Wild Penance

by Sandi Ault

  Inside her house, Momma Anna laid the shovel with the glowing coal in its blade on top of the woodstove. She took a pinch of cedar tips from a pottery jar and sprinkled the green buds over the red coal. The cedar began to smudge at once. Momma Anna lifted the shovel handle in one hand, and in the other took up a hand broom fashioned from foot-long stems of ricegrass bound with thread into a short tube shape, the fibers spread on one end for sweeping. She used the broom to fan the smoke over me in a ritual of cleansing and preparation. As she bathed me with the smoke, she mumbled a prayer in Tiwa.

  After the prayer, she returned the shovel to the top of the woodstove and left the room without speaking. I stood where I was, inhaling the clean, sharp scent of the purifying smoke. Momma Anna returned with a folded blanket, atop which rested a large elk hide bag. She spread the colorful Pendleton on the floor of her living room in front of the sofa. “Sit down.”

  I sat cross-legged on the blanket, and so did she, placing the bag beside her. She reached inside and brought out a small drum made in the Pueblo tradition-from a hollowed-out log covered at both ends with stretched and laced rawhide. This drum was no bigger than six inches in diameter, and not as tall. Next, she brought out the beater-a peeled aspen stick, wrapped on one end with a wad of padding covered with deer hide and tied with sinew. Once more, my medicine teacher reached into the bag, and she drew out a small hand-sewn deerskin pouch, tied with a leather thong. When she had arranged these items between us on the blanket, she looked at me and smiled. She picked up the drum and began beating on it in a steady rhythm. After a minute or two of drumming, she set the instrument down and reached for the pouch. “Hold out hand,” she said.

  I extended my palm and she took it with one hand and, with her other hand, turned the pouch upside down and shook it. I cupped my fingers to catch the smooth stones that fell from the bag. I looked down to see what I had. Seven or eight small flat ovals of river rock rested in my palm.

  “Choose,” Momma Anna said.

  I used my finger to sort through the lot and selected one of the smallest, a smooth black disc. “I like this one best.”

  She snorted. “Maybe you not like best, next other time. Best teacher not always one you like. That ancestor,” she said, pointing to the stone in my hand, “got big lesson for you.” She snatched up the other stones and put them back in the pouch, tied it with the thong, and returned it to the elk hide bag. She straightened her back, her legs folded in front of her, and she put out her hand. “Now we see about that lesson. Let me see Old One.”

  I handed her the stone.

  She closed her fingers around it and then held her fist against her chest. She looked at me and took a deep breath, as if she were drawing air through the stone. Time passed, but she did not breathe out. Her eyes remained fixed on my face. Then she let out a blast of air and extended her open palm to me. “Now, you.”

  I took the stone and did as Momma Anna had done, holding it to my chest and watching her as I did so. I drew in air and held it.

  Momma Anna’s eyes did not move. They were like the stone-shiny and black and smooth.

  I felt my chest tightening, wanting to release the air, but I held on for as long as I could. Finally, I let my breath out.

  Momma Anna picked up the beater and began playing her drum again. When she stopped, she said, “Now, we got pies ready.”

  We removed the trays full of perfectly browned pies from the horno, and the delicious smell of the warm fruit and the crisp pastry reminded me that I hadn’t eaten that day. Momma Anna took one of the cotton dish towels she had used to cover the pies before baking and put two of the little tarts inside. She tied the corners of the cloth, creating a hobo pouch. She handed this to me, and when I took it the contents felt warm in my hand. “You need forgiveness,” she said.

  My mouth came open. “What?”

  She frowned. One thing my medicine teacher had taught me was that the Tiwa considered it rude to ask questions. Even one-word questions. She softened her expression. “Ask. You ask forgiveness, everyone you care about.”

  “But… I don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t know what to ask forgiveness for.”

  “You are human being. All people need forgiveness.”

  “But, I mean-”

  “You go now,” she said, picking up my free hand and placing it over my cloth bundle and patting it, like one might pat the hand of a child. “Go ask forgiveness. You need that. You take Old One with you.”

  I had tucked the stone in the pocket of my jeans when we had gotten up from the blanket. Now, I reached my fingers in the pocket and started to take it out.

  “No!” Momma Anna said. “Keep him there.” She reached out and took me by the shoulder and started shepherding me to the corner of the house so I could go back around front.

  “But Momma Anna,” I protested, “I’m confused. I don’t understand.”

  She stopped and let out a blast of air. “This your lesson. When you do your lesson, then you understand. Not this time, but next other time when lesson finish. Now go. Do.”

  6

  The Book

  Before going home that evening, I decided to get in the exercise I had missed earlier that day. I drove past the small tent that had been set up for a command center on the east side of the gorge bridge and saw a sheriff’s deputy sitting on a folding chair, outside its entrance, reading a magazine. He looked up and waved as I drove past. I proceeded slowly across the bridge, my eyes drawn to the center viewing balcony from which I had seen the man on the cross descend that morning. The bridge was deserted, and the canyon below lay in shadow. Once across, I drove into the west rim rest area and took the roundabout road to the back edge of the circle. I parked my car near the trailhead and got out. I looked back at the five-hundred-foot-long silver steel structure that spanned this fracture in the earth’s crust-where a vein of a river had worked its way through sheer rock and carved a deep and jagged crack in the high desert mesa. To the east, the rugged blue Sangre de Cristo Mountains stood guard over the Taos Valley. The sky was cloudless; amber light from the late day sun flooded the miles of lonely sage and piñon flats between here and the mountains.

  Because no one was around, I didn’t even bother to go in the restroom to change. Instead, I opened the rear hatch of my Jeep and sat on the back deck to remove my boots, then quickly slipped off my jeans and pulled on the running pants that I kept in my backpack. I laced up my running shoes and set out on the trail. I couldn’t help myself-I kept looking back at the bridge, as if I needed to be sure that another travesty wasn’t about to take place. Almost no traffic. A car passed over from east to west. A few minutes later, a car headed east. The next two times I looked, nothing. I started to relax my vigilance and focus on the run. I breathed deeply, the smell of sage and sun-baked earth rising to my nostrils as I ran the long portion of the loop that crossed open, flat ground. I felt the day’s grip on me loosening as I jogged at a steady tempo, the rhythm of my footsteps reminding me of Momma Anna’s drumming.

  Where the trail turned and circled back, it skimmed along the canyon rim, then dipped below the edge onto a fifty-yard stretch of narrow path bordered by a sharp precipice. I slowed to a brisk walk, intending to savor the shady hues of the rock face on the opposite side of the canyon. But the dark walls of the gorge seemed sinister to me now. I tried to shake the feeling, and I stopped to look down at the Rio Grande rushing beneath me, hoping to experience the feeling of awe and inspiration that usually accompanied this view. But the memory of the cross with its naked passenger being carried off in the rushing water flashed across my memory screen, and I no longer wanted to look at the river. Instead, I suddenly longed to go home to the comfort of my little cabin, and I felt as if I couldn’t get there soon enough. I picked up my pace again and headed up the path to the boulders above, then pushed hard as I chugged the last quarter mile of the loop.

  As I neared the end of my route, the sinking sun had turned the mountains pink and the light softened t
o a rosy glow. The temperature was dropping, and I felt the chill air against my arms. I slowed to walk the last hundred yards to cool down. When I came over the rise just before the trailhead, I spotted three guys in the parking lot, two of them going through my Jeep and the third standing nearby, looking in the opposite direction, toward the bridge. I stopped, my mouth falling open like the doors of my violated vehicle. Without thinking, I yelled, “Hey!”

  They froze for an instant, all three of them turning to look at me like startled antelope.

  And then I charged.

  They took off.

  My long hair, still damp with sweat, was flying into my face, my open mouth. I pumped my legs harder, ignoring the ache, the fatigue. The lookout darted across the asphalt, up the curb, and around the left side of the restroom building and disappeared behind it, presumably toward a getaway vehicle on the opposite side of the roundabout. But the two who had been bent over searching through my Jeep got a slower start, and as I closed on them, they both broke to the right, toward the gorge, where a row of concrete picnic shelters overlooking the view lined the loop road. The lone man was gone, out of sight now-I’d never get him. But these two were in range, and I knew I could overtake them if I just kept running.

  I had surprised them when I gave chase-maybe they hadn’t expected that of a woman. As I ran, I chided myself for having yelled at them and blown my opportunity for a stealthy approach. They soon realized they were headed for a dead end and the lead man started to correct course, cutting left and back through the center of the roundabout, making down the right side of the restroom structure.

  The second man followed suit, but he was starting to slow, and I pushed myself and maneuvered to close the gap. His thin jacket flapped around the sides of his arms as it blew open. He nearly tripped over the curb that divided the road from the center grounds, then struggled with his footing, recovered, and went on. But it slowed him down. I could almost touch him now; I was just two yards behind him, and I could smell the stink of fear blowing off of him as the cold air hit his sweating body.

  As I closed in behind him, I heard a little whine in his breathing, a high-pitched plea from his lungs for rest. He cut to the left, passing behind the restroom building, and I was right on his heels.

  Suddenly, a fast-moving black shadow flew from behind the back wall and delivered a breath-propelling blow to my abdomen that sent me reeling backward. The air from my lungs rushed on before me in a spray of fine white mist. Whhhoooossshhhhh.

  I hit the ground, the impact jarring my spine, my brain disconnecting as suddenly as a downed power line. I couldn’t move for a minute; all communication between mind and body had been interrupted. Then I began to reconnect… and wish I hadn’t. Oh, my back! It hurt the worst-that and my head, which must have hit hard. But I was okay. I sat up. Nothing broken. I was still slightly stunned as the cloud slowly cleared in my head, my senses gradually reengaging. I sat for a few seconds, looking around me, reading out my body’s messages. I was all right.

  I took my time getting up and heard two car doors slam near the highway, ka-thunk! Then the roar of an engine as the car sped off to the west, toward Tres Piedras. I started back to my Jeep. Its doors were still yawing open from the robbery I had interrupted just minutes before. I saw my bag on the ground where the thieves had ditched it. I picked it up and went through it. Everything was still there-my wallet, credit cards, even the small amount of cash inside. I looked in the car. My handgun was still locked in the glove box, undisturbed. The standard car stereo and BLM radio remained intact on the dash. I looked in the floor of the backseat. My shotgun and rifle rested in place. I checked the rear cargo area. My backpack had been rifled through, but nothing was missing. Nothing of value had been taken.

  Confused, I stopped looking through the cargo area and straightened, the backpack still dangling from my hand. I scanned in every direction, studying the panorama around me for answers. The pink light had fled across the mesa and left a soft mauve blanket over the desert. A solitary truck rumbled across the gorge bridge, its rear lights creating a neon reflection along the silver railing of the structure that stretched out like a fiber-optic red tail. And way out in the lap of the big mountain that shelters Taos from the blistering cold northern winds that sweep down the spine of the Rockies, tiny lights twinkled on as night overtook day. Suddenly I felt a stab of white-hot burning in my chest as I realized what was gone.

  My book! They had stolen my book!

  7

  Summoned

  When I went to the command center tent to report the theft, the deputy on duty seemed relieved to have a visitor to break the monotony of his evening. But he was not particularly excited about taking a report on the theft of my book, especially when he learned that all the valuables that normally would have been stolen had been left intact. I recalled Jerry Padilla’s warning not to talk to anyone except the task force members about the incident that morning, so I didn’t mention what the book was about, or that I thought the theft of it could possibly be tied in some way to the crime that had occurred earlier that day. I decided I would wait and let Padilla know that the next time we talked.

  I headed west to my cabin, which sat alone in the pines on a remote piece of property that backed to forested foothills and Forest Service land. As I drove up my long dirt drive, my headlights illuminated something white pinned to the door. I killed the lights, then the engine, stopping thirty yards from the house. I reached into the glove box, took out my handgun and readied it, then slid silently out the driver’s side and eased the car door shut. I panned the property in front of my cabin from east to west. No sign of anyone; however, it was so dark I couldn’t see far. I crouched low as I made my way on foot to the end of the drive. I stepped up on the porch, scanning the ground around my place once again, but there was no one in sight. Still holding my pistol up in both hands, I walked to the door. A note written with black marker on a white paper towel had been secured to the wooden door with several pushpins. It was too dark to make out the fuzzy letters where the ink had bled into the fibrous paper, so I opened the door of my cabin and flipped on the light. I scanned the one main room before I glanced at the note. It read:

  Woman down! Help!

  Bennie

  I gave a sigh of relief. I knew Bennie. Bennie was a friend. This was the kind of thing Bennie did.

  But just the same, perhaps because of the other events of the day, I didn’t relax until I crossed through the main room to the pass-through hallway on the other side that led to the bathroom-a shed-style addition that had been added on years after the original one-room cabin had been built. I looked in the narrow closet on one side of the hall as I went through, checked behind the shower curtain in the bathroom. No one there.

  I went back outside and pulled my Jeep to the end of the drive, turning it around to face nose-out, ready to go, the way I always parked. I got my shotgun and rifle out of the back and grabbed the little cloth pouch that Momma Anna had given me with the prune pies in it. After I took all this inside, I went back once more for my backpack, boots, and duty clothes, and I took my sidearm with me when I went.

  It was a rare night outside of the months of July and August that I didn’t want a fire in the woodstove at night. Here in mountainous northern New Mexico, the sunny days of early April held the promise of spring, but the nights clung to the cloak of winter. I opened the doors to the firebox and stirred the ashes around with a little shovel until I saw a few coals from last night’s fire pulse red. I left the doors open to let air onto the glowing coals, threw in a handful of twigs for kindling, and laid a couple logs on top of that. Next, I took the cast-iron kettle to the kitchen sink, filled it with water and set it on top of the woodstove, then got the mug I’d washed after my morning coffee and put a little pouch of tea in it for when the water came to a boil.

  After washing up and putting on some old sweatpants and a hoodie, I sat down in the chair in front of the woodstove with my tea and the two little pies Mo
mma Anna had given me.

  This cabin was my haven, even if it wasn’t mine. I rented it from a Denver landscape designer who had inherited the land from his family and had no interest in living or vacationing here-too isolated. There was no water, but I paid someone to haul it to the cistern every other month, and I had learned to be frugal in my use of the precious substance. I had electricity, but there were no phone lines anywhere near me, and the mountains made getting a cell phone signal here impossible. Nor was there any point in trying to watch television, as there weren’t enough residents in this remote area to make providing services like that worthwhile. None of this bothered me. I had learned to love the quiet, and I liked my own company.

  I sat in my chair, sore where I had hit the ground and from whatever had hit me. The events of the day replayed in my mind, beginning with the vision of the man on the cross-upside down-soaring silently into the gorge. I shuddered at the memory, and my mind wandered on to Momma Anna’s strange assignment and the stone she called the “Old One.” I got up and went to get the tiny black river rock out of the pocket of my jeans. I brought it back to my chair and rubbed the smooth surface between my thumb and index finger as I remembered the startled faces of the three men I caught going through my Jeep. All three looked Hispanic, in their forties, plainly dressed in jackets and jeans. What on earth did they want with my book?

  I ate my pies and I drank my tea. And as the quiet of the night and the fatigue of the day settled on me, I grieved the loss of my book. It was the only copy I had, all those hours given to it gone now, and for nothing.

  Father Ignacio had been right. I was lonely. Right then, I yearned for the book like a lost love. I wanted to pick it up, to feel the smooth, cool deerskin cover. I tried to remember how many shrines I had mapped, which ones I had sketched. I went through the book in my mind, page by page, trying to see what I had written.