by Jory Sherman
“You do not like it here,” Luz said. “You are away from your people.”
“I do not like it here. My people are all dead.”
“Sometimes I think this is a place for the dead,” Luz said. “It is far away from my own people.”
“You have a house and land,” Dawn said.
“An empty wild land. An empty house much of the time.”
“I was happy in the mountains.”
“Why? What did you have there?”
“We had nothing. We had hunger. We had each other to share that hunger.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Dawn asked.
“Yes. The house is big and I have no cousins or aunts with me. I have no grandmother or grandfather.”
“They are all dead?”
“I do not know. They are in Mexico, perhaps.”
“I would not complain if I were you,” Dawn said. There was no rancor or admonition in her voice.
Luz turned her head to study the room. Her gaze fell on the rune stone leaning against the wall and lingered there for a moment, then shifted to take in the bare walls and dirt floor, the spartan furniture, the bed mats, the few visible cooking utensils.
“We do not have much, as you can see,” Dawn said, without defensiveness in her tone.
“Would you like to spend more time in my house? With me and my baby? We could talk, drink tea, and sew clothes for our little boys.”
“Miguel says I must stay here.”
“Not all the time.”
“No. He did not say that.”
“Why do you not come with me to my house and I will show you how we live? I have some clothes that should fit you, if you would accept them.”
“Charity.”
“No, not charity, Dawn, little gifts of things I have no use for.”
“I have shame,” Dawn said.
“But why?”
“I have shame that I do not speak Spanish as well as you. I do not know the tongue very well.”
“You speak well enough, I think.”
Dawn lowered her head. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Do not have shame about yourself or the way you speak. I can teach you. I am alone in the house. I have no companions.”
“You have a maid, do you not?”
“Yes, but she is dumb and sullen. I do not like her.”
“Perhaps you will not like me.”
“I like you. I want to see more of your baby. Perhaps our sons could grow up together, learn together.”
“You and I are so far apart. I mean to say, our places in the world are different.”
“Yes, but that need not be. I would take you in my home during the day and you could be with your husband at night.” Luz’s glance swept the room again, and once more she stared at the strange stone for several moments. “If you do not like it there, you can always go out the door and stay here.”
Dawn drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She, too, looked around the barren room, and the walls seemed to close in on her, shrinking the room to an even smaller size. Sometimes, she admitted to herself, she felt trapped in this little house. Here, she could not see the sky, nor smell the trees, nor hear the birds call clearly, could not see the green land or feel close to it as she once did.
“Perhaps I could go with you and stay awhile this day.”
“And any other day you wish,” Dawn said.
“Good. I will go with you now, then?”
“Yes. That would please me.”
Luz stood up. Again she looked at the stone. This time, she walked closer to study it, cradling her baby in her arms.
“Where did you get this stone?” she asked Dawn.
“My husband found it in the brasada. Why do you ask?”
“Those markings on it. My husband has a piece of stone with similar cuts in it. He keeps it in a little box.”
“What does he say of it?”
“Only that it is very old and may have been brought here by the conquistadores, the Spanish conquerors, a long time ago. But a man told him that it was made by a tribe that no longer is, the Tegua. Indians. He found it over by El Paso where there are many such drawings on large stones. It is a mystery, I think.”
“I do not like that stone in my house,” Dawn said.
“Why?”
“I think it has curses written on it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“The old people of my tribe speak of those ancient ones who were here before and who left the earth because it was a bad place. They say that these ancient ones left curses behind.”
“Matteo thinks it is just a code used by the conquistadores. He thinks it may be a map to where gold is hidden.”
Dawn got up from her chair and stood next to Luz, looking down at the leaning stone. “I will tell Miguel this when he returns,” she said. “Perhaps it is a map.”
“It is nothing for which you must have fear,” Luz said.
“No. I just do not like it. It does not belong in this room, in this house.”
Luz laughed. “You have reason,” she said, and Dawn laughed, too.
“Come,” Luz said. “Let us go to my house and we will look at clothes and some other things I have which I do not need. I want to hear about your people and, if you wish, I can tell you about mine.”
“It is good to talk about our people,” Dawn said.
“Yes,” Luz said, her voice slightly off-key, “for we may never see them again.”
For a moment, Dawn hesitated. Luz sounded so sad when she said that about their people, and it brought back dim memories of her own people, those she knew before she was captured and taken away from them. She did not like to feel sad. But then she realized that she and Luz were not so very different, after all. They were women, with newborn sons, and they were married to men who were puzzling to live with, and they were both lost from their parents and the people they had loved once a long time ago.
Dawn followed Luz outside the casita and felt the warm breeze of afternoon, felt the wind build as it always did when the sun began to fall away to the west, and she felt suddenly alive and freed from that dark, dirty room and that old stone leaning against the wall.
“I am happy you are coming with me,” Luz said, turning to Dawn. She smiled.
“Yes, I am happy, too,” Dawn said, and there was a springiness in her step and she pulled the light covering over Juan’s head to shield him from the sunlight. She felt like dancing as she walked next to Luz toward the big house with its pretty shade trees all around, so green-leafed and friendly in the heat of the burning day.
13
PEEBO SAW ANSON steal away from the people who had stayed after the funeral, and he broke off a conversation with Al Oltman to go after him. Martin was surrounded by people as he stood under a live oak tree holding a drink in his hand. Ken Richman, Doc Purvis, his niece Lorene Sisler, and a girl whose name Peebo did not know, were trying to comfort the elder Baron in his grief.
“Where you goin’, Anson? That girl, Lorene, has been askin’ about you.”
“I’ll be back. There’s something I want to check.”
“What?”
“Nothin’. Go on back and drink some wine.”
“Damn it, Anson, don’t brush me off. I seen that gal look at you and you hardly paid her any mind.”
“I don’t have time for sparkin’, Peebo. Now go on.”
“I’m comin’ with you, old son.”
“Fine, suit yourself.”
Neither of them noticed when Lorene turned around just in time to see them leave the assemblage. She slowly drifted away from her uncle and the others, then changed course and began to follow Peebo and Anson at a discreet distance.
“‘Curiosity killed the cat,’” she chided herself, then smiled at the thrill of what she was doing.
She stepped casually through the crowd, every muscle in her legs quivering, her stomach fluttering with the tickling sensation of small beating wings. Her
throat constricted with apprehension and an invisible lump seemed caught in her larynx so that she began to breathe with difficulty.
No one noticed that Anson and Peebo had left, nor had anyone seen Lorene evaporate as she drifted out of sight.
The three Mexicans looked up as they saw Anson and Peebo walk toward the fringe of trees bordering the small cemetery. Anson did not acknowledge them, nor did Peebo, and the men went back to work, filling the grave with dirt from the diminishing mound a few feet away. Moments later Anson and Peebo disappeared from view. Then they saw the American girl following after the two young men. They said nothing, at first, but shook their heads in wonder at the strangeness of “los gringos locos,” an epithet they muttered as the girl passed on by and vanished in the clump of trees.
* * *
“What in hell did you come way out here for?” Peebo asked.
Anson stopped, looked up into the leaves and branches of the big oak tree. He circled the tree, staring upward.
“You aim to squirrel-hunt?” Peebo asked, as he stood there watching the odd antics of his friend.
“I had the feeling somebody was over here during the funeral ceremonies,” Anson said. “Watching us from this tree.”
“Well, son, they ain’t nobody up there. Probably never was.”
Anson circled the tree, looked down at the ground around it, careful where he stepped. He did this twice, as Peebo looked on in puzzlement and scratched the back of his head as if viewing a creature gone suddenly mad.
“Aahh,” Anson breathed, and stopped his pacing. He knelt down and with a delicate stroke of his index finger, pushed aside a twig and a tablespoon-sized mound of dirt. He pinched some of the dirt between two fingers.
“You like playin’ in the dirt, son?” Peebo asked.
“Well, Peebo, this dirt is damp. It hasn’t yet been warmed by the sun. It didn’t pile up here all by itself.”
Peebo walked closer, bent down to take a closer look.
“See?” Anson said, pointing to the dry dirt next to the small mound he had disturbed. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to cover up a footprint.”
“It ain’t no deer scrape, that’s for sure.”
Anson stood up, looked at the bark on the oak tree. He pointed to a bare spot where a chunk of bark once had been. “And that ain’t no deer rub, either.”
Peebo examined the tree where the bark had come off. “Nope, you’re right. Looks to me like somebody climbed that tree.”
“Right recent, I’d say.”
“Son, you’ve got a keen eye.”
Anson stepped away from the tree, began looking down at the ground again. He stepped very slowly and carefully along an imaginary line, scanning each parcel of ground, taking in sections three or four feet wide along the path he walked. Peebo saw what he was doing and followed him on another tack, bent over like a prospector searching for a hidden vein of ore on a surface of solid rock.
“Why are you walkin’ this way, Anson?” Peebo asked.
“Whoever was here, probably kept that tree between him and the graveyard. Seems likely this’d be the direction he’d come.”
“Got any idea who?”
“Not yet.” Then Anson stopped and squatted. He stirred a patch of earth with his finger, moving aside dirt and leaves and twigs. Soon a bare spot appeared and Anson cleaned the debris away until a clear image emerged underneath. Peebo was still walking aimlessly along just ahead when he realized Anson was no longer beside him. He turned and Anson looked up, caught Peebo’s eye.
“You find something?” Peebo asked.
“Come take a look.”
Peebo walked back to the place where Anson was squatting. He knelt down and looked at the spot Anson had cleared.
“Moccasin track?” Peebo said.
“Clear as day.”
“Damn, but you got a tracker’s eye.”
Just then, both heard a branch crack. The two men stiffened and looked back down through the trees along the way they had come.
“Don’t you just wish we had strapped on our pistols?” Peebo whispered.
“Shhh,” Anson said, holding a finger to his lips.
It was very quiet for several moments, then they both heard a rustle of leaves.
Anson reached over and put his hand on Peebo’s back, forcing him even lower to the ground. Then Anson stretched out to diminish his own silhouette.
Peebo eased himself forward until he, too, lay flat on the ground. They waited, listening. They heard nothing more for several seconds, then a sound made them both stiffen. Then they heard more sounds: the scrape of a shoe across leaves, the rustle of twigs, the faint clack of small pebbles, then distinct footfalls.
Anson peered along his line of sight as if he were looking down the rounded blue top of a gunbarrel. He saw a flash of something dark, then heard a small tearing sound, followed by a muffled exclamation, a cry just above a whisper.
Peebo heard, too, and strained his eyes to see what was moving toward them.
Lorene stepped out from behind a tree into full view, a look of bewilderment on her face. She bent down to brush something from her dress. One of the sleeves of her black blouse was torn, dangled like a fragment of tattered crepe bunting from her arm.
Anson cursed under his breath and pushed himself off the ground. Peebo blinked owlishly and slowly got up. Anson stood his ground and called out to Lorene.
“Hey.”
“I get it,” Peebo said. “Now I know why you didn’t want me to come with you.”
Anson turned to look at Peebo. “Huh?”
“You don’t need to hit me over the head, son. I’ll go on back. You and Lorene have your fun.”
Anson spluttered a protest that never made the transition into coherent language as Peebo strode on past him. He watched as Peebo nodded to Lorene and disappeared. Lorene turned her head to watch him go, then looked again at Anson.
“What in hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“I—I followed you. Wondered where you were going. Now, I—I’m lost.”
“You aren’t lost. Go catch up with Peebo and go on back to the house.”
A moment before, Anson had heard Peebo crashing through the woods, trampling the brush, but now there was only silence. Lorene appeared bewildered and stood there in confusion.
“He’s gone,” she said.
Anson shook his head in disgust and hesitated. He rubbed his chin as if trying to decide what to do next. Lorene started walking toward him as if in a trance, stepping carefully, with all the hesitancy of a doe stealing through the woods.
“What are you doing way out here?” she asked.
“Nothin’,” he said.
“Nothing?”
“I’m lookin’ for something. You better find your way back to the house.”
“Anson, I—I’m lost. I don’t think I can find my way back there.”
She looked around her, cringing as if afraid.
“That damned Peebo,” Anson said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Is everything nothing to you?”
“Huh?”
“Well, you said you’re doing nothing out here and then you said something and I asked what you said and you said ‘nothing.’”
“Lorene, you shouldn’t have come out here. You don’t know what’s in these woods.”
“You’re here,” she said, as she came near and Anson became aware of a strange feeling coming over him. He could smell her faint perfume, like lilacs, he thought, or honeysuckle, but unlike anything he had ever smelled before.
“I belong here. You don’t.”
She smiled, stepped close to him, and began brushing the dirt from the front of his shirt. “You got yourself all dirty, and you looked so nice at your mother’s funeral.”
Anson felt his throat swell and clog up with a lump as her hands thrummed at his chest like the beating wings of a bird. He had never been this close to a woman his own age before, never so near a
young, beautiful woman such as she, and he felt his nerves give way and turn to tatters.
“I hope you haven’t ruined this shirt. It’s going to need a good wash and a good ironing.”
“Lorene,” Anson croaked.
She stopped brushing him off but did not move away. Instead, she looked up into his dark eyes and smiled. “I like the way you say my name,” she said. “You’ve got a husk in your voice.”
“Christ.”
“Oh, you musn’t swear. Especially in front of a lady.”
“No’m.”
“I forgive you.” Her voice was like a soft song in his ear, a croon that left him limp all over, helpless.
“Are you going to go back?” he asked, now that he had found what was left of his voice.
“Can’t I go with you? It’s so sad and awkward back at your house. And I really don’t know your father all that well. My uncle says he’s stricken with grief and you must be, too.”
“I got me something to do,” he said, and started to step back from the closeness of her.
“Oh, I won’t get in your way, Anson. I’ll just keep you company.”
“I don’t need no company.”
“I won’t say a word,” she said, and there was a twinkle of merriment in her eyes. “Please don’t send me back there. Let me stay with you. I’m dying to know you better, Anson.”
Anson stifled a curse and gulped in a deep breath. Exasperated, he shook his head and slumped his shoulders in surrender. Her skin was so soft, her touch so delicate, yet he could feel her hands through his shirt as if she had burned his skin when she was brushing him off and now, even though she was farther away than before, he felt enclosed by her, trapped by her in some invisible web of desire.
“All right, I guess. You can come along with me, but keep quiet and don’t ask me no questions.”
“I won’t,” she said.
To shut out her image, he turned so that he could break the line of vision and he began to look at the ground as if trying to regain his bearings. He took several steps, then picked up the track again. He could feel Lorene behind him, could hear her footsteps rustle the leaves and stir the twigs, disturb the small stones.
