Tula was a couple of steps behind Squires as they walked toward the RV, but she hurried ahead and grabbed the man’s wrist, which caused Squires to stop and peer down at her.
“Don’t ever say that again,” Tula told him, her expression fierce. “The Maiden is real. I can show you in the history books! She led King Charles’s army, carrying her banner and sword. She forced the English sinners out of France. At first, even the king didn’t believe that she was sent by God, but the Maiden proved it to him.”
Tula gave the man’s wrist as shake. “She was a great leader and her soldiers loved her. The Maiden lived a pure life. She died a virgin, as a woman without a husband should. Have you committed so many sins that you don’t want to believe such a good person could exist?”
Squires didn’t know what to say. He felt ridiculous, allowing himself to be lectured by this skinny little teenager with her boy’s haircut, breasts just beginning to blossom.
“And something else,” the girl continued, giving the man’s wrist another shake. “Stop calling me a chula. My name is Tula. Please show me respect. And no more profanity! It hurts me when you use those words. Why do you intentionally hurt me when you know I care for you? I want to help you to be happy again, but then you say such awful things!”
Harris Squires got a funny feeling in his throat when the girl said that. It was stupid to react that way, he knew it, but there it was.
He stood silently as he watched the girl march off toward the truck, then turn with hands on her hips before saying to him, “If we’re going to Immokalee, let’s go. But you can’t go like that—not into a church. You have to change your clothes.”
Squires growled, “What?” He was carrying his shirt in his hand, wearing baggy shorts and flip-flops.
The girl didn’t back down. “If you hadn’t thrown me into your truck this morning without even asking, I would have brought my extra shirt. But you have clean clothes hanging in the trailer. I saw them.”
Squires thought about arguing, maybe even threaten to slap the girl’s face to let her know who was in charge. But then he thought, The hell with it.
The little brat was exhausting. Besides, it wouldn’t kill him to get cleaned up a little. It might even make him feel better, because his shirt was soaked with sweat—he could smell its hormonal stink—and he hadn’t showered since almost having his ass eaten off by Fifi the night before.
“You mind if I take a little nap first?” he said to the girl, being sarcastic, but he meant it. He was suddenly very tired despite the fresh D-bomb juice and testosterone pulsing through him.
“Will you put those steel things on my wrists again, the handcuffs?” the girl asked. It made her nervous, the idea of being alone with the man in the trailer. He might start drinking again. Drink himself into a different mood, and Squires might even try to force her into his bed—Tula would have preferred a bullet in the head to the horror of a man’s hands on her body.
But then she studied the giant’s face, seeing how empty and tired he looked, and decided no, he would not hurt her. Not now, at least. So the girl added, “If you think you have to chain me, I won’t fight you. If it will allow you to sleep for a little while, I think it’s what you should do. I won’t mind.”
The Maiden had been imprisoned in chains, and Tula felt an unexpected thrill at the thought of sharing the experience. It was exciting, the prospect of being locked up alone, but safe with God and Jehanne in her head, while the giant slept nearby.
But the man disappointed her by saying, “If you promise to shut your mouth for a little bit, I don’t care what you do. Run off and get eaten by panthers, that’s your decision. Just stop your damn talking for a while. My ears are starting to hurt.”
Four hours later, when Squires exited the trailer wearing slacks and a polo shirt instead of shorts and flip-flops, his hair wet and slicked back, Tula tried to compliment him by saying, “You look very nice. Blue is a nice color, it shows your eyes. When you were sleeping, you looked so peaceful, I hated to wake you. But it’s getting late.”
The girl was nervous because Squires was carrying the iPhone she had used an hour ago to type a quick message to her patron, Tomlinson, while the giant slept. She had done it just to let him know that she was safe and not in trouble. It was the first text Tula had ever attempted and she had hit the sEND button accidentally before she was done.
Would the big man notice?
Tula watched Squires glance at the phone, then held her breath as he looked at it more closely.
“That’s weird,” he said, swiping his fingers over the screen. “Usually, I don’t get service out here at the camp, but it looks like someone called. No message, though—probably because of the shitty reception.”
Tula relaxed a little when the man swore again softly, adding, “It was Frankie, I bet. I bet she is one pissed-off chick. If I’m lucky, I won’t never see her again.”
As they approached the truck, the redheaded woman with muscles was still on Squires’s mind because he asked the girl, sounding serious, “Tell me something. At Red Citrus, you ever talk to Frankie? Did she ever try to get you off alone?”
“I saw her at the trailer park twice,” Tula said. “I had a bad feeling about her, though. So I stayed away from her.”
Squires was interested. “A bad feeling? What do you mean by that?”
“A feeling that there is something dark in the woman’s brain. That’s the only way I can explain it. She scared me. I’m glad you don’t want to see that woman again. I think she is a bad influence for you. And she’s too old, anyway. A man who looks like Hercules could choose any woman in the world. You should marry a nice woman. A young girl who cares about you and can cook you food.”
Realizing how that sounded, Tula threw her hand over her mouth, embarrassed.
But Squires didn’t appear to notice. Sounding like it was hard for him to believe, the man said, “That surprises me. Frankie never said even a single word to you?”
“Her eyes watched me when she saw me,” the girl replied. “I could tell she wanted to speak with me, but I didn’t give her the chance. Her eyes are very blue. I felt like she was trying to see through my clothing. And that there might be something bad inside her. Maybe evil, I’m not sure. So I stayed away.
The man appeared satisfied, maybe even relieved. “Good,” he said. “That was real smart of you. Never ever let that bitch get you alone.”
Squires grunted as Tula, getting into the truck, tried to buoy his spirits by saying, “There’s no need to worry about the redheaded woman now. The Maiden is my protector. Now she is your protector, too.”
“Sure, yeah, right,” the man replied. “Whatever you say, sis. But if you really want to impress me, try shutting that mouth of yours for a while.”
“You’ll see,” Tula insisted. “Jehanne is right about the churches tonight. We will find people there who can help us. And that woman—Frankie? Even if she is evil, you and I have nothing to fear.”
By the time they’d spent a couple of hours in Immokalee, with its Circle Ks, tomato-packing warehouses and migrant housing, Squires had stopped trying to figure out how the weird little Jesus freak had gotten so famous among all these Mexicans who came out of the woodwork to see the girl, once word got around that she was in town.
Squires knew that the chilies back at Red Citrus had built some kind of voodoo-looking shrine to Tula. Why? He had no idea. But how did these Mexicans know about the girl way out here in cattle-and-tomato country, sixty miles from the Gulf beaches and his trailer park? Christ, Tula had been in Florida for only a week or so. Now here she was with strangers fawning over her like she was some kind of damn rock star.
Something else that surprised the man was that the Maiden—whoever the hell she was—was right about churches being open on a Wednesday. Not all, but a couple.
More likely, though, credit went to the strange little girl who heard voices but sat quietly, hands in her lap, during the twenty-mile drive from the hunting c
amp to this city linked to the outside world just by train tracks and a winding road.
The only time Tula had stirred was once when they passed a state trooper’s car going the other way. When the girl saw Squires’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel, she stroked his forearm and said, “If a policeman stops us, don’t worry, I’ll tell them you’re my friend. And that we’re looking for my mother. They’ll believe me. Know why? Because it’s the truth.”
Squires had tried to catch the news on the radio, hoping for an update on the dead woman they’d found. It was also in his mind that Tula could have been reported missing and that the cops might make the connection.
Hell, for all he knew, Frankie had blown the whistle on him herself, once she discovered that all their cash missing. Blame the dead girl’s body on him, that would be easy enough for Frankie to do—and maybe even try to prove it, the bitch was such a good liar.
But no luck with the radio—there were only FM stations out here in the boonies. So Squires decided, screw it, he would just go with the flow and stick with the girl. He couldn’t make himself kill his crazy little eyewitness, so maybe he was better off joining her. For now.
At the edge of the Everglades, the open highway became Main Street, with palm trees and gas stations, and lots of small brown people, some of them woman, wearing what looked like colorful blankets. And lots of scrawny, bowlegged Mexican men, too, wearing straw cowboy hats.
At a supermarket named Azteca Super Centro, Squires turned right past Raynor’s Seafood & Restaurant, then drove backstreets, zigzagging through a residential area, because that is what the girl told him to do.
The man had never been in a town so small with so many wetback churches. Iglesia Bautista Jesucristo. Pentecostal Church of God. Evangelica Redimidos por la Sangre de Jesus. Amigos en Cristo.
It was like being in a foreign country, the names were so strange. A lot of Spanish praying went down on this plateau of asphalt and lawns bleached brown by the Florida heat, the entire city opened wide to an Everglades sky above.
Not all of the churches were busy, but a couple were, with parking lots full—pickup trucks and rusting Toyotas—church doors open, with people inside singing hymns or shouting out wild words in Spanish.
Squires could hear all this, as they idled along in his truck, windows down. A few blocks later, they came to an adobe-colored brick building with a tin roof, Iglesia de Sangre de Cristo, and the girl told him to pull in. She’d start here.
“I’m staying in the truck,” Squires said, giving Tula a look that told her Don’t bother arguing. “But remember this: If you try running out on me, there’ll be hell to pay. That ain’t a profanity, it’s a promise.”
Tula stared at him a moment, the door open, her wounded expression asking the man When will you ever learn?
Then she jumped down to the ground, a girl not much taller then the truck’s tires, saying, “If the priest will let me, I’m going to talk to the congregation. I would like you to come in and listen. I wouldn’t feel as nervous if you were with me. Please? I can speak in English for you. Most of them will understand.”
Squires shook his head, and kept his eye on Tula until she was inside. After half an hour, though, he did get out and peek through a window, because it seemed strange the way people off the street were suddenly hurrying across lawns to get to the church. The place was already packed, but more people kept coming, some of them chattering on their cell phones, excited expressions on their faces, as they jogged along.
What Squires saw through the window caused him to wonder if Frankie had slipped some Ecstasy into his fresh batch of steroids, the stuff he’d just injected.
That’s how surreal the scene was.
What he saw was Tula, the skinny little girl dressed like a boy, standing at the altar, speaking Spanish in a strong voice, as the priest—a fat little dweeb with no hair—looked on adoringly. Which caused Squires to think maybe the asshole really believed Tula was a boy. But the priest wasn’t the only one giving the girl his full attention.
Sitting squashed together on wooden pews, some of the women were bawling silently into hankies, moved by what the girl was saying. And a line was forming near the altar, Mexican men with farmer’s tans, short little women—some on their knees—apparently waiting to meet the girl when she was done speaking.
But why? Squires moved to a window that was closer to find out.
It made no sense, but what the people wanted to do, he discovered, was kiss the girl’s hand, or hug her, or maybe ask her to say a prayer for them, which Tula appeared to do several times, touching her hand to a person’s head while she muttered words toward the ceiling.
My God, even the priest got in on it, hugging the girl while she touched his dweebish bald head and said something that Squires was close enough to hear but couldn’t understand.
Dumbass, the man thought to himself. Why the hell didn’t I ever learn Spanish?
It was frustrating hearing but not understanding, especially because he was trying to figure out why the girl commanded such respect from so many adults, all of them strangers.
Maybe Tula sounded smarter in Spanish. That might explain it, which caused Squires to spend some time weighing the possibility. It had to be true, he finally decided. In English, the girl came off as pretty damn strange, maybe even nuts. In Spanish, she must have sounded a lot smarter.
Right or wrong, it gave Squires a funny feeling to witness how famous the girl had become. He guessed it was something to be proud of, hanging out with a celebrity, even if the girl’s fans were all Mexicans.
What he was witnessing was impressive, Squires had to admit it. Being with a celebrity was new in his experience, unless he counted Frankie, which he didn’t of course. Fifteen years ago, Frankie had been a minor bodybuilding star—Miss South Florida U.S.A. once and Miss Vermont Bodybuilder three times in a row—which the bitch never stopped reminding him when they got into arguments over which steroids were best for different kinds of cycles.
But being with Tula, the strange little Jesus freak, was an entirely different experience. Squires had never seen anyone look at Frankie the way these adoring people kept their eyes glued to that little girl.
Yeah, sort of proud—that’s the way he felt. And he would have continued watching if a few tough-acting Mexicans—or were they Guatemalans?—hadn’t slipped out the church door to give him their hard-assed beaner glares.
“What you lookin’ at, man?” one of the chilies said to Squires as they walked toward him, all three taking out their gangbanger bandannas, he noticed.
Squires turned to gauge the distance to his truck where he’d stored the Ruger Blackhawk beneath the seat. Not that he needed a gun to deal with these little turds—even with a pulled hamstring—but it was good to know he had options.
He waited until the trio was closer before he said to them, keeping his voice low and confidential, “Hey, I gotta question for you boys. What’s that little girl in there saying that’s so important? Man, even the priest is hanging on every word. How’d she get so famous?”
Squires was trying to be friendly, strike up a nice conversation with these hard Mexicans. But no luck.
The head chilie was easy to pick out. He was the one tying on his blue colors, low over the eyes, as he said something that sounded like, “Choo tryin’ to be funny or what, man? ’Cause choo ain’t funny,” his Mex accent strong.
Not quite so friendly now, Squires told the dude, “You’d be laughing your ass off if I wanted to be funny, douche bag.”
The two beaners moved closer to the head gangbanger, standing shoulder to shoulder, as their leader replied, “We know who you are, man. We know all about the shit goes on out there at your damn hunting camp, too. So get the hell out of here, back to your trailer park that smells of mierda. This here’s a damn church, man. Why you wanna bother us here with your presence?”
Squires was surprised, at first, that the Mexican knew so much about him, but then he wasn’t. Hell, may
be all three of these dudes had lived at Red Citrus for a while. That wouldn’t have surprised him, either, because most of the illegals sooner or later showed up at one of his parks.
“Let me offer you some friendly advice,” Squires said to the men, motioning for them to lean closer. “Pay attention or I’ll rip your ears off and stick ’em up your ass. I asked you a polite question. I expect a nice answer. That girl in there is a friend of mine. Why’s the priest letting her stand up there and talk to the whole audience?”
“Right-t-t-t,” one of the chilies said, feeling around for something in his pocket. “That girl in there, if you say you know her, you lying coño. She’s a saint, man. So you better behave yourself with respect or we’ll run your white ass outta here.”
“Is that what she claims?” Squires asked.
“She talks to God and God answers her back,” the Guatemalan replied, sounding defensive, but pissed off, too. “What proof you want? God is telling her we should return to our homes in the mountains. And not put up with gringo assholes like you. For what? Live in a shithole trailer park like yours? Drive a fancy truck that takes half my pay every month?”
The word “mountains” registered in Squires’s memory, which caused him to say, “I hear it’s pretty nice where some of you Mexicans come from. Even in summer, I heard it’s nice ’n’ cool up in those mountains. That true? What’s a big house and a few acres sell for?”
“A jelly boy like you moving to Guatemala?” the chilie said to him. “Man, don’t even think about it. We don’t want your kind dirtying up our home.” He took a step. “You say you a friend of this girl? I think you full of bullshit, man.”
Squires was looking through the church window again, trying to gauge how pissed off Tula would be if he caused a disturbance outside. No, he decided. He wasn’t going to do it. The girl had already gotten mad at him once today, giving him a look that had made him feel sort of low, like he’d disappointed her. Once was enough. He didn’t want to have that feeling again.
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