by J. L. Jarvis
“Thank you,” he said, and with a sly grin added an accented, “Miss Martin.”
It cut to the nerve, as intended.
He tilted back his head and swallowed water in gulps as light washed the planes of his face, setting off its bold angles. He gripped the cantina with tanned hands, which he wiped on his mouth as he finished drinking.
Ana leaned against the trunk of the cottonwood and looked toward the mountains through air that was static.
“When I was a nine, we moved to Texas.” Ana said, “My father sent me to a private school for gringitas. He had money and wanted to give me the best education so I would fit in better than he had. It was not the best school, but the best that would take me. In school, like everywhere else, they did not let us fit in.”
For the first time, Ana lost her awareness of Carlos, but he watched her acutely.
“Nearly all of the girls in my school were white. Most of them left me alone. But the one thing I had that they liked was my hair. It was long enough to sit on. They would stroke it, and braid it—the way young girls like to do. I don’t know that I ever had real friends. But I had that hair, and the attention it drew made me feel like I did.”
Ana absently brushed wisps of hair from her forehead.
“The teacher was reading to us. She said something I didn’t understand, so I asked the girl next to me—she was Mexican, too—what the teacher had said. I knew it was against the rules to speak Spanish, but we sat so far back I didn’t think she would hear me. The teacher put down her book, and she said, ‘Ana Martin! What language do we speak in America?’
“‘English,’ I answered.
“‘English. And what were you speaking?’
“‘Spanish.’
‘Spanish. And is Spanish allowed in this school?’
“‘No.’
“‘That’s right. And why did you break the rule?’
“‘I guess I forgot.’
“‘You forgot?’
“‘Yes, ma’am.’
“The teacher opened her desk drawer and pulled out a large pair of scissors. With those scissors in her hand, she walked down the aisle. I can hear every step even now. And she stopped at my desk, and she stared at my face, and she twisted my braided hair around her hand, and she pulled it.
“‘Maybe this will help you remember to speak English,’ she said.
“Then she cut it off.”
Ana opened her eyes so the tears would not drop. “I learned my lessons in that school very well. So if I call myself Ana Martin. Perhaps you will try to forgive me.”
Silence hung between them for a long time. The land was stark and yet somehow comforting. The sun warmed her, and the past was over.
Carlos reached out and, one by one, he pulled the pins from Ana’s hair until black silken tresses fell strand by strand to her shoulders and down her back. She stiffened from a chill, but still he combed his fingers through her hair slowly until it was smooth as corn silk, but shone black. Then he combed his fingers along her scalp until her head followed. Gently, he took time to work it into one braid down her back. He draped it over her shoulder so it hung straight down over her breast, and he murmured beside her ear, “Look how it grew back more strong and more beautiful.”
Her shoulders betrayed her as she silently wept.
Carlos put his hands on her shoulders. A small sob escaped.
“Shh…”
Horses’ hooves thudded against the parched earth. Not far behind them, dust rose and hovered over the hilltop.
Carlos watched for a moment. “Rurales.”
“What?”
“The President’s rural police.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought they were bandits.” Ana wiped her face dry.
“Before you thank God, you should pray that these men are no worse.”
“What do you mean?”
Without replying, Carlos touched his hand to the gun in his holster and waited. The dust cloud advanced until four men on horses were lined up before them.
“Good day,” said Carlos with forced cordiality.
The leader nodded to Carlos, but his eyes lingered on Ana. “Good day, señor. Señorita.”
The overly familiar musical lilt in his voice was only a prelude to the assault of his eyes as they measured every curve of her figure. Ana did not see Carlos sizing up the three other men, all heavily armed, with cartridge belts crisscrossed over their chests. She saw only the chief rurale and his disconcerting leer.
“Good day. What do you want?” she demanded.
The leader grinned beneath his long mustache. He brought his horse close beside her and looked down upon Ana for several long moments.
His look frightened her, yet she spoke to him boldly. “Sir, state your business or leave us alone.”
He smiled too broadly. “Señor, why don’t you teach your woman some respect?”
“I am not his—”
“May I introduce señorita Martínez y Soto, niece of don Felipe Martínez de la Casa Martínez,” Carlos interrupted.
This time, Ana did not mind being called Martínez.
“You are the niece of don Felipe?” Within seconds, his face shifted from arrogance to doubt, and then to deference.
“Yes,” she replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse us.” She turned toward her horse, but Carlos put a viselike grip on her waist and pulled her to his side. With a knowing chuckle, he slipped his other arm around her waist and held on.
He glanced at the rurales while he whispered into her ear through clenched teeth, “Do you want to die?”
Her posture stiffened, then eased up a bit, but he still held on while he eyed the rurales.
The chief rurale looked at Carlos and the woman in his arms, and smugly snickered to his men, “Don Felipe should not let his hens run loose when the rooster is out.” The others laughed.
“Don Felipe’s hens are well looked after, make no mistake.” His face was dispassionate, but his voice conveyed a warning.
“What a lucky man to have such a job,” said the leader as he lasciviously looked Ana up and down.
She stared back directly, even as fear rose within her.
“Good day then, señorita. I will leave you for now, for I can see that your friend has matters well in hand.” He leered at her body once more, then, shaking his head, he lifted his brow and said, “Señor.” With a grin, he commanded the others to follow. They rode away, leaving Ana shaken.
Carlos loosened his grip. She no longer struggled to be free, but he slipped his hands from her waist up to her shoulders.
“Señorita?”
She was trembling. “Why didn’t you let me ride away?”
“I could not do that,” he answered.
“And yet you could make me stay and endure that.”
Ana could not go on. As she spoke, his hands tenderly stroked her shoulders and neck, soothing her nerves and melting her anger.
Ana whispered, “Señor.”
“Carlos,” he said in a grainy half whisper.
“Carlos?”
“Yes, Ana?”
He called her Ana, which he should not have done. She liked the sound of it. “I don’t understand.”
“There is much you don’t understand about your new country. The people here—”
“Are coarse and crude?” Ana stepped forward to pull herself free. Still trembling, she turned to face Carlos.
With an edge to his voice, he said, “We are a good and proud people who have been forced to live and work like animals. They are the ones with no decency—the ones with the power. Because of them, Mexico has become a cruel land.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Ana said. “Those men had no right—”
“Ah, but they did.”
She opened her mouth in protest, but he continued.
“There are laws.”
“Laws permitting men to behave like—”
“Díaz gives the rurales free rein to do what they want. There is a law; the escap
e law. Have you heard of it?”
“No, should I have?”
“Those men—”
“You are too generous,” said Ana.
“The rurales are granted wide authority to keep peace. The law permits them to shoot anyone who attempts to escape. A few minutes ago, that would have been you.”
“Escape? I wasn’t escaping! I was not under arrest!”
“In a country as vast as this, who’s to say whether a person was under arrest before they ran and got shot? Who would be alive to dispute them?”
“They would do such a thing here—on my uncle’s land?”
“Yes, they would do such a thing—perhaps worse.”
Ana watched their dust rise against the horizon, but it could not go far enough to drive away her fear.
Carlos said, “Do you understand now why I did not let you leave?”
Ana’s eyes widened in apprehension of what might have been.
“So, you see? I was trying to keep you alive.”
With a crooked smile and gleaming eyes, he looked toward the departing rurales and said, “Of course, it’s true, I could easily have fought off all four well-armed men single-handed, but to keep you out of trouble at the same time—well, that was too much even for me.”
He coaxed a smile from her that drove out her fear. She said, “Thank you.”
“I was merely following don Felipe’s orders.”
Ana glanced away shyly. “Did don Felipe tell you to hold me as close as you did?”
His mouth widened to a smile, which spread to his eyes. “Some things I do not need to be told.”
He put his hand on the blush of her cheek.
“But there’s one thing, Señorita, that I need you need to tell me.”
“What?” It came as a whisper.
“Tell me not to kiss you.”
Ana looked up. He was too strong and too charming, and yet, when he took her face in his hands, he looked tender. He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. It was soft. His lips opened and made her head swim. She held onto his waist and his back. He pulled closer.
“Ana.”
The edge in his voice gripped her heart. He turned away before she could read his expression. She felt more alone than before, because now she felt longing. She turned and leaned on the tree to steady herself. Her feelings were raw. She closed her eyes.
Carlos touched her shoulder.
A breathless whisper came out. “Señor?”
He said nothing.
“What sort of man are you?”
He released her shoulders and stepped back. “I’m a man—who is sorry.”
“I’m not.” Ana turned to face him.
His eyes were now gentle, but distant. “I am not the sort of man you assume me to be.”
“I have made no assumptions.”
“Nor am I a man who brings women out riding alone to dishonor them. Do you think don Felipe would trust me with you if I were?” He walked over to the tree and leaned his arm against it, looking out at the distant hacienda and the desert beyond. He said to himself, “God help me! Whatever made him think he could trust me with you?”
Ana walked over beside him and put her hand on his arm, but he flinched. She pulled her hand back. “It was only a kiss.”
“Perhaps.”
“Now you misunderstand me.” She wished her Spanish were better. “If there was dishonor, it was not in your kiss, but in your heart.”
He turned to face her. For a moment she saw through the callused countenance. He put his hands on her face and drew her closer. The scent of desert rose from the cotton shirting. He placed a kiss on her forehead. Her thoughts wavered and vanished as if they were part of the sweltering horizon.
He pulled away and took in her every feature as if from a distance. “I would not dishonor you.”
She scarcely could breathe. The sun had grown hot. Carlos smoothed moist strands of hair from her forehead. Ana felt exposed. She needed to think. How could she think when she struggled to breathe?
Carlos traced her cheekbone with the backs of his fingers and attempted a smile, but a shadow crossed over. “I must take you home now.”
For Ana’s sake, Carlos kept the riding pace slow. He spoke, when he had to, in short words and phrases.
Ana tried to be rid of her confusion. Her emotions of late had been close to the surface. She grieved for her father, and leaned on Eduardo, but now there was Carlos, in whose eyes she felt both lost and found. He was like the desert, imposing and desolate, beautiful and harsh. She had ventured too close, yet was compelled to draw closer. If silence were his shield, then she would have to disarm him.
They passed row after row of cotton. In the distance, a gang of peons worked on an irrigation ditch.
“It must be very hard work,” Ana said.
“Hard work?”
She could see his thoughts were distant, her words unwelcome. “In the fields all day in this heat.”
Carlos assumed an aloof politeness. “Yes, it is. It is very hard work. Come harvest time, those fields will be filled with thousands of men, women and children bending over and working for ten hours a day to earn less than a peso.”
“How do they do it?”
“People do what they must.” Carlos rode on in silence.
Ana sped up and tried to stay beside him. “What is it you do?”
“For don Felipe? I buy and train horses, and ride in the charreada.”
“You’re a trick rider?”
Carlos smiled. “You know your uncle used to be a charro when he was younger.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I suspect it was his one great love.”
Ana thought it a strange thing to say of a man who was not long married, but Carlos was talking more freely. She did not want to interrupt.
“He loves ranching. But, as you see all around you, he makes most of his money from cotton—over 100,000 acres of it. He also has a winery and an interest in oil wells on the coast, near Veracruz.”
“Oh?”
“And some ships.”
Ana looked curious.
“You did not know this about your uncle?”
“I know very little about my uncle, except what I remember from childhood.”
He watched her as she spoke. She knew it, but it no longer frightened her.
“I came here only a few times when I was very young.” Ana indulged herself in a memory, and then turned toward Carlos. “But now my father is gone, so here I am—this time to stay.”
He did not say a word, but warmth returned to his often troubled eyes.
Ana went on, “My father was a good man—a hard worker—but a dreamer, and he liked to gamble. He died in debt. If tío Felipe hadn’t taken me in—well, I am very fortunate.”
“Yes, you are. In Mexico, debts are passed down from generation to generation.”
“But that’s awful! To begin life already under such a yoke—it’s so unfair!”
He smiled bitterly.
“Have you inherited such a debt, señor Barragan?”
“I have paid all my debtors their due.” His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened as he rode on without explanation.
Ana studied him. “And you have suffered.”
He glanced toward her. She could not read his dark expression. “No more than some.” He fixed his attention somewhere ahead.
“Is that what brought you here?”
He did not speak for a moment, but wrestled with thoughts that brought a severe look to his face.
“Eduardo brought me here, and don Felipe hired me.”
“It seems Eduardo has rescued us both,” Ana said.
“So it seems.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Seven years.”
“You said that he brought you here, but you didn’t say from where.”
“No, I did not,” Carlos answered brusquely.
“I didn’t mean to pry—or perhaps I did. It’s just that Eduardo
has been so kind to me, but I barely know him. I suppose I’m just curious.”
“If you want to know about Eduardo, then ask Eduardo.” He rode on, staring straight ahead.
Ana closed her eyes and took a breath, but her confusion deepened until she could no longer hold back.
“Please forgive me, but for someone who wants to be left alone, you certainly felt free to kiss me.”
“I have never felt free, señorita.”
Ana searched for words, but gave up. “Well, I’m sorry for asking.”
“One apology is enough,” Carlos told her.
“That was not an apology. I was stating a fact.” Frustration churned in her. Still, it was not like Ana to lash out so, but her emotions were raw. “I’m sorry for that, and for everything else that has happened this morning.”
Carlos stopped beside her. His voice was so controlled it might have been cold, but his eyes smoldered with emotions she could not read. “So am I.”
Angry eyes locked with his. Words came out before she knew she would speak them. “Is this a game for you—to kiss the girls and make them cry?”
His eyes widened and singed her into silent shock. He spoke in low, biting tones.
“It is not a game.”
Ana fought tears, which frustrated her further for she did not understand why she wanted to cry. “Then what is it?”
Carlos fixed his gaze on the horizon. Elusive emotions crossed his face and vanished. He would not look at her.
“Did you want to hurt me?” said Ana.
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
When he did not respond, Ana burned for an answer. “Why?”
“Because I thought I could love you.”
Ana sharply inhaled. Her heart pounded. She tried to force her voice to sound dispassionate. “Then why did you turn from me?”
As she finished her words, he was riding away so that only the desert could hear him. “Because I knew I could love you.”
