Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer) Read Online Free Page A

then stopped grinning. “That pig Sanchez,
the shopkeeper. Didn’t he?” She leaned over the trough and washed the blood
from her blouse. “He’s missing, you know.”
    “Yes. I know.” She watched the fat girl for a
while and decided it would be safe to dig up her necklace. Juana watched and
nodded approvingly. She took it from Maria and washed it in the trough for her.
“It’s pretty.” She handed it back.
    “Who is this virgin?”
    She giggled. “You really don’t know?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know of Jesus and the church and heaven
and hell?”
    “No.”
    “But you’re named for her. The Virgin Maria.
Except you aren’t one now.”
    “A what?”
    “A virgin.” Juana was getting hungry. “Come on,
I’ll take you to the whores. They’ll help you down there.” She pointed at
Maria’s midsection. “They’ll know all about it.”
    “What are whores?” Maria was feeling very stupid
around the chubby girl. She said words and talked of things that made no sense,
things Maria knew nothing about.
    “Are you serious?”
    “Yes.”
    “They do it for money.”
    “What?”
    “It, what Sanchez did to you.”
    “I don’t know what he did. I was asleep. He
gave me something and I don’t know what he did.”
    Juana laughed and then thought better of it.
She became serious. “Did you ever see animals doing it…, you know, breeding,
dogs or cats?”
    Maria understood now. “Oh, goats, I’ve seen
goats breed. Yes.”
    “That’s it! That’s what the whores do for
money, what Sanchez did to you. He mated with you. He stuck his thing in there,
but you’re too small. The whores said that about me. I’m too young to be a
whore. I’m not big enough yet.”
    “I see.” Maria thought she was going to be
sick. It made sense now and it made her feel ill. She thought back to her time
with the shopkeeper. Some things she kind of remembered. Juana brought her from
her reverie.
    “Come on, Maria, it’s okay, the whores will
help you.”
     
    They made it to the far side of town, to the
end of the street where there were three saloons and a bordello. Juana escorted
Maria through the front door. Maria had never seen such a place. The walls and
door were painted red. The carpet was red, the drapes were red and red shades
covered all the lamps. A woman greeted them. She was wearing only underwear.
Her breasts were exposed and Maria turned her head away. The prostitute was
kind to her, though. She had a kind face and when she smiled  it revealed an
incomplete set of teeth. She was an Indian, yet she had yellow hair.
    “What’s this, Juana?”
    “A new girl. Maria. She needs help down there.
Sanchez got her and made her sore.”
    “Oh.” The whore lit a cigar and regarded the
little girl. The child was a beauty and the whore’s face reflected a deep
twinge of regret. She reached down and patted Maria on the head, then took her
by the hand. “Come with me, Maria. I’ll help you.”
    She took her into another red room with a
sagging bed that was pushed against the wall. It stank of sweat and dirty
bodies and things that Maria had never smelled before. The woman told her to
lie back on the bed and Maria complied. She handed Maria an ointment and told
her what to do. She left the room so that she was alone.
    Maria did as she was told and immediately felt
better. She was not certain what to do and stayed in the room. She rested on
the soft bed. The pillow was nice. She’d never felt such a thing in her life,
it was the first bed she’d ever lain in.
    She thought about the mean man from the
village. He called her a whore’s spawn. She now knew what a whore was and what
a whore did, but she did not know what it meant to be a spawn. She considered
it. She’d only ever known the old woman and knew well enough that the old woman
was not her mother. The old woman had always made that clear to Maria, and
she’d never thought much about her mother. Perhaps her mother was here. Her
mother was a whore, according