Luis stands, chewing his warm tortillas, no longer lost in time, just savoring his food. Toothless wants to speak to him:
“John Tanner, the White Indian, is back, his ghost has arisen from the swamp … He’s looking for his last wife, Alice, she was his only white wife. I knew her but I won’t say why she left him, took their children, and got a divorce. Imagine that! Even the Law has a screw loose; whomsoever God brings together let no man put asunder! It’s those gringos, they’re heretics … John Tanner lived with the Ojibwa for thirty-one years. There’s no mistaking that. Returning to the south? Seems like his stay in hell screwed up his sense of direction …”
The toothless beggar squats down and grabs poor Luis by the shins, continuing:
“He’d be better off going after his second wife, that floozy tried to kill ’im. As bad as she was, Alice never sank a knife into him. She even made him a little bit happy … Don’t misunderstand me! John Tanner wasn’t passionate about her, he only loved her a little, like an old man who spits on his dick and yanks it up and down to no effect. And that’s all I’m gonna say because there are kids around — I’m not talking about you, you’ve been a midget since you were born … but you’ll grow out of it.”
Luis offers Toothless his second tortilla, which has gotten cold and broken into pieces. But Toothless doesn’t let him go. He has a hold of him by the shins and keeps on talking:
“John Tanner is in these parts … After Alice left him, they accused him of killing young Schoolcraft, the brother of the guy who was driving the Indians down south. Old Schoolcraft was a bastard, he burned their teepees, stole their women and let his troops abuse them, and then returned them to the Indians after, so they could see what had become of them; he blocked their wells, he drove them into rocky territory where it never, ever rained, and of course he stole their livestock and horses, but I guess everyone does that nowadays. But money doesn’t grow on trees anymore and people have started stealing everything from one another … Yeah, the White Indian used to fly into rages, but he’s not the one who killed young Schoolcraft. They strung him up on the gallows all the same, the crooked Law got its hands on him. You know where the Law keeps its hand, right? It fell off and got stuck up its ass.”
Luis’ eyes widen. Silent, so absorbed that he doesn’t even swallow.
“The White Indian is a lost soul! He roams these parts … wreaking havoc, he’s hoppin’ mad … no one I know would dare call his spirit … You, shortie, cross yourself if you think he’s nearby. And light candles to the Virgin if you can.”
The old beggar lets Luis’ shins go, and — ta-da! — disappears as fast as a soul in the devil’s clutches. Thanks to the specter of the White Indian things have become much worse for Luis … “Boy, now I’m really late!”
Skewbald passes through the Market Square on his way to stock up on coal for the kitchen and the bathroom (his mother has fallen out with the coal merchant), whipping his donkey because he wants to get home to close the windows and sprinkle dill water on the doors. No way is John Tanner, the White Indian, going to sneak his way in.
Sandy, Eagle Zero to a select few, continues running in the same direction, along the river to the Gulf, instead of toward Mrs. Big’s Hotel’s dock. Her neckline displays her charms as a means of distraction: it is her protection, her shield, her armor, her passport, her strength, her currency, her attraction, and her means of providing for herself in times of need.
Olga is hurrying to Judge Gold’s house to tell him about the knife when she runs into Miss Lace. In faltering speech (she’s out of breath) she tells the story.
Calmly, Miss Lace shares the news about the return of the White Indian, John Tanner. Olga forgets about the knife and moves on to spread the news about John Tanner.
Miss Lace goes to tell Minister Fear about Nat stealing the Lipans’ knife. Miss Lace also tells him about the return of the White Indian, John Tanner, and Minister Fear rebukes her as if she has stolen the knife herself for believing in “such foolishness.” Minister Fear asks Miss Lace to find Nat and bring him over; he’ll speak to the boy. (Wicked tongues say he does more than speak with boys, though it’s just gossip.)
The news that Steve, the longshoreman, delivers to Mrs. Stealman doesn’t please her, although he had hoped it would. Mexicans aren’t welcome at her parties but, at the express request of her husband, Sabas and Refugio have been invited today.
“I know I shouldn’t swear, but … Damn!”
Mrs. Stealman (née Vert, but that’s a secret because her husband doesn’t want word to get around — there’s a rumor that France is plotting to invade Mexico which makes the gringos nervous) doesn’t celebrate Shears’ insult. The sheriff’s shoes were too big for him to fill, he’s just a lousy carpenter, and she really doesn’t like the news about the gunshot. She takes the news better when she hears it from Frank, who speaks with less enthusiasm about the carpenter and more fear about Nepomuceno (“You know, Ma’am, the one they call the Red Bearded Rogue, the bandit, but he’s also a respectable man”). Well done, Frank. He’ll get a handsome tip, which will be entered in Elizabeth’s accounts ledger under the heading July 10, 1859, beneath costs of the flowers, soap, ironing of the linens, meat and produce, milk, eggs, cream, and cheese. She never recorded the cost of the cart (it’s her own property) or the cost of the feed for the horses that pull it. But no more expenses today, it’s not payday.
Elizabeth is a Southerner, the daughter of a sugar plantation-owner who became so obsessed with creating the elixir of youth that he became insufferable. So his wife moved to the northeast with her two marriageable daughters.
In Bruneville, Elizabeth is called Mrs. Lazy because she never sets foot outside the house. She doesn’t even let her slaves go out — these stunners were part of her dowry but she couldn’t take them with her to New York. They’ve become overweight from being kept indoors.
To spell it all out: the former Miss Vert forbade her slaves to set foot in the street to protect them from Mexicans, “Because I read the papers!” She had read that the locals were polygamous and walked around half-naked, satisfying their basest instincts. When Bruneville began to fill up with gringos, Germans, Frenchies, Austrians, Cubans, and even some Chinese (Chung Sun and his companions), Mrs. Lazy didn’t lift her ban for the simple reason she was afraid one of them might try to escape across the river (“The help is restless!”) since Bruneville is right on the border. But she’s careful not to mention this around her slaves — she doesn’t want to give them any ideas. She herself doesn’t go out because, in her opinion, there’s not much to see.
If you spent any time observing life within the Stealman mansion, you’d see that “Mrs. Lazy” isn’t a good epithet because she endeavors to maintain the ostentatious standard of living to which she’s accustomed, no small feat in this “isolated island,” as she calls Bruneville in her diary, “an island of ever-changing indecencies.”
Perhaps she uses the word island to describe Bruneville because she’s confused: originally they were going to move to Galveston Island, which was a tax-free zone, but when the tax-free zone was expanded (back when it was part of Mexico), and since Stealman believed that better profits could be made by owning land, he decided to try his luck further south. It was a good instinct: he leased hectares from the Mexican government and manipulated the law to make them his own, along with neighboring property and even more land along the Río Bravo.