The old bones and the rusting steel could have told you, sixty years ago. Had he been a handsome young captain with smooth ways, or just a soldier who took what he wanted? Whatever he’d been, or done, he’d wound up buried under that vine, and only Diego and Maria knew he was there. All those years, through the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he’d been there. Diego never coming to Mass because of a sin he couldn’t confess. Maria never missing Mass, praying for someone.
Maybe that was the way it had happened. Nobody would ever tell the story, I was fairly sure. But it was clear that Diego and Maria, alone of all those watching, did not expect to see treasure come out of that hole in the ground.
So when the first glint of gold appeared, and then the chalice and altar plate were brought up, their old faces were a study in confusion.
“The Treasure!” cried Salvador. “Look!”
And the rancheros spurred their horses through the crowd to get a better look, lashing the Indians out of the way; but I touched the remote hidden in my sleeve and the Blessed Virgin spoke, in a voice as sweet and immortal as a synthesizer:
“This, my beloved children, is the altar plate that was lost from the church at San Carlos Borromeo, long ago in the time of the pirates. My Beloved Son has caused it to be found here as a sign to you all that ALL SINS ARE FORGIVEN!”
I touched the remote again and the Holy Apparition winked out like a soap bubble, and the beautiful music fell silent.
Old Diego pushed his way forward to the hole and looked in. There was nothing else there in the hole now, nothing at all. Maria came timidly to his side and she looked in too. They remained there staring a long time, unnoticed by the mass of the crowd, who were watching the dispute that had already erupted over the gold.
The bishop had pounced on it like a duck on a june bug, as they say, asserting the right of Holy Mother Church to her lost property. Emidio and Salvador had let it be snatched from them with hard patient smiles. One of the Gente de Razón actually got off his horse to tell the bishop that the true provenance of the items had to be decided by the authorities in Mexico City, and until they could be contacted the treasure had better be kept under lock and key at the alcalde’s house. Blessed Virgin? Yes, there had seemed to be an apparition of some kind; but then again, perhaps it had been a trick of the light.
The argument moved away down the hill—the bishop had a good grip on the gold and kept walking with it, so almost everyone had to follow him. I went to stand beside Diego and Maria, in the ruins of their garden.
“She forgave us.” whispered Diego.
“A great weight of sin has been lifted from you today, my children,” I told them. “Rejoice, for Christ loves you both. Come to the church with me now and I will celebrate a special Mass in your honor.”
I led them away with me, one on either arm. Unseen behind us, Mendoza advanced on the uprooted and forgotten vine with a face like a lioness kept from her prey.
Well, the old couple made out all right, anyway. I saw to it that they got new grapevines and food from the mission supplies to tide the family over until their garden recovered. Within a couple of years they passed away, one after the other, and were buried reasonably near one another in the consecrated ground of the mission cemetery, in which respect they were luckier than the unknown captain from Castile, or wherever he’d come from.
They never got the golden treasure, but being Indians there had never been any question that they would. Their descendants lived on and multiplied in the area, doing particularly well after the coming of the Yankees, who (to the mortification of the Gente de Razón) couldn’t tell an Indian from a Spanish Mexican and lumped them all together under the common designation of Greaser, treating one no worse than the other.
Actually, I never kept track of what happened to the gold. The title dispute dragged on for years, I think, with the friars swearing there had been a miracle and the rancheros swearing there hadn’t been. The gold may have been returned to Carmel, or it may have gone to Mexico City, or it may have gone into a trunk underneath the alcalde’s bed. The bishop died and the Yankees came and were the new conquerors, and maybe nothing ever did get resolved either way.
But Mendoza got her damned vine and her bonus, so she was as happy as she ever is. The Company got its patent on Black Elysium secured. I lived on at the mission for years and years before (apparently) dying of venerable old age and (apparently) being buried in the same cemetery as Diego and María. God forgave us all, I guess, and I moved on to less pleasant work.
Sometimes, when I’m in that part of the world, I stop in as a tourist and check out my grave. It’s the nicest of the many I’ve had, except maybe for that crypt in Hollywood. Well, well; life goes on.
Mine does, anyway.