Page 6 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

“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.

They rode into full darkness before she stopped to make camp for the night. Her bones ached. And she must have broken the skin when she was scratching lice because there was a spot on top of her head where the sabadilla vinegar burned like a hot spike driving into her skull.

“Can you water the horse and tether him for the night?”

Graciela stared as if Jenny had lost her mind. Jenny sighed.

“All right. Can you build a fire and get some coffee going?”

Graciela lifted an eyebrow. Six fricking years old, and she could lift one eyebrow. Jenny was twenty-four and couldn’t lift one eyebrow without the other zipping up, too.

“Can’t you do anything useful?”

“I can sew, and I can read, and I can draw pictures.”

Pressing her lips together, Jenny settled the horse for the night, then laid a fire.

“Pay attention, kid. Next time this is your job.” She made coffee, warmed the beans and tortillas, shook out the blankets that had been tied behind the saddle.

Watching Graciela yawn over her tortilla, Jenny wondered if the cousins were out there somewhere in the darkness.

Or had Marguarita overestimated any threat the cousins might pose?

Maybe they were back at the village, getting drunk, holding a wake for Marguarita and feeling glad to be rid of any responsibility for the kid.

Graciela stood up and politely covered a yawn. “You can undress me now. I want to go to sleep.”

Jenny’s mouth dropped. “Do I look like a fricking servant to you? Undress you? When I was six years old I was doing the work of an adult. You can sure as hell dress and undress yourself.”

Graciela stared at her across the fire. Tears welled in her eyes, brimmed, then slipped down her cheeks. “My mama always undressed me and tucked me into bed.”

“You’re six years old. You’re practically an adult. You can get out of those clothes and into your nightdress by your own self.”

“I hate you, I hate you! And you look ugly and stupid with that rag on your head!”

Jenny smiled. “That’s your blanket over there. Now you can put on your nightdress or you can sleep in your fancy little outfit. Makes no never mind to me. But I’m not going to undress you, and I’m not going to dress you in the morning. So you just figure out how those buttons work.”

“I know how buttons work! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” In a fury, Graciela ran around the fire pit, kicking rocks, and shouting, her little face as red as the flames.