Angel Ranch ~ creative nonfiction by Lorette C. Luzajic

Angel Ranch

after Las Poquianchis, by Francisco Corzas (Mexico) 1966

“Last week, in a San Francisco del Rincón courtroom … the (Gonzalez) sisters were found guilty of first-degree murder, white slavery and assorted other crimes and sentenced to the maximum penalty under Mexican law: 40 years in prison.”

Time Magazine, October 30, 1964

 

  1. Catalina, small, sweet, the cinnamon glow of the Huichol people warming her skin. Years of four Marias pummeling her with their fists had taken most of her girlish beauty, but she was still a moneymaker with her round brown eyes and sweet little teacup titties, a favorite of one of the governors who often came calling. She had privileges: chilaquiles and huevos rancheros, enough to soften her skeleton. Many of the new girls got nothing at all, not until they’d proven themselves a draw for clients. Then, they would be fed. The others would be taken to the back of the farm in a wheelbarrow with a burlap sack over their head to muffle their screams.
  1. Catalina was all of sixteen now. Maybe—it was hard to tell the days, never mind the years. Inside her mind she often prayed for the chance to escape, watched for ways to break free into the night without attracting the hounds. She knew what happened to any girls who tried the same- they were buried like dogs in in the ditches. If they were ever noticed by human eyes, they were assumed to be ringcats or tapirs: so many dead things in Jalisco, among the cacti and the scrub.
  1. There are four of them: Maria, Maria, Maria, and Maria. They are different but they are all the same. In time, they will be revealed: the four Gonzalez sisters, las poquianchis. They operated several cantinas. Men who showed up flaunting wealth or wins from bullfight bets quietly disappeared. The others were lured upstairs or back to the ranch with young blossoms plucked from their families with promises of nanny and housekeeping work. If the girls got pregnant, they were sent to the cellar to be taken care of. (Grisly caches of fetuses were later found along with hundreds of teen girl cadavers.) If a girl made it to 25, she was disposed of.
  1. Before Pablo Escobar. Before El Chapo. Before Griselda. The most terrifying crime boss of Mexico was called Maria. Maria Delfina, Maria Luisa, Maria de Jesus, and Maria del Carmen. They were all in on it.
  1. One night when Catalina is working the cantina, fluttering her eyelashes at potential customers, a brawl breaks out. Maria Delfina’s son, the one who digs the graves and buries the unwanted girls alive, is knocked out with a broken bottle. Delfina shoots the perp and, uncharacteristically, misses. Mayhem breaks out and the authorities are alerted, riding up with guns blazing. Catalina sees a cop whom she has made very happy on many occasions. The brothels are protected by the authorities because they are frequenters of the services. But tonight is different. Catalina sees her chance and takes it, escaping through a hole in the wall unnoticed in the chaos. She finds her sweetheart officer later, tells him that the brothel grounds are an abattoir. Incredibly, he believes her.
  1. The abducted girls are finally rescued. The grounds of Rancho El Angel are combed for bodies. (Other makeshift Maria graveyards will be found later in other nearby locations. And 40 years later, twenty overlooked corpses will be unearthed.) The Marias and their underlings are arrested and taken to prison. The sisters smoke and smoke during the interrogations, stone faced, cross armed. All of them blame men, including the clients and their exes, and their father, who was mean. It is 1963. Their thirteen-year reign of terror is over.
  1. Mexican newspapers call the ranch “a concentration camp for white slaves” because most of the victims are gringas. Over 2000 young girls were lured as housekeepers, abducted, tortured, trafficked, raped, and pimped out. The Marias kept their favorites on hand for sale, sold the rest as slaves to other pimps for 80 dollars a head.
  1. Lynda Healy, Laura Aime, Melissa Smith, Lisa Levy, Kimberley Leach, Roberta Parks, Brenda Ball, Debbie Kent … The list goes on and on and on.
  1. The Maria sisters are among the most prolific murderers in history, in Mexico, in all the world.
  1. Each Maria is charged with a litany of offenses: homicide, human trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, bribery, corruption of minors, unlawful burial of human remains, deprivation of liberty, torture, forced abortion, and organized crime. Each sister gets 40 years, the maximum number under the law.
  1. It is not known what became of Catalina Ortega after her courageous escape.
  1. María Delfina González Valenzuela: She lived in paranoia that she would be murdered in jail, frequently ranting and raving. She tried and failed to hang herself in her cell with her own braids. In 1968, some construction workers were on the roof doing repairs. Realizing that the screaming banshee below them was one of the notorious Maria sisters, a worker looked down, accidentally knocking over a bucket of cement, which hit her in the head. The end. María del Carmen González Valenzuela: Died of cancer in prison in 1969. María de Jesús González Valenzuela: Details are hazy. For unknown reasons Maria de Jesus was freed. She died of natural causes in 1990. María Luisa González Valenzuela: Died from illness in her cell in 1984. Poetic justice: by the time the wardens found her, her body had been swarmed by feasting rats.

    Lorette C. Luzajic reads, writes, publishes, edits, and teaches flash fiction and prose poetry. Her work has been widely nominated, anthologized, taught in writing courses from Tennessee to Egypt, and translated into Urdu and Spanish. Two of her stories have been selected for Best Small Fictions anthologies. She is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review and The Mackinaw: a journal of prose poetry.