Wild Mystic

by Sandi Ault

  I got a report right before Christmas that the test of the bat’s brain tissue was positive, and an animal control officer from the county was dispatched to get Lor’s dog for quarantine and testing to see if the disease had been transmitted by a bite. And then Roy had informed me just yesterday that the dog had gotten rabies from its quarry. Now this.

  Before I got back on the road, I dialed Roy back. “You didn’t happen to see what Lor was driving, did you?”

  “No, why?”

  “I just wondered. I want to be on the lookout.”

  “I’ll call Deputy Padilla at the Sheriff’s Office. He’ll find out what he drives.”

  “Thanks, Boss.” I hung up. I tried to remember any vehicles I might have seen when I was at Talgren’s place. The only thing I could recall about that incident was how big, how tall, and how inflammable Lor Talgren was—and how even his own dogs, who were vicious themselves, ran and hid when he raised his voice.

  ☽

  I rumbled down the back road into Tanoah Pueblo, the Jeep jostling over the ruts, Mountain and I bounce uncontrollably. The dried clay rose up in monster ridges and collapsed into deep tire traps, and in between it drummed under the wheels like a zydeco froittoir. The only thing I could do was focus my eyes through the windshield and hold on as I struggled to navigate the rough road. By the time I pulled up in front of Momma Anna’s house, my knuckles were white from gripping the wheel.

  As I shifted into park, Anna came out her door.

  I got out to greet her. “Good morning.”

  “I go see Yohe,” she said. “I walk.”

  “It’s cold out; I could give you a ride.”

  She headed for the passenger side. “You maybe drive.”

  I backed out of the spot in front of her house and turned down the road by the buffalo pasture. “I know it’s Kings Day, but I was hoping I could talk with you. If you’re cooking for the feasts, I could do something to help while we talk.”

  “No feast today. New War Council vote extra Quiet Time, no dance, no feast. We go see Yohe.”

  “No feast? On Kings Day?”

  “Tst,” she made the sharp sound with her tongue against her teeth as she held up her hand, reminding me not to ask questions. “You drive. We go see Yohe.”

  Yohe invited us in and brought a pot of coffee and a paper plate of cookies to the table where we sat. She delighted Mountain with a length of her homemade elk jerky. As soon as our hostess sat down to join us, my medicine teacher pointed at the cookies. “Eat. You look like stick.”

  I ate four or five of them, and the two elders ate as many, too, all of us dunking the crisp, sugary pastries in our coffee.

  Then Anna suddenly said, “White girl need help.”

  Yohe looked from her to me.

  I hoped I understood what Momma Anna was doing. “I’m trying to find someone. It’s a woman who might have come to a ceremony here. Her name is Adoria Abasolo.”

  “Spanish,” Yohe said.

  “Spanish,” Anna uttered, almost under her breath.

  I remained quiet. Clearly my mentor had brought me to Yohe because she might have either knowledge or ideas about this. If I spoke too soon, they might not continue the conversation.

  They both began to laugh.

  “What?” I glanced from one to the other.

  They laughed some more, and covered their mouths, smiling at one another.

  Yohe said, “That how baby who drink mama milk start eat food!”

  I was perplexed.

  “Baby drink milk, then maybe have some that cookie, too.” Momma Anna pointed to my shirt.

  I looked down. The tops of my breasts were sprinkled with cookie crumbs. I chuckled, too, and brushed the crumbs off my shirt.

  The cookies had disappeared and we finished our coffee. Yohe put both her palms flat on the table and sat up tall. Round, brown, and with her greying dark hair pulled tightly and tied in the traditional knot on the back on her head, she reminded me of a wise-looking beaver. “Very quiet here this day. First time, no feast, no dance today. They talk at Carry Water Clan. Say because that one boy steal medicine.”

  “Unh!” Anna made a low, percussive grunt to release the unwanted energy of a theft from the tribe. The women often made this sound after something unpleasant was talked about, as if the sound itself cleansed the atmosphere and their spirits.

  Yohe added: “I cannot talk them now. Maybe next time.”

  Momma Anna stood and pulled her blanket from the back of her chair and began to wrap it around her. “Oh-h-h,” she said in a sing-song voice, “Them cookies so good. You bake them just right, crispy. Thank you that coffee, too.”

  I followed suit, grabbing my jacket. “Thank you so much, Auntie. You are so kind.” The wolf got up and came after me. “And thanks for giving Mountain some of your jerky.”

  As we drove back to Anna’s house, I attempted to start a conversation. “So Yohe must be a part of the Carry Water Clan.”

  The old woman barked: “You not speak that.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. When we arrived, I got out to help her with the door, and Momma Anna looked at me, this time less sternly. “You got answer this time.”

  I waited, but she didn’t continue. “If I have the answer, I don’t know what it is.”

  “You wait,” Anna said. “Like corn. You plant this time, you eat next other time. Corn there all time.”

  18: Backward

  It was getting close to noon by the time I drove through Ranchos de Taos and headed toward the High Road. I heard a thrumming sound and realized it was the mobile device Coronel had given me, buzzing and vibrating in the backpack like a trapped hummingbird. I pulled over on the side of the road. “Okay, okay,” I said, reaching into the pouch on the front of my backpack. “Wild, Resource Protection,” I said, out of habit; the only time I answered a phone, it was one of the BLM’s.

  Once again, a woman’s voice said, “Good morning, Miss Wild. You will see a GPS position of interest when you open the maps application. Should you need to contact me, dial zero. Have a safe and productive day.”

  I pressed the maps application, and the blinking dot seemed to be at the same location given before. “I was headed there anyway,” I said. “You see, Mountain? We’re already one step ahead of the Secret Service on this.” I felt a tinge of concern, though, as I put the Jeep back in gear and nosed out onto the road. In that area, the likelihood of crossing paths with Lor Talgren would be much greater. From what Roy had said, I definitely wanted to avoid Talgren until he’d had plenty of time to cool down.

  The blinking dot on the map led me toward Adoria Abasolo’s and I assumed the intended location was as before. I had planned to try to sneak back into Abasolo’s house anyway and search around some more. There was one thing in particular that I wanted to examine more closely.

  But that was not meant to be. As I approached the place, I could see that the gate to the long drive was still open but a car occupied the spot at the end where I’d parked my Jeep yesterday. I navigated a wide turn on the road and backed the Jeep in, parking nose-out at the edge of the road, ready in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I reached into the glove box and took out my Sig Sauer P229 and holstered it beneath my jacket. “Stay here, Buddy,” I told Mountain, as I exited the Jeep. As I walked the long drive, a Hispanic woman came and went from the house twice with what looked like baskets of laundry and bags of trash. As I came close, I called out. “¡Hola, Señora!”

  The mujer set a bag beside her car and straightened, looking at me. “¿Hay algo que pueda hacer por ti?” Was there something she could do for me?

  “¿Habla usted Inglés?”

  “No, Señorita.”

  “Okay. ¿Está la señora Abasolo aquí?”

  “No.” She looked at me expectantly. Then she asked, “¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?” What was I doing there?

  I proceeded in halting Spanish, telling her I was just visiting and asking when Abasolo would return.<
br />
  The woman shook her head at me. “No lo sé.” (She didn’t know.)

  I asked if she knew the neighbor, Susan Lacy.

  She assured me she didn’t, and that she knew everyone around there.

  I gave up at that point and said good-bye.

  When I got back to the Jeep, I took the device I’d dubbed Buzz out of the pouch, and looked again at the map. I’d misread my destination. The little dot was still blinking, but on the land next door, the vacant parcel next to Abasolo’s that also backed to the Mountain Mission property.

  I drove a quarter of a mile down the road to its gate, broken down and grown over with buffalo grass and small juniper starts. I continued a little ways past it until I was sure my Jeep couldn’t be seen from Abasolo’s drive. At a wide place where the dirt shoulder looked solid enough, I pulled over and parked, and set the backpack that had been on the passenger seat in the floor where it was less visible. “Come on, Mountain,” I said as I opened the back door on the driver’s side, and reached under the backseat and pulled out my rifle. “Let’s take a romp.”

  Like Abasolo’s place, this plot of land had a long trail-like drive that led to the back. However, here there was no house sitting at the end of it. At the fence beside the gate, the barbwire sagged low—probably bent by hunters stepping over it—so I held the top two wires down with my boot while the wolf jumped over, and the two of us meandered down the trail. I noticed narrow tire tracks here and there on those few patches of dirt where the drive hadn’t been completely obscured by overgrowth, probably made by a small motorcycle or one of those fat-tire dirt bikes.

  As we walked, I scanned my surroundings constantly, including behind me. Mountain meandered with his nose near the ground, reading the news. We walked about halfway down the drive into a sparse grove of old-growth junipers, which told me that the land here had never been cleared. I lost sight of Abasolo’s house but I kept eyeing the road behind us, and even spent some time walking backward and keeping my eyes peeled for cars on the road. I saw no one. At the back of the parcel, I discovered an acequia, an ancient irrigation ditch like those in the lower-lying farming communities. It had been well maintained and was relatively clear of brush and trees, and was likely the dividing line between the brothers’ land and this piece. I had been so concerned about someone coming up behind us that I hadn’t noticed until we stopped here that there was an immense arbor-like structure on the monastery’s land, at least ten or twelve feet tall, with some withered vines on top. I’d never seen grapes grown on anything as enormous as this. It had to be something else. The high country growing season was too short for anything that wasn’t frost-tolerant. What could it be?

  Mountain stopped and sniffed the air. I inhaled deeply, too, but I caught no scent beyond that of the junipers and the dry grass—with a hint of sweetness that might have been from the water in the acequia. But as we walked back toward the road, Mountain stopped and stood erect, his head up and his ears turning as if he were trying to locate the source of a far-off sound.

  As we returned the way we had come, I decided I would drive into Peñasco next to see if I could find anybody who might know where Susan Lacy lived or even what kind of car she drove. But that wasn’t meant to be, because as we approached the Jeep, I realized what the wolf’s keen ears had alerted on earlier. A vehicle was parked behind the Jeep, and two men stood alongside it, watching intently as Mountain and I approached.

  19: Growing Realization

  My companion had been padding along beside me, running his nose along the ground; he hadn’t yet spotted the strange car and the men ahead. “Come here, Mountain,” I said, and I vaulted two big steps to reach him. Unlike a dog, he had about as much interest in minding me as he had in getting a job. I caught hold of his collar with my left hand, but kept my rifle in my right. When we were about twenty yards from the cars, I called out. “Can I help you fellas?”

  One of them answered, “We’re from the monastery. Could we speak with you?”

  By this time I recognized the Jeep Wagoneer I’d seen when I took Tecolote there yesterday. I kept Mountain’s collar under my fingers and proceeded forward. “What can I do for you?”

  The same man spoke again. “I am Brother Odin, and this is Brother Gregor. We wondered if you would come with us to the monastery.”

  On closer inspection, I could see that they probably constituted a low threat, if any. Brother Odin was lean and tall but didn’t have much meat on his bones. And Brother Gregor had the opposite body type—short, plump, not at all muscular. They were both dressed in jeans with heavy shirts and down vests. “Thanks for the invitation, but I'm working.”

  “I wish you would reconsider. Our abbot, Father Anthony would like to talk to you. It won’t take long.”

  I followed the Wagoneer down the same cliff-edge rutted road. It was already almost one in the afternoon, and considering how long it would take to get back and forth, I worried that I would be losing as much as an hour with this detour to see the abbot. But the brothers ahead of me whizzed along. I figured if they could do it, I could, too, and so I sped up, and Mountain and I bounced and banged from bottom to top of the Jeep, but we got there all right.

  Once inside the entry hall, I was asked to wait near the door—not in the library as before—and both monks disappeared. After a few minutes, a man came toward me wearing jeans, a pullover sweater and a large silver pectoral cross suspended from an ornate silver chain over his chest. “Miss Wild? I am Father Anthony. Welcome to the Mountain Mission Monastery.”

  “Hello, Father.” Not knowing if it was proper to extend my palm in introduction, I kept my hands at my sides, and as I did this, I felt my pistol in my holster beneath my jacket on my right side and realized it was probably bad form for a guest to wear a gun into an abbey.

  “Let’s go into the library and have some tea, shall we? Brother Tobias is setting up a tray for us.”

  I followed him into the library, and Tobias, the monk who had greeted me when I brought Tecolote, was pouring tea when we went in. He nodded at me, and I returned the gesture.

  “Tobias will take your coat.”

  “No thanks. I’ll keep it on.”

  “I assure you, you’ll be warm enough. The brothers have laid a nice fire in the fireplace.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I prefer to leave my jacket on, though.”

  “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but I remained standing. When Father Anthony had seated himself, I went to the chair opposite him and took a seat. Brother Tobias gave me a slight smile and an approving nod.

  “I understand you were asking about Adoria Abasolo when you were here yesterday,” the abbot said.

  I glanced at Tobias again, but he was looking at the floor. I didn’t speak.

  The father continued: “And it has come to our attention that you were talking to her housekeeper today, asking about her.”

  I didn’t want to lie to an abbot, so I said the most truthful thing I could muster. “I’m looking for Ms. Abasolo in a matter related to my work.”

  “Could you tell me what that matter might be?”

  I examined the room, noting all possible exits. “With the greatest respect, Father, I am not sure that would be appropriate for me to do.”

  Father Anthony turned and looked up and behind him at his attendant. Brother Tobias promptly left the room. Then the father turned back to me. “I understand. Would you like some tea?” He picked up a cup and offered it to me.

  “No, thank you. I’m working, you see, and I need to get back on the job.”

  “I’m sure your superiors won’t mind if you talk to the abbot in the area where you are working. I understand that you work for the Bureau of Land Management?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is there a land management problem that concerns Ms. Abasolo or her property?”

  I furrowed my brow. I didn’t want to tell Father Anthony the same lie I’d uttered to Susan Lacy the day bef
ore. And I was beginning to wonder what all this was about. “Pardon me, Father, if this seems disrespectful, but I am wondering why it is of concern to you that I am wanting to talk to Adoria Abasolo. Is she here?”

  He smiled stiffly. “Women are only allowed as guests in the abbey at certain times—for mass, or vespers, or confession. Or by appointment.”

  “And yet, I’m here,” I said.

  “By my request.” Father Anthony’s voice seemed cooler. “Ms. Abasolo is our neighbor. We look out for our neighbors when we can.”

  “So you know her.”

  “Yes, I know her. And I’ll kindly ask you again to tell me why you are looking for her.”

  “As I said, Father, it’s a work-related matter.” I wanted to stand to signal that I was through being interrogated, but I wasn’t sure that it was appropriate for me to do that unless he stood first. Instead, I changed the subject. “Could I ask you something? What is that enormous structure you have on the northwest side of your property? It looks like you grow some kind of vining plant there, but I know it can’t be grapes.”

  “That was our bold experiment this past summer.” He smiled. “We grew hops there. We had great success with our first harvest.”

  “So did you sell the hops?”

  “No, in fact, we have renovated the old stables to create our own state-of-the-art brewery and we intend to manufacture a boutique line of beers. Of course, this endeavor is just in the beginning stages, but we hope to launch our debut beverage with our brand next fall: Mountain Mission Beer. Would you like a tasting sample?” He stood.

  I stood, too. “No thanks. As I said, I’m working. And I’d better go.”

  “If you learn anything we might need to know or can help with regarding Ms. Abasolo, I hope you will let us know.”

  I pulled at my earlobe. “I definitely will. And, given that you look out for your neighbors, I wonder if you are also acquainted with Susan Lacy?”