"There's a gas station in the next town," he said. "If you need to make a phone call, you can make it there." Softly, she replied "Thank you, sir" and stared straight ahead.
They drove down the road in silence until reaching a small gas station on the outskirts of a sleepy little community. The trucker eased his eighteen-wheeler into the station next to the one diesel pump to refuel. He walked around and opened the passenger door to help the lady out of the truck, but when he opened the door, she was gone.
For a long moment, he looked at the empty seat in confusion. When he turned, the owner of the station, an elderly gentleman, was slowly making his way toward him. "Did you see the lady that was with me?"
"No," the owner replied, "I saw you drive in, but you were by yourself."
"No, there was a lady in a black dress. I picked her up a few miles south of here."
The owner's eyes grew wide as a look of terror crossed his face. "A lady in black?"
"Yes," said the trucker.
The owner made the sign of the cross, moved quickly back into the little station, turned out the lights, locked the door and hurried off into the darkness.
The truck driver stood speechless for a long while, not knowing what to do. Then a very old man came limping from behind the building. He was so old his face looked like it had worn out two bodies. He walked with the aid of a hand-carved cane and wore a simple white shirt, cotton pants and sandals. "Mister!" he said. "You had the Lady with you?"
"Yes, a young lady in a black dress."
"Ah," the old man said. "The Lady in Black. Sit down on the curb here and I will tell you about her." The old man eased himself down and began his story.
"Many years ago when Texas was still a part of Mexico, a huge ranch covered this whole region. A very fine old couple owned the ranch. When they died they left everything to their handsome son. He was a fine young man and a catch for any senorita, handsome, rich, and not married. Everybody thought this young, handsome ranchero would go into the nearby village and find a wife."
"Instead, he journeyed into Mexico and married a poor woman. She became the woman boss, La Doña and governed the large ranch with her husband. The women in the village were very jealous, especially one woman who thought it would be she who married the ranchero. She began spreading lies about La Doña.
About 6 months after the young couple had been married, the young husband had to travel to Spain to settle a land dispute. He left La Doña in charge of all matters. She proved to be very kind to the servants and fair with their pay for she was a woman with a good heart. A few days after her husband had left, La Doña discovered she was going to have a baby.
Months later, as the time of birth neared, she prayed for her husband to return. Her prayers were answered and one night he returned to the ranch. He had won the battle in the courts and all the land was legally theirs. As he dismounted from his horse and ran to hug his wife, he saw the life inside her.
The ranchero was delighted and eagerly awaited the arrival of a son or daughter. But that mean woman in the village had spread the rumor that the baby was not the young husbands and when he went into town one day, he heard the evil rumor, the ugly lie. Sadly, he believed the lie and was filled with jealousy. He no longer trusted his wife and when he returned home, he accused her of being unfaithful to him.
La Doña fell to her knees and cried, 'I am your wife. I would not be unfaithful to you. Never! Believe me!'
But he did not. A fury possessed him. He called two of his servants and ordered, 'Hitch horses to the wagon. You two and my wife will ride one full day to the north. Find a strong tree and hang my unfaithful wife from its branches. I will ride one full day to the south. That way, even if I become softhearted, I will be too far away to prevent the hanging.'
Now, there was an old man who always sat on the front porch of the ranch house. The old man had faithfully served many years for the young ranchero's parents and this was his reward, a job with pay for the rest of his life, to sit in the shade on the porch of the ranch house and see all the comings and goings. Nothing took place on the ranch that this old man did not know.
The ranchero said, 'Saddle me up my favorite horse, and saddle up a burro too. The old man will go with me.' And so for the first time in a very long time, that old man left the ranch and his well-worn chair on the porch. He rode one full day south with his patron as the two servants and La Doña rode a full day north on a dusty little used wagon trail.
La Doña was brokenhearted. She cried and cried for her unborn baby and for her husband, not even thinking about herself. At sunset, the obedient servants stood La Doña up on the wagon and put a rope around her neck. Staring at the men as they tied the end of the rope around a sturdy branch, she declared, 'You and all of your descendants will know that I am a faithful wife. For many generations you will see me. I will wear this same black dress and I will never stop telling what you have done.'
The men jumped down off the wagon and one of them swatted the horse. The wagon rolled away leaving La Doña swinging back and forth until her neck broke and she mercifully died. The servants were deeply ashamed of what they had done and they quickly cut her down and buried her in a shallow grave. No one has ever found that grave.
'I have done the right thing,' the young man said. 'She was unfaithful.' The old man said nothing. He thought for a second and then he remembered. That old man sat by the ranch house door all day and slept on the porch all night. "Old man!' the ranchero shouted, 'speak to me!' Still, the old man said nothing. 'Old man, you know who is the father of that baby, don't you?" The old man nodded. 'Tell me!' cried the ranchero. The old man remained silent.
The ranchero pulled his pistol, cocked it and placed the muzzle next to the old man's head. 'You better speak, old man. I swear to you, either the child's father dies or you will die."
The old man looked up, his eyes rimmed red with tears. 'Mi patron,' he said. 'The father of the child is you.'
When he heard that, the young man put the pistol to his own head and pulled the trigger. The old man buried the ranchero by the campfire in an unmarked grave. No one has ever found that grave.
A year passed and on the anniversary of her hanging, the Lady in Black kept her promise. She stood by the dirt road near her unmarked grave. A family stopped their wagon to help her, thinking she had been involved in an accident. They helped her onto the wagon and she told them the story as if it had happened to someone else. When they pulled into the little village, they turned to speak to her, but she was gone. They then realized they had seen La Doña herself.
This went on for years and years. They say it still goes on to this day. La Doña will never rest. The old ones who live in Refugio, the closest big town, all know of and talk about the Lady in Black. The people know she was innocent.
And with that, the ancient story-teller fell silent. As he thought of the story for a few moments, the truck driver closed his eyes. "Whatever happened to the old man, the man who lived on the porch of the ranch house?" he finally asked. He heard no reply and when he looked, the old man was nowhere to be found.
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