The Devil's Bones
Page 30
“I will try,” the priest answered, shooing away a little boy who had ran up to his side and pulled on his sleeve.
“I am looking for someone, an old friend who lived here a long time ago. His name is Cirilo Rodriguez.”
The priest had warm brown eyes and perfectly cut black hair that matched his cassock. A flicker of recognition flashed across the man's face. He looked to be a few years younger than Tito. “What is your name, amigo?” A smile accompanied the question.
“Tito. Tito Cordova. I, too, spent time here as a child.”
The priest threw his head back, laughed, and then embraced Tito with a tight hug. “You have found him, my amigo. I am Cirilo.”
“No!”
“Sí!”
Tito laughed and returned the hug. Once he stood back and examined the priest's face, he could see the man his friend had grown into.
“I didn't believe you would ever come back. I thought you were surely dead. I kept a candle lit for you,” Cirilo said. “And now, here you are. Come let us get something to drink, to eat. Are you hungry?”
The children had stood and watched as the priest spoke to the stranger. They parted when they passed, arms around each other's shoulders.
“You became a priest,” Tito said.
“Sí. The nuns showed great patience with me. Especially after you left. I could never leave here, and this is the only way they would let me stay. Tell me, did you ever make it to paradise? To the place of your dreams and find your mother?”
“Ah, I am afraid she is dead. My heart would not believe it.”
“So, you had to find out for yourself. And paradise?”
“This is paradise, Cirilo. Just as I told you it was.”
The priest nodded and then smiled. They walked inside the front door of El Refugio and stopped. Nothing had seemed to change since he had left. But yet, everything did. Everything looked brighter, smaller, and warm, even though they were old.
“Are you planning on staying long?” Cirilo asked.
Tito hesitated, took in a deep breath of rich mahogany wood and the smell of almuerzo, lunch, cooking far off in the kitchen. “I have no place else to go, Padre. I was hoping to find out what happened to you. I hadn't thought about where to go from here.”
Cirilo put his hand softly on Tito's back. “Hogar agradable, Tito,” he said. “Hogar agradable.”
Welcome home, Tito. Welcome home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Larry D. Sweazy (www.larrydsweazy.com) won the WWA Spur award for Best Short Fiction in 2005, and was nominated for a Derringer award in 2007. He has published over 50 nonfiction articles and short stories, which have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; The Adventure of the Missing Detective: And 25 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories!; Boys' Life; Hard-boiled; Amazon Shorts; and other publications and anthologies. Larry is also the author of the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series (Berkley). He is a member of MWA (Mystery Writers of America), WWA (Western Writers of America), and WF (Western Fictioneers). He lives in the Midwest with his wife, Rose; two dogs, Rhodesian ridgebacks, Brodi and Sunny; and a black cat, Nigel.