Ana Martin

by J. L. Jarvis

  More exasperated than angry, he turned and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “Señorita, do not make me hurt you.”

  Ana’s eyes flared. “You will not take that horse.”

  He pushed her away, but she would not let go. Fabric ripped where she clutched at his shirt.

  And then his grip slackened. He slid to the ground.

  Ana stepped back from the limp body still leaning on her as it slid to the ground.

  “Ana?” Carlos stood a few feet away, looking more stunned than she.

  He did not voice the question, but she answered, “I came looking for you.” She was in his arms as she spoke. He was warm and so strong.

  A moan forced them apart. The soldier stirred, awakening from the blow that had knocked him unconscious. He groaned and dropped his head to the ground.

  Carlos pulled her a few steps away, toward Blancita. “What were you thinking—to come here?”

  She didn’t mind his anger, as long as his arms were around her.

  “My God.” He pulled away and looked at his hand, red with blood from holding her. Gently, he lifted her hand and examined her arm. “A bullet has grazed you. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Ana winced as he wrapped it with a handkerchief.

  “You should not have come.” His anger was welcome because it was his, and his arms were so strong.

  “If I hadn’t seen Blancita and found you! I cannot let myself think of what might have happened.”

  “We’d have been walking now. He wanted the horse.”

  “Ana, are you so naïve to assume that is all he wanted?”

  “No. He told me.”

  Ana tried to interpret his silence. He stopped clenching his jaw. That was good.

  At last, Carlos cocked his head and peered at her. “You fought like that for a horse?”

  “Not ‘a horse’—your horse.” Feeling safer now, Ana smiled.

  He shook his head. “May God have mercy on the woman who tries to take a man from you.”

  “I wouldn’t blame any woman for wanting you. But you’d need God’s mercy if you went with her.”

  With a grin, Carlos said, “Come,” and mounted Blancita. He took Ana’s wrist and pulled her up behind him.

  She could face anything as long as she could lean against his strong back. As they left the alley behind them, a fleeting groan reminded her of his wounds. At the hacienda, he had been badly beaten. They could not yet have healed. “I’m so sorry.” She tried to hold only his waist, without touching his back.

  He ignored both his pain and her apology.

  The streets were unnaturally quiet. Shutters were closed and people were hiding. Carts and barrels lay overturned on streets and sidewalks.

  Crisp morning air cleared the smoke as the Maderista rebels fled, dodging soldiers and dwindling gunfire. Left behind were the bodies strewn and sprawled like discarded dolls. They were people, walking, breathing mere minutes before. Nothing seemed real.

  “Where will we go?” Ana asked, as they made their way to the outskirts of the town.

  “The Durango Mountains,” said Carlos.

  “What about Jaime and Abuelita?”

  “They’re safer at the hacienda for now.”

  “But they’re here.”

  “What?” His eyes sharpened with panic.

  “They were on the train with you. They had to be.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No, but they were gone when I got to your house.”

  His expression was grave as he urged Blancita to turn. They rode back through the city. Up and down every street they rode, searching for the old woman and child. Cries and moans rose into air soaked with sorrow. Another gunshot ripped through the thick air from a misfired gun or nervous soldier. A child cried out. Carlos flinched and set off toward the sound. An old woman. A little boy. So many people had been shot, what was one more stray bullet?

  Abuelita lay face down, sheltering Jaime. A pool of deep brown grew in the dirt under her head. Jaime lay still beneath her. Carlos gently turned her over. He drew a jagged breath as he saw she was dead.

  “Jaime?” He clutched his child to his chest. “It’s all right now. I’m here,” he said, rocking the boy in his arms.

  Ana held Jaime while Carlos draped the old woman’s lifeless body over the saddle. The soldiers made no move to stop them as Carlos led the horse down the street, with Ana walking beside him, Jaime in her arms. A forty-minute battle had changed too many lives.

  They buried Abuelita outside of town, leaving soldiers behind them patrolling the city. Carlos knelt alone over the grave and spoke quiet words to Rosa’s grandmother. Ana knelt nearby with Jaime in her arms.

  “Wait here,” said Carlos when he was finished. “If I’m not back by midday, ride into those mountains without me.”

  Ana wanted to say, “I’m afraid,” but a soft light came into his eyes and made her feel brave enough to do whatever he asked.

  Ana and Jaime waited beside the fresh grave. People passed by but left them to grieve.

  “Tell me about your abuela,” she said to Jaime.

  He looked at her, but did not cry or answer.

  “I lost someone once,” Ana told him.

  His eyes met hers and she nodded and took hold of his hand. They sat there for a while, looking up at the mountains.

  When Carlos returned, he was riding a horse. “We’d better go now, just in case his owner is alive to miss him. Ana, you ride with me.”

  She said, “But Jaime—he’s so young!”

  “And he’s been training for the charrería for two years already. You’d be lucky to keep up with him.”

  He nodded at Jaime to hurry and mount Blancita while he pulled Ana into the saddle behind him. She circled his waist and held on and they rode.

  Hours later, after nightfall, Ana had switched to Blancita, while Carlos held Jaime asleep in his arms. Carlos put his hand to his mouth in a warning for quiet. They moved slowly.

  “Don’t move,” warned a voice in the dark.

  Chapter 12

  Carlos stopped and reached over to calm Blancita.

  “Get back. Now put your hands up.”

  Ana complied. Carlos lifted one arm and held Jaime, still sleeping, with the other. Ana dismounted. There were two men with rifles, one tall and one with a low, grainy voice. Ana trembled as the tall one checked her for weapons, then ordered her to wait beside the two horses. The grainy voiced one told Carlos to get slowly out of the saddle. Ana reached up for Jaime.

  “Get back.”

  “He’s just a young boy.”

  Carlos woke Jaime and lifted him down to the ground, then dismounted. The grainy voiced man checked him for weapons.

  They were marched to a camp yards away. From the sound of the rushing water, they were near a river or stream. Someone took their horses. They were led around a large rock formation, behind which was a campfire surrounded by men and women whose faces were lit in soft amber firelight. As Ana looked from one to the other, a voice in the shadows called out to them. “Compañero!”

  “Paco!” answered Carlos.

  He stepped forward. Now cast in firelight, Ana recognized him as Carlos’s jailer and friend, who had let her go to him to tend to his wounds. They embraced, but Carlos eased back, still in pain from the beating.

  Carlos saw Ana’s expression and said, “Paco is one of us, Ana. Thank God he was there. You two kept me alive.”

  Paco shook his head modestly and changed the subject. “I expected to see you before this. When you did not arrive, I thought—” He shrugged. “But now you are here.”

  “And Eduardo?” asked Carlos.

  “Not yet. The last time I saw him, he was going to get you,” said Paco.

  “He did. He got me out of jail, then we split up.”

  They stared at the ground, neither voicing his fears. Jaime leaned against his father. Carlos started to lift him, but winced and instead knelt beside him.

  Paco said, “Com
e and sit down.”

  They settled Jaime on a blanket close enough to the fire to take the November chill off the mountain air.

  Carlos told them what had happened to him in Gómez Palacio after he and Eduardo had separated. They were shaken to hear of Abuelita’s death. She was beloved by all who knew her. Carlos finished by telling how the Federales reclaimed the town.

  “What a disappointment,” said Paco.

  Carlos agreed. “We were supposed to be thousands; we were barely a hundred.”

  Ana looked at him sharply.

  Paco said, “So many failed us, and we failed so many.”

  Carlos said, “We may not have the city, but we shot holes through their arrogance.”

  “Yes,” said Paco. “The people now have a voice. More will hear it and join us.”

  Ana looked accusing. “You knew?”

  “I knew it was coming,” said Carlos.

  “When they took you, I was so worried. All the while you knew. You knew that Eduardo would free you, but you never told me.”

  “I couldn’t tell anyone, not even you.”

  “You let my heart break with worry.”

  Carlos received her anger with patience. “I could not tell anyone.”

  “You could not trust me?” Ana stared at Carlos, but would not voice her thoughts further in front of the others. They watched and then, worse, looked away. Exposed and transparent, Ana stood up and fled. She stumbled over loose rocks in the darkness, and felt her way around a large boulder and leaned, silently weeping.

  “Ana.” The lantern light announced his approach. Ana stifled her weeping.

  “It was not trust, but risk—risk I could not let you take,” said Carlos.

  “It was not for you to let me.”

  “But it was for me to protect you.” Carlos set down the lantern.

  “Oh, you did that. You left me under the protection of don Limón.”

  Carlos took her hand in his and looked steadily at her. “I did what was right. Look, I lost my grandmother, and almost my son. And I nearly lost you—or don’t you remember how I found you?”

  Ana nodded. “And I’m grateful.”

  “Then how can you stand there and try to tell me I was wrong?”

  Ana slipped her hand from his grasp. “It was my risk to take, my decision. But you took that from me.”

  “Because I would not put you in danger.”

  “But you would break my heart.”

  “Yes. To keep you safe.”

  Ana turned her back. Muted conversations from camp rose like sparks and were lost in the night sky.

  Carlos said, “I would do anything to protect you from what nearly happened today.”

  Ana turned back and said, “What difference would it make? An alley, a marriage bed—it would have turned out the same.”

  “Do you really think I would have let that wedding go on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then you don’t know or trust me.”

  Ana closed her eyes as she took a slow breath. “When I saw you in that cage, something changed. I thought I knew grief before then. But the sight of you beaten…I can’t describe what I felt. I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “But you haven’t.”

  “I couldn’t wait there while they took you away on that train.”

  “Ana, you risk too much for me.”

  “Would you risk any less for me?”

  Carlos lifted his brow and reluctantly shook his head. “Ana, my life is something I choose to risk for the sake of my people and our future. But your life—”

  “Is something I choose to risk for my love.”

  “You don’t have to prove your love.”

  “Is that what you think? I came here not to prove my love, but because you are part of me. It was more reflex than choice. The human body acts without thought to protect itself. And I had to help you.”

  He took her into his arms and she rested her head in the curve of his neck. She whispered, “I grew up sheltered from life, but still the world touched me. It was cruel and harsh. But there was no way to avoid it.”

  His voice broke. “I have caused you such pain.”

  “You? My misfortune brought me to you. You have given me hope. You have filled my soul.” Ana lifted her face to meet his. “But if you protect me from your world, I can’t share it with you.”

  “Ana.” His throat thickened. “Today, I saw a man attacking a woman and I wanted to leave—to go far from that hell—and I would have. But I thought of Rosa and the people who might have stopped it. So I stopped the man. When he fell, there you were. I might have left you to God only knows what, and I’d never have known.”

  “As you say, God only knows, and he sent you.”

  “God? He was nowhere near me when I looked at that man lying there, and I wanted to pull him back up to his feet so I could beat in his skull for just looking at you, and then once again for touching you, hurting you. How can I erase what you’ve seen here today?”

  “You can’t erase life. You live through it. But you don’t have to do it alone.”

  “There are places you cannot go with me.”

  “I will go where you go.”

  “You can’t ask me to watch you ride into danger.”

  “Why not? You ask it of me.”

  “But I am a man.”

  “And I love that about you.”

  Carlos shook his head, smiling. “And you! You are all woman—too easy to love and too hard to convince.”

  “Only when I am right. I belong here beside you.”

  “No, Ana.”

  She leaned against him and murmured, “You don’t want me beside you?”

  “I want you—beside me,” he pulled her close and growled into her ear, “beneath me—leaning against this bolder.” He took her face in his hands. “But when the fighting is over, I want you alive.”

  “And what if you’re not?”

  He did not answer.

  Ana said, “So you would send me back to my glass prison to live out my life safe and lonely?”

  “Eduardo can take you.”

  “No.”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “No. I won’t do that to you. But I’ll find a safe place.”

  Ana shook her head. “You saw today how the revolution needs people. Other women are fighting.”

  “You? A soldadera? No, I will not allow it.”

  “I’m not asking permission.”

  “You say you love me, but you refuse to honor my wishes?”

  “Only as much as you refuse to honor mine.”

  “I will not let you fight.”

  “So you fight for freedom, while denying me mine?”

  “This is not your fight, gringita.”

  “These are my people as much as yours.”

  “No, querida, your people made us what we are.”

  “I am not your enemy,” said Ana.

  “You fight me like one.”

  Ana grinned. “Then aren’t you glad I’m on your side?”

  His voice was steady, but his anger was mounting. “This is no place for a lady.”

  Ana said, “But I’m here, and if you fight, I will, too.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “And I will love you, if you let me.”

  His hand drifted from her shoulder to her jaw. He bent down and gave her a lingering kiss that made her nearly swoon. “No.” His eyes locked on hers. He leaned so close her lips parted. “If you fight, you will fight without me, soldadera.”

  He left her alone in the dark. She would fight and she would love him—alone. She wondered which would hurt more.

  The camp had provisions to last one more day. Over breakfast it was decided. They would send some men to raid the closest hacienda for food, blankets, arms and ammunition.

  Carlos ignored Ana, but she watched him. Everyone seemed to know him. Those who did not knew of him. At first s
he assumed it was from the charreada. But she soon learned that his anti-Díaz political efforts were legendary as well. Over the past year, he had collected more “donations” from unscheduled train stops than anyone in the region. As they planned the raid, Carlos was decisive and fearless. He emerged as their leader because, simply, he led. Men looked up to him naturally. So the camp took a vote, but it was a formality. He would lead.

  Not far from the foot of the mountain was a hacienda. A band of three dozen men would descend after dark. Carlos hand-picked each one for the job. All had prior experience in banditry of one sort or another.

  While the men made their plans, most of the women ground corn for tortillas, prepared food, washed clothes, and took care of the children. There were also some women who took care of the men in more tangible ways. Jaime stayed with his father or played with the children. It was great fun for them. Ana busied herself with the women. The talk centered on chores and their families, as though this were their home and their normal routine. But here they worked for their families and for no one else. They were free of debt peonage and could look to the future.

  A woman who looked a few years older than Ana handed her a basket and beckoned for her to follow to the edge of the stream. She was called Maria. Sturdy, with broad facial bones that made her look strong and serene, she was more intriguing than beautiful. Her mouth seemed always half spread into a smile, as though she kept a secret that was somehow amusing. Maria stooped down by the stream, handed Ana a shirt and kept one for herself. Ana turned it over hesitantly in her hands.

  Maria looked at Ana and laughed. “Have you never washed clothes? Look, like this.” Ana watched her and learned for the first time in her life how to wash her own clothing. “Rub them against the rock, see? That’s it. Do not worry. You will get much practice.”

  Ana laughed with her. The cool autumn air felt so good beneath the clear sky. She felt almost happy, but then she would think about Carlos. He would leave with the others without saying goodbye. Her smile faded. Laughter rang out from behind a small clump of mesquite where the men planned their raid. Ana glanced over once, but forced herself to look away.