A hot, dusty, flyblown Mexi border town -- a town without hope, without grace, the end of the road for all those whove the misfortuo find themselves washing up here. The time is about the turn of the tury, long after the heroic period of the West is past; and there was never anything heroic about these border raiders, this poverty-stri half-life they lead. The Mendozas, a barbarous hierarchy of bandits, ruown, its corrupt sheriff, its bank, the telegraph -- everything. Even the priest is an appoi of theirs.
The oablishment iown with a superficial veneer of elegance is the bar-cum-whorehouse. This is presided over by a curious, apparently ill-matched couple -- an ageing, drunken, ptive European aristocrat and his mistress, the madame, who keeps him. Shes called Roxana, a straightforward, ageing, rather raddled, unimaginative, affeate woman.
She is the sister of Maria Mendoza, the bandits wife -- thats how she obtaihe brothel cession. Roxana and her man, the dying, despairing man they call the t, arrived, the pair of them, out of nowhere, a few years back, penniless, in rags; theyd begged a ride in a farm cart. . . "I"ve e home, Maria, after all this time. . . theres nowhere else to go." Roxanad had a lot of experien the trade; with her brother-in-laws blessing, with his finance, she opened up a bar-cum-brothel and staffed it with girls whod got good reason to lie low for a while -- not, perhaps, the best class of whore. Five of them. But they suit the ers very well; they keep Mendozas desperadoes out of trouble, they service his visitors -- and sometimes theres a casual visitor, a stray passerby, a travelling salesman, say, or a smuggler. The brothel prospers.
And the t, in his soiled, ruffled shirt and threadbare suits of dandified black, lends a little class to the joint; so his life has e to this, he serves to or his mistresss bar. A certain bitterness, a dnity, characterises the t.
The t lets visitors buy drinks for him; he is a soak, but a distinguished one, heless. He keeps a margin of distance about himself -- he has his pride, still, even if hes dying. Hes rumoured to have been, in his day, in the Old try, a legendary marksman. The girls chatter among themselves. Julie, the Yankee, says shes heard that he and Roxana used to do an a a circus. He used to shoot all her clothes off her until she was as naked as the day she was born. As the day she was born!
But hadnt he killed Roxanas lover, no, not her lover but some man shed been sold to, some seamy story. . . wasnt it in San Francisco, oerfront? No, no, no -- everything happened in Austria, ermany, or wherever it is he es from, long before he met Roxana. Hes not touched a gun since he met Roxana. He never shoots, now, even if his old-fashioned, long-barrelled rifle hangs on the wall. . . look! He was too good a shot; they said that only the devil himself -- its best not to pay attention to such stories, even if Maddalena once worked in a house in San Francisco where Roxana used to work and somebody told her -- but the ts shadow falls across the wall; they hush, even if Maddalena furtively crosses herself.
In this town, nobody asks any questions. Who would live here if they had the option to live anywhere else? Poor Teresa Mendoza, pretty as a picture, sweet sixteen, sullen, dissatisfied, she got a few ideas above her statiohey sent her off to a vent to learn how to read and write. What does she o read and write for? Not when shes o live like