A Santo in the Image of Cristóbal García

by Rick Collignon

  “As soon as a new priest arrives,” Cristóbal would go on, “does he stay in our church where he belongs? No. He takes a large cross and his rosary beads out to the Indians and upsets them.” Cristóbal would raise his eyes and look at Hipolito. “Do the Indians come into Las Sombras and force our children to dress in the masks of animals and dance in their dances? Do they make us sit down and tell us stories about their gods? If they did, we, too, would throw rocks at them.”

  “It is more than just the priests and the Indians,” Hipolito would say. “You know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that any longer.”

  “Why must we talk about the same thing each morning?” Francisco would ask. “And in the evening, we have it again.” Then he would walk away and stand looking off into the distance at nothing.

  Hipolito and Francisco had known Cristóbal nearly all their lives. The walls of their houses were built against and grew out of each other’s and their children, who were numerous and close in age, lived as if all shared the same family. Of the three men, Cristóbal was always the most outspoken, especially when it came to the village. Hipolito and Francisco often agreed with his complaints, but it was one thing to hear his words within the village and another to hear them in a place where each step took them farther from home. Cristóbal’s words not only were a plea for them to abandon their search, but also made Hipolito and Francisco feel as if their reasons for leaving Las Sombras in the first place were only a trick they had played on themselves.

  “It was you, Cristóbal, who first mentioned leaving the village,” Francisco would say over his shoulder, and Hipolito could hear the anger in his voice. “Besides, do you not remember the winter two years ago?”

  Following a summer of drought where the corn was empty in its husks and the alfalfa grew coarse and stunted, that winter had brought snow and cold and disease to Las Sombras all at once. Snow began to fall in late October, and it continued for months, until the houses sat buried to their roofs and everything outside the village became just a memory. When it wasn’t snowing, a cold came to the valley so intense that tree limbs cracked with ice and the chimneys could not draw air.

  Soon after the first snowstorm, villagers, especially the old and the very young, began to fall ill with a sickness that dulled their minds, took the strength from their bodies, and finally brought on a fever that rose so high they would forget how to breathe. Those who died, among them Francisco’s young son Pablito and his daughter Sophia, were wrapped in thin cloth and carried to the plaza. There, one of the priests would crouch stiffly against the wind, say a brief prayer, and then cross himself before hurrying back to his room beside the church.

  The dead were placed together on the ground beneath a large cottonwood, and there they remained under so many feet of snow until late in the spring when the earth was no longer like stone. Livestock not brought into shelter froze standing in the fields, and those that didn’t were butchered for food. Seed stored for the following season was ground between rocks and boiled in melted snow and fed to children.

  When the weather finally broke in mid-April, the hollow-eyed people of the village straggled out from their homes and found only mud and slush and the dead, stacked on the plaza like cords of wood.

  The following summer, Cristóbal began to complain bitterly and incessantly about life in Las Sombras. While Cristóbal had always complained about one thing or another, Hipolito and Francisco knew that he had no real intention of ever leaving Las Sombras. But what he said made the thought of remaining in the village unbearable.

  They would listen to Cristóbal and agree with him that there were other places in this country where they could choose the best land for themselves—where there was enough pasture and game that a winter such as the one that had just passed would not be so crippling, and where they could have just one priest who would stay with them and not cause trouble by foolishly bothering the Indians. Hipolito and Francisco would take what they heard from Cristóbal back to their families. Almost without realizing it, they began to plan to leave Las Sombras for a place that would be their own.

  After the murder of the three priests, rumors began to spread that the pueblo and other pueblos in the south were threatening to unite. When they did, they would rise up as one and drive the Spanish and their God that could not mind his own business from the entire territory. Although these rumors had occasionally surfaced in the past, it was what finally prompted Hipolito and Francisco to leave. By then, there was no doubt in their minds that Cristóbal would go with them.

  Five days after the priests were buried, the three men left Las Sombras before dawn. The night before, Cristóbal had told his wife, Ignacia, that he would go only a little ways with his friends so that they would not become lost and, with luck, would be back by nightfall. Ignacia had helped him pack his things, and before he left, she had taken his hand in both of hers and smiled. “Be careful, Cristóbal,” she had said. “We will wait up tonight until you return. Never forget that we love you.”

  “EEE,” FELIX SAID SUDDENLY, startling Flavio so much that he jerked in his chair. “I wish I was Cristóbal García.” He reached out to the plate in the center of the table and broke off a piece of hard tortilla. “Then I could have been the first García to ever be here.”

  Flavio had been listening to Guadalupe in a state that was close to sleep. He had almost forgotten where he was and had followed the tone of Guadalupe’s voice as if it were a hand that was leading him. He looked over at Felix. “Don’t you listen?” he asked. “Cristóbal García was crazy. And even if he wasn’t, every morning he was covered with frost and he didn’t even have any shoes.”

  “So?” Felix said, chewing his tortilla with his mouth half open. “You don’t know everything. Besides, I’m a García, too. Maybe Cristóbal García was my grandpa.”

  There were Garcías scattered throughout the village and, as far as Flavio knew, not one was related to Guadalupe. “I think Cristóbal should have stayed home,” Flavio said. “Whenever someone says be careful, something bad is going to happen.”

  “Don’t worry, Flavio,” Felix said. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  “What about the priests being shot with arrows and the frozen cows?” Flavio said. “That was bad.”

  “It’s just a story, Flavio. Besides, it’s almost over.”

  “They walked all over this valley,” Guadalupe said. She was leaning back in her chair, staring through the space between Flavio and Felix. She was still smiling slightly, and when Flavio glanced at her, he could see that her nightgown had pulled a little off of one shoulder. He stared at her for only a second and then quickly lowered his eyes.

  “The three of them,” Guadalupe said. “Where you boys live, Cristóbal and Hipolito and Francisco once walked. They breathed the same air you do and cut fence posts from juniper that still grow in these hills.” Then she moved her eyes and seemed to look at Flavio and Felix at the same time. “This is just the beginning of the story,” she said.

  “THERE IS ROOM HERE NOT JUST FOR US,” Hipolito said excitedly, “but for a whole village.” He pointed at the mountains. “Look at the aspens running in the canyons. There is so much water, and the peaks are still white from last year’s snow.”

  The valley was cradled on three sides by lowlying foothills and on the east by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is sheltered from the wind, Hipolito went on, and the mountains reach high enough to catch the clouds that bring snow for irrigation and rain in the summers.

  Three large creeks flowed out of deep ravines and joined together at the base of the mountains. From there, the water wound its way through the center of the valley. High grass grew everywhere, and Hipolito and Francisco could see where deer and turkey had beaten down trails when coming to feed.

  Although a part of Cristóbal could see the beauty of this place, he felt only uneasiness at how jagged the mountains were and how they seemed to loom over the valley rather than protect it. He didn’t like how the tw
isted junipers and thick cottonwoods grew along the creek. They seemed to be hiding something and reminded him of the shadows he sometimes dreamed of at night. As he stood on the foothill amid the small piñon and scrub oak, two things went through his mind and then left before he could fully grasp them. One was that he could never live in this place, and the other was that he would never leave.

  They camped beneath the limbs of a tall juniper where the grass was not so high. The burro was staked near the creek, close enough that coyotes or the small wolves that roamed in packs would stay away. Cristóbal had wished to spend the night in the foothills rather than even set foot in the valley, but Hipolito and Francisco had chided him and talked to him until finally he had followed them out of the hills and into grass that came to his waist.

  They ate in silence the same meal they had eaten for the past twenty-eight days: a tortilla with dried rabbit meat and beans that had been heated over the fire. Occasionally, a slight breeze would move the flames, and the shadows made it seem to Cristóbal as if the juniper itself was moving. He would close his eyes and tell himself that he would be here for just one night. In the morning he would leave. By the time he reached Las Sombras, he would not even remember this place.

  Hipolito finished eating and put his plate on the ground. He leaned forward and tossed a small branch on the fire. Sparks flew into the darkness.

  “When it’s light,” he said, “two of us will begin the walk home. The third will remain here and wait for us to return. If we leave the burro and take only what we need, we can be in the village in six days and then back here eight days after that.”

  Cristóbal stopped eating and looked at Hipolito. “We should all leave,” he said. “There is no reason anyone should stay here.”

  “It’s what we planned before leaving Las Sombras,” Francisco said. “If we found what we were looking for, then one of us would remain behind to claim it as our own.”

  Cristóbal, who had no intention of remaining anywhere and who wished only to live the rest of his life in Las Sombras, glanced at Francisco. “Who would ever come here?” he said. Besides, he thought, this valley wants no one. It only wants to be left alone.

  “Those were your words, Cristóbal,” Francisco said. “You spoke them over and over in Las Sombras.”

  The burro suddenly let out a deep sigh. Cristóbal watched as it lowered itself to its knees and lay down in the grass. When he looked back at Francisco, he said, “I will tell your wife and children that you are well and miss them.”

  Francisco smiled and said, “You think it is me who is to stay behind?”

  It had been Hipolito who had led them from Las Sombras and even if many of his decisions had been poor and cost them days and miles, still, it was he that Cristóbal and Francisco had followed. Cristóbal had no desire to be led out of this valley and into the wilderness by Francisco, who only made decisions about how much his burro should carry, which was usually little, or what they would eat at night, which was always the same.

  “Cristóbal is right, Francisco,” Hipolito said, looking at his cousin. “You are the one who should stay.”

  Sometimes at night, after Cristóbal had finally fallen asleep, Hipolito and Francisco would sit close to each other and talk in whispers. As they had traveled farther and farther away from Las Sombras, both had come to fear that Cristóbal was losing his mind. He would wake every morning refusing to go on, and when he did, he would talk to himself and stare at the ground as he walked. At times, as he stumbled behind with the burro, Hipolito and Francisco would hear him moaning as if weeping. Neither knew what to do about their companion, and some nights when Cristóbal was more upset than usual one of them would remain awake by the fire until dawn. Hipolito had told his cousin he was afraid that if Cristóbal woke he would wander off by himself and who knew what would happen to him then. What troubled Hipolito the most, however, and what he did not tell Francisco, was that he realized once they returned to Las Sombras Cristóbal would never leave again. It was Cristóbal’s own words spoken before they had left the village that haunted Hipolito.

  “My daughters,” Cristóbal had said, “and your sons, Hipolito, and yours, Francisco, will be raised together, and when they grow older they’ll marry. Our families will be as one, and our descendants will receive what we found. Then, truly, we will have a place that is ours and where our names are known.”

  Hipolito would sit up through the night and watch Cristóbal sleeping fitfully. He knew in his heart that they needed Cristóbal’s family far more than they needed Cristóbal himself. He would sit by the embers of the fire, and a blackness would come over him as if he, too, knew that what they were looking for was already lost.

  Hipolito looked across the fire at Francisco. “We will be gone only a few weeks,” he said. “When we return, all our families will be with us. We’ll bring the corn and the grain and the hides we’ve stored, and once here, we will build a shelter to protect us through the first winter. Our sons will hunt deer and turkey, and the meat will feed us until spring. And if, by chance, Francisco, anyone should wander into this valley while we’re gone,” and here Hipolito turned to Cristóbal, “you are to tell them that this place is ours and that it is named Guadalupe, in honor of Our Lady.”

  Hours after Hipolito and Francisco had fallen asleep, Cristóbal lay awake, staring up into the limbs of the juniper. Through them he could glimpse the stars and the sliver of a new moon. He could hear the sound of the creek. Even the wail of coyotes at the other end of the valley now seemed comforting to him. For the first time in weeks, Cristóbal felt at peace. He thought of his wife and how he longed to be near her. He thought of his eight daughters and how it would be to hold each one, even the youngest, who was but an infant and only cried when he came near her. When he finally fell asleep, a thin mist of clouds had hidden the moon. In his mind Cristóbal saw himself walking into Las Sombras, and all about him was his family.

  Cristóbal didn’t wake the next morning until it was light. The sky was a pale white and looked thin and fragile to him, as if it were something that might break. He lay quietly for a moment staring into the limbs of the juniper, and then he wondered why Hipolito had not already roused him to begin the journey home.

  “If we travel like this,” he said aloud, “we will not be back home until spring.” He smiled and when his words went unanswered, he turned his head. He could see that the fire had burned out long ago and that the burro was still asleep in the grass, his sides heaving slowly with labored breaths. He could also see that not only were Hipolito and Francisco nowhere about, but their packs and their blankets were gone.

  Cristóbal threw off his blanket and sat up. Other than depressions in the grass where Hipolito and Francisco had slept, the place looked as though just one man had ever been there, not three. Beside the ashes of the fire were a small pot and one plate and spoon. Cristóbal’s pack was at the foot of his bedding as were the hatchet and the one gun they had carried with them from Las Sombras. Everything else was gone. For a few seconds Cristóbal did nothing but stare about him in disbelief, his eyes wide and his mouth half open. Then he leaped to his feet and ran out of the trees and into the meadow.

  All he could see in every direction was grass that stood tall and motionless. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled Hipolito’s name. A large flock of ravens picked up in the foothills and then disappeared up a canyon. He yelled again and again, looking for movement in the piñons. He yelled until his voice was harsh and until the sun had risen high up above the mountains.

  IT TOOK HIPOLITO AND FRANCISCO seven days to make the walk from the valley of Guadalupe back to Las Sombras. They had traveled as quickly as possible, leaving each morning in the dark and walking until long after the sun had finally set. Neither spoke of Cristóbal or of what they had done to him. Francisco, because for the most part he was relieved that he no longer had to listen to Cristóbal’s constant complaining, and Hipolito because he could not even bear to speak Cristóbal’s name. He e
nvisioned his friend lost in his own confusion in the valley they had found, and he knew that the responsibility was his alone. The only thing that eased his mind was the thought that if they returned to Guadalupe quickly enough, all could, in the end, be set right. Unfortunately for Hipolito and Cristóbal, that is not what happened.

  When the two men walked into Las Sombras, not only did they find everyone who had lived there gone, but the entire village had been burned. Each house was no more than charred adobe, the walls lying in heaps or at best half standing. Ceilings had collapsed and the latillas and vigas were only black ashes. The sole structure unharmed was the church. It stood in the middle of all the debris as if it had left the village when the fires had begun and not returned until it was safe.

  On the thick plank doors of the church was nailed a piece of white cloth and on it was written:

  We have left this village for the safety of Santa Madre. All those who read this must know that the church has abandoned these lands and this territory and all those who live in it.

  In peace,

  Padre Martinez

  Weeks later, in a howling blizzard, Hipolito Trujillo and Francisco Ramírez stumbled into Santa Madre and began the search for their families. In the small valley of Guadalupe, which lay so many miles to the north, Cristóbal García stood in snow that came to his waist. He had lost his mind not long after Hipolito and Francisco had left, and all that had once been part of his life was now lost to him.

  Three

  FLAVIO AND HIS WIFE, Martha, had been married fifty-six years when Flavio came home one morning to find her dead on the floor of the kitchen. He had just returned from irrigating and had taken his boots off by the front door and hung up his cap. Then he had walked through the quiet house to the kitchen. When he saw his wife sprawled on the floor, his first thought was that while he had been working peacefully in the sun, his wife had gone through something terrible all by herself.