River to Cross, A

by Yvonne Harris

  “That’s our monastery, San Miguel,” Maria said proudly. “The building off to the left is the orphanage the Benedictines run. I teach English there a couple of days a week. Jakina’s from there. When we couldn’t find her parents, Ricardo and I adopted her. She was left there one morning as a tiny infant.”

  Church bells tolled, a deep, loud clanging, slow and insistent. Elizabeth looked up at the bell tower and blinked. Maria laughed. “That’s the call to midmorning prayers. All the monks inside are running to the abbey. Funny. They’re just like us—always late.”

  “Not all of them. Just the young ones,” a voice said from behind. “We older men usually watch the clock better.”

  Maria spun around, smiling. “But not today, Father, eh?”

  She turned to Elizabeth and Fred Barkley, who had come along. “Father Lorenzo is the abbot of San Miguel, and he’s going to be late if he doesn’t get going.”

  “Right you are. Are you teaching this morning?” Father Lorenzo asked. When Maria nodded, he said, “I’ll see you all inside, then.”

  When the bells stopped, the air quivering in the sudden silence, Father Lorenzo broke into a jog for the gate, black robe swirling at his heels.

  Maria turned left and led them to the massive front door. Fred pushed it open and followed the women into the vaulted lobby ahead of them.

  Dim inside, the stone monastery held an air of gloominess, as if even the sun had given up trying to penetrate the place. The heavy aroma of incense hung in the air. They crossed the granite floor of the lobby, footsteps echoing.

  “Good morning, Maria.” A tall monk called from the long counter off to one side. His ankle-length black robe was tied around the waist, its hood lying in folds across his shoulders. A circle of scalp was shaved bare on the crown of his head.

  Fred and Elizabeth followed Maria outside and down a sheltered walkway bordered by marble pillars. The stained-glass windows of the abbey ahead sparkled in the sunlight.

  Black-robed men crisscrossed the courtyard to the abbey at the other end. Most nodded pleasantly to them but said nothing as they passed.

  Deep male chanting drifted out from the abbey.

  Maria led Fred and Elizabeth to a bench alongside the cloister wall. “Would you like to sit for a minute and listen?”

  Elizabeth nodded, sat and leaned back and let the sweet, solemn music wash over her. She closed her eyes and said a quiet thank-you to God. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel like crying. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this, she thought, and listened to the men singing psalms.

  With a long sigh she stood a few minutes later, and the three of them left the cloister to go to Maria’s English class.

  The orphanage was a large adobe building with its own living quarters behind San Miguel. The schoolrooms overlooked the mountains. Maria’s classroom was a sunny room with a blackboard and two long desks for the students, all girls under ten. Their parents had either died or disappeared, and neighbors brought them to the monks. Two of the girls had been abandoned as infants.

  There was a piano in the room, and Elizabeth played softly in the background while Maria read the story of Snow White aloud to the class. A low, sour chord accompanied the evil stepmother in the story, and each of the dwarfs had their own silly combination of notes. Even Fred got into it, jumping to his feet with a hand over his heart every time the handsome prince was mentioned. It was a fun hour of learning and laughter heard all over the building.

  Before the class ended, a beaming Father Lorenzo stopped by and invited the grown-ups to have lunch with him in his office.

  “Uh-oh.”

  As soon as she walked into Father Lorenzo’s office, Elizabeth saw Jake standing at the window. Head slumped, hands braced on either side of the window frame, he stared out blankly. Gus, eyes closed, was sprawled in a chair. Both of them wore their pants outside their boots.

  Jake wheeled around when the office door opened.

  “I didn’t . . .” Her voice trailed, searching for a different word.

  “Expect me so soon?” he finished for her. “You never know with me.” A corner of his mouth dug in, hiding a smile.

  “I’m glad you find my expectations amusing.”

  He grinned outright.

  She stiffened. “I assume the fact that you’re here is not a good sign.”

  “That’s right.”

  With a thoughtful look at Maria, he added, “We saw Ricardo this morning on our way back. Mexican soldiers are going house to house asking about an American woman and three Rangers. We’re not going back with you today. Too risky for you and Ricardo.”

  Elizabeth’s face paled. “What are we going to do?”

  “What the Mexicans did bringing you down here—sleep outside. Or find another cave. And get out of this country fast.”

  Father Lorenzo took his glasses off and tapped them on the desk. “Let’s think a minute.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Jake and I go back a few years to when Ricardo and Maria named him godfather to Jakina. Since non-Catholics cannot be godparents to a Catholic child, we settled for unofficial godfather. Before you came in this morning, he explained why you’re here, why he’s here, and the danger you are both in. What is going on in our beloved Mexico with these dams and General Diego will reflect badly on our government.”

  Father Lorenzo walked around the desk. “However, we may be able to help. In the 1600s, this abbey was a refuge, a secret sanctuary for dissidents. Although it’s been a few years, we still welcome dissidents from time to time. We’d be honored to have you stay with us in our guest rooms.” He looked around with a broad smile. “It appears that history is repeating itself.”

  Jake walked over and shook Lorenzo’s hand. “Thank you. That gives us time to make plans. But are you sure we won’t be putting you at risk?”

  “There’s no risk for San Miguel,” Father Lorenzo said. “Until this budding revolt of General Diego’s is resolved one way or the other, this regime has given orders to keep hands off all churches. That will no doubt change in the future, but right now they don’t want to stir us up.” He chuckled. “Their main concern is keeping the Church quiet. Our relationship with the government is a stormy one.”

  Their rooms were on the third floor of a small complex behind the monastery. Jake had selected a corner room with a window overlooking the courtyard and valley below. At the end of the hall was another set of stairs, giving them two escape routes if needed.

  Elizabeth stood in her guest room, looking around. The floor had a woven rag rug in the center. A small fireplace took up one corner, the bed and dresser taking up the rest of the room.

  Jake came up behind her and squeezed her shoulder lightly. With a gasp she whirled around.

  “Relax,” he said. “You’re as jumpy as I am.”

  She swallowed and huffed a short breath. “You’ve never been jumpy in your life.”

  Jake went to the window and looked out. “I have the room next door, but you’ll have company in here. The three of us will take turns sitting on the floor inside the door. Just a precaution.” He held his hand up. “I know, I know. Back home, people would be scandalized, but they’ll never know unless you tell them. In similar circumstances they’d do exactly the same. It eliminates any risk of your being taken again. None of us want that.”

  Hands in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Diego is going to tear Chihuahua apart looking for you. That makes me very jumpy. He can’t let you leave the country.”

  Elizabeth stared at him. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry, but you need to know. Let’s go eat and take your mind off things.”

  “Give me five minutes to wash up and put myself together.”

  “You look fine,” he said quietly. “You always look fine.”

  She snapped a glance at him, thinking he was being sarcastic, but he turned away and said no more.

  The Next Morning

  As usual, Father Lorenzo rose before dawn
and went to the window. It would soon be light.

  After lunch yesterday, when he’d recovered his composure at having three heavily armed Texas Rangers and an American senator’s abducted daughter in his monastery, he set about getting the weapons out of sight. “Forgive an old man,” he told them, “but they make me uncomfortable. And, I suspect, probably the brothers, as well.”

  Jake hadn’t hesitated. “I understand completely. Where would you like us to put them?”

  “Leave them here in my office until you’re ready to leave. They won’t be touched. No one uses this room but me.”

  Immediately three men unbuckled heavy holsters, slid rifles off their shoulders, pulled out knives, more revolvers, and two sticks of something that looked like dynamite. They laid them on a table by the window. Each one of them, however, had a small revolver tucked out of sight, inside a pocket or boot or under an arm.

  Father Lorenzo looked at the weapons, then at the three Rangers standing in his office. “Our souls, unfortunately, have no such armor. All they have to defend themselves—and us—is faith.”

  He extended an invitation to attend mass that evening, if they were so inclined. To his delight, his message got through. Coming out of the abbey after Vespers that evening, he saw Ranger Gus Dukker and hurried to catch up with him.

  “I’m so pleased to see you,” Lorenzo said. “What made you decide to come?”

  “Guilt, Father,” Gus mumbled.

  “Why guilt, my son?”

  “I haven’t been to mass in five years. Got to thinking maybe my soul could use some of that ammunition you talked about.”

  Father Lorenzo smiled and said, “Welcome back. He missed you.”

  Lorenzo carried his coffee to the window to watch the sun come up. This was his time of the day, a gift from the Lord.

  The jagged peaks of the Sierra Madre rose nearly two miles high into a purple morning sky. The eastern horizon glowed, lit from below. Crimson and corals streaked upward, blushing the snowcaps, the clouds, and reddening the sky itself.

  Lorenzo took a long, thoughtful sip of his coffee. If the old saying was right, bad weather was on the way.

  Rain coming.

  From watching them all these many years, he’d come to know what the cloud shapes and height and their changing colors meant. From years of observing, he now knew that when his eyesight sharpened and he could read without his spectacles, the barometer was falling, and he’d better take his umbrella. One of the advantages of getting older was the ability to read the small signs in life of what lay ahead.

  This killing of another Texas newspaper editor by Mexicans—the second in five years, and only a few miles from the first—would go badly for the government. Added to that was the kidnapping of the editor’s sister, the daughter of a prominent American senator. The combination of those two events might finally topple General Diego. Especially after what Lorenzo had recently learned. Spread open on the desk behind him was Lloyd Madison’s Grande Examiner, revealing Diego’s takeover plot.

  Lorenzo stared at the sky, trying to read it—or read between the lines, if there were any—as to which way it would all go.

  In another couple of days, all Mexico would know what was happening—unless General Diego could catch the Americans before they crossed the Rio Grande.

  And that must not happen.

  Father Lorenzo looked at the mountains and the crimson skies behind them, and breathed a prayer that the Texas Rangers could get Señora Evans and themselves out of Mexico before it was too late.

  “Elizabeth, you all right?” Gus called.

  Jake hipped around in his saddle. “Why? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Looks like the altitude’s getting to her. I feel it some myself,” Gus said.

  Jake chided himself. He should’ve been watching her closer. But that morning they’d all been rushing, pushed along by an uneasy sense that time was running out.

  When Maria showed up on horseback at San Miguel at the usual time for her class that morning, two monks were waiting for her. They took her horse to the stables and watched the doors while three Rangers and Elizabeth unpacked the saddlebags and reloaded them into the bags on Elizabeth’s new horse, purchased from the monastery a few hours before. Her original little Mexican horse had a brand and a serial number, and would be easily identified if they were stopped. As soon as they were loaded, they left San Miguel and rode all day. Occasionally they broke into a gallop for a change of pace for a mile or two to make up time.

  Jake hoped to reach the Rio Grande tomorrow morning and cross over before noon. Now, he dropped back and reined his horse alongside hers. Eyes narrowed, he studied her. Mountain sickness—headache, out of breath—the first signs.

  The first time he’d looked at her photograph, he thought he had her pegged. A senator’s daughter, classy and rich and spoiled. Yet he was wrong. She wasn’t spoiled. Not once had she complained about anything.

  “You look pale. How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Have a teeny little headache, that’s all.” She let out a breathy laugh.

  A week ago, that might have fooled him into thinking she was all right. Now he knew her better. Physically, and probably emotionally as well, she was on the edge. But her pride wouldn’t let her show it. Jake pulled out his canteen and passed it over to her, watching her swallow. She was used to sea level, not riding and working a horse at eight thousand feet elevation. Because she was on the small side, so was her bloodstream, and it simply couldn’t carry enough oxygen to support her.

  He regretted that they’d come up to this height so fast, partly because she’d enjoyed those little gallops. She was turning into a decent rider.

  Climbing fast was why she was so out of breath and tired.

  He stretched and grunted. “We’ve gone far enough for one day. Suppose we look around up here, find some wood and water, and make camp.”

  When she gave a sigh of relief and turned away, he knew he’d made the right decision.

  They followed a rocky trail that wound around a sheer cliff rising on one side, the face wet with trickles of mountain snowmelt. Jake suddenly reined to a stop and seized her arm.

  The men exchanged glances. They all smelled it.

  Smoke.

  Keeping Elizabeth behind them, the Rangers slowly began walking their horses. Ahead lay a wide clearing, hemmed in by low reddish orange cliffs cut with openings, a honeycomb of caves. A faint haze drifted across the ridgeline. The smoke must have come from cookstoves within the mountain.

  “Gitanos,” Jake said. Gypsies.

  The trail ran through the center of their camp, past the caves. Tents and shacks dotted the area, along with Gypsy vans and decorated wagons—vardos. The men sat in the tent openings and wagon doorways and watched a group of children fighting and playing among themselves. The children rushed around them, begging for money, pulling at their saddlebags. One boy snatched Jake’s hat off, but Jake shot a hand out and snatched it back.

  A teenage girl darted in and grabbed the scarf off Elizabeth’s head. The loose braid tucked under it came apart and long hair fell out. Elizabeth made a swipe for the scarf, but the girl ran away, laughing at her.

  Near the trail, a man approached the horses, clapping his hands and whistling to the animals. He seemed displeased to see strangers in the camp. His face hardened as the four riders pulled to a stop.

  “Buenas tardes, señor,” Jake said. “We’re not here to make trouble. We are just passing through.”

  “You la policía?” the man asked.

  Jake and Fred both laughed. “No, no,” Jake said. “We are not police.”

  The man grinned. “Then I guess you must be running from them. Buenas tardes! I am Laszlo. Please don’t mind the children, señor—they were just playing.”

  Gus slid off his horse and said in Romani, “Sastipe, sar sal?” Hello, how are you?

  Laszlo said, “You speak Romani?”

  “A little. My grandmother’s Roman
i.” Gus stuck his hand out. “May buchhov Gus Dukker.”

  Laszlo stepped forward with a smile, a flash of white teeth in a swarthy face. He pumped Gus’s hand. “Bor—you are one of us.”

  Gus laughed. “Almost.”

  Laszlo nodded to Elizabeth and translated for her and the others. “Devlesa avilan—It is God who brought you here,” he said. “You are safe here. Like you, Comandante, we have no love for the police or the army or Diego and his death squads.”

  “You know who we are, then?” Jake asked.

  “Sí. They are looking everywhere for three Rangers and a woman. Your enemies call you El Oso Amarillo, the yellow bear. When your hat came off and I saw your hair, then hers, I knew it was you.” He extended his hand. “Welcome, mi amigo, El Oso Amarillo. Tell me, why have the Rangers never talked to us? We Gypsies can find out things that might be helpful.” His face darkened. “Our allegiance is to ourselves, not to the government or to anyone else. But we will do you the courtesy of listening.”

  Jake looked at him and blinked. Talking to Gypsies had never occurred to him. The Mexicans despised them. As a result, Gypsies stayed alert and had developed a talent for discovering facts and information others often missed. For them, it was a means of self-preservation.

  “You’re right—we should have talked to you long before this,” Jake said. “But if all goes well, we won’t be needing your help. If it does not, then we’ll be back soon. That’s a promise.”

  Laszlo clapped him on the shoulder and led them all toward a blue and yellow vardo, warning them about the soldiers on the roads. Although his vardo was small inside, it was divided into two rooms: the kitchen-living room and the sleeping quarters.

  With the windows open, it was remarkably airy and cool inside and spotlessly clean.

  A dark-haired woman with a baby on her hip stirred a blue-enameled pot on a small stove. With a smile, Laszlo introduced them all.

  “Gracias, señora,” Jake said, nodding to Laszlo’s wife, Nadia. In English, he told Elizabeth, “On the way over, her husband said the road north is crawling with Mexican troops. He invited us to stay the night, said they’ll find a place for us. They know who we are.”