Page 39 of Sweet Savage Love
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“C onsider yourself real lucky,” Beal said. He laughed down at the anguished, half-demented squirming of the girl who lay under him on the bed of the baggage wagon, pinned down by his weight. “I could have had you shot too, after I was through with you,” he continued in the same sneering voice. “Only carrying out orders, you see—you was a prisoner too, after all. But I always wanted to have me a soldadera, like them Mex soldiers—a white woman, not some greaser bitch. You might just do, babydoll, once you’ve learned a few things.”
The two other counter-guerillas, one riding his horse beside it and the other driving, laughed along with Beal. They found it amusing to watch Beal tame this woman who had fallen into their hands like a lucky windfall. He had already stripped her naked, and her frenzied struggles only served to present them with a better view of certain parts of her firm, long-limbed, sweat-gleaming body.
Matt Cooper, a big bearlike Arkansan, kept tilting a bottle of tequila to his mouth and looking over his shoulder, so that from time to time the wagon would lurch crazily and Beal would swear. Ordinarily, Matt was a bluffly kind man who would never have joined in Beal’s kind of sadistic “fun,” but when he was drunk Matt could become mean and dangerous, and right now, watching Beal with the girl, he could hardly wait to have his turn at her. God, but she was a beaut! And in spite of her seeming reluctance, she’d already sold her body to that fat colonel, hoping to save her lover’s life. Beal had told them the story, laughing. “She ain’t no better than a whore, any case,” he had said. “Morgan—that damn turn-coat half-breed that just got an end put to his misery with them other Juaristas, he carried her all over the country with him—had her trained in some real fancy houses, I’ve heard. Like Lilas’ down in El Paso. Now it’s our turn, huh boys?”
Neither Matt, nor Pecos Brady, who kept looking over the side of the wagon and grinning, had contradicted him. Why shouldn’t they take their turn? The colonel had instructed Beal to bring her to him in Durango, but hell, a lot of things could happen along the way! The colonel need never know, and there were other women he could get, with all his money.
The girl had bruises all over her body—there was a livid blue mark on her cheekbone, where Beal had hit her, and her lip bled. But she kept right on struggling, whimpering like a hurt animal.
Two Mexican officers, catching up with the troop that was already a few miles out of Zacatecas, rode up and started to laugh.
“Hey amigo —you got troubles? Caught yourself a wild one, eh?”
“You ought to do like we do to those Juarista women we catch, when they’re not willing,” the other officer said, his teeth a flash of white under his mustache.
“Won’t take me long,” Beal said between his teeth. He hit her again and she screamed. The imprint of his fingers flamed against the whiteness of her breast.
“But why waste any time at all? With four of us to hold her down a man could do as he pleased with her, eh? And perhaps she would not have the strength to struggle afterwards!” The Mexican who had spoken first was persistent, his small, bloodshot eyes were fixed on the pale, squirming body of the copper-haired woman. Caramba, but this one was worth having! Even if he had to pay the Norteamericanos for a share in their plunder.
“Ah, shit,” Pecos grumbled, licking his lips, “why not, Beal? Give her a taste of what’s in store for her—she might’s well get used to it!”
With a jerk, Matt Cooper pulled the mules to a halt.
“I’m so goddamn hard for her I can’t stand to wait another minute, hear? I say let’s get on with it.”
His words were the last thing that Ginny remembered clearly of that night. For the rest of her life, she would try to push the memory far, far back into the recesses of her mind—so far that it wouldn’t come back to haunt her nightmares….
They tied the lantern to the side of the wagon and threw her onto the ground beside it. When she kept screaming someone stuffed a dirty, foul-tasting neckerchief into her mouth.
Strangely enough what seemed to hurt her most was the way they dragged her arms and legs apart and held them down. That and the thought of the obscenity of her position as they raped her, one by one. The degradation to her woman’s soul was worse than what they did to her body, for it would heal, eventually. The stickiness of the blood between her thighs mixed with the drying semen. The animal grunts, eyes glaring down into hers, laughter that was not really laughter but a mixture of lust and excitement.
By the time the last man had his turn at her there was no longer any real need to hold her still. She was slipping into darkness, and did not even know it when Matt Cooper lifted her in his great, strong arms and put her down among the sacks on the wagon bed. Later, he came to lie beside her, while Beal took his turn driving the wagon. And it was in Matt’s arms that Ginny woke up, moaning with pain, feeling her body one great, throbbing ache.
In his own rough way, Matt was kind to her during the weeks that followed—the weeks of gruelling, exhausting travel in the wake of the Imperialist Mexican armies commanded by General Mejia, who was far away himself, in Mexico City most of the time. Ginny found herself a camp follower, one of the wretched soldaderas who trailed their men, cooked for them, made and broke camp, and serviced their needs. “ La gringa soldadera ” they called her, and she gained a grudging acceptance from the other women when they saw that her lot was in some ways worse than theirs. For she, after all, had three men to take care of, after all, and one of them was that Norteamericano “ fiero ”—the man called Beal, who was liked by no one, not even his own compadres. A strange, coldly cruel man who loved to kill, but most of all to torture. It was he who questioned the prisoners they took. And when he took a woman there was always the pain he needed to mete out before his lust could be fully satisfied. Ginny was to learn this, just as she learned to tremble when he crooked his finger at her; to acquiesce quickly to whatever he wanted her to do, without question, because if she did not the agony of her “punishment” would stay with her for days. The man seemed to enjoy his absolute domination of her. Whereas Pecos was only interested in food and the fleeting pleasure he obtained by using her body as an outlet for his lust, Beal was more concerned with breaking her spirit completely. Time and time again, when she failed to satisfy him, or he found some fault he could accuse her of, he would beat her—using his razor strap with cold deliberation, laughing at her helpless struggles, until she was a collapsed, sobbing heap at his feet, pleading with him brokenly not to hurt her anymore. On one of these occasions Tom Beal did for the first time what he was to do again, when he thought she needed to be reminded who owned her. He knew that several of the Mexican officers wanted her—they would make excuses to ride back to the baggage wagons, and make bold, admiring comments, asking her to pull the ragged black rebozo off her head so they could see her hair…or to raise her skirts a trifle. She never answered them, and would look straight ahead until they got tired of their games and rode away. But Beal—Beal arranged to sell her to one of them, a capitan who fancied himself a great lover.
“He’s promised me ten pesos,” he told her, grinning wickedly. “See you bring it all back to me, you whore!”
She gave an uncontrollable cry of shame and fear and he caught her by the hair, tugging her cruelly back to her feet.
“Ain’t so grand now, are you? I remember those fancy airs you useta have, just like you was a lady. But I knew you, bitch! I knew you for what you are, right from the beginning! An’ remember this, you’re mine—you’ll whore for me when I tell you to, and you’ll crawl to me if I say the word. Just you remember good!”
He flung her away from him and she lay still, only her shoulders moving as she sobbed, quietly and hopelessly.
But if Beal contributed to the hell that her life had become, Ginny found that Matt Cooper helped, in his way, to make it slightly more bearable. He seemed to take an almost childish pride in her, and if she had clothes to wear, such as they were, it was Matt who found them for her. It was Matt, too, who gave her a knife, and taught her how to use it.
“Some of these women are pretty wild, tough customers. They’re always gettin’ in fights—pullin’ knives on each other. Wouldn’t want to see your purty face marked up, baby. Matt’s gonna teach you. Just be sure Tom Beal don’t know nothin’ about it, see?” Matt boasted he was the “best damn knife-fighter in the hills” and he taught her every trick he could think of. He enjoyed wrestling with her too, teaching her the names of various holds; shouting with laughter when her legs got tangled up in her skirt and she sprawled under him in the dirt. At times like this, all she had to do was haul the skirt up and “grab him a little bit” as he put it. The other women shrieked with laughter when this happened, but they forbore to start any fights with la gringa. “That one,” they would say, half-admiring, half-disparaging, “she has learned to fight just like a man, no?”
Even the lazy Pecos began to think it looked like fun.
“Teachin’ a woman to wrassle, ain’t that somethin’? Like to see one of them other bitches try tanglin’ with our little soldadera, huh, Matt?” He taught her some waterfront tricks he’d picked up on the wharfs in San Francisco.
Mainly from a purely animal, primitive sense of self-preservation, Ginny learned fast. More, this same animal kind of furtiveness kept her from letting Tom Beal discover how much she was really learning. Beal, who took such pleasure in beating her, in slapping her around without provocation, reminding her she was a whore.
“Ah—leave her alone! She ain’t done nothin’!” Matt would shout when he was around. And it was only the fact that Beal was the slightest bit afraid of big Matt and his temper that saved her from disfigurement or worse.
The Imperialist armies, a sprawling, disorganized collection of men and their camp followers, kept falling back. The gray-tunicked counter-guerillas ravaged the fringes of the retreating army, like a pack of snarling, ravenous coyotes—striking in the darkness at anything and anyone they could find. Most of them had ridden with Quantrill during the civil war in the States. Now, in name at least, they fought for the Emperor Maximilian.
Caught between opposing armies, the countryside lay bare and ravaged under an equally pitiless sun. This was the Meseta Central, the dry valley that sloped upward in a succession of plateaus until one came to the cool mountains of the Central Highlands. Mejia’s army moved back and forth, trying to trap the army of Juarista General Mariano Escobedo. But Escobedo, who had learned guile, always managed to avoid an engagement unless it could not be helped. In the meantime Juarista guerillas harried the Imperialist soldiers in every way possible—striking; then fading back into the barrancas. Mejia sent a force to relieve Matamoras, the emperor’s port on the Gulf, and found it already lost to the Juaristas. Rumor had it that Mejia himself had been captured, but released by order of General Escobedo. He went back to Mexico City, licking his wounds, leaving his army to keep fighting.
As the Juarists began at last to advance relentlessly, there came news that the French in their turn were pulling back even further. Chihuahua and Saltillo had been evacuated long before—Camargo had fallen. Durango was now their most northerly outpost to the west. And in San Luis Potosí the French bugles still blew over the parade grounds.
All this meant very little to the undisciplined Imperialist hordes, who felt that they were now being called up to do most of the fighting. Refugees thronged the roads, overtaking the army in their headlong flight. These, of course were the supporters of Maximilian. Rich hacendados with their families and their most precious possessions, escorted by bands of armed vaqueros. Merchants, villagers who feared reprisals from the victorious Juaristas when their towns were taken.
The women would screech with laughter when smart, closed carriages rattled past them. They would spit in the road and jeer.
“They’re all piss-scared of the Juaristas, look at them go! Afraid they’ll steal their fat, ugly wives and daughters, pah, who’d want them?” They made obscene gestures at the ladies who watched through the canvas carriage blinds.
Only Ginny kept herself apart from such sport. Her head and shoulders completely covered by a reboza that hid her hair, she would ride the wagon with her bare legs dangling—now as brown and thorn-scratched as the legs of the others. Sometimes she walked, especially when Beal was close. She never dared raise her head, on these occasions. Always the thought came to her that perhaps, in one of those carriages, someone she had met might have passed. What would they think, if they only knew? She tried to stop herself from too much thinking of the past, and did not much care what lay in the future. She had forced herself into a kind of numbness, in which she could accept everything that happened to her with a kind of apathy. And the only time she seemed to throw off this apathy, the air of sullen resignation that had become so much a part of her, was when she danced. It was the only occupation the women had to make them forget their weariness and the hard work—the endless marching.
Someone would start to strum on a guitar, and demand that the women dance. After a while, some of the men would join in too. They danced the fiery peasant dances of Mexico—the jarabe, the corrido —and sometimes the fandango. Watching the Rositas, the Chiquitas and the Lupes dance, Ginny could hardly fight the need to do so herself. It was one thing she had always loved in Mexico—the music of the Spaniards. Wild, sobbing, primitive music—dances that spoke of love and desire, passion and hate and dishonor. Under the tutelage of some of the other women, and to the accompaniment of delighted “ olés ” Ginny actually found some pleasure in dancing—even in learning the sometimes intricate steps—the palmas, or hand-clapping, and the rhythmic finger-snapping. She would think, bitterly, it’s because I no longer have a soul that I pick up things so easily. And then she’d think, What do I care? I can lose myself in the music when I dance, at least.
It was the only thing that made her forget that she had become dirt—lower than the whores who walked the streets of the cities. She despised herself for continuing to live—for wanting to survive, with the fierce natural urge of the starving and the destitute.
As they drew closer to San Luis Potosí, the rumors continued to fly thick and fast, and no one knew what to believe. The French were not “concentrating” as Marshal Bazaine had pretended, but were retreating in earnest. Their Emperor Louis Napoleon had denied the Treaty of Miramar—under the deluge of angry notes from Secretary Seward he was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of continuing the French intervention in Mexico. Soon Maximilian would be on his own, supported only by the Loyalist armies of Marquez, Miramon and Mejia—and in the meantime the Juarist armies were being strengthened by volunteers from the provinces.
Ginny heard the gossip and its vehement denial with a kind of apathy. What difference did it make to her any longer? Now she had the Juaristas to fear as well, if she ever fell into their hands. They would rape and kill her without question and without mercy—was she not a camp follower of Mejia’s army, and worse, the woman of the hated counter-guerillas? If only that terrible, bloody day and night had not happened! If only Steve was still alive. If only she had something to hope for!
They saw the flickering lights of San Luis Potosí late one evening, when the straggling “army” made camp on a mesa north of the town. Once a small mining town and a health resort of sorts it had suddenly become a city of bustling activity, surrounded by trenches and earthworks hastily thrown up by French sappers. Hotels were crowded, and cantinas did a thriving business. Performances were given every night at the small theatre, which was always packed. Here in San Luis, pro-French sentiment ran high, and the Juaristas confined their activities to the nearby mountains, where they hid in small Indian villages and swooped down to harass travellers on the mountain roads.
Beal surprised Ginny with a present of a garish red dress, picked up on one of his “raids” on a small Juarista village. He tossed it at her carelessly with his wolfish grin, and she could not help wondering, even as she took it, what had happened to the woman who had owned such a dress.
“Wear it tonight. We’re goin’ to town. An’ don’t get your hopes up either,” he continued viciously. “There are Frenchies around here, but your colonel friend is still in Durango, fighting off Juaristas. ”
She had learned to say nothing; to do nothing except what he told her to do. Under the pale scrutiny of his eyes, biting her lip to control her involuntary shudders, she began to pull off the ragged camisa and skirt. He watched her critically, noting the hollows at the base of her neck, and the way the thinness of her face exaggerated the high cheekbones.
“Shit!” he commented, “you’re getting real skinny, ain’t you? Don’t forget to comb your hair out—an’ get some color in your face, or I’ll put some there like this…” and he slapped her, knocking her backwards. “An’ you damn well better be on your best behavior tonight, too. We ain’t been paid for quite a while, and I need me some dinero. ” He grinned at her, knowing that she knew what he meant.
“I’ll be ready to leave in about fifteen minutes,” was his parting shot. “Mind you’re all spruced up and waitin’ by then. Better take that new reboza Matt gave you—that one you bin wearin’ recently looks too dirty and raggedy for company.”
Ginny had hoped desperately for Matt’s protection, but when Beal came to fetch her in a borrowed wagon, he was alone. He told her with a thin, evil smile that he knew very well what she was thinking that Matt and Pecos had already headed for a night of drinking and brawling on the town.
Ginny shivered from cold, in spite of the fact that her new white lace shawl was wrapped closely around her head and shoulders. San Luis in the fold of the mountains, and the night air seemed to pierce chilly through the thin material of her gown. It had been sewn for a woman much smaller than she was—cut low in front and at the back, and reaching just above her bare ankles. It clung too tightly to her slim figure, revealing all too clearly that she was naked underneath it. A whore’s dress. But then, that’s what I am, after all, she thought dully. What did it matter, after all? There was no escape from Beal, and he could make her do whatever he wanted, anyway.
French sentries hailed them, and she sat silently, her head hung under their bold scrutiny. Frenchmen. Even they seemed preferable to the kind of man Beal was—the kind of man he picked for her.
They rode through crowded streets, where well-dressed women strolled with their escorts, cocooned in their safe, pleasant world. French Legionnaires, laughing and bright eyed, strolled past, and the sound of their speech stirred a kind of nostalgia in her. A band played in the plaza; lights spilled out of the open doors of cantinas. But it was towards the other, shabbier part of town that Beal took her. Here the streets were narrower, the buildings closer together. Whores quarrelled in doorways—two drunken French soldiers, supporting each other as they reeled up the uneven sidewalk, sang a bawdy song off key.
He took her to a cantina that did not even boast a sign over its open, cracked and warped shutters. Here was heat, at last, but it was the heat of unwashed bodies too closely packed together. The music, provided by two broken-down guitarists, was frenetic; the bar no more than a rough, wooden counter running the length of one wall. The laughter was loud, shrill and drunken. Men shouted at each other and called drunkenly for more tequila, for women. And the few women who frequented this place were, for the most part, sleazy slatterns, their dresses slit up the side to show skinny, bowed legs.
As usual, Beal chose a table where he could sit with his back to the wall—not too far from the door. When it came to self-preservation, he was a man of careful habit.
There were a few Frenchmen here—all soldiers. Some hard-bitten Americans, who seemed to keep to themselves. The rest of the crowd was composed mainly of cazadores of the Imperialist army, some of whom recognized Beal and shouted raucously at him, and a sprinkling of peons and vaqueros in their charro suits.
Ginny found a dirty-looking tin mug filled with tequila slapped down in front of her. “Better drink up, it’ll make you look less sour,” Beal ordered. She sipped obediently, watching his pale, shiny eyes survey the crowd; noticing how he had gulped his first drink down and was already ordering another. Some soldiers had made room for them at their table and they leaned over Ginny, trying to see more of her breasts, leering at her as they made sly, whispered comments. She pretended not to hear. A Legionnaire, wearing corporal’s stripes, was leaning on the bar rather morosely. He began to stare at her and she found herself looking back at him almost pleadingly. Now I’m really becoming one, she thought sickly. But better a Frenchman than one of these pigs.
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?”