After a while the Frenchman nudged a companion and they both sauntered over. Beal, wearing the gray uniform of a counter-guerilla looked up and grinned. “Seen any action here recently soldier boys?” His voice sounded almost insulting, and one of the Frenchmen flushed and started to scowl. His companion, the corporal grinned back impudently.
“You are with Mejias’ army, oui? Well, at least we haven’t been running away from Juarista shadows. Some of us here are on our way to some real fighting, near Durango.”
He stared through gray eyes at Ginny and she saw for the first time, with surprise, that he was quite young. But he had a tough and cynical look about him all the same. The look he gave her was bold, almost insulting, and she lowered her eyes, wondering why she was suddenly afraid.
Beal laughed thinly. “Me an’ my buddies have been doin’ some fightin’ too—cleaning up stragglers, you might say. Those brave Juaristas scream a lot, like anyone else. Don’t they?” He was looking at her—his hand reached out across the table and squeezed her wrist, so unexpectedly and cruelly that she gave a cry of pain. “Ask her—I took her from a Juarista spy she was supposed to be married to. After I’d gotten through with him. You remember that, don’t you, dollbaby, huh?” He squeezed again, fingers twisting, until she let out a gasped “yes!” and he released her with a short chuckle. “See? She’d almost forgotten about him. Once I beat the fight outa her, she got to make a real fine little soldadera. She’ll do anything I tell her.”
Through a red mist of pain and humiliation, Ginny heard the inevitable, pretendedly careless bartering begin. The French soldiers sat down; the Mexicans, their obscene sense of humor touched, began making comments about her abilities.
“She’s skinny, but she has good straight legs.”
“I had her once—she was like a real wildcat, if you like ’em scratching and screeching!”
“Ah, but if she’s for sale, in a place like this—why should my friend and I buy a pig in a poke, eh? I can’t even see if her face is pockmarked or not, she’s got that damn shawl wrapped so closely around her!”
“Yes, what is she hiding?”
The French soldiers were as cruel as the others, discussing her as if she was an animal to be sold, bargaining…Beal had forced her to finish her tequila, and there was already another mug set before her. Ginny felt the hot color seeping into her face, her heart began to thud madly. This was much worse than anything he’d done with her before—to bring her here and put her up for public auction. At least the other whores could choose their own customers, she was denied even that small privilege.
“Take the goddamned shawl off. Go on, take it off, you bitch.”
Silently, in a daze of shame by now, she unwrapped the white lace and laid it carefully on the table, dragging out each movement as long as she dared. The tangled masses of her hair, now savagely pulled loose by Beal’s rough hands, fell down over her shoulders, half-shielding her face. It shone like liquid copper in the dim light, and Ginny could clearly hear the gasp that went up. She felt as if the eyes of every man in the room rested on her, stripping her…
“Look up, damn you! Do I hafta tell you everything?”
Some hidden, forced-down instinct made her raise her head proudly, and her emerald green eyes flashed contemptuously from one man’s leering face to another. “Animals!” she seemed to say, “dirty lecherous beasts! Look at me, then!”
“Dieu! She’s lovely!” one of the Frenchmen said. The young corporal’s eyes looked smoky in the gloom as he narrowed them, a smile curling his lips.
“She’s a whore. She is for sale, is she not? But a face, even if enhanced by eyes like that, is not quite enough. I’ve seen whores as pretty in Marseilles, and even in Mexico City. And I’ve fought hard for my money.”
“sí, amigo, why don’t you show them what they’re getting? It seems they will not believe us.”
Beal’s face looked crooked with anger.
“You’re damn right she’s a whore. An’ I tell you, she’ll do anything I tell her to—anything you boys can think up. Just like a little performing animal, ain’t you?” His hand shot out and Ginny screamed involuntarily as his fingers caught in the neckline of her dress, ripping it downward. Her breasts, even though she tried to cover them with her arms, gleamed milky white in the dim light.
“Dios mio!” a man breathed. “Such beauty should not be hidden. Show us more, amigo, and just for looking I’ll give you a peso.”
They were suddenly crowding around her like animals, so that she could hardly breathe.
“Please don’t! Have pity,” she looked straight at the young corporal, but his eyes were still narrow and he grinned his lust.
“Go ahead, why don’t you do that? It’ll make for some nice entertainment. And afterwards, if my friend and I like what we see, we’ll have her for the night—it’s been a long time since we’ve had a circus.”
“Stand up.” Beal’s voice sounded vicious. When she couldn’t move he caught her by the arms and pulled her erect. She felt his hand go behind her, heard the tearing of cloth, and the next moment she was bare to the waist, and he was holding her wrists, preventing her from covering herself.
“See that? Wanta see more an’ you’ll hafta pay—”
Her eyes glazed with fear, the blood pounding in her ears, Ginny heard the tinkling of coins as they were thrown to fall around her—on the table, on the floor. Some, flung straight at her, felt cold on her bare skin.
“No—oh God, no!” she sobbed frantically. “Not like this—don’t!”
Beal released a wrist to slap her backhanded, send her staggering, only to be pulled forward again so that she fell against the table, feeling its sharp edge bruise her hip.
“You said she was tame—make her pull her skirt up. Or better still, have her pull it down…”
“You heard the corporal. Come on, it ain’t like you haven’t stripped for a lot of men before. Do it, right now, or by God I’ll beat you up so bad you won’t be able to lie on your back for a week!”
Seeing that she had begun to sob hopelessly Beal released Ginny’s wrists. Like a hunted forest creature she looked frantically around the room, and could see nothing but eager, desire-ridden faces; some staring, some smiling, all of them waiting—waiting.
Grinning at her, Beal raised his arm again, and something snapped in her mind, turning her, for a few minutes, into a wild, mindless madwoman.
Her face a white blaze in the center of her tangled mass of hair, she screamed, and he almost laughed at her sudden surrender, for her hand lifted her skirt, yanking it upward almost to the waist.
“You bitch…” he began and then he saw the knife flash in her other hand. The knife that she always wore strapped to her thigh since Matt had given it to her—the knife that flashed downward to bury itself in his throat and was the last thing that Tom Beal was ever to see.
He made horrible, gurgling noises in his throat, hands clawing upward in the final throes of agony. She was to remember that, later. That, and the warm, sticky spurting of his blood that was suddenly everywhere, covering everything. The table—her face, and arms and even her breasts. It was like a frozen tableau, suddenly, with faces that grimaced, mouths that hung open, all motionless, suspended in time. Only Ginny moved, driven by the same unthinking desperation that had made her do what she had just done from instinct. Snatching up the white shawl she ran wildly for the door—was through it and out onto the street before anyone thought to begin shouting; before the French corporal, knocking over his chair, rushed after her, his friend close behind.
“Stop her! My God, what a wild animal! She killed him…”
“Yes, and she might have killed one of us, too.”
She ran fleetly, desperately, the shawl streaming out behind her, dodging passersby who stopped to stare, wondering what had happened.
Out of the cantina, a whole crowd had begun to spill already. Some of them joining in the pursuit, some of them standing there to stare after her, talking
among themselves.
“But why go after her? The French are in charge of the justice here, let them take care of it.” “I certainly don’t want to be involved. And besides they were both gringos.” Some of the women even grumbled under their breath that the filthy Norteamericano had deserved it.
Even in her headlong flight Ginny could hear the pounding of their boots behind her, their shouts.
“You little murderess! You can’t escape—better stop before someone shoots you down!”
“Didn’t he say she was married to a Juarista?” the private panted. “Merde, she’s probably one of them—it could have been planned.”
She ran straight into the arms of a French patrol, four men, headed by a sergeant, who had been alerted by the shouts of her pursuers.
“What the hell is going on here? Hold her—she’s trying to get away—”
“She’s a damned Juarista, sergeant!” By this time the other two had come panting up.
“She killed a man—an American counter-guerilla—back in that cantina there. She might have killed more of us.”
“Ah, yes, she looks like a dangerous person all right!” the sergeant said with heavy sarcasm. By now the terrified girl was clinging to him, babbling to him in, of all things, his own language!
“Help me—don’t let them take me—oh, please—he was trying to—”
“Don’t believe a word she says!” The tough young corporal managed to hide his surprise at the fact that this little whore spoke French, but his friend had begun to gape. “Look at the blood on her—it’s all over her, and she’s messing up your uniform too!”
It was true—the woman, French-speaking or not, was covered with blood, and in addition to being quite hysterical she was half-naked into the bargain.
“Cover yourself!” the sergeant snapped. He himself wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. By now she was sobbing in a dazed, hopeless fashion and hardly resisted when he ordered his men to pinion her hands in front of her.
“Allez, allez! Be quick! Let’s get her to the billets before this crowd gets any bigger, eh? We’ll get to the bottom of this matter there. And you two,” he added sternly, “you come along as well! I have some questions for you!”
In the center of a small crowd, the grim-faced, marching Frenchmen on either side of her, Ginny, feeling herself past all caring now, let herself be carried along. What does it matter? What does it matter? It might be better if they do kill me—I wonder if it’ll be an execution, by a firing squad. Have they ever executed a woman before? Her thoughts were jumbled confusion, and she hardly heard the shouting of the crowd, the jabbering of the two French Legionnaires who had started it all at the cantina, and now marched alongside the sergeant.
The sergeant’s office, a small room in the rest billets, seemed almost like a haven, with its sudden quietness, the warmth of a fire. Sergeant Pary, not an unkind man, gave the shaking, white-faced girl a chair. Juarista or not, she was a woman, after all, and she spoke French, which was unusual. What was she doing in a position like this?
He shouted for silence, drowning out the explanations of the two Legionnaires.
“But mon Sergeant…she killed this man! With a knife.”
“You’ll answer my questions when I ask them! Be silent now!”
He turned to the woman. What to call her? Mademoiselle? They said she was a whore, a Juarista spy, but after all her French had been perfect, idiomatic. There was something strange here, something he sensed. And she was terrified, her whole body trembling from shock and reaction. She didn’t look capable of killing, but then, with a woman, one could never tell.
Compromising, the sergeant addressed her sternly without prefacing his words.
“Now—perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what happened? And your name first, if you please.”
She looked up at him, uncomprehending, and he had to repeat his question, while the Legionnaires grumbled to each other in low voices.
“My name?” He had spoken to her, automatically, in French and she answered him in the same language. But what name was she supposed to give him? Stammering, in a soft, strained voice, she said, “Virginie,” and then, unable to help herself, sheer reaction from the nerve-wracking events that had taken place only moments ago made her start sobbing.
“Don’t you have a last name?” the Sergeant began impatiently, and then he shrugged with annoyance. “Well, perhaps we’ll get to that later. Tell me, did you really kill a man? Who was he?”
“I killed him! Because he was trying to—to make me—” Shock and humiliation at the memory made her lift her bound hands and cover her face with them.
“Ah, why bother to ask her, mon Sergeant? She’s nothing but a lying whore, they’re all alike! The man was an American counter-guerilla, he said he’d taken her off a Juarista and he offered her to us—yes, and to every other man in the room too! And then all of a sudden she went mad, she was carrying this little knife strapped to her thigh, a typical poule’s trick.”
“I’ve already told you to be silent!” the sergeant thundered. “I’ll come to you two later.” The woman was still weeping, but almost soundlessly now, her hands over her mouth. The sergeant caught a glimpse of white breasts, through the rents in the white shawl that was now covered with blood. A knife! What a dirty business! She seemed hardly capable of coherent thought or speech—what was he supposed to do now? Hand her over to the Mexican authorities? But if she was a Frenchwoman, then…He was almost glad of the interruption that came just then.
The sound of bootheels on the usual adobe floor, the door flung open. The sergeant and his men came to attention, saluting the young captain who strode in, dusting off his travel-stained uniform, his smart, dark-green cape.
“Sergeant! What the devil is going on here? I came to find some horses, and I discover the whole place in mass confusion! What’s that crowd doing outside?”
“Your pardon, mon Capitaine! But there’s been some trouble. This woman here, they say she murdered one of our counter-guerillas. I’ve been trying to get some sense out of her, but she—”
“Michel!” For a dazed moment the sergeant wondered if she was really mad. She had sprung to her feet, her eyes staring, her voice almost a shriek. “Oh, God—Michel, it’s you! Save me…help me, Michel!”
She was running towards the dumbfounded captain, and when one of the soldiers tried to stop her headlong rush, the shawl came off her shoulders, exposing her half-nude body, covered only by the tattered remnants of the garish red dress.
“Let her go!” the captain snapped. With a muffled oath he had stepped forward to catch the sobbing, hysterical girl as she fell against him.
“Ginny? Ginette, am I dreaming? Is it really you?” Even as he spoke he was tearing off his campaign cloak, wrapping it around her body. Now he tilted her face up with one hand, still keeping an arm around her.
She kept saying his name over and over, as if she could think of nothing else. But yes, it was really her! His little love, his Ginette, long-lost—turning up here, of all places! And under arrest, half-naked, it was impossible!
The soldiers were all speaking at once until the captain ordered them, in a voice taut with emotion, to be quiet. Still holding the trembling girl in his arms, he looked over her head at the confused sergeant, who by this time was wondering if they all weren’t going crazy.
“And now,” he said, his voice steely, “let me hear your explanations, if you please! What is this young lady doing here, with you lot of ruffians? What have you done to her?”
PART SIX
“La Cortesana”
40
The little townhouse that Michel had found for her in the old Spanish section of Mexico City was on the Calle Manzanares. To Ginny it became both a haven and a refuge during the two weeks that followed his taking her away from the horror at San Luis—a horror that still haunted her sweat soaked nightmares from which she would wake up shaking, more often than not; sobbing wildly. During the five days that Michel had
managed to stay with her, he would hold her closely, comforting her.
“It’s all over, petite amie, don’t think of it any longer! It’s finished, I’m here to look after you.” He couldn’t forget how she had looked, that night; all but naked, her big green eyes wide and terrified; the way she had repeated his name over and over, begging him to help her, to save her. The thought that if his horse hadn’t happened to go lame he might never have found her really horrified him. Dieu! His Ginette, his little lost one, who had fought so bravely to save his life—his little tarnished flower, what terrible experiences she had been through!
Michel had been riding fiercely with a small body of men—on his way from Durango to Mexico City, to ask Bazaine for more reinforcements for the besieged garrison there. Even after he had found Ginette he had not been able to stay on at San Luis for more than a few hours. Long enough to order the sergeant roughly to forget the whole matter, that he would take full responsibility for the lady. Carrying her in his arms, still wrapped in his cloak and half fainting by now, he had taken her to a doctor, had somehow managed to procure a gown for her, and then they had to be off again. But this time, strictly against regulations, Ginny had gone with him.
“I’m billeted in a house on the Torrez Adalid, but of course it’s out of the question for you to stay there. Don’t worry, I’ll find a place for you,” Michel had told her. Felix, Prince du Salm, was a friend of his, and the prince’s American wife Agnes was a warm and friendly person, tactful enough not to ask too many questions. She offered her hospitality to Michel’s little friend at once, and Ginny had stayed with them until Michel, by moving heaven and earth almost, had finally found a small house. Hardly more than an apartment, really, but the address was good, and it was suitable. There was even a tiny, miniature patio where she could take the sun away from prying eyes.
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