

  She squinted and saw the man. She could tell that she was in the desert. He was ranting and speaking so quickly that she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She cast her eyes about to see who was there for him to speak to but there was no one else, just his horse hitched to a wagon.

  He was wetting her down with coal oil from a metal can and it was getting everywhere. She looked down and saw that she was wearing her old dress. She wondered at that, as she remembered having the pretty blue one on before she fell asleep. Her old outfit was now getting soaked along with the rest of her.

  He backed up and tripped, spilling coal oil down his front. He brushed at it as if he could wipe it away. He no longer looked happy and friendly. Now he was feral, like an animal she’d once seen with hydrophobia and it scared her very much.

  He turned and put the coal oil can in the wagon and then came back. He picked at his vest pocket and found some matches. She knew he was going to burn her up. She desperately thought about what to do. She couldn’t run, he’d catch her. Her legs were full of pain and her feet hurt.

  He was striking the match now. It would engulf her. Suddenly she knew what to do. She learned from a young age how to throw things with precision. She’d killed rabbits and chickens in the desert this way since just about the time she could walk and she knew this was her only chance. She picked up a fist-sized rock and threw with all her might, striking the man in the forehead.

  He fell as the match ignited and lit his soaked matching vest and trousers. He was suddenly a giant torch and he screamed and ran in circles nearly running toward her then changing direction. He ran into the desert and finally, after a hundred or so feet, dropped and continued to burn. He was finally dead.

  The horse pulling the wagon panicked and also ran wildly into the desert and after a time she realized that she was all alone. It was fully dark now. She did not recognize this place so surmised that she had to be somewhere other than southeast of the town as that was the route she knew and she’d never been on the road nearby.

  She slowly got to her feet and stumbled to the burning corpse which was by now devoid of most of its flesh, the face gone, now nothing more than a red burning skeleton. She realized that this did not scare her but actually made her feel good. He was a bad man and he was the first of his kind that she’d seen get what he deserved. She couldn’t help being a bit proud of the fact that she’d made it happen to a certain extent. No one could say that she’d killed him or burned him up, she just stunned him with the rock. But he was dead now and he’d died a fittingly horrible death and she was partially the reason it happened.

  She sat down next to the corpse, upwind because she didn’t want to smell like greasy burning human, but she was suddenly very cold and the corpse gave off a fair bit of heat.

  She warmed herself as the coal oil dried from her dress. She became sleepy and slept next to the shopkeeper until morning.

  When she awoke it was full daylight and the corpse was burned out. Nothing much was left but a skeleton and she regarded him again. She could recognize him. His nice teeth were recognizable.

  She needed to urinate and did and had to push extra hard as things were bound up down there. Something popped or tore and she looked down to see that her urine was reddish. She realized then that he’d been up to no good but that she’d been so sleepy from what he’d given her to drink and eat that she didn’t know.

  She was glad of that and looked down to survey her dress and saw blood on it and further surmised that she’d been bleeding at some point. What he’d done to her made her bleed and made her very sore. He was a wicked man and she looked on the corpse again and was glad to see him in such a state. She was glad that he was dead.

  She got her bearings and began walking toward town. She was famished and had nothing but her soiled dress. She needed to get her things. She wondered if the goats were still tethered to the post in front of the burned man’s store.

  She found some water and drank until she was full and washed herself. It burned and stung very much and she felt down there. She could feel that her body was torn and that it would scab over then open up whenever she urinated and wondered how it would ever heal.

  She soaked her dress where it was bloody but the stain wouldn’t come out. The blood had dried and was fixed. She’d have cut it away but her knife was gone, so she resolved to continue walking in her bloody dress. There was nothing more that she could do.

  She arrived at the town at midday and the goats were gone. She checked the store and it was locked. She tried the windows and could not open them. She sat down and was shakier than before. She started to doze when a man on a horse rode up and dismounted. He tied his horse to the post she’d used for the goats the previous day. He wore a uniform and had a sword which bounced about on his side. He walked past her and pulled on the store’s door, then peered in and knocked. He turned and regarded her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?” He looked around. “Where’s Sanchez?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who that is.”

  “The shopkeeper.”

  “He’s…I, he’s not here, but he has my things. I need my things.”

  The rurale regarded her. He looked at her dirty bloody dress. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

  She realized that she might not want to tell him much. “Chicken blood.”

  He shrugged and shook his head. “Big chicken.”

  He began to walk away and she decided that he was her only hope. She called out to him as he mounted up. “That man, Sanchez, he has my things. I need to get inside.”

  “You, peon, have no business with Sanchez. He’s a respected shop owner. You come back when he’s here. Don’t bother me with such things, child.”

  “But he took…” she thought better of it. “He has my things, it is my right. And my goats are gone.”

  “Hah!” He sneered. “You have no rights, child. Go back to your hole in the ground, go back home.” He was gone.

  She did as she was told and by sundown was nearly home. She walked without thinking and was so hungry that her stomach ached constantly. She drank a few times through the day and that helped a little. By full dark she was just too tired to go on and resolved to lie down for a while. She thought that she would only rest for a little while and then go on.

  But she didn’t wake up and it was full daylight by the time she got moving again. She worried over the old woman and wondered and hoped that she was okay. She did not know what she’d tell the curanderas. She wanted them to treat the old woman but now had nothing to give them. She decided that she couldn’t worry about that now. She decided, after all that had happened to her in the past two days, that she’d not worry about things that she could not control. She resolved, from now on, to control as many things as she could. She also decided to trust no one, as the old woman had told her, except herself. Sh
e could rely on no one in the world and that was the way things would be from now on.

  She saw smoke off in the distance, in the direction of the hovel, and she hurried on as best she could. Such a large fire made no sense to her. She finally arrived to find the hovel burning, the mean man and his wife and the curanderas looking on. The mean man sneered. “You are late.”

  “Where’s the old woman?”

  The mean man’s wife pointed at the hovel and the girl looked at them. “Why?”

  The mean man spit tobacco at her feet. “She was dead when they came to treat her. They said it all needed to be purified and we burned it. She’s gone, child.”

  The little girl watched it burn alone. The curanderas left and the mean man and his wife went about their business. She watched the little shack fall apart and looked on as the foundation was revealed. She remembered everything she could about her time there. She could not say that any of the times were really good, but they were her time and the old woman’s time, and sometimes she was a little happy when she made the old woman smile. She never went hungry and the old woman was good to her, better than any other human being had been and now she was dead.

  She thought about crying but didn’t. She lay down in the shade and fell asleep until the mean man’s wife nudged her awake. The wife was nervous and looked back at her own hovel often. Her husband would be cross if he knew that she was helping the whore’s spawn, but the woman was good and she could not help herself.

  She had food for the girl and sat beside her as the child ate. She reached over to touch the girl’s hair and the child recoiled, pulling away and putting several feet between them. They were both shocked at this behavior.

  “Take these things, child.” She gave her a bundle of old clothes wrapped in a rebozo along with a knife and a flint and steel. At least the child could make a fire. She gave her a sack of tortillas and some dried beans and a water gourd.

  The little girl looked the things over and then gazed into the woman’s eyes. “May I live with you?”

  The woman looked away, at the burned remains of the hovel. “No, child. You may not and you must not stay here. He won’t allow it.” She regarded the child’s dress and the bloodstains. The bastard missed nothing, she thought, looking back at the hovel where her husband was likely eating, gorging himself while this little one suffered. His mean, beady little eyes saw everything.

  “He says you are no good, that you are the product of a whore and now you’ve been spoiled.” She looked away and the little girl saw that she was crying. She felt sorry for the woman even though she was not going to help her beyond the little bit that she had. She stood up and brushed her skirt off. She looked down on the woman’s head, grabbed her new kit and walked away.

  She walked back to the town because she remembered the necklace she’d hidden. She needed to get it as it was the only thing she had left in the world, other than her kit and her clothing, which was of any tangible value. She at least was not hungry and this helped her progress a good deal. She killed a rattler with a rock on the way and made a fire and cooked it. If she could do this regularly, she could save the tortillas for when she was in the town as she did not know how long she’d be there or even what she’d do after reacquiring her necklace.

  She had reached the area just outside of town by dusk and decided to bed down in the desert. She felt safe in the desert and vulnerable in the town. That puzzled her. She thought a lot about her short time in the town and the shopkeeper and rurale who were not good to her. It seemed that the desert was safer as it had no people in it.

  She made a fire and found water and filled her gourd and settled down for the night. She’d made her camp in an arroyo so that her fire would draw no attention. No one taught her this but it was reasonable to think that it would be best to remain invisible. She found an armadillo and killed it with a blow from a stick and ate it. At least she wasn’t hungry and she was safe. She was alone and she missed the old woman, but the thought of being alone did not bother her as much as she thought it might.

  Before going to sleep, she had to urinate. It still hurt but not as bad as before and she no longer bled. Her wound was healing. She went to sleep.

  Chapter III: Juana

  She made it to the corral and the water trough and remembered the building well. She looked left and right; there was no one around. She had begun to dig when a voice called out. She jumped and tried to hide what she was doing.

  “What are you on about there?”

  She looked up and saw a child peering at her, trying to see what she was digging at. The child was about the same age as the little girl, no more than ten. She was about the same height but she was quite round and the little girl thought that she must be from a wealthy family to be so fat.

  “Nothing.”

  The fat child pushed her aside and began looking at the spot. “Oh, you are looking for something. What is it?”

  The little girl pushed her back and placed her body between the hole and the fat girl. And now the fat girl, with a good deal more force than one would expect, struck the little girl along the side of her face, knocking her to the ground.

  She was suddenly furious. Tired of so much injustice, tired of being mistreated by so many and now this fat little girl, someone akin to her size, had attacked her. The little girl jumped up and began beating at her attacker, smacking her over and over, like a wild beast. The chubby girl recoiled, not expecting such an attack. She retreated and held her nose which was now freely spouting blood.

  “God damn you! You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t really but knew that she’d won. There was no reason to be cruel and she had a kind heart.

  “Jesus!” The girl pinched her nose to keep from bleeding all over herself. She spit a gob of blood onto the ground. The two sat together for a while and the little girl kept an eye on her buried treasure. The fat one looked her attacker over. “What’s your name?”

  “Maria.”

  “Where’d you come from? I’ve never seen you before.”

  The little girl pointed southeast. “Back there.” She looked over at her nemesis who had by now staunched the bleeding. “What’s your name?”

  “Juana.”

  “I’m sorry for making you bleed.” She regarded the girl and thought that she might perhaps live with her. “Do you live in this town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, there, everywhere.” She shrugged and smiled.

  “You have no home?”

  “No.” She grinned, she could read the girl’s mind. “I know, I am too fat to be a vagrant.”

  She regarded the girl again. “Maria.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just saying your name. Named for the Virgin.”

  “Who’s that?” She suddenly had an urge to urinate again and ran behind the trough as Juana looked on.

  “Oh, you’re in a state.” She watched the little girl wince as she peed. “Let me have a look.”

  “Where?”

  “Down there.”

  “No!” She stood up and straightened her skirt. The fat girl was appalling.

  “Who did that to you?” She suddenly had a thought. “I know!” She grinned and then stopped grinning. “That pig Sanchez, the shopkeeper. Didn’t he?” She leaned over the trough and washed the blood from her blouse. “He’s missing, you know.”

  “Yes. I know.” She watched the fat girl for a while and decided it would be safe to dig up her necklace. Juana watched and nodded approvingly. She took it from Maria and washed it in the trough for her. “It’s pretty.” She handed it back.

  “Who is this virgin?”

  She giggled. “You really don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know of Jesus and the church and heaven and hell?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re named for her. The Virgin Maria. Except you aren’t one now.”

  “A what?�
��

  “A virgin.” Juana was getting hungry. “Come on, I’ll take you to the whores. They’ll help you down there.” She pointed at Maria’s midsection. “They’ll know all about it.”

  “What are whores?” Maria was feeling very stupid around the chubby girl. She said words and talked of things that made no sense, things Maria knew nothing about.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “They do it for money.”

  “What?”

  “It, what Sanchez did to you.”

  “I don’t know what he did. I was asleep. He gave me something and I don’t know what he did.”

  Juana laughed and then thought better of it. She became serious. “Did you ever see animals doing it…, you know, breeding, dogs or cats?”

  Maria understood now. “Oh, goats, I’ve seen goats breed. Yes.”

  “That’s it! That’s what the whores do for money, what Sanchez did to you. He mated with you. He stuck his thing in there, but you’re too small. The whores said that about me. I’m too young to be a whore. I’m not big enough yet.”

  “I see.” Maria thought she was going to be sick. It made sense now and it made her feel ill. She thought back to her time with the shopkeeper. Some things she kind of remembered. Juana brought her from her reverie.

  “Come on, Maria, it’s okay, the whores will help you.”

  They made it to the far side of town, to the end of the street where there were three saloons and a bordello. Juana escorted Maria through the front door. Maria had never seen such a place. The walls and door were painted red. The carpet was red, the drapes were red and red shades covered all the lamps. A woman greeted them. She was wearing only underwear. Her breasts were exposed and Maria turned her head away. The prostitute was kind to her, though. She had a kind face and when she smiled it revealed an incomplete set of teeth. She was an Indian, yet she had yellow hair.