“Bettina,” he said. “You are more like your father than I am. I should be asking you this question.”
“Don’t joke…”
“I’m not joking,” he told her. “Many people carry the blood of the old spirits in them, but how many do you think can shift their shape as you can? Your father is one of the First People. His blood will run very pure in his children.”
“In… in both of us? In Adelita as well?”
He nodded.
“But then why would he leave us? Wouldn’t he have known that?”
“I can’t speak for him,” el lobo said. “But he is an old spirit, not necessarily a perfect one. I know of these things because I have reflected on them while trying to decipher the riddles of my own existence. He might never have had occasion to think of it himself. He might never have sired other children. Or they might have died by accident or hurt before he could learn of their potential. Or perhaps that heritage of the old blood doesn’t manifest the same in every child. Perhaps it has woken so strongly in you because of the geasan passed down to you from your grandmother.”
“So he might not even know?”
“If he loved you as much as you’ve told me he did, why would he leave you if he did know?”
The happiness in her eyes made him leery of raising her hopes too high.
“But I can’t be certain of this,” he said.
“No. Of course not.”
“So what will you do?”
“Continue to look for him,” she said.
El lobo nodded and looked away. The world was large, the spiritworld, larger still. Her search could take many lifetimes of an ordinary man. He could wait. He would wait, but as he already knew, the waiting would be hard.
When he turned his gaze to her, he found her smiling at him.
“But not now,” she said. “Not this moment.”
“I’m glad.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his mouth.
“And I would rather do it with you,” she said. “In the company of mi lobo.”
“But—”
She put a finger against his lips.
“There will be times when you can get away,” she said. “We can search for him then. Besides, I want you to meet the rest of my family and get to know them better. And then there is the desert…”
El lobo nodded. Year by year the territory under his guardianship was shrinking. If the spread of housing developments continued at the pace it did, one day there would be nothing left of his responsibility. Shishòdewe had said as much when he lay dying. The manitou were bound to the wild places. When those-who-came tamed the last of them, spirits such as he could only move on or die. And el lobo was not ready to die. He was willing to become a wandering spirit, if Bettina was to be his company on the unending journey.
“But now I’m wondering,” she said. “Where do you sleep?”
“You’re tired?”
She gave him a mischievous smile. “No. Are you?”
“Let me show you,” he said and led her back to his camp, deep in manidò-akì, under the boughs of the whispering pines.
Colorín Colorado, este cuento se ha acabado. The story has ended.