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,"