The Chili Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

against her big breasts as they took the bowls or touched the ribbons in her hair. White men were rough with her, as though they were entitled to rub against her, but the others, the men whose skin was the dusky color of the night itself, had hands that were soft and gentle. Their touch made Addie’s insides feel warm and liquid, like lard on a hot stove. They were generous, those brown and black men, handing her dimes and quarters and sometimes even bills and never asking for change.
    She loved the life of a chili queen and considered herself fortunate that one of the vendors had employed her, since the girls were almost always Mexicans. She could have stayed there forever, but a gambler who saw how quick she was with her hands taught her card tricks and told her she could make as much in a day as a chili queen did in a month. She was ambitious, so she went with him. The two had worked the sleight-of-hand games together, until he’d left her for another woman. But he had taught her well, and she could make the pass, force a card, palm, ruffle, and slip the cards. She could make a card vanish from the table and be found in a man’s pocket or under his handkerchief or hat. There was little she couldn’t do with a deck of cards, until that night she was found out and beaten.
    When she healed, she gave up card games and turned out, walking the streets by herself and picking up men. After her experience with the gambler who had clubbed her, she was a little scared of men, however, so she accepted the protection of a fancy man. But he was the worst man there was for taking her money, and when she held back, he threw her out, and she drifted through Texas and into New Mexico. She worked at houses then, because even though the madams took half her earnings, Addie felt safe. She liked Nalgitas right off because it was filled with miners and cowboys and railroad workers, few of them with wives, and they were generous. When the madam she worked for decided to move on, Addie bought the house. She’d run it for eight years.
    That was too long, Addie thought, staring out into the darkness. It was time for her, too, to move on, maybe go back to San Antonio, perhaps even get married. She could buy a stand and hire girls to work for her, then expand into the other plazas. She’d serve first-rate chili, all beef, no pigeons or dogs or horse meat. Perhaps she’d even open a restaurant and become the queen of the chili queens. That was her dream, anyway, but it would take money. All of Addie’s money was in The Chili Queen, and where was a buyer for a whorehouse in Nalgitas?
    The train rounded a curve, and Addie made out a horse beside the tracks—a black horse. She shuddered as she leaned against the window and watched the animal fade into the darkness. She’d been uneasy around black horses ever since a chili queen in San Antonio had sworn to her that seeing a black horse meant death.
     
    When Addie turned away from the window, Emma was still sewing, squinting in the dim glow from the kerosene lamps on the ceiling of the car. “You’ll waste your eyes. You’ll go blind as a mole,” Addie told her.
    Emma took a few more stitches then pulled the needle through the fabric and straightened the seam. She anchored the needle in her sewing and put it away in her bag. “Sewing calms me. I guess I’ve quilted a hundred miles of thread in my life and could quilt another mile or two before we reach Nalgitas.”
    “You don’t look nervous,” Addie told her. In fact, Emma was calmer than Addie. Her back was straight and her face serene. Addie curled up against the window, and when she awoke several hours later, Emma looked as if she hadn’t moved. She sat bolt upright with her hands folded in her lap, as she stared out the window into the darkness. Addie reached over and patted her hand and muttered, “You might could sleep. I never saw a thing that was improved by worrying about it.” Emma turned to her and nodded once, then looked