A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy)

by Linda Lambert

  Justine drew in a deep breath, sighed, and turned from her turbulent thoughts to the presence of a large casket sitting to the right of the altar, draped in yellow and crowned with artificial flowers. She had learned that it was intended to symbolize the body of Jesus laid to rest. More than four hundred years ago, the Spanish had unsuccessfully insisted that the Indians bury their dead in caskets. But the locals had resisted the corruption of their sacred burial ceremonies: a warm blanket was all that was needed for protection when they lowered their loved one into a shallow grave, making it easier for Mother Earth to reclaim her servant. Jesus’ casket was the only one on the Pueblo. For the peoples of the pueblos, Jesus was a Western individualist; after all, he saved people one at a time, not the clan or the community. Catholicism had insinuated itself into the culture, but had not displaced their deeply held beliefs.

  The young priest spoke to the congregation gently, bound to his message of sin, yet reaching for hope, determined not to dampen the spirit of the day. “Let me remind us that God is good,” he said. “He wants the best for us, his children.” The cloaked man, his glasses reflecting candle light, paused, permitting his eyes to survey the seemingly attentive audience. “Yet we cannot deny that this is a sinful world—we see it everywhere. We are all sinners, sins for which we atone as we pray together today, ask forgiveness, and promise to live the good life. Let us pray.”

  Adults and children alike received his familiar, yet sorrowful, message without reaction. They prayed, sang, rose and sat down, rose and sat down. Justine detected no significant shifts in facial expressions, and wondered if they were reflecting on their own sins—whatever they might be. Or perhaps they simply came for ritual and music and a sacred place for their own private prayers. For her, it was a familiar story, heard often in the churches of Europe where she attended with her grandmother. Raising his voice in gratitude and exaltation, the young priest concluded by asking for guidance for President Obama and thanking God for the return of Blue Lake to its original people.

  The double doors to the rear of the church opened noisily with the fanfare of arriving royalty. Five Indian men in full regalia, including feathered headdresses, entered the back of the church grasping drums bound in elk hide. Chanting and dancing, they moved in undulating rhythm to the front and took their assigned places alongside the priest, continuing their performance. Justine felt an energizing shift in the mood and attentiveness among parishioners as her own body moved in concert. Ancient cultures side by side, Indians sharing the stage with the Hebrew disciple, and the priest of the Abrahamic religion. She watched the feet of a young girl swing to the irresistible rhythms.

  Justine had encountered the integration of native and Catholic beliefs before—of nature and spirits and the white man’s universal abstract god—all well orchestrated. Since 1540, when Capitan Alvarado rode into Taos Valley, peoples who lived alongside one another had come to terms with the discrepancies between the two faiths. Whatever beliefs could not be integrated were often ignored. Plurality—practicing two faiths alongside each other—didn’t seem to concern the Taos peoples. For a few, it was troublesome; for most, it was just the way things were. Similar motifs and metaphors animate all religions, Justine understood well, providing common ground for understanding nature, life everlasting, and one’s relationship to the gods.

  At this moment, in response to the priest’s invitation, parishioners lined up between the pews to receive communion, the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ. The patient line progressed slowly toward this transmutation, heat from the morning sun radiating intensely through the pale blue windows, drawing soft halos around the heads of those who waited.

  A young girl of about seven, with blue-black braids and large ebony eyes, watched Justine, smiling broadly when their eyes met. Justine wondered if the little girl, or adults for that matter, understood this ritual. She bowed slightly to the girl who could barely stop herself from breaking into a spontaneous giggle at the tall stranger. The woman and girl, a generation apart, felt like co-conspirators when they looked up into the grandmother’s gentle, amused face.

  Several lively young men moved with dispatch to the front of the church and proceeded to dismantle the altar, removing statues, candelabras and cloths from the tables and handing Saint Jerome, Jesus, Mary, the Indian girl, and other saints of blurred identity into the arms of the waiting women and children. Scrambling onto the now empty table, the men reached for the nearly five-foot tall statue of the Virgin, carefully lowering her to other men who stood her erect on a homemade platform with four handles.

  A parade was forming. Justine filed into line behind the towering Virgin as it wound out the church gate and circled the grounds of the thousand-year-old pueblo. Others standing in the open plaza joined the parade as it moved sinuously through the plaza, the numbers growing into the hundreds.

  Justine felt welcome, although separate and apart, a conflicted feeling she frequently experienced in cultures other than her own. Part of her wanted to overcome this strange feeling of separateness, although it served her well in her observational role as anthropologist. Swept along by the mounting energy and press of Indians and Anglos alike, she knew she would not be separate today.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE SKY WAS INDIGO BY THE TIME Justine’s feet traversed the path leading home. Fortunately, she had left the house lights on or she might have overshot the turn, ending up in the ditch that bordered highway 110. In spite of the cooling night, her skin radiated the warmth of a stinging sunburn, for the brim of her new lavender bonnet hadn’t adequately shaded her neck and shoulders during the parade and speeches at the pueblo. Her thoughts were elsewhere now. In Egypt, after finding the diary of the Virgin Mary, she came to know her thoughts—her persona. Now, halfway around the earth, Justine marched in the pueblo parade, the Virgin Mary again leading her. It was as though Queen Isabella of Spain had orchestrated history from that medieval tent in the ancient village of Santa Fe just beyond the Alhambra. Without the conversation she’d had with the young upstart Christopher Columbus, and her sponsorship of his exploits, Taos would be quite different today. The Queen’s goals, piety and spreading the gospel; Columbus’ goals, adventure and riches. The Blessed Mary—decked out in luscious fall colors—would not have ridden high at the head of the parade. She wondered how Mother Earth would have been represented if the Taos peoples had their way?

  The irony amused her—the invention and reinvention of the Virgin. But that was not her reason for being in Taos. For moving to Taos. It was D. H. Lawrence who drove her passions for discovery. Who was he and what had he found here? But Lawrence would have to wait. Today she would return to the pueblo.

  That night she slept well, waking at the first glimmer of light, meeting the day with a warm sense of pleasure that spread through her limbs. Languishing across her comfy bed, her taffy hair flowing across multiple pillows, Justine explored the prism of color moving across the ceiling of vigas and timber. A sense of calm washed over her. I’m in my element here, she mused, a Petri dish for a cultural anthropologist . . . a climate and terrain to please the senses—what more could I want?

  Justine parked and walked some distance into the vast, open pueblo plaza where tan canvas covers spread over aspen poles offered protection from the sun. The recently erected traditional grandstand in front of the five-story pueblo was crowded with council and government leaders, guests and visitors. She settled into her green-striped lawn chair under the eastern lean-to and withdrew her water bottle and writing materials for a second unforgettable day.

  Guest speakers filed onto the podium to explain their commendable roles in the efforts to secure the return of their treasured lands. Regional governors and legislators, assistants to President Nixon, senators, the assistant director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and children of legendary leaders of the past spoke passionately and proudly of the struggle. These long and often discouraging years of Indian solidarity had brought confidence to the Taos.

  Pueblo
Governor Lujan was introduced by the only woman on the stage, apparently the facilitator of the day’s festivities. As she stepped forward, the middle aged Indian woman with a sculpted, stilled expression deftly moved the microphone to her mouth for a crisp introduction. The governor spoke eloquently of the fierce fight against all odds, sixty-seven years of persistence. “We can all identify with the need to protect that which gives us meaning, to preserve the precious cycle of life,” he said. Hundreds of on-lookers nodded solemnly.

  Then the governor spoke briefly and lovingly of his grandfather, Tony Luhan, who had married a white woman named Mabel Dodge. The tribe had opposed the match, but Mabel had brought in outsiders who retold the story of the Indians who helped save their land and dignity. Today, Tony was forgiven for his violation of tribal law. Justine listened with intense interest since she knew that Mabel could help lead her to Lawrence, for it was Mabel who had brought him and his wife Frieda to Taos in the early 20s.

  Justine removed her denim jacket, for the morning chill was quickly giving way to rising temperatures. The powder blue sky would soon be washed into a glare of white light, reminding her of the vast, cloudless skies of Egypt. Whether blanketing the Nile or the sprawling Sahara, no boundary line separated land and sky. She glanced up to find eight drummers in red and gold Indian blankets, eagle-feathered headdresses, and beaded moccasins moving into the enormous plaza of packed soil in front of the grandstand. When the Friendship Dance was announced, the drummers created a rhythm that permeated the warm, dry air and reverberated in the pulsing bodies of onlookers. As though on cue, residents and visitors alike joined together in an ever-widening circle in the center, holding hands and moving slowly clockwise in time with the drumming. Without hesitation, Justine donned her khaki hat and joined the dancers, moving in time to throbbing drums, a sense of palpable unity flooding through her agile body. The circle grew larger and larger; eventually, hundreds danced. Indians and Anglos holding hands, swaying to the drumbeat, faces upturned to the sun.

  Suddenly, Justine felt it was twilight and could again feel Amir’s arm encircle her waist as they danced at the edge of the pool at Cairo’s Marriott. They were the only dancers, or perhaps it just felt as though they were, floating there above the shimmering azure pool, enveloped by the dark indigo sky, the orchestra violins casting a magical spell that penetrated her warm body. Amir in his white dinner jacket—that lock of ebony hair curling across his forehead.

  She was not aware that the drumming had stopped, but felt the stillness in the moist skin still clasping her hands. Then her hands emptied, the dancers turning to return to their original places, if not their original roles. Justine knew only too well that people who dance together subtly alter their identities as well as their relationships. She had been changed by many dances, but never more than the one with the man she had known in Egypt, then loved in Italy. She smiled at the young man in ragged western dress at her side, an expression of mild confusion turning to pleasure on his bronze face.

  By 2:00, the announcers invited the crowd to follow young guides to homes spread throughout the pueblo for lunch. Justine left her chair and jacket, grabbed her backpack, and accompanied several visitors as they crossed a bridge over the Rio Pueblo and walked among the red willow trees to homes where tables and chairs had been set in the shade. On this side of the river, just beyond the original pueblo, families were allowed running water, electricity, and indoor plumbing—not so in the pueblo itself, kept sacred in its original state.

  Justine heard a low whistle coming from the cluster of trees, the kind of whistle that was not unfamiliar. She turned to observe three young boys staring at her, one taller than the others, muscular, with deep auburn hair pulled back into a long braid, and a half smile that was more of a smirk. As she stared in their direction, the whistle became a laugh, low and guttural, sinister. She trembled slightly and shook her head, trying to dispel images of her sexual assault on a Cairo street racing through her mind.

  She quickly turned back to join the line winding among tables, bicycles, plastic toys, and sketchy lawns into the back door of a kitchen where several women endured the sweltering heat from huge pans of simmering brisket of beef, corn and squash calabacitas, beans, and corn pudding. Pots of red chile. Chopped vegetables and large slabs of warm Indian bread stood in baskets on a side table with plastic ware and napkins, near a table of water, sodas, lemonade and coffee.

  “I’m Justine Jenner.” She smiled warmly at two Indian women seated across from her at the picnic table. She reached for their welcoming hands. The women introduced themselves as Lucinda and Martha. “I’m honored to be invited into your homes,” Justine said. “I knew so little about the Blue Lake struggle.”

  Lucinda smiled in gratitude. “We do this a lot,” she said. “We cook for special occasions and invite visitors. San Geronimo Day. Christmas. On All Saints Day we cook for our Spanish neighbors and our dead. It’s what we do.”

  “Yet today is different?” probed Justine. “A 40th anniversary.”

  “Yes. Different,” agreed Martha. “We celebrate the Blue Lake Return every ten years. My grandfather was governor in 1970. He went to Washington to accept the signing pen from President Nixon.” She ripped her Indian bread in half and folded it to scoop up some beans. Her pupils expanded and a soft blush of light pink appeared on her tan temples. An undeniable expression of pride.

  “You must be very proud,” said Justine, copying Martha, scooping her own beans with the Indian bread.

  Martha just nodded, humility preferable to pride.

  “Tell me about the person who was today’s facilitator . . . is it common to have a woman in such an important role?”

  “This is the highest role ever given to a woman here,” said Lucinda. “Suzanne is very accomplished. Contributes a lot to our people. She worked in a health project in Tucson, then came back home.”

  “We’re happy she did,” continued Lucinda, more open with her feelings than her neighbor. “She inspires us, pushes us really. Her role in the ceremonies is unusual because women usually have no opportunity to lead our people, unlike some other pueblos. Many of us are unhappy. We want more for our daughters.”

  Martha gave her friend an almost indistinguishable glance of disapproval.

  Lucinda challenged her friend. “Well, why send our girls to college if we can’t expect them to come back and be leaders in our community? Do you want them to move to Albuquerque, like Georgia’s daughter?” She glanced around and fell silent.

  Justine asked herself if such criticism could bring reprisal. “Tell me about the corn and squash dish,” she said, poking at the dish in question. “It’s so delicious!”

  Lucinda let her grin linger, admiration swept across her face. “It’s called ‘calabacitas,’ one of our favorites. Just fry up the onions and add chopped squash, corn and cheese—lots of it. An old Anasazi recipe.”

  “Anasazi?” asked Justine. “Weren’t the ancient peoples from Chaco and Mesa Verde called Anasazi?”

  “A part of the Great Migrations, hundreds of years ago. The desert grasses dried up, water was scarce,” offered Lucinda, her voice dropping as she saw a tall man approach and stand near Justine’s shoulder.

  “Dr. Jenner?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, staring into the sun at the darkened outline of a towering man with full hair and deeply tanned skin, both hands grasping the brim of a western style hat.

  “May I have a few words with you?” he asked without formalities, apologizing for the interruption. The two Indian women grew silent, their shoulders stiffened.

  Justine rose, excused herself, deposited her dishes on a nearby tray, and followed the man she barely recognized as Mike Sandoval from his photo on the New Mexico Office of Archaeology website. His brown eyes flickered with life, an animated mouth giving him an expression of eagerness. Ears threatening to protrude from under his longish hair. They meandered among the tables and willows back toward the Rio Pueblo.

  CHAPT
ER 3

  JUSTINE AND MIKE FOUND THE MEAGER shade of two red willows where they could hear the gurgling of the river and crowds moving back from lunch across the bridge. As they settled onto the barren ground, Justine recalled the process that had prepared her for this encounter today. Her interest in D. H. Lawrence—her obsession really—required that her time in New Mexico would not be short; after all, she was in pursuit of an eighty-five year old mystery—for Lawrence had left Taos in 1925.

  She would need a job. Her grandmother’s inheritance had been substantial, but it was against her principles to use it for living expenses. In response to one of her three job applications, the Director of the New Mexico Office of Archaeology had responded: “Your credentials are excellent. Although you have become a controversial player in the field, we would like to invite you to join us.” Controversial player she repeated to herself. In a way, she cherished the depiction of herself as a notorious woman. She’d had few illusions about the consequences of her actions when she had submitted what had become one of the most provocative articles of the new century to the journal, Archaeology, announcing major revelations found in the diary of the Virgin Mary.