Streets of Laredo: A Novel (35 page)

By the middle of the gray, cold afternoon, the work was finished. There was nothing left of the great feral pig except its hide, its hooves and its bones.

Old Naiche had even taken its eyes. She dropped them into a bucket with the strippings from the guts and hobbled off to her small hovel with them.

Then she came back and got an armful of the sections of gut she had cut. The plentitude of guts made old Naiche happy. It reminded her of the buffalo times, long before, when she had often waded in piles of guts.

In the late afternoon, as the winter sun was setting, the sleet turned to snow. Maria felt a bitterness growing in her toward Joey, her son.

He had sneered at the trouble she had gone to warning him, and then he had stolen her horse. She had not expected thanks when she journeyed to Crow Town. Joey did not thank people, for nothing they did made him grateful. But she had not supposed he would steal her horse, and leave her on foot in such a place in the winter, among Texans. It was a cruel thing. It made her wonder if her son wished her dead. It was a long way back to Ojinaga, and there were many perils. With Grasshopper, she stood a better chance. Without a horse, it would be very difficult.

She might freeze, or she might be taken by men who would be rough with her.

There were horses in Crow Town; Maria had seen five or six. Some of the men who came to watch the butchering were mounted. But Maria had no money, and could not buy a horse. If she stole one and they caught her, she would be hung. That was for sure, they would hang her when they caught her.

If there were no trees, they would stretch her between two horses until her neck broke or she strangled. She had seen the Federales hang men that way. They had stretched Benito's brother, Raul, between two horses. They had pulled so hard that they almost pulled Raul's head off. A Mexican hanging, the Texans called it, although they used it too, if they were too far from a tree.

Maria decided to walk. That way, she could at least hide in the sage. She searched Joey's room, to see if she could find anything useful.

She thought he might have left some money, but there was no money. Gabriela and Marieta tried to stop her from searching, for they were scared of Joey.

"He don't like nobody to be in his room," Marieta said. "He'll beat you, when he comes back." "I can beat, too," Maria said.

All she could find to take was one blanket and a good knife. She wrapped all the meat she could carry in a sack. While she was packing, the women of Crow Town began to crowd into the house.

All were wearing what coats they had. All carried parcels of meat. Only old Naiche didn't come. Beulah had put on her coat too. Marieta and Gabriela had not dressed warmly. They looked scared.

Beulah spoke for the women.

"We want to go when you go," she said. "We don't want to stay here. We're all going to die, if we stay here." "You might die harder, if you go with me," Maria warned. She did not want to lead the women across the bad land, between Crow Town and Mexico.

The meat would not last. She had only three bullets left for her pistol. The women did not look strong. They would freeze or starve, or drown or give up. Her statement had been the truth: dying in Crow Town would not be good, but dying in the borderlands in winter might be worse. At least in Crow Town, there would be shelter.

Then she remembered the railroad. It was only two days' walk south, or a little more. The women might make it to the railroad. Then maybe a train would stop for them. She had seen two trains. She didn't know what made trains stop, but she thought that maybe a train would stop for the women, if they waved at the men who drove the train.

It was a hope, at least. Maria could understand that the women did not want to die in Crow Town. It was not a good place. The crows flew through the snow, or walked in it. Three sat on the bare ribs of the great pig. As the cold deepened, the cawing of the crows seemed to grow louder. Maria felt feverish. She would have liked to rest in Joey's bed for a day or a night, but she was afraid. If the men caught her, they would not care that she was feverish. They might tie her and keep her until she became like the other women in the town. Her heart might die within her, as their hearts had.

Maria couldn't risk that. Her children needed her.

Even now, she worried that Billy Williams wouldn't take care of them well enough. Rafael might be growing thin, for sometimes he forgot to eat.

Teresa was careless sometimes, and burned herself on the stove. What if she had burned herself badly?

Who would hold her in the night and help her with the pain?

"I will take you to the railroad, if you will try to keep up," Maria said. "That's the best I can do. I have to leave you at the railroad and go home to my children." When the time came to leave, Marieta and Gabriela wept. They had no warm clothes; they didn't want to go.

"My feet freeze, even when I'm in the house," Marieta said. "I don't want to walk in the snow." "I want to wait for Joey," Gabriela said. "He don't have no one else to help him." "Joey thinks she's pretty," Marieta said. She was bitter that her sister had been favored. She didn't like Joey anymore. But her feet got very cold, just sitting in the house.

Someone had told her that if your feet froze, they had to be cut off. She was afraid that if she went with the woman, her feet would freeze. The person who told her what happened to frozen feet was Red Foot, who sometimes visited her.

He would only pay her a dime, but it was a dime at least. Red Foot liked to be behind her; she could hear him panting in her ear, like a dog.

He said frozen feet had to be sawed off with a saw.

"Me and Gabriela, we better stay," Marieta said.

"Don't be weak," Maria said. The two girls were just girls, not too much older than her own girl. She didn't want to leave them to the rough men. If she had to take the women, she would take the girls, too.

"These men will use you till you're sick," Maria said. "I will wrap your feet so they won't freeze." While the girls sat, looking scared, she cut up sacks and wrapped their feet in many layers. She found an old pair of chaps that had worn thin and used the leather to make tight wrappings around the sacks. She didn't think the girls would freeze, for the worst cold didn't come with snow.

When Maria was ready, all the women looked scared. It was dark and the snow was still blowing. Some of the women wanted to wait until morning, but Maria wouldn't hear of it.

"Do you want a parade?" she asked, angrily. She had enough responsibilities, without these women balking.

"You know what we are to these men," she said.

"Look between your legs--that's what we are. That's why they even let us be alive. Do you think they will let us all walk off, and not do something about it?" Then she thought of old Naiche. She was Indian, Comanche. Probably, the women had not asked her to go. When Maria inquired, several of the women claimed not to know where old Naiche lived.

Finally, Beulah told her.

Maria went through the snow to the little hovel of dirt and branches where Naiche lived. The shelter was made of thin mesquite branches, bent together at the top. There were many spaces between the mesquite limbs, but old Naiche had covered them with some of the rotten buffalo hides. It was a flimsy dwelling, so low that Maria had to go almost to her hands and knees to get through the opening. The wind sang through the small, smoky room, but Naiche didn't seem to mind. She sat with her bucketful of strippings and her armful of guts.

Now and then, she would dip into the bucket and nibble from the squeezings of the dead pig.

"I don't see well, no more," Naiche said, when Maria stooped low and came in. "Too much smoke." "We're leaving. You should come with us," Maria said. "I will take you to the railroad. It's not a long walk. This is not a good place for a woman." Old Naiche shook her head.

"The train don't have no place to take me to," she said. "All my people are dead." "They are not all dead," Maria replied.

"Billy Williams says there are many of your people, in the Territory. The train could take you to them, if you will get up and come with me." "No, there are only whites in the world now," old Naiche said. "I have all this food. You got it for me. I want to stay here and eat this food." "Bring it, I'll help you carry it," Maria said. She knew it was no use, trying to save a woman as old as Naiche, but she wanted to try.

The women of Crow Town were too sad. Even with her eyes half gone from smoke, the old Comanche woman had more life left in her than any of them. She didn't seem discouraged, to be living in a small hovel made of mesquite sticks, with rotten buffalo hides to cover it and protect her from the cold breath of the norther.

"Come, try," Maria said. "I don't know what will become of you if I leave you here with these men." "I don't worry about these men," Naiche said. "Look. I'll show you what I have." She bent, and began to dig with her hands by the little fire.

"This fire don't go out," she said, as she was digging. "I only let it go out in the summer, when it is hot. When the norther comes, I let the fire burn so my scorpions won't freeze." Naiche uncovered a pit, so near the fire that the glow of the coals lit it. Maria looked in and saw that the pit was full of scorpions. She didn't like scorpions; she didn't count, but there were many scorpions in Naiche's little pit, and also a few of the long centipedes with the red legs.

Old Naiche had made a roof over the pit, with little sticks and a badger skin to cover it and keep the scorpions in.

"When they sting me, it don't hurt," Naiche said. "If men are bad, I will go around and put scorpions in their clothes. I did it to old Tommy, because he stole my tobacco. When he was drunk, I put three scorpions in his pants, and they stung him where he is a man." Old Naiche grinned. She had few teeth.

Maria, too, was amused, at the old woman's vengeance and her cleverness in keeping a pit of scorpions near her fire. Billy had once told her that the Apaches sometimes kept scorpions because they needed their poison.

"Are you Apache?" Maria asked, thinking she had made a mistake about Naiche's tribe.

"No, but I was given to an Apache," Naiche said. "I lived in the Bosque Redondo, but I didn't like it. I ran away." "Run away again," Maria said. "I will take you to my home. I have two children who are damaged.

My girl is blind and my boy cannot think too well. Come to my home, and I will take care of you. We'll leave the others at the railroad, but you can come to Mexico with me." But again, Naiche shook her head.

"My time is coming," she said. "It will come when I finish this food you gave me. I do not want to go away and miss it. When you miss your time, then you cannot rest.

"Besides, I like the crows," Naiche added. "I have one that comes to my house and tells me secrets. That is why I know I have to stay here and wait for my time. She is up there now, my crow." Maria had no more time. She saw that she could not persuade the old woman, and she needed to be far from town with the other women when morning came.

Maybe if it was still snowing, the men would be too lazy to follow the women. That was her hope, and her only hope. The women she was taking away were ugly, dirty, and weary, but they still had the places between their legs. The men wouldn't like losing those places. Maybe they would pursue them, and maybe they wouldn't. But Maria had to go, and go at once.

"I will give you this advice," she said to Naiche. "Do not put your scorpions on the killer with scabs in his hair. He don't care about women. He will sting you worse than you sting him." Old Naiche didn't answer. She looked into the smoke, the smoke that had ruined her eyes.

Again she dipped her hand into the bucket of strippings from the pig's guts.

Maria crept out. The snow had stopped, which made her fearful. She had to hurry, and she had to get the women moving. Several crows sat on top of old Naiche's hut. Maria wondered which one was the crow that had told the old woman secrets. She wondered, but she did not have time to find out. The snow had stopped. She had to get the women and the two scared girls, and go.

When Mox Mox and his seven men rode into Crow Town, he made the men ride their horses back and forth over old Naiche's little brush shelter, trampling her to death.

At first, the horses shied, and didn't want to crash through the shelter. Mox Mox pointed to a sandhill, about one hundred yards away.

"Go to the top of it and blindfold them shittin' horses," he instructed. "Head them for this brush and keep on spurring." Old Naiche heard. While the men were blindfolding the horses, she tried to crawl out, but Mox Mox was waiting for her with his leaded quirt.

He quirted her in the face until she gave up. She crawled back into her hut and waited for the hooves to bring her darkness. Soon she heard the horses coming hard. The crows began to caw.

Naiche tried to be ready, but she had begun to feel regret for not going with Maria. It was a sharp regret, so sharp it made it hard for her to be ready.

But the horses were coming hard, whether or not she was ready. Naiche clawed open her little pit and dug quickly with one hand into her scorpions and centipedes. She raked a handful of them up and shoved them under her blanket. Perhaps one of them would bite The-Snake-You-Do-Not-See. The horses were closer. Naiche still had scorpions in her hand when they crashed through the branches of mesquite.