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

by Linda Lambert

  Justine sat up and ran her finger along the long scar on her right leg, a souvenir from the Cairo earthquake. Throwing back her down comforter, she wore only a light nightgown since she had given Taya her flannel one. The morning air was very cold. She grabbed her velour robe, walked into the hallway and turned up the heat, nearly bumping into Taya coming out of the bathroom. “Good morning!” Justine said cheerfully, handing over the robe. “Did you sleep well? Are you hungry? How about some scrambled eggs?”

  Taya shook her head mournfully. “Not much,” she said, rubbing her red eyes. “Scary nightmares.”

  Justine wrapped Taya in the robe and gave her a gentle hug. She wanted to ask about the nightmares, but that could wait. “Your clothes are in the dryer so let’s get dressed and have breakfast. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Taya agreed, her voice reedy and weak, nearly inaudible. Brimming with apprehension.

  Half an hour later, they met in the kitchen. Justine sipping her coffee, stirring the eggs.

  “May I have some?” Taya asked.

  “Some?”

  “Coffee,” Taya clarified, sitting on the island stool.

  Justine placed a small cup of coffee, cream and sugar on the island nearby, handing Taya a teaspoon and watching as she heaped three mounds of sugar into the steaming cup. Justine carried two plates of scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast, and strawberries to the table. From the small buffet under the silver Mexican mirror, she drew out napkins and motioned Taya to join her.

  Taya picked at her eggs with her fork, as though exploring strange terrain. “I don’t eat breakfast much,” she admitted without making eye contact.

  Justine let several moments pass. “Tell me about your nightmare.”

  Taya’s eyes clouded over. “I don’t remember much. I was running after Ricardo—my boyfriend—but I couldn’t catch him and a wolf was running after me. I couldn’t breathe.”

  Justine considered the implications of such a nightmare—who was the wolf? Why was Ricardo running away? Taya clearly feared losing him. “Very frightening,” she acknowledged, reaching across the table to touch the girl’s small hand, “especially when you can’t breathe. I have nightmares too—about when I was trapped underneath a church during an earthquake.” Taya’s eyes grew large. “Tell me more about Ricardo.”

  Taya shifted her focus to the window, then returned her gaze to Justine. “I met him at school. I go to Taos Community School. Two boys were teasing me and Ricardo made them stop.”

  Justine remembered hearing that TCS was the continuation school, where kids are sent who just don’t fit in. “He protected you.”

  “He’s very nice.”

  “Do your parents approve?”

  Taya looked surprised by the question, a dark veil sinking over her face. “No. . . not now.”

  “Why not?”

  “My brother and Ricardo had a fight. He. . . uh. . . I mean Ricardo, knocked out my brother’s tooth.”

  “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Shilaw.”

  “And. . . .”

  Shilaw was all bloody. My parents are still mad. They said I couldn’t see Ricardo any more.”

  “Why did they fight?” They both stopped eating and watched each other closely. Justine sensed that this might prove a pivotal point in Taya’s fears.

  Taya grew very still, staring at her plate, as though she would find answers among the folds of her now-cold eggs.

  Justine let time pass, debating whether to back off, ease the tension in the girl’s face. “Tell me only if you want to.”

  Taya looked terrified. “I told Ricardo that I was afraid of my brother.”

  Justine took a deep breath. “Why are you afraid of your brother?”

  Taya started to cry, moving her head back and forth, refusing to speak further.

  Justine paused, watching Taya’s eyes expand with fear. “Do your parents know you are afraid of your brother? Have you told them?”

  “No, no. I can’t tell them. Shilaw said he would hurt Ricardo if I told. Besides, it’s my fault.”

  “What’s your fault?”

  “Whatever happened. . . all my fault,” she began to cry. “Shilaw is a boy. He is better than me. He’s preparing for the races.”

  Justine knew that it was not unusual for a victim, particularly a young girl to blame herself. “The races?” she decided to ask.

  “For San Geronimo Day. The races. He’s a man.”

  Justine knew of these races, but had never seen them. “I see,” she said simply. She unconsciously gulped, felt a tightening in her throat.

  “You can’t tell, Miss Justine. Please.”

  Justine smiled at her reassuringly. “Taya, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  They left for the pueblo at 9:30. Justine understood Taya’s motivation better now, her fears and sense of hopelessness. She was unsure how to approach the family.

  “Why did you come to Taos?” Taya asked as they drove past Cañon Road and the Visitor’s Center.

  “I’m sure it seems strange with my family so far away, but I came here for what seemed like two reasons to me: to take a job and to find my great grandfather, D. H. Lawrence.”

  “Who?”

  “Lawrence was a famous writer,” Justine explained. “He wrote many poems, short stories and novels—even textbooks.” She knew she would have to start at the beginning. Few young people knew of Lawrence, and the high schools seemed to avoid him. One English fellow, Mr. Shakespeare, was enough for a literary course of study. “You haven’t read any of his stories in school?”

  “I don’t think so,” Taya said. “Does he live here?”

  “No, not really. He died in France eighty years ago. His ashes are buried here. At a ranch on Lobo Mountain.”

  Taya twisted in her seat and turned toward Justine, eyes wide, mouth open. Then she started to giggle.

  “All right, smarty pants. You think I’m crazy?”

  Taya nodded. “Yes!” she laughed.

  “Well, let me tell you a little more. It’s a story told in old love letters. I found them in a secret compartment in a trunk in my grandmother’s attic in Italy. Very secret! They were written by D. H. Lawrence to my great-grandmother, Isabella. They had a child together, my grandmother Laurence.”

  Taya listened attentively. “So romantic! Sounds like a movie! But he’s not really here, Miss Justine.”

  Justine slowed for the Sunday traffic and grinned. “I know. . . .” At the stoplight in front of the Kachina Inn, they looked at each other and started to laugh. They couldn’t seem to stop. They were still giggling when they pulled into the yard of dried grasses and golden aspen, Taya’s home east of the main Pueblo plaza.

  CHAPTER 9

  JUSTINE EXPLAINED TO TAYA’S mother Sharon how the two of them had met, leaving out the assumption that the young girl was preparing to take her own life. As agreed, it was Taya who told her mother how sad she was and that she had wanted to hurt herself. That was all she would say, but it gave Justine an opening to ask, “Is there a counselor at the local clinic with whom Taya could talk?”

  Sharon’s calm doe eyes stared at Justine, appearing to understand. “I know a woman at the clinic,” Sharon said, her full mouth relaxed, “my neighbor’s cousin and a counselor. We might be able to see her this week.” She paused and gazed at her daughter, asking no further questions.

  Justine trembled at the fear in Taya’s face, the look of being cornered. The young girl sat with her shoulders slumped, looking down. She wondered whether the family would seek out a counselor, but she knew well it was not her business to intrude further into Taya’s family life. She said to Sharon, “If there is anything I can do, I would like to help. With your approval, I would enjoy seeing Taya from time to time. Perhaps we could go for a run after school sometime this week. I’ll be in Santa Fe a few days on my new job, but I’ll work it out. Would that be okay?”

  Sharon looked at her daughter who nodded slightly, then she followed Justin
e to her car. “Let’s plan to talk again soon. Please,” Sharon pleaded, her hand on Justine’s forearm. Then she turned and walked back into the house. Justine watched her go. Long burgundy-black hair flowed down to her thighs; her feet touched the earth with reverence. Justine knew that Sharon was an intuitive woman, who understood and loved her daughter. But will either of us discover why Taya fears her brother so?

  Mike had offered to pick her up and drive her to the office in Santa Fe for her first day of work on Monday. Although she would sometimes be working at sites around Taos, and often out of her home, Justine’s official office and supervisor would be in Santa Fe. As Cheyenne had suggested, she had considered getting a place in Santa Fe, but chose to be near her great grandfather’s ranch and burial site. It was nearly impossible to believe that Lawrence was only in New Mexico for about sixteen months total. When she’d read his letters to Isabella there was such a strong yearning to return to the land he called home. Justine knew she’d keep searching until she deeply understood his motivations.

  She had agreed to work as an unpaid intern, then, as the project took form, to write the grant that would pay her salary and provide the necessary overhead to the New Mexico Office of Archaeology. This could be a win-win situation, if somewhat risky for her, since there were no guarantees. She reminded herself that jobs were scarce, especially in anthropology and she was considered a risky investment.

  Justine expected Mike around 7:30. Awake before 6:00, she grabbed a cup of coffee and reread his paper on “Community.” It was nearly 7:00 when she mixed a half-cup of blueberries with Greek yogurt, eating it as she made for the shower.

  Slowly Justine returned her attention to Mike’s paper, trying to concentrate, realizing that he would be here before she was ready. The paper was well constructed and researched, she thought, forcing her attention into academia. The size of communities, he described, determined the governmental and living structures: the larger the group, the more subdivisions, the more complexity. The leadership was male, the governing council as well. Much like the Taos pueblo today. The study involved communities from the ancient Anasazi to the current Pueblo tribes, but no mention of what Lucinda referred to as the “Great Migration.” She grabbed a towel and dried herself roughly. Not her cup of tea, this paper. It served its function well, but lacked attention to the connecting fibers that anthropologists look for in community formation, especially relationships; social dynamics, especially power struggles and gender roles. No mention of women at all. In her opinion, in a paper on community, women would be front and center. But then she knew her own feminist propensities.

  Justine was especially sensitive to women’s issues. Some would even think her radical. It had sometimes gotten her into deep water, especially in Egypt. But New Mexico isn’t Egypt and she was older and wiser now. Her own father had once accused her of narcissism—but then he’d qualified his comment with, ‘If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. You came by it honestly, Honey.’ She confessed a certain degree of self-indulgence, and a tendency to evaluate events based on how they affected her. But that time is over, isn’t it? Italy changed everything. She stood talking to herself in the mirror, wrapped in the damp towel. Glancing at her watch tilted on the bathroom counter, she unwrapped the towel and lifted it to her dripping hair, rubbing furiously.

  Mike Sandoval was warm and gracious from the moment he knocked on the door, as though trying to gloss over his challenging comments on the first day they met. Since Justine could not see a car enter her driveway—no windows on the east side of the house—he waited inside until she found her jacket and turned out the lights and coffee pot. “Ready!” she said, and they walked silently to the car.

  “Has your family been in this area a long time?” Justine asked, opening the door of his ’99 Ford pickup, and placing her coat and briefcase behind the seat. She was soon to discover that one question could cause this loquacious man to talk with drama and fluidity.

  The intense morning sun penetrating the windshield cast Mike as a darkened profile without distinguishable features. “A very long time,” he began, the gravel in her driveway churning as he turned the pickup around. “My father’s family came from Mexico through El Paso in the 1800’s. They moved to the Chimayo area, to take up farming. Land was available then. Became very devout—not that he wasn’t before. A good Catholic. When the miracles started to happen, my grandfather switched from farming to carving.”

  “Miracles?” she asked.

  “The miracles of Chimayo. Quite well known. The word “Chimayo” came from a pool of water sacred to the Tewa Indians. This is a good example of what is called syncretism.”

  “The mixture of different beliefs,” she inserted. Justine listened attentively, while watching the changing view along the Rio Grande gorge, the rushing waters carving a curving path through the land. Golden cottonwoods sparkled in the sunlight, trading posts and a few local wineries appeared from time to time. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east intermittently shadowed the car from the rising sun. Thoughts of dancing landscapes—that notion that everything is interdependent—went through her mind as she listened. When one thing changes, everything changes.

  “Christian miracles and Indian magic,” Mike continued. “One and the same. Started in 1810 with the Penitents Brotherhood. It seems that a wooden cross, a crucifix, was found half buried in the earth. They tried to move it to a local church three times, but it always magically returned to its original spot. Then they got the message: there was something sacred about this place, which the Pueblo Indians had always known. One of the Brothers—Don Abeyta, as I recall, built a small shelter to house it, and that was the beginning of the legend. He was cured of something and the stories began to teach that the dirt was magic, a healing miracle.”

  “Is this the place where people go to eat the dirt?” Justine watched his profile closely. “I’ve heard of it, but doubted its existence.”

  “The same. The room is lined with crutches left behind by those who are healed. In 1816 a chapel was completed on the Chimayó site by Father Otocio, and it became a mission. Today you can buy the dirt, which miraculously replenishes itself.” His voice adopted a sarcastic tone. “One of these days we’ll drive by there on our way back from the office.”

  “So your grandfather took up carving. . . .” she encouraged.

  “Carving sacred images. He was a Santero, a carver of Saints. He was good, but not as good as my father. Dad moved his business into Taos right after World War II.” Mike fell silent.

  “But his son became a scientist, an archaeologist. A skeptic,” she challenged gently.

  “A realist.” He laughed. “Never believed in miracles myself.”

  Justine grinned to herself. “And your mother? Is that where you got those green eyes?”

  “My mother was Italian, but that is another story.” Mike barely paused before announcing the name of the working town at the end of the gorge road. “Española! I’ll tell you two conflicting stories. A fierce tornado once hit this town and did three million dollars worth of improvement.” He paused, only briefly, to ensure that she got the joke.

  She couldn’t help but laugh, yet felt a bit embarrassed for doing so.

  “. . . now the good story. Espanola is essential to northern New Mexico. A very reasonable place to live for those who can’t afford Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Taos, and Abiquiu valley. And for the many casinos you’ve no doubt noticed. More of those to come, including Buffalo Thunder, one of the largest in the country. Locals find basic government services and shopping here. No frills. A fine town with reasonable people.”

  Justine looked at the town with new appreciation. She, too, could become judgmental of a town with so little evidence of history, of aesthetic effort. A rambling Wal Mart, corner McDonalds, small cafes, Walgreens, River Rock Casino, Radio Shack, Mexican grocery stores, many, many empty and abandoned buildings. Clearly, the economy was not booming.

  They passed the Los Alamos turnoff withou
t comment, then a few miles ahead took the off ramp into Santa Fe at St. Francis. Continuing on the road as it turned into Guadalupe and passed the Railroad plaza, he turned onto Galisteo. Still listening to Mike, Justine paid little attention to the town itself this time. They parked on the west side of the building housing the archaeology offices. She looked up to read the building’s name: The Bataan Memorial Building. The former state capitol. She would have to ask him about Bataan one of these days, why the name was so ubiquitous. She gazed at Mike and nodded. She liked this man, and in spite of his prejudices and occasional rigidity, hoped to encourage him to keep an open mind. About her at least.

  CHAPTER 10

  “WHAT IS COCONUT BLISS ice cream?” she asked no one in particular. After returning from Santa Fe, Justine stood in front of the freezer chest at Cid’s, the health food store in El Prado, just north of Taos.

  “All organic, made with coconut milk and agave. My favorite is Cherry Amaretto,” said the tall man standing by her side. “They said you were looking for me?” A question wrapped in a statement.

  Justine turned to meet this slender man with sandy hair, a baseball cap, gentle blue eyes, and serene demeanor. She couldn’t help but compare his aura with the Buddhist cleric, Thich Nhat Hanh, whom she had encountered that summer in Berkeley. “Bill Haller?”

  “That’s me,” he said. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, hi. I’m very glad to finally meet you. I was told that you could help me get into the D. H. Lawrence Ranch. I understand it’s closed.”