Rosa had overheard the whole conversation and watched as Ramsey got up, shook Myriam’s hand, and left. She noticed that the tension in the room when the two first met had subtly shifted. It was as if he had found what he came for, a kind of closure. And yet, there was something unfinished in the way the two Anglos parted. Myriam was tapping her fingers on the table, eyes glancing at Ramsey and back to her smartphone as if undecided about what to do next. Ramsey’s shoulders were set, his back ramrod straight. He was done, through; yet his steps hesitated at the door as if expecting Myriam to come after him. He knows something about what happened to the shrine’s healing power, Rosa thought. Something he didn’t tell Myriam. Rosa smiled to herself. Maybe this gringo can help bring it back. She rushed after him.
Outside the café Ramsey fished for his car keys. He heard the soft patter of shoes on the steps behind him, followed by the hand on his sleeve. He turned, ready with his excuse. I’m sorry Myriam, but it’s not for me. Peru was enough. I don’t need or want that again.
The words died on his lips. “Rosa,” he said, taking a step back. He studied her, and the eyes that looked back appraised him equally. They were dark brown with russet lights. Short dark hair framed an oval face. Her olive skin was perfect, and the corners of her generous mouth had no wrinkles. He judged her to be somewhat younger than himself.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “You tell me.”
Ramsey took another step back and found himself pressed against the rental car. She hadn’t moved forward, and yet he had the unmistakable feeling of being held not against his will but by her design. “I’m not sure what you mean.
She handed him a card. “Call this number. This woman was there that very first night nearly fifteen years ago.”
“Call her?”
Rosa nodded. “Go with the Lord.” She hurried back into the restaurant.
That was strange. Ramsey held the card between his middle and forefinger. A city garbage can stood against the side of the building ten feet away. With a simple flick he could make it without touching the rim. It was an old magician’s trick he had learned as a kid. He stopped midthrow. Taking a deep breath he turned the card to read it. The name written on the back was “Carlotta Moore” and beneath it was her number.
He looked across the street to the old hotel where he had booked a room for the night. The sun was almost at the meridian. It had been a long day and the need for sleep gripped him. Still, Rosa’s entreaty hung in the air like a gentle breeze pushing him to take the next step. It seemed to him as if all day there had been pushes and nudges bringing him to a decision point. He shivered thinking of Peru and his mistaken belief at the time that he was supposed to be there. Still . . . he shot a look at the Rio Café. Rosa was bussing the table, speaking with Myriam. It wouldn’t hurt to call. Fishing his phone from his pocket, he dialed the number.
CARLOTTA MOORE STOOD on the porch of her adobe home. She was a tall, large-hipped, big-busted woman, sculpted like the ancient depictions of Gaia, the earth goddess. Hair rolled down her back in a waterfall of white and yellow curls. She wore an olivewood circlet around her head and a gauzy white dress that flittered upward in the afternoon breeze, revealing legs shaped like muscled pillars. Her eyes were dark and piercing, and yet she held out her arms and hugged Ramsey to her like an old friend.
“Let’s sit outside,” she said and led him to a side porch where a carafe of coffee and two cups sat on a glass table. “I was glad you called. I’m happy to talk about that first night.”
Ramsey raised his eyebrows at the mention of first night.
She sat facing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Milagro Shrine, which Ramsey, looking over his shoulder, could just about make out in the distance. The large cottonwood tree seemed brighter from here, and yet ethereal. He suddenly felt as if its essence had crossed the miles of rabbit grass and mesquite and now hovered about him in whispers of wind. Ramsey paused for a moment, trying to translate what the breeze was telling him.
“So you’re a human geographer. Remind me again what they do.”
“We study the importance of place in every kind of human activity. Some of the most important places in the history of humanity are sacred places.”
“Like you said on the phone, you might study the history of the shrine?”
“I’m interested in how it got started. It’ll help me decide if I want to proceed.”
“So, what would you like to know?”
If Ramsey had a special skill it was his ability to listen. To listen to a place. To listen to people while setting his personal preferences aside. “It is perhaps the most important skill a human geographer can have,” Jared Diamond had told him when Ramsey arrived at UCLA. From that moment on Ramsey consciously practiced developing that capacity.
“Rosa from Café Rio said you were at the Milagro Shrine from the beginning.”
“There was no shrine then. I’m the only one left from the original group.”
“What happened to the others?”
“They’ve all passed on.”
“They’re dead?”
She laughed lightly. “I meant they’ve gone out into the world. That night changed us all.” Carlotta took a sip of coffee. Ramsey did the same and pursed his lips against the strong taste. “I brew it until a wooden spoon can stand up in the mix by itself. Then I add a little water. It’s better for you that way.” She set hers down and leaned back.
Ramsey relaxed, his smile inviting her to tell him all about the original group and that first night.
“Back at the turn of the millennium a group of us teachers from our county started coming up here in August during the Perseid meteor showers. We thought of it as a way to inaugurate the new school year. If you’ve ever taught you know there’s something special about the beginning of a new year. Gathering together to watch the meteor shower became sort of a ritual or pilgrimage. The place was special because it had a single cottonwood growing on a dry ridge. Plus the owner of the land didn’t mind us being there. Then in 2003 we trooped up to the top of the hill and something different happened this time. It was August 12, at the height of the meteor shower. They were zipping across the night sky like Fourth of July fireworks. They seemed brighter than usual as though the gods had breathed fire into the night sky. The cottonwood tree shivered with every meteor that passed behind its massive branches. We were all gathered, sitting at the base of the tree, and that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?” Ramsey asked.
“It was like a benediction . . . a feeling of deep peace and love fell over everyone. We all felt joy and goodness. Not just the good you feel waking up every morning glad you’re still above ground, but good like you can go out and tackle the world. You believe in that kind of possibility?”
Ramsey gave a slight nod. “Go on.”
Carlotta smiled at him and said, “Guess how old I am.”
Ramsey sat back. In some of the Indian tribes he’d studied in the Amazon, a woman’s age was a mark of respect and wisdom. Women in the U.S. weren’t so blasé about getting older. “I’m thinking forty-five,” he ventured, ready to take it back in an instant.
She laughed loudly and said, “Fifty-five, but I feel half that age and have every day since that night. I have the energy of people thirty years younger than I am. The feeling has never gone away.”
“That’s remarkable. Can you tell me what happened to the others?”
“The most amazing transformation was of a teacher from West Fork named William Benedict. He had rheumatoid arthritis. By the time we walked down to the cars he was flipping coins in the air and catching them. It was a true miracle.”
“Any other ‘miracles’?”
“Within a month Agnes left a bad relationship. My best friend, Francis, resigned from a job she loved and hadn’t wanted to leave and went home to take care of her ailing parents. It was like we all experienced our own special miracle. I would say transformational
miracle.”
Ramsey’s mind was racing. It was the old paradox—did these people make the place miraculous or did the place make the miracles?
“Then what happened?”
William was a science teacher and wanted to test to see if it would happen again. The next night he brought some other people with different illnesses and some of them got better. The shrine grew from that time to what you see out there now. People coming here getting healed finding new direction in their life, until . . . I’m sure you know what’s happened.”
She stopped, reached for her coffee. Her hand shook slightly as if a great sob were about to escape from her chest. Ramsey could see there was something more about the first days of the Milagro shrine she wanted to share, something that brought a touch of sadness and uncertainty to her life. He let his eyes smile, sending out gratitude and support to her. It was an interview technique he’d honed to get people to relax so they would speak more honestly about issues.
She tapped her fingers against the cup. “There’s something I believe you should see.” Carlotta got up and went into the house, bringing back a picture. “Here’s the original group a couple years later.”
Ramsey studied the photograph. Ten people were clustered about the cottonwood tree. It was late summer, judging by the dark brown grass. The sky was dark blue without a cloud. Everyone was dressed in shorts and t-shirts. They smiled brightly and a couple on the far left held up fingers in a V for peace. Ramsey’s eyes were drawn to the man next to the couple. He was standing a bit apart, as though not really a member of the group. That looks like the person I saw under the cottonwood this morning.
He pointed to the man and asked, “Who’s that?”
“My half brother. He wasn’t part of our teacher’s group, but I brought him along because I thought the exercise would do him good. He’d been in a terrible motorcycle accident a few months earlier while living in Des Moines.. I brought him here to convalesce. At the time he could barely walk and couldn’t talk at all. It was like his brain and body had been pulverized. My two sons and me are his only living family. As he got better, he became sort of the unofficial caretaker of the shrine. That is, up until around two months ago.”
Ramsey raised his eyebrows. “Where is he now?”
Carlotta’s jovial manner deadened and she shook her head. “Don’t know. He just disappeared. A tear fell from her eye. “No explanation, no good-bye. At the shrine on a Tuesday and gone on Wednesday.”
Ramsey briefly wondered if he should say anything to her about the man he saw, but he couldn’t be sure it was the same person, and he didn’t want the conversation to get stuck here. Instead he asked, “His name is . . . ?”
“Gwillt. Adam Gwillt. His father was a Scot. He died two years after Adam was born. Mom returned to the states and married Clement Moore, my father. I wish Adam were here; he could tell you a lot more about the everyday working of the Milagro Shrine than I can. Of course, you can always talk to Father Michael.”
“I might,” Ramsey said, remembering the former priest he’d met at the shrine.
“Good.” Carlotta frowned, the sudden disappearance of her brother still quite painful. “Call him . . . Father Michael can answer the questions I can’t.”
Ramsey nodded, wondering what those questions might be. In the next instant, he stifled a yawn, realizing he would never call Father Michael to find out. The visit with Carlotta was interesting, but it didn’t change his mind any about taking the job.
He got up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee and I’m so sorry about your brother. I hope Adam turns up.”
She followed him out to the driveway. As he started to get into his car, she put her hand on his and said, “You really should call Father Michael. I have his number.”
“Thanks. If I come back, I’ll get it.” Ramsey was anxious to leave. The correlation between the person who spoke to him under the Cottonwood tree and Adam Gwillt had shaken him. He searched his memory for what he knew about apparitional experiences. Apparitions were at the heart of many sacred sites. Appearances of Mary or even Christ at holy Christian sites were common phenomena. In some cases, mass apparitions were at the center of a sacred site’s beginnings. He also remembered that many people experience ghostly apparitions of recently departed lovers, friends, and family members. A few months ago he had read an article about how quantum scientists postulated that our linear time is flexible in higher dimensions and that we can on some occasions slip in and out of our four-dimensional world and experience apparitions of celestial beings. One researcher even speculated these dimensional shifts could account for phenomena such as the sudden appearance of guardian angels. Ramsey reasoned that if he just experienced an apparition of Adam Gwillt it meant that he must be dead. Or did it?
July, 2012
Abilene, Texas
“I just got another demand from Reverend Billy Paul,” Hiram Beecher said, shaking a huge fist at the notebook computer and its collage of photos from the Rio Chama de Milagro Shrine in New Mexico. “He wants us to investigate this supposed new Christian healing shrine in New Mexico. He thinks it might be an opportunity for us.”
He was standing in the boardroom of the Brothers of the Lord, a worldwide Christian ministry, whose regional headquarters for the Southwest United States was in Abilene, Texas. The top floor offices looked down on historic Cypress Street, once busy with cars and pedestrians visiting its small shops. But the district was still as empty and dusty as it was during the first year of the Great Recession. Clustered around him were the eleven other members of the board, all of them waiting for Brother Beecher to tell them what he wanted.
Beecher enjoyed his position of power in the Brotherhood. He was a giant, florid man, in his mid-60s, as hard as the oilrigs he had worked on as a teenager in Gregg County in Eastern Texas, and as tough as the Airborne Rangers he’d joined at the height of America’s war effort in Vietnam. His clothes were plain; his dark beard was flecked with gray like his hair. The last two fingers were missing from his left hand. They had been mangled by twisted parachute lines during a jump into Laos. He’d cut them off, bandaged the hand and completed his clandestine mission.
“What does he want, Brother Beecher?” Sam Conklin asked. He was the youngest board member. He was shorter than Beecher and not as thick. “I hear the shrine heals the sick and gives peace to all who visit. It’s located near the ruins of a sacred mission, where God’s priests were slaughtered by heathens.”
Beecher was surprised that Conklin knew a lot about something he had never heard of. Conklin was headstrong at times, blurting out whatever he thought instead of watching and waiting, but Beecher needed his connections to the oil and cattle wealth in central Texas.
“He wants as much information as we can find on this shrine,” said Beecher. “The New Mexico region is part of our responsibility for the Brothers of the Lord. I’ll take the lead on investigating the shrine’s healing powers. I want the rest of you to find out who owns the land. Is it for sale? When did the shrine start?”
August, 2015
New York City
“I am the archetype of transformation. I am Hermes, I am Loki, I am Coyote.”
His human name was Edward Caine and he loved hearing himself say, “I am Coyote, the creator of the world.” But today he would be Coyote the Trickster.
Edward Caine waited patiently for the battle to begin. The sky was clear and the morning already warm. By noon it would be hot and humid but by then it would no longer matter. He smiled to himself. This was a milestone in his life—4000 years of prodding humanity forward, of shaking humans from their complacency. The event he planned for today was magnificent, and worthy of Hermes, messenger of the Greek gods; of Loki, the Norse god of fire; and of Coyote, the Lakota creator of the world. And why not, he thought. Are they not come alive again in me? He breathed in deeply, felt the first rays of the morning sun prickle his skin. Thank you Helios for your gift of light so all can see when I let loose the dogs of havoc. For
is not Hermes also the Thief? . . . is not Loki the God of Chaos, and is not my favorite, Coyote, also the Trickster?
Caine often appeared as a man of thirty-one, five feet, ten inches tall, a trim 150 pounds, dark haired, with green eyes. But today he looked like a modern-day Falstaff—long hair the color of wet sand pulled back in a ponytail with a length of tarred hemp; plump cheeks crosshatched with the blue streaks of broken veins from drinking too much. A huge belly pushed through the patched sackcloth tunic and overflowed the motley pants he wore. He limped across the field, leaning on a staff for support.
Edward Caine took great delight in what he was about to do. He marveled at the brilliance of his plan. Today he was playing a common soldier in the army of Henry Tudor, leader of the House of Lancaster and rival to Richard III, head of the House of York and King of England. Both sides were made up of re-enactors from the Society for Creative Anachronism, staging the Battle of Bosworth Field at Sheep Meadow in New York City’s Central Park on the 530th anniversary of the real contest.
Caine had not yet spied his quarry, Frank Ketterman. He was playing the role of John Howard, First Duke of Norfolk. A supporter of King Richard, Howard died at the Battle of Bosworth from an arrow in his face while defending his liege lord. Ketterman, the top asset manager at Citibank, had been the Bank’s principal overseer of the subprime mortgage market throughout the first decade of the millennium. The government bailed out Citibank and the others but did almost nothing for the homeowners. Seven years later Ketterman was Wall Street’s principal representative in secret negotiations with the U.S. government to settle all liability issues that might be brought against the banks.
Caine took his eyes off the Yorkists and checked the onlookers behind the police barricades who had come to watch a medieval battle reenactment. A few policemen on horseback rode quietly through the crowd. Other cops were scattered throughout, most paying no attention to the people but gazing at the field, grinning and pointing.
The Adam Enigma Page 3