Charles de Lint: Forests of the Heart

“Why did you do that?” her wolf asked.

They stood in la epoca del mito once more. Tubac, La Gata Verde, Adelita, the tourists… all were gone. There was only the desert, Bettina’s bosque del corazon in the shadow of Baboquivari Peak. The lights that had risen from it the last time they were here had been replaced by a shroud of clouds, as though I’itoi had wrapped himself in a cloak of vapor.

“To let her know that her trust was not unfounded,” Bettina said.

“How so?”

Bettina smiled. “It’s hard to keep an open mind. So I gave her something to fill it. To keep the door of what might be ajar.”

He nodded. “And now you’ve named me. Lobo.”

He said the word as though tasting something unfamiliar. It was impossible to tell from his expression if the taste of it pleased him.

“That’s how I’ve always thought of you,” Bettina told him. “El lobo. The wolf. My wolf.”

“I can be that,” he said. “And gladly.”

It wasn’t easy to part with her wolf, but his responsibility to the manitou of the Kickaha Hills pressed on him and Bettina had her own obligations to fulfill. They tried to say goodbye quickly, but Bettina still clung to him for a long moment before she finally stepped back and let him go. El lobo appeared no more eager to leave himself. He held her hands, lifting them to his lips to kiss the palms, first one, then the other. Before she could speak, before she made the mistake of asking him to stay, or telling him she would go with him, he gave her a last, quick kiss on her lips and walked away.

He seemed to step into a heat mirage, a shimmering in the air, then just as they had departed from Adelita’s gallery in Tubac, he was gone. Bettina sighed heavily. The minutes slipped away as she stood there, gaze on the place where he had vanished. Finally, she sighed again. Rolling her shoulders to loosen her muscles, she began the task she had not spoken of to either her wolf or Adelita.

First she went into Tucson to buy some staples: beans, squash, peppers, tomatoes, chiles, corn flour, tea. A container for water, a pot to cook and eat from. Bundles of twine. Matches. A small spade. A long-bladed folding knife. It was a short trip and she was soon back in her bosque del corazon under the shadow of Baboquivari Peak.

Her suitcase she had left with Adelita, but she had her backpack and the blanket that she and her wolf had lain on all those nights they had spent together in la epoca del mito. So she slept on her blanket, cooked meals on heated stones set on the edge of fires in which she burned mesquite and iron-wood. And she worked.

She spent a few weeks gathering the long willowy ribs of toppled saguaros, wandering the desert, refamiliarizing herself with the land and its spirits. Every time she saw the red banded tail of a hawk, she paused, shading her eyes to study it. She would feel an answering whisper of wings move in her chest and she would reach out to the hovering shape high in the sky above, or perched on the topmost tip of a tall saguaro, searching for her father, for recognition, but finding neither.

When she thought she had gathered enough saguaro ribs, she measured out a square of flat ground, about eight by eight, and dug a hole in each corner. She stuck trimmed mesquite poles into each one, packing small boulders around the poles to keep them at a ninety-degree angle to the ground. Then she filled up the holes with dirt, watered it to pack it down better. She repeated the process a few times before she left the dirt around the poles to dry.

It wasn’t until she began to lash a framework of saguaro ribs to the poles that los cadejos came to see what she was doing. Throughout that day they watched with interest as she tied the ribs in place with the twine she’d picked up in Tucson. She spoke to them a few times, but they kept to a reserved distance. Today they weren’t the silly, singing dogs she’d first met so many years ago, but neither were they the more garrulous and certainly fierce animals who had protected her from the Glasduine.

By nightfall, she had the outline of a small building with a sloping flat roof completed. She sat by her fire as the moon rose, admiring her handiwork while eating bean tortillas that she washed down with tea. When los cadejos approached the fire, she offered them food, but they were only interested in the unfinished lean-to.

“¿Qué es ésto?” they asked. What is this?

“What are you making?”

“Are your hands sore?”

Bettina shook her head, replying to the last question first. “A little, but only from my work. The burns have healed.”

The scars still made her self-conscious, but that had been easier to forget out here on her own for as long as she’d been. Now it took an effort not to hide them away in pockets.

“And as for what I’m building,” she went on, “it’s a house. Una casa.”

“A home?”

“For you?”

“No,” Bettina told them. “But I hope to visit it often.”

“Then whose will it be?”

“Yours,” she said. “If you want it.”

They gathered closer, the firelight flickering on their rainbow fur.

“Do you do this because of our bargain?” they asked.

“No,” Bettina said. “You must decide what our bargain will be. I do this as would a friend.”

“But why?”

Bettina shrugged. “I feel bad for how I ignored you all those years. I promised you a home, but gave you nothing. So now I am building one for you. Here, in the heart of my heart, mi bosque del corazón.” She smiled. “I am not a skilled builder, but I am doing my best.”

“We think it is beautiful.”

“Sí. Muy bella.”

A couple of them did little dances, cloven hooves clicking on the stones. And then they were all dancing around, making up a song about pretty mansions and the prettier señoritas who made them. Bettina laughed and clapped along with their nonsense, finally getting up and dancing with them, yipping at the moon like a cadeja or a coyote.

When she finally collapsed on her blanket, los cadejos sprawled in little rainbow-furred heaps all around her, still giggling and yipping quietly.

“Es una cosa buena,” one of them told her. It is a good thing.

“Sí, sí.”

“Está casa bella.”

They came over and licked her hands or her cheek, one by one, then ran off into the darkened desert, laughter trailing behind them.

The next day she finished the roof, cutting the ribs to length and lashing them in place with her twine. She made two layers, placing the ribs of the second layer in the troughs made by the first to make it as waterproof as possible, given what she had to work with. Los cadejos came and went during the day, teasing her and telling her jokes. When she quit for the evening, they appeared carrying oranges which they dropped at her feet. She had no idea where they had gone to get them, but was happy to vary her fare.

That night they sat inside “la casa del cadejos,” as her companions insisted it be called and watched the sunset. Bettina was so tired that she fell asleep early. When she woke, los cadejos were gone, but they had pulled her blanket over her. She had a bean tortilla and the remainder of the oranges for breakfast, then got back to work.

A day later she had finished two sides, but she’d run out of saguaro ribs. The next morning she went out in search of more, this time accompanied by her raucous band of cadejos.

“Why did you come to me, that first time?” Bettina asked as they walked along.

“We didn’t come to you.”

“You came to us.”