was.
In fury, Joey turned on Maria and drew his own knife. He would kill Rafael with the knife and then chase down Teresa.
Maria saw where her son's eyes were pointed.
She put herself between Joey and Rafael. She still held her knife, but she didn't want to stab her son again. The wounds she had given him were light and were meant to distract him, not hurt him.
She could help him recover and live. She would do it--take out the pellets of heavy shot, wash his wounds, nurse him, if only he would relent.
He must relent, though. She would not give him her other children, his brother and sister.
'Stop this!' Maria cried. 'You're hurt, you're weak! Stop this killing! Come home with me and let me wash you. I'll feed you and I'll hide you until you are well.' 'Wash yourself, whore!' Joey said, in his cold tone. His eyes were like sleet. Maria held her knife high. Joey would not stop. He would not become her good son again. All she could do now was protect Rafael. Joey's cold look made Maria want to give up. Her son should not look at her with his look of sleet--it was a poor return for the care she had given and the love she had borne.
But it was Joey's look, and she could not change him. She had to give up. That way she could protect Rafael and Teresa, and she would protect them, no matter what she had to do.
When Joey came close, Maria raised the knife and tried to cut his arm; anyplace to slow him but not kill him. She saw Joey's knife but didn't feel it strike--not the first time, not the second, not the third.
'Leave your brother alone!' she screamed.
'Leave him alone. Don't hurt your brother!' Joey was trying to push his mother out of the way so he could grab his brother's hair, when the bullet struck him. He turned his head at the shot.
Maria turned, too. They saw Gordo, the butcher, standing on the riverbank with his old carbine.
'Don't kill her, you rascal!' Gordo yelled. 'Don't kill her--I might want to marry her!' Across the river, Teresa crawled into the shallows, and old Estela hobbled over and helped her out of the water. Teresa was very frightened. Her mother had been right; Joey was bad. She was worried, for she heard shots and she could not see.
'Where is my mother?' she asked the old woman.
Old Estela's eyes were dim, and she couldn't see the far bank of the river.
'She is over there,' old Estela said. 'I think I hear her talking to my children.' Joey fell backward into the water. Maria cut Rafael free, and the two of them began to drag Joey to the bank where the butcher stood with his gun. Before Maria could get out of the river, she fell, too. She fell across her son's legs, and the river began to swirl her blood away.
Gordo carried Maria home. She was awake, but he saw where she had been stabbed and knew she would not live. It angered him, for he had already begun to think of her as his wife and was looking forward to laying with her. She had eluded him when she was a girl, and now she was going to elude him again by dying. It was an aggravation, such an aggravation that he refused to bring her devil of a son's body to her.
'He's dead, Gordo,' Maria said. 'Bring him home.' The butcher ignored her. He also refused to lift Captain Call and bring him back inside the house. He put Maria on the bed, and as he went out, he spat on Call. Later, the two drunken vaqueros came to Maria's house and they, too, spat on him. One wanted to put a rope around the old man's neck and drag him to death, but the other vaquero argued that it would be better just to let the old man die. He was too famous. If they put a rope on him, the Texans might find out about it and hunt them down.
Teresa picked her way back across the cold river in fear. She was afraid her brother might catch her again and put her head in the cold, swirling river and let it suck her breath away.
Twice when he held her, Teresa had feared that the river was going to suck all her breath away.
But her brother didn't take her. She waded through the cold water, stepping on slick rocks.
Teresa knew the path through the mesquites and was soon home. Rafael was inside, moaning. When Teresa felt his head, she found that it was wet and sticky. Her mother lay on the bed where Se@nor Call had been.
'Where is he, did he leave?' Teresa asked, concerned. Her mother had promised that Se@nor Call would be there when she returned home.
'He is outside,' her mother told her, in a voice that was very weak. 'Joey hurt me, and Gordo would not help me. Go find Jorge and ask him to come. He can move Se@nor Call back inside. Ask the old sisters if they would come to me.' The old sisters and Jorge came. Jorge put Call inside on a blanket. Teresa fixed some frijoles, but only Rafael ate a little. Her mother didn't want any, and Se@nor Call was not speaking. His mind had gone to sleep, as it often did.
Teresa began to be afraid for her mother. She heard her mother's breath, and it was as weak as Se@nor Call's. She was worried that they might both die. She was also afraid that Joey might come back and get her and Rafael. She knew now that Joey was bad, and she was very afraid. Having the water suck her breath had left her with a deep fear.
Maria felt her daughter's fear in the trembling of her small hands.
'Don't be afraid,' she said. 'Joey's dead. You are safe. Billy will come soon and take care of us. The old sisters will stay until he comes to help.' When the vaqueros realized that Joey Garza was dead and that Gordo, a stupid butcher, had killed him, they became bitter. They had had the chance to kill him too, but the bloody woman had pointed a gun at them and prevented them from having the glory of killing the young bandit. In their bitterness, they drank a lot of tequila and convinced themselves that they had shot Joey Garza.
The butcher had only assisted. They found Joey's body in the river and shot it a few more times, then put a rope on it and dragged it through the village streets. In other places, one would believe that a greasy butcher had killed the famous young killer with a rusty carbine. But in Mexico and Texas, the people would think it was two fearless vaqueros who had risked their lives to rid the country of a scourge. Their fame would grow; there would be songs about them. Only in Ojinaga would anyone even suppose that a village butcher had anything to do with it.
The vaqueros left Joey's body outside the cantina and went to Presidio to spread the news. They wanted to find someone to take their picture with the corpse.
