Wild Penance (12 page)

Before going home, I drove across the gorge bridge and down the canyon rim road a few miles to the south. I parked on top. Still a little sore, I walked gingerly out to the edge. I could see almost to Los Alamos, as the bright morning sun made long, lilac shadows of the faraway peaks to the southeast. Below me, only an inch wide, and green as clover, the Rio Grande—like any errant child—deepened the furrow on the face of its Mother. An immature bald eagle floated effortlessly on a thermal loft in the canyon below me, its head and tail feathers just beginning to turn white. I made it to be about three years old, finally out on its own, without parents to help it survive.

I let the wind blow through me until I was hollowed out. Then I went home and tried to sleep.

Only the Lonely

That evening, I picked up Redhead from the stables at the ranger station and rode up the fence line. I made base camp in an area almost exactly between Cañoncito and the site of my rendezvous with Kerry Reed that morning near Cañada de la Entranas. I was just a few miles from a tiny mountain village called Boscaje. From my camp on a high slope, I could look down the mountain to the southwest and see part of the four-wheel track that intruders into the wilderness area had been using, and even a little of the Forest Service road farther off to the northwest, which seemed to be another primary point of access. If someone drove down either of those, I would know it.

Just before dark, I mounted Redhead again and set out to sweep a circle with a mile or two radius from my base. Because my backside was still a little sore, I didn’t plan to do much more riding than I had to. Forest Service land lay immediately to the east, and on my sweep, I checked the fence bordering their jurisdiction and ours. The fenced boundary stretched a line north and south of where I sat. Looking north, I lost sight of the barbwire within a few hundred yards in the trees. Looking south, toward Cañada de la Entranas, I followed the straight line of fence posts with my eyes until it became a point and then disappeared in the distance.

I don’t know why, but I rode south along the fence line, contrary to my original plan to sweep a small circle around camp. It was getting cold, and the light was fading, but I just kept riding along the wire at a slow but steady pace. I leaned on my left hip to protect my bruised buttock, watching the posts a few dozen yards ahead, riding mindlessly, no particular method in what I was doing, no fully formed thoughts in my head.

When I had gone about two miles, I saw tracks cut into the slope where a vehicle had left the four-wheel-drive road and taken to the backcountry. The vandal had cut through the fence and pulled it down, then carved a swath through the brush and scrub piñon with a vehicle. The tracks indicated that someone had headed up and around the higher grade, in the general direction of Boscaje. I followed the ruts onto the Forest Service land and a hundred yards or so back in. For twenty or thirty more yards, the tracks ran above, but roughly parallel to, the four-wheel-drive road. Small saplings had been broken and crushed by the intruder’s tires, and there were signs of some sliding and swerving around larger scrub. The hard freeze of the last two nights was probably the only reason this vehicle had not been mired.

I stopped and took a pull on my canteen. I patted Redhead. “Good girl,” I cooed into her ear, leaning over her neck. “Good girl.”

She did a little volt, stepping high to the side. She wanted to go, I could feel that. She was excited, ready to get on down the trail.

I looked back down the incline at the four-wheel-drive road, and it reminded me of riding in Kerry’s truck that morning. A look ahead in the direction the tracks were leading gave me a strange feeling of internal sparks, the same way I feel when I’m tracking and close to my quarry. The trees grew denser ahead, and I knew it would have been impossible for someone to drive a vehicle much farther in. The ruts cut away from the road, higher up the mountain, and directly into what would soon become an area of impenetrable forest.

It was past twilight now, and the moon, nearly half full, was high in the sky so I knew I’d have moonlight to see by. I started to give Redhead a little dig with my heels, but she was already moving. As we rode forward into the trees, I thought I heard coyotes howling far off in the distance.

I did not ride far into the heavy growth before I saw the place where the vehicle had stopped, tried to back up and go forward again a few times, and then had finally turned around. I pulled out my flashlight and examined the turn-around site, trying to discern the reason for this intruder’s foray into the woods. A long, narrow trail of low-lying vegetation had been ripped and crushed, as if someone had pulled something heavy along the ground. I followed the path this made, but it was getting too dark for me to see, even with the flashlight. The thick timber growth forced me to ride bent over, ducking the low-hanging limbs and branches. I was watching the ground for tracks, not looking where I was going, when Redhead cut too close to a tree and banged my knee into its trunk.

“Ouch!”

She nickered.

The leather saddle squeaked as she walked, rolling like a small craft over the sea-swell shifting of her wide back. I focused on the ground again, my flashlight illuminating only one small area at a time. I was forced to lean well over Redhead’s withers.
Smack!
She ran my knee into another tree trunk.

“Damn it, Redhead. That was deliberate!” I pulled her to a stop, massaging my throbbing knee. “I know I’m not paying attention to you right now, but you know how to walk a trail with a rider, so cut it out.”

She blustered and pawed at the ground.

I looked ahead. The vegetation was only getting denser. I pulled on the reins, exerting light pressure on Redhead’s bit, signaling her to back up to a place where I could better turn her around and head back out of the thicket. I heard the howling sound again. I loosened the reins.
That’s not coyotes!
My skin began to tingle, and I felt as if a cold hand had just brushed the back of my neck. Redhead was alert, too, her ears scanning for the source of the wailing. In unison, we turned our faces to the northeast.

I tied Redhead’s reins to a branch and went ahead on foot, only using my flashlight when I had to. As I grew closer to the noise, it sounded more like human voices. At first I thought they were moaning or crying, but the nearer I got, the more it sounded like fervent singing. Ahead, the foliage was thinning out some, and beyond that was a grove of high meadow grass. I felt sorry that I had left Redhead behind—she would have liked to graze on this.

I started to cross the field when I caught the glint of moonlight on steel ahead. In the dark, I could see the shape of a long, low structure against the tree line on the other side of the meadow. Standing in front of the building were two men with rifles slung on straps over their shoulders. From inside its walls, the voices of men rose in an anguished concert of Spanish song.

They were singing
alabados—
Penitente hymns in Spanish, songs of praise. This was a morada! I was so excited by this discovery that, for a moment, I failed to grasp the irony of so peaceful and private a group as Los Hermanos de la Luz posting armed guards at the entrance to their sanctuary. When I sobered to this thought, I retreated back into the cover of the trees and watched. What would cause them to post armed guards? I had read about
los hermanos vigilantes
—the vigilant brothers who kept watch against intruders. But I had never known of them being armed with guns. In fact, normally during Lent, the Penitentes were strictly forbidden from handling guns, hunting, and even doing some kinds of work or using certain tools. And was there a morada that was still in use on Forest Service land, or had I wandered off course and not realized it?

I watched for twenty minutes or so, but nothing much transpired. The door to the morada never opened. The singing stopped, and in a few minutes it started again. The two men outside spoke to one another a few times, although I could not hear what they were saying. I was ready to leave when I heard the faint sound of women singing. I held my breath so I could hear them. Their high, beautiful voices came nearer, transforming the meadow into a glorious amphitheater with stars for an audience.

They came toward the morada in a long procession of two rows. Before them came three young Verónicas wearing long white dresses and bearing tall staffs with crosses atop them. These adolescent virgins, whose hair had never been cut before this Lent, sacrificed their hair for the
santeros
and
santeras
—the carvers and painters of the large, three-dimensional icons of saints called
bultos
—to use for the hair on these statues. Behind these young women, Las Carmelitas—about twenty women of the morada’s community—marched in long black dresses with black shawls covering their heads and shoulders. The first two carried a shiny fabric banner with a figure painted on it—most certainly that of the Virgin Mary. Behind the banner bearers, each woman carried a basket or bowl or a pot. The guards rose and came to attention.

The song the Carmelitas were singing was a call-and-response. One row sang the first line, their voices lifting as they asked a question:
¿Quién te llena de alegría?
(Who fills you with joy?)

The other row answered:
¡María!
(Mary!)

When their song was finished, the guards opened the door to the morada and the sisters passed inside. The night grew dark and quiet. Within a few minutes, the
hermanos vigilantes
were seated again and talking quietly with one another.

I made my way to Redhead, then back to the BLM perimeter, and we followed the fence line again toward my camp.

In camp, I built a fire, then removed Redhead’s saddle and gave her some feed. As she ate, I brushed her down, cooing to her. “You’re a feisty girl, aren’t you? I’m pretty sure you already know this, but if you don’t, you’re going to have to learn how wide you are and not run my knees into any more tree trunks. Okay?” She shook her head up and down as if to agree. I picked out her hooves, combed her forelock and her mane. She gleamed in the firelight. I reached into the saddlebag and got an apple and gave it to her. She fluttered her big lips around it in my hand, showing gratitude and affection. Then she carefully took it from my palm and chomped it down.

I unrolled the horse blanket that I always used for a seat and spread it onto the ground. By the light of the fire and my headlamp, I rummaged through my backpack for my map, and then, using the flashlight, too, I located a thin strip of land along the unpaved Forest Service road that held the tiny village of Boscaje. It must have been the Boscaje morada that I had chanced upon. In many of the older villages, the morada was set apart from the town, often at a higher elevation. And a place of sanctuary still higher was set apart for the ritual of crucifixion. Processions during Holy Week would take place from the village church to the morada and to the top of the mountain and back.

I pulled a lined, spiral-bound notebook from my pack and opened it to write. My right hand was poised above the paper. I remembered the sound of the alabados rippling across the meadow grass in the cold air, the voices pleading and crying as they sang. I had intended to write a description of what I had just seen and heard, but I couldn’t find a way to begin. And then suddenly I questioned whether I wanted to begin at all. I had tried to talk myself into starting over on my book, but my enthusiasm for the idea had begun to wane already.

Why had I wanted to write about the Penitentes? Father Medina was right—I wasn’t from this area, I hadn’t been raised in this faith, I didn’t even have any faith.

And even more importantly, what was going on with Los Hermanos? Father Ignacio had tried to warn me that there was trouble brewing with the Penitentes, and it had even made him vigilant at our meeting. A man on a cross was thrown over the gorge bridge! And, on the very same day, my book was stolen. Nothing else, just my book—which happened to be about the Penitentes. And the morada at Boscaje had armed guards at the door. What was I doing in the middle of all this?

A sound in the brush above my camp startled me. Redhead jerked her head up, ears forward, alert. I crawled full-speed to her saddle and removed my rifle from the holster. I levered a round into the chamber, knelt upright with one foot placed firmly in front of me, shouldered the rifle, and watched for any sign of movement. Not so much as a twig snapped.

“Federal agent! I’m armed. Show yourself,” I yelled, still peering intently into the dark thicket.

I heard the sound of hooves bolting away up the slope at top speed—elk, from the sound of it.

I went back to my seat on the horse blanket. But I brought my rifle with me and set it on the ground within reach. I picked up the notebook and pen again. My train of thought broken, I had no answers to the questions I had been asking myself earlier.