I held my breath. The limbs of the pinyon pines stiffened. Behind closed lids, I saw the scrublands, the austere blueness of the sky, the fig trees past ridges. They all spoke a language I could only begin to understand. I opened my eyes and everything could turn into a miracle: sand into water, blasphemous tongues into instruments of worship. You just have to believe strongly enough.
Frey Hernando, before he died, had made an arrangement. Arguing with a man of God would only leave me weary. And who was I to argue against whatever dictums, dogmas were handed down from a mountain? Frey Hernando had chosen a girl I never met for me to marry. I was to take a simple path to find her.
“You wish to see me, Padre?”
He crossed himself and stood. His eyes smiled. On other days, they could pierce through the darkest of one’s internal rooms, deceptive mirrors.
Downstairs, the kiva’s chambers were cool, drafty, dark. You know when you are not dead when you can still tell the difference between a place that is cool and one that is not. I had seen a dead body once, belonging to a man who spoke Tiwa. He died from thirst. His body was stiff, cool. I could tell his soul was no longer with him. After that experience, I grew feverish for days.
He did not answer.
There was silence. He stopped abruptly.
I shook.
It was true she could work miracles, bring about good. She had given the horse soldiers of the 17th cavalry information as to the whereabouts of Jose Artiguez after he and his men plundered several villages and left many Pueblo men and women dead. He had also wounded two bank guards during a raid at Albuquerque. One day, I had seen Artiguez, escorted by that cavalry, his hands tied in front. He wore a proud face that day, as the women of our village threw stones at him, and soon, I thought, his soul would sink far beneath the desert.
“Other than her name, Father, how will I know her?” I sat across from Padre in the darkest recess of the kiva.
He described the terms of the arrangement. I was to be given a box of white lace and cloth. The box contained the materials to make a wedding dress. I was to give the box to Maria after reaching Quari. She would sow her own wedding dress with the help of the village women. It was village custom, and we would be married the next day when the shadows were the strongest. If the dress was not completed by the following day, then Maria would be destined to remain alone, perhaps turn into a laughing hyena, much like her mother.
“Once you run out of food and water, you will fast. It will be a test of endurance. I have faith in you.” Padre smoothed out the wrinkles in his Cossack.
“If they approach you, then you must look into their eyes and show them you are not afraid. Fray Hernando blessed a certain coyote and its litter. Look for that one. It will have blue-green eyes, the color of the limestone hills where Frey Hernando worked a miracle. Then, that coyote will be your friend and will lead you if you lose the trail.”
"Think only of reaching Maria. Once you have found her, you will be the boy with silver eyes.”
“Think of it this way. Your people once gathered salt into leather bags, taking them in caravans to Mexico, Hidalgo del Parral and even beyond. The salt was used to process silver. You, on the other hand, will be carrying cloth across the desert to make a miracle. Maria will perform one half of it, and you, the other. To make a miracle, you take a simple path.”
* * *
My legs wobbled worse than ever, but I held onto the box like a nervous altar boy at his first mass. My life was in that box. My life was a sea of sky and I would not drown. Exhausted, I wandered from the trail and surveyed the sand for an area I could claim as a bed. It was then when I heard the shrill cries in the distance and I wondered if it could belong to The Laughing Woman.
One coyote pranced up to me. It must have been the leader. Growling, it bared its teeth. I shook, thoughts of vines shaking in a storm, and how I would never survive the night. I could tell the animal was hungry. It drew closer and I looked into its eyes. They never flinched, and were not dark. This must be the one the Padre spoke about with those greenish-blue eyes from the miracle of limestone.
I did dream. I dreamt of Maria under a canopy of cottonwoods, crying over her unfinished dress, humiliated by the old men of the village. Soon her cries would turn to laughter and she would wander into the desert, mad. I would curse this earth and myself.
During my descent, I recalled the stories Father Francesco had told of the fortress of Alcazaba, built by the Moors in Spain. King Ferdinand had built a church there long ago, one very similar to the one at Gran Quivira. I dreamt of entering past its marble walls, walking along its shiny floors. I would be greeted by royal guards of the King and Queen. They would give me a room all to myself with a private view of an outdoor court flanked by a cerezo, a manzano, an olivo tree. Each tree could speak to me and I would taste their fruits.
I now felt something grabbing me, teeth digging into my flesh, dragging me upward. It may have dragged me for miles, I did not know. I couldn’t open my eyes or was too afraid to. Then, all movement stopped. Listening very closely, I heard the sound of something being dragged across sand. There was the patter of small feet, and then, silence.
I trudged on for several miles, abandoning the main trail. The village now came into view. The pueblo settlement seemed a magic city to me, perhaps much the way Quivira once seemed to the Conquistadors. But my magic city was real and I continued walking. My guide, the coyote with the blue-green eyes, sat still at the bottom of the village’s hill. I slowed my pace and stopped. The animal looked at me, then, vanished like a whisper. My fingers tingled, perhaps out of fear that I was now alone.
There were women, women talking, washing clothes, rolling flour, carrying baskets of dried meat. I wished to ask one: How can I find the girl with green eyes? At first, the women took little notice of me, as if I were invisible. They seemed so involved with their own activities. Distracted by so many of their voices, I had difficulty thinking. Then I recalled what Padre had said: Take a Simple Path.
I now recalled the eyes of that coyote, felt them upon me. Over me, that low cloud still hovered with a spirit all of its own.
“Maria! Maria! Maria!” I yelled, turning in a complete circle.
The women froze. They studied me as if I were an apparition; they approached me, circled around, and eyed me head to toe. No one said a word. I looked into each of their eyes. None of them were Maria. On the roof of a pueblo, I imagined the coyote watching. No, I swore it was.
One woman spoke. Then another.
“Boy, how far have you come?”
“What village you from, boy?”
“Boy, your arm is bleeding.”
“Are you the boy from Quivira?”
"What do you hold in your hands? What is inside it?”
The coyote was somewhere near. I felt its hot breath.
A stout woman with deep wrinkles stepped forward. There was a cautious rhythm to her gait. And behind her came a girl, long hair in braids. Her walked sheepishly and she wouldn’t look up, as if I was carrying the spirit of one of their dead in the box between my hands.
The woman stood in front of me. She must have been the girl’s madrastra. Then the girl stood at her side. I could see her eyes clearly now. They were green.
“I am Maria. But in this village I have another name. These women allowed me to keep the name given to me by the Apache.”
I spoke to her in Tiwa.
“I have come from Quivira. My name is Andrew. I am named after a saint. Like you, I have another name also. Here, in this box, is your wedding dress. You must sow it together and make it perfect. I have been chosen by God to be your new husband.”
There was a silence, a conspiracy of it--the desert, the sky, the plains beyond. I was still dizzy and I imagined somewhere that coyote understood every word I had said. Maria looked down at her feet, bare, scattered with sand.
Then, a joyous outburst and the women began to sing and dance. Some climbed to the roofs and made song. I handed the box to Maria and she in turn gave it to her madrastra. She clung to the woman as they went off to make the dress.
Two other women brought me inside their pueblo. One washed, and dressed my arm. The other gave me water and maize.
“How long,” I asked, “how long will it take them to make the dress?”
“It will be finished by tonight,” said one woman. “The mother of the Little Cloud has wondrous hands, her fingers like so many fine needles. You will be married by the morning.”
“I have one request. I ask that several of you go into the mountains and find The Laughing Woman. She must be at the wedding. She must see her daughter married.”
“For what reason?”
“It was a request from Frey Hernando. It is only right. Or else, he will no longer send the Padre to bless this village. It will no longer be protected.”
The woman smiled.
“Then it will be done. We know where she stays and we will take the best horses into the mountains.”
“And if you cannot find her in time?”
“Then, at the moment you are married, you will hear a cry from the mountaintop. It will mean she has fallen. It will mean that in her madness, her desperation to see her daughter happy, she will jump. But we will find her. Trust me.”
And so it will be.
© 2010 Kyle Hemmings. All rights reserved.