Wild Sorrow (32 page)

Diane interrupted. “That's Benny Baca,” she said. “Anyone else here look familiar?”

I swallowed and nodded. “The guy on the end, on my right.”

Diane pressed a button. “Number six, step forward, please.”

Short didn't look confident. In fact, he looked close to panic. His lips were quivering and he kept shifting his eyes from side to side nervously. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as if they might fly away if he didn't.

I nodded. “That's the other one,” I said.

“Yeah, just like I thought,” Diane said. “That's Baca's Española buddy.” She pressed the button again. “Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all.” Diane turned to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “You okay?”

I drew in a long breath, and let it out.
“Unh,”
I said, as the women at the pueblo had taught me to do.

 

 

The following Monday, Diane called to update me. “Benny Baca rolled on his cousin Eloy for the murder, and on his friend from Española, too. He's hoping to plea-bargain his own murder charge down to manslaughter and leave those guys holding the bag. Eloy's fingerprints were on the knife. Baca says Gallegos used it to cut off the victim's hair. We only got prints from the knife, though, no hair fibers. But we have the DNA from the rope, so everything else is redundant.”

“I figured you had the right guys,” I said. “I haven't been attacked now for the better part of a week.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I think we got it figured out. And I want you to know that even if Baca can plea down the murder charge—and I don't think he can—he's still going down for the assault on you.”

“Why do you think Gallegos came to rescue me when Baca and his buddy had me under the cottonwoods?” I asked.

“I've been thinking about that. You remember when you said something about recognizing him from before, when we were outside of the courthouse?”

“Yeah. I was talking about recognizing him from the first day I went to the courthouse. He was wearing his army uniform that day; he bumped into me.”

“I'm guessing he must not have been sure what you meant—or that he had a sense that
you
weren't quite sure about him.”

I was quiet a minute. “You mean, you think he might have set that rescue thing up to sway me away from suspicion?”

“Well, it's all I can come up with. It's not like the guy has a decent bone in his body and would have done it for the right reasons.”

“Or maybe Baca was going too far . . . getting out of control . . .”

“Too far? Let's remember how Cassie Morgan was murdered, shall we?”

“Yeah, I guess you're right. You know, the idea that maybe Eloy set up the scene to save me makes a little sense when I remember what happened on Christmas Eve morning.”

“Tell me.”

“I told him that I was grateful for what he had done, but that I didn't change sides. I said that I knew what he was up to, and I was going to see that he paid for it.”

“So, when he hears that, he decides to get rid of you for good, that very night. Maybe Baca's been pushing for it, and Gallegos has either been wanting to just try to scare you off or wait and see. But now that seals it.”

“That's probably as close as we can get for now. Maybe we'll never know the whole story.”

“Look, Jamaica, there's always a flaw or two in their thinking. There's always some deviation from sound reasoning, that's what leads the bad guys to do the wrong thing in the first place. When what a murderer does starts to seem logical,” Diane said, “it might be time for us to go do something else. Like sack groceries or wait tables.”

“So is Agent Sterling going to get you a promotion and a new assignment, now that you've solved the case?”

“I can get my own promotion. I don't need Agent Sterling to do it for me.”

“But I thought you and the Silver Bullet—”

“Let me tell you something: he may be the Silver Bullet, but I am the gold standard of done. He bores me. He's too full of himself.”

“So, what about that new assignment you wanted?”

“I could request a new assignment. But you know, I'm reconsidering.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. That procession on Christmas Eve, it was really something. It made me think I ought to stick around, maybe see what else I might have missed.”

 

Kerry came in as I was hanging up the phone. Mountain got up from snoozing on the floor and greeted him with his tail wagging. “That was Diane,” I said. “She's going to stay in Taos.”

He looked down at me and blinked his eyes but didn't speak.

“And you?” I said.

“I got the job, it's confirmed.”

I rose from my chair and kissed him. “Congratulations, Kerry.”

He folded his arms around me, pulling me against his chest, into the warm cave of him where I had always felt safe and sheltered. He put a finger under my chin, raised it up, and studied my face. “Come with me,” he said, his eyes pleading.

“I can't.” I wanted to look away, but I didn't.

I felt his chest deflate. He stared me down. “You won't.”

I was quiet a minute. Mountain moved in between us, demanding to be rubbed. “I can't,” I said softly, my eyes filling with tears.

“Maybe we can figure out a place for Mountain,” he said. “There's a wolf sanctuary in Washington—”

“I won't leave him,” I said. “I can't.”

 

 

Charlie Dorn sent a crew to my cabin to put up a fenced area for Mountain, and the wolf watched warily from the end of his chain as they built it. Once the workmen had left, I propped the tall hogwire and two-by-four gate open and hooked Mountain's chain to the eyebolt in the gatepost so that he could enter the new confine in his own time and by his own choice. I walked into the nine-foot-high fenced area and pretended to be curious about its construction.

“This isn't how I wanted it to be,” I said, looking back at the wolf.

Mountain stood as far away from the pen as his chain would permit, and he watched me with curiosity, his ears up, listening.

I took hold of the fence and gave it a shake. It was solid. I turned to face my four-legged companion. “You just couldn't make it in the wild, buddy,” I said, my lip quivering. “First, your mother was shot, and you needed someone to take care of you, or you would have died. Then we tried to get another pack to adopt you, and they wouldn't take you in. You were so tiny, you were all alone. They kept you in a cage for a few days, and then they asked me to help take care of you until we could get you placed somewhere with a pack.”

A breeze blew up, carrying the scent of the pines. Mountain and I raised our noses in unison and inhaled the fresh, beautiful fragrance.

I sat down on the ground in the middle of the enclosure. “But we became a pack. You and me.” Tears streamed down my face. “I never thought it would come to this, you on a chain or in a pen. I would never have kept you if I had known. Of course, if you were in a sanctuary somewhere, you'd be in a fenced enclosure, but it would be bigger, and you'd have other wolves with you.”

Mountain sat down just outside of the gate and looked in at me.

I remained seated on the ground. “This is just for your safety, and I will never leave you in here when I'm not home. I'll always take you with me whenever I can. And we'll still go running together out on the mesa when the weather is nice, hike up through the woods, go out for long romps in all our favorite places.”

Mountain got up and walked slowly toward me, his head down. I reached out a hand and he came forward to experience my touch—the touch of someone he trusted, someone he loved, someone who loved and adored him. I stroked the beautiful mane on the side of his neck, and he nuzzled his nose into my armpit, taking intense pleasure in the experience.

 

 

Kerry spent his last night before leaving at the cabin with me. As we lay on the bed facing one another in the glow of the candles flickering on the nightstand, I tried to memorize everything about my lover that I beheld: the round form of muscle at his shoulders, the soft down of hair on his chest, the angle of his jaw, the thin white scars under his chin. I savored the fragrance of his skin and realized I could probably go blindfolded into a room full of people and pick out Kerry just by scent alone. Like a wolf, I had imprinted Kerry's pheromonal signature in my sense memory.

The next morning when Kerry left, I gave him the deerskin vest I had made for his camera accessories, and I saw his eyes grow moist. “I love this,” he said as he put it on. It fit wonderfully, and looked good on his lean frame. “I love that you made it with your own two hands.”

“And by precious little light,” I said. “It's a wonder I got the seams straight.”

“I'm not giving up,” he said. “I'll be back to get you soon, and by that time you will have missed me so much that you'll go anywhere with me.”

“Maybe Mountain and I can come for a visit,” I said.

“Come soon, babe,” he said. “Come for a visit, and never leave.”

The Heart of the Matter

On the last day of the year, Mountain and I went for an afternoon hike. I had a destination in mind, and I'd brought a backpack full of treasures. We came across the high mesa from the northeast, passing by Pueblo Peña and carefully making our way down the slender, sloping path and around the slide debris on the small shelf below the canyon rim. I spread two large squares of cloth, then unpacked food, and plenty of it. I'd brought things that hungry children love to eat: hot dogs with ketchup, macaroni and cheese, corn chips, chocolate cupcakes, and candy. I set out bottles of root beer and boxes of juice, all arranged nicely as for a feast. I put out some unfilled balloons, some marbles, and two slingshots. On one cairn, I propped the Howdy Doody doll; on the other, a child's set of plastic bow and arrows, because Tom Leaves His Robe had told me how much the boys at the Indian school loved to play Wild West. In case these two needed to escape danger, I left the tool that Roy had given me. It had saved my life, and it might just save theirs, too. I clutched my Apache tears that were given me by Sica Blue Cloud, and I choked back my own tears and forced a smile.

As Mountain and I climbed back up on the canyon rim, the sun was beginning to set across the dry back of northern New Mexico, over the vast, empty country that stretched to the west, a land of precious few rivers and high, haunting mesas broken only by more cracked-earth canyons like this one for as far as I could see. Long, shimmering beams of silver sunlight stretched like fingers into the sky, up toward the lone white cloud that floated in the turquoise heavens, to touch it tenderly before leaving. Seconds later, the western horizon was stained with color as an enormous fuchsia fruit ripened atop the soft purple swells of faraway mountains. Behind us, the ancient and enduring walls of Pueblo Peña, the silent house of sorrow, glowed red and gold.

As I stood there watching, with Mountain sitting beside me, a peace and a warmth came over me unlike any I had ever known. I felt a knot of sadness in my chest unraveling, and its barbwire tentacles no longer clutched at my heart. In that moment, I knew that the one true mother who had always been with me, the one that Momma Anna had spoken of—for whom I was a cherished and beloved daughter—was Mother Earth. Her beauty, shelter, and love had always been there for me, had always comforted me and nourished me and provided for me.

Before leaving, I went down the slope to the abandoned Indian school. I passed by the post where I almost became a meal for two hungry cubs. I walked through the gates that had been battered down by my horse, and I went to the chapel doors, which had since been forced back in place after I had stumbled onto a saga of sorrow. They were now sealed with a strong brass lock. I looked around for a pin or a nail, until I found a large cactus thorn. Returning to the chapel entrance, I pushed the cactus thorn into a crack and pinned the milagro—the cracked heart bound with barbwire—to the door of the San Pedro de Arbués Indian School, and I asked for the miracle of healing for all hearts that are filled with sorrow.

Epiphany

Before dawn on the morning of the Epiphany, I drove to Momma Anna's house in the Blazer. We had made plans to go to the home of Sica Blue Cloud Gallegos to pick up the bultos of the Holy Family and return them to their permanent home of veneration in the church. Yohe met me at Momma Anna's front door. “We gathering some few things for Sica,” she said. “Sica not feel good. Very ashame her nephew do that terrible thing. And very bad more, he try make look like
Indun
do that. Sica say that like a knife in her heart.”

Momma Anna came to the door with a large handwoven basket covered with a cloth. “I make soup for Sica,” she said. “She not eat. She wail, they hear her cry in the village. We go church, ask Sister come, pray with Sica.”

Sister Florinda Maez, Momma Anna, Yohe, and I went together to Sica's door, prepared to give the old woman comfort, and to transport the Holy Family back to the church. Sister Florinda knocked, but there was no answer. She knocked again, and we waited. The sister pushed open the door. “It's dark, the lamps aren't lit,” she said. “Maybe Mrs. Gallegos is sleeping.”

Momma Anna and Yohe looked at one another. Neither woman spoke.

Sister Florinda pushed the door a little farther. “Mrs. Gallegos? Sica? It's Sister Florinda, I'm going to come in and make sure you're all right.” But she didn't go in. And Momma Anna and Yohe remained fixed where they stood.