He ordered black coffee. His gaze panned the room, came back to me, zoomed in. “I have studied all the things you sent to me. I will admit, I was very impressed. You have done some interesting drawings of some very old and little-known shrines, and you have apparently done a lot of research about them for this sketchbook of yours. It is good.” His eyes narrowed. “But when I look at you, I cannot help thinking-you will forgive me, I hope-that you are a very lovely young woman, Miss Wild. Why does a young lady like yourself have such an interest in Los Penitentes?”
“You mean an Anglo?”
He smiled. “Yes, that. And-well, perhaps I was expecting someone… older. Perhaps someone from an academic background. You don’t look like someone who spends all her spare time doing research, drawing, writing.”
“Well, you know what they say about judging a book by its cover.”
He laughed. “I know. I know. But when I saw the drawings and read the essay you sent to me, I guess I pictured you… well, it is different now that I see you. You seem to look at these things with a wisdom beyond your years.” He looked up abruptly and focused his attention on the door of the coffeehouse.
I turned and looked over my shoulder. A man had just come in. He stood at the counter, his back to the room, waiting to give his order. I turned back to Father Medina, who tasted his coffee, looked at the door, then at me, and within a moment, at the door again.
I took a drink from my cup and studied the old priest who sat before me. He was a small man with a beautiful, thick head of blue-black hair streaked near a prominent widow’s peak with a wave of pure white. His caramel skin bore deep grooves across the forehead and at the corners of his dark eyes. He continued to look past me at the door.
“Are you expecting someone, Father?”
He smiled. “Perhaps.” He pointed toward my notebook. “Is this beautiful book your manuscript?” His hand reached out.
I hesitated.
“May I see it?” His arm remained extended, his palm open.
I tapped my fingers on the book, tamping it down as I tried to diminish its appeal. “Well, it’s not really a manuscript. I don’t even know if it will become one. It’s just all my notes and sketches and…”
His fingers wagged impatiently toward it.
I moved my arm over the top of the book, as if to protect it. I felt my pulse quicken as I tried to deflect his request. “I was just hoping to ask you a few questions. I really wasn’t planning…”
The father’s palm remained outstretched, but his face softened from a demand to a plea.
Moments passed, the two of us unmoving, my fingers lingering on the edge of the cover. Finally, I relented and handed him the book. I had never let anyone else look at it. It was a binder filled with pages of original drawings and essays. I had made a tan deerskin cover for it and used tight, perfect loops of chocolate deerskin thong to round-braid seams all around the outer edges. He held the book up carefully in his two hands. “I’m just going to look at it,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt it.”
I forced a smile.
He set the book down carefully on the table, not opening it. Instead, he looked at me. “Tell me what you do for the BLM.”
“I’m a resource protection agent. A range rider. I mostly ride fence lines in the backcountry. In the winter months, I do a lot of odd jobs-handling grazing permits, maintaining gates onto public lands, wildlife rescues, things like that.”
“So you’re a cowgirl?”
I grinned. “I guess you might say that.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“In love with someone?”
“No.”
“Then you live with your family.”
“No, I don’t have any family.”
He was quiet a moment. “You live alone, then?”
“Yes.”
Father Ignacio opened the book and began browsing through it. “Look! You have drawn maps and everything,” he said approvingly. “It is obvious that you are in love with your subject.” He studied one of my drawings. “I like the sketches you’ve done of the shrines. This one-it’s in Agua Azuela, no?”
I nodded yes.
“I remember that one, I know it.” He stopped to read a little of what I had written. Then he closed the book and placed it on the table between us. “But you have never answered my question. Why do you have such an interest in Los Hermanos? That is how Los Penitentes refer to themselves-the brothers, or La Hermandad-the brotherhood.” His eyes searched my face with intensity.
“I’ve never really thought about why I’m interested in them. I just am.” I looked away from the intimacy of his stare.
“I have a feeling you are afraid to tell me the truth, Miss Wild. What do you think will happen if you do?”
“I don’t know how to say it, exactly.”
We were both silent for a minute. He sipped his coffee. “Why don’t you try?” he suggested, setting his cup down.
“Well…” I thought a moment. I looked directly into his eyes. “If I’m drawn to something, it usually has some kind of lesson for me. That’s been true since I was a kid.”
“And what is the lesson you have gotten from your study of Los Penitentes?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He studied my face. “And you have had these kinds of experiences since you were a child?”
“Yes.”
“Give me an example.”
“You’re going to think this is crazy, but it started with a possum hand I found when I was a kid. It had been left behind by a predator. It was completely dried and perfect, all the hair on it, even the little fingernails. And the possum’s palm was lined, and there were even fingerprints-just like a person’s.”
His face sobered. He tilted his head to one side, regarding me carefully. He didn’t speak.
“I couldn’t help myself, I picked it up and took it home. It was- don’t be offended by this, Father, please-but it was hideous. And fascinating. I finally sewed that paw on a little deerskin medicine bag I made. I still have it.”
Father Ignacio’s eyes widened. “So Los Penitentes are like that for you? Just some kind of novelty? Some ‘hideous fascination,’ as you said?”
“No! Oh, I didn’t think you’d understand it.”
He held up his open palm. “Well, then, enlighten me.”
I drew in a slow breath. “Maybe this won’t make any sense to you at all. But I think sometimes you have to embrace the things you are most frightened of. I could tell, even when I was just a child, that the possum hand was some kind of powerful medicine for me. Just the strength of my reaction told me that.”
“And what was it that you learned from this ‘powerful medicine’ in the possum hand?”
I leaned over the table toward him. “I learned not to be afraid of it. I let the possum speak to me and I learned that there is a kind of genius in his nature. I learned that what may look strange or foreign to you at first can prove to be amazing when you get over your fear of it. But you have to get over your fear, or your revulsion, to get to the lesson it is trying to teach you.”
“And this is what you have found in Los Penitentes?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about that.”
“It started last year when I saw a procession of novices.”
“Yes,” he urged, leaning closer, his eyes drilling into me.
“They were performing penance. Whipping themselves as they marched. I thought it was terrible. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.”
“Yes, yes, go on!” He gestured with his hand for me to keep it rolling.
