“Por Dios,” Gonzolos shouted, “ride in and be sure he is dead.”
Several of the outlaws dismounted and made their way to the precipitous bank from which Nathan had fallen. There was no sign of a body in the water below, and after a while, even Gonzolos was convinced the man they had sought was dead.
“Back to the wagons,” Gonzolos ordered.
Before sundown, the wagons rumbled along the rutted Santa Fe Trail and reached the outskirts of the town of Santa Fe. There the caravan turned eastward, and five miles into the barren land that was northeastern New Mexico, they reached a sprawling ranch that had come into existence more than a hundred years previous, by Spanish grant. In an arch above the gate hung a long wooden slab. In Spanish, burned into the wood in large letters, were the words CASA DE EL AGUILA.17
One man dismounted and opened the gate, allowing the two wagons to pass through. They were taken beyond and around the ranch house, to a barn. Chapa Gonzolos and his riders dismounted before the house he had inherited from his father, and Gonzolos laughed triumphantly. Again, as had been his father before him, he was a respected citizen of Santa Fe, and the owner of a Spanish grant older than the town itself.
From the slug that had grazed his head, Nathan had blacked out, coming to his senses only when he was under the cold water. There was a narrow shelf of rock behind the fall, and after several failed tries, Nathan dragged himself up on it. So near to the fall was he that spray from it was flung in his face, but he was concealed from the men who had tried to kill him. While he couldn’t understand their words, he could hear their voices on the bank above him. There was little he could do but wait until they presumed him dead and rode away.
He could feel the blood oozing out of his wounds, and if he did nothing else, he had to stop the bleeding. Besides being alive, there was one thing for which he could be thankful. There were exit wounds, telling him that neither slug had struck bone, for such a ricochet was almost always fatal. The spray in his face had a refreshing effect and kept him conscious most of the time. While he was fearful of sliding off the narrow shelf, it seemed impossible for him to keep his eyes open, and he slipped into unconsciousness for he knew not how long. He listened, and hearing nothing but the sound of the falling water, decided he must make his move. The constant spray had not allowed the blood to clot. He slid off the rock shelf and was in water neck-deep.
Fighting his way through the fall, he found it was late in the afternoon, the sun not more than an hour high. He waded to the shallows, and stood there listening. Somewhere, it seemed he could hear a horse cropping grass. The riverbank was high and he waded farther downstream. There, to his surprise, his saddled bay was grazing. The horse had been heaving with exhaustion, which accounted for the outlaws not having taken it. Nathan took handfuls of mud, and squeezing the water out of it, applied it to his wounds. His skull ached like seven kinds of hell from the graze, and a faint stream of blood still trailed down his jaw. Despite having been soaked to the hide most of the day, his face felt hot. It was the beginning of a fever that would rob him of his consciousness as it wore on.
Slowly, slipping and falling, he climbed the riverbank and headed for his grazing horse. The effort brought fresh blood flowing from his wounds. He knew not how far he was from Santa Fe. It would be his only source of aid, for he was three days south of Pueblo. Three times he tried before he was able to drag himself into the saddle. He kicked the bay into a lope, following the river south. The horse slowed to a walk, and Nathan allowed it to continue, for he wasn’t sure how long he could remain conscious. A faster gait might jolt him out of the saddle, and he was in no condition to stop and rest the horse. He awoke to a cool night wind and darkness, aware that the fever was taking him. He never saw the light in a distant window or knew when the horse halted. He fell from the saddle and lay with unseeing eyes turned to the purple sky, with its silent, twinkling stars....
Santa Fe, New Mexico. November 15, 1874
It was late, and but a single lamp burned in the window of Loretto Academy of Our Lady of Light. Assistant Pastor Thomas Hayes had been reading, and he paused, listening. There were hoofbeats, and when they ceased, Father Hayes went to the window and drew the curtain aside. At first, in the starlight, he could see only the riderless horse, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could see the body of a man on the ground. He hurried down the hall and knocked on the door of Father Augustine Truchard, the pastor.
“Yes,” came a sleepy voice, “what is it?”
“There is a man—a horseman—lying in the yard, Father Truchard, and he appears to be hurt.”
“Very well,” said Father Truchard. “Allow me time to dress. Perhaps you should awaken Mother Magdalen.”
“I am awake,” Mother Magdalen said, when Father Hayes knocked on her door.
“There is a man lying in the yard,” said Father Hayes, “and he appears to be hurt. Father Truchard and I are going to bring him inside. Perhaps you should prepare to receive him.”
“Very well,” Mother Magdalen replied. “Bring him into the room that adjoins your study. I will be there.”
The priests carried the unconscious Nathan into the academy foyer and then into the room Mother Magdalen had suggested. Already she had clean sheet spread over a couch, and Sister Francisca had come to assist her. A medicine chest had been opened and Mother Magdalen was removing items she would need. She spoke quietly to Father Truchard.
“If you will leave him with us, we will do what we can.”
The priests went out, closing the door behind them.
“I will unsaddle and care for his horse,” said Father Hayes. “The animal is exhausted.”
Father Truchard went into the study of Father Hayes and sat down. He had seen gun-shot wounds before, and the stranger had been shot twice. It would be a long night.
Nathan suffered a raging fever for a day and a night. Mother Magdalen, Sister Lucia, Sister Rosana, and Sister Francisca took turns looking after him. After the fever broke, he slept for another day before regaining consciousness.
“Where am I?” he asked, when he finally could speak.
“In Santa Fe,” said Mother Magdalen, “at the Loretto Academy of Our Lady of Light. You have been here three days and two nights.”
“My name is Nathan Stone, and I ...”
“You are still very weak,” Mother Magdalen said. “Rest, and I will have one of the sisters bring you some supper.”
Nathan was fed soup until he could take solid food. He learned, only after he had regained consciousness that the doctor who tended him was there for the third time. Nobody questioned him, and his gun belt with its twin Colts hung on the head of his bed. There in a corner was his Winchester and saddlebags. His fifth day there, he had begun to feel guilty, and he spoke to Mother Magdalen.
“Ma’am, I’m obliged for all you’ve done. I owe all of you my life, and ...”
“You owe us nothing,” said Mother Magdalen. “We have done no more than our duty, for what we have done unto the least of His, we have done unto Him.”
None of them would talk to him about what he considered his obligation. Besides Mother Magdalen, there was Sister Rosana who played the organ, and Sisters Francisca and Lucia, who were teachers. Only occasionally did he see Father Augustine Truchard, or his assistant, Father Thomas Hayes. Eventually, it was Father Hayes who began spending some time with Nathan, inquiring about his travels, about the frontier, and it was from Father Hayes that he learned much about Santa Fe, the building of the Loretto Academy of Our Lady of Light, and of the adjoining Loretto Chapel.
“When you are strong enough,” Father Hayes said, “I will show you around. There is a newly built Loretto Chapel, just finished last year. It’s the first Gothic structure west of the Mississippi.”
This was Nathan Stone’s first time in a church since he had been a child, led there by his mother’s hand, and it stirred some long-forgotten feeling within him.
“Thank you,” said Nathan. “I�
��ll look forward to it.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, then,” Father Hayes replied.
CHAPTER 21
“I hope you are a patient man,” said Father Hayes, as he joined Nathan for breakfast, “because it is difficult to tell you any of our history, without telling you all of it.”
“Then tell me all of it,” Nathan said.
“In September 1852, the Sisters of Loretto arrived,” said Father Hayes. “They came to the Southwest by covered wagon and paddle steamer. Their journey had begun in May 1851 in Kentucky aboard a steamer named The Lady Franklin, which took them up the Mississippi to Saint Louis. From there to Independence, they took the Kansas, but on the way, their superior, Mother Matilda, took the cholera and died shortly after their arrival in Independence. Two other sisters who had been stricken, recovered.”
Father Hayes refilled his own and Nathan’s coffee cup. Then he continued.
“There were months of struggles and fears. Wagon axles and wheels broke, and under a terrible sun, there were days on barren prairies littered with animal and human bones. What was left of the group—Sisters Magdalen, Catherine, Hilaria, and Roberta—finally arrived in Santa Fe, and at the request of Bishop Lamy, Sister Magdalen was appointed superior of the group. She was a woman of faith and resolution, and the situation she and her sisters faced was a difficult one. The country was still raw and unsettled, and they had no comfortable convent waiting for them on arrival. They lived at first in a little, one-room adobe house, and the little town of Santa Fe was made up mostly of Indians and Mexicans at that time. But it soon became quite evident that, if the sisters were to fulfill the intentions of Bishop Lamy who had brought them to Santa Fe to teach the people, they must have a convent and a school. Mexican carpenters built the school, and when it was completed, it was called Loretto Academy of Our Lady of Light. Plans were made next for a beautiful chapel. It was designed by the same architect, Mr. Mouly, who designed the cathedral in Santa Fe. Bishop Lamy being from France, he wanted the sisters to have a chapel similar to his beloved Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It would be strictly Gothic.”
“I still haven’t had a good look at any of it from the outside,” said Nathan. “I reckon I was pretty well used up when I got here.”
“You’ll be more appreciative of Loretto Chapel,” Father Hayes said, “so I’m taking you there first. It was built by French and Italian masons, and it is twenty-five by seventy-five feet, with a height of eighty-five feet. It is larger than most of the mission chapels in this area. Mother Magdalen has recorded in the annals that the erection of the chapel was placed under the patronage of Saint Joseph, ‘in whose honor we communicated every Wednesday that he might assist us.’ The chapel work progressed with some financial worries and a maximum of faith on the part of the sisters. It was not until the chapel was nearly finished that they realized a dreadful mistake had been made. The chapel itself was wonderful and the choir loft was wonderful, too, but there was no connecting link between the two. There was no stairway and, because the loft is exceptionally high, there was no room for a stairway as ordinary stairways go. Mother Magdalen called in many carpenters to try and build a stairway. Each, in turn, measured and thought and then shook his head sadly saying ‘it can’t be done, Mother.’ It seemed as though there were only two alternatives: to use a ladder to get to the choir—which seemed impractical in any case—or to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it differently.”
“But they didn’t tear it down,” said Nathan.
“No,” Father Hayes replied, “but you’re getting ahead of me. To destroy so beautiful a structure would have been heartbreaking. But the Sisters of Loretto are so devoted to Saint Joseph, they made a novena to him for a suitable solution to the problem.”
“A novena?”
“A Roman Catholic nine-days’ devotion,” said Father Hayes. “On the last day of the novena, a gray-haired man came up to the convent with a donkey and a tool chest. Approaching Mother Magdalen, he asked if he might try to help the sisters by building a stairway. Mother Magdalen gladly gave her consent and he set to work. His few tools consisted of a hammer, a saw, and a T-square. It took him six to eight months to complete the work. When Mother Magdalen went to pay him, he had vanished. She went to the local lumber yard to pay for the wood, at least, but they knew nothing of it there. There is no record stating that the job was ever paid for. Now that you have heard the story, would you like to see those stairs?”
“I would,” said Nathan.
They entered the chapel, and Father Hayes said not a word. Nathan swallowed a lump in his throat as he beheld the masterpiece of beauty and wonder the old man had left the sisters. It was a winding stairway that made two complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns. But there was no supporting pole up the center as most circular stairways have.
“I’ve never seen anything so amazing in my life,” said Nathan.
“Neither have I,” Father Hayes said. “I’ve studied it almost daily. It hangs there with no support, with its entire weight on the base. Some architects have said that by all laws of gravity, it should have crashed to the floor the minute anyone stepped on it.”
“I can believe that,” said Nathan. “What do you reckon is holding it up?”
“The same faith that built it,” Father Hayes replied.
“I’m enough of a believing man that I’d have to agree with you,” said Nathan.
“I have gone over it many times,” Father Hayes said, “and it was put together without nails. There are only wooden pegs. Architects who have heard of these inexplicable stairs—those who have seen them—cannot understand how the stairway was constructed. Most of them agree on one thing, that they have never seen or heard of a circular wooden stairway with three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns that did not have a supporting pole down the center. One of the men who has examined the stairway says that perhaps the most baffling thing about it is the perfection of the curves of the stringers. The wood is spliced along the sides of the stringers with nine splices on the outside and seven on the inside. Each piece is perfectly curved. How this was done by just one man with so few tools remains a mystery.”
“What kind of wood was used?” Nathan asked.
“Another mystery,” said Father Hayes. “Some have said it’s fir of some sort, while others believe it is long leaf yellow pine. But it’s been claimed by good authority that none of the wood used came from New Mexico. So where the old carpenter got that wood is a mystery.”
“It’s a supernatural thing,” Nathan said.
“The church is always cautious about making statements concerning things of a supernatural nature,” said Father Hayes. “Therefore, the sisters and priests of Santa Fe have, in the same spirit, refrained from saying anything definitive about the stairway. But Mother Magdalen and the sisters at Loretto Academy know that the stairway is Saint Joseph’s answer to prayers. Some like to think that the carpenter was Saint Joseph, himself.”
“Thank you for telling me the story,” Nathan said.
“We never tire of telling it,” said Father Hayes. “I hope it becomes to you, as it has to us, a testimony of faith.”
Santa Fe, New Mexico. December 10, 1874
While Nathan appreciated what had been done for him by the sisters and the priests of Loretto Academy, he had grown restless. It was time to move on. He had made a silent vow to track down Chapa Gonzolos and his gang, and to this end, he spoke to Father Hayes.
“Señor Chapa Gonzolos is a most respected member of the community,” Father Hayes said. “His ranch, Casa De El Aguila, belonged to his father before him. It is five miles east of town, and covers many hundreds of acres. Are you a friend of Señor Gonzolos?”
“No,” said Nathan truthfully. “I’ve heard of him, and that he lives in these parts.”
The sisters and priests of Loretto genuinely hated to see Nathan go, and he felt a real sense of loss as he saddled the bay. He had known better than to offer them money for their compassion and kindness, but from h
is saddlebag he had taken ten gold double eagles. On his way down the hall, he ducked quickly into the study. Opening the center drawer of Father Hayes’s desk, he left the gold there and silently closed the drawer.
The Killing Season Page 29