I wasn’t sure I understood Padre so I asked a simpler question.
“Why does God want us to pray? If God is God why does he need our prayers?”
“Prayer does not benefit God,” he said. “Prayer helps us become kinder, more compassionate, more loving.”
“Kindness and compassion sound good but they ain’t worth a peso in these parts. They’re a hindrance to survival.”
“In a sense you are right. Kindness and compassion will not make your life easier. But they will make it better for you and those around you. And you will be happier.”
“I could tolerate more happiness. I surely could, but I figure survival’s my first duty. Dead men ain’t much help to anybody.”
Padre smiled.
“We are all trying our best to stay alive,” he said.
CHAPTER 15Brother Charles
We travel only as far as we can, never as far as we want.
—BROTHER CHARLES, Diary, AUGUST 4, 1881
ONE FALL MORNING AFTER BREAKFAST I walked back to the cloister with Carlos. I called him Brother Charles because that’s what the monks called him. The sky to the east was on fire. The temperature had dropped in the night and it’d snowed. Barely enough to cover the ground. The piñons and junipers stood out against the white slopes across the way. Magpies called from the willows along the Chama.
Brother Charles asked if I’d like a cup of tea. Coffee was my drink of choice and still is. More than this rotgut we’re drinking. But I was growing partial to tea. Especially the Ceylon tea Brother Charles kept in his room. The storekeep at Gonzales’s in Abiquiu would get him more when he ran out.
We passed through the gate into the cloister. When we got to Brother Charles’ cell he chunked a couple of logs in the stove and set on a kettle to boil.
“I picked up extra biscuits at breakfast,” he said. “Would you like one?”
“I would. Thanks. I make a decent biscuit but Brother Thomas’s are better.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a baker.”
“I ain’t bad.”
“I’m sure you aren’t. When you’re feeling stronger would you like to work with Brother Thomas and Raúl in the kitchen?”
“Be happy to.”
There was something about Brother Charles that was different from anyone I’d ever met. I trusted him immediately. He was younger than most of the monks. More worldly. He was interested in things I was interested in. Nature, history, Indians. I could talk to him about anything. Aside from Padre Romuald he was the most honest hombre I’ve ever met.
While we were drinking tea I told him about my life. The troubles in Lincoln, my plans for California. I told him about Kid and about the time he nearly died. Would have if it hadn’t of been for a nun. Sister Blandina.
“She was a saint,” I said.
“Really?”
“I figured she was. She looked like one.”
“I didn’t know saints have a look.”
“They all have halos.”
“Sister Blandina had a halo?”
“She did. Kid Antrim got shot in Trinidad, Colorado. He was in bad shape. Doctors knew who he was. They wouldn’t touch him. Not Sister Blandina. She fixed him up proper. I went to Trinidad to bring him home. When I saw him, there she was, glowing like a torch. I don’t mean a little halo like in pictures. She lit up the room. Figured she had to be a saint. She worked a miracle on Kid. He should of been dead.”
“You have a fine mind, Billy,” Brother Charles said as we were finishing our tea. “You know a lot for a lad your age. Where did you get your education?”
“Made it to the fourth grade. Got most of my learning from books.”
“The fourth? That’s as far as you got?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a funny story. A couple of boys behind me in class were cutting up. The teacher, Miss Belmont, whacked them across the head with a ruler. I snickered. She whacked me across the back of the hand. I mean to tell you it hurt. When she turned around I came out of my chair and cracked her over the head with a geography book. Knocked her flat on her butt. I ran out the door. Never went back.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten. I was a hard case.”
CHAPTER 16Brother Bede
There is always risk in being alive.
The greater the risk, the more alive you are.
—BROTHER CHARLES, Diary, DECEMBER 23, 1880
“EVER WORRY ABOUT RATTLERS?” I asked.
Brother Charles and me were taking our daily walk after breakfast. Brother Charles was wearing sandals. It’d been freezing during the night but the sun was out and the air was beginning to warm.
“Not at this hour,” he said. “A few are still around. Most of the locals have left for a den down the river a ways.”
“I’ve heard of snake dens. Never seen one.”
“It’s an impressive sight. Hundreds of them come from all over. They lay out in the sun before holing up for the winter. Would you like to see it?”
“I would.”
“Brother Bede’s asked about it. I’ll check with him. See if we can go this afternoon. Maybe we can catch them before they go underground.”
We were hiking a trail leading out of the canyon. Mangel and Scout were with us. We stopped to catch our breaths. I tickled Mangel behind the ears. His tongue was hanging out.
“Suppose you got snakebit,” I said. “What would you do? No horses. You couldn’t ride for help.”
“Brother Jude’d pump me up with whiskey, then he’d suck out the poison and inject the bite with ammonia. But I’d put more trust in Juan Mundo. He’s the di-yin who treated your hydrophobia. When Brother Thomas was bit, Juan treated him with herbs and wrapped his ankle in a tobacco poultice. The Tinde have remedies that go back centuries. Sometimes they work. Brother Thomas was lucky. But if a rattler hasn’t eaten for a month and he gets a taste of you? You’d better have a strong constitution and the grace of God.”
“Mangel got bit back in the summer. He was sick a few days. You think he had God’s grace?”
“Maybe. I don’t think dogs are as sensitive to snakebite as we are. My father hunted coyotes and wolves. Sold the hides. Almost every hide I saw—and I saw hundreds—was riddled with snakebites. I doubt there’d be a coyote or wolf around if snakes killed them as easily as they kill us. Probably true for dogs too.”
Long about midafternoon Brother Charles and me left with Brother Bede to see the snake den. The day’d warmed up enough Brother Charles figured the snakes’d be out sunning theirselves.
I haven’t told you about Brother Bede. He often went with us on walks. I liked him. He was from Sonora. After his ma died of cholera during the Apache War, him and his pa and his brothers headed for California. He was six. Apaches attacked the wagon train on the Jornada del Muerto. His pa was killed. The brothers got split up among different families. He ended up in Magdalena, living on a farm with a penitente hermano and his family. He joined the Brotherhood when he was fifteen. A year later he left Magdalena. Planned to walk to California. A couple of weeks out he stopped at St. Anselm’s for the night. Stayed a week, then stayed for good. He became a monk but he remained a penitente. Him and Brother Charles were amigos. I think Brother Charles knowed his family. He mentions them in his diary.
Before leaving we’d put up Mangel and Scout. We followed a trail downstream along the Chama a couple of miles then turned back east up a side canyon.
“A couple of weeks ago we’d have seen tarantulas on the march,” Brother Charles said. “They come down this canyon every year.”
“I’ve seen them on the move in Texas,” I said. “Often wondered where they were headed.”
“The males are the travelers. Females stay put and wait for males to show up. The ladies eat their lovers after mating is over.”
“I’m glad they are not marching now,” Brother Bebe said. “I’d druther step on a rattlesnake.”
“They aren’t poisonous,” Brother Charles said. “The bite’
s like a bee sting.”
“They are big and ugly. That is enough for me.”
Ten minutes later we came to a gravely outcrop. A dozen feet below were hundreds of rattlers tangled together like piles of rope. Rope alive and smelling of burnt sugar.
“The dens are under the rocks,” Brother Charles said. “The snakes come out on warm afternoons. Soon they’ll den up for the winter. When spring arrives they’ll head home.”
Brother Bede kicked a stone. It clattered down the rock and dropped among the snakes. Some scattered into burrows, some into the grass. The dry rattling hum of their tails grew louder and louder.
“Devils in the pit of hell,” Brother Bede said. “I see why Satan in the Garden was a snake. Forget what I said about rattlesnakes. I’m not getting close to those vipers.”
“You reckon Satan was a viper?” I said.
“Can we go now?” Brother Bede said.
About then a tarantula crawled up over the edge of the ledge.
“Look here,” Brother Charles said. “You’ve stirred up a late lover, Brother Bede.”
“Where!”
Brother Bede spun around to face the spider. He slipped on the gravel as he turned, falling backward over the edge. His screaming stopped when he hit the ground. Dozens of rattlers struck as they slithered over him. His arms disappeared, then his chest. His face and legs, still jerking, floated above a sea of writhing bodies. Terror fixed in his eyes. Then he sank beneath the swell.
“Oh God!” Brother Charles cried as he started to climb down the rocks.
I grabbed him and pulled him back.
“You can’t help.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“You ain’t got a choice.”
He tried to pull away.
“You go down there, I’ll have two bodies to bring home.”
He sat on the ledge and wept.
While Brother Charles sat in silent prayer I gathered branches and vines to make a travois. By late afternoon the cold was setting in. When I looked over the ledge the snakes were gone. Brother Bede lay on his back, his clothes torn, his face a morass of caked blood. We climbed down and laid him on the travois. His eyes were milking over. Brother Charles closed them. As we were leaving I shot a couple of stragglers heading to the den.
It was near dark when we got back to the monastery. Padre Romuald met us at the cloister gate, his eyes tearing.
“I feared trouble when you missed vespers,” he said.
When the bell rang for vigils next morning I was already awake. Got dressed and went to the chapel. It was bitter cold. The moon had set. The sun wouldn’t be up for a couple of hours. Stars lit up the canyon. Coyotes yapped at one another across the way.
Most of the monks were in their stalls. I took a bench in the back and listened as the monks chanted the psalms. Brother Bede was dressed in his monk’s robe, lying on a cooling board before the altar. He was unrecognizable. During Mass Padre Romuald talked about Brother Bede, who he was, where he came from. That’s when I learned most of what I told you about him.
After Mass the monks carried him to a rise overlooking the Chama and laid him in the ground. Raúl had dug the grave during the night. The sky was beginning to lighten. Stars were fading. Magpies were jabbering down by the river. Padre Romuald said a few prayers. The monks chanted psalms again. When they finished, each of them dropped a shovelful of dirt into the grave. Padre stuck a cross of fir into the ground next to Brother Bede’s head. Then the monks walked in twos back to the cloister, chanting. Raúl filled in the grave. I offered to help but he said it was best if he did it alone.
CHAPTER 17The Río Chama
All my life I have searched for something I cannot understand.
—BROTHER CHARLES, Diary, PALM SUNDAY MORNING, 1881
A FEW DAYS LATER BROTHER Charles and me were taking an afternoon walk along the Chama. Mangel and Scout raced ahead, nosing the thickets for rabbits. Snow from the previous week was gone. To the west, clouds were dumping a waterfall into a side canyon. If we’d been paying attention we’d of realized it was headed our way.
“The other day you said the Bible ain’t factual,” I said. “My Aunt Cat thought it was.”
“Biblical stories aren’t history although some are based on historical events,” Brother Charles said. “The Garden of Eden, Noah and the flood, Jonah and the whale. Job in God’s chess game with Satan. They’re not supposed to be literally true. They tell us how to live our lives. The best stories are morally true. They don’t have to be literally true.
“Look at the story of Jesus’ Resurrection in the Gospels. Depending on which Evangelist is telling the story there are anywhere from one to five women at Jesus’ tomb. They’re greeted by one or two angels, or no angels at all. The tomb is open or it’s closed. The women are filled with joy and tell the apostles, or they’re terrified and tell no one. Most of the doctrines of Christianity rest on the facts of this story. Suppose these four versions were presented at trial in a courtroom. What would a jury make of them?”
“If the witnesses were that confused at my trial I believe I would of got off.”
“I believe you would have too. The Bible is full of such discrepancies. The first chapter of Genesis says that God created plants and animals before he made man. The second chapter says that God made man, then the plants and animals. Are the contradictions important? . . . We’d better head back before we get drenched.”
We’d almost made it to the monastery when the first drops hit. Brother Charles and the dogs ran ahead. I was soaked when I reached the cloister. Brother Charles was waiting on a bench on a sheltered porch. He laid a blanket over my shoulders.
As we sat there I asked him about loving your neighbor and the parable of the Good Samaritan. Aunt Cat often talked about that story. It’d always graveled my craw.
“I didn’t live far from Jimmy Dolan,” I said. “He was my neighbor. If I found him beat up in a ditch I’d put him out of his misery. At least out of mine. How about Comanches? They’re neighbors. At times too close neighbors. What’s it mean to love enemies? It’s hard to love someone who wants to kill you.”
“Your story about Sister Blandina a few days ago. She was a Good Samaritan. She believed in the Golden Rule. Treat others the way you’d want them to treat you.”
“That’s well and good but I couldn’t be a Sister Blandina to the likes of Jimmy Dolan. Figure it’d get me killed.”
“I understand, Billy. It’s not easy. The Golden Rule shows you how to live. It doesn’t show you how to love. Love comes only with practice.”
CHAPTER 18The Jemez Mountains
Answers arrive only after I stop looking for them.
—BROTHER CHARLES, Diary, EASTER, 1879
“WANT TO HEAD OUT TOMORROW for Cañon de los Frijoles?” Brother Charles asked one evening. “Winter could arrive most any time. This may be our best chance.”
Brother Charles knew of a canyon south of the monastery that had ancient rock houses and kivas and pictures carved in the canyon walls. He figured they were made by ancestors of the Pueblo farmers living along the Río Grande.
We’d talked earlier about going but Brother Charles wanted to wait till I was strong enough. If we waited till spring I’d be in California. I thought about California near every day.
The canyon was a few days away. We’d have to do some climbing. Brother Charles figured Mangel could make it. The hardest part would be climbing out of the Chama River canyon.
Next morning after breakfast we packed enough to last a week. I figured to shoot a rabbit or two. We filled canteens with water and headed out the trail to the south. I whistled up Mangel. Scout trotted after us. Brother Charles waved him back.
“Stay,” he said. “If Comanches or Old Moze come around, Padre’ll want a bugler sounding the alarm.”
The lower half of the canyon wall is brick red. The upper half is banded yellow in the shadows and golden in the sunlight. Ten minutes out, the trail begins to climb over boulde
rs that fell off the cliffs after centuries of wind and rain worked them over. Beyond the boulder fields the trail is narrow and steep with sheer drop-offs.
We climbed a few hundred feet up the face of the rock. A pair of ravens flew overhead and disappeared beyond the rim hundreds of feet above us. Heights make me uneasy and I was getting uneasier with each step. I’d worked up a good sweat when the trail seemed to end. It wasn’t abrupt but what stood above us wasn’t a trail either. Whatever route we took would require our hands. I was beginning to question the wisdom of bringing my Winchester. Brother Charles worked his way around a ledge to the left, checking handholds on the rocks above before taking a step. If he misjudged he’d fall a hundred feet. After taking several steps he disappeared into a notch in the rock. In a moment he appeared twenty feet above me. I hadn’t moved.
“You coming?” he said.
“I might of reconsidered if I’d knowed I’d be a mountain goat. This keeps up, I may have a heart attack. You do know I ain’t got my balance back?”
“It’s mostly scrambling after this.”
“You want me to be crow meat?”
“Don’t look down. Look for handholds. Don’t look at Mangel.”
“This rock’s got my full attention.”
The ledge wasn’t a foot wide. Facing the wall I shuffled leftward, my toes feeling the rock beneath, my heels hanging in the ether. With my free hand I searched for crevices to put my faith in. My heartbeat jumped a notch or two. Legs felt like straw. If I were five feet off the ground I could scamper across blindfolded.
After rounding the edge of the wall I was inside a notch that angled up to Brother Charles. It wasn’t a ladder but it offered solid hand and footholds. I climbed up beside Brother Charles. Mangel scrabbled up behind me, then he bounded ahead.
The Gospel According to Billy the Kid Page 11
