by Ralph Cotton
He watched Caridad step out of her peasant dress, fold it and set it aside. Naked, she lowered herself out of his sight. In her innocence, did she not know? He mused. But how could she not know? he asked himself. For the love of God! How could she not know? He sprang to his feet and rubbed his bald head vigorously in his frustration. ‘‘I owe you nothing!’’ he growled at the sky.
He stomped off into the forest and walked in a wide circle to take his mind off of the sleeping Caridad, lying naked beneath the sheer cover. But at the end of his half-hour circle he found himself standing above her, looking down at the rise and fall of her breasts.
After a moment he stopped and raised the gauzy sleeping cover and pulled it aside, his heart nearly stopping in his chest. He stared in awe, not having to take only a quick glance before looking away. He could look at her—she would not know; and if she awakened, he would say he was only checking on her comfort as any good savior would do. Shame on you, Sabio!
No! It’s all right! He assured himself. He could look at her, and who but he would ever know? And if no one else ever knew, what harm had he done anyone beyond himself? As he looked at her, he could not keep from reaching out with his hand and holding it near her—just near her, he cautioned himself. Yet, as his hand moved back and forth only a hairbreadth above her warm flesh, he heard her moan in her sleep.
‘‘Oh, Sabio,’’ she whispered, and he swooned headily at the soft, steamy liquid sound of it. What harm would come from him slipping in quietly beside her? She wouldn’t mind, he convinced himself. She had grown up sleeping in his arms. . . .
When she awakened, she did so with a start, escaping a troubled dream. She had seen Sabio standing over her and had felt his hands caressing her in a manner that had caused her to writhe and moan in ecstasy. It was like nothing she had ever experienced; yet even in her pleasure, she had known it was wrong and had forced herself to awaken. She sat up, grasping the sheer sleep cover to her, relieved that it had been only a dream, however vivid and real it had seemed.
At a small fire he’d built a few yards away, Sabio sat staring blackly into the low dancing flames. He did not look over toward her as she stood and slipped into her dress. Nor did he look up at first when she’d shaken out her hair and combed her fingers through it and walked over and stooped down beside him. She would never mention the dream; she dared not. Yet when he finally turned his eyes to her, she wondered if perhaps she had spoken her dream aloud, or if he had not somehow known about it.
Such is this holy man’s power, she thought. She had had two similar dreams in the past, but neither of them was as real as this, and in neither had his hands touched her, or had she felt him against her, as if he absorbed something from her warmth and her nakedness.
Sabio did not ask how she had rested. He only searched her eyes for a moment, then looked away as if having answered something for himself. ‘‘You must eat,’’ he said quietly. He handed her a small wooden bowl of hot crumbled corn cake—torta de maíz—that he’d made on a flat rock above the flames.
She took a piece of the soft cake and blew on it, then held it for a moment before eating. ‘‘Did you rest?’’ she asked.
Sabio seemed to stiffen at her question, then breathed in a sigh and said without facing her, ‘‘Sí, I am rested.’’
She ate another piece of the cake. After a silent pause, Sabio said, ‘‘We must talk about something.’’
Her dream! She made no reply, but waited for him to continue. If somehow he knew about her dream and confronted her with it, she would not deny it. How could she if his power let him know these things? She would not deny it, and she would not deny how it had made her feel.
But instead of mentioning her dream, Sabio said, ‘‘Once your life has returned to normal in Esperanza, I must leave here.’’
‘‘But, Sabio, why?’’ She scooted closer to him and hooked her arm into his. ‘‘These hills are your home. What would Esperanza do without you? What would I do without you?’’
Sabio did not try to explain. ‘‘I have been here too long. It is time I go somewhere else, perhaps across the border. Or perhaps it is time to find my ancestors in la tierra de los muertos.’’
‘‘The land of the dead?’’ said Caridad, giving him a nudge. ‘‘Do not talk this way.’’
‘‘No, I did not mean that,’’ said Sabio, shaking his bald head. ‘‘But I must go—for many reasons it is time I leave here.’’
Again her dream crossed her mind. ‘‘Have I done something to cause you to want to leave?’’ she asked, ready any second for him to confront her with what he knew, with what he’d somehow witnessed while she’d slept.
‘‘No, my dear Caridad, you have done nothing,’’ Sabio said, rounding his arm from hers and taking a short scoot sidelong, putting a few inches of distance between them.
‘‘Oh . . .’’ She looked surprised and hurt by his actions. It came to her that lately he had been cross and irritable the same way he’d been when last she’d had such a dream. He had mentioned leaving then, too, she recalled, wondering more earnestly if he knew what she had dreamed and felt he must leave rather than shame her with what he knew.
‘‘You are a young woman now, Caridad, and I am an old man,’’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘‘For a time God brought us together, for you to be the daughter he felt I needed, and for me to be both the father and mother you did not have. But now our lives are changed. You do not need a father and I—’’ He let his words stop, realizing that what he was about to say was neither honest nor kind.
‘‘I will always need you in my life, Sabio,’’ said Caridad. She risked scooting over against him again and hooked her forearm under his. ‘‘I want you to always want me, no matter what.’’
‘‘Oh, my dear Caridad, you have no idea how badly I want you,’’ he said, giving in to her and squeezing her arm under his. He closed his eyes tightly and whispered under his breath, ‘‘No idea . . .’’
When she had finished eating the crumbled corn cake, she sipped from a water gourd she’d taken from the supplies beneath the tree and filled at the trickling stream. ‘‘Now, then,’’ she said, standing, ‘‘no more talk of either of us leaving.’’
Sabio nodded. ‘‘All right, but there is a time coming when one of us must leave the other,’’ he said, ‘‘for this is the way life works.’’ He also stood, and adjusted his tattered robe. He looked at her and continued, raising a finger for emphasis. ‘‘You may someday want to go across the border and find a better life for yourself. Your father was an American and it shows in your face. You can go there—you have a right to go there.’’
‘‘But this is my home,’’ Caridad said. ‘‘I must—’’
‘‘Shhh. Be quiet and listen!’’ Sabio snapped, cutting her off gruffly.
‘‘But I—’’
‘‘Silence!’’ he insisted, his senses focusing on the way they had ridden in through the draping vines. ‘‘They come! The two gunmen!’’
‘‘But we took their horses,’’ Caridad said, fear showing in her face and her voice.
‘‘They have found horses. It is them!’’ said Sabio. He rubbed out the small smokeless fire with his sandal. ‘‘Quickly, get the horses while I say the words that will turn this forest against those two and protect us from them.’’
Caridad hurried away to gather the horses, finding nothing strange in what the old holy man had just said. When she returned, Sabio had rolled up the blanket and sleep cover and hidden them beneath the tree. ‘‘Will it still rain tonight and wash away our tracks?’’ Caridad asked, handing him his reins.
‘‘Of course it—’’ Sabio stopped and looked up at the sky above the towering trees for reassurance. ‘‘Yes, of course it will,’’ he repeated. He climbed up into the saddle and turned his horse deeper into the forest.
But in his heart of hearts he doubted if the forest would still protect him the way it once would have. The forest had seen him and his impure thoughts. What littl
e power had remained was now gone. He was certain of it.
Chapter 12
At the narrow entrance to the forest where Sabio and Caridad had entered so effortlessly, Sonny and Koch met with difficulty, attempting to push their horses through the long, draping vines. ‘‘Shove them aside, damn it,’’ said Sonny.
‘‘I’m trying!’’ said Koch. ‘‘They’re stiff and stubborn as a mule!’’ The vines he shoved away snapped back at him as if on springs. Struggling along, he and Sonny looked down at the hoofprints they had followed all the way from the waterfalls. Halfway through the hanging vines the two stopped long enough to observe that the prints disappeared into the forest, snaking their way through a bedding of knee-high ground cover that now lay beaten down.
‘‘They ought to be easy enough to follow,’’ Sonny said almost in a whisper, lest the old man and the young woman were within hearing range. The men grinned slyly at one another.
‘‘Follow me,’’ said Sonny, gigging the big silver-gray forward. But as he tried to coax the horse the rest of the way through the tangle of vines, the animalwhinnied and balked, as if the vines were some sort of tentacles from hell. ‘‘Damn it,’’ he said, struggling with the horse, vines swinging back and forth and almost slapping him out of his saddle.
Behind him, things went even worse for Koch. ‘‘Double damn it!’’ he cursed, shoving the thick springy vines to the side only to have a half dozen more fall into his face as if from out of nowhere. ‘‘We’re going to need machetes to cut through this stuff!’’
Still having troubles of his own with the horse and the tangled vines, Sonny slid down from his saddle and jerked the spooked horse forward. Vines broke loose and fell, whipping across the horse and causing Sonny to duck into a ball to keep from getting hit. A rotten tree branch snapped high up and fell to the ground with a heavy thud, only inches from him. ‘‘What the hell is this?’’ Sonny shouted. He stood and jerked the big silver-gray to the side to keep the vines from lashing them both like heavy whips.
‘‘Maybe we best—ahhhrgh!’’ Koch grunted as a huge vine reached out and slapped him full across the mouth, causing his legs to buckle, almost dropping him to the ground.
‘‘Get over here out of them!’’ Sonny commanded.
Stunned from the blow, Koch forced the dun over beside the silver-gray, away from the vines. ‘‘I’ve never seen nothing like that in my life!’’ he said, spitting blood from his mashed lips. ‘‘Did he set some kind of trap for us?’’
‘‘No,’’ Sonny said bluntly. ‘‘Those old vines have hung there a hundred years, then we come along and got them all stirred up. That’s what all happened.’’
‘‘Yeah, I know,’’ said Koch, quickly getting a grip on himself. ‘‘It just seemed strange, is all.’’
‘‘Yeah, strange,’’ said Sonny, ‘‘but not a trap.’’ Overhead, a grumbling sound of thunder resounded from a low, darkening sky.
‘‘Damn, now we’ve got a storm licking at our backs,’’ said Koch. ‘‘Maybe we ought to get out of here and go straight up to the old mission. This place doesn’t seem real friendly.’’
‘‘Doesn’t seem real friendly?’’ Sonny gave him a harsh disbelieving look. ‘‘This is where their tracks led us. This is the way we’re going. What the hell is wrong with you anyway? Is something spooking you?’’
‘‘Hell no!’’ said Koch. ‘‘Nothing ever spooks me. You ought to know that.’’ Yet he looked around warily as he adjusted the bandanna covering his maimed ear.
‘‘All right then, pard, let’s get after them,’’ Sonny ordered. ‘‘I’ve got a feeling they’re not far ahead.’’
Leading the silver-gray, he stepped forward, stooped down and parted the plush deep ground cover, exposing the fresh hoofprints lying a quarter of an inch deep in the soft earth. Looking ahead at the beaten-down foliage he motioned Koch forward. But as he took his next step, his boot sank ankle-deep into a thick sucking mud. ‘‘Jesus!’’ he cried out. He looked around and saw that his horse had also stepped down into the mud. ‘‘Mud? The hell is this?’’ Sonny shouted, almost losing a boot as he struggled to pull his foot up. ‘‘Him and the woman rode through here! Look at their prints! There was no mud!’’
‘‘Well, there is now,’’ said Koch. He stepped forwardleading his horse, both having the same trouble walking in the sticky mire. ‘‘This is crazy!’’ he shouted through bloody lips. Overhead, thunder roared on a hard rising wind, followed by a bolt of lightning. ‘‘Let’s back out of here!’’
‘‘Like hell,’’ said Sonny. ‘‘We’re too close to back away. Come on.’’
‘‘Damn,’’ Koch murmured to himself, struggling forward, leading the dun. ‘‘We’re in for it now.’’
They pushed on as the storm set in hard and steady. Lightning stabbed the earth; thunder cracked like cannon fire. The wind whipped and pounded both men and horses. But the two persisted, struggling through stretches of mud, dense storm-soaked foliage and swaying trees whose lower branches lashed out at them like the arms of an angry crowd. After an hour, they stopped and stood soaked and battered beside their horses, out of breath.
‘‘I’ve lost their tracks,’’ Sonny said in disgust and defeat. He stared ahead at the thickening forest through the hard wind-driven rain. ‘‘Maybe we will have to turn back and go wait for them at the mission.’’
Koch looked all around them in stunned disbelief, then said, ‘‘Well, turning back won’t be hard to do from here! Look at us!’’ He spread his arms, taking in their stormy surroundings. ‘‘We’re right back where we started!’’
‘‘How the—?’’ Sonny stared slack-jawed. ‘‘You mean we’ve gone in a big circle?’’ he shouted above the rage of the storm.
‘‘Either that or else we haven’t moved at all,’’ Koch replied. He looked around warily. ‘‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’’
The two walked backward a few steps, as if they feared turning their backs on the storm or the forest, or some terrible unseen entity that might spring forward and attack them at any second. When they did turn around, they scrambled atop their horses and hurried the animals back toward the trail. This time as they passed through the narrow entrance, the vines hung limp and lifeless.
‘‘Nobody ever hears about this, all right?’’ Sonny demanded when they’d left the covered entrance and looked back on the forest.
‘‘Hell no, not from me they won’t,’’ said Koch, gasping for breath. He slapped his wet hat against his leg. Beyond the tangle of vines, the storm had already begun to subside. As they turned their horses back along the trail, where the rain had fallen only enough to give everything a thin beaded sheen, he added, ‘‘I’m not so sure going up to the old mission is such a good idea either.’’
Sonny gave him a harsh stare. ‘‘We’re going up to the mission, Koch. That’s all there is to it.’’
Upon leaving the forest, Sabio and Caridad took a secluded trail down to a small nameless village nestled in a deep valley. While Sabio was certain his powers had left him, he was just as certain that the storm on its own had washed out any sign of their tracks through the forest. After three days of rest at an abandoned old thatched-roof adobe, the pair mounted their horses with a canvas bag of food and supplies and took a long winding trail around the hills and back up to the old mission.
When their trail led them above Sol de Oro, they stopped in the cover of trees and looked down on the town long enough to see the mercenaries checking their horses and preparing for the trail. In the center of the main street a cook fire still licked upward beneath a rising spiral of smoke. Sabio knew that the people of Sol de Oro would come forward and put out the fire as soon as the last of the men rode away. As long as the fire continued to burn, there were still mercenaries in town.
‘‘Still, there will be men there,’’ Sabio said, observing the men as they checked rifles and tightened saddle cinches. With a sigh Sabio turned his horse; Caridad did the same, and the two of them rode on
.
In the wide dusty street below, Desmond Prew caught only a glimpse of the two tiny riders who passed in and out of sight along the up-reaching trail. But at the sight of them he turned to Sway Loden and said, ‘‘If Sonny and Koch show up, send them on to catch up to us. I sent Cherokee to search for them.’’ He looked all around appraisingly. ‘‘You’ll still have plenty of men to hold things down here until we return.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Loden, looking along the high trail with him. ‘‘I wonder what’s taking Sonny and Koch so long.’’
‘‘Who knows?’’ said Prew. ‘‘Who cares, so long as they get that kid taken care of—and the ranger.’’
Loden scratched the beard stubble on his cheek in contemplation. ‘‘Something else I wonder is what the hell happened to Wind River Dan. Cherokee said his cousin Dan wanted to be a part of this soon as he heard about it.’’
‘‘Knowing Wind River Dan,’’ said Prew, ‘‘anything could have happened.’’
‘‘Yeah, I suppose so,’’ said Loden, still studying the high empty trail after the two riders had passed out of sight.
‘‘He might show up yet,’’ said Prew, unhitching his horse and signaling for the others to mount up. ‘‘We’ll be back inside a week. This is just a dry run, but you and your men be ready in case anybody’s following us.’’ As he spoke, Prew backed his horse and turned it to the street. ‘‘I don’t want any surprises. If all goes well, we’re going to hit the big munitions train as soon as we get word from our inside man.’’
‘‘Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered here,’’ Loden called out. He watched the men gather on horseback in the street and form into a loose column behind Prew. In a moment they had ridden out of sight in a rise of dust on the lower trail leading toward the border.
On the high trail Sabio and Caridad pushed on throughout the day until by midafternoon they reached the old Spanish ruins. ‘‘I do not know how much longer we can use this place,’’ Sabio said, riding into the ruins cautiously. ‘‘Too many people have found their way here. It is no longer safe.’’ His eyes searched for anything out of the ordinary that might tell him someone was waiting in hiding for them.
