Lark-Ellen, a short story

by Stan Smith

dealings with them other than for profit was shunned; and for that reason, the penitentes were rarely seen in the village. Your brother would have problems with the townspeople from that moment on.

  He helped her with the bag, and offered her his handkerchief for the blood. She took it with hesitation, not understanding his kindness; she was accustomed to the attitude that I and the other villagers shared toward her kind.

  And your brother, Señor, your brother was lost. In that moment when his hand touched hers, I saw it in his face.

  He gazed at her almost in awe—in truth, she was beautiful, inhumanly pretty—and she returned that adoration with a mixture of fear and astonishment. To her credit, she told him to go away, that she could fend for herself. She had begun to look around to see the way the townspeople were staring at them, both foreigners in the village.

  But he would not listen. He had the moonstruck air of a callow boy about him, and noticed nothing of the angry stares of the people around them.

  Nervously, she gathered her belongings as quickly as she could, stooping over and carefully holding her dress about her with one hand—the penitentes are very modest in their clothing, Señor—as your brother continued to help.

  And then suddenly, a man, another of her kind came out of the mercado and saw them.

  If the villagers had loathing in their stares, it was nothing compared to the way this man looked at your brother. He had hair so thick and black covering his face and body that he resembled an animal more than a human being.

  “Lark-Ellen,” he said, gruffly, “get back to the wagon.”

  And the way he said it chilled me to the bone, even in the September heat.

  “You will leave us alone, gringo,” he said to your brother, his eyes never wavering from my friend’s face, the hate in them so palpable it was almost like a living thing.

  Your brother was not frightened, as I was. He was and is a brave man, Señor. He looked around, first at the villagers, and then at the scowling penitente. “What is this, Egypt?” he asked. “I was only trying to help.”

  “We—don’t—want—your—help!” the man said, each word spoken with a cold, measured emphasis, like a hammer beating an anvil. “You will leave us alone,” he repeated, and then turned abruptly, leaving your brother gaping in astonishment.

  The two of them, the man and the woman called Lark-Ellen, climbed into a wagon loaded with six months’ worth of supplies. As they drove out of the village, the woman turned to glance back at your brother.

  His eyes had never left her.

  On the way back to camp, your brother was silent, his mood alternating between anger and something else.

  “They are not like us,” I told him. “You would do better to forget about this.”

  “That’s what they said in Germany,” your brother replied, and that hurt me, Señor. I do not consider myself a hateful person or a bigot; the penitentes were different, as we would both find out.

  “You do not understand,” I said. “They are like cannibals—they kill their own people.”

  “I’m not defending a crazy religion,” your brother said. “It’s just common decency. Good will.”

  I had no answer for that.

  His mood changed then, to that something else I had sensed earlier.

  “Lark-Ellen,” he said wistfully. “What a beautiful name.”

  He went on his walks alone after that. Some of the old bitterness returned to his face, but it was different somehow—more resigned, more determined. At first I was hurt, for I felt that our friendship had ended, but he was not angry with me, just angry at the situation. He still shared his sketches and his joy of the jungle with me, but preferred to be alone on his sojourns.

  His wanderings gradually lengthened, until at times he was gone almost the entire day. His work did not suffer; by now the mine was operating smoothly without his supervision, but I began to wonder what was occupying his time so greatly. He was not sketching as much, and his eyes had a certain distant look when he would return in the evenings. His conversations at the dinner table were perfunctory and vague, and his entire manner had changed.

  For a few days, I could not identify how he was different, but then it came to me: he was moonstruck, the way he had been when he first saw the penitente woman. I began to have an idea where he was traveling on his daily walks, and I was afraid for him.

  Remember, Señor, the mine was at the foothills of the Xitapec plateau.

  At night, we could see the glow of the penitente campfires, eerily lighting the low, humid jungle clouds. Occasionally, we could hear a low humming, as if many voices were chanting; yet it was strangely inhuman. I had not noticed the activities of the penitentes before; in truth, I had avoided them, and rarely came out to the foothills in any event. But now, living at the camp, and having my awareness heightened by your brother’s interest in them, I found myself speculating on their culture from the few physical signs I could see from camp. And the more I listened and saw, the more my imagination troubled me.

  For there were times when I heard sounds very much like screams, which I had attributed to animals in the past. Now I was not so sure. There were other noises, mechanical ones, electrical snaps and crackles. We had always thought the penitentes were primitive, Señor, with not so much as a pistol or rifle among them, and now I was hearing sounds that reminded me of the generators and turbines of the mine.

  I decided to confront your brother one evening in October. I was afraid for him, afraid for his safety. We did not understand these people, Señor. You have no idea how little we knew.

  “What is it like, their village?” I asked him.

  He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and anger. “Have you been spying on me?”

  “No,” I said, my suspicions confirmed. “I have just been noticing the change in you.”

  He continued to glare at me, then he relaxed and smiled. “It’s that obvious, is it?”

  “To one who cares about you.”

  He flashed me another smile, and in that moment, Señor, I knew he did not blame me, that it was still the same with us. He slapped my shoulder and looked at me thoughtfully. “I haven’t actually been there—to their village,” he said. “Yet. She won’t let me.”

  “Lark-Ellen?” I asked.

  He blushed just like a teenager and nodded. And then he finally let his true feelings show. His eyes sparkled like never before—brighter even than they had been on the day of the fiesta. There was an excitement greater than love in them, Señor, and I was about to discover the reason for it.

  “They’re not like us,” he began, and I nodded, the old disgust returning.

  I could not help it. They crucified each other, after all—and he must have divined my feelings from the look on my face.

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” he said. “Really not like us. They’re not from here.”

  I told him that I failed to see why being from another village should make any difference to my feelings about crucifixion.

  He shook his head and fixed me with a look I shall never forget.

  “Not another village, Teo,” he said softly. “Another world. They’re not from Earth!”

  Of course I did not believe him, Señor. Do you think I am mad?

  My heart fell. I thought that the old depression had returned and so gripped him that it had destroyed him. I thought that the long walks in the jungle had been descents into some inner hell that had finally broken his mind as well as his spirit. And then I did not know what to think, for his excitement faded, and he again had the look of a malhadado about him.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  I could not answer him—not then. I was too shaken by what I thought had happened to him.

  “It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t Teo,” he muttered. “Because it’s true. Every word.”

  He leaned back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head, looking up toward the plateau.

  “Their ship crashed here about
two years ago. They’ve been trying to repair it ever since. You’ve heard the noises, I’m sure.”

  I began to think that I had, Señor. I remembered the snap and crackle of electricity. I remembered the reddish-orange glow of a campfire that was maybe too bright for a flame.

  “They’ve almost got it done, too. When they stumbled onto the uranium in the mine, here—”

  I sat up, surprised.

  He nodded. “They’ve been working the same vein, from the other side. They’re only about two hundred yards away from us, scared to death that we’ll break through before they’re finished.”

  I can tell you, I began to be truly frightened then. For him, for me. We had heard noises in the mine. Slipping earth, we thought. Ground water. No one would admit that the sounds were similar to automated grinders or blasting. But what your brother was saying could not be true.

  “The penitentes have been here for hundreds of years,” I said. “Since Cortez!”

  He nodded in agreement, moving his head rapidly. “Yes, and they’ve used that, don’t you see? They’re playing on your fear of them, your revulsion, to keep you away. All that stuff about your people hating them—it’s really fear. It’s not their hair shirts or sweat huts or the self-flagellation that bothers you; it’s weird, but it’s okay if other people do that—it’s the crucifixion that’s got you scared.”

  “I have seen it, Señor,” I told him.

  “How closely, Teo? Were you actually there?”

  “No, I only saw the bodies on the crosses…”

  “What looked like bodies,