Bandit Queen

by Jane Candia Coleman

  In all my life I’ve never refused a dare. I got up and sat down close beside her and, looking straight into her face, said: “Tally, I’m woman enough for anything.”

  Her smile surprised me. It smoothed out her face, turned her young in spite of the tears, until she looked no more than a child herself.

  “I bet you are at that,” was all she said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Inevitably, my mother wrote to me—a long, disapproving letter that read in part:

  Imagine how I felt, sitting in that hospital and finding that my daughter was a criminal talked about in all the papers, by all the nurses, all my friends? What went through your head? What possessed you?

  And what of your children? You can hardly expect them not to find out about their mother. You have placed an unnecessary burden on innocent shoulders by your thoughtless, impulsive actions.

  I sighed, and Tally, who had been watching me, asked: “Bad news?”

  “A letter from my mother.”

  “She scolding you?”

  I nodded.

  “A little late for that,” she said, “but mamas have to scold. That’s what they do best.”

  “I never scolded my children,” I said, remembering how we had bonded together in love, and for protection. “Did your mother scold you?”

  Tally shrugged. “Honey, my mama was too busy to notice what I got into.”

  Her mother had been a laundress for the buffalo soldiers, moving with them from camp to camp, fort to fort all over the Southwest, and dragging her daughter along.

  That much Tally had told me. But getting information out of her was like squeezing water out of a cactus. I never knew when I’d be pricked by a thorn.

  “I was watched over till I thought I’d scream,” I said. “It’s better your way.”

  “Don’t look like they did too good a job on either one of us,” she said, “but at least you got your children.” Her voice broke. In those early days she was never far from tears.

  Sometimes I felt like she was my child, like I was her mother, and had to comfort her. It was a new experience for me—to care for someone, an adult, a woman who was as different from me as I was from my mother, yet in many ways similar. We were both grieving—for our children and for our lost innocence.

  I continued skimming the letter and went on to the second page where a name leaped out at me.

  “Frank’s dead!” I exclaimed, shocked.

  “Good riddance.”

  “She says nobody knows what happened to him. But his things were sent back to Toledo.”

  “How you feel about it?” Tally asked. “Like a widow?”

  I put down the letter, walked to the door, and looked out. How did I feel, now that I was free of him forever? Perhaps a little sad, as if a part of my youth was gone. “Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me…” So many promises, and so little to show for them. In spite of everything, I felt sorrow for that girl who believed in storybooks.

  “I feel kind of sad,” I said. “It’s hard to explain. I hated him at the end, but there were good days. And my babies.”

  She put her arms around me. “You want to cry, go on,” she said.

  But the moment of sympathy exploded around us when Ed Simmons arrived with another prisoner who took one look into our cell and began screaming in a mixture of Spanish and En glish.

  “You think to put me in a cage with these tortillieras! Me, Rosa Alvarado. I won’t do it! Let me go!” She struggled in his grasp; a tall woman, and strong.

  He had all he could do to push her inside and slam the door.

  “Calm down, Rosa, or you’ll go in the hole,” he said.

  She pounded on the bars. “Better there with the snakes than here!” she shouted. Then she went to the back of the cell, as far away from us as possible.

  “Touch me,” she snarled, “and I’ll cut out your hearts!”

  “Touch you?” I said, walking toward her. “Touch you! I wouldn’t touch you with a stick. What’s the matter with you, anyhow?”

  She glared at me. “I know what you do,” she said. “And it’s a sin before God.”

  I called over my shoulder to Ed. “Get her out of here! She’s crazy. Loco,” I added, for Rosa’s benefit.

  “Super’s orders.” He laughed. “Have a good time, ladies.”

  I watched him saunter across the yard, pleased with himself, and spat at his heels. Then I turned back to Rosa, whose hair had come loose, and who was watching me through a tangle of dark red curls.

  Somebody had to take charge, I thought, and it wasn’t going to be Tally. She was sitting with her back to the wall, as far away from the newcomer as possible.

  “My name’s Pearl,” I said. “And that’s Tally. And everything was fine in here until you came. There’s two of us, and one of you, and we don’t like threats or shouting matches, so suppose you tell us what’s bothering you.”

  “Tortilliera!” she spat out again. “Keep away!”

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” I told her slowly, emphasizing every word, “but I don’t like being called names, so you’d better explain.”

  She had huge, dark eyes, nearly black, and they appraised me like I had fangs and horns.

  “Look at you,” she said finally, bitterly. “Pretending to be a man. Pantalones. Hair like a dog’s ass, and a woman of your own. ¡Dios! That I should end up in a cell with such people!”

  Her accusation was so wild, it took me a minute to understand. Then I started to laugh and couldn’t stop, even though it made her even angrier.

  She stood up, a head taller than I was. “Don’t you laugh at me!” she hissed. “Don’t dare!”

  “Now that’s just enough!” Tally came out of her daze and pushed between us, a fierce terrier, holding off two mastiffs. She cocked her head and stared up at Rosa, and there was a toughness in her that I hadn’t seen before, a kind of loyalty and courage that roused my admiration.

  “You…,” she began. “You big, badmannered bitch. You come in here, not knowing nothing, throwing your weight around, disturbing the peace, and calling names. Who gave you the right? Who you think you are? You in jail, same as us, and you better figure how you gonna get along. We don’t need you, but, sure as Satan, you need us.” Then she snapped her mouth tightly shut and went back to her corner.

  “Why, Tally!” I said, shocked.

  She glared at Rosa. “Big, dumb bitch,” she muttered. “There’s no fault in women carin’ for each other. Who else we got?”

  “She’s right,” I said to Rosa. “And you’re all wrong. I wear pants because I like them. I’m as much woman as you are.”

  “Don’t you be comparing yourself with her,” Tally said. “She ain’t fit to clean your shoes.” Rosa said: “You don’t know how you look. How I feel. Me, Rosa Alvarado in jail with two lovers!”

  Oddly, she laughed, her anger gone as quickly as it had come. “I have had enough of love. Of any kind. You understand me?”

  “How come all’s women talk about is love?” Tally wanted to know. “Ain’t there anything else?”

  Rosa’s teeth flashed white. “It’s what we know best,” she said. “Love. And hate.”

  I said: “I thought I loved my husband. I guess I did for a while. And then I hated him.”

  “Did you kill him?” She looked interested for the first time.

  “I ran away.”

  “Cowards run. Me, I try to kill my Julio when he beat me for taking a lover. I tell him, for beating me, I will cut off his cojones while he watch.” She made a slicing gesture, and I shivered.

  “Did you?”

  She shook her head. “His brothers, they catch me, and send me here. But not before I made many marks. Like the ones he made on me.”

  The ugliness of it all took hold of me. The waste. The pain. Three women jailed, two of them for murder or its attempt. And why? Because nothing was fair, and life at its best was hard. Because simple dignity was something worth fighting for, even knowing it was a losing bat
tle.

  I looked out into the yard. A bitter wind was blowing, and the sky was pale and cold. Winter had come. In the spring we would still be here, three women condemned because of ignorance—our own and the world’s.

  “Welcome to hell,” I said to Rosa.

  She tossed her heavy hair. “I been in hell,” she said. “Without Julio, I am in paradise.”

  Tally chuckled, a dry sound like stones rattling. “She may be right at that,” she said. “She just might be right.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  In the spring, Joe Boot escaped, and the prison superintendent sent for me.

  “Why does he want me? I don’t know anything,” I said to Ed Simmons, as he walked me to the office. “I haven’t even seen Joe since I’ve been here.”

  “Don’t tell me. Tell him,” he said. “And don’t get me in any trouble, or you’ll be sorry.”

  I stopped walking. “How could I do that?”

  “By running off at the mouth like all women.”

  “Did anybody ever tell you that you’re a son-of-a-bitch?” I asked.

  His hand was heavy on my arm, and he pressed tighter. “You watch your mouth, Pearl, and mind your manners. Or else.”

  I was bored. Restless. Looking for a fight that would light up the dullness. “Or else what?” I challenged.

  “Or else you’ll be sorry.” He ran his tongue across

  his lips that were the color of raw liver “Then again, maybe you won’t.”

  He was repulsive…a toad…one of those poisonous, bloated creatures that hop along the banks of the river and take nourishment from crawling insects and the thickness of mud.

  I said: “Don’t threaten me.”

  He smiled. “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.” And the look on his face filled me with horror, so much so that when I finally stood in front of Herbert Brown, the super, I was speechless.

  Brown was a kindly man, but stern. “Sit down, Pearl,” he ordered. And to Simmons: “Wait outside.”

  I relaxed when the door shut and Brown and I were alone, facing each other.

  Before he had a chance to question me, I said: “I haven’t seen Joe since I was brought here. I don’t know anything.”

  “But you might know about his family.”

  I shook my head. “He never mentioned his family, and that’s the truth.”

  “Where was he from?” “I don’t know that, either. He said, a long time ago, he’d been on his own since he was a kid, and I believed him.”

  He frowned, and two little lines marked the space between his eyebrows. “So you can’t tell me where he might be headed.”

  “No, sir.” I squirmed in my chair.

  “Sit still!” he commanded suddenly. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing.” Simmons probably had his ear glued to the door.

  “Are they treating you all right?” came the next question.

  “Yes.” I figured the shorter I kept my answers, the better it would be for me.

  Brown sighed. “All right. You can go. But if you remember anything that might help, you’ll tell me.” It was another order.

  I nodded.

  In my mind, I pictured Joe in Mexico, but that was imagination. He could just as easily have stowed away on one of the river steamers and gone north to the mines where the desert stretched its lean body for miles, or all the way to Port Isabel and from there out to sea. I wished for a moment that I’d escaped, too, that we were both running again with the land in front of us, or the ocean, this time smarter than before.

  I was brought back to reality by the sight of a stocky figure crossing the yard toward us. It couldn’t be! I squinted in the glare and then pulled free of Simmons.

  “Dan!” I called, running as fast as I could. “Here I am!”

  He spread his arms wide and stopped my fl ight. “Ah, Pearl, you damned fool,” he said in greeting, “what’ve you got yourself into?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too happy to see Dan Sandeman, one of the few who had ever treated me kindly, been concerned for me without asking for payment.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him. “How’d you get here?”

  He stepped back and eyed me, shaking his head. “I came to see you, and what do I find? A ragamuffin. What happened to the Pearl I knew?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all afternoon.”

  Simmons caught up with us. “Who are you?” he demanded. But he couldn’t shake Dan.

  “An old friend. There’s no rule against visiting prisoners, I assume.”

  “Nope. But I’ll have to lock you in her cell. Her buddy just broke out, and I can’t take chances with her following him.”

  I wanted to kill him. To grab his throat and squeeze him until his eyes popped, his face turned purple. I wanted, like Rosa, to cut off his cojones and throw them at him. But I held my tongue, even when Ed frisked Dan for hidden weapons, turning up only cigarettes, a bottle of cologne, and a bag of oranges.

  “Gotta be careful,” he explained.

  Dan kept his face expressionless. “Certainly.”

  “He’s just throwing his weight around,” I muttered. “Don’t pay any attention to him.”

  Dan followed me into the cell where Tally and Rosa looked up, astonished. To me he whispered: “Just take it easy, for God’s sake. What’s got into you?”

  “Everything!” I turned on him. “This place. Simmons out there with his filthy mind. Nothing to do but sit here and read old newspapers. You wouldn’t like it, either.”

  “Whose fault is it?” he wanted to know, quirking an eyebrow. “And who are these ladies?”

  “We’re not ladies. We’re bodies with numbers.”

  “Christ, how you’ve changed,” was his reply. Then he bowed to Rosa, who had come up to us, rustling her skirts.

  “It’s a pleasure to see a real gentleman,” she said, smiling. “Here we see only thieves and murderers and the pigs who guard them.”

  She was flirting with him openly and seductively, and suddenly I was furious. I grabbed his arm and steered him away.

  “This is Tally,” I said.

  She made a noise that might have been a hello and went back to her lace-making. From dawn to dark she worked at it, turning out lace as delicate as spider webs—collars, cuffs, runners, trim by the yard—and sold it, too, in the prison store. “It helps,” she had explained. “You ought to try.”

  But I lacked the patience and the talent and, as a result, found myself back writing poems that Rosa made into songs. From somewhere she’d gotten an old guitar she treated as if it were priceless, polishing it and gently tightening the strings. And it was the guitar that Dan noticed, lying on the table, its curved sides shining in a ray of sun.

  “Who plays?” he wanted to know.

  “Rosa. I write the words and sing. We’re good, too. When we get out, we’re going on the road.”

  “You mean if you get out,” Tally corrected.

  “I could use you two,” Dan said. “I’ve been on my own since I left Chicago. Play something.”

  Rosa didn’t wait to be asked twice. She picked up the guitar, caressing it with long fingers, bending gracefully over it as she tuned. When she was satisfied, she looked up and flashed Dan a smile.

  “First, the songs of my country,” she announced and played the mournful opening bars of an old Mexican song that she had, over many weeks, taught me to sing in Spanish.

  I sang my heart out for nearly an hour, and, when we’d finished, Dan applauded long and hard.

  “You two are dynamite. How long before you’re out?”

  Rosa shrugged. “Who can say? Me, they give six years.”

  “Too long,” I said. “Too damned long.” Dan’s eyes were bright. He was thinking ahead. I hadn’t spent all those months with him without learning how his mind worked.

  “Look,” he said finally, “when you’re out, get in touch with me. Oh, I’ll be on the road somewhere…they don’t call me
‘The Wandering Jew’ for no reason. But I’ll keep in touch. There’s money, playing these towns, and it’s fun. You meet people, learn things, see the country. How about it, ladies?”

  Rose brought her fingers down in a loud chord. “I, for one, say yes,” she said. “We’ll find you, Señor Dan. And we will sing and play our poor hearts out when you tell us.”

  Dan bowed low. “At your service, señora,” he promised.

  I didn’t respond, but Tally, as usual, had the last word.

  “It sound like horse shit to me,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  When Dan had gone, Tally spoke up again. We were sopping up our bowls of beans and bacon with our bread when she started.

  “Must be the sight of a man makes you both hungry.”

  Rosa and I stopped eating, our dripping bread halfway to our mouths. Tally grinned at the sight, one of those painful facial gestures she was so good at.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You might as well stop feeding yourselves and listen.”

  “Listen to what?” I asked.

  “To me,” she said. “I got eyes. And ears, too. And a brain. And I see you both dreamin’ about freedom and a man to go with it. When you gonna figure out you don’t need no man? That you can do it on your own? Seems to me, it’s men who got us all in trouble.”

  Rosa popped bread into her mouth. “Be quiet, little one,” she warned. “I like you better when you don’t talk.”

  Tally put down her spoon. “I don’t care if you like me or not, but you gonna listen. And you ain’t gonna like what you hear.”

  Curious, I leaned my elbows on the table. “Go ahead,” I said.

  She shot me a look. “Listen good, then. I’ll start at the beginning…with my mama and the daddy I never knew. I’m a bastard, just like my own child was. Only it didn’t mean much to me. I had my mama, and the soldiers, and they was nice to us both. We had enough to eat, and a roof over us, most times, and that’s all I ever wanted. I didn’t have no dreams, see, ’cause I didn’t know there was anything to dream about.”