“You must wait.”
“No, I need to talk to you now.” As I said this, I looked for a place to pull over, in case a car needed to come past.
“No! ¡Deje de hablar! ¡Escuche! Stop talking, you must listen!”
She had my attention.
“You must wait and watch out now. You are in danger.”
“I know. I have so many questions-”
She shook her head in exasperation. “I have already told you everything that you need to know. But you do not hear me, Mirasol.”
“What about La Arca?”
“Hush! Do not wag your tongue at me! Your mind is like a dog with fleas, always scratching, digging at itself.” She plunged her arms in the window and seized my head in a viselike grip. Then she pressed her thumbs over my eyes, holding them tightly shut. Her voice gained that high-pitched bat-cry quality. “Wait. And watch out! That is what I am telling you. Keep yourself safe. You will be all right to go home today and sleep. You must sleep to be strong. You will be protected at your house by the ángel today so that you can get the rest you need.” I felt her grip relax, then release completely. I opened my eyes. She was gone.
I sat unmoving for several minutes, then turned my Jeep toward the highway and drove at an idle down the graded dirt road through the village. Soon the acequias would be full of the snowmelt and running with sparkling water down the slopes to the rio, their banks swelling with poleo, wild asparagus, and new, tiny shoots of red willow. The rio would run full and fast, rapids would foam over jutting rocks into the low places beneath them, and the wildflowers would bloom again. Centuries-old orchards of apples, plums, and pears would swell with buds and flowers, the ground beneath them full of wild watercress from the flood of water through the acequias, and this little crack in the earth would be lush with new life. The people of this valley would be planting their kitchen gardens with corn and squash and chiles and taking their cows to pasture on land leased by permit from the BLM. And some would gather straight saplings for coyote and latilla fences to keep the animals out of their gardens. And some would fly-fish in the river. Most would live on their land just as their families had lived since the Spanish conquistadors came, harvesting and putting up their fruits, drying the chiles in beautiful ristras and perhaps selling some of them along the roadside or in town, trading eggs for flour, milk for sugar, bartering their skills among themselves until all their needs were satisfied. A few would take jobs with the government in Los Alamos or find work during the tourist season as hotel or wait staff in Taos or Santa Fe. Some would grow up, some would leave home, some would get married, some would have children, and some would die.
Like Father Medina.
In a little while, nobody would much remember what it was like before, when he was here, what his days were like, how he looked, his wonderful melodious voice, his dark eyes, the white streak in his hair, his love for his work, his passion, what he lived for.
And they sure as hell wouldn’t remember what he died for. Not, especially, if they never knew.
32
At dawn the next morning, Holy Thursday, I completed an uneventful shift. Roy had assigned Art, the BLM ranger from the Taos Field Office, to team with me in my section. We had spent the entire night in sight of one another, and I was grateful for the company and the extra protection. After we had put the horses in the stalls and dropped the truck and trailer at the ranger station in Peñasco, Art left to go home and get some rest. I was getting ready to load my gear into my Jeep and do the same when Kerry drove up.
“I missed you the other night,” he said. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, I am, thanks. Sorry to let you down. It must have been something I… imbibed.”
He smiled. “That’s an interesting way to put it. But don’t worry, you didn’t let me down. It has been quiet up here for a few days now. No more fence cutting, no more signs of trespassing. Want to go and get some breakfast after I check in my gear?”
“Sure.”
In less than a minute, Kerry came back out the door of the station and strode toward me in a hurry. “Jump in my truck. We’re going down to Suazo’s place.”
“Why, what’s up?” I closed the Jeep’s hatch and locked it.
“The dispatcher said Suazo’s wife called the sheriff’s office to report him missing. They said she asked for you and ‘that forest ranger’ to come talk with her.” He handed me a message slip. “And that’s from your office in Taos. I guess she tried to reach you there, too. They relayed the message up here for you.”
“Well, that’s interesting. I was just wondering about Santiago Suazo myself.” I got in the truck and we lumbered down the slope in low gear.
“It can’t be such a big deal that he’s missing,” Kerry said. “She said he always goes off when he has money, and she told us he had money.”
“Yeah, I hear you. And what is this-Thursday morning? I saw him Monday in town, and he was definitely loaded, in more ways than one. We had a little altercation.” I reached for the radio.
His hand caught mine before I could turn it on. “An altercation? Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“I saw his truck at El Toro. I went in to ask him what he had been doing up around Boscaje, where you had seen his truck those two times. I was just going to talk to him, but he blew up and started hurling insults, and even made an implied threat. I went after him, and he took a swing at me.”
“You went after him?”
“Well, at first I just tapped his shoulder to get him to turn around and talk to me after he had hurled a string of particularly unsavory insults at me at the top of his voice in the restaurant. But after he tried to slug me, I pinned him up against his truck. I tried to get him to say what he’s been doing up here in this area. But he wouldn’t say. Just kept threatening me and insulting me for being a woman. It sounds weird, but even though he was acting like the same little banty rooster we know, it was almost like he was scared of something.”
Kerry looked at me, incredulous. “Hey, whether they’re scared or not, if you plan to wrestle with the bad guys and don’t want backup, will you at least give me a shout so I can sell tickets?” His tone was angry.
“It wasn’t like I planned it. You weren’t around. I was on my way in to the BLM and I saw his truck. We haven’t been able to catch him sitting still, so I took advantage of the opportunity. Luckily, it played out better than it might have. A couple people I know pulled up and it ended peacefully. Suazo saw his moment and bailed. Unfortunately, though, I never got any information from him.”
“All right, but can I just ask you something?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Is something going on with you that I ought to know about?”
I didn’t look at him. Suddenly, my face felt hot and I noticed I was clenching my jaw.
He didn’t wait for me to answer. “The other night, Roy asked me to go check on you. Then last night, he doubled you up with the BLM ranger. It’s almost like he thinks you need protection.”
I thought about denying that anything was wrong, but I couldn’t do that. It would have been lying, and I didn’t want to lie to him. “I can’t talk about it,” I said.
He kept his eyes on the road, but he raised his eyebrows. “You can’t talk about it?”
“No, I’m sorry. I really wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”
He drove a minute or so in silence. “Well, can you at least answer my question? Do you need protection?”
I took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. “I don’t know.”
Kerry shook his head. “What kind of answer is that?”
“It’s… it’s about a case I’m involved in. I really can’t talk about it.”