The Right Eye of God

by Bacon Thorn

  As they squatted on their heels in the damp dooryard munching the food, Navarre explained carefully in Spanish between bites of his tortilla that he and Yuma indeed were the ones being pursued by the jefe and did not want to bring trouble to the señora. They were grateful for the food and asked only for directions to the mission at Sisiqichuc.

  His calm, honest admission seemed to impress the woman, and she said they would never find a safe trail to the mission by themselves. They required a guide.

  Then, with two fingers pressed between her lips, she made a sharp whistle. She smiled encouragingly at Navarre and Yuma and said, “Maximillio is old, but crafty and wise. He knows the mountains like a goat. He will take you.”

  Maximillio Araujo was a very old man, but when he appeared around the corner of the little adobe, Navarre knew at once from his light, firm step that he could probably walk a burro into the ground. He was slightly hunched over, with dark skin, a scraggly white beard on his chin, and hands with thick calluses and purple veins on the backs. He was cheerful, with merry blue eyes embedded in a patchwork of wrinkles underneath snowy eyebrows. He wore sandals with soles of worn rubber tires, creamy white pantaloons, and a matching shirt buttoned at the neck.

  When Navarre greeted him and asked if he would guide them to Mission Sisiqichuc, he said without hesitation, “Sí, con mucho gusto.” Inspecting Yuma’s yellow, sun-bleached hair, he made a decision and promptly retraced his steps around the corner of the adobe, returning five minutes later with a straw sombrero and a fiber moralla, a sort of carryall, and a large, coarse piece of cloth for Yuma to cover her hair with. When she had bound her head, he tipped his hat to her, then to the Mexican woman, and, with a gracious, old-world courtesy, asked her if he might take a few peppers from the plants hanging under the eaves of her house.

  She gave Maximillio permission to take the peppers, then handed Yuma a small, earthen pot with beans in the bottom covered with tortillas.

  After thanking the little brown woman for her generous hospitality and the food, Navarre and Yuma followed the old man out of the yard, after he insisted on placing the pot of food given to Yuma in his moralla. He explained to Navarre that it wasn’t proper for a pretty woman to carry such a burden.

  It was four hours later and dark when Maximillio, who had led Navarre and Yuma at a steady, unrelenting pace on a gradual ascent into the foothills of the Sierra Madres, called a halt. Yuma, who had grimly endured the climb but was cold and aching in every muscle, staggered into the mountain clearing chosen by Maximillio and flopped on a rock. She wrapped one of the horse blankets around her shoulders and said to Navarre, “I swear to God he’s not human. He never stops.”

  Fatigued and bone weary himself, Navarre agreed with her. “He’s a marvel, isn’t he? Look at him. He knows we’re almost out on our feet and he’s already gathered sticks for a fire and pulled out that steel plate he carries in that wonder bag of his to heat the tortillas and beans when the fire’s ready.”

  “I think I’m too damn tired to eat. I just want to lie down and die.”

  Despite her fatigue, Yuma stirred in her blanket when the aroma of the warmed tortillas and beans awoke her hunger. She quickly ate the portion Maximillio gave to her, thanked him, yawned widely, and announced she was going to turn in. She wrapped herself in her blanket near the fire and was sound asleep in a minute.

  Though he would have liked to follow Yuma’s example, Navarre knew the hardy old man wanted to talk, so the two sat by the cheery little fire—Navarre covered in a blanket, the old man in his thin shirt untroubled by the cold—and spoke together. Navarre soon learned that Maximillio had been born in Del Rio, Texas, where he had many relatives and had lived in the desert country all of his life. He’d been a rustler, outlaw, small-town sheriff, tracker, wax smuggler, and miner. He reminisced about his days in the gold, silver, lead, and copper mines ranging from the Big Bend country of West Texas to the dangerous silver operations in mountainous Chihuahua that took many lives.

  He smiled nostalgically and said, “There were bad men in the desert in those days and they wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep if they decided to kill you. Yes, they were ruthless, just like the man who’s following you.”

  “How do you know he’s been following us?” Navarre asked uneasily.

  “That’s easy,” Maximillio smiled. “As the señora told you, his men came to her house from his metal bird that flew over my jacal behind the house. I have seen it many times before. Also, I saw you coming on the old road, before you jumped in the stream and hid under the bridge. That was clever.”

  The old man frowned and said, “I will tell you what kind of man is following you. He owns a small gold mine in the barranca. I was walking on a ridge above it one day, looking for signs of gold in the rocks. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can find some worthwhile deposits. When I looked down, I saw a boy exploring through the mountain of refuse in the arroyo, where tailings from the crushing plant collected. I watched him for a little while and I recognized him. It was Pelon, a boy from San Ignacio. He had filled a small sack with discarded rocks he was going to take home to his family. They would smash them with hammers to get at the tiny bits of gold.

  “That’s when I saw Nuños come to the edge of the arroyo, take a deep breath, and smile to himself as if the whole world was his oyster. He saw the boy below him, and he yelled, ‘Hey, what are you doing down there? Stealing from me?’ That’s when he shot him in the back.”

  The old man fell silent for a moment, and then said, “If you know how to listen you can hear in the wind voices of the dead that send messages. Some are sad, some are angry, some are vengeful. Pelon’s voice is like that.”

  He raised his eyes to look directly in Navarre’s. “I hope,” he said, “that you are clever enough to kill him. He needs killing.”

  He smiled confidently at Navarre, and then explained carefully that the path on which he was taking them would skirt San Ignacio proper, where there were a lot of people. They would follow an old, forgotten path few people knew about through the cliffs of San Ignacio Canyon. They would descend on the east side of a small tributary of the Rio Conchos, cross it, and there he would leave them. At that point they would only have to walk about twelve miles to Mission Sisiqichuc. The old man fell silent and studied the red and white coals of the fire, which were dying. For a fleeting moment, as if a troubling thought had engaged him, then passed away, Maximillio’s face clouded and cleared.

  “I am an old man,” he said softly, “and my time is short. I am not religious and I have often wondered how God will punish me for my impiousness and whether he will welcome me to his home. That’s what I was thinking. And also I was thinking about the trail I described to you. I have one question to ask you. Are you certain the jefe knows that you are heading for Mission Sisiqichuc?”

  “He knows that I have a friendship with Father Hebrano. The last time I saw Hebrano, he was leaving to drive cross country for his mission. I know if we can reach him, we will be protected.”

  Maximillio nodded. “Yes, he is a good man.”

  The old man rose abruptly, stretched his lean arms, refused with a nod of his head Navarre’s offer of the blanket that covered his shoulders, and disappeared into the darkness outside the faint illumination of the dying fire. He returned a few minutes later, after Navarre had stretched out next to Yuma. He saw the old man reach into his moralla for his saltillo, pull it around his shoulders, and then settle himself on the ground. He whispered hoarsely across the few feet that separated them. “No hay vida sin fatigas, y siempre pagan justos por pecadores.”

  Navarre thought Maximillio’s sentiment was fitting: “There is no life without hardships and the good always pay for the wicked.” As he fell asleep, Navarre realized that not once had the old man asked why Nuños was chasing them.

  The next morning, after an unhurried breakfast of tortillas, beans spiced with red chilis, and black coffee boiled on Maximillio’s steel plate, the three left their camping spot a
nd headed in a more southerly direction. The old man cautioned that they would have to be careful crossing open spaces and alert for the metal bird he was certain would return.

  When Navarre described the conversation he had the night before with Maximillio while she slept, Yuma just shook her head. “I think I love that old man,” she said, “but I swear he’s half mountain goat.”

  It was early afternoon when the old man turned and gestured for Navarre and Yuma to stop. Already they were weary from the quickly plodding pace Maximillio had set as he led them over craggy rocks, treacherous drops, and house-size boulders on a path only he could decipher.

  From where they had stopped, Maximillio pointed with his finger. Navarre and Yuma could see in the distance the railroad village of Creel. About twenty miles southeast, unseen from their vantage point, huddled on the slope of a high plateau, wind swept and treeless, was the tiny Mexican settlement of Mission Sisiqichuc. Once, years ago, Navarre had visited the mission to write a story about the Jesuits’ charitable activities on behalf of the primitive Tarahumara Indians.

  He remembered the layout of the community. Above a cluster of sun-whitened adobe buildings, a slender radio transmission tower stabbed a steel finger into the sky. Nearby, a short and narrow airstrip had been laboriously gouged out of the rocky soil of the valley floor. The radio tower, and the airfield with its twin Quonset-hut hangars, were out of place in the primeval setting. The mission had been the mountain center of more than three hundred years of turbulent, yet often dormant, history.

  Its oldest building was the church. There was a boarding school that could accommodate two hundred Indian children. A small hospital boasted an operating room, and in woodworking and machine shops Indian boys learned occupational skills.

  Four hours later the trio had reached the south bank of a swift-flowing stream which was nameless, Maximillio said, but he called it El Espíritu because it was courageous and bright when it flowed rapidly with rainwater. The three stood in the protection of a tall mountain pine, which shielded them from the light mist that had started falling a few minutes earlier along the stream they faced. It was no more than twenty feet wide, shielded by tall, hip-high grasses. On the other side of the stream was a natural clearing surrounded by encroaching pine trees.

  Smiling shyly at Navarre and Yuma, the old man said gently, “Now, you are not far from Mission Sisiqichuc.” Pointing across the stream with his sturdy arm, he added, “There is a trail that leads west from the clearing and, further along, crosses the railroad tracks. Follow the tracks for about twelve miles and you will come to the mission. You can’t miss it. You will see the radio tower above the settlement.”

  He smiled again at Navarre and Yuma and said, “It is time for me to return. It has been my privilege to guide you, two brave people . . .” He paused, thought a moment, and added, “. . . con viento contrario.”

  Before Navarre could thank Maximillio, Yuma had flung her arms around the old man’s neck, kissed him on his brown cheek, and stepped back.

  He laughed and murmured, “Gracias, señora.”

  Navarre grasped Maximillio’s hand gently and asked, “Will you return the same way we came?”

  The old man winked and shrugged. “Who knows? I can get home from anywhere with a penny in my sandal and food and conversation from people I know in every jacal and rancho.”

  Quickly, with a brief wave and a sure step, he walked across the stream on the two felled logs roped together that served as a bridge.

  As they watched Maximillio reach the other side, Yuma slipped her hand in Navarre’s, squeezed his fingers, and said softly, “What a marvelous old man. What did he mean when he said we were two brave people, and then he added something in Spanish I did not understand?”

  “He called us two brave people . . . against the wind.”

  “Oh.”

  Then, as they watched Maximillio’s ground-eating glide take him south in the clearing, they heard a distant clattering sound that suddenly stopped. Then a sudden explosion of noise above the pine that sheltered them drew a frantic cry from Yuma and a startled grunt of disbelief from Navarre. He pulled Yuma to her knees. The smashing force of the wind from the blades of a helicopter flattened the grasses along the stream and raised a small, choking storm of dust and leaves from the forest floor.

  “Cover your eyes!” he urged. “How in the hell did they get here so fast without any warning?”

  As suddenly as it had come, the earth-scouring wind passed away from Navarre and Yuma as the yellow helicopter crossed above the stream, churning the water and blowing a trail of rising debris from the clearing as it hovered briefly, then settled to the ground in a cloud of dust.

  Rising to his feet behind the shielding pine, Navarre saw Maximillio, not three hundred feet away, turn and calmly face the helicopter. The machine had landed with its left side fully exposed to Navarre, and he knew with a sudden, sickening wave of bitterness and hate that the man opening the door and stepping to the ground was Nuños. And as he saw the machine pistol in the sheriff’s hand, he knew he must act quickly, or his sudden premonition of death rushing to claim the old man would come true.

  As he quickly drew the revolver from his front pocket, he strained to hear the words Nuños flung at Maximillio, but he was too far away. The anger in the fat man’s face was clear, and as Navarre started forward on his knees to the cover of the grasses on the bank of the stream, Yuma’s frightened plea delayed him: “What are you going to do?”

  He turned and stared at her in disbelief that she didn’t understand what he had to do. Then, waving her back and squatting low, he plunged across the few feet to the grassy protection of the bank. Just as he made a part in the tall green stems for a clear field of fire, he knew his momentary hesitation with Yuma had stolen the margin of safety for Maximillio. He saw Nuños shout, saw him raise the machine pistol and fire at the old man, who stumbled, clutched his chest, and sank to the ground.

  Blind with anger and an overwhelming sense of loss, Navarre aimed shakily at the paunchy sheriff and fired once, just as the fat man fumbled to open the transparent plastic door, tumbled inside the copter, and hunched over to make a smaller target.

  Navarre saw the startled, wild fright widen the sheriff’s eyes as he scrunched even lower in his seat, trying to avoid the deadly lead from Navarre’s shooter, for twice more shells blazed from the barrel of Navarre’s pistol, perforating the glass with jagged punctures. The whipping rotor blades of the copter churned the air in a frenzied swirl of dust as they lifted the machine above the trees. Navarre was certain that at least one of his shots had wounded the man he hated.

  Now, he rushed across the stream to join Yuma, supporting Maximillio as she held her arms around the old man’s shoulders.

  Faintly, as blood and failing breath burbled on Maximillio’s lips, he whispered, “Leave me. He will be back. Adios.” He sighed and his chest fell still.

  “Why did he kill him? A harmless old man—why?” Yuma demanded.

  “Nuños was furious because the old man wouldn’t give us away,” Navarre answered.

  “We can’t leave him here like this,” Yuma sobbed. “If only I hadn’t distracted you . . . Oh, Jesus.”

  Gently, Navarre drew her to him.

  “Don’t blame yourself. I don’t know much about God, but I think he sent Maximillio to help us.”

  They sat on the grass next to the old man’s slumped body for no longer than a minute or so, with Navarre’s arm around Yuma’s in a comforting embrace. Then they heard a sound that made them scramble to their feet.

  Exhausted, unable to confront another enemy, they decided to stand and take their chances rather than run. Then they saw an open, battered old army-issue jeep heave into view. It was coming from the east. The windshield was gone, the frame had been removed, and the drab khaki paint was bleached the color of the sandy dust baked upon it. Behind the wheel sat a dark-faced man wearing sunglasses and a faded shirt. Sweat stains circled his armpits. Around hi
s neck was a once-red bandanna, and a long, gray-billed cap was pulled low over his forehead.

  For perhaps all of ten seconds, Navarre stared in amazement at the jouncing vehicle and its jaunty occupant, then let out a whoop and sprinted in front of the jeep, blocking its progress.

  Sunburned, blanket covered, legs spread, arms waving with one fist grasping the revolver, Navarre cried in Spanish, “Hebrano! Loving sweet Jesus, it’s Hebrano!” The driver gave Navarre a wild look of dismay, gunned the motor, and promptly stalled the jeep.

  “Hebrano, it’s me, Thomas Navarre.” He was standing beside the jeep, looking down with astonishment into the priest’s face. Still drawn up in alarm, his solemn brown eyes narrowing in recognition, Hebrano removed his glasses and stared up at the American, then at Yuma Haynes, who had stepped from behind Navarre and said in dazed bewilderment, “By the balls of all the holy saints, it’s you. What are you doing here?”

  He jumped lightly out of the jeep, grabbed both of Navarre’s arms above the elbows, and squeezed heartily as if to test the American’s substance. His eyes took in Yuma again and blinked his appreciation of her unconcealed womanly attributes. She smiled broadly. She liked this man who unabashedly complimented her with his eyes.

  “We were on our way to find you,” Navarre said when his amazement subsided.

  Then, patiently, in a tired voice, he explained how he and Yuma happened to be stranded a few miles from Hebrano’s mission, with a near-empty water bag, a wicked revolver, “and a man you know well who is dead.”

  He stood aside to fully reveal the body of Maximillio Araujo, and Hebrano’s strong face saddened as he stared down at the man he had known for many years. He sighed and said, “I know it sounds foolish, but I thought he would never die.”

  He looked up at Navarre and asked, “Nuños deliberately killed him, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was here not five minutes ago and flew off in his chopper when I shot at him. I’m surprised you didn’t see it.”

  “Then we don’t have much time. He’ll be back with reinforcements. Help me with Max’s body. We’ll put him on the back seat, and you can sit beside him and keep him from falling out.”