Streets of Laredo: A Novel (69 page)

Maria felt her daughter's fear in the trembling of her small hands.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "Joey's dead. You are safe. Billy will come soon and take care of us. The old sisters will stay until he comes to help." When the vaqueros realized that Joey Garza was dead and that Gordo, a stupid butcher, had killed him, they became bitter. They had had the chance to kill him too, but the bloody woman had pointed a gun at them and prevented them from having the glory of killing the young bandit. In their bitterness, they drank a lot of tequila and convinced themselves that they had shot Joey Garza.

The butcher had only assisted. They found Joey's body in the river and shot it a few more times, then put a rope on it and dragged it through the village streets. In other places, one would believe that a greasy butcher had killed the famous young killer with a rusty carbine. But in Mexico and Texas, the people would think it was two fearless vaqueros who had risked their lives to rid the country of a scourge. Their fame would grow; there would be songs about them. Only in Ojinaga would anyone even suppose that a village butcher had anything to do with it.

The vaqueros left Joey's body outside the cantina and went to Presidio to spread the news. They wanted to find someone to take their picture with the corpse.

Jorge and his brother brought Joey's body to his mother. His body was filthy and dirty and coated with dust from being dragged by the two vaqueros.

Maria begged the old sisters to heat water and help her clean her son. She wanted his body to be clean, and she wanted him dressed in clean clothes, clothes that she had washed herself.

"He's my good boy again ... please make him nice," she asked the old sisters. But the old sisters smoked and sulked and ignored her. They knew the dead boy was of the devil--to touch him might be to catch corruption.

Maria was weak, but she was determined that her son's body would be clean.

"Get out!" she cried at the old sisters.

"Go roll your cigarettes someplace else." She made Teresa heat water. When it was hot, she bathed the wounds on Rafael's scalp, working very slowly. Then she had Teresa and Rafael help her move to where Joey lay.

Teresa brought her a knife, and with it Maria cut off Joey's clothes. She was very weak, and she had to stop often to rest.

Jorge came in for a minute and helped Maria clean Joey's body. He was very grateful to Maria, for his wife was alive and he had a fine son. He didn't know why Maria was still alive.

She had three deep wounds in her chest, and the blood seeped through her dress.

"Mama, you're bleeding," Teresa said. "I feel it on my hands." "Maria, you're hurt," Jorge said, thinking she might not realize how badly she was wounded.

"I want to put clean clothes on my son," Maria said. "I want to do it now." She ignored their fears, the fears of her child and of the shoemaker. She felt very weak, but she wanted her son's body to be clean.

She was not strong enough to dress him, though, and Jorge did not like to touch dead bodies. Jorge began to shake and tremble at the thought of what he was doing. He wanted to be home looking at his fine son. He didn't like moving Joey's stiffening limbs in order to get him into clothes. They got the shirt on him, but that was the best they could do.

"Maria, just cover him," Jorge told her, before he left.

Maria had to stop with the shirt, for she was too weak to do more. She asked Teresa to get a blanket, and they covered Joey. Maria wept and wept for her son's lost life. Teresa felt her mother's tears with her fingers and tried to comfort her, but for Maria there was no comfort. She had tried to be a good mother, but she had not been able to make her son a good person. Joey had been killed while trying to murder his own brother and sister. That he had killed her didn't matter so much; his life had killed her already, his life and her life. Her mistakes had been too many and too profound, though she didn't know exactly when the mistakes had been made or what they were. She had gotten up every morning and made food and washed clothes and seen that her children were clean. She had tried to teach them good behavior, but still it had led to Teresa's blindness, and Rafael's poor mind, and the moment in the river when she had had to turn the knife on her own child.

It was too hard--Maria wanted peace. She wanted to have all the pains and worries bleed quickly away, and to go into a sleep beyond dreams, beyond the need to be awake and wash and cook while knowing every day that so much was wrong.

When Joey was covered, Maria crawled back to her blanket, stopping several times to rest. She saw old Call watching her. That was another strange trick of life--that she should be dying in her own house, in a room with the man who had killed her father and her brother.

The children had run outside for a moment. They couldn't stand to hear the weakness in her voice, and they wanted to be away from the fear that their mother might die. They hid among the goats while Rafael tried to find the nanny goat he sometimes suckled. But he was too confused; he could not find her.

Call saw Maria crawling on the floor, dragging herself back to her blanket. He didn't know what had occurred, but he saw that the woman was badly injured. He remembered that the cold boy had come into the room and had looked at him insolently.

Maria did not like having the old man in her house. Taking him in had been another mistake.

If she met her father and her brother on the other side, they would be stern and unforgiving. But Call was kind to Teresa, and perhaps if he lived he would be a friend to her.

Several townspeople came to see Joey's body. Maria lay on her blanket and did not speak. She could not afford to waste what strength she had left. Teresa and Rafael came back and sat with her, one child on either side. They were silent and afraid. Maria hoped that Billy would return soon this time. She needed him to hurry back with Lorena. It was for Lorena that she waited, in pain and in life. Maria was a mother; she had two children alive, two damaged children. She hoped Lorena would be kind enough to take them. There was no one in the village to take them, for the village was too poor. No one would want to feed them or keep them clean or wash their clothes.

Teresa was pretty; men would soon find her and degrade her. Rafael would be teased and tormented. He would go hungry, for his blind sister would not be strong enough to protect him. For them, Maria held herself in life. Teresa brought her posole, but she could not eat. She saw Teresa feeding old Call and heard her whispering to him.

Long hours passed. Maria grew more and more tired, until she was so weak she despaired.

She was about to ask old Call if he would make the request to Lorena for her. Would he ask Lorena if she would take her children? She knew it was a serious request, to ask another woman to raise her children. Lorena had five of her own, and it might be that her husband was dead. But Maria had no one else to ask. She was about to tell Rafael to pull her over nearer to Call, when she heard the horses coming to the house.

Then Billy Williams stood in the doorway; Lorena stood behind him. He came and knelt by Maria. Maria felt grateful to fortune, that she had Billy Williams to assist her. He had come back when he promised. He had many failings, but he also had fidelity--now he had brought her the person she most needed, the woman who might help her children after her death, when she could not mother them anymore.

It was important that he had come back when he said he would--it was the best thing a man had ever done for her.

"Why, Mary, you ain't dyin', are you?" Billy asked. He was stricken in the heart.

He touched Maria's face; it was cold. He had only left for a little more than a day, and now this!

"Go get drunk now, Billy," Maria whispered to him. "But don't forget my children.

Please talk about me when you see them. Give them your memories. Tell them how I danced and laughed, when I was young and pretty ..." "Mary, you're still young and pretty," Billy Williams told her. It took his breath away to think that after all these years, Maria was going.

He would be lost; he wouldn't know what to do.

Maria raised up and gave him a kiss and tugged at his hair for a moment. He still had the long hair of the mountain man.

"Go on, Billy. Go get drunk," Maria whispered, again.

"Oh, Mary ..." Billy sighed.

He wanted to talk more--he wanted to say things he had never said to her. But Maria's eyes were tired and sad.

"You go on ... obey me," Maria told him, quietly, but in a tone that he knew better than to argue with.

"Well ... didn't I always?" he asked.

Lorena wanted the old man to go. She saw the dying woman looking at her, and she knew what Maria wanted to ask. She wanted the old man to go; yet, maybe he had been to Maria what Pea Eye was to her. It was not her place to rush him in his last moments with his love.

Billy Williams rose, looked at Maria once more, and stumbled outside.

Lorena knelt and felt Maria's pulse; it was barely there. That the woman was alive at all was a wonder. But then, it was a wonder that Call still lived. Pea Eye was outside, tied to his horse and in great pain. She wanted to lift him down and bring him in, but she had to hear Maria's request first.

"Would you take them?" Maria asked, with a movement of her head, first toward Rafael and then toward Teresa.

"Yes, I'll take them," Lorena said firmly. She wanted to relieve the woman's deep doubt. Maria had made the request she herself would have had to make to Clara, if things had gone differently. And she might not have even gotten to speak it--she might have had to trust that Clara would receive it in her heart, and respond.

"I've got my husband back now, and I'll take them. I expect we can take care of all the children that come along," Lorena told her. She meant it too; she was firm. She had Pea Eye back, and together they could take care of all the children that came along.

Maria smiled. She looked at Rafael and put her trembling hand on Teresa's face.

"I've got to get my husband in. He's hurt. I'll be right back," Lorena said, softly.

She found Billy Williams outside, crying.

"I just went off for two days," he choked, "and now this." "It was the wrong two days, but you couldn't know that," Lorena said. "Help me get Pea off, will you? He's hurting." They lifted Pea Eye down, carried him into the small house, and put him down beside Call.

"There's not too many more places left to lay sick people or dead people in this house," Billy Williams mumbled. There were Joey and Maria, Call, and now Pea Eye.

Lorena went to Maria and saw that she was gone.

"The count's even now," she said quietly to Billy. "It's two that's sick, and two that's dead." "Oh, Mary," Billy said, when he looked at her. He sat down on the floor and put his head in his arms.

Lorena made Pea Eye as comfortable as she could. He was unconscious, but he would live.

On the ride back, despite his pain, Pea talked and talked, asking questions about their children. The fact that his children were in Nebraska kept slipping from his tired mind. Finally, to satisfy him, Lorena made up little stories about the children and what they were doing.

Then, when she had made her husband as comfortable as she could make him, Lorena went back across the small room, covered Maria, and sat with her two new children, the little girl who had no sight, and the large boy with the empty mind.

In the morning, the vaqueros came back with a photographer they had found in Presidio. They wanted to have their pictures taken with the famous bandit they had killed. They had drunk tequila all night, telling stories about the great battle they'd had with the young killer. They had forgotten the butcher and the mother entirely; in their minds, there had been a great gun battle by the Rio Grande, and the famous bandit had finally fallen to their guns.

Billy Williams had obeyed Maria's last order: he drank all night, sitting outside the room where Maria lay. But the whiskey hadn't touched him, and when the vaqueros came straggling up from the river with the photographer and his heavy camera, loaded on a donkey--he planned to take many pictures and sell them to the Yankee magazines and make his fortune-- Billy Williams went into a deadly rage.

"You goddamn goat ropers had better leave!" he yelled, grabbing his rifle. The vaqueros were startled into immediate sobriety by the wild look in the old mountain man's eyes.

Billy Williams began to fire his rifle, and the vaqueros felt the bullets whiz past them like angry bees, causing them to flee. The photographer, a small man from Missouri named Mullins, fled too--but he could not persuade the donkey to flee. George Mullins stopped fifty yards away and watched Billy Williams cut the cameras off the donkey and hack them to kindling with an axe.

George Mullins had invested every cent he had in the world in those cameras. He had even borrowed money to buy the latest equipment--but in a moment, he was bankrupt. There would be no sales to Yankee magazines, and there would be no fortune.

George Mullins had ridden across the river, feeling like a coming man; he walked back to Texas owning nothing but a donkey.

All day people filed out of the countryside like ants, from Mexico and from Texas, hoping for a look at Joey Garza's body. But Billy Williams drove them all off. He fired his gun over their heads, or skipped bullets off the dust at their feet.