by Joanne Pence
She nodded. “Now, if you’ll release my friend Michael, we’ll get started.”
“It is so hot, señorita,” Julio said as he crawled out from among the trees and shrubs of the hillside to the road above. “Do you not think we could drive a little closer to the hacienda?”
“We can’t chance it,” Angie said, following behind him. “And the higher we go, the less vegetation there will be to hide the jeep.”
“But it is too hot,” Julio cried as they began the long trudge up the road to the colonel’s land.
“You aren’t half as hot as I am, believe me,” Angie said. “We took a chance driving this far.”
“But señorita—”
“Julio, stuff it.”
An hour later they reached the gate to the Ortega compound. Angie could scarcely breathe from the heat.
“Are you sure?” Julio asked. He was so scared, the hand he’d placed on the bell rope shook.
“I’m sure,” she said. “Remember, you’ve got to do the talking. Your Chilean accent is one thing, but if they hear my American accent, it’s all over.”
He crossed himself. “Perhaps, señorita, we need to think of a new plan.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Angie said. She grabbed hold of the bell rope and pulled hard several times, then stepped back and bowed her head.
“Hijo de puta! Who the hell do you think you are, ringing that goddamn bell so loud?” A voice yelled from somewhere inside. “I am not deaf!” Angie understood a little Spanish, but she didn’t need a translation to get the full flavor of the guard’s words. He pulled open the wooden gate. Scowling and red-faced, he peered out at them.
“Oh!” The man’s eyes widened as he looked from Angie to Julio. “Excuse me, Father,” he said to Julio, bobbing his head respectfully, then turned to Angie. “Sister, pardon me, please. I meant no disrespect,” he murmured with a deep bow of his head.
“I am sorry to disturb you, my son,” Julio said, also speaking in Spanish, as he carefully followed Angie’s prior instructions. He pressed the pads of his fingers together, bowing his head slightly and talking in the meek yet self-assured tone of the very pious. “Sister Dominique is feeling faint. I wonder if we could trouble you for some cold water? Our canteens are nearly dry.” His voice grew stronger as he became more comfortable with his new role.
“What are you doing up here, Father?” the man asked, still incredulous at the sight before him.
“We are going up there to bless this mountain.” Julio pointed toward the top of the mountain, its craggy summit high above the gate.
“No one goes up there,” the guard said. “There is no road. The road ends here. This is private land.”
“We have no choice,” Julio said wearily.
“Why is that?” The man scowled, for the first time showing some hostility.
This isn’t going to work, Angie thought.
But she hadn’t anticipated Julio’s capacity to slip into the role of a priest. He inched closer to the guard, his voice low. “Have you ever felt the presence of evil spirits on this hill?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Be careful!” he warned with a shout. “Sister Dominique is from France, from Lourdes, where she has seen many miracles. And where, also, she has been prevented from learning Spanish, I am sorry to say.”
The guard studied Angie with renewed interest.
“Three days ago, as we prayed in our little church in Topolobampo, Sister felt something evil fly over our church. It seemed to be strangling her. We left the church to find it, to stamp it out. For three days and nights we have walked or ridden on farmers’ carts, without more than a few hours of sleep. We kept moving, driven by Sister Dominique’s vision. That is why we are so very, very tired.” Angie noticed that he said those last words with true feeling. “But she would not, could not stop.”
As the guard scrutinized Angie, Julio took a deep breath, then continued his explanation. “The evil led us to this mountain. Yesterday it was particularly strong—yesterday the evil was everywhere. I hope it did not trouble you.”
“Here?” The man looked puzzled, yet a line of worry had begun to crease his brow.
Angie handed Julio a small vial. “We have brought some holy water,” Julio said. “From Lourdes. Perhaps this house as well as the hill needs to be sanctified.”
Angie stepped up to the man. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She lifted her hand to his head and with her thumb made a cross on his forehead. Thank God she’d had the foresight to remove her nail polish, or they couldn’t have gotten past the gate. The guard’s eyes met hers. She could see he was mustering the courage to turn the two of them away, as she knew any guard worth his salt should do.
One last chance. She stared at him, opening her eyes wide, then shut them and fell to the ground.
“She has fainted! Dios! Help us!” Julio appeared to grow more hysterical by the second. “Something here must have frightened her. Sister! Wake up!” He knelt down and patted her face, but she kept her eyes shut.
“My son,” Julio implored the guard, “will you not help us? Some water? Some bread? Perhaps a moment or two out of this infernal heat.” He stood and lifted Angie in his arms, teetering slightly. “Is there anyplace I can care for her until we are ready to travel once more? Perhaps if I speak with the owner of this hacienda, tell him about this nun…this saint, tell him we are here…”
“What is all the commotion?” Another guard came running to them. “I saw that you had the gate open, Manuel. What is the problem?”
“These two,” Manuel said. “The nun fainted and the priest looks ready to pass out as well.”
“A nun fainted at the gate? That is all the colonel needs to hear.” The second guard crossed himself. “Madre mia! Come, Father. Follow me.” As Manuel locked the gate again, the second guard led them up to the main house. “Can I help you carry her?”
“No,” Julio replied. “To me, her weight is no more than a feather.”
“She is very pretty, is she not?” the guard said stepping a little closer.
“Her soul is beautiful,” Julio replied. A very noble answer—Angie had to give him credit.
“You are both young and handsome,” the guard continued. “It must be hard to treat each other like a nun and a priest all the time, hey?”
She felt Julio shift uneasily. “But we are a nun and a priest all the time.” His voice grew a bit choked. “She is a sister to me, and my heart is with God.”
“You are still a man,” the guard said knowingly.
Julio sighed. “Sometimes I have to pray very hard,” he admitted woefully.
The guard laughed, and the sound of his footsteps seemed to grow a bit lighter.
35
Angie felt herself being placed on top of a bed. Then a cool, small hand touched her forehead. She opened her eyes.
“Sister, forgive me if I woke you. We were worried about you.” The woman leaning over her was in her fifties, with a round face, black eyes, and long, graying hair pulled back and braided Indian-style. Her dress was a colorful cotton print.
“I am Sylvia, Colonel Ortega’s housekeeper.” She handed Angie a cup of cold well water. It was so pure and refreshing, Angie couldn’t help but wonder why water didn’t taste this good back home. She’d been warned about not drinking unboiled water in Mexico, but she hoped that in this case she could get away with it.
“Thank God you are awake, Sister Dominique,” Julio said from the other side of the bed. “Are you feeling better?”
Angie nodded. Julio hastened to explain to the guard and Sylvia, “The good sister can understand a little Spanish, but she is far too shy and otherworldly to attempt to converse in it.” He turned again to Angie.
“These fine people are letting us stay for a few hours until you are once again on your feet. I will be in the kitchen.” Then he stepped back. “My daughter”—he addressed Sylvia as if she were a young girl, despite the fact that she was obviously a good thirty years his senior—�
��let us allow the sister to rest.”
“I will fix her something to eat to restore her strength,” Sylvia said. “My husband, Raúl”—she gestured at the guard who had led them to the house—“has told me that the sister is a saint, brought here to save us from evil.” Sylvia’s eyes shone with faith.
“Sister Dominique is very special,” Julio said. “She will eat later. First, she must sleep. Let us leave her alone for now.”
“Of course.” Sylvia squeezed Angie’s hand and left.
As soon as their footsteps died away, Angie jumped up from the bed. She waited a moment, then stuck her head into the hallway. It was empty. She darted down it.
If anyone noticed her, she could say—in a soft-spoken, embarrassed mixture of her fluent French and limited Spanish, which would, she hoped, hide her American accent—that she was looking for the bathroom.
The hacienda appeared to be only one story, in the way of many Spanish-style homes in Mexico. After a quick search, she couldn’t find anywhere that prisoners might be held on the main floor. At the back of the house, though, she found a staircase that led down to a basement, possibly to what had been built as a wine cellar or a place to store food.
She had started to tiptoe down the stairs when, partway down, she heard men’s voices. She almost fainted with relief. Paavo and her new friends, surely! Listening hard, she concluded that their words didn’t have the intonations of Spanish, though she wasn’t sure they were speaking English, either. Still, it had to be them. And if so, very likely a guard was with them.
Somehow, she was going to have to get down into the cellar to find out for sure if the voices belonged to Paavo and the others. If she was wrong, she’d have to continue her search elsewhere. She couldn’t base her actions on assumptions.
She needed to come up with something clever. But what? Easing herself back up the stairs to the hallway, she was trying to figure out what to do next when she heard footsteps approaching. She flung herself to her knees in front of a window, bowing her head against the sill as if in prayer.
“Sister!” Julio cried. “Here you are.”
She glanced at him and shook her head, wanting him to leave her alone to go on with her investigation.
“What is wrong?” The guard, Raúl, stepped up to her from behind Julio.
Damn! Angie thought, her eyes begging Julio to get rid of the guard.
“Something is wrong with the house,” Julio said. “We must sanctify it. Pray over it. I think you should leave us here alone so we can concentrate.”
“But I told you,” Raúl protested, “I have orders to bring you both to the colonel. He is asking for you. Colonel Ortega is a very important man. And a religious man. He wants to meet you both.”
There wasn’t anything they could do but agree.
“As you wish,” Julio said. “Come, Sister.” He helped Angie to her feet and she walked heavily forward, leaning on him as if still very ill.
The two were led into a massive game room where Ortega was playing billiards. He put down the cue as they entered.
“Ah! You do me great honor,” he said, walking to their side. He shook Julio’s hand and beamed when Angie clasped his hand in both of hers. “I understand you are on a pilgrimage of some kind.”
“Yes, to bless this mountain,” Julio said.
“Does she not speak?” the colonel whispered to Julio.
“She speaks very little. She is from France, so her Spanish is poor.”
Ortega nodded, studying Angie. He turned to Julio once more. “Why do you want to bless the mountain?”
“Three days ago, Sister had a vision. It led us to this place.”
“A vision? Of what?” Ortega asked. “Not that I believe in such things, Father.”
“I am afraid Sister Dominique’s words did not make any sense to me,” Julio said. “She talked about an evil one. A man or woman who carried a magic elixir that would do great harm. Many people on this hill will die because of that elixir.”
“She said that?” Ortega put his cigar down, his eyes widening.
“Yes. It is crazy talk, but she was so certain, she alarmed me. So we came. Forgive us for bothering you. We will leave as soon as she is strong enough to walk.”
“Wait,” the colonel demanded. “Do not be so hasty.”
“But we have seen your home here,” Julio said. “It is very nice. Very beautiful. I am sure there is nothing evil here. I must not have understood Sister Dominique correctly.”
“No!” Angie shouted, causing both Ortega and Julio to jump.
“I am sorry, Colonel Ortega,” Julio said quickly. “Sometimes she gets very emotional. She is a saint. What can I say? We will leave you. I am sorry we bothered you.”
Ortega clutched Julio’s arm. “Stop, please,” he implored. “If Sister Dominique says she must drive out devils, I will not dispute that. My mountain is your mountain. You must spend the night here.”
“You are too kind,” Julio said. “But we should, perhaps, leave tonight.”
“It will be dark before you get very far,” the colonel warned.
“We will join you for dinner, then,” Julio said. “But afterward, we will be leaving.”
“I demand that you stay!” Ortega insisted, growing a little testy. Almost immediately he seemed to realize that it might not be smart to demand anything of these two, and so he smiled and opened his arms wide. “Please, Father, Sister. This evil she speaks of worries me. Bless my house. It is all I ask.”
Angie gestured for Julio to bow his head close to hers so that she could whisper to him.
As Ortega watched them, the line of his jaw grew increasingly belligerent. “What does she say?”
“Nothing,” Julio said, clearly lying. “I believe we need to leave right after dinner. She will be all right.”
“Leave? Why? What is wrong?”
“Nothing. She is confused.” Julio took Angie’s arm and turned toward the door. “Nothing at all.”
“Tell me!” Ortega drew his gun. Julio paled, and Angie grabbed his arm, the two of them staring wide-eyed at the colonel.
“She—” Julio cleared his throat. “She said that all of you are dead men. That forces of darkness surround you.”
Angie crossed herself and then, thankful she’d learned some prayers in Latin years ago, clasped her hands, bowed her head, and began to drone softly. “Sancta Maria, mater Dei…”
“Why is she doing that? Stop her!” Colonel Ortega yelled. “There is no problem here.”
“Ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc…”
“She feels it is not safe,” Julio said. “Something is amiss here. You must do what you can to change your destiny. Man has free will. He should use it to be safe, to do good deeds, to not harm innocents.”
“Et in hora mortis nostrae…”
Colonel Ortega’s face reddened as he looked from one to the other and the meaning of the prayer became clear. “Get out of my sight! But do not leave this house!”
“Amen.”
Julio and Angie hurried from the room and down the hall to the kitchen. “I heard voices in the basement,” she whispered to him. “It sounded as if they were speaking English, but I’m not sure.”
“That must be where they were put,” Julio said. “I have looked all around the main floor and out in the garden. I do not see anyplace else where they could hide so many people. This is too dangerous for us to handle. If you heard them, they are still alive. We need to get the police—somehow convince them to help us.”
“Sure. They’ll come here and ask the colonel if he’s holding any foreigners prisoner. You think he’ll confess? Be reasonable.”
“But we cannot stay,” Julio whined. “You heard Ortega. He is crazy.”
“But he’s also, in his primitive way, a believer, and we’ve rattled him. Time for Plan B.”
“Ah! Plan B. Good,” he cried. “I hope it works better than Plan A.”
“Thanks for your confidence.”
Julio went
off to look around the hacienda while Angie hurried toward the kitchen. She heard someone walking around in it.
Holding her hand to her heart and curving her shoulders as if she had a lung condition, she stumbled through the door.
“Sister!” cried Sylvia, who was bent over the stove, stirring something in a kettle. “You should be lying down. You do not look well.”
“I must help,” Angie said in her broken French-Spanish. She glanced over the kitchen quickly, then at the pot of beans Sylvia was cooking. She stirred them a moment, then tasted one. They would do, perfectly.
Then Angie turned back to Sylvia, patting her on the shoulder and then motioning for her to sit down at the table. She did, looking confused. Angie poured a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker on the counter and carried it to Sylvia, then looked around the kitchen until she found some crispy, sweet buñuelos. She took two to Sylvia, then sat beside her with a smile.
“Oh, Sister, you are so kind,” Sylvia said, stunned. Then, to Angie’s surprise, the woman’s eyes grew misty. “I work hard here and get so tired, and nobody appreciates…or notices…”
Taken aback, Angie squeezed the woman’s hands and smiled at her. Then she went to the cupboards, pulling out spices she’d need.
“But…but…” Sylvia stood up. Angie understood the look on her face, the offended look of a cook who’s just had someone take over her kitchen uninvited.
“Está bien,” Angie said as she began to season the beans to make a pot of chili. She knew it was basically an American southwestern food that had found its way over the border to Mexico’s northern states. But perhaps this far south, it’d seem special.
As Angie cooked, Julio came into the kitchen. Seeing the tortured expression on Sylvia’s face, he began to work his considerable charm on the woman, keeping her out of Angie’s way. Angie brought him a cup of coffee and buñuelos, as she had Sylvia. His gaze warmed upon her, for just a moment, in a most unpriestly way.
After nearly a quarter hour of inconsequential chatter with Sylvia, he said, “My daughter, I fear there is much evil here. You see how weak Sister Dominique is growing? It is killing her. She is trying to fight it, but she cannot.”
