Wild Penance

by Sandi Ault

  I walked out to the lobby where Rosa was doodling on her calendar/ desk blotter. Even though I thought it was probably a futile effort, I held the pink slip up and asked Rosa, “Did you take this call?”

  Rosa looked at the slip skeptically, then said, “Am I in trouble if I did?”

  “No, I just wondered if you remembered anything about the caller, Mrs. Suazo.”

  “What about her?”

  “How did she sound when she called?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she seem afraid or worried?”

  Rosa took the slip from my hand and studied it, as if the answer were there on the paper. “I don’t think so.” She handed it back to me.

  “Did she sound like the matter could be urgent?”

  “Oh, wait a minute. I remember her now,” Rosa replied. “No, she didn’t sound like anything was wrong at all. As a matter of fact, she sounded very happy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Eeeee! Did I forget to write down that she said she wanted to tell you some good news?” Rosa grabbed the pink message slip from me again and studied it. “I guess I didn’t put it on there. I’m sorry.”

  On the way to my cabin, a gnawing pain started to work in my stomach. It felt like a dull meat grinder was working its way through my midsection. By the time I was halfway home, I knew Tecolote’s prediction about not being able to ride that night was already true. I stopped at the café on the highway a few miles from my place and used the pay phone to call Roy. I asked him to relay the message to the ranger station in Peñasco so Kerry would know.

  When I finally got home, I was doubled over from the pain. I hobbled into my cabin, propped a chair against the door under the doorknob, laid my rifle and pistol on the bed, and collapsed beside them, without removing clothes or boots.

  28

  The Funeral Day

  As I drove to Father Ignacio’s funeral the next morning, I was more keenly aware than ever of the abundance of small crosses along the roadside that spoke of mortal tragedies. The highways of northern New Mexico are trimmed with ornamental remembrances of death. These memorials are usually composed of a crude wooden crux held upright by a cairn of small stones, and any of several sorts of brilliantly colored adornments: artificial flowers in electric hues, neon fake-flora funeral wreaths, ribbon banners emblazoned with Beloved Son or Love Forever in gold glitter. I have seen rosaries dangle from many of the crosses, sometimes gold chains, and Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, or other military insignia. These shrines are carefully tended. For Nuevo Mexicanos, these places are sacred, full of grief. Unlike other parts of the country, the Land of Enchantment cannot contain its sorrows and losses in neat, tidy parcels of land. Loss is everywhere. La Muerte grins from the shoulders of highways, the intersections of dirt lanes, the cattle guards across county roads.

  Driving around a curve where a cluster of crosses marked multiple calamities, I wondered if all this carnage might not be due to the wild landscape that loomed in the darkness, ready to steal back its power from those who would conquer it-on the very roads they’d made to do so. Or perhaps it was due to one of the highest per capita incidences of alcoholism in the fifty United States.

  Although I was driving more than eight thousand feet above sea level, I was less than two-thirds as high as the tallest crests of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that scaled onward to the east when I entered the wide alpine mountain valley cradled between the High Road and Trampas Peak. On the western ridge of the basin, the High Road passed through the village of Las Truchas, which means “trout,” so named because of the wealth of these fish in the mountain streams.

  Just before arriving at the village, I went by a cemetery overlooking a breathtaking vista of piñon and pine forests as far as the horizon. The graves in this campo santo were embellished with the symbols of the culture. A shiny helmet and the front half of a Harley Davidson Sportster rose, half buried, over a grave, angled toward the sky, ready for the departed to don headgear and gun it hard into the next life, popping a wheelie as he took off. Intricately carved granite crosses were draped with chains, dripping with fuchsia fabric flowers. Statuary of saints and the Blessed Virgin had artificial bouquets of impossible colors at their feet-turquoise, lime green, neon pink, and red, red, red. White picket fences, scrupulously painted and repainted-and others made of chain and poles-staked out turf for the deceased. Hand-carved cottonwood crosses, some of them nameless, others with etched appellations worn smooth by sandblasting winds, tilted blanched and weathered in tenacious weeds.

  The death of Father Ignacio created more loss, more sorrow, than the tiny community of Las Truchas could contain. The outpouring of affection from so many mourners meant that the tiny sanctuario could not hold all those who wished to attend the funeral mass, and more than a hundred people waited outside the church in the raw, frozen air, slapping the arms of their thick coats and breathing cold vapor clouds until the mass was finished. Even the large churchyard, surrounded by high adobe walls, could not accommodate the throng. Clumps of people huddled together all along the narrow dirt road through the village.

  Since I’m used to being out in the cold, it wasn’t the chill that was making me uncomfortable. It was standing for more than an hour in a pair of dress boots that looked good with my long black skirt but did my feet a disservice. That, and the wailing of Las Dolientes.

  From the thick adobe walls of the chapel the sound of their cries rose to the rim of the nave and then crept like a fog out the cracks in the mortar, around the seals of the windows and doors, bringing with it the weight of a thousand hearts suffering the ultimate sorrow.

  After the mass, Father Ximon Rivera pulled on a long, dark coat as he stepped outside with an elderly woman I presumed to be Father Ignacio’s mother. Two priests dressed in splendid vestments came out. These two waited with the mujer and watched the mourners file out, while Father Rivera followed the pallbearers with their charge to the old wooden horse-drawn wagon that served as a hearse. A group of Carmelitas brought an exquisitely embroidered white cloth and draped it over the coffin. Then the Hermanos came from the church, each carrying a rosary, and they took up positions before the cart.

  I stood just inside the dilapidated wooden gates, which sagged open from their hinges in the adobe wall. The arch above them supported the old iron church bell and was crowned with a simple white cross. The morning sun, just cresting the high mountains to the east, cast a long, blue shadow of the rood across the front of the church. As everyone filed forward on their way to the cemetery, the procession came right past me. A group of more than thirty men-mostly elders-dressed in long, black coats from another era, walked together in silence toward the road, the first three of them carrying crosses high above their heads-one a large crucifix, the polychrome figure of Christ distinctively New Mexican. Eight younger men came behind them, also dressed in antiquated dark clothes. Two led the horses, and the six pallbearers remained in formation as they had while carrying the coffin, each with one hand on the cart, the other holding a rosary. Some of them looked like they were having trouble walking. They all wore pained expressions, as if their clothes were hurting their backs. I felt the heaviness of despair in my neck and shoulders as these Hermanos trudged past me.

  Behind them came Las Carmelitas. At the front of their group, five Verónicas carried a platform bearing a bulto of Our Lady of Sorrows. In two disciplined rows behind them, Las Hermanas followed, with seven women in a cluster taking up the rear-Las Dolientes.

  Los Penitentes led the procession to the campo santo. The long, slow walk through the village seemed to take hours, the cánticos, or chants, of Los Hermanos drawing time out like molten lead, blue-gray with the heavy weight of this gruesome, incomprehensible tragedy. Periodically, the brothers halted the procession and the elderly were directed to sit in the folding chairs that had been set up along the road at each of these descansos, or resting places. Members of the family or friends of the deceased placed small crosses at
each of these spots, piling up rocks to support them. Las Carmelitas decorated each of these with white roses that had been dipped in wax, and each time flowers were laid before a crux, it raised a new rash of wailing from Las Dolientes.

  At the campo santo, the hermano mayor, the elder or leader of the brotherhood, waited respectfully until the group of priests completed their graveside ceremonies. When they were finished, he began singing in a clear, deep baritone that seemed to well up in his round chest and come out in tones the color of dark beer. He sang an alabado that repeated the phrase adiós al mundo: good-bye to this world.

  While the hermano mayor sang, Las Carmelitas came forward with three long, purple satin sashes and handed them to the younger Hermanos, who eased the coffin from the wagon, placing the sashes beneath it as they did so. They held the embroidered ends of the sashes and lowered the coffin into the ground as the banshee voices of Las Dolientes rose in an insufferable wail.

  As the hermano mayor sang the final stanza, I tried to translate in my mind from the rich, beautiful Spanish: something about being made from the earth, then about being the earth at last again. Members of the family, Los Hermanos, and Las Carmelitas came forward one at a time and sprinkled a handful of red dirt onto the coffin, the sound like rain splattering on a big drum.

  The elderly woman I had identified as Father Ignacio’s mother stayed near the grave to receive condolences, along with the rest of the family. I stood well off to the side, out of the flow of traffic, as the mourners left the campo santo. I watched the river of black coats, capes, and woolen shawls, called tápalos, until it slowed; then I looked back at the grave. The rest of the family had moved on to follow the procession, but the bereaved mother remained before the burial pit, alone but for one companion. A bent old woman was speaking to her, gesturing animatedly. Father Ignacio’s mother made a measurement with her hands, holding them shoulder-width apart. Then she put one hand five or six inches above the other, palms facing, presumably describing the size of an object. They focused intently on one another, talking back and forth, apparently working something out between them. They turned in concert and looked at me, and I saw the bent one gesture, pointing a bony finger at me. Esperanza! She saw the recognition in my face and shook her head, raising a finger to her lips, signaling me not to call out. Then she made like she was pushing me away. She repeated the motion several times, indicating I should stay back. She reached for the shoulder of the other woman and turned her away from me, directing attention back to their conversation, still gesturing with her other arm as she talked. I watched them. Were they talking about me? Why did Esperanza point at me?

  They talked for several minutes, each one taking turns listening, then talking. Every once in a while, the bruja would look up at me and make another pushing-away gesture, reminding me to stay back.

  Father Rivera’s voice interrupted my confused speculations. “Miss Wild, I see you’ve managed to brave the cold.” He tugged his long wool coat together at the collar, his breath like smoke in the chill.

  I was about to answer when the two mujeres approached.

  Father Rivera seized the opportunity. “Doña Medina, I’d like you to meet Miss Wild. She was something of an asociada of your son’s. Miss Wild is also writing about Los Hermanos, señora.” He was acting the perfect diplomat, as if we had not had the terse discussion at the end of our last meeting. I noticed that he had chosen to ignore the bruja.

  “Con mucho gusto, Señora Medina.” I extended my hand. “Lo siento for your loss. Even though I did not know your son well, I considered him a friend.”

  She was a tiny woman, as her son had been small. She was very thin and her brown skin hung from her cheekbones, her scant white hair barely visible under her black mantilla. She looked up at me and clutched my hand. “Do you know why he was killed?” Her face was full of pain.

  Startled, I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak for a moment. Then I said, “No. But I, too, want to find out. And if I do, Doña Medina, I will tell you what I learn.”

  She looked at Tecolote, then at me again. “Señorita, por favor, venga a la casa,” she said, pressing my hand with hers.

  “Oh, I couldn’t come to your house now, Doña Medina. It wouldn’t be right. I only met your son once, and we talked on the phone a few times. This is a time for you to be with your family and close friends.” I looked at Father Rivera.

  He nodded approval.

  Mrs. Medina also looked at Father Rivera. “Do you think we could have a moment together, we three women?”

  Father Rivera looked at me with consternation, then menacingly at the curandera. He gave an exasperated exhale. “Certainly. I’ll go see about the car.”

  After the father had left us, Esperanza spoke up, her eyes telegraphing in quick, black strobes. “Mirasol, you must do as the señora says. She has something for you.”

  I looked from the bruja to Mrs. Medina. “For me? But…”

  “Sí, it is something important,” Mrs. Medina said, making a loose fist and waving it between us to emphasize her point. “It is something he told me to keep safe for him. He told me…” She looked at the priest, who was only a few yards away, and stopped. She turned back to me and whispered, “Maybe you can help. At any rate, it is meant for someone else now… now that Ignacio is in heaven.” Her eyes filled with water. “Maybe it will help you find out why he was killed.” She released my hand and fumbled in the sleeve of her coat for the lace-edged handkerchief she had stuffed there.

  Father Rivera approached. “We had better go now, Señora Medina. I think they’re ready.” He led her away. As he was helping Mrs. Medina into a black car at the road, he looked back at me across the cemetery. His blue eyes transmitted either concern or disapproval, I couldn’t tell which. And his lips were pressed together so hard they looked blue, too.

  I turned around to see what Tecolote thought of this, but she was gone.

  29

  La Arca

  A large man stood like a sentry in front of the door of the Medina home. I recognized him as the driver who had come for Father Ignacio at the end of our meeting at the coffeehouse. “Señorita, you are expected,” he said as he reached for the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “You were the one who came for Father Ignacio-”

  “Sí, señorita. I have been close to you several times. You see, when Father Medina did not arrive at the school to teach his classes last week, I knew something was wrong. I tried to call you at your work, but I could not get in touch with you there, and the woman who answered said you did not have a phone. My friend Ignacio told me that he had given you some things to look for in your research, so I notified one of our Hermanas at the library to watch for anyone asking for them.”

  “So you were the one following me that day in the Lexus.”

  “Sí, señorita. I was the one. Because you had questioned Ignacio about Los Penitentes, we arranged for a group of Hermanos to examine your book-”

  “You arranged to steal my book?”

  “I am sorry. I-”

  “One of your thugs hit me hard with something and…”

  “We are so sorry for that unfortunate incident. I assure you, we did not-”

  “Why didn’t you just approach me? You knew Father Ignacio had come to trust me.”

  “When Ignacio did not come to the school to teach his classes, and no one could find him, we could not trust you or anyone else until we knew what had happened to our beloved hermano. We had to know what you were writing in that book, if you were involved-”

  “Involved! You thought I-”

  “Señorita, once we saw the book, we were satisfied that you meant the brotherhood no harm, and so we arranged to have your book returned. But we still do not know who has done this terrible thing.”

  “So, did you call the BLM a second time, pretending to be my brother?”

  “No. But we are concerned for your safety now, too. We have provided you with an ángel for your protection. He has been near you muc
h of the time.”

  “Was the angel the one pretending to be my brother?”

  “No, señorita.”

  Just then, the door opened. An immaculately dressed, darkly beautiful woman in her late forties or early fifties stood in the doorway of the Medina home. “Miss Wild?” she asked, before I could say why I had come. “I am Theresa Mendoza. I understand you knew my brother, Ignacio. My mother has something for you. Please come in.”

  People packed the main room and both of the passages leading away from it, most of them eating from foam plates filled with beans, calabacitas, posole, and torta de huevo-a deep-fried omelet with red chili-the traditional Penitente feast foods for Lent. Theresa Mendoza led me through the narrow maze of add-on adobe rooms, past the woodstove, through a mudroom off the kitchen where brown-skinned women fussed with huge pans of food, through a bedroom with two beds on which several children were sleeping, and finally to a meager space at the back of the house.

  Theresa Mendoza drew the thick, nubby Chimayo blanket across its wooden rod above the doorway. Inside the room it was cool, dark, and quiet-the space not much bigger than a closet and furnished only with a narrow, frameless bed, a rustic chest, and a crucifix on the wall. One small window faced west. We had to choreograph our movements so Theresa could get past me to the chest. She opened it and delicately extracted a large bundle, taking great care not to bump it against anything. The outside of this bundle was woven tan cloth embroidered with skulls. It was tied with ancient mecates, a painstakingly crafted horsehair rope that I had read about. Ms. Mendoza closed the chest, sat on the bed, the bundle on her lap, and nodded her head toward the place on the bed beside her.