Dead Reckoning (11 page)

Carrol looked up at the deputy. “I laid my hand upon his head. I blessed him. He didn't let on. He didn't show nothin'.”

The deputy's mouth dropped open. “You've seen him? You've seen Hassard?”

Carrol twisted his features, fighting the hatred. “
He
told me about Frank.” His fist clenched, crumpling the photograph, bending Dee Hassard's mouth into a cruel smile.

Thirteen

Ramon stopped on the trail and let Sister Petra walk ahead. He wasn't tired; he just wanted to take in one more view of the San Luis Valley before hiking back into the village of Del Norte. This was a wonderful basin of green waving grass: too broad to cross in a day afoot, so long that it rolled over the horizons and disappeared to the south and north. White-topped peaks gathered it in, marked it, made it a world unto itself.

The little nun was well ahead of him now on the path that led back to Del Norte. He paused another moment to let his eyes sweep the valley. He would catch up with her easily before they reached the village.

It was as if Ramon had grown on this trek. His legs seemed to have lengthened, and now he could challenge Sister Petra's gait for hours a day. And he had grown in other ways. He had learned that the
penitentes
were really quite ordinary men. Before, he had thought of them as fiendish fanatics who nailed one another to crosses. But now he could greet the members of the brotherhood in each new village with neither fear nor prejudice. They were just men.

With Sister Petra, Ramon had sought the
penitente moradas
throughout the villages of northern New Mexico, and into southern Colorado. He had never dreamed so many towns existed in those hills and mountains. In Taos, he had simply stared in wonder at the sheer numbers of people, writhing in the streets like hornets on a nest.

“What are they all doing?” he had asked Petra.

“What do you mean?”

“Where are they all going? What are they doing?” It had aggravated him that he did not know, as he had understood all the comings and goings in Guajolote.

“They have their lives,” Petra had answered.

“Yes, but … Like that man, there, with the wheelbarrow. Where is he going?”

“I don't know,” she had snapped. “Am I supposed to know everyone's business in the world?”

They had continued north, out of the low sage and up to this high green valley of farms, grasslands, and remote Mexican villages.

It had been a kaleidoscope of places and people, but this was certainly the end of the journey, and Ramon was ready to turn homeward. They had come to the northernmost
morada
of the
penitentes
at the village of Del Norte, Colorado. They had followed the trail to the
Calvario
where each year one of the brothers would hang from the cross. Sister Petra had knelt to pray. She had received nothing from God. It was over. Everything northward was Anglo domain. There were no more
Calvarios
to climb. Guajolote was lost.

Perhaps God had taken a hand in it after all, Ramon thought as he broke into a trot to catch up with Sister Petra. Now he knew that there were other places to live. He could go back to Guajolote and comfort the people. Yes, they would lose their homes, but the world was a big place. They would find new places to live.

When they reached the edge of the village, Brother Hilario rose from the ground where he had waited, leaning against the adobe wall. “Did you find what you were searching for?” he asked, a look of incredulity in his eyes.

“No,” Petra said curtly. “I am going to pray now. I don't want to be disturbed.”

She disappeared into the adobe Brother Hilario had provided for her stay, leaving Ramon with the local
penitente
leader.

Ramon put his hand on Brother Hilario's shoulder. “She is disappointed,” he explained. “We have no place else to search, and still we haven't found the cross on the mountain. I think she is a little bit upset.”

Hilario nodded. “Well, she has walked a long way for nothing. I didn't think she was going to find anything up there.”

Ramon bristled a little at Hilario's tone. “Sister Petra believes in what she's doing. She doesn't pretend.”

“I never thought she was a pretender, only a lunatic.” The brother pulled his shoulder out from under Ramon's hand and turned back toward his home in the village.

Ramon glared at the back of his head as he walked slowly away. “I hope they hang you from the cross next time,” he muttered under his breath.

They were strangers here. This was far from home. Nobody in Del Norte had even heard of Guajolote. It was time to turn back.

Ramon walked down the street and led his burro from the trough to the adobe where he and Petra would stay the night. Methodically, he began unpacking the
aparejo.
It had become a routine with him at each new camp or village. He had learned to travel well, and he was proud of it. Sister Petra would praise him to his father when he got back home.

Ramon and the green-eyed nun had arrived at an unspoken truce after a few days of travel. He had stopped questioning her, and she had ceased to harangue him for laziness. There was respect between them now, and they traveled well together, though they knew little more about each other than when they had left Guajolote.

It made Ramon feel a little sad that Sister Petra would not find her cross on the mountain. This was important to her. It was real. He still found it a little difficult to comprehend. Nothing had ever been that crucial to him. He had no ambitions of achieving anything the way Petra felt she had to find that cross she thought God had told her about, in order to save a tiny village from being sold out from under its people.

“Good, you're unpacking the burro,” she said suddenly, catching Ramon off guard. “Bring the beans and flour in, and we will make something to eat.”

He lifted the sacks of food, turned, and noticed the smoke trailing from the adobe brick chimney. This was strange. Petra seemed in rather high spirits—almost renewed. She had built a fire. She had an appetite.

He brought the food into the adobe and put it on a table of rough pine boards. These were the rudest accommodations they had been given at any village. One window was covered with parchment, and another with some kind of animal skin—coyote, he guessed. But the fire in the beehive fireplace gave sufficient light, and they would only be staying here one night.

“Well,” Ramon said, “what are we going to do now?” He would not mention going home. He had learned that it was best to let Petra think she was making all the decisions. He simply tried to steer her down the right path through suggestion.

“I don't know,” she answered, “but I have prayed for direction, and I have faith that I will have my answer by morning.”

Ramon nodded, carefully testing the ground of this conversation. “What do you think the answer might be?”

Petra smiled and took the bag of corn flour from him. “You have been very patient, Ramon. Don't think I don't appreciate it, just because I haven't told you so.”

“Yes, but…”

“I know, I haven't answered your question. I believe God will send us a sign in the morning, telling us where to search next. I don't know what the sign will be, but I have a feeling—just a feeling—that we are to continue going north.”

Ramon dropped the bag of beans, spilling some across the pine table. “North!” he blurted. “That is Anglo country. That is fine for you, because you are Anglo. But what about me?”

Petra rolled her green eyes in the dim light of the adobe. “For your information, I am not Anglo. My grandparents came from France.
Anglo
means from England.”

“You speak English, and that makes you Anglo. Besides, your skin is not brown, and neither are your eyes. You are
Americano.
”

“Whether you know it or not, Ramon, you are American, too. You were born in New Mexico, a territory of the United States since 1848. I don't know what you're afraid of. You survived all those Americans in Taos, didn't you? You might as well get used to them. They're not going to go away. Traveling to the north will be good practice for you.”

“But, I want to go home!” Ramon cried. “We are not going to find any cross on any mountain. Haven't we gone far enough?”

Petra's green eyes turned cold. “Go home if you want to. The brothers will help you find your way. But I am going to keep searching. God has told me what I must do.”

Ramon flailed his arms and turned a circle in the dusty room. He didn't look forward to walking home alone. But what was worse? Following Sister Petra indefinitely northward? His face pinched in a scowl, and he lost his temper. “Oh, God has told you what to do! Just like my father's burro was talking to me just now outside!” he blurted.

Petra gasped and stared openmouthed at the boy. Then her face hardened like a chiseled statue and she pointed stiffly to a stool beside the table. “Sit down!” she ordered.

Ramon cowered under the little woman's glare and sank obediently down on the stool.

“I'm going to tell you something, and I don't care whether you believe me or not.” She bent at the waist, the better to glare down at him. “All my life I have faced doubters, including my own friends and family, but I know what my calling is, Ramon, and your sharp tongue does not shake my faith. Now listen, and I will tell you why I have given my life to God.”

The boy swallowed and looked at the fire to escape the sister's harsh glare.

“I was only twelve years old when I first heard the voice of God,” she said. “Only, I did not just hear it. I felt it, absorbed it like a tree that is struck by lightning. My name then was Julie. I was fetching a bucket of water for my mother, and I was thinking about things a girl might think of. Like dresses, and friends, and school. Then the voice of God came at me from everywhere at once, swift and hot as a ray of sun, and it knocked me to the ground, and I spilled all of the water. And the voice had said to me: ‘Serve them.'”

Ramon shifted his eyes suspiciously. “Serve who?”

“Be quiet. I am not finished.” She braced her fists on her hips and looked down her nose at him. “After I heard those words, I forgot about friends, and new dresses, and school lessons, and I thought only about what God had said to me. I told my mother, and she did not believe me. She told me I had taken a heatstroke. It took me two years to convince her that I had heard the voice of God. And every day of those two long years, the children around me mocked and made fun of me, for I told everyone. I wasn't ashamed or embarrassed. Not like you, Ramon, when your friends call you padre. It was a great glory to me, and I knew I had to find out whom it was that God wanted me to serve.

“There was a convent, the Sisters of Loretto, at Nerinx, Kentucky. My mother took me there, and I gave my life to God. I became Sister Petra.

“I was twenty-one the next time I heard the voice of God. I was working in the vegetable garden, and something struck me down. Not painfully, like a blow, but swiftly and powerfully, as if I had been near an explosion. But there was no sound other than the voice. And when I awoke, I was on the ground, and dirt was sticking to the sweat on my face, and I remembered what God had said to me: ‘Seek the blood of Christ.' The
Sangre de Cristo.
”

“The mountains?” Ramon said.

“Yes, but I had never heard of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains then. It was another year and a half before I figured it out. Bishop Lamy came from Santa Fe seeking more nuns to serve in New Mexico, to teach in the schools and nurse the sick. This wasn't new to the Loretto convent. Sisters had gone west with Bishop Lamy before. The bishop was telling us about New Mexico, and he mentioned the Sangre de Cristos. I asked him what the name meant, for I was enchanted with the Spanish language. And when he told me, I knew that I was to go with him.

“I spent a while in Santa Fe, then I volunteered to serve at Guajolote, because there was no priest there, no chapel, no school. You may not remember how poor my Spanish was when I arrived five years ago, but I learned, and I served, and I waited again to hear that voice of light and power. And now I have heard God speak to me again, and he has told me that the cross awaits me on the mountainside. So you see, I must continue to search. I believe that God wants to save the village of Guajolote. And that is why he has spoken to me these three times in my life. I must serve him.”

Ramon looked at the dirt floor of the adobe hovel. “But why would God choose one village? Why Guajolote?”

“That is for God to know. The Bible says that we will hear, and not understand; that we will see, and not perceive. I only do what God tells me to do. I have no choice. It is my life. I have heard the voice of God. I don't blame other people for not believing what I say, but I am not a perfect little angel, Ramon, and I get tired of it. So if you think I am lying, you can just go on back to Guajolote. I must continue.” She turned her glare on the fire now, releasing Ramon.

He glanced up at her, saw the fire reflecting in her sharp eyes. “It's a shame,” he said.

“What is?”

The boy shrugged. “You're not really that bad looking. I think you are too old to get a man anymore, but you have a pretty face, and nice long hair. You're almost too skinny, but that is better than being too fat. It is a shame you have to be a nun.”

Sister Petra blushed and pushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. “Maybe you are trying to be nice now, but you are wrong. It is not a shame, Ramon. It is an honor. It is a glory. It is a burden and a responsibility, but it is not a shame. It is like nurturing a child, but the child is all of humanity. It is a labor, but it is a labor of hope and love. It is a blessing to be called, not a curse.”

She looked at the boy and found him staring back at her, his brow wrinkled in the firelight. How much of this could he understand? She smiled. “I'm sorry I snapped at you. Tomorrow, if you decide to go home, I will understand. But that will make my journey more difficult, because you have become a big help to me.”