Shady Lady

I knew we looked disreputable and dirty. It wasn’t just Kel’s tats or the color of our skin that made people give us a wide berth. We also reeked of the jungle and hard living. It was time to do something about that, or nobody would talk to us.

“Disculpe, por favor . . .” More than one person ignored my polite overture.

At last, I offered a woman a couple of coins to answer a few questions and she pointed me to an old man willing to rent the use of his bathroom. Lines seamed his brown face, his snowy hair in contrast, and he didn’t say much, other than gracias when Kel paid him. But he stepped out of his four-room home to let us bathe in relative privacy. God’s Hand stood guard outside the bathroom.

The water came from a cistern outside and the shower was primitive, but it did the job. I washed quickly, knowing Kel still needed to take his turn and we shouldn’t use all the water the elderly gentleman had stored. We thanked the señor again for the privilege and for his generosity, then said farewell. He didn’t budge from his chair, merely watched our progress with raisin-dark eyes.

Clean and wearing fresh clothes, I felt better, though I had only battered walking boots and my sneakers. I wore the latter because they were lighter and cooler, at least. I’d worn those boots enough to last a lifetime and put countless miles on the soles.

In the village center, with the market closing up around us, we made a picnic out of the fruit: mangoes, prickly pears, guanabana, bananas, passion fruit, and papaya. After endless days of protein bars, this tasted wonderful. Some of it was messy, but I wiped my fingers on the grass. Nobody would object if we camped here for the night.

This must be the last leg of the journey. Whatever we were looking for had to be here.

Glancing at Kel, who was skinning a mango with juice dripping from his fingers, I thought aloud. “There’s nothing unusual about this place except the church. It’s old, old as that statue looked . . . and I saw Aymara markings.”

“As did I.”

“Then that’s where we should start.”

Since we’d purchased only a little food, we left the remnants—skin and sweet pulp—for the birds. I pushed to my feet and walked back down the dirt track. The church doors stood open as we approached, but I couldn’t see within, where shadows pooled. Bolstering my strength because I always felt weird in consecrated places—the whole witch’s-daughter thing—I led the way.

Kel followed, a comforting presence at my back. It was funny how used to him I’d become. He was like a wellplaced rock; you could climb on it to escape floodwaters, use it for self-defense, to prop something up, or simply to rest against when you were weary. But unlike that rock, he had feelings. I suspected it had been a long-ass time since anyone asked him how he felt, or what he wanted.

Letting my eyes adjust, I took stock of the place. There were no pews. If one knelt here, it was on the floor. Flowers had been left at various shrines along the wall. The silence felt cool and soothing, like a weight had lifted when I stepped inside. Whitewashed walls bore traces of rust; likely the roof leaked and there was no money for repairs. Except for one, I didn’t know the names of the saints depicted on the walls, but I recognized Saint Martin de Perres from his dark skin. The altar was a heavy block of stone, etched with ornate patterns that didn’t always look wholly Christian to my eyes.

As we stood there, a thin man in black stepped out of the back room. “Buenas tardes. ¿Puedo ayudarles?”

To his credit, he didn’t react to the picture we made. On his own, Kel offered a hundred reasons to be wary, and I was obviously a redheaded güera. But if we were to unearth any bones, the priest might be able to tell us about a woman buried in the graveyard. It wasn’t enormous, so I hoped for luck. If cleansing the bad karma offered any benefit, I was due a break.

“Sí. Estamos buscando . . .” What were we looking for? I couldn’t say a woman’s bones—and maybe it wasn’t so literal anyway. So perhaps I should start with the man who’d sent us here: “. . . información acerca de la familia Escobar.”

Surprise slipped across his face before he schooled himself. He answered in Spanish, “I have not heard that name in a long time.”

I had been shooting blind, so elation raced through me. “¿Qué?”

“Escobar. Come,” he said, gesturing to us. “You will be historians, yes, or writers, maybe?”

Nodding, because his conclusion sounded more credible than the truth, I trailed behind him through the cool, dim church and into his private rooms accessible through a narrow corridor. He had a small sitting room with a niche for his cot. We took our seats while he fetched three brown glass bottles with gold and red labels that read CUZQUEÑA; it looked like beer. The priest cracked them open and the cold air smoked a little in the heat. As soon as I took the bottle, it tried to feed me images of what it had been doing, nothing traumatic, but I shut it down. I took a sip and judged it delicious, a nice, light lager.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

He indulged in a long drink and then said, “Forgive me; I have been rude. I am Father de León.”

“Mucho gusto.” I extended my hand, since I had to be on my best behavior.

He returned my greeting with the limp grip of a man more devoted to heavenly pursuits than earthly ones. But his manner remained friendly enough. Maybe we offered a welcome break in the killing boredom of his daily routine.

“The story,” Kel prompted.

Clearly there was one, or the man wouldn’t have escorted us back here. He would’ve simply said, I don’t know, and shown us out. I seconded with an inclination of my head, Cuzqueña in hand. God’s Hand didn’t touch his drink.

“The Church sent him to found the mission here. He was the only Spaniard for a very long time, but he related well to the people, and gradually, they came to his ways.”

“But something went wrong,” I guessed.

De León wore a grave mien. “Yes. A girl accused Father Escobar of rape. Since she was, as they say, touched by angels, no one believed her. She saw things that weren’t there, and she often cried for no reason. But when her belly swelled, the villagers decided she must have been telling the truth. They would have killed him, but he fled into the jungle. I do not know what happened to him, but the villagers were superstitious. They thought either he must be innocent, and God had taken him, or he was guilty, and the devil had come to drag him to hell.”

With Kel sitting beside me, neither proposition seemed as far-fetched as it might have once. “What do you think?”

The priest lifted his shoulders. “It is an old story, nothing more. Those who came before me recorded the interesting tales. I will do the same.”

“And have you?”

“So far, no.”

I hoped we wouldn’t bring “interesting times” to this quiet place. “What happened to the girl?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The other priests did not find her plight intriguing enough to write about her fate.”

That rankled. I knew he wasn’t responsible for his predecessors’ decisions, but the Church had too often either dismissed women as insignificant or persecuted them as sinful. They were either madonnas or whores, no middle ground.

Regardless, dead end there, then. So perhaps I wouldn’t be digging up some woman’s bones. Thank all the gods and goddesses. If Father Escobar had any connection with the man who’d sent me, however distant, then I was sniffing in the right spot. This was a long shot, but: “Did he leave anything behind?”

He angled his head. “That, perhaps. In the journals, the priest who came after him said Father Escobar left all of his things behind.”

Kel and I followed the trajectory of his gaze. On the wall hung a tarnished crucifix—silver, but it needed polishing. I remembered there were silver mines in Peru and that the country had conflicted with Mexico over it,