Текст книги "Streets Of Laredo"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

Maria wanted him to let her pull the tooth, or let the priest pull it, or the blacksmith, or anyone. But Benito kept shaking off this advice. He had beautiful white teeth and was vain about them. He wanted to keep them all.

"Why, so you will look beautiful in heaven?" Maria asked, vexed by his attitude.

"Yes, I want to look handsome in heaven," Benito agreed, smiling shyly. He thought it was a worthy goal, though he could tell it didn't please Maria. Her nostrils flared a little, when she looked at him, flared as a mare's might flare.

"Who says you will even go to heaven?" Maria asked. "You are too lazy. You never get out of bed. When I'm gone you might become a sinner, you might have to go to the bad place." "When you're gone? I don't want you to be gone," Benito said. The thought of being without his Maria frightened him terribly. What would he do?

Who would take care of him? Everyone agreed that Maria was the most competent person in Ojinaga.

His clothes were only simple clothes, but they were always cleaner than other men's clothes. His meals were tastier than the meals other men's wives cooked for them. Sometimes Maria walked far down the river, looking for chilies or herbs that would make her posole more tasty.

But it was not only her competence that he needed.

There was her smile, her cool hands, her soft breasts. The thought that he might lose all that caused him a moment of panic. He wondered if he pleased Maria, really pleased her, in their embraces. She seemed to be pleased, but she was a woman. It was hard to tell; perhaps she was merely pretending. Perhaps she had already found a lover–he suspected the butcher, Gordo Dominguez. Gordo had always wanted Maria, and perhaps he wanted her now. Perhaps they were doing things that were more pleasing than anything else Benito was able to do. Maybe Maria liked what Gordo did so much that she was preparing to run away with him.

Maria saw the worry in her husband's eyes, for there was no missing it.

"An angel might come and get me," she said, smiling. The remark was intended to show Benito that she was teasing. No angel ever came to Chihuahua. She was not going to heaven.

"I need you, the angel can't have you," Benito said. He felt a quick desire for his wife, which overpowered his toothache. He was so insistent that Maria closed the door and went to the bed. Few people in Ojinaga closed their doors, in the hot mornings. She wondered what people would think might be happening.

But neither Maria's competence nor Benito's insistence dulled the toothache for long. In a few more days, it hurt so badly that he couldn't eat the tasty meals, or appreciate the clean clothes, or be affected by the soft breasts.

"Go to Chihuahua City," Maria said.

"There's a dentist there." "But it's a long way," Benito complained.

"It's a long time that you've been sick, too," Maria told him. "You might die." Finally, one day the toothache got so bad that Benito decided to go to Chihuahua City, after all. Maria fixed him a poultice of hot cornmeal to hold against his tooth. She gave him the gentlest of goodbye kisses. His jaw was very swollen.

"I wish you would come," he mumbled. "I hate to ride so far alone." "I have the children," Maria said, looking at them.

Teresa was holding her new chick, just born the day before. Rafael sat with his goat, singing a little song whose words only he understood. Brother and sister were happy together. They were never apart more than a few minutes. Sometimes Rafael led Teresa; always, Teresa thought for Rafael.

Though they were happy together, it made Maria sad to look at them and to know that they would never be as other children were. They were damaged; Joey was damaged, too. His limbs were normal, his eyes were clear, but his soul was sick. The children were only a little unhappy; yet, because of them, at times Maria felt a failure. None of her children were as other children were, and they would never be. She felt she didn't know how to be a mother. Though she was a midwife, and a good one, in her own birthings something went wrong. She didn't know what errors she had committed, to cause her children to be so damaged.

She could not feel that she was a good wife, either.

Benito was lazy, and she had not tried to cure him of it. She let him be as he was. Two of her husbands had been killed, and now a third one was sick. She felt oppressed. She did her best, and yet, the knowledge she had was often the wrong knowledge.

"The dentist better not hurt," Benito said.

"I don't want to ride all the way to Chihuahua City to be hurt." "You'll be glad you went," Maria said.

"You'll feel so much better, that I won't be able to fight you off, even when the children are in bed." Later, she was to cry and cry over that remark.

When she made it, she did not realize that it would be the last thing she would ever say to Benito, who didn't make it to Chihuahua City, or to the dentist. Less than ten miles from Ojinaga his horse was shot out from under him. Benito tried to run, but the killer roped him and hoisted him up the side of a large boulder. Then the killer cut off his hands and feet, with a machete. The killer loosened the rope and rode away, leaving Benito to bleed to death. Benito crawled almost three hundred yards, back toward Ojinaga, before he died.

The killer was never found. The Federales came, but they didn't look very hard. Benito's mother and sisters were more upset by his mutilation than by the death. They felt it might mean that Benito's soul would be rejected by God. They felt he might never be allowed to rest.

Maria didn't worry about Benito being allowed to rest. He was good at resting. It made her smile, to think of him resting; now he could rest forever. He was not a traveling man; it may have been what she liked best about him. He was always there where she could find him, in the bed.

Benito had been a kind man. Maria knew she would miss his touch. He had been more kind to her than her father, her brothers, her uncles, her other husbands. It was wrong that he should die so cruelly; but at least he had crossed the border, into a land where there was no pain. Maria didn't believe in hell. If there was a hell it came to you in life. The Texans brought it.

They had evil in them and they had exercised their evil on her, when they caught her in her house.

That was hell, and it had happened to her in her own house. Hell was not happening to Benito. He had always liked to rest, and now he was resting.

But he would not be able to put out his hand to her, when she came near the bed; she would not be able to take his hand and guide it to her. Maria felt that the killer might have known what she and Benito did, when she shut the doors, in the morning. Perhaps that was why the hands were taken, she didn't know. Some old ones still made necklaces of fingers; perhaps someone had taken Benito's hands and feet, to be made into necklaces. Maria didn't know, would never know.

Beneath Maria's sorrow was anger. She felt a loyalty to Benito, and though her sorrow was deep, her anger was deeper. Her first two husbands were selfish men. They would have taken younger women, given time. But Benito wanted no one but her–he would never have taken a younger woman. That knowledge fueled her anger. Someday the killer might reveal himself to her. When that happened, she would take her own vengeance, even if it resulted in her death.

She would have liked to sit on the bed and touch Benito's hands, one more time. But it couldn't be.

"Do you think the killer is in Mexico or Texas?" she asked Joey, a day or two after the funeral. He had gone to the place and looked at the ground, but if he reached any conclusions he kept them to himself.

"Texas or Mexico, what's the difference?" Joey asked. He liked to take questions and make them into other questions.

There were times when her son was so insolent that she wanted to slap him. He toyed with her, in a way that made her angry. He was a smart boy, but too good-looking. He thought his looks gave him the right to be disrespectful to his mother. Joey was blond, a g@uero. He would look at Maria insolently, waiting for her next question.

It did not occur to him to be helpful. It would not have occurred to his father, either. He would rather twist her questions, make them into other questions.

"One is Texas and the gringos own it," Maria said. "This is Mexico. We own it. That's a difference." "It's two names for the same place," Joey said. "We should own it all. It was ours once, and we didn't have to smile at gringos when we crossed the river." "I don't smile at gringos, but Texas was never mine," Maria said. "I'm a woman– nothing is mine. Not even my children. Not even you." "I am nobody's," Joey said, smugly.

Maria suddenly slapped him. He was too much like all men. He was insolent, and he didn't care that she was sad about Benito, the only kind husband she had ever had.

Joey didn't move, when she slapped him; the cold came into his eyes. He had a hat on when she hit him, a little white sombrero.

Her slap knocked it off. Joey picked it up quickly and examined it carefully, to see if it was smudged. He turned it around and around in his hands.

He was particular about his clothes. The tiniest speck would spoil the hat, for Joey.

"That is the last time you hit me, Mother," Joey said, carefully setting the hat back on his head.

Maria slapped him again, harder, and again the spotless white hat got knocked to the floor.

"You're my son," she said. "I'll slap you when you need it." Joey picked up his hat and took it outside, to dust it off. He left, and was gone for a week. When he returned he didn't speak to Maria. He took his dirty clothes out of his saddlebags, and handed them to her, to clean. He was riding a black horse. Maria had never seen the horse before, or the saddle. He was also wearing silver spurs.

Maria didn't ask Joey about the horse.

She went outside, to Rafael and Teresa. They were sitting with their chickens and goats, under a little tree. Rafael was chanting one of his melancholy songs. Rafael was a big boy, and much nicer than Joey, only Rafael was lost in his mind.

Maria grew sad, thinking about it. She gathered her washing and started to walk to the river.

Rafael followed, with two of his goats.

Teresa stopped to talk to an old woman who was grinding corn. Teresa was popular in the village. She was so quick and got around so well that some people almost forgot she was blind.

Her children dirtied a lot of clothes. It took Maria three trips to get all the clothes to the place where the women washed. That morning, because it was late, only one woman was there, old Estela.

Old Estela had borne thirteen children, and outlived them all. One drowned in a flood and the rest were killed wasdiseases. Old Estela had only a few clothes to wash because she had no family. Once she told Maria that she came to the river because she heard the voices of her dead children call, from the water. She had convinced herself that her children were not really dead. They lived in the river, with the frogs and the fish and the little snakes. God had given them gills, like the fish had, so they could breathe. Old Estela knew they were there; every morning, she heard them.

Rafael helped Maria with the clothes. There were one or two simple tasks he could do, and he always did them. He liked to beat the clothes against the rocks, and to spread them so that the cold water ran over them. Once in a while a shirt would slip away, before he could place a rock on it.

Then Rafael would have to wade in the water to retrieve it. The sheep, disturbed by seeing him in the water, would set up a bleating. Sometimes Teresa would follow them. She knew the path to the river, and all the other paths around the village.

Teresa and Rafael did not like to be apart too long. They needed one another. Teresa could not sleep, except with Rafael. He had become her eyes; she became his mind. It touched Maria, that her boy and her girl were so careful to help one another.

"Do you hear your children today, Estela?" Maria asked.

"I hear the girls," Estela said, in her tiny crack of a voice. "They are over by that bush, where the coyote drinks." Near the bush, the water made a rilling sound.

"The boys, I don't hear them," Estela said. "Maybe they have gone to Piedras Negras." "I think that's where my boy went," Maria said, thinking of the black horse and the silver spurs.

Joey Garza journeyed to the City of Mexico in search of a better gun. When he was seventeen, an old prospector named Lichtenberg had come through Ojinaga, carrying a little case made of fine leather, with a crest stamped on it in gold. Joey was interested in fine things.

He admired the little case, and wanted to know what was in it. Old Tomas, who had once worked for the German on one of his prospecting ventures, said it was where Se@nor Lichtenberg carried his rifle.

Joey thought that a gun carried inside a case would be useless when trouble arrived. If trouble arrived, it usually arrived quickly. The Apaches who bought him from Juan Castro could kill you several times, in several ways, while you were trying to get a rifle out of a leather case. Joey had seen them kill people who had their guns in their hands, but were too terrified to fire. Because they were terrified of dying, they died.

The old German was very tired, when he reached Ojinaga. He was weaving on his feet. He politely asked Maria for board, and he gave her a gold coin, which she accepted. Then he removed his high-topped boots and was soon asleep. He took no precautions at all with his possessions.

Maria had a husband then, Roberto Sanchez. He came home from the cantina to find that Maria had rented their bed. He took the gold coin from her, but raged anyway, about the loss of the bed. Due to a fear of scorpions, Roberto hated to sleep on the ground. He was a fool, Joey thought. Scorpions could come in a house and bite people, they often did. Roberto raged for a long time, but Maria finally persuaded him that renting the bed was a smart move. One night on the ground wouldn't hurt them. She herself would clean the ground, to make sure no scorpions were there to bother them.

Roberto Sanchez was still drinking tequila, but he finally stumbled after Maria.

Rafael, the idiot boy, was playing with a chicken behind the house while he sang a little idiot song. A sad tone came into his voice when he saw his mother go into the darkness. Teresa sat near Rafael. When she heard the sad note enter the song she scooted closer to Rafael and put her fingers to his lips, to feel from his breath what sadness he felt. She herself didn't care that her mother had gone out of the house. She heard her go, but for Teresa it only meant that she could whisper through the night, to Rafael, and not be scolded. Teresa loved whispering to her brother at night. In the darkness she felt that she and Rafael were the same. Neither could see, and it didn't matter that Rafael sang songs that had meaning only to him.

As soon as Maria and Roberto left, Joey took the little case into another room, where he lit a lamp and examined it carefully. It had a small lock, but he opened it with a piece of wire.

Inside the case, resting in velvet grooves, was a rifle, the most beautiful Joey Garza had ever seen. The barrel was heavy; it weighed as much as most rifles. In Joey's mind that gave the gun dignity. This rifle was not merely a gun; it was so beautifully crafted that holding it made him feel powerful.

The stock was of polished wood, and the trigger guards curved beautifully. The German rifle was the most desirable weapon Joey had ever seen.

He determined at once that he must have it, or one that was as good or better. If he had to kill the old German, he would do it, but he didn't intend to kill him right away.

Almost as fascinating as the rifle was a little spyglass that nestled in its own velvet groove. It had a fitting that attached it to the gun barrel. Joey attached it, and looked through the spyglass. Even in the dark room, lit only by the flickering lamp, he could see what the spyglass did. It brought the target near, even when the target was far. He slipped outside and practiced sighting through the spyglass, with only the moon and stars for light. He wished it were day.

At first light, he meant to take the gun and sight through the spyglass. Having the spyglass was like having a better eye. The rifle was so well balanced that Joey knew he could kill from great distances with it. He could lie on a roof in Ojinaga and kill gringos across the river in Presidio. If the wind was blowing strongly the gringos would never even hear the report of the rifle. Three gringos could be walking in the street, and in a second, two of them would be dead. The third would have no idea who was shooting.

Joey considered stealing the rifle, then and there.

He could leave and go where no one would ever find him.

He knew the mountains to the south, in the great bend of the river, and knew the Madre. He could live in the mountains for years, eating the roasts of fat mule deer. But the old prospector's rifle was the first fine gun he had ever seen. In the City of Mexico there were bound to be many, and perhaps some that were even finer.

He sat outside his mother's house until almost dawn, simply holding the gun in his hands. Then he detached the little spyglass, took the rifle apart, and put it carefully back in its case.

He felt divided; impatient, yet patient.

He wanted to take the rifle and go, but he also wanted to learn patience. Among the Apaches, the best hunters and the best man killers were the most patient men in the tribe. Though it was hard to wait, they waited. The best hunters did not take the first deer they saw; they waited for the fattest deer. They shot when they were sure, and Joey resolved to do the same. He would shoot when he was sure.

When the old German woke up the next morning, Joey politely asked about the little case. The old man seemed surprised, but after he had several cups of Maria's strong coffee, he opened the little case and showed Joey the rifle.

He explained the function of the little spyglass, and showed Joey how to attach it. Joey pretended to be amazed, when he looked through the little glass.

Later in the morning, the old German walked up and asked Joey if he would like to shoot with him.

He suggested a little contest.

"If we shoot I will beat you," Joey said.

He had nothing against the old man until he saw him looking at his mother when she was bending over, getting a tick off her old dog's ear. His mother loved the old brown dog for some reason, though the dog was mangy and had a broken tail, and a sore that had never really healed, from where a javelina had gored him.

Joey considered his mother a whore, and if Roberto Sanchez died he had no doubt she would take another man. Only a whore would seek four husbands, Joey thought, but that didn't lessen his hatred of the men who helped his mother whore. The minute he saw old Lichtenberg looking at his mother's bosom he decided to kill him someday. For now, he would be content with a shooting lesson.

Joey took some melons far down the river and lined them up on rocks.

"But they are too far," Lichtenberg complained, when Joey came walking back. There was something about the light-skinned Mexican boy that was a little disturbing. He had a coldness in his face like some of the Indians had, particularly the Indians in the mountains. His mother was a desirable woman, though.

Lichtenberg had meant to leave that morning, but he thought he might stay a few days. Perhaps for a coin or two the woman would go with him. In his travels in Mexico he had paid for many brown women. He could afford to pay for one more.

First, though, he would show the cold blond boy, the g@uero, how to shoot.

"You first," Lichtenberg said. "When you miss, I will shoot." Joey had lined up eight melons on the rocks. He took the beautiful rifle with the heavy barrel and caused the eight melons to explode, one by one.

Lichtenberg was startled. The boy could never have shot such a gun before, yet he hadn't missed.

One of his own beliefs was that Indians had better eyesight than white men. In the Madre the Indians would sometimes see things he could not see at all.

Often they would mention landmarks that to them were obvious but that he could not see until he had walked several hours. This boy must have some Indian in him, Lichtenberg thought.

Joey set up eight more melons.

Lichtenberg, on his mettle, burst them all.

"A draw," Lichtenberg said, relieved. His hand was shaky that day. It would have been embarrassing to be beaten with his own gun, by a boy who had never shot a German rifle before.

"Can we shoot again?" Joey asked, politely. "I will find something smaller." Lichtenberg was not eager. He would have been happy with a draw. But the boy had a challenge in his tone that he, as a German, could not simply ignore.

This time, Joey chose prickly pear apples, handling them carefully, so as not to get the tiny, fuzzy stickers in his fingers.

"Would you like to shoot first?" he asked the old man politely.

"No–you first," Lichtenberg said. He was sorry he had been polite to the boy. Better to have stayed in the hut and waited for the woman's husband to leave. Then he could have tried his money.

He had a bad feeling about the shooting. It was as if the boy was the teacher, the one with confidence. He had young eyes, eyes that were accustomed to the distances of Chihuahua, to the space that the great eagles looked across. Lichtenberg didn't know if he could hit a prickly pear apple at such a distance, even with his scope.

Joey hit ten apples. He balanced the gun beautifully and aimed only for an instant, before firing. When he finished he politely gave the gun to Lichtenberg, who took it and missed five times. Twice he hit the rock beneath the little red apples, the bullets whining off down the valley. The rest of the time he shot high. After the fifth miss, he quit. He did not feel it would be a good day. The Mexican woman wouldn't accept his coin; his horse might go lame; a snake might bite him; he might be robbed; he would not find any gold, or even a stream in which to pan for it. A sense of the melancholy of life began to crush him. Why had he come to this stinking village, in a stinking country, where neither the water nor the food agreed with him?

Why had he left Prussia? He had known Bismarck once–if he had stayed in Prussia he might have been a minister, or a rich man; not a tired, wandering prospector, going from village to village, trying to scrape up a few flecks of gold. Any day he might be killed, by a bandit, an Indian, anyone he happened to meet. Now he had been defeated by a boy who could shoot his own rifle better than he could. He walked slowly back to Maria's hut and put the rifle back in its case. For a moment, looking across the hot plain, he considered shooting himself with it. One bullet and he would not have to go on with such an uncomfortable existence, traveling on a horse that was narrow-backed and surly.

But he put the gun back in its case. In a few minutes he began to feel a little better.

The sun shone beautifully, and the coffee that Maria brewed had a fine aroma. Lichtenberg loved coffee. He had thought of going south, far south, where they grew coffee in the mountains. He decided not to kill himself, because of the coffee smells and the comely woman. Her husband was a brute, that was clear. The brute had made it known that he did not like Lichtenberg sleeping in his house. The husband smelled of drink. But the woman was very comely. The husband might go away, and even if he didn't go away, Lichtenberg could always look.

For her part, Maria wished the old German would go. She saw him looking at her. There were many men who showed their lust in their eyes; she could not keep them all from looking at her.

Roberto, her husband, had a harelip. He had once worked across the river, for a big ranch, shoeing horses–the cowboys teased him about his harelip, so much that he hated all whites, and the old German was very white. In the wrong mood, if he intercepted one of the old man's lu/l looks, Roberto might take a knife to him, or an axe, or a gun.

A more likely problem, though, was that Joey would rob him of something valuable. Joey was a quick and gifted thief. Although the old man's clothes were ragged, from neglect and hard wear, many of the things he owned were nice. There was the fine rifle, and, in another leather case, a set of mining instruments.

His belt had a silver buckle, and he wore a ring with a green stone in it. Maria had not touched his bags, but he had produced the gold coin from one of them and might have other gold coins in his valise.

Joey might steal any of it, Maria knew that. He might steal it out of curiosity. Joey liked to look at interesting things, particularly weapons. There was no telling what the old German might have that Joey would like to steal, but if he did steal something, trouble would come from across the river. The hard sheriff, Doniphan, liked nothing better than to beat Mexicans who stole things. The river meant nothing to Doniphan. The notion that Mexico was a nation with rights, like other nations, andwitha border that needed to be respected, made Joey laugh. Mexico was a nation of whores, lazy men, Indians, and bandits, in Doniphan's view. He crossed the border when it suited him, taking any prisoners he wanted to take. In Ojinaga there was no one to stand up to him.

If Joey stole from the old German, he would steal and go. When Doniphan arrived, with his rough deputies and their quirts, it would not be Joey who would suffer their vengeance. It would be Roberto Sanchez, or some man on the street that they just happened to notice–the shoemaker, perhaps.

They were not coming to do justice; they were coming to hurt Mexicans.

There would be less danger if the old German would just go, before Roberto lost his temper or Joey stole from him. But if Maria hoped for something, it seemed that that fact alone, the fact of her hope, made the something not occur. The old German didn't go. He drank tequila all day, smoked cigars, made water frequently, and wiped the sweat off his face with a fine silk handkerchief.

When he was not drinking or wiping sweat off his forehead, he looked at Maria, or talked to Joey.

"Are there many rifles like this in your country?" Joey asked him.

"Oh yes, many," Lichtenberg replied.

"Would I find some in the City of Mexico, if I went there?" Joey asked.

"You would find beautiful guns, but what would you buy them with? You are just a poor boy!" Lichtenberg said, startled that this youth, living in a filthy village, would aspire to travel to the City of Mexico, in search of a rifle.

"I would buy them with money," Joey said.

There was something a little frightening about the boy, Lichtenberg thought. A chill in his look, or in his tone. He reminded Lichtenberg of someone he had once known, long ago, an Austrian named Blier, a young count and assassin whose task it was to murder Hungarian rebels. There were many Hungarian rebels, and the Emperor wanted to avoid the expense of many trials. Young Blier killed forty rebels before they caught him and impaled him on a pole. Count Blier died hard, but he had done his job, saving the Emperor the expense of forty trials.

Lichtenberg had not known Count Blier well, but he had been with him a few times and remembered the look in his eyes. This boy, Joey, had the same eyes. Such eyes could look on a hundred deaths, or a thousand, without pity.

Lichtenberg had seen men executed, both in Mexico and in Europe. He had seen them shaking in front of firing squads, or crying and begging as the noose was put around their necks. Some lost their water, as they awaited death; some emptied their bowels as well. He could not, without pity, look upon men staining themselves as their deaths came near.

But Count Blier could see it without pity; and so, probably, could this boy Joey, a boy who could outshoot him with his own gun. Joey was very good-looking. He was a g@uero, as they said in Mexico; g@uero, almost white. In certain moods, Lichtenberg might have offered him a coin.

Boys were usually easier than women, but not this boy, this g@uero with eyes like the famous Count Blier's.

Maria saw Joey looking at the old German's things. His eyes turned again and again to the rifle case. She also saw that the old German looked at Joey as he looked at her. She wished the man would go; too much trouble would come, of his visit. But when you wished men to go they never did, and the old German was no exception. He stayed for four nights. Four times she had to persuade Roberto to sleep on the ground. He didn't like it. He cursed her and he cursed the German, but he only hit her once, and he didn't bother the German.

On the fifth morning, as Lichtenberg was leaving, Joey stole six coins from his valise.

Lichtenberg was drunk when he left, and didn't notice. Joey went down the river and bought a horse, a black gelding, three years old.

When he rode home with it, Maria knew he had robbed the German. Her best hope was that the old German wouldn't notice. Otherwise, Doniphan and his deputies would come.

"I didn't know you owned a horse," Maria said to Joey. "Yesterday you didn't own a horse." "I only stole six coins, Mother," Joey said. "If the old man comes back, I'll just kill him." "What if Doniphan comes?" Maria asked.

"Tell him to find me in the City of Mexico," Joey said.

That night, he left. After four or five days, Maria relaxed a little. Lichtenberg was many miles away. Even if he missed the coins, he wouldn't come back. A year later, she learned that the old man had drowned in Sonora.

He had attempted to cross a wash, when the wash was running, and the water had swept him away. The vaquero who found his body took some silver ore from his saddlebags, but Lichtenberg was dead and could not tell where he had found the silver.