She adjusted the mantilla in front of a small scrap of mirror and ran her palm down her left cheek. The three parallel scratches barely showed, thank heaven. Another of the girls, Rosa, had attacked her in a dispute over a customer. Before the señora pulled them apart, Rosa had scratched Ashton's face badly. Ashton had wept for hours over the bloody nail marks. Her body and her face were her chief assets, the weapons she used to get whatever she wanted.
For weeks after the fight, she'd plastered salve on the slow-healing wounds, and rushed to the mirror seven or eight times a day to examine them. At last she was sure there would be no permanent damage. Nor would Rosa trouble her again. Ashton now carried a small sharpened file in her right shoe.
Occasional thoughts of the mine in Nevada only sharpened her greed. Wasn't that mine hers, too? She'd practically been married to Lamar Powell. Of course, if she wanted to get possession of the mine, she faced two gigantic obstacles: She'd have to convince the authorities that she was Mrs. Powell, and, before she could do that, she had to reach Virginia City. Ashton considered herself a strong and resourceful young woman, but she wasn't crazy. Cross hundreds and hundreds of miles of dangerous wasteland by herself? Not likely. She focused instead on the nearer dream, the wagons.
If she could just find them! She was convinced the Apaches had not stolen the gold. It had been cleverly concealed. Moreover, they were ignorant savages; they wouldn't know its value. With the gold she could buy much more than material comfort. She could buy position, and power. The power to travel back to South Carolina, descend on Mont Royal, and, in some way yet to be devised, rub dirt in the faces of those in the family who'd rejected her. Her consuming desire was to ruin every last one of them.
Meanwhile, it had come down to a choice of starving or whoring. So she whored. And waited. And hoped.
Most of the señora's customers loved Ashton's white Anglo skin and her Southern speech and mannerisms, which she exaggerated for effect. Tonight, when she descended to the cantina with her grand airs, her performance was wasted. No one was there but three elderly vaqueros playing cards.
The cantina looked particularly dismal after dark. Lamplight yellowed everything, and revealed the bullet holes, knife marks, whiskey spills, and general filth on the furniture, floor, and adobe walls. The señora sat reading an old Mexico City newspaper. Ashton handed her the coins.
The señora favored her with a smile that showed her gold front tooth. "Gracias, querida. Are you hungry?"
Ashton pouted. "Hungry for some fun in this dreary old place. I miss hearing a little music."
The señora's upper lip and faint mustache dropped down to hide the gold tooth. "Too bad. I can't afford a mariachi."
The brother-in-law, a stupid hulk named Luis, walked in through the half-doors. The only piece of free goods the señora allowed him was Rosa, who had stringy hair and had had the pox. Soon after Ashton started to work, Luis had tried to fondle her. She couldn't stand his smell or his swinish manners, and she already knew the señora held him in low regard, so she slapped him. He was about to hit back when the señora stepped in and cowed him with shouted profanity. Ever since, Luis never got close to Ashton without letting her see his sullen fury. Tonight was no different. He stared at her while he grabbed Rosa's wrist. He dragged the girl past the door leading to the office and storeroom and pulled her up the stairs. Ashton rubbed her left cheek. I hope he works her like a field hand, she thought. I hope she gives him a good case, too.
A hot wind swept dust under the half-doors. No customers showed up. At half past ten, the señora said Ashton could go to bed. She lay in the dark in her tiny room listening to the wind bang shutters and again entertaining the idea of robbing the señora. Now and then customers spent a lot at the cantina, and cash sometimes accumulated for over a week. She couldn't think of how to commit the robbery, though. And there was a great risk. Luis had a fast horse and some bad friends. If they captured her, they might kill her or, just as bad, disfigure her.
Anger and hopelessness kept her from sleep. Finally she relighted the lamp and reached under the bed for her lacquered Oriental box. On the lid, bits of inlaid pearl formed a scene: a Japanese couple, fully clothed and in repose, contemplating cups of tea. Raising the lid and holding it against the light revealed the couple, with kimonos up, copulating. The woman's happy face showed her response to the gentleman's mammoth shaft, half inside her.
The box always lifted Ashton's spirits. It held forty-seven buttons she'd collected over the years — West Point uniform buttons, trouser-fly buttons. Each button represented a man she'd enjoyed, or at least used. Only two partners didn't have a button in the box: the first boy who took her, before she started her collection, and her weakling husband, Huntoon. The collection was growing rapidly in Santa Fe.
For a few minutes, she examined one button and then another, trying to put a face with each. Presently, she put the box away, and examined her perspiring body in the mirror. Still soft where it should be, firm where it should be, and the nail marks on her face hardly showed. Gazing at herself, she felt her hope renewed. Somehow, she would use her beauty to escape this damnable place.
She went to sleep then, enjoying a dream of repeatedly pricking Brett's skin with her little file, till it bled.
Three nights later, a coarsely dressed Anglo walked into the cantina. He had mustaches with long points and a revolver on his hip. He downed two fast double whiskeys at the bar, then wobbled over to the hard chairs where Ashton and Rosa waited for customers. The third girl was at work upstairs.
"Hello, Miss Yellow Shoes. How are you this evening?"
"I'm just fine."
"What's your name?"
"Brett."
He grinned. "Do I hear the accent of a fallen blossom from the South?"
She tossed her head, flirted with her eyes. "I never fall unless I'm paid first. Since you know my name, what's yours?"
"You might find my first name a bit peculiar. If s Banquo, from Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. Last name's Collins. I may be back to see you after I have a couple more drinks."
He ambled back to the bar, while Ashton gripped her chair to keep from toppling off.
Banquo Collins pounded a fist on the bar. "I'll buy for everybody. I can spend ten times that much and never worry."
The señora closed in. "Bold words, my dear sir."
"But they're true, lass. I know where to mine some treasure."
"Ah, I knew you were fooling. There are no mines around here."
Collins swallowed all of a glass of popskull. "I don't mine dirt; I mine wagons."
"Wagons? That makes no sense."
"Does to me."
He extended his arms and began to shuffle his booted feet. "Ought to have music in this place, so a man could dance."
Because everyone was watching him, they missed the wild look on Ashton's face. This was the man — Powell's guide!
"Gonna be rich as Midas," he declared, rubbing his crotch. Rosa primped furiously. Ashton slid the file from her shoe and beneath her left arm. Rosa gasped when the point jabbed her.
"This one's mine," Ashton whispered. "If you take him, I'll put your eye out tomorrow."
Rosa was white. "Take him. Take him."
"Gonna have plenty of music when I see the world. Rome, the Japans —" Collins belched. "But not here. Guess I can get pleasured here, though."