I decided to kill some time and try the bruja again in a little while, so I stopped by Regan’s place. It was the middle of the day now, and the sun was lifting over the rim of the canyon and warming the red dirt of her rutted drive. An old, rusted beater truck was backed up to the corral, blocking the way so that I had to park in the entrance to the drive. Two men in the corral were laboring hard at digging in the hard caliche. I walked around the truck’s listing tailgate and saw Regan above on the path leading to the barn. She wore the same huge, unlaced, muddy work boots as the day I first met her. She caught sight of me and made her way rapidly down the path, as if to intercept me. Her expression was frantic.
“Jamaica, I’m having a frightful day. I’m afraid I can’t receive any visitors.” She held one gloved hand over her left eye.
“Sure, Regan. I’m sorry. I should have called. I was just in Truchas and I thought I’d stop by on my way back to Taos.”
“Yes, I see.” She grabbed my elbow with her free hand and edged me around, urging me back toward my Jeep. “I am so sorry I can’t visit right now. This is just a hectic time; you know it’s Holy Week, and there have been people trespassing across my land to that place up there, and my horse has gone lame, and now-for whatever reason-I have lost the sight in my left eye! I am having to put my horse down, poor old dear; I knew it was coming, but just the same…” Her voice, which had been rapid and full of vibrato, seemed to run out of gas, and she gently shook her head very slightly back and forth, her forehead supported by the fingers of her glove over her left eye. “The men are here digging, I can’t leave. We had to move all the cars around so they could get in with their truck. And I can’t even get the doctor on the phone about this eye.”
“I am so sorry to hear about your horse, Regan. And about your eye. Is there anything I can do? Can I take you to the clinic down in Embudo?”
“No, no. I should be apologizing to you. But you know how I get, I just can’t have any visitors right now. I am just so overwhelmed, I wouldn’t be good company. And with the horse…” As she was saying this last, a green Land Rover pulled up behind my Jeep. The driver gave a short blast on the horn, and then Andy Vincent emerged from the driver’s side. The workmen looked up from their digging. Andy Vincent pulled off his sunglasses. There was a look of agitation on his face.
“Oh, there’s Andy,” Regan said.
Andy marched toward us. He looked into my Jeep as he went past, as if he were going to accost anyone inside. He was clearly annoyed.
“I guess I better get my Jeep out of the drive so Andy can get his car off the road,” I said.
“Andy, Jamaica was just leaving,” Regan called, her voice pushed, squeaking.
“Yeah, if you’ll just back up there, I’ll get out of your way,” I called, as I turned from Regan’s side and started for my Jeep.
Andy continued toward us.
“Jamaica just stopped by on her way back from Truchas,” Regan explained. “I told her I just couldn’t entertain any visitors right now.”
“Truchas? What’s going on up there?” Andy asked. “I just came from the High Road, and Truchas looks like it’s hosting a rock concert. There are at least a hundred cars parked along the road through there.” By now, he had reached me and was looking down into my face. The brilliant sun behind him kept his expression in dark shadow.
I squinted, but the sun was too bright; I had to look away. “A funeral for a friend of mine,” I said to Andy, then to Regan, “Father Ignacio Medina. Remember our conversation about him on Sunday?”
Regan’s face was directly lit by the sun. She looked pale, drained. Her jaw dropped and her mouth fell open, but she didn’t speak. Her hand came away from her eye, and there was a large blue bruise on the brow above it.
“Regan! Did your horse kick you?”
She didn’t seem to hear me. Her face muscles remained limp, her normally tan skin now ashen.
Andy Vincent went to Regan’s side and put his arm around her. He gave her a little shake. “She’s had an awful time with the horse.” He tipped his head in the direction of the men digging. “I’m glad I’ve been here and can offer a little help and comfort.”
Regan still didn’t speak.
There was something I had wanted to ask her a moment ago, but suddenly, I couldn’t remember it. I was puzzling over this when Andy spoke again. “You say this father-he was your friend?”
It had been something important. What was it? “Huh? Oh, yes. Yes. He was my friend.”
Regan had recovered now, and she spoke kindly to me. “Oh, Jamaica, my dear, I’m so sorry. I have been so selfish, telling you all my troubles. I didn’t know you were having a hard day, too. That’s the man Father Rivera was talking about, isn’t it? I didn’t realize he was your friend. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes grew moist, her bruised face still strained, but compassionate.
“Well, he wasn’t really a close friend.” I felt a twinge in my gut. I was uncomfortable, embarrassed by her outpouring of sympathy. But there was something else: I felt unfaithful, like I’d just betrayed Father Ignacio. My mind skirmished, one part trying to justify, the other trying to know the truth. We had only one meeting. But there was so much intensity. And now he had bestowed such trust in me.
We were all three standing quiet. But my brain went around and around like a gerbil on a wheel. In the span of a few seconds I flashed from the thought of La Arca to the chase down the High Road to wondering if Tecolote was home and whether she would have some answers about what to do with the sacred ark, and on from there to realizing that I would have to get some sleep before I went to work tonight, to wondering where I would be safe. All this, all at once.
I sighed. I looked at Regan and Andy. They seemed to be waiting for a cue from me. “Well, I had better get going.” I turned once more toward my Jeep.
Andy Vincent stayed behind to talk quietly with Regan for a few seconds, and then he followed me down the path to our vehicles.
I opened the door of my Jeep, and Andy took the handle and held it while I got in. “You must have the day off,” he said, his lips flattening, as if he’d tried a pleasant smile and failed, still not over his irritation. There was a terrible weight in his countenance, like that of the Penitentes at the funeral. And an urgency, not unlike Regan’s demeanor. It made me tired just to look at him.
“No, I took last night off so I could go to the funeral today. I have to work tonight. I need to go home and take a nap. I am all turned around.”
He closed the door without speaking and walked back to his car. I watched him in the rearview mirror as he got in the Land Rover and backed down the dirt road. I felt tense and fatigued, as if I had soaked up some of his and Regan’s anxiety and added it to my own.
I backed out of the drive and crossed the bridge over the rio. At the junction where the bridge met the road, I looked left-no oncoming traffic, then right-none coming, and when I turned to look left again, Esperanza’s face was pressed against the driver’s-side window. My heart stopped, then pounded. I heard a high ringing sound as the sudden escalation in my blood pressure looked for a way to escape the constricting confines of my arteries. I rolled the window down, my eyes dilated from the jolt.
“Don’t come to la casa, Mirasol! It is not safe. I will let you know when it is all right to come again.” She was wearing her thick lavender shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders. She stood beside the car and peered at me. Her eyes were at the same level as mine.
“Esperanza, I need to talk to you.”