Finally, Maria walked back to the village.

The mesquite beans were gone, and she was hungry.

Two days after Maria's return, Ramon caught her in the cornfield. She was feeding Three Legs corn from her hand. Maria greeted Ramon with a friendly smile, but one look at his face told her that Ramon was not in a friendly mood. She knew little about men and women. She was shocked when Ramon simply shoved her down in the cornfield and began to pull at her clothes.

She screamed, and Ramon hit her; she screamed again and he hit her again. Maria thought he had gone berserk when he tried to pry her legs apart. No one in the village came. Maria was weak from her fast, and Ramon was strong. Also, Maria was so shocked at the change in Ramon, who had been her neighbor all her life, that she did not know what to do. She thought his wife's illness must have driven him insane. He was acting like a crazy man. His face was twisted, he bared his teeth, and he was ready to hit her again if she tried to scream.

Maria gave up. Her life had become nothing but pain. She was surprised by Ramon's pleasure, which soon dripped out of her, along with her own blood. While he still held her down, Ramon told Maria that he wanted her to live with him now. Carmila would soon be dead. As soon as she died, he would marry Maria. Even as he crushed her into the dirt, Ramon was eager to let Maria know that his intentions were good.

Maria was almost more shocked by what Ramon told her than by what he had done to her. She did not want to marry Ramon, or anyone. What had happened in the cornfield frightened her and hurt her, but it also taught her something. It taught her what men really wanted of women.

What they really wanted was what Ramon had just taken from her.

Carmila died the next day. Two days after her funeral, Maria's mother, Silvana, told Maria that Ramon had asked to marry her.

Silvana thought Maria should do it. Ramon had money--not much, but more than they had. Maria had two younger brothers and a little sister. They were mouths that Silvana had to struggle hard to feed. She did not think much of Ramon, but he was no worse than most men. If Maria married him he might be kind to her family, to Silvana and the little ones.

Again, Maria was shocked. She knew that her mother was tired. Silvana had worked hard all her life, she had lost a husband and a grown son.

She had given up. Maria knew what it was to give up, for she had given up in the cornfield, given up because she was afraid a crazy old man might kill her.

Still, Maria had no intention of marrying Ramon, or anyone.

"He is a bad man," Maria told her mother. "He did a bad thing to me." She had not meant to tell about the bad thing, but she could not hold back.

Silvana was saddened by this news. It confirmed a fear that she had had for two years: Ramon was not to be trusted around Maria. Silvana cried, but not for long. It was only one more sorrow, heaped on many others, so many that Silvana could not cry long for any of them.

"He is not as bad as some men," Silvana pointed out.

"He is a bad man, he bit me!" Maria said. She showed her mother a mark on her shoulder, a mark Ramon had put there with his teeth.

"He is not even as bad as your father," Silvana said. "Your father did worse things.

Marry Ramon, Maria. It will help us eat." But Maria wouldn't, not even if they all starved.

Silvana had to tell Ramon that Maria had refused. She was a stubborn girl, stubborn enough to deny her mother's wish.

Ramon did not take this news well. He cursed Silvana, and he told her he did not think she had asked Maria. He was only seventy-two, and he had given the girl a horse; crippled, it was true, but still a horse. How many men in Ojinaga were wealthy enough to give a ten-year-old girl a horse?

After that, Ramon watched Maria constantly.

He became obsessed with her. Sometimes he even crawled up to her window at night, hoping to see her undress. He watched the cornfield, meaning to catch her again and repeat what he had done. Soon, he was convinced, Maria would accept him. She was not experienced. If she would consent, or if he could catch her, she would realize that he was a good man. Soon she would welcome his attentions, he was convinced of it.

But while Ramon was watching Maria, Maria also watched him. She would not be caught again, as she had been caught when she thought Ramon was her friend.

Now she knew what he was, and he was not her friend. Perhaps no men would be her friends, not if they went crazy, as Ramon had, every time they wanted to go between her legs. Not if all they wanted was to make her serve their pleasure. She was determined that Ramon, for one, would never have that pleasure with her again. Her dead brother had left an old machete behind when he went to Texas on the raid that led to his death. The machete was dull, but Maria carefully sharpened it on the grindstone until its blade was as keen as a razor. She began to wear the machete in its scabbard over her shoulder. Whenever she led Three Legs into the cornfield in search of fodder, she carried the machete in one hand.

One day, when Silvana had gone to the river to wash clothes, Ramon snuck into her house, hoping to take Maria by surprise. Instead, he found her just inside the door, in the dim kitchen, her machete gripped in both hands.

Ramon cursed her bitterly, then. But he didn't challenge her knife. He was too slow, and his eyesight was not good. Maria might cut him badly before he subdued her; he might bleed to death, or get an infection in the cut.

Many men he knew had died from infections in the cuts they received in fighting. Ramon did not plan to lose his life because a ten-year-old girl cut him with a machete.

That afternoon, when Silvana was back, Ramon came over and offered to buy Maria. He could not get the girl off his mind. He felt that the rest of his life would be a sour thing if he could not have Maria. He wanted her so badly that he offered Silvana two hundred pesos for her.

Two hundred pesos was an unheard-of price for a girl so young and inexperienced.

To Ramon's surprise and chagrin, Silvana countered by offering herself, in Maria's stead.

"She doesn't want you," Silvana said.

"She won't marry you. Take me. I am your neighbor and I need a husband." Ramon was outraged. He wanted the girl, not the mother.

"You are too old," he said. "Almost as old as Carmila. Sell me the girl." "She won't go with you. She'll cut you when you're asleep," Silvana said. "Tomas's mother was part Apache. Maria is like her. They are not afraid to cut men." "I didn't know Tomas's mother," Ramon said, a little daunted. He did not like Apaches.