Wild Penance (21 page)

“Lo si-en-to, señ-or-i-ta.”
His voice wheezed from the blow, but his voice was still bitter. He wouldn’t look at me. His eyes were slits, one lid lazy, almost closing on his fierce stare past my shoulder.

“Now, tell me. What were you doing up by Boscaje?”

I squeezed hard, and he tried to double over, but I pressed against his windpipe.

“Just looking for fun, man.” He half choked. “Looking for a good time with
la rubia—
some gringa like you.”

“I’m in no mood, Suazo. You may like to beat on your poor little wife, but this is one woman you better not screw around with. I’d just as soon rip these little jewels right off you as stand here and smell your foul stench.”

“Sí, pero,
you’re not going to do that,” he puffed. “You got no jurisdiction here. You got nothing on me, man! You can’t do a fucking thing to me!” His raspy voice attempted bravado, but his eyes protruded from fear and pain. He looked like a big lizard.

“You took a swing at me, Suazo. That’s all I need. I can have you arrested right now for attempted assault on a federal agent. Or you can talk to me about what you were doing up by Boscaje.” We stood there a moment, my forehead almost touching the side of his pitted face, both of us panting, neither one of us moving. I could taste the stink of his beer breath, his fear. His crotch felt damp in my hand. I heard a car door slam behind me and footsteps coming toward us, but I didn’t take my hands away or even dare to turn my head around and look.

“Can I be of any help?” a baritone voice asked. I knew that voice. Where did I know that voice from? I released Suazo, whose eyes were wide with fright. He scrambled into his truck as I turned around and saw Andy Vincent, and behind him Regan.

“Jamaica?” she said, her face full of worry. “Are you all right?”

Suazo’s truck roared to life, jumped the curb, and squealed away.

Uncivilized

My blood still coursed with unspent adrenaline when I walked into the BLM office a few minutes later. I felt like sopapilla dough when it hits the hot grease. I knew I shouldn’t have let Suazo get to me like that—I should have called the sheriff when he took a swing at me instead of taking him on myself. But if I hadn’t pinned him against his truck, Suazo would have been long gone before a deputy could have gotten there, and it would turn out like all the rest of the times we’d tried to press charges and he’d gone free. Either way, nothing stuck to Suazo, so what had I accomplished?

Rosa Aragon was at the desk again, a telephone receiver pressed to one ear, her head bobbing up and down in agreement with the caller.
Roy here?
I mouthed. She nodded more emphatically and pointed a thumb toward the hall.

Roy was in his office, rubbing his head with consternation as he stared at a pile of papers in front of him. I tapped my knuckles against the door frame. “Having fun, Roy?”

“Hell, no, I’m not having fun. I hate this stuff. What are you doing in here now—come to give me an excuse to give up on this blasted paperwork for a while?”

“Actually, I brought you some more paperwork.” I put my targets on the desk. “But if you need a break I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“No, no. Sorry, I can’t. But sit down a minute, I want to talk to you about something. I was just thinking about you this morning.”

“Uh-oh.” I sat in the gray-green metal and vinyl chair in front of his desk.

“No, no, it’s nothing bad. In fact, I talked with the wife a little about this, too. No, I was just thinking maybe we ought to look for a different assignment for you here when this team effort with the Forest Service is done.”

“What do you mean?” My chest tightened.

“I mean, something where you get around people a little more. Not so much of that remote-area stuff. I think you got too much talent to be a range rider.”

I stood up. “I don’t want a change of assignment, Roy.”

He got up, went around me, and closed his office door. “Sit down, Jamaica. This is just you and me here. Just relax, you’re not in any trouble.”

I sat, but right on the edge of the seat, ready to break with it, if need be.

Roy saw it. He sat back in his chair, picked up a pencil. He twirled the pencil like a baton—over his knuckles and under his hand, again, then again. “Will you just settle down? You’re like an unbroken filly!”

I released my grip on the arms of the chair, tried to find a place for my hands in my lap.

“Jamaica, you don’t have to make the switch today. I’m just saying I think it’s time we found something better for you, something where you got to be around civilization once in a while.”

I laughed. “You think I’m uncivilized, huh?”

He smirked. “I wasn’t saying that. I just want you to have a chance to be around people a little more. I had an idea maybe we’d put in for—”

I cut in, “I’m okay, Roy. Why are you doing this? Do you think I can’t handle my job?”

He threw the pencil down on the papers in front of him, but it rolled across the desk toward me, then fell onto the floor. Neither of us moved to get it.

He broke the silence. “I used to do your job. I did it for years. It’s hard, mean, low-paying, lonely-assed work. Nine out of ten resource protection agents don’t last three years at range riding. You been doing it six. I see all the signs in you: you’re burned out. If I don’t move you, I’m going to lose you. That’s all I know. Besides, I don’t know how much longer that will even be a job classification with the BLM. Things are changing.”

“You used to be a range rider?”

“Hell, yes, I was, for almost seven years. It damned near cost me my marriage. I got so used to being alone, out by myself, I got to be like you said—uncivilized. I couldn’t open up and talk anymore. I didn’t have any patience with people. But I was lonely, too, and down. I was real down. I just didn’t know how to reach out to anybody.”

“I never knew that about you.”

“Yeah, well, take it from me. You want a change of assignment. And I’m not talking about a desk job, either, so don’t worry about that.” He surveyed his piles of paperwork. “I wouldn’t wish this stuff on a dog I didn’t like! No, I’m talking about one of the other resource protection agent posts, maybe with the Rio Grande Use and Management Division, or liaison with the Ski Valley or the pueblo. Something where you aren’t out by yourself in the backcountry all the time.”

“Those are all a grade higher rank than me.”

“I know that. But let’s don’t get the cart before the horse here. I’m just thinking out loud, wanted to see what your reaction would be.”

“I don’t think so. I see a lot of politics in all those things you mentioned. I’m no good at sucking up.”

“Well, ain’t that the truth!” He twisted his mouth up at one side and gave a little snort. “I didn’t think I could do the job of field manager either when my boss offered it to me. Hell, I still don’t like the paperwork. But when I get sick of people and these four walls, there’s plenty of stuff to do out there.” He jerked his thumb toward some unknown point behind him. “I’m only here a few hours a day. It’s good to have a healthy balance between the two.”

“Roy, I just don’t know. This job is pretty much why I came here. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“You know anyone at Tanoah Pueblo?”

I thought of Momma Anna—and immediately about the assignment she had given me. “I know a few people with the tribe.”

“The Santa Fe office wants us to appoint someone to work as a liaison to the Tanoah and manage the public lands that abut theirs.”

“Liaison? You can sure bet I wouldn’t be any good at that.”

“Yeah, I remember that first day you come in here with your paperwork to be a range rider. There was a lot of money lost on bets then that you wouldn’t last a month.”

“Oh, yeah? Who won?”

“I did. Now get on out of here and let me do my work. You need to rest before you go out tonight.”

I got up and started for the door. “Roy, can I just say something and you won’t say anything back?”

He eyed me suspiciously and didn’t answer.

“If I’ve ever done anything to hurt you or offend you, I’d like for you to forgive me.”

Roy screwed up his face, as if he’d encountered a bad smell. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” I started to close the door.

“Is this about you showing your ass all over the county on Saturday night?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Never mind.”

“It’s none of my business what you do in your time off,” Roy said. “But you could have had your lights put out instead of that other gal. That’s the part that worries me.”

 

As I was heading back out the front of the building, Rosa hung up the phone. She motioned me over to the front counter and asked, “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you when you came in before. How was your reunion with your brother?”

“My brother?”

“Oh, no, I hope I didn’t spoil it.”

“Rosa, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a brother.”

“You mean you . . . you mean, you don’t—? Tell me the truth now, Jamaica. You don’t have a brother?”

“I don’t have a brother. I’m an only child.”

“Ay-ay-ay!” she squealed. “This man called on Friday and said he was your brother. He wanted me to tell him where you live. I told him I don’t know where you live. He said he was just back from overseas in the service.”

“What did he sound like?”

“I don’t know. He sounded like an Anglo, like you. I didn’t tell him anything, Jamaica. I promise. I don’t know where you live, and Roy wasn’t here. You know, all you got for an address is a rural carrier box.”

“What did he say when you told him you didn’t know?”

“He just said, ‘Thank you very much, I’ll find her,’ and then he hung up. He sounded like a nice man. But, ay! That don’t sound so good, a man trying to find out where you live and saying he’s your brother, when you don’t have a brother!”

Just a Kiss

That night, after I’d ridden the fence line in my section, I returned to the base camp that I had established a few days before. I gathered some wood and kindling and put them near the circle of stones I had set up for a fire. I took my saddlebags off of Redhead and then removed her saddle and blanket. I got a curry comb out of my kit and started brushing her down. Not only did this give me a chance to clean the horse so chafing didn’t occur under her tack, but it helped create a bond between Redhead and me that carried over into handling and riding. Without this, I might not have been able to manage a stubborn mare like her. Redhead did not communicate with me as she sometimes did by nibbling at my arms or hat, flipping her head or tail, or even nodding her head and whinnying and blustering. Instead she made funny snorting sounds as she kept busy pulling at some dry grass. These little appreciative snuffles kept rhythm as I brushed the bits of duff and dirt from her coat, telling me that Redhead was enjoying this attention immensely. An occasional quivering at the withers gave me clues as to when I was working a particularly good-feeling spot.

In the quiet night, my mind began to worry over the puzzling set of circumstances that had occurred over the past five or six days. Someone stabbed Father Ignacio, crucified him, and threw him over the gorge bridge. What a gruesome and horrific deed! Three men I had never seen before stole my book. Why? How did they know about it? Who was the driver who came to get Father Ignacio when we met, and could he be involved in all this? What about the Lexus that followed me from Santa Fe after I’d been to the library? The library! The librarian knew I was researching the Penitentes. What was that problem she said she’d had with my library card? Could that have had something to do with the car following me? Or was that whole thing with the car tailing me just a coincidence? Should I have told Jerry Padilla about the Lexus? Did someone really try to kill me and injure Nora instead? Somehow, all of this had to tie together. In the pit of my belly, I could feel an ooze of fear begin rising. I bit my lip and held back the anxiety, brushing Redhead’s rump and running the curry comb through the tail as best I could.

The air was sharply cold. I pulled up the collar on my coat and buttoned the top button. There was little wind, only a faint breeze. Coyotes whined and yipped occasionally, and the cottonwoods down in the draw made a sound like sheets of rough paper being rubbed together when the breeze picked up.

I stood at Redhead’s side, facing her tail, then ran my hand down her leg to the fetlock. She was well trained and responded to this by picking up her foot so that I could examine it and pick out any rocks that might cause stone bruises. As I checked the mare’s feet, I mulled over the only thing that my book, the icons, and Father Ignacio had in common—the Penitentes. The brotherhood was a group of lay brothers—peace loving, humble, and charitable—whose only violent acts were against themselves in penance as they emulated the suffering of their Savior. Although they had been known to throw rocks at uninvited observers during their ceremonies, tales about their “stoning” others to death, as Regan had feared might happen to her and her friend when they were children, or the
reata
that Jerry Padilla had mentioned, had never been substantiated. The Penitentes’ most earnest wish was to be left alone.

What if they wanted me to leave them alone? I had tried to talk to some villagers who lived near shrines and moradas I had mapped and sketched. Maybe I had unknowingly approached
hermanos vigilantes
. My questions, taking notes, and drawing their shrines might have been seen as an intrusion. Even so, surely they would not have resorted to murder to deter me.

And what about Father Ignacio? Los Hermanos would never kill a priest. They were staunch Catholics and members of their local parishes as well as the local morada. Imagine the penance for murder, especially murder of a priest! No, I couldn’t believe the Penitentes were responsible for Father Ignacio’s death.