“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Ramsey turned to face a short, thin man in blue jeans and work shirt. He had an ascetic, acne-scarred face, hidden mostly by a dark beard turning gray. His graying hair was pulled back in a long queue down his back. He wore a brightly colored vest. A bola tie, the cord held together with a large piece of tourmaline, obscured a priest’s collar.
“Sorry if I startled you. I’m Father Michael, though I suppose it isn’t ‘Father’ anymore. I was pleasantly defrocked more than ten years ago.” With a twinkle he chuckled and held out a hand.
Ramsey shook it. The grip was strong. “You still wear the collar.”
Father Michael shrugged. “I suppose they can kick the priest out of the church but not the priest out of the man.” His thin face lit up with an infectious smile. “I just wanted to say that many of our visitors were drawn to this particular alcove. They say it’s where many healings took place.”
Ramsey nodded. “I felt something as well.”
“Just now?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. So what brings you here?”
“Actually I might investigate what happened here.”
“Journalist?”
“Human geographer . . . What are your thoughts about the shrine’s healing power?”
“I’ve always put my faith in the words of Jesus,” the priest said. He pointed at the top of the hill. “I suggest you visit the tree or perhaps the Christ Chapel. You may find the answers you seek there.”
He turned and walked away.
Ramsey watched him disappear along the winding paths leading back to the Visitor Center. Raising his camera, he pirouetted to snap the picture of the flowered cross but the sun had moved slightly and he no longer could capture its true beauty—at least not digitally. He lowered his camera and backed away. He discovered a trail on the edge of the garden and followed it. At last he found himself at the foot of the gray stone stairs leading to the giant cottonwood. He walked the ninety-nine steps to the top and stared at the great tree. Deep purple catkins hung from every branch. A large number of petal-less flowers ready to bloom were hidden within each fingerlike spike. According to native legend, the flowering of the cottonwood signaled the beginning of new life.
Sweat trickled down Ramsey’s ribs as the past loomed up suddenly and he was transported to the last time he had sat underneath a sacred tree.
Twelve years ago, during his visit to a sacred spot far north of Cuzco, Peru, a shaman had taken him to the holiest of holy Palo Santo trees in the Amazonian rainforest on the Eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains. The old man told him that by sitting under this tree and imbibing sacred medicine, he would open like a flower and get the answers to his deepest questions. Instead, after drinking mixture of plant medicines that the natives called Ayahuasca, he was instantaneously gripped by the most primal feeling of fear he had ever experienced. His mind was swept into a dark vision of shadow and light filled with nightmarish creatures. Mercifully, he passed out. After spending nearly a month in a Lima hospital recovering from what doctors called an extreme psychotic episode, and still unwell, he returned to his home in Eugene, Oregon.
It had taken Ramsey a year to convalesce enough to begin his life again. But the damage was done. He dropped his postdoc research on sacred places and took a job with the State Department as a human geographer. Two years later he acquired enough contacts to go into business on his own with a partner, Ron Grange. Very quickly, they built a multimillion-dollar business spanning the globe, allowing Ramsey to operate out of the small Midwestern college town of Grinnell, Iowa, where he had done his undergraduate work. Remarkably, once he returned to the town, his recovery accelerated at an astounding pace.
From his base of operation in Grinnell he was able to deal remotely with most of their clients and travel the world when necessary. At the same time, Ramsey could keep in touch with academia by co-teaching an economic and political geography honors seminar at the private college that was the focal point of this small town.
He pulled a catkin from a branch, recalling one of the cardinal rules of his profession: Human geography stops at the doorstep. Yet, here he was, doing it again, breaking that rule without knowing why. Was it that the Milagro Shrine was such an anomaly in the history of sacred places? Unlike many other Christian shrines, it had not started with a vision of Jesus or Mary. Instead, its focal point was an icon of Native American spiritual quests—the cottonwood tree. It was recent. Or maybe he hoped to get a personal apology from Myriam. She owes me, he thought bitterly, as he examined the flowers tucked in the cottonwood catkin.
“You are like that catkin, ready to sow the seeds of a new life.”
Ramsey wasn’t sure if the words came from inside his head or from the air around him. He instinctively asked, “What?”
A shadow appeared beside him. Backlit against the bright morning sun, it was hard to make out. Ramsey shielded his eyes and the rugged outline of a man came into focus. He appeared to be in his fifties, with questing blue eyes and graying red hair. In spite of the rough, homespun quality of his clothes, Ramsey could see that the man was big-boned and muscular. His eyes were set above high cheekbones, and Ramsey observed that he had a thin Roman nose and full lips. When the man smiled, all of his teeth were white. The mysterious visitor had an air of confidence; he clenched and unclenched his fists like a man straining to keep his confidence bottled up so he wouldn’t overwhelm everyone around him. With a jerk of surprise, Ramsey had the sudden thought that the stranger was the kind of man he’d always wanted to be.
The stranger smiled. “Not many visitors do that . . . pull a catkin from the sacred tree.”
Ramsey felt pressure building in his head. He wondered if he were hallucinating. He licked his lips and stared into the stranger’s face. Everything seemed magnified. The man pointed to a spike of purple petals, his hand translucent like a mirage. The muscles rippled in his jaw as he formed the words, “Why did you take it?”
Ramsey stretched his neck, trying to fight off the strange illusion, but his head tightened, ready to explode. He answered, the sound loud in his own ears, “I don’t know.”
The stranger smiled and nodded. “That’s what everyone says who does that. I know because I’ve been here from the beginning.”
The syllables punctuated the clear air and all at once the pressure within Ramsey eased. “So you were healed?” he rasped.
“Some would say that.” A car alarm blared in the still morning. Ramsey winced and turned away, looking down the long flight of steps toward the parking lot. A half dozen visitors climbed steadily upward. “What did you say?” he asked, turning back. No one was there to answer his question. He craned his neck around to see. The stranger had vanished.
Ramsey shuddered. He threw the catkin away and watched it being pushed by the wind across the grass until it lay still on the steps of the Christ Chapel. Caught in the strangeness of the experience, he mindlessly continued to document the shrine’s famous tree and the small chapel with his camera. This was sufficient to return him to normal awareness. His mind flipped into research mode, mentally taking notes.
It’s obvious the shrine developed organically. Its origins will prove most important. He now had the chance to study firsthand the question he had grappled with in his research: Do sacred places somehow capture powerful forces or are they merely cultural or religious artifacts?
He suppressed a gasp and stepped back as if distancing himself from these thoughts. He was surprised at how easily he had been influenced to accept the challenge of his former academic advisor.
MYRIAM SAT AT the table, watching Ramsey get out of his car. He hasn’t changed much in all this time, she thought. How long’s it been . . . ten . . . no, twelve years.
Rosa came by and switched the coffee carafe for a fresh one. She followed Myriam’s gaze. “Is that your guest?”
“Yes. His name’s Jonathan.”
“A friend?”
Myriam nodde
d. She kneaded her leg; the pain had begun to occur without warning over the past few months. She concentrated on Jonathan. This has to work. I have to make it happen.
“Will you show him here, please?” she asked, keeping her voice even.
Rosa nodded and headed for the entrance. She eyed the rugged-looking middle-aged man as Ramsey searched his pocket for change for the parking meter. Every few seconds he glanced at the café with a look both bemused and apprehensive. Rosa looked back at Myriam, who was studying the tabletop with great care. What’s between those two? she wondered.
“Good morning, Jonathan,” Rosa said.
Ramsey looked up, startled. He stuffed two more quarters in the meter, walked the few feet from the curb and then up the steps, grasping the Hispanic woman’s hand when she extended it. It was soft and smelled slightly of peanut oil.
“Welcome to Café Rio,” she added, her English lightly accented. There was a purr beneath it, as though she were inviting him to more than just the restaurant. “I’m Rosa Cisneros. Señora Eves is waiting for you. Right this way.”
“Do you meet all your customers like this?” Ramsey asked, warming to her.
“Just interesting men like yourself.”
Myriam was rearranging the salt and pepper shakers on different squares, trying to figure out how to deal with what happened between her and Jonathan twelve years earlier. His troubles in Peru had eventually brought about a loss of funding for her research project. Looking up, she saw him at the entrance, talking to Rosa. Let the past go, she commanded herself.
Rosa motioned to the table where Myriam sat. The few townsfolk eating breakfast in the café watched him with suspicion as he crossed the atrium. The room smelled of pico de gallo, cilantro, and mole sauce. He counted twelve four-tops and sixteen doubles, totaling the number in his head. He had worked as a busboy when he was an undergraduate at Grinnell College. He had received his master’s and PhD at UCLA while studying under the famous American geographer Jared Diamond before working on his postdoc at the University of Oregon with Myriam. He noted there was no wait staff on duty and surmised that Rosa was the owner. An owner in distress.
He’d seen all the telltale signs of a boom-and-bust cycle when he drove into Rio Chama. There’d been few cars on the street and all the businesses were closed, except for the restaurant, in spite of it being Tuesday. His mind quickly put two and two together. It has to be the shrine. It’s lost its mojo, impacting the town’s population, causing an economic decline. Is that what Myriam’s interested in—what’s happening to the town geographically?
And then he was in front of the table. Myriam waved him to the chair opposite hers without smiling.
Ramsey sat down and studied her, trying to gauge her mood. They hadn’t talked in twelve years, and yet she had demanded he fly down here and speak with her.
“Your trip here was fine?”
He nodded. “I flew into Albuquerque, drove up. Signs of a bad drought everywhere.”
She nodded. “I have a place down here now. I’ve watched the area go from a piñon pine forest to a short-grass-and-scrub ecosystem. I’m on the county water board.”
Myriam is one of those people who don’t seem to age, Ramsey thought. She had the same dark hair, her skin smooth except for a few wrinkles around her eyes. He remembered she had inexhaustible energy. She knew everybody who could make things happen in her field. Myriam was the ultimate facilitator, the kind of person every academic department needed. During their two-year association Ramsey was never sure if she was manipulating him for her own gain or if she really cared about him. But she had gotten him his postdoc appointment in the country’s most prestigious human geography department. The contacts he made there served him very well after his recovery. In spite of what had happened in Peru, he owed her and they both knew it.
Myriam began speaking in her rapid-fire style that was characteristic when she wanted something. “I know we’ve never properly resolved what happened in Peru and your departure from Oregon. We can set that aside, as far as I’m concerned.” She studied him for a second and then went on before he could respond. “I’ve followed your career. I’m impressed. What you accomplished in the Middle East was not only innovative but provided big kudos for human geography. . . . Tell me, what do you think of the shrine?”
For a moment Ramsey felt like the prodigal son returning home. He still relished her acceptance and praise. All right, so it’s still there, he thought. “What do you want—my professional analysis?”
With a sort of quizzical smile, she answered, “Of course, you were always brilliant when it came to—”
“Sacred places?”
“That’s right.”
Ramsey took in a deep breath and gave her the thumbnail sketch he’d been working on since he left the shrine. “It’s similar in its characteristics to every other Southwestern Catholic shrine and grotto. Larger than most. The landscape features are not special. The ‘Bodhi Tree effect’ is cool, but in general it’s quite ordinary.”
She nodded knowingly.
“But it was once a big deal.” He gestured around the restaurant, indicating his understanding of its economic impact on the area.
“Right again.”
“And last, in all the stories I read about the shrine your name doesn’t show up. I’ll bet you work behind the scenes, as you always have.”
“Three for three,” Myriam said.
Ramsey eyed her over the rim of his coffee cup. Something didn’t seem right. She was a classically trained administrator, better suited to large institutional operations than to a once-thriving healing shrine. ”So why would Myriam St. Eves spend her efforts here?”
Myriam shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”
Ramsey smiled. As a human geographer, he knew people loved to tell stories. He just had to ask Myriam the right question to get her to speak. “Why would you put all of your well-known talents in to making this place work?”
Myriam could feel the story being tugged out of her by Ramsey’s easygoing manner. She couldn’t stop herself from answering. “It began with a trip to the shrine with my friend Nancy Bloomberg. You remember her?”
Ramsey nodded.
Myriam told him everything that had happened during the visit and about the miraculous healing a month later. “I saw that this place had great potential and I wanted to help it thrive. The shrine had a need for a good administrator and I knew I could fill that role. Besides I wanted to get away from Eugene. Things had gone sour at the University of Oregon. As you know, after your misappropriation of funds, I lost the postdoc research money. Officials weren’t too keen to keep me around after that.”
Ramsey bristled at the taunt. “Well, at least you didn’t have to worry about money, what with your husband’s wealth,” he mocked. “It would have been nice if you’d used some of that money to visit me in Peru while I was convalescing.”
Myriam felt her cheeks heat up. “We went through a divorce at the time. Money wasn’t exactly available.”
They paused, studied each other. As if arriving at the same conclusion, they both spoke at the same time. “Let’s start over.”
Myriam smiled. “Agreed.”
Ramsey answered her smile with his own. “Did you ever experience the shrine’s healing powers?”
“Not like Nancy did, but it had a miraculous effect on me in its own way. It gave me my life back after all that had happened.”
Ramsey nodded. “So what’s next?”
“I want to hire you. That’s what you do now, isn’t it? Work for hire.”
Caught off guard, Ramsey leaned back in his chair. “Hire me to do what?”
“If you’ve done your research, as I suspect you have, then you already know.”
“Find out what was behind the shrine’s remarkable healing powers and its sudden loss of those powers.”
He sat silently, trying to figure out what she really wanted. His sense was that she wasn’t telling him everything. Memorie
s of mistrust flooded back. Their awful row over his unapproved trip to Peru overwhelmed his mind for a moment. She was still watching him, waiting for his answer. He hardened his voice to see how she would respond. “Why me? There are a dozen others who could set up an investigation without any of our personal baggage.”
Myriam didn’t flinch and said evenly if not convincingly, “You’re the one for the job. You have that rare combination of geographical understanding and spiritual background.”
In spite of a strong voice telling him to walk away, he felt himself back at the cottonwood tree, slowly being reeled in by the mystery. What did the strange man at the shrine say? “You’re a flower ready to bloom.” Is that why I’m here? He decided to test her. “Will you pay whatever it takes?”
“We will,” she answered without hesitation.
Ramsey thought for a moment. “Who’s ‘we’?”
Myriam didn’t answer and instead motioned to Rosa. “We’re ready to order.” She was pleased that their breakfast passed pleasantly over small talk: what happened to this or that person . . . the state of University of Oregon’s geography department . . . the emergence of human geography as a force in economics, political policy, and climate change . . .
The rhythm of the conversation felt good to Ramsey. It was like old times, but underlying it was that nagging uncertainty and anxiety that had characterized their relationship from the beginning. Ramsey was flattered by her claim that he was the only one who could figure out the great mystery of the shrine, but decided he wasn’t coming back.
“Ill think about it, Myriam, and let you know.”
She paid the check and left a 25 percent tip. Ramsey got up to leave and was quite surprised when she didn’t persist. Does she know me better than I know myself?
The Adam Enigma Page 2
