Forests of the Heart

by Charles de Lint

  “What about you?” Hunter asked when they were back in the van and driving once more.

  “What about me what?”

  “How did what happened to us affect you?”

  “Like I said,” she told him. “I’m trying not to think of it right now. I’m not trying to think of anything, really.”

  “Oh.”

  She smiled. “But so far I like this getting-to-know-each-other-better part a lot.”

  2

  TUBAC, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28

  Two weeks had passed in the World As It Is when Bettina and her wolf came out of laépoca del mito into the western bajada of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. The sun was just rising behind them, flooding their view with its dawn light. A wide plain stretched westward, grasslands dotted with mesquite, cholla, prickly pear, and tall, spindly ocatillos. With the early sun upon it, the plain appeared to be a vast luminescent field, glowing with its own inner light. In the distance they could see a band of lusher vegetation that followed the meandering banks of the Santa Cruz River. The temperature was in the high fifties, not warm, but not unpleasant. Bettina knew it would warm up before long.

  “This is hardly a desert,” el lobo said.

  Bettnia nodded. “My friend Ban says that life zones converge in Pima County. A hike from Tucson to the top of the Santa Catalina Mountains is like traveling from Mexico to Canada.”

  Her wolf smiled.

  “De verdad. Someday I’ll take you up Mount Lemmon—you’ll think you’re back home, walking under the oaks and pines.”

  “I would make this my home, wherever you are …”

  His voice went soft and trailed off. His gaze remained on the distant view.

  “But you can’t,” Bettina said after a moment. “I understand. I would not have you break your word.”

  They both had debts. At least her wolf knew the limits of his. She had no idea what los cadejos would ask of her.

  “We can still make this work,” she added.

  She shifted the straps of her backpack so that it hung more comfortably, then took his free hand and led him off across the grasslands, the tall yellowed blades whispering against their light cotton pants. She could have carried her suitcase, but her wolf wouldn’t let her.

  “Let me be useful,” he’d told her when she brought it up earlier.

  “You are much more than useful,” she’d replied and stood on her toes to kiss the corner of his mouth.

  Two weeks in la época del mito had been time enough for her brujería to heal her hands. While her palms and the flats of her fingers remained scarred, the skin tight and still reddened, the pain was gone and she had regained most of her flexibility. But the look of them left her feeling terribly self-conscious. Her wolf’s response was to hold them and kiss her palms, even when they weren’t making love.

  It took them the rest of the morning to reach the banks of the Santa Cruz. It was cool under the shade of the cottonwoods and willows and the water was chilly when they waded across.

  “Your sister lives here?” el lobo asked as they came out from under the trees and walked up Bridge Road to the tiny central core of Tubac.

  Bettina shook her head. “But she doesn’t live far away. Her gallery is here.”

  The village was only three blocks long and three blocks wide and they soon reached Adelita’s gallery, their pant legs still damp from their wade across the river. La Gata Verde was on Tubac Road, across from Tortuga Books and nestled in amongst a collection of shops and galleries selling pottery, clothing, jewelry, paintings, and Mexican folk art. The street was crowded with tourists, most of them snowbirds, migrating down to Arizona to take in the warmer weather that their own northern climes couldn’t provide at this time of year.

  A little bell chimed as they walked into the gallery and a small, dark-haired woman who could have been Bettina’s twin looked up. Her welcoming smile broke into a huge grin when she recognized her sister.

  “Bettina!” she cried, coming out from behind the counter, startling an elderly couple who were browsing through the art prints. “¡Dios mío! What are you doing here? And who is this handsome man?”

  Bettina smiled and returned her sister’s hug.

  “He’s … his name is Lobo,” she said.

  When she glanced at her wolf, there was a twinkle of amusement in his eye.

  “Lobo,” Adelita said, turning to look at him. “Such a fierce name. But better than Loco, ¿tu no crees?”

  “And this is my sister Adela,” Bettina told her wolf.

  “But everyone still calls me Adelita,” her sister said.

  El lobo set the suitcase down and reached out a hand, but Adelita gave him a hug instead. Bettina smiled at his surprise.

  “She can be very … exuberant,” she said.

  Adelita stepped back, smiling as well. “He is too handsome not to hug.”

  She started to draw them back behind the counter, taking el lobo by one hand, Bettina by the other. The roughness of her sister’s palm drew her gaze down.

  “¡Madre de Dios!” she cried. “What have you done to yourself?”

  Bettina quickly pulled her hands away from her sister’s scrutiny and thrust them into the pockets of her pants.

  “It’s a very long story,” she said. “I’m fine now.”

  “But, Bettina…”

  “Verdaderos.”

  “And you’re all wet,” Adelita added. “Both of you.”

  “We waded across the river.”

  “But… whatever for? Where were you coming from?”

  “The Santa Ritas.”

  Adelita shook her head. She was about to go on, but noticed her customers were leaving. Bettina couldn’t help but feel guilty, sure that Adelita’s exuberant reaction to herself and her wolf had driven them away.

  “Gracias,” Adelita called after them. “Please come again.”

  When the couple had left, el lobo crossed to the door and locked it, turning the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Adelita didn’t appear to notice. She looked from one to the other, then shook her head again.

  “Así,” she said to el lobo, her voice bright, the way Bettina knew her own went when she was ill at ease and didn’t quite know what to say. “How do you find Arizona? Or are you a native?”

  “I’m a visitor,” el lobo told her, amusement flickering in his eyes again. “But I like it. There’s an unusual smell in the air.”

  Adelita nodded. “It smells like rain.”

  At his puzzled look, she explained, “It’s the resin on the leaves of the creosote bushes. We had some rain last night.” She turned to Bettina. “Have you seen Mama yet?”

  Bettina shook her head. “We came here first.”

  “She’ll be happy to see you. You can’t imagine how much she talks about you, considering how little you spoke with each other when you lived here. And Janette will be delighted.”

  “I won’t have time to see either of them this trip,” Bettina told her.

  Adelita regarded her worriedly. “Why are you here? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “No,” Bettina told her. “We’re finished with the trouble part. I was just hoping I could leave my things with you.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  Bettina smiled. Adelita was more like their Mama than she’d ever care to admit. Always worried. Always needing to know what was going on.

  “To find Papa.”

  Adelita said nothing, but the look on her face spoke volumes.

  “There has still been no word?” Bettina asked.

  “You must understand,” her sister said. “I loved him, too. But he left us, Bettina. He abandoned us.”

  Bettina shook her head. “I’ve been told that he has lost his way. That he has forgotten us—not because we mean nothing to him, but because he is in no position to remember.”

  It was hard to find a way to say this without speaking of brujería and spirits, but Bettina didn’t wish to start another argument right now.

&
nbsp; Adelita regarded her steadily. “Who told you this?”

  “It doesn’t matter who.”

  “¿Quién?” Adelita repeated, her voice sharper.

  “You will not be happy with my answer.”

  Adelita sighed. “Just tell me what you have heard.”

  “Bien,” Bettina said. “He is in the desert. Living as a hawk who has forgotten he is a man. I want to find him. I need to remind him who he is.”

  Anger flashed in her sister’s eyes.

  “¿Estás loca?”; she said. “How can you even begin to believe such things?”;

  “I told you the answer would not please …”; Bettina began.

  She paused when Adelita held up a hand. Her sister took a steadying breath.

  “Perdona,”; she said in a softer voice. “Here I promised you that I would try harder to keep an open mind and the first thing you tell me makes me want to shake the sense back into you.”;

  “Adelita…”;

  “But it is hard, Bettina. Está muy difícil These things you believe … the world you live in … it is so far from my own.”;

  Bettina searched her sister’s gaze. Of all the reactions she might have expected from her sister, this was the most surprising. But she saw that Adelita was truly trying to, if not exactly believe, to at least be willing to listen.

  “I could show it to you,”; she said. “I could take you into it.”;

  “No, no,”; Adelita told her. “It’s too late for that. I have Chuy and Janette to think of. I have … my world.”;

  You can have both, Bettina thought, but she left it unsaid.

  “It should have been different,”; she said. “It should have belonged to both of us.”;

  Adelita shook her head. “Quizás. But I might not have met Chuy, and we wouldn’t have had Janette. I would not give up my daughter for anything.”;

  Silence fell between them. Outside the gallery, the world went on, tourists happily exclaiming over this or that find, planning their lunches, looking for a washroom. Inside, the shadow of la época del mito hung thick in the air.

  “Así,”; Adelita said finally. “So. You are going into the desert, then.”;

  Bettina nodded, unwilling to trust her voice at this moment.

  “What will I tell Mama? And Janette?”;

  Bettina drew a ragged breath. She looked to her wolf and the kindness in his eyes gave her strength.

  “Tell them nothing,”; she said. “I will be back as soon as I can.”;

  With Papa, she thought, if all goes well. But she left that unsaid as well.

  “You will be going far?”;

  Bettina considered la época del mito, how it could take one anywhere, anywhen.

  “I don’t know yet,”; she said.

  “If you … if you come nearby again, you will stop and see me, yes? You could have a meal with us before you must go on once more. You know Janette would love to see you. Everyone misses you.”;

  A film of tears blurred Bettina’s vision.

  “You know I love you all,”; she said. “But I love our papá, too.”;

  Adelita swallowed hard. “If you can find him, bring him back to us.”;

  “I will. I promise.”;

  Adelita opened her arms and Bettina stepped into her embrace. When they pulled apart, both their eyes were wet with unshed tears.

  “I will leave you with this,”; Bettina said.

  Taking her wolf’s hand, she reached out for her bosque del corazón. Then they stepped away, as though walking through a curtain of air, the hard tile surface of the gallery turning to dirt and pebbles under their feet. Bettina heard her sister gasp, just before the curtain closed behind them.

  “Why did you do that?”; her wolf asked.

  They stood in la época del mito once more. Tubac, La Gata Verde, Adelita, the tourists… all were gone. There was only the desert, Bettina’s bosque del corazón in the shadow of Baboquivari Peak. The lights that had risen from it the last time they were here had been replaced by a shroud of clouds, as though I’itoi had wrapped himself in a cloak of vapor.

  “To let her know that her trust was not unfounded,”; Bettina said.

  “How so?”;

  Bettina smiled. “It’s hard to keep an open mind. So I gave her something to fill it. To keep the door of what might be ajar.”;

  He nodded. “And now you’ve named me. Lobo.”;

  He said the word as though tasting something unfamiliar. It was impossible to tell from his expression if the taste of it pleased him.

  “That’s how I’ve always thought of you,”; Bettina told him. “ELlobo. The wolf. My wolf.”;

  “I can be that,”; he said. “And gladly.”;

  It wasn’t easy to part with her wolf, but his responsibility to the manitou of the Kickaha Hills pressed on him and Bettina had her own obligations to fulfill. They tried to say goodbye quickly, but Bettina still clung to him for a long moment before she finally stepped back and let him go. El lobo appeared no more eager to leave himself. He held her hands, lifting them to his lips to kiss the palms, first one, then the other. Before she could speak, before she made the mistake of asking him to stay, or telling him she would go with him, he gave her a last, quick kiss on her lips and walked away.

  He seemed to step into a heat mirage, a shimmering in the air, then just as they had departed from Adelita’s gallery in Tubac, he was gone. Bettina sighed heavily. The minutes slipped away as she stood there, gaze on the place where he had vanished. Finally, she sighed again. Rolling her shoulders to loosen her muscles, she began the task she had not spoken of to either her wolf or Adelita.

  First she went into Tucson to buy some staples: beans, squash, peppers, tomatoes, chiles, corn flour, tea. A container for water, a pot to cook and eat from. Bundles of twine. Matches. A small spade. A long-bladed folding knife. It was a short trip and she was soon back in her bosque del corazón under the shadow of Baboquivari Peak.

  Her suitcase she had left with Adelita, but she had her backpack and the blanket that she and her wolf had lain on all those nights they had spent together in la época del mito. So she slept on her blanket, cooked meals on heated stones set on the edge of fires in which she burned mesquite and iron-wood. And she worked.

  She spent a few weeks gathering the long willowy ribs of toppled saguaros, wandering the desert, refamiliarizing herself with the land and its spirits. Every time she saw the red banded tail of a hawk, she paused, shading her eyes to study it. She would feel an answering whisper of wings move in her chest and she would reach out to the hovering shape high in the sky above, or perched on the topmost tip of a tall saguaro, searching for her father, for recognition, but finding neither.

  When she thought she had gathered enough saguaro ribs, she measured out a square of flat ground, about eight by eight, and dug a hole in each corner. She stuck trimmed mesquite poles into each one, packing small boulders around the poles to keep them at a ninety-degree angle to the ground. Then she filled up the holes with dirt, watered it to pack it down better. She repeated the process a few times before she left the dirt around the poles to dry.

  It wasn’t until she began to lash a framework of saguaro ribs to the poles that los cadejos came to see what she was doing. Throughout that day they watched with interest as she tied the ribs in place with the twine she’d picked up in Tucson. She spoke to them a few times, but they kept to a reserved distance. Today they weren’t the silly, singing dogs she’d first met so many years ago, but neither were they the more garrulous and certainly fierce animals who had protected her from the Glasduine.

  By nightfall, she had the outline of a small building with a sloping flat roof completed. She sat by her fire as the moon rose, admiring her handiwork while eating bean tortillas that she washed down with tea. When los cadejos approached the fire, she offered them food, but they were only interested in the unfinished lean-to.

  “¿Qué es ésto?”; they asked. What is this?

  “What are you making?”;

/>   “Are your hands sore?”;

  Bettina shook her head, replying to the last question first. “A little, but only from my work. The burns have healed.”;

  The scars still made her self-conscious, but that had been easier to forget out here on her own for as long as she’d been. Now it took an effort not to hide them away in pockets.

  “And as for what I’m building,”; she went on, “it’s a house. Una casa.”;

  “A home?”;

  “For you?”;

  “No,”; Bettina told them. “But I hope to visit it often.”;

  “Then whose will it be?”;

  “Yours,”; she said. “If you want it.”;

  They gathered closer, the firelight flickering on their rainbow fur.

  “Do you do this because of our bargain?”; they asked.

  “No,”; Bettina said. “You must decide what our bargain will be. I do this as would a friend.”;

  “But why?”;

  Bettina shrugged. “I feel bad for how I ignored you all those years. I promised you a home, but gave you nothing. So now I am building one for you. Here, in the heart of my heart, mi bosque del corazón.”; She smiled. “I am not a skilled builder, but I am doing my best.”;

  “We think it is beautiful.”;

  “Si. Muy bella.”;

  A couple of them did little dances, cloven hooves clicking on the stones. And then they were all dancing around, making up a song about pretty mansions and the prettier señoritas who made them. Bettina laughed and clapped along with their nonsense, finally getting up and dancing with them, yipping at the moon like a cadeja or a coyote.

  When she finally collapsed on her blanket, los cadejos sprawled in little rainbow-furred heaps all around her, still giggling and yipping quietly.

  “Es una cosa buena,”; one of them told her. It is a good thing.

  “Sí, sí.”;

  “Esta casa bella.”;

  They came over and licked her hands or her cheek, one by one, then ran off into the darkened desert, laughter trailing behind them.

  The next day she finished the roof, cutting the ribs to length and lashing them in place with her twine. She made two layers, placing the ribs of the second layer in the troughs made by the first to make it as waterproof as possible, given what she had to work with. Los cadejos came and went during the day, teasing her and telling her jokes. When she quit for the evening, they appeared carrying oranges which they dropped at her feet. She had no idea where they had gone to get them, but was happy to vary her fare.