by Horst, John
They were nice people and Maria was feeling good. Maybe she would stay here and not go to the sea. She blurted out, “What’s to become of me?”
The old people shrugged. They weren’t certain. The padre said nothing to them.
“You’ll have to ask the padre, my girl. But not now. He’s busy. At dinner.”
By the third day the padre was still busy and it seemed that Maria was just absorbed into the family. She was one of them, as if it had all been arranged. She didn’t ask about it again. She liked the old people and she liked the place. They’d given her a little room with a bed. It was clean and bright when the window was not shuttered and nice and cool and dark when it was. It was quiet there and even at night, in bed, she could sense people around, not like at the cave. Juana’s ghost didn’t even bother her.
She felt safe there and had her little gun that she didn’t tell anyone about. She hid it under her pillow but didn’t really feel the need for it. She slept soundly and didn’t even try to bar the door.
She took to doing chores for the old woman; she thought it would be a good idea to be useful. She’d earn her keep and, since it was getting along toward winter, she didn’t find traveling by burro all the way west so attractive now.
Anyway, there was a lot to do and she found herself in the church more and more often in her free time. She looked through the hymnals and the bibles. They had all sorts of writing in them. Maria knew well enough that it was writing but couldn’t read. She quickly decided to learn how to do this over the winter. She also saw gringo words thereabouts and decided she wanted to learn to read them, as well. One day she’d go north to the US and she planned to learn the lingo used up there.
When she was finished with the books, Maria would examine the decorations in the church. It was a simple, yet well-appointed country church. It had several statues, of course, of Jesus being crucified, but also of the Virgin. She liked that one. She liked the Virgin’s blue rebozo and the kind look on her face. She was pale like the priest so she thought that the Virgin must be from the same stock as the priest. She certainly was no Indian.
All around the church there were little wooden plaques made up with what Maria later learned were depictions of the crucifixion. These were called the Stations of the Cross and Maria found them sad and intriguing. She was fairly caught up in all this when she saw the old priest standing at the back of the church, watching her. He beckoned for her to sit beside him.
“Do you like the church, Maria?”
“I do.”
“Is it like yours?”
Maria was a little confused. “I don’t have a church. I don’t have religion.”
“Oh.” He was shocked and realized now that she must have been very isolated, likely from one of the poorest of the villages.
“Have you been baptized?” He could tell by her expression that she had not. He smiled at her. “Would you like to be?”
“I don’t know what that is. What is baptized?”
He grinned. “When you take Jesus into your heart. When you become a Christian.”
“Oh.” She sat quietly for a while. She wanted to ask the padre a thousand questions but didn’t really know where to begin. Finally, she decided to ask him one.
“Are you a gringo?”
“I’m an American. From Chicago.”
“Why are you here?”
He nodded. “I don’t know.”
She looked at him, deep in his eyes. What a strange answer to give. He did not know? How could a grown man not know why he was in Mexico?
She decided not to pursue that and, instead, reached over and picked up a hymnal and opened it. “Would you teach me to read this? And to read in your language? The language of the gringo?”
He smiled at her and patted her hand. “I will.”
“And, may I stay here? You can sell my burros and have my things and the money they will bring if I can stay here.”
“You may.”
It appeared to Maria that he would cry and she wondered at his sadness. He continued. “You will keep the money from your things, little one. You will keep them for your dowry.”
He smiled again because he could tell that Maria did not know what a dowry was. “For when you are grown and get married and have a family.”
He stood up. He had things to do. “Agata says you do the work of two men, anyway. I think you will earn your keep.”
He patted her gently on the head and it felt good to Maria. It gave her a warm feeling deep in the pit of her stomach, much like when the fence’s assistant touched her hair. It was the best feeling she’d known in her life. She watched him walk away and then looked back at the hymnal. She wasn’t stupid, just ignorant, and she could make the ignorance go away. She felt a little bit of happiness.
She stood up and wandered around again, since she was alone. She liked the smells of the church, the candles mostly, and the hint of the incense that was burned during special occasions. She did not yet know of all the grand celebrations, but she liked the odors. She wandered to the baptismal font and looked it over. It was empty now but she could tell it held water and she wondered what was in store for her when she got baptized.
Her daydream was interrupted by a tug on her hair and Maria wheeled, instinctively striking as hard as her small fist would allow. The boy fell backward onto the stone floor of the church and held his eye. She stood over him, glaring, determining what he was about.
He got up slowly and she pulled her fist back, ready to strike again. The boy backed up and put up a cautionary hand. “I, I, don’t hit me again!”
He was a nice looking boy, well dressed in a grey suit. He wore a tie and nice shoes, not boots or sandals. His collar was stiff and his hair had been neatly combed. He was a head taller than Maria and a bit older. He had thought he’d have some fun with the new peasant worker of the church but now stood as if he were before the padre himself. He looked her over and Maria stood a little straighter. She had him now.
“I, I was just having a little fun. You didn’t need to hit me.”
“I don’t like to be touched.” She regarded him. He was a handsome boy, almost as pale as the priest. “What’s your name?”
“Crisanto. You are Maria.”
She felt funny that he knew her name. “How old are you? Why are you dressed this way?”
He grinned. He liked that she was interested in him. “I’m thirteen.”
He looked at his clothes and realized how differently they were dressed. “I, my father makes me wear these clothes. He is the shop owner of the town. He, we have a station to represent.” He blushed a little as he regarded Maria’s bare feet.
“I’m eleven,” she lied. She wouldn’t be eleven for several months. She wasn’t certain why she said such a thing. She instinctively turned her back on him, pretending to do some work, moving away just quickly enough so that he’d follow her.
She began moving the hymnals from one end of each row of pews to the other and Crisanto began to help her. There was no purpose in this, but Maria wanted him there and this would give them a chance to talk while they worked.
“Where are you from?”
She shrugged and did not look up. “Just around.”
“Where’s your family?”
“Dead.”
“Oh.” He began rubbing his eye as it was swelling. It would be purple by morning and Maria regretted hitting him.
“Are you going to live here, at the church?”
“I guess.” She looked at him and liked the look on his face. “What do you care?” She didn’t know why she said that to him either.
“I, I don’t, I just…”
He was interrupted by a terse call from the back of the church. “Crisanto!”
“Yes, father.” He cringed and turned away, to the rear of the church toward the man who was standing there, arms crossed, looking severely at them.
The man was remarkable in that he was a taller and older version of the boy. He wore a matching outf
it. They looked very odd in this respect and Maria wondered at it. How did they get everything to match so well? He waved his hand, gesturing for the boy to come more quickly.
“This is the new girl, Mar…”
“I see well enough who it is. Come away.” He looked at Maria with obvious scorn and ushered the boy out. She could hear him as they walked through the vestibule. “You stay away from that. Damned country Indians. Don’t know why they let them in here, and barefoot. Savages.”
They were gone.
Maria sat at the dinner table and was surprised to find her six shooter on her plate. She knew it meant something bad and waited. The old man wandered in and looked at his wife. They looked at Maria who kept her eyes fixed on the gun.
“My girl, your six shooter was cocked, under your pillow.” He grinned a little devilishly. “If you’d a flopped a little hard, bang, no more Maria!” He picked up the gun and regarded it. It was a good one and he wondered how she’d acquired it. “Do you know how to use this, Maria?”
She looked up at him. “Oh, yes.”
“And you were taught? By whom?”
“Oh, no one. I just figured it out.”
“I see.”
The old woman shook her head from side to side.
“I’ll show you.” He sat beside her and opened the latch. This Maria already knew but she was gracious and allowed him to show her as he loaded cartridges into each of the cylinder’s chambers. He got to the fifth one and stopped there. He held up one of the bullets. “Only five, Maria.”
“But it’s a six shooter.”
“Ah, and how many toes does my little Maria have?”
“Ten.”
“If you load six bullets in the gun, you might end up with only nine toes.” He laughed and closed the latch on the revolver. He handed it to her as he wagged his finger from side to side. “And don’t cock it until you are ready to fire.”
She nodded.
“Now, go put it back.”
The old woman harrumphed. “Under the pillow is no place for a gun.”
The old man sat down and waited for Maria to return from her room. He continued. “All little girls should learn guns. Then no one can bother them.”
With that, he placed a leather bag on Maria’s plate. She opened it and looked at the pile of coins. It was nearly as much as what she and Juana had originally been paid by the fence.
“For the asses.” He grinned. “The padre is a good burro trader, Maria. You must thank him for that.” He nodded at the fortune before her.
It was more than she ever imagined they would bring. She put the money back in the sack and they ate. The old folks were so good to her. She loved mealtime because they talked and laughed and there was always plenty of good food to eat.
Afterward, the old man helped Maria with her numbers, then they played cards.
The old woman didn’t much like it as he was teaching her all the bad games, the ones played in the saloons and gambling houses. It was not for a young girl growing up in a church to know. But the old man liked numbers and cards and saw no harm in it. He grabbed Maria’s bag of money and poured it onto the table. He counted out half for each of them and slid her pile in front of her, he took the other one.
“Now, my girl, I am going to show you how to make some money without breaking your back.”
He started out with the old standard, veintiuno. Maria was a good student and by bedtime they each still had half the money. Maria neither won nor lost. The old woman was impressed, the old man was a good player and he was not patronizing the child. Maria was holding her own.
When it was finally time to go to bed the old man put the money back in the sack and handed it to Maria. “Is there anything you want to buy with your fortune, Maria?”
She looked herself over. Her clothes were good enough. The old woman had taught her how to use the fancy soaps to keep them clean. She finally had a thought.
“I’d like shoes.” She got up and let the old woman kiss her good night. It made the woman happy and Maria obliged. The old woman became serious.
“No more secrets, child.” She hugged Maria a little tightly. “And be careful with the gun. We finally found you and don’t want to lose you.” She nodded. She suddenly looked strange, as if she might cry. She sent Maria off to bed.
Maria lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and thought about what the old woman had said. They finally found her? What could she mean? They didn’t know her. They could not have known her or known her situation.
She grew sleepy and thought of the boy in the suit and the priest and veintiuno. She thought of the six shooter under her pillow. That was a stupid thing to have it cocked just under her head. Sometimes she felt very stupid. But she was ignorant and not stupid. She could learn. She learned the veintiuno and now how to keep the gun and later she’d learn to shoot properly. Tomorrow she’d go to the fancy store and let the boy find her shoes that fit and she’d wear them in the church from now on. She’d never go barefoot in church again.
Chapter VI: Crisanto
Two winters passed and Maria no longer thought much about traveling to the sea to visit the fence’s pretty assistant. She’d grown nearly ten inches during this time and was blossoming into a beautiful young woman. The boys in town had difficulty concentrating on their work whenever the pretty church girl was around. The old woman and old man were constantly by her side, teaching her, nurturing her and, perhaps, even overindulging her a little from time to time. She still dressed simply, but Maria had a way of making the most humble outfit look beautiful.
She’d taken to keeping many animals and had a knack for it. The old man even arranged for her to have a horse, something Maria had dreamed of possessing ever since she could remember. He’d let her go off into the desert alone and she’d ride and ride. Sometimes she’d ride for so long that it was well after dark before she returned home, much to the consternation of the old woman.
Maria loved her horse as much as she loved the people of the church. The old man said that when animals loved a person it was a sign that the person had a pure heart and it seemed that all animals loved her.
She learned many things from the priest including how to read and write in both Spanish and English. She wasn’t the best student but now she could easily get by in el Norte. She let the priest baptize her and she took her first communion. She learned about confession, and told the priest most of her sins. Not all, as she had difficulty really believing most anything she’d ever done much of a sin.
She even made peace with Paulo, the man she had clobbered with the candleholder. He was gruff and grumpy but she won his heart. It was the way of it with Maria; she had found her voice, lost her timidity. She was blossoming into a fine young lady and she turned heads and hearts constantly, wherever she went.
And none of this was lost on Crisanto or his father. They were both attracted, in their own way, to Maria. One was falling in love and the other was continuously revolted. Maria enjoyed it all thoroughly.
One day Maria was working with some horses when shots drew her to the back of the fancy store. The old man was teaching Crisanto to fire a six shooter. This amused Maria very much, as Crisanto was inept at just about anything that required dexterity.
They’d set up bottles on a fence and Crisanto stood, one hand on his hip and the other pointing a big six shooter. He fired and missed, fired and missed, fired and missed. He was disgusted as he reloaded and Maria sauntered up beside him. She waited and let him fire and miss again before she picked up a rock and hurled it at one of his targets. She smashed it easily. He looked at her, humiliated, then turned his attention to the next bottle. He fired and missed. Maria threw again, shattering the next bottle.
“Maria, we’re going to run out of bottles.”
“Someone needs to break them.” She grinned.
“It’s easy enough to throw a rock. Shooting a gun is entirely different.”
She shrugged. “No it’s not.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s not.” She turned and ran to the church, retrieving her own gun. She nodded to Crisanto. “Go on, try again.”
He fired and missed. Maria fired and shattered the target. The boy turned and looked at the old man in disgust. It wasn’t the teacher, since the old man had taught Maria, too, at least rudimentarily. Maria could shoot a gun as naturally as she could throw a rock.
“How do you do that?”
Maria shrugged. “I just do it.”
He was completely frustrated now and fired wildly and too fast at the bottles, missing every one. He opened the gun and tore at the empty cartridge cases.
Maria smiled, “That’s even worse.”
“You do it, you’re so smart.”
She fired quickly and killed four more bottles. She deftly reloaded and fired again and killed five more. She looked behind them and spotted a rifle propped against the trough. “Oh, with a Winchester it’s even easier.”
She grabbed the rifle and began shooting again, this time shattering the pieces of the broken bottles until there was nothing more to kill down range.
“That’s a nice rifle.” She handed it to Crisanto and picked up her gun. She walked, a little too provocatively, back to the church and the shooting lesson was ended for the day.
They played cards that night and the old man laughed and told the old woman all about it. Maria had by now added faro, Mexican Monte and poker to her repertoire. She beat the old man constantly and he was proud of her.
She just finished taking all his beans, as now they played strictly with the old woman’s foodstuffs instead of with real money which was safely in the town bank, when the old woman spoke up.
“Easy on the boy’s heart, Maria.”
Maria grinned. “Oh, I won’t hurt it too badly. I just want him to make his father take it back.”
“Take what back?”
“Calling me bad things. Calling me a savage.” She spoke to her cards and did not look up. She laid out another winning hand.