The Promise of Jenny Jones

by Maggie Osborne

  He had a black eye and a cracked lip when he rode out of Mexla, but he was whistling between his teeth.

  * * *

  "I hate you!" Graciela stamped a tiny tasseled boot on the ground. "I hate you, I hate you,I hate you!"

  Jenny frowned at the kid before she pulled the priest's cassock off over her head and handed it to a grim-faced woman standing beside a better horse than any Jenny had ever ridden.

  "Shut up, kid."

  "I want my mother!"

  "I don't want to start off by having to slap the hell out of you, so just shut up, you hear me?" She thrust her face down near Graciela's, so the kid could see the threat in her eyes. "We need to be quiet until we get away from here. I know your mama told you to mind what I say, and I'm telling you to shut your mouth. If I have to stuff a rag between your teeth, I'll do it."

  "I hate you!" At least she didn't scream it this time.

  Jenny reached for the clothing extended by the woman holding the reins of the horse. "This is a skirt!" she said, shaking out the top item. The woman didn't say anything. She just handed Jenny a set of petticoats. "Well, damn."

  She needed to put tracks between herself and the cousins, and she was going to have to do it while carrying the kid in front of her and wearing skirts. A cussword exploded between her lips. At least Marguarita had a good eye for size. The skirt and blouse were a fair fit. The hat was laughable to begin with, and about as useful for keeping the sun off as a teacup would have been, but Marguarita hadn't forgotten to include one. And she'd had the sense to send boots that were serviceable instead of fashionable.

  The finishing touches turned out to be lace gloves and a waist-length cape, both of which impressed Jenny as ridiculous. The lace gloves would be rags after two hours of riding, and she'd broil under that cape twenty minutes after full dawn. She pushed both items into the saddlebags and her fingers brushed a pouch of heavy coins and a packet of papers. Good. Marguarita hadn't forgotten the money.

  "Come on, kid. Let's vamoose." She extended her arms to Graciela, intending to hoist her up on the horse, but the kid jerked backward.

  "I'm not going with you! I want my mama!" She cast an imploring look at the woman standing in the shadows, then ran to her and buried a storm of sobbing in the woman's apron. "I hate her! I want to stay here with you!"

  This was exactly the situation Jenny had feared. Frowning, she shifted from one foot to the other, running a dozen solutions through her mind. She could knock the kidunconscious, throw her over the horse's neck, and go. She could hog-tie the kid, stuff the gloves in her mouth, and go. She could do just about anything except leave without the kid.

  The woman's dark eyes burned in the darkness, scorching Jenny's face. Marguarita had told the woman and the kid that dying was her choice, Jenny knew this, but both of them seemed to place the blame squarely on her.

  Pursing her lips, she inspected the lightening sky. In minutes, the sun would drift above the horizon. She wanted to be far enough away by then that Graciela would not hear the fusillade of gunshots from the camp. Jenny didn't want to hear them either.

  She stepped up to the woman and gazed into her accusing eyes. "I want to be far away before the sun comes up. Do you get my meaning?" She jerked a thumb toward Graciela.

  The woman leaned to one side and spit near the hem of Jenny's skirt. She glared hard,then bent to take Graciela's shaking body in her arms. Soft crooning sounds sang in her throat.

  "Remember what your mama said? Dry your tears, little one. ThisAmericanais going to take you home to yourpapa."

  "She killed my mama!" Sobs slurred the words, but Jenny heard them clearly enough. She ground her teeth and clenched her fists. She wanted to smack the kid for wasting time.

  "No, no, little flower." The woman eased backward, smoothed a strand of silky brown hair beneath the edge of Graciela's stylish little hat. She sent a murderous glare in Jenny's direction,then managed a smile for the child. "Remember? Your mama was dying slowly. Now, she will join the angels swiftly and without pain. She will be happy as she was not happy on earth."

  "She'll join those angels very soon," Jenny reminded the woman, giving the sky a meaningful nod. "Graciela? Get your butt over here. We're leaving. Now."

  The woman half led, half pulled Graciela toward the horse. "TheAmericanawill take good care of you," she promised in a soothing tone. Her hot eyes warned that if Jenny harmed a hair on Graciela's head, she would hunt Jenny to the ends of creation and eat the heart out of her chest.

  Jenny flexed her shoulders,then stared down at Graciela. She didn't know how big a kid of six was supposed to be, but the feather atop Graciela's hat reached only to Jenny's chest. To her, the kid looked like a large doll dressed in miniature adult clothing. Aside from the fashionable attire, Jenny couldn't identify much of Marguarita in her daughter.

  The kid had brown hair instead of black, and her skin was a shade lighter than Marguarita's. Most startling, Graciela had not inherited her mother's large, soft brown eyes. Graciela glared hatred through eyes that were as blue-green as the sea. She had received her mother's patrician nose and cheekbones, but the rest of her face must have come from her father's side, the family of the sainted Roberto. The stubbornness, Jenny suspected, was Graciela's alone.

  Feeling that something more needed to be said to get Graciela's butt on the horse, Jenny bent until her face was on a level with the kid's.

  "All right, you hate me. I don't like you either. But we're stuck with each other. It isn't fair, and it isn't right, but—" How had the woman put it? "Your mama has gone to join the angels. Your daddy is all you got left, and I promised your mama that I'd take you to him. And you promised your mama that you would go. She told me so. Isn't that right?"

  Tiny gloved fists scrubbed at Graciela's eyes. "I don't want to leave Maria or my great-aunt Tete or my cousins."

  "Well, you have to. You'll be safe and happy with your daddy." Jenny didn't have a fricking notion if she was telling the truth or not. She hated that. "Most important, this is what your mama wanted. You and me … we both promised her that you'd go."

  They glared at each other for a full minute,then Graciela turned and flung herself on the woman, sobbing out a long good-bye. The two of them would have been saying good-bye a week from Sunday if Jenny hadn't grabbed Graciela by the waist and tossed her up on the horse. The idiot skirt and petticoats tripped her on the first try, but she mounted on the second.

  The woman tapped her on the thigh, but didn't say anything when Jenny frowned down at her. "I hear you," Jenny muttered. "I'll do the best that I can."

  Then she warned the kid to hang on, and she dug the heels of her boots into the horse's side. They galloped away from the mesquite tree and the woman, away from the walled camp in the distance.

  Five minutes later, Jenny heard the shots.

  "Thunder," she said to Graciela, closing her eyes above the kid's head.

  All right, Marguarita. You're an angel now. There's not going to be anymore pain, no more blood on your handkerchief. If there's any blood around here, it's going to be mine. If you have any influence up there,me and the kid could use a helping hand. Just keep that in mind, okay? Do what you fricking can.

  They rode spit for leather, keeping away from the main roads, untilmidday. Jenny wouldn't have stopped then, but the kid's body pressed next to hers radiated heat like a small oven. They were both soaked in sweat when she found a trickle of water and some shade and decided to stop, hoping Maria, or whatever her name was, had remembered to pack some food in the saddlebags.

  Wordless, she lifted Graciela to the ground, then walked toward the trickle, kneeled, and scooped water over her face. A long sigh lifted her chest as the water ran down her throat and soaked into her high-necked shirt-waist.

  "You stink," Graciela announced, dropping down beside Jenny and cupping her hands for the water. She let the water dribble through her fingers, then patted her face delicately.

  "You'd stink too if you'd just spent six weeks in
a jail cell." Jenny opened her collar and poured water out of her hand down between her breasts. She released a long sigh of pleasure.

  Graciela slidher a sullen look. "Were there rats in your jail cell?"

  "Rats almost as big as cats." Jenny reached for the pins in her hair. "Would you know if whoever packed the saddlebags packed scissors or a knife?"

  "Is that true?" Graciela said suspiciously. "As big as cats?" A shudder convulsed her shoulders.

  Jenny eyed the trickle of water. She hoped to reach Verde Flores the day after tomorrow. And she hoped to board the train without attracting undue attention. That wasn't going to happen if she smelled rank enough to drop an ox. Another sigh lifted her shoulders. She hated to waste a single minute, but this might be one of those ounce-of-prevention things.

  Standing, she fetched the saddlebags and opened them beneath the shade of a scrub oak at the edge of the trickle. Whoever had packed the bags had managed to cram an amazing amount inside. Jenny found a change of clothing for both of them, and nightdresses. Nightdresses! There were toilet articles including a sewing kit, and a skillet, and the money pouch, which felt satisfyingly heavy in her palm, and a thin packet of papers. She found a bar of soap at once, and another pouch that contained smaller bags of medicinal supplies.

  She sniffed the bags of powders and ointments, and uttered a low sound when the pungent scent of crushed sabadilla seed made her nostrils flare. This was the remedy she had hoped to find.

  Rocking back on her heels, she studied Graciela's reddened eyes. "I'm going to need your help."

  "I hate you," Graciela hissed.

  "I need your help anyway." Now that she could see Graciela in full sunlight, she had to concede the kid was different from Marguarita, but equally lovely. Graciela's eyes were particularly beautiful, thick-lashed and changing from blue to green, then back again. Right now those eyes were as hard as rocks. Patrician and spoiled to the core, Graciela stared at her with haughty disdain.

  Jenny dug through the sewing materials and removed a small pair of scissors. "Do you know how to use these?"

  "Of course I know how to use scissors."

  "Well, how do I know what a six-year-old can or cannot do?" Jenny snapped. She pushed the scissors at Graciela,then shook out tangled skeins of matted red hair. "Cut it off."

  Graciela twitched and stared.

  "Lice," Jenny explained with a shrug, enjoying the horror in the kid's expression. "Keep in mind that I have to appear in public, and you'll be there with me. So cut it short, but not too close to the scalp. Leave me enough that I won't look peculiar wearing a bonnet."

  "Lice! Ack! I don't want to touch them!"

  "Either we get rid of them now, or in a day or two, you'll have lice, too."

  Graciela's hand flew to the brown curls peeping beneath the edge of her little feathered hat. "No!"

  Jenny pointed to her head, wondering at the wisdom of allowing someone who hated her, even a kid, near her head with a pair of sharp scissors.

  Graciela approached with huge reluctance, as if Jenny had admitted to leprosy. She made herself lift a dirty strand between her thumb and forefinger. "Ugh!"

  "Just cut it, damn it." There was a mirror among the toiletries, but it was so tiny that it only revealed an inch at a look. Otherwise, Jenny would have done the job herself. A minute later, ropy strings of red started falling around her. Jenny tried not to look at them. The one thing she was vain about was her hair. She had pretty hair, if she did say so herself. Or she might have if she had done anything with it. She stared straight ahead with a stony expression as Graciela chopped and whacked, moving around Jenny, sidestepping the mats of falling hair.

  "It's done," Graciela announced, handing Jenny the scissors. She gazed at Jenny's head with a smirk.

  Tight-lipped, Jenny found the scrap of mirror and held it up. Graciela had whacked her hair to earlobe length in most places, closer to the scalp in other places. Here and there a stiff tuft stuck out like the bristles on a broom. Most women would have wept. Jenny sighed and stared into space for a long minute. It had to be done.

  Standing, she pulled off her shirtwaist and skirt and tossed them toward the tree. She hadn't taken time for stockings, so the boots stuck to her feet and she had to fight them off.

  Graciela spread a cloth in the shade, seated herself with enormous dignity,then unwrapped a tortilla stuffed with cold meat. First, of course, she opened a napkin across her lap. She watched Jenny undressing.

  "You should have said thank you."

  Jenny glared at her and said nothing. She'd be damned if she'd thank a smirking kid for deliberately chopping holes in her hair. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that Graciela had enjoyed hacking Jenny's hair into a ragged mess.

  Between delicate bites of tortilla, Graciela watched Jenny step into the trickle of water and begin soaping her body. "I've never seen a grown-up without clothes before," she said, staring.

  "Well, this is what one looks like," Jenny snapped. She couldn't remember being this uncomfortable in years. If anyone had seen her naked since she was a kid herself, she hadn't known about it. She tried to pretend that she didn't mind Graciela's staring at her, but she suspected her face was as red as her hacked-off hair.

  "Do all grown-up women have hair between their legs, or is it only you?"

  Oh God. Jenny's face caught fire. She turned her buttocks toward the kid, but hated that almost as much. "All grown-up women have hair there," she said in a choking voice.

  "Why?"

  "How would I know? It happens when you're about ten years old, or maybe it's twelve, I can't remember. Didn't your mother tell you about … ah…any of that?"

  "My mother doesn't have a bunch of disgusting hair between her legs," the kid stated in tones of ringing superiority. She looked down her nose at Jenny.

  "Yes, she does." Did, Jenny silently amended. "All grown-up women get hair between their legs and under their arms."

  Graciela's face pinched in an appalled expression. "Well, my mama doesn't!" Her cheeks reddened, she lowered the tortilla to her lap, and her eyes filled with tears. "Mama is dead now, isn't she?" A low wail built in her chest.

  Jenny paused in scrubbing her hair and looked around anxiously. She doubted there was a soul within hailing distance, but the land dipped and rolled. She couldn't be sure.

  "Kid! Don't be so loud! Stop that!"

  She had forgotten,if she had known it to start with, how totally, abysmally, miserable a kid could look. Tears poured out of Graciela's blue-green eyes. Her nose dripped. Her face and shoulders collapsed. Sobs racked her small body. Jenny stared at a small heap of abject anguish, and she felt as helpless as she had felt in her life.

  Keeping one eye on the kid, she hastily rinsed the soap off her body and out of her hair,then she shook the crushed sabadilla seeds into a small vial of vinegar, grateful that Marguarita had included both, and scrubbed the mixture into her scalp, hoping she didn't have any sores.

  Because if she did, the vinegar was going to feel like liquid fire eating into her brain.

  "I'm sorry your mother is an angel now." Stepping onto the bank, she toweled off with her petticoat, then tore off a strip of hem, moistened it in the water, and bound it around her head. The sabadilla had to heat up and cook the rest of the nits. She ought to be able to drag a comb through what hair she had left by the time they boarded the train at Verde Flores.

  She jerked on a cotton chemise with a small strip of lace edging, the first lace she'd ever worn.

  "Kid, I know you feel bad inside. But you got to be strong."

  Graciela sat hunched over as if someone had let the air out of her. Her hands hung down at her sides, limp on the ground. Tears and snot dripped off her face onto her napkin. If Jenny had seen a dog suffering like that, she would have shot the thing and put it out of its misery.

  "Kid, listen. People die all the time. You have to get used to it." Words weren't helping. Jenny would not have believed one tiny body could contain so many tears or so
much snot. "That woman—her name was Maria, wasn't it?—she was right. Your mama was very sick; you must have seen the blood she was coughing up. Well, she's not sick or in pain anymore."

  "I want to be with her."

  "Well, I know you do." Jenny pulled on her skirt and shoved in the tail of her shirtwaist. "But you can't. Now, you just have to accept that and stop sniveling. Crying doesn't solve anything."

  "You're ugly and mean, and I hate you!"

  "You're little and snotty, and I don't like you either." Jenny found the tortillas and bit into one. Tasty. She chewed and watched Graciela anxiously. What would Marguarita do? What would she say in this situation? "It's time for you to shut up."

  That probably was not what Marguarita would have said. The kid only cried harder and louder.

  "Look. Crying isn't going to bring your mother back. Crying only makes you feel worse and makes me feel like smacking you. So stop it. I didn't carry on like that when I heard that my ma died." She finished eating, then filled the canteens and tied them to the horse. "Let's go. If we don't stop often, we can make ten miles before the light goes."

  Graciela didn't move.

  "Kid," Jenny said, reaching deep for patience, "believe me, I'd love to ride off and leave you here, but I can't. And you're too small and too young and too stupid to take care of yourself. So, unless you want bandits or wolves to get you, you'd better get your butt moving and get on over here."

  Graciela waited long enough to make it clear that she acted under duress. She dragged herself forward with her head down, still dripping tears and snot, her shoulders twitching. She made herself go limp and heavy when Jenny lifted her up.

  Mouth grim, Jenny swung up behind her and touched her heels to the horse's flanks. Graciela sagged back against her like a kid-sized oven.

  "Here's the deal," Jenny said, speaking between her teeth. "You don't talk to me, and I don't talk to you. We need a break from each other, so just shut up." She settled into the saddle for a long ride.