Sister Eve and the Blue Nun (30 page)

Unable to fight back, Eve quit resisting and tried to imagine
that it was Daniel taking her to safety, giving thought to the possibility that perhaps the Captain had been able to find her after all. She wanted to believe that she wasn't far from home and that he had found her. She tried to imagine that she was out of danger as her father had called his old partner and together they had discovered her on a road somewhere.

She imagined they were getting her out of the truck and away from some accident she had been in. She tried to believe this was a rescue by a loved one. She was being dragged for her protection, being pulled as far away from her truck and impending danger as was necessary. She would soon be let down on the ground, she imagined, in a safe area, on a soft place where her injuries could be tended, the pain relieved, and where she could finally be given an explanation of what had happened.

“Thank you,” she tried to say as she was being dragged along the road, but she couldn't quite shape the words, her tongue and lips struggling to form her expression of gratitude.

Soon
, she told herself,
soon the pain will stop and I can rest.

But the strong arms holding her did not let her go, and the sliding of her body across the gravel and dirt didn't quickly come to an end. She blacked out, her body relaxing and then, in what seemed to be only seconds, emerging to consciousness again. It felt like she was in a dream, more of a nightmare really, unable to wake up and unable to end the terrible pain she was feeling.

Finally, just as she thought she was blacking out again, the yanking and pulling stopped, and she felt the arms behind her release her upper body, her head then dropping hard on the ground beneath her. She felt herself groan again. She tried to listen, hoping
someone would speak to her, but she heard only sounds, doors opening, a person breathing hard.
Was it the man who rescued her?
she wondered.

There were things being moved around near where she lay, objects tossed, a kind of shuffling. She opened her eyes and looked up, but she could see only the night sky above her, black velvet studded with pinpoints of light, stars and planets filling up the horizon. It was beautiful and familiar, and while she lay on the ground in pain, it was also deeply comforting. This was the sky she knew, the sky she had been born under, the sky where she had fallen in love with God, the sky of her mother and father, and the sky under which she knew she would die. This place with its black sky and its cool spring wind, this was her home. She closed her eyes again.

She did not struggle or resist this time as the warm body knelt beside her and the strong arms came under her. She leaned back into whatever or whoever was lifting her. She felt the words of a prayer on her lips and began reciting the familiar way she had always talked to God. She mumbled first the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray and then began the one she loved the most; she prayed to the Virgin Mother, the feminine presence of God, the one adored by all the sisters and saints.

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Eve said softly as she was picked up, carried, and then placed in what felt to be the back of a truck. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women.”

And even though Sister Eve was in undisclosed hands, she felt a divine protection.

FORTY-SEVEN

When Eve awoke, her throat and mouth felt dry, and all she could see was a narrow stream of light coming through a crack in the ceiling of the building where she lay. Sunlight, she thought, but there was no evidence to prove the light's original source. She thought the ceiling looked like it had been made with boards, and as she slowly turned to her side, it appeared as if the walls were made from the same lumber.

She had no idea how long she had been there. She had no idea of how much time had passed. She stared above her at the narrow opening and thought about where she might be. As she tried to focus her vision, Eve realized that she could open only one eye. She breathed as normally as she was able, and even though she wanted to see what was wrong with her, see if she could get up and find water or try to call for help, she wasn't sure which body part to attempt to move first. For a moment, other than the horrible dryness in her throat and mouth, there was no real physical discomfort, but that moment was fleeting. In less than a few seconds, everything hurt.

She was able to assess that she was lying on her back, her arms and hands resting across her belly. She tried to lift her head but was immediately stopped by the stabbing pain on her left side and the nausea that suddenly took over her body. After staying awake for a few minutes, trying to keep from blacking out again, she decided to remain in the same position but to attempt to take an inventory of her injuries. She wanted to know what had happened to her body.

She started with her feet, her hiking boots and the thick socks still on, trying to move them a bit, first wiggling her toes and then sliding her heels up and back. There was some success in her movements, and from what she could tell, at least from her lower extremities, there was only minimal damage. She felt only a slight ache in her right ankle.

She moved her attention elsewhere, scanning upward, thinking that her legs seemed fine. Her hips and back, however, felt terribly uncomfortable. Again, it was the left side that hurt the most. She didn't think her pelvis had been fractured, but it had certainly suffered a blow. She could hardly move from side to side, her left hip was so painful. She stopped moving and surveyed her belly and chest, again feeling that there had been no real damage to that area of her body. However, as soon as she tried to lift her arms, the pain in her left shoulder immediately pushed the breath from her body. She groaned.

It was dislocated or broken, she wasn't sure which; she knew only that the pain was sharp and radiated down her arm and up and across the back of her neck. The left side of her face was also injured. She rested her left arm across her chest and raised her
right hand to explore. She immediately felt both the swelling and a sticky substance that had matted in her hair and dripped down her shirt, expecting that there was more than likely a cut or gash beneath the swelling and that blood had been shed. As far as she could tell, however, the area was not still bleeding; the blood had clotted sometime after the injury occurred.

She slid her fingers across her left eye, taking great care as she touched, but she was still unprepared for the pain that followed. She stopped and rested her right hand on her cheek. She winced in agony but tried to keep a steady and regular breath.

As best as Eve could tell, she had suffered the impact of whatever had happened on the left side of her body. She wasn't clear if she had been hit on that side or pushed hard against that side, but it was certain from the pain that the left side of her face, shoulder, head, and hip had received the brunt of whatever had taken place.

She brought her arm back down to her side, closed her right eye, and tried to remember what had happened. It took a few minutes, everything fuzzy at first, but suddenly the images and her recall became clear. She remembered that she had been driving on the road from the Salinas National Monument south toward the ghost town of Claunch. She had been following John Barr all the way from the Pecos Canyon because she had seen the blue cloak in his house. She assumed that he would lead her to Brother Anthony, and she had not told anyone where she was going.

While driving down the dirt road after leaving Salinas, she had been thinking about Sister Maria and the archbishop, and for some reason she could not name, she had been crying, she thought. She was weeping about something—she didn't quite remember what,
but she was still able to feel some unnamed sadness—when she was hit by another vehicle coming from the right side, the impact causing her body to crash into the door and window on the driver's side.

From there, the details felt a bit murkier. She was unclear about the other vehicle, the other driver who had hit her, and she wasn't sure how she got from her truck to wherever it was that she now lay. What did seem clear was that she was not receiving help in this place where she was. There were no bandages on her injuries, no water at her side, no blanket or pillow, no medications to ease the pain. No one was with her. She had been taken from the accident and placed in this building that let in only a sliver of light.

As Eve assessed the situation she was in, she realized that the hit on her truck had been intended to harm her. And even though she had survived the crash, it was evident to her that she remained in danger. She had to get up. She knew she had to find a way to get out of the place she had been stashed because it seemed apparent that whoever had hit her and brought her there would at some point come back.

Eve was so thirsty, and after the brief awakening and assessment of her injuries, once again so sleepy. And yet she understood the gravity of her situation. She understood that she couldn't fall back to sleep. She had to try to stay awake, try to get up and figure out a way to get assistance.

“Help!” She tried calling out but could tell that her voice was too low to be heard. “Help me!” she called out again, the sounds of her own cries causing her to become more and more distressed.

She stopped shouting and tried to concentrate on where she might be. She recalled the dirt road she had traveled from the
national monument, how long and desolate it had seemed to her at the time. She remembered the empty landscape, the pastures devoid of cattle or horses. She remembered how lonesome the plains had looked to her from the inside of her father's truck as she drove along trying to find John Barr, and she knew that if her kidnapper had taken her anywhere near where he had crashed into her on the road, there was likely no one in or around the vicinity.

Eve knew how isolated it was beyond the ruins of the Gran Quivira. She knew how practically all of the buildings in the area had been abandoned, how few residents made a home anywhere near the place. There was no water source south of Mountainair, no river or stream, and that had been the reason many scholars gave for the desolation, the reason that the fields and the towns remained uninhabited.

This was the dry and dust-caked desert, settled by Indians, conquered by the Spanish, and farmed by those thinking they could weather the storms and overcome the odds. But in the end, nobody stayed, everybody left, and as Eve considered where she had been brought and abandoned, she felt the despair of those who had come and eventually gone.

“Help me,” she called out again and slowly slid her right arm out to her side to feel around her. She was surprised when her fingers touched the edge of a cloth, and when they did, she reached as far as she could, grabbed a handful, and pulled. Perhaps, she thought as she yanked, it was a blanket or sack or something that she could use for a pillow or a bandage. She pulled as hard as she could, but the garment seemed to be stuck on or attached to something, and as she grasped and tugged harder, she immediately knew what she had found.

She was lying next to someone else.

Sister Eve let go of the cloth and screamed, shocked to discover the body, but then as her nerves settled, curiosity took over. She carefully lifted herself up, trying to touch the body beside her, but just as she raised her head and leaned over, the room began to spin and Eve fell back, unconscious once again.

FORTY-EIGHT

There was a blueness all around her, soft and disarming, growing in intensity, a blur of color suddenly coming more and more into focus. So very light at first, a blue of water, an edge of the horizon, but then deeper and darker, a winter sky blueness, suddenly filling the space all around her, filling the room, filling her heart, a blueness that spoke to Eve of endless rest.

Eve felt the changes beginning within her. Small changes, not unlike the blueness, began to manifest into something transformative. She felt the pain ease away from her bit by bit. The discomfort from her injuries simply evaporated from her, part by part, bottom to top, just like the assessment she had done on herself earlier.