Wild Sorrow (13 page)

The Indian slid tentatively into the passenger seat, watching over his shoulder as he did.

Mountain was on guard. He studied the new arrival, raised his nose and smelled the air and then sniffed at the man's long black and silver braid of hair, the threadbare collar of his coat.

Tom winced and dropped his head forward. “He is going to bite me!”

“Don't worry,” I said. “Wolves are naturally shy of people. Mountain's already decided you're all right. He's just curious now.”

Still leaning forward in the seat, Leaves His Robe reached across his body with his left hand to pull the door closed. Pinned between his right palm and three stubby, deformed fingers, he clutched a roll of yellow legal-pad sheets that were stained with blue ink and small, round water spots that looked as if they had been made by tears. “Did you give me a ride before, when I was drinking?”

“A couple of times. I want you to fasten your seat belt, okay?”

He twisted in the seat and grabbed the buckle with his left hand, then pulled it across his torso. After a few seconds of fumbling to latch the belt, he looked at me from under his dark eyebrows. “I don't drink no more.”

I reached out a hand and helped snap the seat-belt buckle in place. I noticed that he didn't have his normal eighty-proof odor. “Going to AA now, huh?” I said.

He nodded. “Been sober seven months.”

“That's great, Tom.” I put the Jeep in gear and started driving.

“I had a lot of help. I could not do it alone. I got to go to my AA meeting to meet my sponsor. Today, I do my fifth step.”

I had heard about fifth steps, a kind of peer confession that unburdened the soul. “Well, that's good, Tom. I can get you to the church.”

“They told me I don't have to drink again if I don't want to.”

I glanced at Leaves His Robe but didn't speak. I turned back to look through the windshield out across the giant rent in the land made by the Rio Grande. The earth had split in two and formed a deep, narrow gorge that cut across the high mesa west of Taos.

“Do I owe you money?” Leaves His Robe asked.

“No.”

“I don't remember much about what I done. I used to drink to forget.”

“Well, you don't owe me any money.”

“I wanted to forget all the bad things,” he said. “I done a lot of bad things. Some bad things happened to me, too—way back when I was a kid. I been trying to forget.”

“So, did you forget? Is that why you're sober now?”

He turned and looked out the passenger window. “No, I tried to forget them,” he muttered, “but I could not. Now I got to live with things how they are. I just don't got to drink no more.”

“So, what's different now? I mean, if you can't forget the things that made you drink, how do you know you won't drink over them again?” There was an edge in my voice as I remembered my father, his shame-filled remorse during hung-over mornings, his countless broken promises that he would stop drinking.

“It is over now,” Tom Leaves His Robe said. “It is all over. My sponsor says I got to make amends for what I done when I was drunk. People I hurt. That is why I ask you if I owe you money. If I do, I got to pay it back. And my sponsor says I got to talk about what happened. So it don't eat me up inside. He said maybe it will help somebody else, to talk about what happened to me.”

I glanced at the Tanoah man, and his dark eyes met mine. I saw courage and sincerity and I felt ashamed that I had projected my anger at my dead father on what appeared to be a heartfelt attempt on this man's part to reclaim his broken life. I was almost afraid to ask. “What happened to you, Tom?”

“I had a hard time when I was a little kid. They used to come round up kids in the fall and take them to that school out there. When I got to be the right age, my mom tried to hide me, but they kept coming, and one day they found me and dragged me away. They would not let me go back home. I cried, I wanted my mom, my family. I wanted to go home. They cut our hair, they beat us to make us do things. It was real bad.”

I shook my head with dismay. “I've been hearing a lot of stories about that school lately,” I said.

Tom Leaves His Robe began to twist at the sheaf of yellow papers, his hands trembling. “It was bad the first few years, and I was real little. Small for my age. The big boys were mean to me.” He cleared his throat and looked out the windshield. “Do you think you could turn the heat on?”

I adjusted the heat and turned up the fan. “For a little bit. I keep it cold for Mountain. But let's get you warmed up.”

“Thank you. My coat don't close. The zipper is broke.”

“How long were you at the boarding school, Tom?”

“Most all the time when I was a kid. I went to the army when I got out. That was in 1959.”

“I'm sorry you had it so rough. But I'm glad you're sober now.”

“When I was nine, the prefect made me sleep in his room.”

I gasped, my mouth falling open.

Tom turned his head away from me and looked at the floor next to the passenger door. I heard him sniffling, and saw him trembling. I reached into the center console and pulled out a tissue. I placed it on his lap.

He didn't look at me, but he picked up the tissue and blew his nose. “He liked to beat me first with that thing they call cat claw. It had a lot of leather straps with metal spikes. He liked to do that first.”

I blew air from my lips, as if there were pain from this story in my own chest that needed to be expelled. “Did you report him to anyone?”

Leaves His Robe still did not look up. “They would not let my mother come to visit me. And they would not let me go home. That woman who ran that school, I told her, and she told him I told her. He got me good for that. They had to sew me up after he done that.”

I pulled over on the shoulder, my eyes full of tears. I could not seem to suppress the flow of sadness that poured from me, and I was crying. I put a hand on Tom's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I'm so sorry that happened to you, Tom,” I said, through my own tears. “No one deserves that.”

He looked at me. “You want me to get out here?”

“No! I just . . .” I put the Jeep in gear and pulled back onto the highway for fear he might get out of the car out of shame or embarrassment. “I just wanted to—”

“You should not feel so sorry for me. I done a lot of bad things over there in the war. I was real mad, and I done some real bad things. I just wanted to forget those things I done. My sponsor—he is a lot younger than me, but he went to the same school, so he understands.”

We rode the rest of the way into town in silence. As Tom Leaves His Robe got out of the Jeep in front of the church, he suddenly pointed to a man going into the vestibule. “That one there. He is my sponsor.”

I recognized Rule Abeyta, the Tanoah man from the governor's office who had flinched and then hurried away when the mission church bell rang.

“He and I—we found a way. Now, it is all over and I am free.”

 

 

I turned around after dropping Tom Leaves His Robe at the church on the north side of Taos, and headed toward the setting sun and the Coldfire Ranch. Out on the high mesa, far enough away so that there would be no contamination from my scent, I stopped the Jeep and got out with my binoculars. A thin rim of vivid, vermilion light pulsed along the western horizon, the sky above an alluring azure aura as stunning as a gem. One small star winked through the blue, announcing the coming of night. My breath fogged in the cold, and I raised my field glasses to check the traps we'd set for the cougar and her cubs, the ground there already in shadow.

The traps were empty.

Luminarias and Landlords

When Mountain and I arrived at Diane's house to spend the night, our hostess was making up a bed in the spare room. I unrolled the wolf's lambskin on the floor, and set his pack and mine on the bed. “I didn't bring much,” I said. “I hope we aren't putting you out.”

“Nonsense. Glad to do it.”

“I'm hoping it won't be for long. Mountain is going to miss the woods and being able to run. Besides, with Agent Sterling in town, you probably had plans.”

“I was thinking I would hear from him tonight. It hasn't panned out yet, but the night is still young.” She winked at me.

“Any news on the power company?”

“We got a list of their employees. Sterling sent it to Albuquerque, and they'll run the names through the FBI's database tomorrow. We should hear back in a few days.”

“A few days?”

“I'm sorry. The data guys had already gone home by the time we got the list today. They'll start on it tomorrow, but I couldn't expedite it because it's technically just an animal mutilation crime at this point, and that's not a high-enough priority for overtime. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll finish it fast.”

I shrugged. “I guess we wait, then.” I opened Mountain's pack and took out two collapsible dishes. “I have to get this wolf his dinner.”

“Let's fix ourselves something to eat, too. My skunk of a landlord said he had someone out to fix that oven today. We can bake a couple potatoes, and I'll make a salad.”

While Diane sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, I scrubbed two large spuds and pushed the tip of a paring knife into their sides, then placed them on the lower rack of the oven. I opened the broiler door at the bottom and watched as the pilot light danced in the back of the cavern for a few seconds, and then a procession of peacock blue flame flared along each of the two burner tubes. “It seems to be working,” I said as I closed the metal door. I grabbed a bell pepper and began slicing it into thin rings.

“Good.” Diane chopped a rib of celery into half-moons. “We'll get the salad ready and leave it in the fridge until the potatoes are done.”

In the living room, Diane pointed to a spreading brown stain on the wall and the carpet in one corner. “That's from a leak in the roof,” she said. “When snow builds up on the top, it slowly melts and runs down the inside of that wall.”

“There has to be something you can do about your landlord,” I said.

“Believe me, I've got some ideas. Unfortunately, none of them are legal. This guy seems to have the whole town in his hip pocket. I don't know if he bribes people or blackmails them. When the septic tank backed up in the yard, I called the health department. The so-called inspector said he came out and couldn't find anything wrong. I could go on, but you don't want to hear any more of my stories, Jamaica. It's too depressing.”

“I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with the guy. I'm lucky. The man who owns my place lives up in Denver and I never see him. I fix things myself, but there's not much that goes wrong. And rent out there is cheap because no one wants to live so far from town.”

Mountain, who had been lying on the carpet in front of the door since he'd finished his supper, suddenly rose to his feet and sniffed the air.

I sniffed, too. “Do you smell gas?” I said, and I yanked open the front door, letting the wolf out in front of me. “Where's the propane tank?” I called behind me as I ran out in search of the main gas valve.

 

 

While the house aired out, I talked Diane into coming out to see the luminarias along the adobe walls, roofs, and roadsides in Taos. We rode together in my Jeep, with Mountain in his customary place, filling up the cargo area created by folding down the backseat so that there was a large flat surface on which he could lie. This was the way he and I always traveled, and the wolf liked to lie as close to the front as possible, usually with his chin on the back of the passenger seat, or even on my shoulder, as I drove.

Along the edges of Lower Ranchitos Road for several miles, locals had lovingly placed
farolitos
every few yards on both sides of the road. These paper bags with sand in the bottom and a lit candle nestled in the center were there to light the way for the centuries-old neighborhood Christmas processions known as Las Posadas. Along the adobe walls and the rooftops of homes, more of these small paper bags, also known as luminarias, created a charming line of golden light outlining the contours of the earthen architecture.

At a humble neighborhood church, we saw a procession coming out the doors, a man escorting a woman, both of them wearing shawls over their heads, and a group behind them dressed as shepherds and wise men. “Look!” I said. “It's La Posada!”

We pulled over to watch as the cortege passed, singing in Spanish as they walked down the road, their breath making gossamer wisps of white as they rejoiced.

“What is this?” Diane asked.

“It's an ancient Hispanic tradition. For nine days preceding Christmas, members of the community play the roles of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men from the Christmas story. They travel from house to house as if they were seeking room at the inn. One home in the village will be designated as the host for the night, and will give shelter to the wanderers. There are special hymns and readings, and even delicious holiday treats associated with it. This custom came over from Spain in the 1500s, and all the little mountain villages here still celebrate La Posada in its authentic form.”

“Wow,” Diane said. “I never knew that.”

It began to snow as we drove on, and a layer of white soon cloaked every surface. I felt my heart lightening a little from a long day of turmoil. “Look at that,” I said. “The luminarias on that roof-top and adobe wall make such a soft light on the snow.”

“It really is magical.”