Sandi Ault - Wild Penance

Padilla whistled into the phone. “Well, that might be, but I don’t have any authority to go look through Suazo’s shed without-”

“Do you have the reports on those stolen icons? Couldn’t you have someone go out and compare the descriptions of the stolen property with-”

“But that’s just it, Jamaica. There are no reports. You know the Penitentes. They aren’t going to talk about what’s going on with them to the law.”

“But isn’t there some kind of team investigation or something?”

“Team investigation? Who told you that? Salazar? It’s just another one of those concurrent jurisdiction things where we got a phone call from the sheriff of Rio Arriba County and a fax from the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe County, and everyone’s hearing the same rumors, but nobody’s got nothing. That’s your team investigation.”

“Well, if you send someone out to Suazo’s place, I know his wife will show you what’s there; you won’t need to get a warrant. I told her I was going to call you and talk to you about it. I’m pretty sure some of the stuff in those rumors is in his shed.”

“Okay, I’ll go out there myself.”

“And, would you just keep a lookout for Suazo? Like I said, his wife said he was going into town to collect some money and then to get gas in the truck. Maybe you could ask around at the gas stations-”

“Speaking of trucks, I haven’t had any luck looking for your shot-up Ford Ranger. You don’t think that could have been Suazo driving it, do you?”

“It wasn’t his truck. And it doesn’t jibe with his wife’s story. She said Suazo disappeared midday on Tuesday, the day before the Ranger tried to run me off the cliff.”

“Well, let’s see then… do you think Suazo is tied in to the incident at the gorge bridge?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the thing, see? We’re over a week out from that, and we still don’t have any idea who did it or why. The trail is getting cold, and we don’t have a single lead. Nine times out of ten when I have a murder, I know who did it within a day or two. This one has us all stumped.”

“Well, Suazo could be a lead of some kind if you can find him.”

“Okay, Jamaica. I’ll get on it. I’ll let you know if I find anything. In the meantime, you keep yourself safe.”

I turned my attention to the photo files on the computer’s desktop. Twelve images had been dark or blurred and were impossible to make out. But six more showed the same scene over and over again, each with a different icon centered in the picture. Someone had photographed Los Hermanos as they performed some important ceremony in front of the Boscaje morada, their large crucifix at the head of the procession, then the carreta de la muerte -the large wooden cart with its life-size carved wooden skeleton figure of death holding an ax nailed to its seat-and el hermano mayor holding La Arca! I scanned the images carefully, looking at the men’s faces. One of them I recognized immediately. I was sure it was him, the big man standing there behind the elder with the ark. He looked the same, even in that old-fashioned long, black coat. The dark hair, the dark eyes… it was him. There was my angel.

After I left the BLM, I drove to my cabin to try to get a few hours’ sleep before I had to go on duty again. When I pulled up, I saw at once that the front door was open. I took my pistol from the glove box, turned off the engine and pocketed the keys, then quietly opened the Jeep door, stepped out, and scanned the area. This was starting to be my homecoming routine.

There was no other vehicle, no sign that any other cars had been there. But the frozen ground wouldn’t have taken a track impression from tires anyway. This time, I wasn’t going to screw around. I holstered my pistol on my belt and reached in the back and got out my pump-action shotgun. I walked quickly to the portal , then eased myself to the side of the doorway and raised the shotgun barrel, holding it with both hands. I pointed the gun into the cabin and swept a semicircular pattern from one side of the room to the other, my eyes following the barrel, my finger on the trigger, ready. I pulled my left hand away, still holding the gun in my right, and pressed the door back until it hit the wall, assuring me there was no one behind it.

Someone had ransacked my cabin, leaving it in total disarray. But my spartan living quarters didn’t offer much place for a person to hide. The log bed made of thick aspen limbs sat high off the ground, its covers torn from the mattress and thrown to the side. Beneath it, I could see the floor all the way to the wall. On the other side of the room was the kitchen, with its stove, fridge, sink, and cupboard, the contents of which had been emptied onto the counter and the floor. The one big chair had been shoved all the way into the corner, and the only other furnishings, besides a small table with two chairs, were my dresser, the open shelves of books, a portable stereo, and my nightstand-all of which had been emptied, their contents rearranged or knocked to the floor. I moved cautiously across the room toward the pass-through closet that led to the bathroom, still holding the shotgun at the ready.

The bathroom door was open. The shower curtain had been pulled aside, revealing the empty tub. The cantilevered doors to the closet, too, were open, and everything had been pulled off the shelves, the clothing pushed aside on the hangers, the shoes strewn apart, and all the boxes that had been stacked on the top shelf had been dumped out onto the middle of the closet floor.

Nobody there. I lowered the shotgun barrel.

I looked down, still in the habit of following my gun with my eyes. Among the scattered items at my feet I saw a yellowed sheet of lined notebook paper with the familiar blue lacy script. I stooped and picked it up, squatting over my boots, and read again what I had read before many times:

A woman

with her head down

gone underground

trying to hide herself

in the tying of a toddler’s shoelaces

the washing of a family’s dinner plates

the gathering of the eggs.

A woman

with her dreams gone

barely holding on

having lost herself

somewhere in all the sunsets

forgetting why she

ever wanted to see the sunrise.

A woman

hollowed out from the wind

burned out by lightning

scorched by dry sun

forgetting who she was

knowing not who she is

blows away like dust.

I felt like I was going to cry. Come on, Jamaica, you better keep it together, I told myself, as I laid the shotgun on the floor next to me and picked up the rest of the poems my mother had written, placing them in the box with the few other things of hers I had kept. I knew that whoever had trashed my cabin was looking for La Arca and knew that I was its guardian now. I grabbed the shotgun and walked back into the main room where the door had swung back to a halfway position, drew back my left leg, and kicked the door as hard as I could. It shook the whole room when it slammed shut.

Clouds as dark as flint began to pile up over the Jemez Mountains as I went on duty that night, and the temperature sank with the sun. It looked like snow. It looked like a lot of snow. Roy had briefed us at the meeting that morning that the Forest Service road would have a checkpoint at each end, and the gate to the four-wheel track would be locked because it was Holy Thursday.