Page 13 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

Graciela sank into another of those collapse routines, in which her bones seemed to fold in on themselves. Her shoulders drooped, her chest shrank, her hands went limp, and tears and snot flowed in copious streams.

Jenny watched and felt wild inside. She didn’t know how to deal with grief because she had no experience to draw on, and as far as she was concerned, mother-daughter love was a myth. Love itself was a vast enigma. She had no idea how much time was required to recover from losing a mother you loved.

“Kid,” she said helplessly, gripping Graciela’s arm. “You’re making me want to hit you. You’ve got to get over this. You have to forget about your mother and move on.”

“I’ll never forget.” Graciela glared at her with drowning eyes. “You killed my mama.”

“Damn it, we’ve discussed this a hundred times.

You know I didn’t kill your mother.” Jenny shoved a hand through her hair, knocking the stupid bonnet to the back of her head.

Changing the subject, maybe that would help.

“Look, when we get to Durango, we’ll find a place to stay, and you can have a bath.

You’d like that, wouldn’t you? We’ll get something decent to eat, and we’ll sleep in a real bed. ”

“Cousin Luis and Cousin Chulo are going to kill you and take me home.”

“Huh! Let them try.”

But after reflecting, Jenny decided that Luis probably wasn’t the type to sit on the depot steps and wait.

He’d chase after them. Chewing on her fingernails, which were more tasty than anything she had eaten since she’d boarded the train, Jenny focused her thoughts.

She had to make up in cleverness what she lacked in strength or numbers.

Nine hours later, when the train steamed to a halt in the outskirts of Durango, Jenny had a plan. It wasn’t the best plan she’d ever come up with, and risk was involved, but she felt better for having a strategy.

“I hope you can wash yourself, because I’m not going to do it for you,” Jenny warned, eyeing the tub that had been delivered to their hotel room.

A surly boy had brought them only enough water to fill the dented tub about eight inches and the water was tepid.

Bits of grass and leaves floated on the surface.

Graciela removed her fancy little outfit and shook the dust and soot out then folded it neatly before she inspected the tub. “I’d like some rose oil, please.”

“And I’d like a shiny blue carriage and a pocketful of diamonds.” Jenny rolled her eyes, then tossed Graciela a cake of the soap Maria had packed. “Get in there, and hurry up. I’d like a bath, too.”

“I need help.” Graciela lifted her arms to be picked up, and Jenny sighed.

“You can’t do anything yourself.”

She picked Graciela up and placed her in the tub, then stepped back and stared.

Graciela’s naked skin was soft; touching her was like touching warm silk.

Looking at the kid’s slender, curveless body, Jenny wondered at the mysteries of nature.

Somewhere inside the child, a woman bided her time, waiting to emerge.

It impressed her as very clever of God to hide adults inside children.

Jenny watched Graciela picking bits of grass and leaves from the surface of the bath water, displaying the patience of a rag picker, then she turned and walked to the window overlooking a tobacco factory and the mountains beyond.

The foothills of the Sierra Madres had yielded centuries of silver.

Now that the silver was nearly played out, Durango’s miners plundered the earth for iron ore.

After glancing at Graciela over her shoulder, she pushed up her sleeve and ran her fingers down her arm.

The warmth was there, but not the silk. Stroking her arm was almost like rubbing tanned leather.

Hell. Frowning, she opened her collar and dragged her fingertips across her breast bone where the sun hadn’t baked her.

Better. But not silky. Scowling, she decided her skin wouldn’t be silky even if she bathed in a vat of fricking rose oil.

Not that it mattered. No good looking cowboy was ever going to compare Jenny Jones’s tanned hide to some rose scented, silky skinned woman who had never labored under a harsh sun.

Why was she thinking such foolish thoughts?

Sighing, she inhaled the smoky stench wafting from the tobacco factory, then carried a stool to the side of the tub. “Wash behind your ears.” She paused. “Or is it inside your ears?”

Graciela gave her a withering glance.

“Just do it.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what your mother would have wanted.

” Recognizing at once that it was a mistake to invoke Marguarita, she jumped to another subject.

“All right, here’s our plan. We’re going to assume that your stinking cousins are chasing after us.

Durango is large enough that we can hide from them as long as we have to, which won’t be long.

Every day I’ll go to the depot when the southbound comes in, and I’ll watch and see if Luis and Chulo get off the train.

The day they do, and I’m guessing that will be tomorrow or most likely the next day, you and I will catch the next train north.

While Luis and Chulo are searching for us here, we’ll be heading for the border. ”

She had no idea if it was wise to share these plans with the kid. Since she didn’t know how to relate to a kid, she spoke to Graciela as she would have spoken to an adult.

Graciela made a floating raft out of the washcloth and carefully covered it with grass and leaves. “They’ll find us.”

“Not if I can help it. We’re going to make it plenty hard for them.” A redheaded Americana accompanied by a Mexican child was certain to be remembered. Unless Jenny made some changes, the cousins would track their whereabouts in about an hour flat.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” She drew a breath.

“I’m going back to pants and a serape and a man’s hat.

And I’m going to dye my hair.” An unconscious sigh dropped her shoulders.

It would be her hair that she cared about.

She hated it that her hair was chopped ragged, and, after her bath, she’d paint it with bootblack. It would work. God.

“I’m not saying anybody is going to mistake me for a man, not after a second look, but at least I won’t fit the description your rotten cousins will be using.”

Graciela studied her with interest, examining Jenny’s head. A tiny smile hovered on her lips.

Jenny squinted. “Wait until you hear your part before you start feeling superior. We’re going to hide you by turning you into a muchacho.

We cut your hair short, and we dress you in pants and a jacket and a boy’s hat and boots.

Then tomorrow morning we move to a different hotel.

The redheaded Americana and her daughter disappear, and the trail stops here. ”

Horror widened Graciela’s eyes, and her hands flew to her hair. “No! You can’t cut my hair! No, no, no, no, no!” Thrashing and splashing she tried to climb out of the tall-sided tub, then struck blindly at Jenny when Jenny reached for her. “I won’t let you, I won’t let you! No, no, no!”

“Kid. Stop screaming! You hear me? Stop screaming this instant!”

Paying no attention, screaming and sobbing, Graciela splashed down on all fours, then she rocked up and flattened herself against the far wall of the tub. She wound her long hair into a dripping rope and held it as far from Jenny as possible. “No! I won’t let you!”

“Kid, listen to me. Damn it, shut up. They’ll think I’m killing you!”

At once Jenny understood that words were not going to stand against the storm of a full-blown tantrum.

She wanted to smack Graciela as much as she had ever wanted to hit someone in her life.

She’d actually leaned over the tub and raised her hand when something in Graciela’s expression reminded her of Marguarita.

Scowling, she hesitated. She could not imagine Marguarita doing violence to a fly, certainly not to a kid.

Jenny’s hand lowered, but the effort to do as she imagined Marguarita would want her to made her clench her teeth until her jaw ached.

“All right,” she said sharply.

Pressed to the side of the tub, holding the rope of hair protectively, Graciela studied her warily. Her chest heaved with suppressed sobs, but she’d stopped screaming.

“Listen, you little snot. I’m trying to save your fricking life!

And mine. Why can’t you get that through your head?

” Jenny met the kid’s glare head-on. “Now. I am going to cut your hair. And you are going to dress like a boy and pretend to be one.” Graciela’s mouth opened, but Jenny spoke before the next scream emerged.

“But, we won’t do it right now, so calm down.

We’ll cut your hair in the morning. You’ll have all night to get used to the idea.

” Her eyes narrowed and glittered. “But you have to do your part, got that? We’re in a tight situation here, and I can’t save your butt without a little help from you. ”

“I hope you die! I hope Cousin Luis shoots you,” Graciela said wildly.

Tears trembled on her lashes, and she gripped the rope of hair like a lifeline.

“You’re mean and you’re rude and you say bad words.

” Dropping her hair, she covered her face in her hands.

“I want my mama, I want my mama, I want my mama.” She started crying, this time softly, and this time with quiet hopelessness.

Jenny rocked back on the stool, her lips pressed in a line. Naked and sitting in eight inches of grimy water, Graciela looked tiny and lost and helpless.

“It’s a real pisser to be a kid,” Jenny conceded, her expression easing. “I remember how that was. I hated it, too, having to do what grown-up people made me do.”

Graciela looked through her fingers. “What did they make you do?” she asked finally. A hiccup twitched her chest.