Page 53 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

For a long moment Jenny considered waiting for Senor Gonzales to return with Ty. That’s what she wanted to do. Then her head cleared and she realized that imposing on the hospitality of these people for three days would strain the resources of the village.

Regardless, if she had truly believed the village men would bring Ty in alive, nothing on earth could have induced her to leave.

But she couldn’t bear to be here if what they brought back was his body.

She wanted to remember him as he had been, vividly alive, larger than life, a man whose eyes danced with pale fire, a man whose hot touch could send her crashing to her knees.

A hard, dangerous man capable of surprising tenderness, a thief who had stolen a love she hadn’t know she possessed.

“Damn it!” He would have laughed at the moisture in her eyes, would have ridiculed her weakness. Raising her hands, she ground the heels of her palms against her eyelids. She had to be strong for Graciela. Graciela had loved him, too.

After she ate food she felt too numb to taste, she and Graciela climbed into the same hammock and held each other until Graciela cried herself to sleep. Eventually Jenny slept, not waking until the heat of the day had passed.

She bought fresh clothing from Senora Gonzales, and a wagon from an old man who looked dazed by the number of pesos she dropped in his hand.

She hitched the black to the wagon, loaded jugs of water and a basket of food, and she and the kid drove away from the village that would become the grave for her heart.

Two days later, hollow-eyed and trembling with fatigue, Jenny and Graciela crossed the Rio Grande and entered El Paso, Texas.

The next afternoon, wearing hastily purchased traveling ensembles, they boarded the westbound Southern Pacific, holding tickets for San Francisco.

The accommodations on the Southern Pacific were so far superior to those aboard the Mexican National Railway it seemed impossible the two railroads could occupy the same universe.

No dogs, chickens, or piglets roamed the aisles of the Southern Pacific. The scent of food baskets and an overflowing latrine did not permeate every breath. Seats were upholstered. There was a separate dining car and private compartments.

The funds Marguarita had supplied were running low, but Jenny splurged for a private compartment with sleeping shelves rather than subject herself or Graciela to sleeping sitting up.

“I’m sad,” Graciela said quietly, leaning her head against Jenny’s shoulder.

“I know.” Jenny took her hand and held it in her lap.

They stared unseeing out their compartment window as New Mexico rolled beneath the wheels of the train. The desert wasn’t as sparse here. There were clumps of chaparral, more varieties of cactus. Stands of pinon and desert pine.

By now, they would have found Ty’s body in the Mexican desert.

Perhaps they had buried him there. Or maybe they had brought him back to the village.

If the village had a name, Jenny didn’t know it.

That upset her, and she worried and fretted about it all day.

Not until they donned their hats to go to the dining car did she decide it wasn’t important that she didn’t know the name of the village.

He was gone. That’s all that mattered. She had found him, and now he was gone.

Long into the night, she lay on her sleeping shelf, gazing at the curved roof, wincing when Graciela moaned in her sleep, listening to the ratchety click of the wheels carrying them into a starry void.

She should be considering what she would do after she left the Sanders ranch, but her mind wouldn’t function.

She hadn’t yet accepted Ty’s death; she couldn’t, wouldn’t.

How could she bear to think about saying good-bye to Graciela, too?

It wasn’t until the third day that she noticed Graciela was not wearing the gold locket pin. “Wait here,” she said anxiously, standing abruptly and reaching to pin on her hat. “You must have lost it at supper. I’ll go back to the dining car and search.”

“I didn’t lose it,” Graciela said, turning her face to the window. “I’m not going to wear the locket anymore.”

Frowning, Jenny looked down at her. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to look at her picture.

I don’t want to be like her. I want to be like you.

” Graciela stared up at her, the words tumbling over each other in a rush.

“My mother was weak. She cried about everything. And she didn’t know how to do anything.

She didn’t know how to shoot a gun or make a campfire!

She couldn’t have driven a wagon across the desert.

” Her eyebrow lifted, and her mouth twisted.

“If I’d been with her, I’d be dead now. And so would she. ”

Jenny’s arm flew up and she slapped Graciela hard enough to knock her off the bench seat. When she hauled her back to the seat, her fingers bit deep into the kid’s shoulders.

“Don’t you ever, not ever, say anything against your mother!

Do you hear me?” Her eyes blazed down at the handprint flaming on Graciela’s cheek.

“Your mother was the bravest woman I’ve ever known.

The most loving and selfless person you will ever know in your whole life.

She loved you more than anything else in this world, and don’t you ever forget it.

Whoever you are, whatever you become, you owe it to her.

If you grow up to be half the woman she was, you can count yourself proud.

So you talk about her with respect, and you honor her and you love her. ”

Graciela jerked free and backed against the window. “She died.”

“Don’t start that again,” Jenny warned between her teeth. “I didn’t kill your mother.”

“You didn’t kill her. I did!” Graciela screamed. “I killed her! She died to save me.” Her expression crumpling in agony, she sank to the rocking floor and covered her face. “I killed her!” she sobbed. “She died for me. It’s my fault!”

“Oh my God.” Jenny stared in shock. Of course.

She should have looked deeper, should have guessed.

She should have asked why Graciela was so insistent that Jenny had killed her mother.

It was because she could not bear to confront what she truly believed.

Marguarita had died to give Graciela a chance to live.

Marguarita would not have explained it that way…

but the kid possessed a keen intelligence.

She would have grasped the underlying meaning of what Ty and Jenny told her about her cousins, she would have sensed the desperation beneath her mother’s plea for a promise from a stranger. “Oh my God.”

Dropping to the floor, Jenny reached for her.

“Graciela! You didn’t kill your mother. No.

Never.” Jerking the child into her arms, she held her hard against her pounding heart.

“Honey girl, your mother was dying of consumption. Taking my place only hastened the inevitable by a few days. She was very, very ill, you must have seen that.”

Graciela clung to her, sobbing against her shoulder. “She died to make you promise to save me. It’s my fault!”

“No, no, darling.” Jenny smoothed her hair with shaking hands. “She just ran out of time. It was no one’s fault.”

“If it wasn’t for me, she would have died in her own bed. I killed her! They shot her because of me!”

Jenny held her, staring over her shoulder at the desert beyond the window.

Echoes bounced in her mind. “He wouldn’t have died if you’d watched over him like I told you!

It’s your fault that Billy’s dead!” And her own agonized cry, “But Ma, he ran away from me! I didn’t see him fall in the lake!

” My fault, my fault, my fault. She had been nine years old.

Billy had been seven. Jenny shook her head sharply.

How many times had she relived the day of her brother’s death?

“Graciela, your mother did not go to the firing squad for you.” She drew a breath and felt tears gather at the back of her eyes. “She did it for me.” Graciela clung to her, sobbing quietly, listening. “I… your mother and I knew each other. We were friends.” She stared out the window at the desert.

“Marguarita knew I’d been wrongly accused.

And she knew she was dying. She asked me, as her friend, to take you to your father because she no longer could.

It was an easy promise for me to make. See, I’d planned to go to California with you and Marguarita all along.

The three of us were going to go together.

I… I was going to watch out for your killer cousins.

That’s what Marguarita wanted me to do.”

Was she babbling? Would this story hang together? Was she any good at this?

“Then I got arrested, and they were going to kill me, so I couldn’t go to California like we planned.

And Marguarita got so sick. I told her we should have gone earlier, but she…

her aunt Tete needed her, and you know how kind and generous your mama was, so we kept putting it off, and then it was too late because she was too ill to travel. ”

There wasn’t as much cactus outside the window now. Low bushes and scrub grass had begun to appear. But it looked hot, so hot. As hot as hell out there.

“So she came to me in jail, and I begged her to save my life. She was dying anyway. But I could take you to your father. I could protect you from the Barrancas cousins. We could each do something for the other. Graciela, look at me.”

She eased the child away from her body. “I was selfish because I wanted to live, and I saw a way to do it. I promised your mama I’d take you to California just like I’d planned to do anyway.

And your mama, well she loved me because we were friends, and she wanted to save my life.

Your mother didn’t trade her life for yours, Graciela.

She exchanged her life for mine. Because we were sister-friends.

Because I wasn’t sick, and she was. Because she knew I’d honor our friendship and take care of you.

I didn’t kill her, Graciela. But I might as well have. She died to save my life.”

“Is that true?” Graciela whispered, wiping her eyes to peer hard into Jenny’s.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. “As God is my witness, I’ve told you the truth.

Have I ever lied to you? Or to anyone else?

If anyone is to blame for your mother’s death, it’s me for being so stupid as to get myself arrested and sentenced to a firing squad.

And it’s her fault, too, for being so brave and wanting to save a friend who could help her daughter.

But you are not to blame. Not you. Never you. ”

“Oh Jenny.” The kid’s arms came around her neck, choking her, holding on tight. But this time her sobbing was softer; a torrent of grief, not blame. Deep sorrow, not fault.

“There’s something else,” Jenny said after a long time, speaking softly, stroking the child’s back.

“Don’t go thinking you’re to blame for what happened to Ty.

” She waited until her voice steadied. “Your uncle Ty is an honorable man who would help any two people who needed him. Remember how we met him? How he jumped into the fight at Verde Flores? He didn’t know us then.

His conscience pointed him toward that bullet, Graciela, not you.

If Ty dies, and I refuse to believe that he will, it won’t have anything to do with you. ”

“I thought it was my fault that he… are you sure?” Graciela murmured against her damp shoulder. Her agonized whisper told Jenny that she had guessed right.

“I’m very sure. Now. Let’s find that gold locket and pin it on your jacket so we can honor a fine and courageous woman who was my friend and who loved you as much as any mother ever loved a daughter.”

“Jenny? I love my mama. But I love you too.”

Oh Lord. Her arms tightened around Graciela’s body and she buried moist eyes in the child’s hair.

She was strangling. She thought she might die.

“It’s all right,” she whispered finally.

“That doesn’t mean you love your mama less.

It just means that you care for me too.” She swallowed hard, hearing her heart crack in her chest. “It doesn’t mean you’re being disloyal to your mama.

I think she’d like it that you care about me a little. ”

That night she didn’t try to sleep. She sat beside the window, watching moonlight shadows slide across the desert miles.

She didn’t regret lying to Graciela; she would do it again in the same circumstance.

But she felt the empty space where she’d taken a chunk out of herself.

And she ached with the sweet pain of a child’s love.

Toward morning, she raised her eyes to search for Marguarita’s star.

I hit her, Marguarita. Funny, isn’t it? All the times I threatened to smack her, but I never did. Then she stopped wearing the gold locket and I… well, you know what happened.

Was lying the right thing to do? Or did I throw away the one good thing about myself?

I don’t know anymore. I just know I couldn’t let her go on hating herself for believing that you died to save her, that your death was her fault.

I didn’t think you’d want her sitting around at my age hurting herself with blame and fault during the lonely times.

And I guess you heard her say that she loves me.

Oh Marguarita. This is so fricking hard. I just didn’t know anything could be this hard.

How can I say good-bye to her?