A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy)

by Linda Lambert

  So like Taya’s mother.

  “I hope you’re feeling welcome in Taos,” Lucinda offered with a smile, seating herself across from Justine. Her clear, mocha skin and wide-set eyes made her seem timeless. “You said that you’re an anthropologist.”

  Justine thought she detected a suspicious tone. Amir was initially suspicious of her when they met in Cairo. He called anthropologists arrogant, condescending, thinking they knew all about cultures other than their own “Yes, I’m an anthropologist,” Justine said gently. “My work will be out of the Santa Fe Anthropology office, primarily with archaeologists. I’ll be working with a few colleagues to map out some new sites of petroglyphs on private lands and help create a new project on defining community. I’ll be listening a lot, learning about cultures here. I try to come without preconceived notions.” “That must be hard,” Lucinda grinned, as though realizing she’d been more transparent than she wanted. She paused, “Defining community? I would have thought that community was a well-established idea.”

  Justine studied Lucinda for a few moments. “So true,” she grinned. “Community is a well-established concept in your eyes and mine. Of course, as an anthropologist, I’ve studied communities for years—and you live in one. We understand that reciprocity holds communities together. Archaeologists claim a different challenge.”

  “Different how?” asked Lucinda.

  “Well, since they don’t study living communities, they must find artifacts and structures that tell a story about how communities were formed and operated at the time. Evidence that they can accept—that’s sometimes the dilemma.”

  “Do you think they’ll ever ask us? Ask my people. Ask you?”

  Justine laughed fully and Lucinda joined in. They gazed into one another’s eyes as they laughed, sensing the beginning of a friendship. Laughter was like that—it opened the mind and body to bonding.

  Justine relaxed as she pushed back into her slender wooden chair. She wasn’t really sure whether her colleagues planned to ask the original peoples for their histories and thoughts, but she suspected that Mike didn’t plan to do so. This will be an uphill battle. “Lucinda, the day we met you mentioned the Great Migration. What migration were you referring to?”

  Lucinda paused and stared into her coffee.

  Justine waited patiently, then, “If this is a secret, please tell me so.”

  “The truth is woven among secrets. I am pulling them apart.” She grinned and continued, “Our people say that very long ago the sun began to drink our water. Not the great lake from which we came, but the moisture in Mother Earth. Crops died, our people of the northwest became parched. This misfortune did not visit the Red Willow peoples of our Pueblo, but our neighbors began to move. They came to the peoples of Santa Clara, Ohkay Owingeh, Tesuque, our own Taos. They were gentle and adopted our ways. That is the story.”

  “Does that include the peoples of Mesa Verde?”

  “Mesa Verde. Yes.”

  “I see. You must be aware that this is provocative information. The disappearance of the peoples of Mesa Verde is still one of the great mysteries in archaeology. I wonder why.”

  Lucinda just laughed. “That’s because no one listened to us, so we stop telling the story. We don’t say much to the other side of the world anyway, although we are always ready to remember what our ancestors told us.”

  Justine studied Lucinda thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes. “Well phrased. More coffee?” Justine knew the stubbornness of archaeologists surrounding Mesa Verde. No baggage, they contend, no physical evidence that the peoples of the north ever migrated here. No pottery, rituals, structures that would convince a scientist that major tribes had moved into the area. She didn’t yet know what the local conflicts were. She took both coffee cups, returned to the counter, and asked for refills.

  When she returned to the table, Lucinda challenged her. “You’re not sure what to believe either?”

  Justine tilted her head in a half smile. “Being able to work in this area—and keeping an open mind—will make me ripe for new discovery. I look forward to the challenge.” She paused and Lucinda grinned back. “By the way, do you know of Kateri?”

  “Sure.” Lucinda blinked. “Our Native American Saint. Many miracles. My aunt was very sick, ready to die, and then she put a picture of Kateri under her pillow and prayed. She was well in two days. The doctors couldn’t explain it. Faith is powerful.”

  “No wonder she’s a saint to the Tiwa.”

  “Not only Tiwa. Kateri is a saint to all Indians. We don’t need to wait for the Pope to tell us she’s a saint. I’m not a strong Catholic, but I’m a believer.”

  “What makes her a saint? Did she perform miracles during her short life?”

  “Many miracles upon her death. Kateri was horribly scarred by smallpox, yet when she died, the pox marks immediately disappeared. She was beautiful. And the blue blanket she was wrapped in was used to heal many. Many others reported healings.”

  “I see. And Giovanna. Do you know her as well? We just met last night.”

  “Of course I know her. Good friend to our family. She made paintings of Kateri’s tribe by going to Canada and finding real models. She designed and created the art for an altar screen in Ohkay Owingeh—that’s where my daughter lives. You know it?”

  “The old San Juan Pueblo?”

  “The same—they threw off the Spanish name and returned to their original selves.”

  “I see. Bold.”

  “Well, Ohkay Owingeh means ‘land of strong people.’ Is that what you mean by bold? Strong?” She paused.

  “I suggested ‘bold’ because Ohkay Owingeh seems to be among the first to reject the Spanish heritage, to take the lead.”

  “Well, they’ve rejected the name. In many ways, we chose to blend cultures—a pragmatic approach. St. Jerome, San Geronimo. One and the same, but originating from quite different cultures. We are no longer one or the other.” Lucinda gave her a patient smile, as though she was observing a plant blooming in front of her.

  Justine regarded Lucinda’s playful eyes. Those dancing eyes are reading me like a book. Rarely so transparent, Justine temporarily felt a wave of discomfort, then relaxed into silence. Moments passed. Eventually, she nodded and asked, “Do your people still have tribal healers?”

  Lucinda paused and took a sip of her still warm coffee. “That’s a sad story,” she began. “My grandfather was a healer, a very good one, but the tribe began to ostracize him, began to lose respect. You see, healers are no longer seen as useful. Indians are now drawn to Anglo medicine.”

  Justine was surprised once again. “Really?”

  “For us, everything comes in fours. . .four seasons, always in balance. . . .”

  “The four directions. . . east, south, west, and north. . . a lovely balance,” Justine added in verbal rhythm and smiled.

  Lucinda nodded. “And when someone dies we spend four days with them. We talk and eat and pray and grieve with our dead family member,” she explained. “This is how we do things.”

  “How does the adherence to fours relate to healers and western medicine? I don’t understand.”

  “Our people found that antibiotics could often cure our children in four days—healers cannot. Sadly, we too have entered modern times. But at what cost?”

  “At what cost indeed. Your people must be concerned about losing their ways, voluntarily relinquishing their powers to the white man.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? We fought for so long and lost so much, only to willingly give up more of our ways.”

  “Yet, your efforts to regain the Sacred Mountain and Blue Lake must inspire your confidence, keep you strong.”

  Lucinda’s lips curled into a grin. “That was forty years ago and we still ride on that achievement. But we are strong, especially our women. We are a private people who hold onto the past and its many secrets. Our language and rituals, our beliefs. Unlike the Hopi, we have not been told that we may share our ways.”

  Justi
ne raised an eyebrow. She knew the Hopi had been given such permission to share their philosophy, for the Hopi ways are written about and taught. The Elevation was filling up. Middle-aged women with open computers, pairs of men in dungarees deep in conversation. A young Hispanic mother with a stroller full of wriggling twins. One man in a suit and tie sipping a frothy cappuccino. For the first time, Justine saw Anglos, Indians and Hispanics going about their day in the same room. She grinned to herself. And coffee shall bring us together. “I respect your secrets,” she acknowledged, returning Lucinda’s gaze.

  “That doesn’t mean that I can’t share my personal thoughts and ways, only that I can’t share the ways of the Tiwa.” Lucinda opened another door.

  “Spiritually, I’m a seeker,” Justine said, taking quick advantage of the offer. “Our family has few common beliefs and I’m not a member of any organized religion, but I do yearn to define my own spirituality.” She paused, searching for the right words, but decided to ask directly. “What guides you?”

  Lucinda didn’t hesitate. “When I die I will join the great spirit world with my ancestors. For now, I have my guides—some would call them angels—who are with me, who make me feel safe and help me take the right paths.”

  “What’s that like?” pressed Justine. “Do you see your guides?”

  “I don’t see them. It’s more like a presence, a reassuring warmth. As though they are standing near my shoulder. I never feel alone,” Lucinda said, a beatific gaze enveloping her face.

  “How do you know when they are with you?” Justine experienced a rush of indistinguishable emotions: attraction, skepticism, curiosity, envy. Could I ever allow myself to believe in guides?

  “They are always with me, Justine.” A warm affection radiated from her eyes, embracing her young friend once more. “Would you like to come to my home on San Geronimo Day,” she asked. “We invite our friends.”

  CHAPTER 13

  TODAY, JUSTINE WOULD RETURN to the Lawrence Ranch alone. Once she left the paved road running half-way up the mountain, her low-slung Prius occasionally scraped on the ridges rising parallel to deep ruts. Justine flinched, pondering whether she should have invested in a mini-SUV. Spindly trees leaned across sagging barbed-wired fences; irises and lilies struggling to outlast their season, mingling among jersey cows and an occasional mare. Her lungs told her she was climbing, reaching nearly nine thousand feet at the ranch. She drove through the gate left open for her arrival, continued upward another quarter mile and parked in front of the big house, built for Frieda by her Italian partner in the early ‘30’s.

  Nico, a short Hispanic man, with a barely discernable chin, graciously welcomed her. Admittance had to be secured through the Maintenance Department at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Bill Haller had made the call. On her first visit Bill had accompanied her and given her a first class tour. Such a generous man, she thought. She was moved by Bill’s story of discovering his capacity to love in Lawrence’s Women in Love.

  Justine could imagine her great-grandfather standing just where she now stood on this ranch, observing this magnificent, fierce morning, a vast landscape in shades of muted rose for as far as he could see. In front of her now, his tan adobe cabin, turquoise window frames, and a tin roof from which the heavy winter snows would slide off, keeping it from collapsing from the weight. The majestic Ponderosa pine, “Lawrence’s Tree,” as Georgia O’Keeffe had named it, towered over the meager yard. O’Keeffe and Lawrence had met only once, at a dinner party in New York in 1925 on his way back to Europe. She had been captivated by him, his spirit, which Justine sensed most markedly here at the ranch. It was difficult to know either of them, she admitted. Such internal people, alone in their talents, somewhat out of sync with the world. Ahead of their times? Outside of time? The world has come to understand and appreciate their art, but rarely the artist within. Perhaps they preferred it that way. Mysterious, even incomprehensible.

  Turning southeast, Justine stared beyond the thin wooden sheep fence at pockets of mist snuggling into the lush contours of the land. Rivers of aspen flowing like honey down the encircling mountains. The air was chilly. Why did he refer to the mornings here as fierce? she wondered. Ferocious, wild, untamed, no doubt. Natural. But, too, didn’t the thin air sting his delicate lungs? Lawrence yearned for the untamed in nature and in friends and lovers, a reflection of his own ferocity. Am I ferocious? Untamed? I hope so. As much as my upbringing and experiences will allow. I strive to be mysterious, yet trusted. Can I be both?

  Years after Lawrence died, Frieda bequeathed the ranch to the university in her will. For many years it was used for writing retreats and gatherings around issues of the day. Neglected in recent years, the property was in poor condition, although clean up appeared to be underway. A huge flatbed truck half loaded with debris was backed into the yard: rusted machinery, coils of wire, broken toilet bowls. To the west of Lawrence’s cabin sat the miniature doll-like house that had been Lady Brett’s home, and to the northwest a dilapidated barn, barely standing, that must have housed their horses and Susan, the beloved Jersey cow.

  University personnel claimed the closure was related to the hantavirus, a treacherous lung disease caused by the feces of local mice. Board members of the Taos-based Friends of D. H. Lawrence and the Taos Community Foundation had their doubts. Tensions had developed between the university and those interested in having Lawrence’s home available to his admiring public. Visitors came from all over the world, especially Japan and England, and when formal tours were offered, hundreds flocked to the revered site. Even though the ranch was closed, names kept appearing on the sign-up roster in the chapel. Unfazed by the locked gate, visitors hiked the mountain to pay their respects. For the University, the ranch was a low priority, silently competing with more vocal demands on limited resources. This was not an age of preservation for the university, but survival. Yet, the institution consistently refused to carry out the intent of Frieda’s will as Justine understood it. Surely there was a recourse.

  Justine stepped onto the porch of Lawrence’s cabin and rattled the wobbly knob unlocked for her by Nico. In the entryway, she was met by a large poster of Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Poppy” hanging in front of the kitchen of peeling pine wooden cabinets and a rusting sink. Wooden plank floors creaked under her buckskin boots. She turned right to enter the living area with a stone fireplace painted white, its bay window opening onto Lawrence’s massive pine, the majestic view beyond. Her eyes wandered across the plastered walls and shredded curtains, a wobbly table and chairs much like the ones in the Pink House. The lone bedroom hosted two single beds, far from one another, covered with thin blankets. Cracking white paint turned the cupboard into a road map. She imagined Lorenzo—as others called him—and Frieda ensnared in each other’s bodies, crowded into one of the twin beds, fiercely making love, he with his face snuggled into her full breasts. Frieda claimed that their lovemaking was no longer possible toward the end of his life. But how about here? In late ‘23? Whatever Lawrence found on this mountain reawakened his desires, enabling him to consummate his love with Isabella.

  Isabella, that fiery Egyptian woman who captured Lawrence’s sensibilities and sympathies in Italy, enabling him to burst forth in a torrent of creativity. Unique in character, never needy nor demanding, she shaped a space between them, mutually occupied in pleasure and imagination. Isabella was his muse.

  Justine felt a tremor of her own desire. She could feel Amir’s hands searching her body. She turned away. The burden of desire was more than she wanted to encounter right now.

  Justine stepped back into the living room area, forcing her mind to clinically survey the non-descript chamber. Someone apparently went wild in here with white paint, When would that have been? It was difficult to determine whether these skimpy furnishings and hapless efforts at decor were left from the writing retreats of the 60’s and 70’s, or the Lawrences. Probably the former.

  Returning to the alabaster fireplace, she placed both
hands on the mantelpiece and leaned forward, stretching her back muscles while reflecting on the lives of those who had given so much meaning to this bare, rustic cabin. Ghosts creaked the floorboards, loud and boisterous, leaving the lingering fragrance of Frieda’s perfume. Tensions of arguments were still palpable, as well as the pleasured screams of competitive charades and singing. Then, her eyes caught sight of an even, rectangular incision notched on either side, carved into the cement hearth. Odd, she hadn’t noticed it before. A hiding place?? For what? Frieda’s jewels? Precious documents? Manuscripts? In one of his letters to Brett, Lawrence asked her to scour the property for remaining manuscripts. This cement cutout was so obvious that surely it was searched long ago. Even so, adrenalin surged through her body as she scanned the room for some sort of lever to pry it open. Finding none, Justine returned to the clean-up site to look for a crowbar, running into two workers chatting near a toolbox.

  “May I ask a question?” she interrupted. The two men stopped talking. Her gaze was drawn to the stubby hands of the man whom Nico introduced as Jack.

  “You a writer?” Jack interjected, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  Justine smiled, “Not really” she said. “Well. . . sometimes.” She didn’t want to go there. Not when she was newly obsessed with a mystery.

  “I write,” said Jack, a smile washing across his unshaven face.

  “That’s good,” she replied in an encouraging voice. Turning to Nico, “Has anyone pried open the cement plate in front of the fireplace in Lawrence’s cabin?” She kept her voice casual, flat.

  The two men looked at each other, puzzled at first, then Nico pulled at his non-existent chin. “I haven’t, but it was probably opened years ago. Who knows?” His lack of interest was overt; he turned away, ready to continue his conversation with Jack. No doubt he was weary of visitors full of curiosities, questions he’d heard many times before.