Sidney Sheldon - The sands of time

passing through a forest of pine trees. Ahead of them lay a village that was a haven for skiers and mountain climbers.

There would be hot food and warmth and rest there, Ricardo knew. It was tempting. Too dangerous, he decided. It would be a perfect place for Acoña to set a trap.

He turned to Sister Graciela. "We'll skirt the village.

Can you go on a little farther before we rest?"

She looked at him and, as her answer, turned and began to walk.

The unnecessary rudeness offended him, and he thought:

Thank heavens at Logroño I will be rid of her. Why in the name of God do I have mixed feelings about that?

They skirted the village, walking along the edge of the forest, and soon they were on the path again, climbing upward. It was getting more difficult to breathe, and the path grew steeper. As they rounded a bend, they came upon an empty eagle's nest. They skirted another mountain village,

quiet and peaceful in the afternoon sun, and rested outside it, stopping at a mountain stream where they drank the icy water.

By dusk they had reached a rugged area that was famous for its caves. After that the trail would start downward.

From now on, Ricardo thought, it will be easy. The worst is over.

He heard a faint buzzing sound overhead. He looked up,

searching for the source of it. An army plane appeared suddenly over the top of the mountain, flying toward them.

"Down!" Ricardo shouted. "Down!"

Graciela kept walking. The plane circled and began to swoop lower.

"Get down!" Ricardo yelled again.

He jumped on her and pushed her down to the ground, his body on top of hers. What happened next took him completely by surprise. Without any warning, Graciela began yelling hysterically, fighting him. She was kicking him in the groin,

clawing at his face, trying to rip at his eyes. But the most astonishing thing was what she was saying. She was screaming out a string of obscenities that sent Ricardo into shock, a verbal torrent of filth that assailed him. He could not believe that these words were coming from that beautiful,

innocent mouth.

He tried to grab her hands to protect himself from her raking nails. She was like a wildcat under him.

"Stop it!" he shouted. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's an army scout plane. They may have seen us. We've got to get out of here."

He held her down until her frantic struggling finally ceased. Strange, strangled sounds were coming from her, and he realized that she was sobbing. Ricardo, with all his experience with women, was completely baffled. He was straddled atop a hysterical nun who had the vocabulary of a truck driver, and he had no notion of what to do next.

He made his voice as calm and as reasonable as possible.

"Sister, we have to find a place to hide quickly. The plane may have reported us and in a few hours there could be soldiers swarming all over the place. If you ever want to reach the convent, you'll get up and come with me."

He waited a moment, then carefully raised himself off her and sat alongside her until the sobs subsided. Finally

Graciela sat up. Her face was smudged from the dirt, her hair was mussed, her eyes were red from crying, and yet her beauty made Ricardo ache.

He said quietly, "I'm sorry I frightened you. I don't seem to know how to behave around you. I promise to try to be more careful in the future."

She looked up at him with her luminous black eyes filled with tears, and Ricardo had no idea what she was thinking. He sighed and rose. She followed suit.

"There are dozens of caves around here," Ricardo told her.

"We'll hide in one of them for the night. By dawn we can be on our way again."

His face was raw and bleeding where she had clawed at him,

but in spite of what had happened, he felt a defenselessness about her, a fragility that touched him, that made him want to say something to reassure her. But now he was the one who was silent. He could not think of a single thing to say.

The caves had been carved out by eons of winds and floods and earthquakes, and they came in an infinite variety. Some of them were mere indentations in the mountain rocks, others were endless tunnels never explored by man.

A mile from where they had spotted the plane, Ricardo found a cave that was to his satisfaction. The low entrance was almost covered by underbrush.

"Stay here," he said.

He ducked into the entrance and walked into the cave, it was dark inside, with only faint light spilling through the opening. There was no telling what the length of the cave was, but it did not matter, for there was no reason to explore it.

He went back outside to Graciela.

"It looks safe," Ricardo said. "Wait inside, please. I'll gather some branches to cover up the mouth of the cave. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He watched Graciela as she went silently into the cave,

and he wondered whether she would be there when he returned.

He realized that he desperately wanted her to be.

Inside the cave, Graciela watched him leave, then sank to the cold ground in despair.

I can't stand any more, she thought. Where are You, Jesus?

Please release me from this hell.

And it had been hell. From the beginning, Graciela had been fighting the attraction she felt toward Ricardo. She thought of the Moor. I'm afraid of myself. Of the evil in me.

I want this man, and I must not.

And so she had built a barrier of silence between them,

the silence she had lived with in the convent. But now,

without the discipline of the convent, without the prayers,

without the crutch of the rigid routine, Graciela found herself unable to banish her inner darkness. She had spent years fighting the Satanic urges of her body, trying to shut out the remembered sounds, the moans and sighs that had come from her mother's bed.

The Moor was looking at her naked body.

You're just a child. Get your clothes on and get out of here…

I'm a woman!

She had spent so many years trying to forget the feel of the Moor inside her, trying to push out of her mind the rhythm of their bodies moving together, filling her, giving her a feeling of being alive at last.

Her mother screaming: You bitch!

And the doctor saying: Our chief surgeon decided to sew you up himself. He said you were too beautiful to have scars.

All the years of praying had been to purge herself of guilt. And they had failed.

The first time Graciela looked at Ricardo Mellado, the past had come flooding back. He was handsome and gentle and kind. When Graciela was a little girl, she had dreamed of someone like Ricardo. And when he was near her, when he touched her, her body was instantly aflame and she was filled with a deep shame. I am the bride of Christ, and my thoughts are a betrayal of God. I belong to You, Jesus. Please help me now. Cleanse my mind of impure thoughts.

Graciela had tried desperately to keep the wall of silence between them, a wall that no one but God could penetrate, a wall to keep out the devil. But did she want to keep the devil out? When Ricardo had jumped on her and pushed her to the ground, it was the Moor making love to her, and the friar trying to rape her, and in her surging panic it was them she had been fighting off. No, she admitted to herself, that's not the truth. It was her own deep desire she was fighting.

She was torn between her spirit and the cravings of her flesh. I must not give in. I must get back to the convent.

He'll be back any minute. What should I do?

Graciela heard a low mewing from the back of the cave and quickly turned. There were four green eyes staring at her in the dark, moving toward her. Graciela's heart began to beat faster.

Two baby wolf cubs trotted up to her on soft, padded feet.

She smiled and extended her hand to them. There was a sudden rustle from the entrance of the cave. Ricardo is back, she thought.