Wild Penance (26 page)

Coming downhill again, we were nearing the turnoff to Llano, a dirt road that culminated in a cattle guard at the paved highway. The pickup edged out into the oncoming lane, his front bumper just even with my rear quarter panel. I kept the pedal down hard, not wanting to give away my plan. My adversary followed suit, his engine roaring in my left ear as he gradually gained an inch at a time, clearly looking to get far enough to force me over. When the sign for the cattle guard appeared on the right shoulder, I slammed on the brakes and veered onto the dirt turnout, spinning counterclockwise into a red dust cloud as the white Ranger zoomed on by. I looked quickly for its tag number. The plate was packed with mud, unreadable.

I lurched to a stop and immediately stretched over and popped open the glove box. I pulled out my pistol, yanked it from the holster, and clicked off the safety. I opened the door of the Jeep, which was now perpendicular to the highway, its front bumper just at the edge of the cattle guard. I stood on my left leg, my right on the running board, and propped my forearms on the roof, squaring my gun sights at the highway ahead, my body in the cover of my Jeep.

The Ford Ranger came veering back in reverse at high speed. I sighted in on it, hoping to hit a tire, cause a blowout. I squeezed the trigger when I thought he was in range, but I heard a
ck-zzzzzngggg
and knew I’d hit the tailgate just above it instead. The pickup squealed to a stop, then slammed into drive, and the tires screamed. I took another shot before it could peel away. This one made a metallic
kunnnkkk
as the bullet penetrated the side of the truck bed just over the rear tire. The Ford Ranger sped off.

No Place to Go

I stopped at the ranger station outside of Peñasco and used the phone. The Taos County sheriff’s dispatcher told me she would radio Deputy Jerry Padilla and have him call me right back. While I waited for his call, I went out to my Jeep. I looked around the grounds, the parking lot, and down the road in each direction. I opened the rear hatch, unzipped my backpack, and pulled out my book for the first time since I’d gotten it back at Tecolote’s place the previous morning. I turned to the page where I’d written down the two things Father Ignacio had told me, and I copied the name I’d been struggling to remember onto the back of one of my business cards: Pedro Antonio Fresquíz of Las Truchas. Then, closing the hatch and again scoping the area, I took the book and set it in the passenger seat on top of the bundle I’d been entrusted to guard. Theresa Mendoza was right—someone was stalking me, but was it me or La Arca he was after? I tucked my book under a fold of the blanket, making it a part of the bundle. “I know someplace you’ll be safe,” I told my charge. “For now anyway.”

“A white Ford Ranger?” Padilla said.

“Yes, a fairly late model, but not new. There was mud packed over the plate; I couldn’t read it. The driver was probably a man, but I couldn’t guarantee that. The truck had tinted windows. But I could tell he was wearing some kind of garment with a hood. And dark glasses.”

“Listen, I can send an officer up there to investigate, but this is getting pretty weird, don’t you think? Have you got someplace you can go for a while? Maybe stay with some family?”

I swallowed hard. “No.”

“A girlfriend, anything like that? Anyplace you can stay for a few days until we figure out what the hell’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I need to think.”

Padilla was quiet for a few moments. “Roy said you live almost to Tres Piedras, all by yourself, no phone. I don’t think it’s so good for you to be all the way out there by yourself. And what about work? Are you working alone?”

“No. Not right now. I’m doing a team assignment with the Forest Service. I have a partner in my section—a forest ranger.”

“Well, let’s see . . . I got a meeting in a little bit; I couldn’t come for another hour and a half. How ’bout I send a deputy up there to cruise around the area, see if he sees that Ford Ranger anyplace nearby?”

“There will be a ding in the tailgate and a bullet hole in the rear of the bed on the passenger side.”

“Good to know that.” I could hear him rustling his notepad. “I’ll put it out on the wire and have everyone keep a lookout for a vehicle like that, countywide. Do you want the deputy to stop by the ranger station there and talk to you when he gets up there?”

“No, thanks, Jerry. I’m going to head on out after I get off the phone. Let me know if—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you know. Now, this is twice this bad guy has tried, Jamaica. Three, if you count when he took your book.”

“No, he’s not the one who stole my book.”

“How do you know?”

I couldn’t tell him about La Arca, or about the driver. I couldn’t even tell him that I’d gotten my book back without revealing too much. “I just know.”

“You just know, huh? I wouldn’t be too sure. Doesn’t seem like we know much of anything yet. Now, before I let you go, I’m going to try this one more time: I think it might be better if you took some time off, maybe got out of town. Take a vacation. Go see family or friends.”

I felt my chest tighten. I drew in a breath, my lips pulling into a hard, tight line. “I hear you, Jerry. But I have no place to go.”

Tecolote was not home. The turquoise-colored door was pulled fast to the frame, and there was no answer when I knocked. I had been counting on her to bring clarity to my muddled mind. An army of questions trampled my thought processes into mire. Esperanza would know what to do.

I decided to kill some time and try the bruja again in a little while, so I stopped by Regan’s place. It was the middle of the day now, and the sun was lifting over the rim of the canyon and warming the red dirt of her rutted drive. An old, rusted beater truck was backed up to the corral, blocking the way so that I had to park in the entrance to the drive. Two men in the corral were laboring hard at digging in the hard caliche. I walked around the truck’s listing tailgate and saw Regan above on the path leading to the barn. She wore the same huge, unlaced, muddy work boots as the day I first met her. She caught sight of me and made her way rapidly down the path, as if to intercept me. Her expression was frantic.

“Jamaica, I’m having a frightful day. I’m afraid I can’t receive any visitors.” She held one gloved hand over her left eye.

“Sure, Regan. I’m sorry. I should have called. I was just in Truchas and I thought I’d stop by on my way back to Taos.”

“Yes, I see.” She grabbed my elbow with her free hand and edged me around, urging me back toward my Jeep. “I am so sorry I can’t visit right now. This is just a hectic time; you know it’s Holy Week, and there have been people trespassing across my land to that place up there, and my horse has gone lame, and now—for whatever reason—I have lost the sight in my left eye! I am having to put my horse down, poor old dear; I knew it was coming, but just the same . . .” Her voice, which had been rapid and full of vibrato, seemed to run out of gas, and she gently shook her head very slightly back and forth, her forehead supported by the fingers of her glove over her left eye. “The men are here digging, I can’t leave. We had to move all the cars around so they could get in with their truck. And I can’t even get the doctor on the phone about this eye.”

“I am so sorry to hear about your horse, Regan. And about your eye. Is there anything I can do? Can I take you to the clinic down in Embudo?”

“No, no. I should be apologizing to you. But you know how I get, I just can’t have any visitors right now. I am just so overwhelmed, I wouldn’t be good company. And with the horse . . .” As she was saying this last, a green Land Rover pulled up behind my Jeep. The driver gave a short blast on the horn, and then Andy Vincent emerged from the driver’s side. The workmen looked up from their digging. Andy Vincent pulled off his sunglasses. There was a look of agitation on his face.

“Oh, there’s Andy,” Regan said.

Andy marched toward us. He looked into my Jeep as he went past, as if he were going to accost anyone inside. He was clearly annoyed.

“I guess I better get my Jeep out of the drive so Andy can get his car off the road,” I said.

“Andy, Jamaica was just leaving,” Regan called, her voice pushed, squeaking.

“Yeah, if you’ll just back up there, I’ll get out of your way,” I called, as I turned from Regan’s side and started for my Jeep.

Andy continued toward us.

“Jamaica just stopped by on her way back from Truchas,” Regan explained. “I told her I just couldn’t entertain any visitors right now.”

“Truchas? What’s going on up there?” Andy asked. “I just came from the High Road, and Truchas looks like it’s hosting a rock concert. There are at least a hundred cars parked along the road through there.” By now, he had reached me and was looking down into my face. The brilliant sun behind him kept his expression in dark shadow.

I squinted, but the sun was too bright; I had to look away. “A funeral for a friend of mine,” I said to Andy, then to Regan, “Father Ignacio Medina. Remember our conversation about him on Sunday?”

Regan’s face was directly lit by the sun. She looked pale, drained. Her jaw dropped and her mouth fell open, but she didn’t speak. Her hand came away from her eye, and there was a large blue bruise on the brow above it.

“Regan! Did your horse kick you?”

She didn’t seem to hear me. Her face muscles remained limp, her normally tan skin now ashen.

Andy Vincent went to Regan’s side and put his arm around her. He gave her a little shake. “She’s had an awful time with the horse.” He tipped his head in the direction of the men digging. “I’m glad I’ve been here and can offer a little help and comfort.”

Regan still didn’t speak.

There was something I had wanted to ask her a moment ago, but suddenly, I couldn’t remember it. I was puzzling over this when Andy spoke again. “You say this father—he was your friend?”

It had been something important.
What was it?
“Huh? Oh, yes. Yes. He was my friend.”

Regan had recovered now, and she spoke kindly to me. “Oh, Jamaica, my dear, I’m so sorry. I have been so selfish, telling you all my troubles. I didn’t know you were having a hard day, too. That’s the man Father Rivera was talking about, isn’t it? I didn’t realize he was your friend. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes grew moist, her bruised face still strained, but compassionate.

“Well, he wasn’t really a close friend.” I felt a twinge in my gut. I was uncomfortable, embarrassed by her outpouring of sympathy. But there was something else: I felt unfaithful, like I’d just betrayed Father Ignacio. My mind skirmished, one part trying to justify, the other trying to know the truth. We had only one meeting. But there was so much intensity. And now he had bestowed such trust in me.

We were all three standing quiet. But my brain went around and around like a gerbil on a wheel. In the span of a few seconds I flashed from the thought of La Arca to the chase down the High Road to wondering if Tecolote was home and whether she would have some answers about what to do with the sacred ark, and on from there to realizing that I would have to get some sleep before I went to work tonight, to wondering where I would be safe. All this, all at once.

I sighed. I looked at Regan and Andy. They seemed to be waiting for a cue from me. “Well, I had better get going.” I turned once more toward my Jeep.

Andy Vincent stayed behind to talk quietly with Regan for a few seconds, and then he followed me down the path to our vehicles.

I opened the door of my Jeep, and Andy took the handle and held it while I got in. “You must have the day off,” he said, his lips flattening, as if he’d tried a pleasant smile and failed, still not over his irritation. There was a terrible weight in his countenance, like that of the Penitentes at the funeral. And an urgency, not unlike Regan’s demeanor. It made me tired just to look at him.

“No, I took last night off so I could go to the funeral today. I have to work tonight. I need to go home and take a nap. I am all turned around.”