Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer)

by Horst, John

  “Pendejo… Pendejo.” He had not dreamed of the Mexican girl. “Pendejo!” He felt a shove and sat up in bed. Maria stood over him with mescal on her breath. She was impressed that he was not frightened. He was completely calm and recognized her right away.

  “Oh, hello.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why are you in my room, standing over my bed?”

  “I missed you, Pendejo.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.” He looked outside, realizing that it was dark. “Most folks come calling during the day.”

  Maria had to start the act. She began walking slowly around the room, looking at things, picking up pictures. “You have a nice place, Pendejo.”

  He smiled at the absurdity of having a young señorita in his bedroom.

  “Who are these people, Pendejo?”

  “That is my wife, and the little one, my daughter.”

  “They are dead, Pendejo?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is sad.” She put the photos back. “So… what are you doing, Pendejo?” She began fidgeting with the lampshade tassels by his bed.

  “Well,” He yawned. “I can tell you what I am not doing.” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat at the edge. “I am not sleeping.”

  She grinned, “You are funny, Pendejo.”

  “What is your name, Chica?”

  “Oh, I go by many names, Pendejo. Why don’ you guess, and I will tell you what is right?”

  “Jezebel?”

  “No.”

  “Lorelei?”

  “No.”

  “Ophelia?”

  “No.”

  “Lucretia?”

  “No. But I like that name.”

  “Chiquita.”

  “No.” She grinned. “You called me that last time.” She ran her thumbnail across her teeth.

  “Diablo?”

  “Now, you are being silly, Pendejo. And I would be Diabla.”

  “I give up, Chica.”

  “That is it! I am Chica.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “What is your name, Pendejo?”

  “Arvel.”

  She laughed. “That is a funny name.”

  “I am a funny man.”

  She yawned. “You are a funny man, Pendejo. Why don’ you get angry with me?”

  “I don’t know. I think you are funny, too.”

  “I am tired, Pendejo.”

  “Then you should go home and go to bed, wherever that might be.”

  “I am thirsty, Pendejo.” She suddenly wanted him. She knew this would do it. Either she’d be in or out after this and it was just as well to get it over and done with. “Would you get me some water?”

  “Oh, you are a lot of trouble.” He stood up and reached for a robe.

  “Ay, chingao! Wha’ happened to your back, Pendejo?’

  “I got blown up in the war.”

  “What war?”

  “The great rebellion between the states. You know, the Civil War.”

  “Ah, sí, I know this war, the war where you gringos tried to rub each other out.”

  He grinned. “Yea, that war.”

  “Ay, you are a mess, Pendejo.” She stretched, catlike, “I am tired, Pendejo, and thirsty.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  He sauntered out to get her a drink.

  She acted quickly, shucking her clothes and jumping into bed, pulling the covers to her chin. She turned to the window and feigned sleep.

  “Oh, you are a lot of trouble.” He muttered under his breath as he watched her sleep. He curled up on the divan at the foot of the bed. He dozed off and began to dream.

  She waited, then realized he was lying at the foot of the bed. She was beginning to wonder if he was not a stupid gringo. “Pendejo.”

  “What?”

  “What are you doing, Pendejo?”

  “Not sleeping.”

  “Come to bed, Pendejo. I am cold.”

  “It is sweltering, Chica.”

  “I am cold.”

  His mind raced.

  “I am afraid, Pendejo.”

  He laughed. “You, afraid? I think not.”

  “You do not like me, Pendejo? No?”

  “No… Yes, I like you Chica. Like I like a pit of rattlers.” He sat up, then stood to face her. “It is not appropriate, Chica.”

  “What is this, appropriate? What does this mean?”

  “Proper.”

  She knew now that she loved him completely. This was a man who did not take such things lightly. This was a man who’d not been with a woman for a long time, yet he was not weak. He did not jump on her like he was some rutting bull. He was a man who didn’t run with the whores and this is what made Maria love him all the more. He’d be a good one and now she felt vulnerable and silly, naked under the covers. She took a deep breath. But it had to be. It had to be this way and she went forward. She played her silly game and went on.

  “Ay, you are a fool, Pendejo.” She looked into his eyes and pouted her lips, like someone who had not gotten her way. She hoped he would not see her trembling. She lifted the covers and scooted away from him, making room for him in the bed. Maria tilted her head, beckoning him.

  “My God.”

  She awoke at dawn, her brown skin contrasting sharply against Pilar’s crisp white sheets. She was the happiest she’d ever been in her life. He was good. He loved good and he was gentle and expert at it and it was a thousand times better than with Crisanto, which was not really Crisanto’s fault because he was mostly dead. But it was better than Maria could ever have imagined it would be.

  She stretched again, enjoying the comfortable bed, a bed better than Uncle Alejandro’s and better even than the lady fence’s bed because it had the mule man in it. He was good and she could not get enough of him. She looked up at him, her head resting on his arm, “Pendejo, why are you looking at me?”

  He was fiddling with the earring dangling nearest to him, and then the bangles on her wrist. He laughed. “I was thinking of something funny.”

  “What, Pendejo?”

  “ ‘And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord.’"

  She wriggled more deeply into the bed, turned on her side facing away and pressed herself against him. “You are funny.” She fell into a deep and restful sleep.

  The Mule Tamer

  John C. Horst

  Chapter I: Jezebel

  Arvel Walsh had gone down early to meet the posse. He could not sleep and decided to head to town instead of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. The story told to him by the chattering young hand about the slaughter kept him awake. By midnight he was dozing in a small room at the end of town. He leaned against some rope hanging on the wall of the cramped quarters, the air dense and still, rank with the odor of horsehair and rawhide and hemp.

  He regretted his decision, now, as he recalled that old Will Panks had removed the bed just recently. Arvel had to try to get a little rest sitting on the dirty floor.

  Will was a good man and a good friend whom Arvel had discovered living under the floorboards of the dry goods store’s porch in the middle of town. He was an utter wreck when Arvel first came upon him.

  Most of the folks who’d come upon Will were afraid of him and thought him either an old drunk or addle-brained. Arvel learned that he was neither and had a mind sharper than most. He was a prospector trained in geology and civil engineering. One day, due to a slight error in calculation, he made a misstep and ended his career by breaking his back in the desert. He crawled miles and ended up, penniless and without means, in Arvel’s little town.

  Arvel set him up in the shack which was not, at the time, more than a lean-to at the very edge of town. Will was a proud man and would accept minimal help from Arvel and no financial aid, whatsoever. Slowly, with constant hard work, Will was able to regain control of his legs and now walked stooped over in a perman
ent crouch.

  He earned his living making rope. As he got money he’d add a wall here and a window there. At some point he’d found an old rolltop desk in the desert, the discarded flotsam from a prairie schooner, let go by an overzealous traveler. He found a chair on a burning heap and rescued it and, until recently, had an old featherbed in the cramped quarters. It eventually became quite homey and kept Will out of the elements. As his health improved, his fortunes did as well and he now was able to live rather comfortably in the only boarding house in town.

  Arvel was just drifting off when the barrage of gunfire jolted him to his senses. He peered through the cracks in the door. A rider, Mexican, judging from the saddle and sombrero, was racing up the street, firing in every direction. The miscreant stopped to reload, just feet from the shack’s porch. Arvel grabbed one of the ropes hanging on the wall and slowly opened the door. When the rider holstered the first gun, Arvel stepped out onto the porch, threw his loop and jerked. The rider was pulled free from his saddle and landed on the ground, neck first. The horse galloped off and Arvel walked up to his prisoner.

  The offender was a woman. Arvel picked her up and quickly threw her over his shoulder, grabbed her hat and rushed inside the shack. A Mexican would not be popular now. He eased her down onto the floor of the shed, tossed her hat aside, and began looking her over to see what damage he had done. She did not appear to be more than twenty. Her loose fitting outfit, despite its manly style, could not betray a well-proportioned frame. She wore a print cotton shirt, bright red scarf and striped brown vaquero pants. Her black boots were stitched ornately. Her gun belt carried a pair of silver-colored Schofields with fancy ivory handles. A matching vaquero dagger hung in a sheath in front of the holster on the right. The rig bore an abundance of polished conchos. Her tanned skin contrasted with the many bangles running up each arm.

  Arvel smiled as a memory of his wife teasing him suddenly returned. When they made their forays into Mexico, the dark beauties never failed to turn his head and she loved to give him a hard time about it.

  He suddenly regretted harming the girl. She was lovely and reeked of tobacco and spirits and human and horse sweat and earth. Like the whores in Tombstone, she was alluring and off-putting at the same time. He nearly forgot her transgressions as he watched her. He was right to stop her from shooting up the town. At least he did not put a ball in her.

  Her face bore a peaceful expression as she lay there on the dusty floorboards among the bits of hair and hemp. It was a face formed by the centuries mingling Spanish and Indian blood. A small scar under her bottom lip added to her beauty and imparted a not insignificant suggestion of danger. She sighed as he removed her gun belt. The little viper would be more difficult to defang after she had awakened.

  He removed her scarf, wetted it from his canteen and began cleaning the dust from her face and arms and decided it better to leave the rest. He turned his attention to her rig. He fumbled with the latch on one of the six shooters; they were a type he had seen only a few times. He never had much use for six shooters. The gun sprang open, ejecting cartridge cases into the air and clattering on the floor. The girl awoke at the commotion.

  “Ay, chingao!” She felt her head and sat up slowly. She looked around the room, and then at her captive. “Pendejo, what are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you to wake up.” He placed the gun back in its holster, and set the rig down, out of her reach.

  “Ay, look at my clothes.” She took the damp scarf and began brushing herself off. “Did you wipe me down, Pendejo?” She looked at him suspiciously.

  “I did. But not where I shouldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Not on your private parts.” He smiled at her. She amused him. “Are you trying to be hanged, or are you just stupid?”

  She rubbed a knot on her head with her scarf, then looked at it for blood. “Ay, my head is sore.” She looked at him again. “What are you talking about, gringo?”

  “Do you not know of the troubles?”

  “No.” She was trying to focus. “Are you some kind of law, mister?”

  “No.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, offered her one. She refused it and pulled out a cigar, leaning forward so that he could light it. “So you don’t know about the murder of the family outside of town?” He had not given it any thought, but was now wondering if she might have been part of it. She was unfazed.

  “No, I know nothing of any murder. Ay, you really hurt me, Pendejo.” Rubbing the back of her neck, she looked around the room. “So, I am not arrested?”

  “No.”

  “Where is my horse?’

  “Beats me. Tombstone by now, shot dead, not certain. It ran off like its hind parts were on fire, heading south. Heard lots of shooting, so the towns’ folk were probably shooting at it. What kind of stupid stunt was that anyway, shooting up the town?”

  She rubbed her head then picked up her hat. “I don’ know, Pendejo, when I drink some mescal, I do some things.” She stood up and stretched her back, blew smoke at the ceiling of the shack. “I really gotta go, Pendejo, will you let me go?”

  “Not without a horse.” He looked at his watch. The posse would be meeting up just before sunrise. “I tell you what, let me go find your horse and you stay here. Don’t leave, understand?”

  “Sí, I understand.” She reached for her gun belt and looked for his reaction. He let her.

  He walked out of the shed, onto the porch, and looked around for activity. Further down the street people were milling about. He untied Sally and mounted up; he rode south in the direction the horse had galloped. He passed several townspeople and no one seemed to pay him any mind. They had been through a lot, with the murder of the family nearby and now some crazy pistolero galloping up and down the street, shooting up the place.

  They were all on edge and most were armed. Many had been drinking all day and into the evening and Arvel was certain if they found the young woman, they’d all be regretting their actions in the morning. He rode a quarter mile out of town and soon spotted the fancy saddle reflecting moonlight.

  The girl’s pony was an equine version of her mistress, beautiful and dangerous. She looked up from browsing as Arvel approached. He spoke to her calmly and she went back to feeding. He grabbed the reins and the filly willingly followed. Sally had a maternal influence on horses; they liked to follow the mule.

  Back at the shed, the outlaw girl was prying on a locked drawer of Will Panks’ rolltop with her big knife. Other drawers were upended, papers scattered on the floor and desktop.

  “Hey, stop that!” He pushed her away and began straightening up. “So, you’re a thief as well as a drunkard?”

  “I need money, Pendejo.”

  “Has working or getting married or doing something honest ever crossed your mind?” Arvel continued to put the place back in order.

  She spit on the floor. “I don’ need to work and I don’ need a man. I take what I want, Pendejo, like you gringos take and take from the people who have been here for hundreds of years. You are just as much as thief as me.”

  He laughed. “Well, you have a point there.”

  She looked him up and down. “You are a strange gringo, Pendejo. You don’ look very much like, like…”

  “Not very tough?” He smiled. “I know, I know. I’ve heard that before.”

  “Why are you not so mean to me, Pendejo? Most gringo white men don’ want nothin’ to do with me. They avoid even to look at me.”

  “I think you’re funny.” He smiled. He looked at his watch again. “You’d better beat it out of here.”

  “Why so secret, Pendejo?”

  “What’s this Pendejo?”

  “Oh, I don’ know, it just seem to fit.”

  “It wouldn’t be good if the people around here caught you. They’d likely string you up, just for good measure. A bandit gang of Mexicans and Indians killed a whole family just outside of town. It was pretty bad. The leader wears a gold sombrero. Maybe you know h
im?”

  “Ay, chingao, sí, I know him, Pendejo. He is mal puro. One day, I will meet up with him and kill him, but he is like smoke, he is hard to catch.”

  “We’re meeting in a couple of hours to go after that gang.”

  “You, Pendejo?” She chuckled. “You better not go after bandits, or they will be digging a grave for you, especially Sombrero Del Oro.”

  He was growing tired of her impudence and took her by the arm. “I appreciate your concern, Chiquita, but I’ll be just fine. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Guess, Pendejo.” She eyed him devilishly. She liked the attention he was giving her.

  “Sixteen?”

  “Hah! I have twenty-six years, Pendejo.”

  “Well, you won’t have twenty-seven years if you keep this up. Now, get on your horse and ride. Don’t stop.” He tossed a half-eagle at her. He didn’t know why. “And I don’t want to hear from or see you in these parts again.”

  She turned to leave, then grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth. She thought for a moment, and kissed him again, harder this time. It was the first good kiss he’d had in five years. “You kiss good, Pendejo.” She was gone.

  * * *

  Olaf Knudsen had come to the states twenty-two years ago. He was not married when he arrived and had only the clothes on his back and twenty one dollars. He worked in New York City for five years; seven days a week in a textile factory. After work, he went home and worked another three hours every night assembling ladies garters. His diet was salted fish and cabbage, not because he could not afford anything else, but because, by so eating, he could save more than sixty percent of his wages. He shared a bed with five other men. Two men shared one bed every eight hours. He dreamed of owning a dairy farm, and after five years, had enough money to purchase everything necessary to move west and pursue his dream. He picked up a nice wife along the way, and soon had a burgeoning family. They all had one purpose, and that was to make a successful farm. What took a lifetime of sweat and dreaming and toil was destroyed in less than an hour.