CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

That evening about eight as Aunt Carmen and I sat before the fire the phone rang. I picked it up, listened a few seconds, then said, “Thanks.”

“Who was that?” she asked as I hobbled back to my chair.

“George Parr.”

“It’s set then?”

I nodded. “Late Thursday afternoon.”

“So be it.”

I sighed. “I’m just so damned sorry to have brought all this trouble down on your head,” I said.

She shook her head. “You’ve brought nothing down on me. Where there is life, there is trouble.”

“Still—”

“No! Listen to me this one time and for once accept what I tell you. It will be all right. We are safe here.”

I smiled at her and asked, “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Certainly. Hasn’t it always been true?”

“I suppose so,” I admitted.

“And it always will be.”

I said nothing. I really didn’t know how to reply. She stared at me for a few moments, the expression on her face close to exasperation. “Virgil, ownership is a sort of fiction when it comes to land. We no more own this ranch than it owns us. If you love the land and treat it with respect, it will take care of you.”

“What? La Espirita de La Rosa?” I asked with a smile. “You think the spirit of the ranch itself will rise up and smite our adversaries?”

“Perhaps,” she replied softly.

I regarded her with bemusement. She knew as much equine and bovine medicine as many veterinarians, to say nothing of her grasp of scientific stock breeding. She read good books, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, the San Antonio paper, and kept up with world affairs. Yet there was no doubt in my mind that she was serious.

“You’ve got that faraway look in your eyes,” I said. “Just like you had back when I was a little kid and you told me about Santa Muerte eating the souls of the wicked. That scared the hell out of me, you know. That, and your almost going into a damn trance when you talked about it.”

She took no offense at my teasing. “Think what you wish. The time will come when you know that what I say is true. Which is why you are so important to the continuation of the family. All that we possess, we received in trust, and we must pass it on. We must.”

“But for how long? Surely you don’t expect this ranch to be in the family a thousand years from now.”

“And why not?” she asked, her eyes full of fire. “Some of the great estates in Spain have lasted at least that long. And there’s certainly no disgrace in trying.”

“Provided we’re alive a week from now,” I said.

“We will be. You’ve spoken with Alonzo?”

“Yes,” I said. “If Walsh has any sense at all he’ll realize that he’s out of his element down here.”

“Either way, it’s in the hands of God.”

I decided then to broach a subject that had been on my mind ever since I’d come home. “Tía Carmen?” I asked.

“Sí?”

“Since you mentioned things being in God’s hands, I want you to do something for me.”

“If I can, I will.”

“From now on, every time you go to mass, I want you to light a candle and say a prayer that a boy named Sam Riddle will get safely back home from the war. Will you do that?”

“Certainly. I take it he’s the son of the people who helped you?”

I nodded.

She looked at me for a few moments, her eyes soft. “You surprise me, Virgil. You haven’t been to church in so many years that I assumed you’d stopped believing anything at all.”

“Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. I’m not even sure I know myself. But you believe and maybe God will honor that.”

She nodded. “I will pray for this boy. And I pray for all the boys we know who’re in the service. I pray for them all the while knowing that some of them won’t make it.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes, saying nothing, both lost in our own thoughts. Then I laid my book aside. “Tía Carmen, do you have any idea why Alonzo had to flee Mexico?” I asked.

“Sí,” she replied with a nod. “He killed a highly placed police official who had raped Helena.”

“Really?”

She nodded grimly. “In Mexico back in those days it was not uncommon for a strongman to set himself up as the virtual dictator of some town and then rule for a few weeks or months until he was overthrown by someone even stronger. One such individual was a captain in the federales. Helena was very beautiful when she was young, and she caught his eye. At first he tried to seduce her, but being a virtuous woman, she refused him. So he simply took what he wanted.”

“How did Alonzo kill him?”

She shuddered a little and looked away. “I don’t want to speak about that. I don’t even want to remember it.”

“What’s Alonzo’s last name?”

“De Alejandro.”

“De Alejandro, eh?” I asked musingly.

“Sí,” she said.

“I’ll be dammed. I’ve known him all my life and never knew his last name until now. He never told me, and somehow it never seemed important to ask.”

“Many generations back his ancestors were Castillian gentry. Then afterward, he fled north to La Rosa, and he and his family have been safe here ever since. Just as you will be if you love the land and treat it with respect.”