by Win Blevins
He gestured toward the girl with one hand, an invitation to the eye. “This lovely creature is one part of our business. Maria comes all the way from the province of Chihuahua for your…consideration.”
Paloma spoke softly. “Apaches probably stole her from her village and sold her in El Paso. It would have been months ago.”
“She is healthy,” continued Cerritos, “and she has learned to be submissive. With discipline you can teach her willingness to work.” He seemed to put thoughts of pleasure into the word “discipline.” “But she is not good enough for any of you, not yet.” He looked at his audience with a bizarre mixture of contempt and something Sam couldn’t decipher. “Maria is a virgin.”
“Madre de Dios,” said Paloma. “I have heard of this, but…Madre de Dios.”
Cerritos turned and pulled her toward him by the chain. With a large key he undid her shackles, feet and hands.
The assistant fiddled with his whip, lust in his eyes. Lust for sex or for blood? Sam couldn’t tell. Maria fixed her eyes, huge and black, straight ahead. Sam was sure her mind was on nothing but the whip.
“Not a chance of virginity, not after these two or three months,” said Paloma. “In front of me. I can’t believe this.”
Cerritos untied at the collarbone the shirt of rough cloth the girl wore. With an absurdly delicate gesture, as though handling silk, he slipped it over her head.
Sam looked at Maria’s fine, small breasts. Stop it, he told himself.
Cerritos pulled apart the strings of the bow tie at her waist, and with a gesture like a bullfighter handling a cape, he snapped her full skirt away. The girl stood naked. She stared at nothing. Though she struggled to keep her face still, tics rampaged across it.
Sam burned with shame.
Cerritos took her elbows and lowered her to the ground. Maria collapsed like sticks and lay flat, knees up, without protest.
Coy barked.
Sam looked at her closed eyes, her pursed lips, and her fingers clawing silently at the ground.
She hates it. Her rage boomed through him.
Cerritos knelt between her legs and dropped his trousers. He fondled her breasts and pinched her nipples hard. When she grimaced, he leered sideways at his audience. Then he leaned forward onto his elbows and stuck his stiff cock at her.
At the last instant her hips jerked sideways, as though to avoid him.
Cerritos laughed, reared his hips back, and thrust hard into her.
For a minute, two minutes, three, Cerritos rammed himself into Maria over and over. Sam could not look away, but he was glad that the rapist’s arms blocked his view of her face. Mostly he saw Cerritos’s body thrashing and the girl’s knees rocking, like a boat being rowed.
“No,” Paloma told him quietly, and held him back with a hand on his arm.
Cerritos finished, lingered an instant, and sat back on his heels.
Maria lay perfectly still, a corn-shuck doll.
Cerritos stood up, raised and belted his trousers, faced his audience with a hard face, and suddenly, strangely threw them a grin. “There,” he said. “Now she’s good enough for you.”
Suddenly the tableau of watchers was released—an odd energy animated them. They moved about, touched each other on the arm, leaned over and whispered to each other.
Coy howled, drawing looks of displeasure from some of the Mexican men.
Armijo walked forward and stood next to Cerritos, staring at Maria. She knelt in the dust, put her clothes back on, and rose to face her audience. She put on a face that was blank as dried mud. It hurt Sam’s heart.
He could not look at Paloma. Or Grumble, Sumner, or Hannibal. He felt deeply ashamed.
Why are some of us like this?
“The worst is past,” Paloma said.
Armijo looked at the men, and one woman, he had invited to this event. His face sparkled with power. His thick lips gleamed with desire. His body said, I am a man with the audacity to seize the good things in life. Are you?
“He is voracious as a baby,” said Paloma, “but not a bit innocent.”
“Is he getting a share of the money?” Sam whispered.
“Of course.”
An impulse ran through Sam. Armijo needs killing.
“I would suggest a starting bid of a thousand pesos for this fine specimen,” said Armijo.
“Seven hundred,” said Don Emilio.
Sam give the cadaverous don the evil eye. “Buy her,” he told Paloma.
She shook her head. “I have pledged what money I have to buy Rosalita’s sister.”
Sam’s mind roiled in anger. Armijo bid, Don Gilberto bid. The American trader abstained. Sam could not, did not, follow the bidding for Maria.
Suddenly Paloma left his side. She exchanged whispers with Don Emilio, several exchanges. It nettled Sam to see their faces so close together. But when she returned, Paloma wore a smile on her face.
“If he wins the bid,” she said, “I will pay him a thousand pesos, and he will give me Rosalita’s sister Lupe.”
“He’s probably tired of her in his bed,” said Sam.
Paloma gave him a sympathetic look but said nothing.
Now Sam kept a keen ear on the bidding. The final price was mil-something pesos, over a thousand, but the numbers flipped by too fast for Sam’s Spanish. The voice was Don Emilio’s. He stepped forward, grasped the chain between Maria’s wrists, and led her out of the courtyard. She hung her head and followed docilely.
Coy squealed.
“We will pick up Lupe on the way home today,” said Paloma.
Sam’s breaths came freer. He turned and told his friends what was happening. Hannibal and Grumble murmured their approval, but Sumner said nothing. His eyes were on fire. Sam couldn’t look him in the face.
Next came a group of slaves, the oldest woman and her three children, girls who appeared to be about eight and ten and a boy who looked about eleven. “They would bring a higher price if the oldest was a girl,” said Paloma.
More alkali in Sam’s mouth.
The bidding barely passed a thousand pesos and stopped. Gobernador Armijo waddled forward to take possession of the four people.
Sam didn’t think he could stay in this place. “Why are we still here?”
“Because leaving would offend Don Miguel,” said Paloma.
Next came the woman in her twenties and two children. Sam couldn’t bear to listen to the bidding, or watch the faces of any of the bidders, or of Armijo or Cerritos, or the so-called slaves. He didn’t hear the price these people sold for.
“Last we have two boys, unfortunately without mothers,” said Cerritos.
“If their mothers were captured, they probably died on the way,” said Paloma. “Lots of them die. And when the women and children are stolen, the fathers are killed.”
The boys were about ten and twelve, and they didn’t look like brothers. Ragged, dirty, miserably dressed, one looking listless, the other rebellious. Looking at this boy’s body, his rigidity, Sam realized he was all rage.
“What is offered for these fine young men?” said Cerritos. “They will grow into excellent workers in the fields. Also, they can be trained for any skill, blacksmith, wheelwright, whatever is needed. Very valuable. I ask five hundred for the pair.”
“Two hundred,” said Sumner.
Sam looked aghast at his friend. Was an ex-slave now going to own slaves?
Armijo glared at Sumner.
Cerritos said smoothly, “Two hundred, the man says. That is…silly.” He gestured with his hands, a motion that said, Come to me with other bids.
“Two fifty,” called Don Gilberto.
“Two seventy-five,” said Sumner.
“What are you doing?” Sam stage-whispered.
“Spending my money the way I want to.”
“Three hundred,” someone rasped.
“Are you going to free them?” asked Sam.
Sumner said, “Three and a quarter.” He threw an irate glance at Sam. “I w
ant to cut the head off slavery. I’m sure not going to support it.”
Don Gilberto bid again.
Sam could hardly believe what came out of his mouth. “I’ll split it with you,” he said.
Sumner gave the biggest grin Sam had ever seen for him. He called out some bid—Sam didn’t register what it was.
Someone topped Sumner’s bid.
Sam stood shakily, dizzy with his own behavior.
“Let me take over,” said Grumble, and he called out a number.
Sam weaved on his feet, stupefied, as voices called back and forth, spending his money—exchanging human beings for bits of stamped metal.
In the end Grumble won the bidding and walked forward to take charge of the boys. Fat Don Gilberto didn’t look angry. There was courtesy between people who bought and sold human beings.
Now they all walked to the carriage, and Grumble brought the boys behind. Sam took the key from him, knelt down, and unlocked their hands and feet. Then he looked into their faces. “You’ll be all right,” he said gently. He tousled their hair with one hand. “You won’t be slaves. We’ll set you free. You’ll be all right.” He stood up.
Don Emilio walked by, saw Sam on his knees with the boys, and arranged his face into disapproval.
Grumble told the boys, “Get in the carriage.”
Meekly, they did. The older one moved like a marionette.
Grumble said to Sam, “We’ll settle up later. Your half is twenty-five dollars.”
Sam could hardly believe it. For twenty-five dollars he had bought a human being, with bones, blood, mind, heart, and spirit.
Fifteen
THEY RODE BY Don Emilio’s rancho to pick up Rosalita’s sister Lupe. When they unloaded and dismounted in front of Paloma’s casa, Sam thought, We’re overrun with people.
Inside the scene ran to chaos. Everyone crowded around Paloma’s dining table, and Juanita the cook set big pots to steaming—a big supper for all, maybe followed by full beds and bedrolls all over the casa.
Sam realized he felt invaded, and smiled wryly at himself for thinking of himself as the papa of Paloma’s house. Coy trotted to the kitchen and begged, accustomed to getting treats from Juanita’s pots.
Rosalita and Lupe ran to each other, embraced, swung each other at arm’s length, and launched into a jabber of ultra-fast Spanish. “The kitchen,” suggested Paloma. The two of them sat at the small table there, arms stretched across, hands clasped, words leapfrogging over one another.
“They have not seen each other in more than a year,” said Paloma.
Flat Dog and Julia came in from their casita, with the children. Sam reached to pick Esperanza up, but she toddled away. She had been walking for about a month and had a mind of her own.
Paloma turned to Grumble. “Excuse us.” He made room for her and Sam to sit next to the boys who were recently slaves.
She looked at them very directly. “I am Paloma Luna. You may call me Doña Paloma. This is my ranch, and you may stay here for a while until we decide what you will do.”
One looked at her with a baby face and puppy eyes. The other, older, taller, and more muscular, was all eyes that blazed with anger. They both had dark skin and blue-black hair. Indios, thought Sam, not Spanish, in the dumb way Spaniards arrange reality.
“You are not slaves, do you understand that? Some bad men captured you, but we have freed you. Isn’t that right?”
Sam, Sumner, Hannibal, and Grumble all said it was. Flat Dog and Julia watched curiously from the far end of the table. Julia was breast-feeding Azul.
“Juanita, please, bring atole. These boys look hungry.”
Rosalita set big bowls of the gruel in the middle of the table for all. Lupe poured everyone drinks from two pitchers of aromatic hot chocolate.
“What are your names?”
“Pedro,” said the one who looked perpetually frightened. He sipped gingerly at the chocolate.
“Tomás,” said the bigger one. He drank directly out of his bowl, looking around like a wolf, half ready to fight for its food, half ready to run off.
“Pedro, Tomás, you are only boys, not ready to be on your own. We won’t turn you out into the world by yourselves, do you understand?”
Pedro nodded that he did. Words seemed hard for him.
“We don’t give a damn about that,” said Tomás.
Sam bit his tongue. Who did this kid think he was?
Paloma ignored the rudeness. “For now this is your home, Rancho de las Palomas. If you are ever away from here and someone asks you, you live at Rancho de las Palomas.” She looked at them hard. “You understand? Say it, Rancho de las Palomas.”
Pedro mumbled the words. Tomás pronounced them loudly and sarcastically.
Both boys began to eat eagerly. Sam noticed that they didn’t look at each other. Whatever else had happened on the Chihuahua Trail, these two didn’t seem to have formed a bond.
“Bueno. Now you must meet your new friends. This is Sam Morgan, who paid a lot of money, enough to free one of you. This is Sumner, who also paid a lot of money for you. Say thank you.”
“Gracias,” each boy said. Tomás seemed to think it was nastily funny.
“Tomás, where do you come from?”
He named a village no one had ever heard of.
“Pedro, do you come from the same village?”
The boy shook his head no.
“Where is your village, Tomás?”
“In the Sierra Madre.”
“Like saying in the Rocky Mountains,” she told Sam. “The province of Chihuahua then?”
“Yes.”
“Pedro, is your village also in the Sierra Mountains?”
“No, near the Rio Grande.”
So they hadn’t been around each other long.
Paloma went on. “I must tell you. The one thing I cannot offer is to send you home. If I gave you to a caravan going south, they would sell you to the first buyer who wanted you, just as happened here. You would be slaves again. So that cannot be. Do you understand?”
Both of them nodded yes.
“But hear me. You are free to go wherever you like. You are free, free as a bird to fly from tree to mountain, be sure of that.”
She waited for them to mumble yes.
“If you choose to stay at my rancho, and that seems to be a good idea, I will make sure you have plenty to eat, clothes to wear, and a warm place to sleep. You understand?”
Mouths full, they nodded again.
“If you stay here, you must also know that there will be certain rules to follow, and chores to do. Just like for Rosalita, Lupe, me, everyone. And just like at home, no?”
Sam saw no particular reaction to the word “home.” He guessed they’d given up on home. Maybe they’d seen their parents killed, their family houses burned to the ground, the entire village destroyed.
Juanita spoke to Rosalita and Lupe, and the two teenage girls began to bring platters of food to the dining table.
“Bueno,” said Paloma. “Now we eat, then we sleep, and tomorrow maybe we have some fun. How does that sound?”
“Bueno,” said both boys, their eyes on the food. It was the most positive sound Sam had heard from them.
The boys stayed up until everyone went to bed, Grumble and Sumner in the guest bedroom, the boys on pallets in the warm kitchen.
“Stay with us tonight,” Flat Dog said to Hannibal.
“Sure.”
Sam and Paloma walked to the casita with Flat Dog, Julia, and Hannibal. Sam offered to hold Esperanza’s hand for the steps through the darkness, but she said “Papá!” and ran to give her finger to Flat Dog. Her other word, Sam had noticed, was “mamá.”
She spoke no Crow or English at all. Not yet, Sam told himself.
At the door of the casita Sam picked Esperanza up and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you,” he said, and handed her to Julia.
As Sam and Paloma strolled back toward the main house, she said, “That’s the first time I’ve he
ard you say those words to her.”
Sam looked up at the millions of stars—so many were visible at this altitude—and thought how far apart they were, how much empty space stretched between them. “It’s been coming to me more and more,” he said, “that she’s the one way Meadowlark is alive.”
“Good thinking,” Paloma said.
“Now there’s more to think on,” Sam said. He walked a few steps. Even in April the night air was cold. “I’ve taken on responsibility for the lives of the two boys. What the hell am I going to do now?”
He smiled ruefully. She chuckled.
Though Paloma mostly preferred not to be touched while she slept, that night they spooned close to each other. Sam slept fitfully, and was grateful for her warmth.
His last thought was the memory of the Mojave boys who tortured the toads. Why?
THE NEXT MORNING Tomás was gone.
“Señora,” said Juanita, “only one boy was here when I came in.”
Sam knew that Juanita got to the kitchen well before dawn to start the day’s tortillas.
“This other one, he was rolled right up against the legs of the stove, sucking his thumb. I couldn’t work until I made him move.”
Pedro was still rolled up in his blankets, against an interior wall now, looking at them all with wide, dark eyes, too frightened to be reached by Juanita’s disapproval.
Paloma went to hunt for Tomás all over the house, though she had no hope that the boy was here. She asked all her guests if they’d heard anything. Sam went outside to search for the boy, or sign of him.
They met in the kitchen again with the same word, “Nothing.”
“Rosalita,” said Paloma, “go to the casita. Tell Don Flat Dog what has happened, and that I ask him to help Don Sam with the search.”
Now Juanita was feeding Pedro hot chocolate and atole. Rosalita and Lupe were serving everyone else at the dining table. Grumble and Sumner were glum. Hannibal was rushing through his breakfast so they could get going. When Flat Dog came in, he and Sam ate on their feet.
“Unfortunately,” Paloma told everyone, “I have no idea about this.”
“Maybe one of the slave owners stole him,” said Sumner.
