by Vella Munn
“Father, it was not a request but an order,” the soldier said. “Please, you will come?”
“If I did not, it would place you in an awkward position, would it not?”
By way of answer, Pablo knelt before him, indicating he wanted his blessing. After giving it, Angelico tucked his letter into a pocket and started to trot toward the captain’s tent. Before he could become winded, he forced himself to slow to what couldn’t be taken for anything but a leisurely pace.
“Good afternoon, Captain,” he said upon entering the large tent that had been fashioned out of woven cotton cloth taken from the Hopi. “I am glad you have time for a conversation since there is something I wish to discuss with you.”
Captain Lopez had been standing with his back to the door flap. Now he whirled and waved a piece of paper bearing the royal patent stamp at him. “How many Hopi have you baptized?” he demanded. “And their religious training? How is that coming?”
“I believe you know the answer to that. I pray. By all that is holy, I exhaust myself encouraging them to embrace Christianity, but they are slow to learn. Slow to—”
“Slow to do anything. Yes, I know. I swear, they are gifted with no more reasoning powers than sheep. That so few speak even a word of Spanish is of the utmost frustration.”
“It is the same with Latin, which is why I use it only sparingly during services.” He sighed. “How are they to accept the word of God if—”
“The word of God is not my concern.” He waved the letter under Angelico’s nose. “As if it were necessary, I have been reminded of the Crown’s claim on what the heathens produce. According to the governor, I am remiss in providing the Crown with those essentials.”
Governor Zotylo had assured Angelico that Captain Lopez would be reminded of his duties regarding the Church. Was it possible the captain had misinterpreted? Before he could think how to voice his question, Lopez signaled for the padre to sit on a wood-and-leather stool.
As farmers, the Hopi were expected to supply a given amount of corn, wheat, beans, squash, and other foodstuffs for the State. In addition, they and other Pueblo Indians were expected to oversee the State’s livestock herds both in New Spain and throughout the territory. Lopez stated that the governor had written that he had received, from good authority, word that the Hopi’s willingness to work for the Crown was in jeopardy because of the way they were being treated.
“Was it you, Padre?” Lopez demanded. “According to this”—he again indicated the letter—“my men and I have been accused of availing ourselves of the local women, a situation which, officially at least, will not be tolerated by the Church. Does this sound like you? Does it?”
“Do not threaten me, Captain.”
“By all that is holy, I—if you were a man, a real man, you would understand!”
Angelico’s back burned and itched, reminding him of the devil’s hold. “You are right,” he said nonetheless. “A mortal man’s weakness is beyond my comprehension, but not my concern. If you came to me, we could pray together for you to receive forgiveness, but you do not—”
“No, I do not.” Lopez pressed his hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. “We are worlds apart, you and I.”
“Yes, we are,” he said, although the truth was, the only true conversations he had were with the captain. Until now, he’d given scant thought to Lopez’s responsibilities where the State was concerned. Was being charged with filling a produce quota or supplying a workforce more important than guiding savages out of darkness? No.
Never.
“You do your work. I do mine,” Angelico said.
“My task would be much easier if you did not interfere in it.”
“I only did what, in good conscience, I knew I must.”
“Damnation!” For the second time, Lopez pressed his palm to his forehead. “Do what you are determined to, Padre. All I ask is that I be allowed to do the same.”
“Granted.”
“Granted? Just like that?”
“Yes.” Angelico stood and drew back his shoulders in what he believed was a show of strength. “Take what Hopi workers you need. I will do the same.”
“What? I do not understand.”
“Then I will educate you,” he said, measuring each word. “The Lord was testing me when He had me consider building my church at Oraibi. Now I know what He wants. Now I can truly begin.”
“Consider building your church at Oraibi? I understood the matter was decided.”
“Not at all. Not at all, which is why construction has not gone forth. Captain, you know as well as I do that the Hopi consider the mesa sacred. Oraibi is an ancient village, and as such it has become the center of their heathen traditions.” Why couldn’t he come out and admit he never again wanted to set foot on that accursed place?
“It was enough that we made a statement of force by destroying their idols. I do not wish my church to be seen as competing with their primitive beliefs.”
“Your church?”
Ignoring the interruption, he hurried on. “The Lord’s word will spread its own light and live in its own holy structure. It will not stand in the shadow of heathen kivas.”
“Padre, I have tried to exhibit patience in your presence, but by all that is holy, will you please come to the heart of the matter?”
How wrong he’d been to think he could continue to work with this man! The next time he wrote the governor, and that would happen before the day was over, he would state his position in the strongest way possible.
“The church—this celebration to our Lord—will be erected on virgin land so its glorious message can sing out loud and clear. So there will be no confusion as to the direction the Hopi are to bend their hearts from this day forth.”
“In other words . . .” Captain Lopez’s smile was a fearful thing, half predator, half snake, “you do not want to risk provoking their wrath, or the wrath of their supreme beings.”
“Their supreme beings? They have no such thing!”
• • •
Long after the padre left, Lopez made no attempt to turn his attention to what else he needed to accomplish today. Fury at the governor’s condescending tone continued to rankle him, but he would deal with that later. First, he needed to absorb what Angelico had said.
“You were afraid,” he said softly, secure in the belief that no one could hear him. “When that . . . sound began, you thought you had been thrown into hell, didn’t you? You think I do not notice how seldom you have gone near the kivas since then, but I am not stupid, Padre. Not stupid at all.”
Sagging forward, he stared at the ground beneath his boots. Little sound reached him in here, a condition that sometimes disquieted him, since he wasn’t a man comfortable with his own thoughts. At times like this when there was no distraction, no activity to expend energy on, he was forced to come face-to-face with himself.
And what confronted him now was the fact that his senses still vibrated with the awful echo of those accursed wails.
Even with Singer of Songs lying beside him, he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since then.
The weight of his thoughts closed in around him and forced him outside. He set off toward the Hopi gardens.
Not that he felt a need to express it to anyone, he admired the Indians’ ability to coax life from worthless land. The various plants were spaced far apart, obviously in deference to the limited moisture, usually on a slope in order to take advantage of any water runoff. He’d noted how quickly everything matured and that the hardy varieties were all but impervious to desert temperatures, but real success was due to how deeply everything was planted. The seeds had been dropped into holes some twelve to sixteen inches deep where, despite the scant rainfall, the subsoil remained damp because it was protected by surface sand. The plants had strong root systems which allowed them to withstand the constant wind.
The savages were simple creatures; he’d spent his entire military life believing that and having that reinforced by
how easily the Indians in New Spain had given way before the expanding Spanish presence, but here the indigenous population remained essentially as it had been for centuries, independent and resourceful, in harmony with the land.
• • •
Much later that day, Angelico opened the second letter he’d received, this one written by a fellow Franciscan stationed among the Zuni. According to the letter, Fray Francisco Letrado and another padre had made great strides in the year they’d been at Halona.
“It is so seldom that I have opportunity to communicate with my brethren that I trust you will be patient with my ramblings,” Fray Francisco began. “I also realize this might not reach you for many months and that conditions here may have changed by then, but my blessings have been great; I feel compelled to share them.”
He went on to describe the initial hostile reception the group had received from the Zuni, a hostility that proved to be short-lived.
“I give credit for much of our good fortune to the governor who, along with a large contingent of cavalrymen, visited our humble mission shortly after I arrived. He personally and quite emphatically informed the soldiers of what their behavior toward the natives should be. He ordered that, ‘no soldier should enter a house of the pueblos, nor transgress in aggrieving the Indians under penalty of his life.’ But, for me at least, most powerful were his edicts concerning how I was to be treated. He was convinced the Zuni would approach me with reverence and awe if they saw that self-same behavior from the soldiers. In the presence of the savages, he and the soldiers fell to their knees before me and kissed my feet. That display has made all the difference.”
With a growing sense of frustration, Angelico read that Fray Francisco had succeeded in building a church in no more than three months, had baptized the vast majority of Zuni in Halona, and had made great strides in teaching them Spanish.
“Once the church was to my liking, I turned my attention to the rest of my duties,” Fray Francisco continued. “As dictated by the Crown, of primary concern was making the mission self-sufficient. With the willing assistance of both soldiers and natives, our crops flourish, a good two-score foals were born this spring, and the sheep herd has grown beyond my counting. Truly the Lord’s blessings shine upon me, as I am certain they do on you.”
The Lord’s blessings! Barely able to contain himself, Angelico took stock of his “accomplishments.” He had a small tent for shelter, barely enough food to fill his belly, not so much as a stick or rock yet set in place for a church, and less than half of the Hopi had submitted to baptism.
Even more disturbing, he couldn’t sleep because he was haunted by what he’d heard and felt after ordering the Hopi’s barbaric effigies destroyed.
“Lord,” he prayed, “I seek Your guidance. I am a humble man and Your most devout servant, but I also wish all who are touched by my commitment to my Lord to see You in Your full glory and power. The Hopi must be shown the light and guided to salvation. What better way to force them to give up their barbaric beliefs than in service to You—in celebrating Your greatness?”
And if I do not succeed, my life is failure.
• • •
“You cannot be serious!” Captain Lopez exclaimed when the padre faced him for the second time that day.
“Completely. Captain, surely you agree that we have not accomplished nearly enough. Is that not what your missive from the governor was about?”
“The letter was addressed to me. Let me be the one to interpret it.”
Angelico shrugged. “As you wish, it is not my concern. This is: Hundreds of Hopi live at Oraibi. It is only fitting that the church be large enough to accommodate all of them.”
He would never understand the padre’s thinking. Wasn’t it just a short while ago that Fray Angelico had agreed with the State’s claim on the savages’ possessions? Now he was proposing a structure whose building would necessitate putting all able-bodied Hopi to work just as their crops were reaching the point of harvest.
Speaking as a father might to a young child, Lopez pointed that out. “All I am saying is that wisdom dictates you put off your plans until fall is full upon us,” he suggested. “By then, the crops will have been collected and shipped off.”
“Celebrating the Lord’s glory has been delayed long enough, Captain. The holy objects I brought with me and have placed in view of the infidels is only the beginning. From the moment we reached here, from the moment fate cast us together, I begged you to lend me your assistance, but that has not happened. Instead, you and your men allowed yourselves to be distracted by a few inconsequential Navajo raids. When you are not engaged in an ill-conceived and so-far futile search for that wild tribe, you send out scouts to look for the area’s mineral wealth—wealth that may not exist and means nothing to our Lord God. And then, do I need to mention this, there is the amount of time you devote to pleasures of the flesh.”
“At least I am accomplishing something,” Lopez countered. “Unlike you, you have wasted so much time trying to decide where this precious church of yours should be built. Any other padre would have made that decision long ago.”
As he’d expected, Fray Angelico’s face reddened. “A simple decision, you think!” he blurted. “The placement—by all that is holy, I do not know why I persist in trying to educate you!”
“Believe me, it would please me no end if you would stop. So.” He sighed. “Since there will be no peace until you have had your way, show me this latest drawing of yours.”
With trembling hands, Fray Angelico spread out a detailed rendering of a structure some forty feet long and nearly thirty wide. It was to be topped not with the cross he’d brought with him, but with one even larger and constructed of wood available only in San Francisco. At least the padre had the good sense to use stone for the majority of the structure. Still, this was a far more ambitious undertaking than any frontier church he’d ever seen or heard of. He opened his mouth to point that out, then thought better of it.
“I am not a builder,” he said. “How long do you anticipate this will take?”
Angelico blinked. “I am not certain. Much depends on how well the labor force understands what we require of them.”
“Yes, that is a problem.”
“But it will happen! The Lord has spoken.”
“The Lord?” Lopez asked archly.
“I am but God’s servant. My words are His.”
• • •
For a day marred by the critical letter from the governor, Lopez had to admit it had turned out quite well. Fray Angelico’s determination to throw the village into turmoil over a structure still puzzled him. He would probably never understand the Catholic religion’s insistence on pomp and show, but now that he’d given it serious thought, he realized how well this would work to his favor.
“Come here,” he said to Singer of Songs, who’d just entered his tent.
Her eyes were unreadable, her newly ripened body nearly hidden under her shapeless dress. As he reached for her, a wave of loneliness washed over him. He certainly didn’t miss his wife and seldom thought of her, but there was no one here he could truly talk to, no one to share his small triumphs and all too oppressive frustrations.
The land was to a large part responsible. It was so damnably inhospitable, without so much as a spot of greenery to ease the unrelenting gray. Why anyone had made this their homeland was beyond his comprehension. If the Hopi or Navajo had had an interest in gold or the other precious stones he never doubted were here, he might understand, but why the miserable savages struggled to support themselves on barren rock . . .
“No, no,” he chided as she tensed under his touch. “How many times do I have to tell you, if you do as I say, no harm will come to you.”
She gave no indication she understood. In truth, the words were for him alone since he had no wish for anyone to know about this softness in him. “You are spring. A blooming flower and a gentle breeze. A pocket of serenity in a hard world.”
The act o
f lifting her sleeveless dress over her head distracted him. Ignoring the look of resignation in her beautiful eyes, he covered her breasts with his hands and began kneading them. He’d started to turn her around so she couldn’t watch while he divested himself of his uniform when he heard a horse approach, followed by someone calling his name. Angry at being interrupted, he clenched his teeth. Then he recognized the voice.
“Come in, come in,” he announced, then pushed Singer of Songs to one side and threw her dress at her. She hadn’t had time to put it on before Pablo entered. The young soldier, who’d nearly lost his life at the hands of the horse-stealing Navajo, reeked of sweat. He’d removed his helmet, revealing filthy, wet hair. His eyes strayed to the Hopi, then fixed on his superior officer.
“I did not expect you back yet,” Lopez told Pablo.
“I did not think I would succeed in my task as soon as I did. However, the moment I was certain, I pushed myself to the limit in order to report to you.” He inclined his head at Singer of Songs.
“She speaks not a word of Spanish,” Lopez assured him.
“I understand, Captain. If I could—if I could trouble you for a drink of water . . .”
Although impatient, Lopez indicated where Pablo could find a water bladder and waited while he satisfied his thirst. At least the young man knew enough to remain standing.
“I found the Navajo village.”
Lopez’s heart began to race. “Tell me,” he ordered.
Pablo did just that, and if his tone and demeanor gave away some of the tension—no, fear—he’d felt while in enemy land, at least he had the presence of mind not to dwell on it. As directed, Pablo and another soldier had headed north. They’d spent the first night hiding in the shadow of a barren, steep-sided mesa and in the morning had discovered that they’d lain their heads mere inches from a hideous-looking lizard, one Pablo had no doubt was capable of inflicting a painful if not fatal bite. Feeling almost fatherly toward Pablo, Lopez suggested it must have been a highly poisonous Gila monster. For a moment, Pablo concentrated on swallowing, then went on.