El Paso—Felina’s Story
From Chapter Six
Estevan had his own way of sitting a horse—like he was an extension of the animal—his balance and carriage as light and natural in the saddle as tree cotton on a breeze.
Three weeks had passed since Estevan had been by the cantina to see me.
I knew he was back from the drive to Dodge City because a couple of his cowboys had already been in, spending their wages.
His absence bothered me more than I wanted to admit, even to myself, so I kept busy with unsavory tasks like emptying spittoons and chamber pots, refilling the girls’ wash basins, and washing out the bloody rags from their monthlies.
I was punishing myself, but I called it penance—reparations for my night of self-indulgent drinking, for how I had treated Estevan. For Felina.
Maybe once I had suffered enough, Estevan would come back to me, and Felina would wake up to the opportunity she was missing that would save her from whoring.
I was not conscious of this misconstrued belief, but it was the driving force behind my need to work until I was too exhausted to think about Estevan, or Felina, or anything else. Just before sunrise I would drag myself upstairs after working all day and through the night, fall into bed, and wake in three or four hours to start over again.
As much as Estevan’s absence fed old and festering fears, the situation with Felina was the more pressing issue, and I knew I needed to do something about it. I just didn’t know what.
Then one scorching hot afternoon, when I was out watering the sandy-soiled garden off the kitchen, I looked up to see a familiar buckskin horse coming in at a gallop. My heart did a little flip in my chest and I released a pent up breath that I hadn’t known I had been holding these past weeks. I straightened from where I was bent, pouring water from a bucket onto the peppers and tomatoes, and shielded my eyes to watch his approach.
Estevan had his own way of sitting a horse—like he was an extension of the animal—his balance and carriage as light and natural in the saddle as tree cotton on a breeze.
I walked to the gate and waited, an anxiousness flitting in my stomach. Whatever the reason Estevan had stayed away so long, he was coming back now. For that I was relieved.
He reined in his lathered horse and stepped down from the saddle. His hat was low, shading his eyes, and when he came close I moved to hug him but he held me away at arm’s length, then took a step back, shaking his head, in that moment crushing some invisible thing inside me.
Then slowly, he removed his hat and I saw this face. He had been badly beaten. But it had happened a while ago. The vicious cuts and bruises were already partially healed over, though still tender and raw.
“Ay Dios mio,” I whispered. “Que pasó mi amor?” I uttered without thinking. I raised up on my toes and leaned in to gently kiss the scabbed over gash across his cheekbone, the bruising over his nose, the swollen knot along his jaw, while holding his face as carefully as if he might break apart in my hands.
I pulled back and looked at him, and the whole world stopped for a moment. Estevan’s gaze locked onto mine, a glint of disbelief hanging there his eyes.
I clamped my lips together then in a hard line, feeling involuntary tears filling my eyes. In the fear and relief and intensity of the moment, I had let my emotions get the better of me. I had slipped. I had called him, my love.
Despite Estevan’s frequent utterances of ardor and names of endearment for me, I never offered up those kinds of words so readily, so easily, so foolishly—not even for him.
For those of us experienced in the ways of sex work, we all soon find it crucial to have something—at least one thing—to hold onto and keep sacred. A token of love or act of affection, or piece of our past selves we will guard with our lives to keep protected from the rampant and routine violations that comprise the days and nights of our sordid world.
Some women refuse to kiss or be kissed. For others, it might be never letting a customer look her directly in the eye, or the withholding of her real name.
For me, it was words.
I believed in the power of words. Maybe because my papá was a man of few words, so when he spoke I assumed that the words were important. Maybe it was because I had always had a particular sensitivity to being told what to do, or how to think, or to being called names. Whatever the reason, I had a fierce conviction to never saying anything I did not absolutely mean, and in being genuinely sincere with every word I uttered. And that went double for words on the subject of love. But love was not allowed in the kind of life I led. So, for me, neither were the words.
Without ever actually explaining this, Estevan had picked up on my aversion to lovey-dovey pillow talk and the casual usage of serious words like always, never…and love. So calling him mi amor had not gone unnoticed.
A slight smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he did not speak.
I looked down, hating that I’d let my emotions take hold of my tongue.
He crooked a finger under my chin to raise my gaze to his again, giving me a few more solid seconds of looking him in the eye, finding the silent truth there. The truth of who he knew me to be—seeing me just as I was, in all my brokenness and ill-favored repute. His acceptance of that. All of it. Of me. And his thrill to the words I had uttered in that moment. My moment of weakness.
“What has happened?” I asked wanting to move on from the heaviness of all that had just occurred in the space of a few reckless moments. “Come inside,” I said, averting my eyes again. “It’s too hot out here.” I turned away, pulling his arm with me. But he pulled back.
“I cannot stay Rosita. I have to get back. I came only to ask si me podrías ayudar.”
“Me? Help with what?”
“It’s one of my men. He’s hurt bad, and he needs care. More care than me or any of my cowboys know how to give.”
“I will get my bag,” I said, stooping to grab the bucket.
Estevan caught my arm. “You need to know, warn Arnulfo and your girls, the rustlers are here around El Paso. I expect they will come into your cantina some time. Probably soon, if they haven’t already. One of them is hurt, he’ll be favoring a broken arm.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Is that who did this to you?” I reached a hand up to his face again.
Estevan nodded. “They worked me over good. I think I have a couple broken ribs. That’s why I could not give you a proper hug. I will tell you everything later. We need to get back. I’m worried for Alejandro. Es un muchacho, nada mas, and he’s in a bad way. Took a bullet low down in his gut. It went clean through, but he has lost a lot of blood.”
My own stomach cringed at the thought. A gut shot was usually the beginning of a bad end.
“Go get your things,” Estevan said, releasing my arm with a slight push. “I’ll have Chino saddle your horse.”
“I’ll take my buggy,” I said over my shoulder, already making a mental list of everything I wanted to take that I knew would be too much to pack on the saddle.
I flew into the kitchen and started pulling things together and throwing them into a large basket on the table.
“Que es éso?” Juanita asked, fists on her hips, a large wooden spoon still in her hand.
“It’s Estevan. One of his cowboys has been shot and I’m going to go see to him.”
“You? Where is El Borrego?” she asked, referring to the local physician who was nearly eighty years old and all but blind.
I was tearing up old linens into bandages, and I paused. “No se.” I shrugged. I did not know why Estevan came to me instead of the doctor. I never thought to ask.
I never called on the old goat because he, like most other doctors of that time, refused to treat whores. Over the years I had learned a great deal of doctoring skills myself—mostly from La Bruja, an old medicine woman across the river who knew the old ways of plants and concoctions she brewed herself. But her specialty was in women’s doctoring—relieving monthly cramps, treating break outs of the boils that were a common affliction among sporting women, delivering babies and, when necessary, getting them to bleed out before they took hold in the womb.
Juanita turned back to her pot on the cookstove, and I continued tearing the old sheet into long strips, making a mental note to remember to take the willow bark salve La Bruja had given me. “I need to hurry,” I muttered to myself, peering out the window to see Chino at the livery across the street harnessing Dúlce to my little carriage. “Estevan said the boy has lost a lot of blood.”
“I’ll pack you some hígado de oveja to make a broth,” Juanita said, putting down her spoon, “to build up his blood.”
Luckily, we had just butchered a sheep the day before, and had not used any of the liver yet. “Don’t forget the whiskey!” Juanita called from the back pantry off the kitchen where the sheep carcass still hung, covered in a thick crust of salt.
“Si,” I muttered to myself as I went around the long kitchen table and headed for the bar.
Felina was there, sitting on a stool, letting Arnulfo dab at the fresh open cuts on her swollen lower lip with a whiskey-soaked rag. They both jumped as I burst through the swinging doors.
“Estevan is here, I am leaving with him,” I told Arnulfo as I collected several bottles of good whiskey from the shelf below the bar. “I will be gone a few days probably.” I hadn’t even thought about how long he might need me. I had no idea, really.
“Señora?” Arnulfo inquired, pausing in his administrations to Felina.
“Cuidese,” I warned. “Cattle rustlers are here in El Paso. Likely they will be coming to the cantina. These are bad men, Arnulfo, muy malo. Do not tangle with them if they cause trouble, comprénde? Go to Sheriff Langley, let him deal with them.”
“Langley? Ese pinchecobarde?”
I released an impatient huff. “Just do as I say. Coward or no, it is his job, not yours. These men shot one of Estevan’s cowboys, and they beat Estevan terribly. He said one of them is likely to be favoring an arm, so be on the lookout.”
Arnulfo nodded.
I regarded Felina, not able in that moment to contend with her predicament, but still feeling the pressure of it bearing down on me.
“Tu,” I said, lifting my chin to her. “Vien conmigo.” The idea had surfaced and I voiced it aloud without even thinking. “You can come along and help. You will be of more use to me there, than you are to yourself, here,” I told her.
The girl exchanged a wary look with Arnulfo, not moving.
“Go!” I screeched. “Gather what you need, we must hurry. Go now!”