I pulled a lined, spiral-bound notebook from my pack and opened it to write. My right hand was poised above the paper. I remembered the sound of the alabados rippling across the meadow grass in the cold air, the voices pleading and crying as they sang. I had intended to write a description of what I had just seen and heard, but I couldn’t find a way to begin. And then suddenly I questioned whether I wanted to begin at all. I had tried to talk myself into starting over on my book, but my enthusiasm for the idea had begun to wane already.
Why had I wanted to write about the Penitentes? Father Medina was right-I wasn’t from this area, I hadn’t been raised in this faith, I didn’t even have any faith.
And even more importantly, what was going on with Los Hermanos? Father Ignacio had tried to warn me that there was trouble brewing with the Penitentes, and it had even made him vigilant at our meeting. A man on a cross was thrown over the gorge bridge! And, on the very same day, my book was stolen. Nothing else, just my book- which happened to be about the Penitentes. And the morada at Boscaje had armed guards at the door. What was I doing in the middle of all this?
A sound in the brush above my camp startled me. Redhead jerked her head up, ears forward, alert. I crawled full-speed to her saddle and removed my rifle from the holster. I levered a round into the chamber, knelt upright with one foot placed firmly in front of me, shouldered the rifle, and watched for any sign of movement. Not so much as a twig snapped.
“Federal agent! I’m armed. Show yourself,” I yelled, still peering intently into the dark thicket.
I heard the sound of hooves bolting away up the slope at top speed-elk, from the sound of it.
I went back to my seat on the horse blanket. But I brought my rifle with me and set it on the ground within reach. I picked up the notebook and pen again. My train of thought broken, I had no answers to the questions I had been asking myself earlier.
Now I moved to make a list of people for Momma Anna’s strange assignment to ask forgiveness of everyone I cared about. I wrote four names: Roy, Momma Anna, Bennie, Regan. I tapped some more with the pen, realizing that I did not have many people in my life that I truly cared about. I wondered if I would be on their lists if any of them had been given the same task to perform. Roy, maybe, I guessed. So perhaps even fewer people cared for me than I had listed here. And then I remembered Father Ignacio holding my hand and looking into my eyes, saying:
I got up from the horse blanket, shook it out, and rolled it up. I kicked the embers of my fire apart, outward toward the ring of stones, and then used the side of my boot to push dirt over the top of the stones. I emptied part of one of my canteens over it all to extinguish all the live fire. “Come on, Redhead,” I said, as I picked up her saddle. “We’re going back on patrol.”
I wasn’t the one who spotted Santiago Suazo in our section. I had spent the night pretty close to my base camp, making only short forays. In the morning, I had broken camp, and was riding Redhead down to the Forest Service road, when I saw Kerry Reed’s truck speeding up to where I had parked the truck and horse trailer. He got to me before I could load Redhead in.
“Suazo just eluded me again!” He whomped the back door of the trailer with the side of his fist in frustration. “I spotted his truck down by some off-road tracks. He saw me coming and blazed off down the four-wheel-drive road. I had to backtrack quite a ways before I found a safe place to turn around, and by the time I did, he was long gone. He had to have lost his oil pan, the way he was driving.”
“Yeah, well, you know Suazo. He probably keeps baling wire and duct tape on hand for wiring up mufflers and taping up holes in things to get him down to the next village where his cousin or someone has a welder.” I thought for a moment. “Just curious-was Suazo on your side of the fence or mine?”
“Yours.” He shook his head, still chagrined, his lips pressed into a tight little frown.
“That’s funny. I rode over that piece early last night. I can’t imagine what he’s doing in there. He can’t be getting wood out; there’s only scrub on this side of the fence line. And we would have heard him if he was cutting.”
“I don’t know what he’s doing either, but it can’t be anything good.”
“So you think it was Suazo who cut down that section of fence?”
“I don’t know, but if he didn’t, he knows who did. You remember, his truck was pulled over a good ways west of there the other night, like he knew better than to try to drive on any farther or he would have gotten stuck. But he wasn’t with his truck, and that fence wasn’t down the night before that when I checked it. It’s a safe bet that Suazo was back in there on foot or some other way then, since he wasn’t in his truck.”
“Why don’t we go pay him a friendly visit?”
“You mean go to his house?”
“Why not? We’ll make it official. We’re conducting an investigation into vandalism and destruction of federal lands. And we’re off for the weekend now. If we don’t go intimidate him, he’ll just come back tonight and get away with whatever it is he’s doing while no one is here. I’ll make a courtesy call to the sheriff’s department to let them know before we go.”
“We can go, but he’s not going to tell us anything. And he’s not easily intimidated; laws don’t mean a thing to that guy. He always finds a way to weasel out of whatever he gets himself into. I don’t think it’s going to deter him one bit to see us at his place.”
“I want to find out what he’s doing up by the Boscaje morada,” I said. “I think he was headed up there.”
“I’m guessing there’s no chance that he could be a member there.”
“No, trust me, Santiago Suazo doesn’t have a penitent bone in his body. But we might find out something by seeing him on his own turf, whether he’s willing to talk or not. And I do think it would rattle him.”
“Okay, then, I’m game if you are.”
“I have an appointment I have to keep first,” I said. “Let’s meet about noon at the BLM.”
I called the sheriff’s office to make what is known as a “courtesy call” from one agent or officer to another. Technically, I had no authority outside of BLM land, and even there, only for the purposes of resource protection. But, as a courtesy, I was commonly permitted to question anyone with respect to issues related to my jurisdiction, provided that I informed the local law enforcement agency of my intent to do so. I asked for Deputy Padilla, hoping to find out if they had made an identification of the body on the cross and if there had been any developments in the case. But Jerry Padilla was not in, and I had to leave my courtesy advisement that Kerry and I would be going by Suazo’s house with the dispatcher.
14
When I pulled up at the Golden Gecko, the parking lot was full. The front door had been propped open with a large rock. Bennie was outside trying to coordinate as a half-dozen women loaded clothes racks and garment bags into the club.
“Hey, kiddo,” she said when she saw me get out of my car, “could I talk to you for just a second?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
Bennie scratched her head. “I just want to say thanks. For doing this, I mean.”
“Yeah, you’ll never be able to play the wounded bear card again after this, I’m warning you.”
She laughed. “It was the only way I could get you to do it. You know I’m right.”
“True. Listen, Bennie, I…”
“What?”
Inside the Gecko, the band began checking their instruments through the sound system, and the noise blasted out the open front door of the club, the bass booming, a saxophone honking, cymbals crashing-nothing coordinated-each of them producing clamor at once. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the cacophony. “I… if I’ve ever hurt you or offended you, I want to ask for your forgiveness.”
Bennie squinted at me, as if she was trying to see me better. She had to shout over the din. “What on earth are you talking about?”
