El Muerto’s Godson

Evey Brett

 

 

I DO NOT REMEMBER THE night my father took me out onto the road, though I heard the tale many times as I grew. The tall saguaro cacti watched like sentinels and the desert air was damp with the threat of rain. Owls and coyotes made an uneasy chorus while my father held me against his chest, full of despair.

“Thirteen,” he muttered. “Twelve children I can handle, but thirteen is too many! I already work day and night just to put bread on the table. No, no, this one must go; I will give him to the first godfather I can find.”

We were out on the road for some time when there came a man on a white horse, his jacket embroidered with fine silver thread and inlaid with pearls. In the moonlight, he sparkled so brilliantly he might have been one of the stars come to earth.

“Please, sir,” my father said, “I love my child, but I have twelve others to feed. Can you find it in your heart to be a padrino to this one?”

The man gazed down at me with nothing but love in his expression. “I would be honored to do as you ask, señor. I will hold this child at his christening and see that he is happy upon the earth.”

Something in the words made my father wary. “Who are you?”

“I am the master of the heavens,” he said. “The creator of all.”

“Then I change my mind,” my father said stubbornly, and gripped me hard enough that I squirmed. “You reward the rich while leaving the poor to starve.”

And so saying, my father turned his back and continued down the road.

A second horse came thundering up, this one sleek and wild with a hide as red as blood. The caballero astride him was handsome and dashing in a short coat of black studded with crimson jewels. My father repeated his plea, and this man said, “Of course I will take your child. I will shower him with gifts and riches, the likes of which you cannot imagine.”

This, too, raised my father’s suspicions. “Who are you?”

“El Diablo,” he said with a grin that lit a fire in his eyes.

My father hugged me close. “Then I do not choose you, for you are a liar and a deceiver.”

El Diablo just laughed, and rode away as madly as he’d come. My father stood stiffly on the road, anger mixing with misery. He could not keep me, yet he was losing hope of finding me a suitable guardian.

And then, so stealthily we did not hear him approach until he was upon us, came a third man. He wore gray, such a dusty, light color that he was nearly lost in the night. His steed was a sturdy, dappled gelding that reminded me of my father’s plow horse.

“I will take your child,” he said in a voice that rasped like dead leaves. “I am El Muerto. In my eyes, all are equal, and he who has me as a friend lacks for nothing.”

At this, my father’s hope rekindled once more. “Then I choose you, for you make no distinction between rich and poor. The christening will be Sunday at noon; will you come?”

“I will,” said El Muerto, and he kept his promise.

The adobe church was tiny, barely large enough to fit my family along with the priest. If any wondered who my strange padrino was, they did not ask.

Afterwards, my padrino cradled me in his arm and carried me outside. As he did, the storms broke, bringing the life-giving rain to the desert and giving me a baptism of a different sort.

And thus I began my apprenticeship.

 

 

“FOR EVERY LIFE, THERE IS a death,” was the first lesson I was taught. “And for every death, a life.”

My padrino would take me out into the desert and show me everything, from hawks and coyotes preying on hares to buzzards and maggots feasting on the corpses. I saw snakes eating lizards, and once, a kingsnake battled with a rattlesnake, twisting and writhing until it managed to swallow the rattler whole.

I witnessed births as well, from the summer rains bringing forth seedlings and drawing toads from their year-long slumber to mate and find puddles in which to lay eggs that would become toads in a matter of days. Doves and woodpeckers tended their young in their nests. Sometimes the babies lived to fly. Sometimes a falcon or snake got them first.

Never a harsh word did my padrino speak, and never did I fear him. Life and death were one, an endless cycle that he worked to keep in balance with some algorithm that I did not yet understand, but assumed that one day I would.

Later on, he took me with him to sickbeds where doctors worked to heal their patients. Sometimes they managed; often, they didn’t. As I grew, I had a keen sense of awareness. I had but to glance at a person to know what ailed them, and if they might live or die. The strange thing was, none of those near death did anything about it.

“Padrino,” I asked one day, “don’t they know they’re going to die? Can’t they feel it?”

He shook his head. “Few are so aware. When you’re of age I will teach you, more about it. For now, just watch and listen and learn.”

So I did.

Over the years my childish fascination grew to keen understanding. And while my mind changed and adapted, so did my body. I began to have lurid dreams, and while the resulting reactions did not frighten me, I found them disconcerting. I was a man, after all. I’d seen animals rut and create a new life.

But I was also different, and not just because El Muerto was my godfather.

He was old beyond measure, and if he ever felt a young man’s stirrings, he had forgotten them long ago. When I overcame my embarrassment enough to ask him, he said nothing but took me with him on one of his nightly journeys, making sure no one saw us.

I witnessed girls laughing and flirting with boys who tumbled them in the hay. There were the working women of the pueblo, the ones who gave themselves to the soldiers in exchange for money. Other men beat their wives into submission, caring little for their protests in the bedroom. And, thankfully, there were the married couples who were truly in love, and treated each other tenderly when they offered up their bodies.

And last, we came upon a pair of vaqueros alone guarding a herd of cattle. They were both naked, entwined on a saddle blanket and rutting the way I’d seen a stallion do with a mare; thrusting and grunting and making odd moaning noises.

My heart skipped, and I felt a strange tingling within me that had not happened with the other couples. Longing stirred, and with it, my cock.

Cheeks flaming, I turned away so my padrino could not see the result of my excitement. Even so, he must have noticed, because he said, “There are many kinds of love.”

Feeling mollified that he thought me neither strange nor unnatural, I asked, “Have you ever loved anyone so?”

He was silent for a long, long time before he said, “Once.”

But no matter my pleading, he would not say more. I wondered who he might have loved, and who could have loved El Muerto.

 

A FEW NIGHTS LATER, HE took me on another journey, this time to a secluded grotto at the base of the black mountains. There was a pool there, fed by water bubbling up through the earth. Around its edge grew an herb I’d never before seen; it had small, pointed leaves and sported tiny white flowers.

“What I show you is our secret, and to be used in our work and only as I bid you. Do you understand?”

I nodded, wondering what this was. My padrino was rarely so grave. “I do.”

He plucked a few sprigs of the herb. “With this, the hierba vida, I give you the gift that is your destiny. You will be a curandero, a healer. And when you are called to a patient’s bedside, I will be there. If I am at the head of the bed, you may give the patient this herb and they will be well. If I am at the foot, you will say that all remedies are in vain, and the patient cannot be saved. And beware of using the hierba vida against my wishes lest ill befall you.”

“Sí, Padrino.” Never before had I gone against my guardian; I could not dream of anything that would make me do so.

He taught me how to prepare the hierba vida, by drying it then crushing it into a fine powder that could be mixed with either water or wine. A sip or two would be sufficient. Under his supervision, I prepared a batch and kept it in a small gourd that served as a flask. I ached to try it, to see what would happen, but I knew better than to disobey my padrino.

He found me a hut at the edge of the pueblo, one with just enough room for myself, my medicines, and a patient, who was not long in coming. The pueblo had a physician trained in Madrid, but many either could not afford him or were too shy to ask such a well-dressed man for help.

My first was a shy little girl who simply held out her reddened hand, which I guessed had been burned in a fire. This I did not need my padrino for; I knew well enough which medicaments would heal without resorting to the hierba vida. So I tended her wound and bade her be more careful around the cookfire. She mumbled something in thanks and handed me a pretty green stone she must have found while out playing. I smiled and set it on a shelf so I could be reminded of my first patient.

Soon after, a man about my age arrived at my door, breathless. “It’s my wife. She just gave birth, but she’s ill. And so hot ....”

I grabbed the gourd of hierba vida and followed him through the pueblo until we reached a small adobe house. Inside, a basket with a swaddled infant sat beside a bed on which a young woman twisted and thrashed, face covered in sweat. To my relief, my padrino stood at the head of the bed.

My hand shook as I held the gourd to the woman’s lips. She batted at me and refused to drink; I bade the husband to hold her arms while I steadied her head and trickled the medicine down her throat.

I waited for one long breath. Two. And I began to fear that I had done something wrong in preparing the herb, or worse, that my padrino had lied to me about its efficacy.

Then, with a gasp so sudden and loud that I jumped, she went limp and relaxed into a normal sleep. I put a hand on her forehead. The fever had broken.

“It’s a miracle,” the husband said, and kissed me on the cheek. I was pleased; more than pleased. I checked the infant over as a precaution, and was soon certain that both mother and child would be well and healthy.

My next patient, however, was not so fortunate.

“Please come, señor,” said the young farmer twisting his straw hat in his hands. “It’s my brother. There’s been a terrible accident.”

There was no time to saddle my own horse, so I clung to him as we rode, ending up at a farmstead. I saw the blood trailing from the field and into the house, and thought if my patient were still alive it would be a miracle.

The family had gathered around his bed, weeping. My patient was young, not even sixteen.

I peeled away the cloths pressed against the grievous scythe wound in his leg and knew, even before I saw my padrino standing at the foot of the bed, he would die.

“Send for a priest,” I told the brother. “There is nothing I or anyone can do for him.”

The brother ran, and the priest arrived mere moments before my patient succumbed to his injury. I snuck out, pained and aggrieved.

Even though I had acted rightly, the loss stung. The hierba vida could have staunched the blood and saved him.

“It was his time,” my padrino said, and I did not argue, however much my pride stung. “For every life that goes, another takes its place.”

“But how do you decide whose time is up?”

“I don’t decide. I simply know.”

The answer frustrated rather than helped. Try as I might, I could not make sense of who lived and who died. There were the elderly who had lived a good life, although some were ready to leave their ailing bodies but could not. Others were children stricken with fevers or consumption, fighting valiantly to live while their bodies grew too broken to continue.

One night, after I’d been forced to let a man die of a snakebite, I railed at my padrino. “Don’t you care who lives and who dies? The wife has lost a husband. She loved him deeply, and now will pine for him. Have you no pity, no compassion?”

He didn’t answer, but simply faded into the darkness as was his habit. Usually, I let him go, needing time to myself, but this time I followed him, desperate for some answers to the questions plaguing me.

One of my many lessons had been stealth; I employed it now, staying just far enough behind him so that he would not detect me. We traveled through the desert, the air scented with creosote and hot stone. The unyielding heat of the day remained, even after dark.

We went up a rocky hill until it leveled out into a mesa overlooking the pueblo. I figured this must be some vantage point of his, where he could watch the people pass below and count the days they had left. I’d never been here before and hadn’t even realized there was a usable path to the top.

I crouched behind a boulder while my padrino stood, quiet and contemplative. Anger flashed within me; how dare he lecture me on life and death yet be so callous to the anguish of others?

I was ready to confront him, to call him on his deception when he made a choked, strangled noise.

El Muerto was weeping.

The sight twisted through my gut, filling me with shame. I turned away, having intruded on something too personal, too intimate. I was so used to his passivity in all things that this display of emotion utterly unnerved me.

I dared not move until long after he left, then, gathering my courage, went to inspect the area that had undone him. There was naught to mark the place but a few stones, but even so, I knew it was a grave.

A pang struck my chest. How strange to think that El Muerto had once loved someone and still mourned, yet, the revelation filled me with resolve. I didn’t want to be like him, to wander through the years alone and pining.

I wanted a living lover of my own.

 

ONE DAY I WAS PASSING through the market on my way to the tavern with a delivery when I couldn’t help but sense the excitement rippling through those gathered in the plaza. “Don Lorenzo has returned!” I heard, although I wasn’t sure who he was.

I went inside the tavern, already bustling with soldiers and caballeros drinking and eating heartily. Juan, the owner welcomed me with a smile as I handed him the bottle of medicine to give to his wife, who was still recovering from a fever.

“Gracias, señor,” he said, sliding a cup of wine to me. “Please. On the house. Just arrived from California.”

I thanked him. I turned to face the crowd, leaning idly against the bar when I saw him: a finely dressed man with a sword strapped to his belt and a stomach so large that I would not have been able to wrap my arms around it. He sat at a table with two companions, helping himself to a full plate of venison, rice, beans, and fresh tortillas.

My amazement must have been obvious, because Juan said, “That is Don Lorenzo, Don Esteban’s son.”

The name clicked into place. Don Esteban was a wealthy caballero, having made his money from cattle and could afford to send his son away for schooling. To me, the son had returned much the better for it. That Don Lorenzo was fond of food was obvious; he was far larger than the other men in the pueblo, yet I could also sense his health and vitality.

My loins quickened, and I turned away, suddenly shy. I was no stranger to bodies and their workings, yet none of my patients had elicited such a reaction before.

Juan put on a mischievous smile, took my arm, and led me over to the table. “Don Lorenzo, may I be so bold as to introduce our curandero? Many of the people say he works miracles. I will vouch for him; he saved my Magdalena from a fever.”

“Perhaps he can cure what ails you,” one of the companions said with a jab to Don Lorenzo’s ribs.

I gave a slight bow, hoping it would hide the flush in my skin. “At your service, Don Lorenzo, though please, do not bestow upon me the gifts that belong to the gods.”

“Ah, he’s humble, too,” said Don Lorenzo with a grin. “A pleasure to meet you, my friend. I have just returned from my schooling in Madrid, and while I have not been home long, I have heard much about you.”

I bowed again, wondering what strange spell this stranger had cast on me to leave me trembling and unsure.

“Come to the hacienda this evening. I have a complaint that no physician has been able to remedy; perhaps you will be more successful.”

“Of course,” I said. “I am at your service.”

He clapped a hand on my arm, which sent a jolt through my body. When he let go, I felt weak and dizzy and had to grab a nearby chair to steady myself.

I don’t think Don Lorenzo noticed; he’d already returned his attention to his meal and friends. I felt an unwelcome pang of jealously and was taken by a sudden image of being dressed in a fine suit and proud to sit next to such a handsome man.

Then I tossed it away. I was a curandero, and such thoughts were not professional. I had my job to do, and I could not let my own desires get in the way of my patient.

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

 

 

A SERVANT MET ME AT the door of the hacienda and led me to the drawing room where Don Lorenzo waited.

“Come,” he said, and gestured at me to follow. “I would prefer privacy.”

He led me into his room, which was as elegantly furnished as the rest of the house, and at least twice the size of my home. A carafe of wine sat on a small table alongside a plate of peaches and pears.

My padrino was not present, which gave me a measure of relief. This visit was not about a life or death ailment. What, then?

Once inside, he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled it off, breathing a sigh of relief as he did so. Sweat stained his linen shirt. “Forgive me. It’s this damnable heat. I’ve never gotten used to it.”

I kept my eyes averted, too aware of the excitement coursing through me. I could not lose control of myself. Not here, not now.

We made courteous small talk, and I spent some time examining him, checking his pulse, looking into his eyes and throat. I did not get a sense of anything overtly wrong, but whatever ailed him, Don Lorenzo was too embarrassed or too ashamed to admit.

That is, until he said, “I have seen many beautiful women, some whom expressed a desire to be my wife, and yet I feel nothing for them. I have accompanied my friends to brothels, but I find I am … unable to act as a man should.”

He paused, having to take a deep breath before continuing.

“The physicians have given me countless remedies. Some say I ought to lose weight, and I have tried, to no avail. So now I beg of you, a humble curandero. What ails me? Why can I not be a man?”

Dios was cruel, taunting me this way. I strove to be professional, to keep my longings at bay, but I found it difficult. The answer to his complaint was as clear to me as a cloudless summer day, yet I had to approach it carefully. “Have you ever shared a bed with another man?”

“I did while I was at boarding school, but it was only in jest. Play. The kinds of things boys will do. When the headmaster found out, he whipped us.”

“And, these times of play…did your manhood function then?”

There was a long, empty moment before his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Yes.”

I said nothing, waiting for him to come to his own conclusion.

He did, suddenly startling. “Dios. Is that why—with women—nothing happens? Because I like boys?”

I didn’t miss the note of panic. “Boys … or men?”

He became quite still as he pondered this information. At last, he said, “I had wondered for some time. This is not a new revelation, only an unwelcome one.”

“There is no shame in it, and you are far from unique in this matter.”

“No. I suppose not.” After a while, he gave me an odd, piercing look. “You’re like me, aren’t you?”

“It makes no difference. I am here as your curandero, and I mean to …” My voice caught.

“Mean to what?”

My heart pounded, making me dizzy. I could not think. I, who knew so well how bodies worked and what they needed, suddenly became a slave to mine.

Outside, thunder rumbled. A few raindrops fell, then more until they became a steady beating on the roof.

“There,” Don Lorenzo said, “now your departure must be delayed, unless you want a thorough soaking.”

I should have gone anyway. A voice inside my head told me to flee, to leave before this vague sense of dread took hold.

“The servants won’t come, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’ve bidden them to go to bed, and they won’t disturb us until morning.” He came to me and fiddled with the laces on my shirt.

I pulled back, suddenly shy.

“Haven’t you …?” he asked.

There was no way to explain the sort of isolated, cautious childhood I’d had. “No.”

He laughed. “But you want to.”

I could not answer. I dared not.

“Come,” he said, taking my hand. “Cure me of what ails me.”

He peeled off his shirt, exposing the rolls of flesh I’d been longing to see. A fine black mat of hair went from navel to chest, and at the sight of it, I lost the last of my inhibitions.

I ran my fingers through his chest hair, breathing in the scent of his sweat. He wasted no time in yanking my shirt over my head and running his hands over my skin.

“Yes,” he said, and it was almost a growl in my ear. “I think you’re right, curandero. It’s the men that call to my manhood, not the women. Shall we continue, just to make sure?”

He kissed me, long and hard and deep, and I tasted the remnants of wine on his tongue.

Gently, he lifted me onto the bed where he busied himself unbuttoning my pants and yanking them off, spying for the first time since I was a child what no one other than my padrino had seen. I lay there, vulnerable, while he shed his pants and let me see the cock jutting forth between his ample thighs.

I sat up and grasped it, fascinated by the way it stiffened in my hand and how the lightest touch made Don Lorenzo moan with ecstasy.

Too soon he tugged at my legs until they were spread wide around his waist. He spat liberally on his fingers then reached down to my asshole. One finger slid in, then two, teasing some inner point that shot fire through my loins as he readied me for the inevitable.

And when it came, I let out a cry of utter pleasure. I’d spent so long worrying about bodies that were ill and broken that I’d never guessed what a healthy one, let alone my own, was capable of.

After the initial climax and a bit of rest, we tried again, going more slowly. I took my time exploring his body, marveling at the structure of his muscles and the folds of skin. I’d healed any number of hurts to men, and thought I knew their bodies well, but here, with neither shame nor my profession to hide behind, I discovered new, unimagined points of both pain and pleasure.

When it was my turn, he spread me wide on the bed and went over every inch of me with lips and hands. He was a large man, bud he did not lack for strength. When he tucked me beneath him, he was careful not to let his full weight rest on me.

The closeness was sheer, utter bliss. I’d never known feelings like this were possible; certainly not from my padrino, who always guarded what few emotions he had. Even after witnessing others in the midst of passion, I had not guessed what they were truly feeling.

Now I knew, and I did not want this newfound happiness to stop.

 

 

WHEN I RETURNED HOME, MY padrino waited for me. I was still full of energy and exuberance, eager to tell him of the new pleasure I’d found.

But I had no need to tell him, after all.

“Be careful,” he said. “Some lives are shorter than others.”

Would that I had heeded his words, but I, being young and in the first throes of love, paid them no mind at all.

 

 

TWO DAYS LATER I WAS summoned back to the hacienda, not for Don Lorenzo, but for his father, Don Esteban.

The pueblo doctor gave me a look of impatience as I strode into the sickroom, though he left without complaint when Don Lorenzo dismissed him.

I knew the diagnosis, of course; it was easy to tell from the old man’s blue-tinted lips and harsh breathing. I pulled Don Lorenzo aside. “It’s his heart.”

“So the physician said. Is there nothing you can do?”

I glance back at the bed. There my padrino stood at the foot, gazing down at Don Esteban. “No. Nothing. He will not last the night.”

I had rarely seen a man weep, but Don Lorenzo did. “I’ve only just returned. I don’t know enough about the hacienda. I love him; I’m not ready to let him go.”

And because he was pained, so was I. I sensed his grief, felt it wash over me like a summer storm. Guilt followed soon after. The cure rested in my pocket. I had but to give Don Esteban a dose of the hierba vida, and he would heal.

But there my padrino stood, and I had promised to obey him. As long as he stood at the foot of the bed, my patient must be allowed to die.

And there, like a spark to tinder, I had an idea. “Help me turn the bed.”

Don Lorenzo gazed at me, uncomprehending.

“Just do it.”

It took both of us, as well as two servants, to shift the heavy wooden bed and its occupant, but we managed. Now, my padrino stood at the head of the bed.

Quickly, I dosed Don Esteban with the hierba vida and fussed over him enough to disguise what I’d done. It didn’t take long for color to return to his face and his breathing to return to normal.

“You’ve done it!” Don Lorenzo threw his arms around me, and his relief sunk into my bones. “You are a miracle worker.” Then, into my ear so no one else could hear, he whispered, “I love you.”

 

 

“YOU DECEIVED ME,” MY PADRINO said when I returned home. His raspy voice held an uncharacteristic edge of steel, and I froze. “It was Don Esteban’s time to die, yet you took it upon yourself to trick me so he did not. Why?”

I had the feeling he knew, and I felt ashamed. Don Lorenzo loved his father deeply, and I could not bear to cause him pain.

“You tamper with the natural order of things. Old men die. Sometimes the young do too. It is the way of life. Have you learned nothing?”

“Si, Padrino,” I said, chastened. “But Don Esteban is a good man, loved by his people. He takes care of his workers and treats them well. His son—,” here I choked, thinking of the night we’d shared, “—his son needs his father to guide him into manhood. There is much love between them.”

My reasoning did not sway my padrino. “One mistake I will grant you, for you are my ahijado, my godson. But break your promise again, and I will take your life myself.”

“Si, Padrino.”

I had no doubt he meant what he said. For the first time, I feared my guardian, who had never once gone back on his word.

 

 

THE POUNDING AT MY DOOR woke me from a sound sleep. I rose quickly, wondering what sort of emergency had arrived, and pulled open the door.

Don Lorenzo stood there, a saddlebag over one shoulder, fine clothes askew, breathing hard. “My father lives, and I have you to thank for it.”

He shut the door and bolted it. I was not afraid, although I sensed the wildness within him. He quickly shed his sword belt and stripped off his shirt. I had only a moment to think before he thrust me against the wall and rucked up my nightshirt, exposing the cock that rose eagerly to meet his hand.

Then he was on his knees, hands tangled in fabric, nuzzling between my legs, taking my length into the wet heat of his mouth. I groaned at the sensation.

Just when I thought I could hold back no longer, he released me and flung me onto the bed sideways, so my legs dangled off the side. Hands grabbed my buttocks and pried them apart, making way for his tongue and, moments later, his cock.

His belly slapped my ass as he drove into me harder, faster, until I thought I might expire from desperation. His thick fingers gripped my waist so hard as to bruise, but I welcomed the pain.

He came with a howl that rivaled any coyote I’d ever heard. While still pulsing inside me, he pulled me close and reached down to grasp my cock, rough hand sliding up and down the shaft until my body convulsed in release.

“Don’t leave,” he told me when it was over and I splayed over his belly, taking in the warmth. “I need you, more than you know.”

I twirled a finger in his chest hair. “I have my duties to the people and …
elsewhere.”

He grabbed my hair and jerked my head back, leaving me no choice but to accept his kiss. His tongue slid between my teeth and I shuddered at the invasion. “I love you.”

The words stunned me, yet I felt answering warmth deep in my chest. “I love you, too.”

He grinned. I should have known he would not arrive empty-handed. From his saddlebag he withdrew a veritable feast; tortillas, dried beef, pears, apples, cherries, and fried bread along with a jar of honey. We shared a meal, with him taking great pleasure in dangling a bite above my mouth before feeding me and watching for my enjoyment. I was used to simpler meals, and these treats were a welcome addition.

He left just after sunrise. I watched him go, aching, wanting him back. With him, my loneliness had eased, and I began to consider happiness rather than mere contentment.

But such things were not meant to last.

Not for the godson of El Muerto.

 

 

A MONTH LATER, I GOT word that Don Lorenzo had fallen from his horse.

It was Don Esteban himself who rode out to fetch me. “You are known throughout the pueblo for working miracles,” he said. “You must come and provide one for my son.”

I grabbed my bag and headed out, riding hard beside Don Esteban.

But when I arrived, my padrino stood at the foot of Don Lorenzo’s bed, expression neutral as he gazed down at him.

I ignored him and examined my patient anyway, desperately seeking a means to cure him that meant I need not use the hierba vida, but my hope quickly died. Don Lorenzo must have hit his head on a rock when he’d fallen, because there was a deep gash in the back of his skull. I tugged open his eyelids, only to see the pupils fixed and dilated.

“Please,” Don Esteban wailed. “Save my son as you did me!”

“Por favor, Padrino,” I said so only my guardian could hear. “Please change your mind. Do not take him.”

But my padrino gave no answer. I knew it was foolish to ask; not once in all the years I’d known him had he been swayed by tears, pleas, or love. I thought now of his warning: Some lives are shorter than others.

He’d known my lover was going to die, and had done nothing.

“Please!” Don Esteban said again. “Just save him, and I will give you anything you desire. Money, a fine estate, a place here, at my son’s side.”

His offer cut with a pang. I wanted nothing more than to be Don Lorenzo’s companion. He would have to father a son, at some point, to carry on the family name and hand down lands, but otherwise he could be mine. We would ride together, care for the estate during the day and make love at night. I wanted his body against mine; heavy flesh snug and warm.

I looked once more at my padrino, who cared for his duty and for the life and death of every living creature, but who understood nothing about love. If he did, how could he allow so many terrible deaths to happen? His face remained passive as he waited patiently for Don Lorenzo to die.

Then, in a sudden fury, I pulled the sheets from the corners of the mattress and tugged and tugged until I got Don Lorenzo turned fully around. The servants and Don Esteban must have thought me mad, but I didn’t care. Now that his head was at the foot of the bed, my padrino was at the end meant for healing.

I dared wait no longer; I thrust the gourd of hierba vida between Don Lorenzo’s lips.

A heartbeat passed. Another. And another.

Don Lorenzo gave a great, deep sigh and opened his eyes.

The moment he did, El Muerto grabbed my wrist in his icy fingers and yanked me into the night.

 

 

THERE WAS A SICKENING SENSE of disorientation, a swirl of blackness, then flickering brightness that caused me to blink. When I could see once more, I found that I was in a huge cave filled with hundreds of thousands of candles lined up in neat rows. Some were tall and burning well, others so low as to be nearly sputtering. Here and there lights went out, only to spring up elsewhere on fresh tapers. I dared not move, lest I commit some infraction.

Yet my padrino moved among them effortlessly, causing no breeze to threaten the flames. “Do you know what these are, ahijado?”

I shook my head, still stunned by the abrupt transition from sickroom to cave.

“These are lives. Here,” he pointed to a lengthy candle, “is a child, just born yesterday. And here,” he gestured to one nearly burned out, “is an old woman with a mere handful of days left.”

It made sense, now that he knew where and when to appear in a sickroom. “Which is mine?” I asked, expecting to have one of the taller candles, or at the very least, one half-burned.

Instead, my padrino gestured at a candle sputtering in melted wax.

“Ai, Padrino,” I said. “I have only just discovered love. I risked your anger for the well-being of another. Would you see my life cut so short?”

“I warned you. From the first day I showed you the hierba vida, you knew not to disobey me.”

Even so, I was hurt beyond measure that my guardian would take my life himself rather than make an exception. “After all this time, I have served you well, cared for you, done as you bid. I have asked for nothing. Will you not grant me this one favor?”

“You are but one brief life among so many.”

I could not believe he was so truly lacking in compassion. “I know you have been at your duty for years beyond count. You’ve treated me with kindness and patience, and although you seem to be passive and indifferent in all your actions, I know you are not incapable of feeling something deeper.”

Frightened, desperate, I played the one card I had left. “I saw you one night, up on the mesa. You wept as I have seen few men do. It could only have been for love, for someone lost to you forever.”

His pale eyes flashed, and I could see him struggling to maintain his equilibrium.

“I am your ahijado. Do you not love me as well? I, who have been your only family? Light another for me. Let me be with my beloved. Let us live a happy life together.” I was pleading, and hating myself for it. “You know the pain of loss. Don’t wish that upon me as well.”

At last, he slumped, and I could see defeat written in his gaunt form. “I cannot light another for you.”

My heart sank. “Is there nothing you can do?”

He went down a row of candles and lifted one that was half burned. “This is your Don Lorenzo.”

I watched, perplexed, as he took a wick and threaded it carefully into the melted wax of the candle.

“Once I join yours to it, the candle will burn twice as fast. And when at last it is extinguished, you will die together. This much, I can give you.”

Relief and gratitude made me giddy. “Thank you, Padrino.”

I kissed him on his papery cheek, filled with affection and relief. “I swear, on my life, that I will never deceive you again.”

“No. You will not.” He spoke with such finality that there was no chance of argument.

Heart pounding, I watched as he lifted the remnants of my sputtering candle to the new wick in Don Lorenzo’s. The flame caught, flared, and I had one moment of intense brightness and warmth before the cave fell away …

… and I came to on the road leading to Don Esteban’s hacienda.

 

I NEVER BREATHED A WORD to Don Lorenzo of what had passed in the cave. It would benefit no one, and it was no kindness to a man to know that his life had been cut short.

Don Esteban, true to his word, made me welcome in his hacienda and provided me with a workshop to create and mix whatever medicines I needed, although I kept my little adobe home near the pueblo so patients could visit me there. And if the servants or Don Esteban had any issue with Don Lorenzo and I sharing rooms, none spoke of it. That is, other than an occasional lament from Don Esteban about wanting grandchildren.

This, too, was solved when I was sent to the bedside of a family newly arrived from Spain but stricken with smallpox. The parents passed on, but their son, a healthy two year old, survived, and Don Lorenzo was given leave to adopt him. Don Esteban happily acted as grandparent, and took the child with him on rides around the estate.

“I need not fret about a son now,” Don Lorenzo told me one night in bed. I was tucked up against him, comforted by his bulk. “All will be well, as long as we are together.”

I had no doubt of that, although I always kept an eye on the foot of the bed, watching for my padrino.

 

 

EVERY SO OFTEN I WENT back to the base of the black mountains to that small, beautiful grotto. I’d kept that secret as I had so many others, and was just gathering the herbaria vida when I felt my padrino nearby.

“Is it time?”

“Not yet. But soon.”

Soon, to him, might mean ten days or ten years. Either way, I was content.

I stood to face him. “Thank you. For everything.”

We’d had little chance to speak over the past few years, despite the number of times I saw him at a bedside. He hadn’t changed; still faded and thin, yet his finely embroidered coat showed not the slightest hole or loose thread.

“Ahijado.”

From his tone, I knew he had something serious to speak of. So I waited, puzzled and curious.

“I did love, once. Her name was Lucia. She knew me for who I was and did not fear me, but her candle was short, her flame so brief. I did nothing to help her and I’ve regretted it every day since. You, I do not regret.”

It was the closest he would come to expressing his love and affection for me, and I accepted it as it was. “Gracias, Padrino.”

His fingers brushed my cheek, and then he was gone.

Perhaps a month later, I returned home after tending to a patient to see Don Lorenzo seated by the fire. A plate of food rested on a table beside him, but it worried me to see it only half finished.

Taking his hand in mine, I asked, “Are you well?”

“Never better.” He rested his other hand on his ample stomach. His belly hadn’t shrunk with age; if anything, it had grown, and I loved him all the better for it.

“Come to bed. It’s late.”

He came with me, straining more than usual to climb the stairs. His breaths were harsh and he lacked the strength to undress himself, so I did it for him, then bade him lie down.

As the godson of El Muerto, I knew, of course, but I did not fear.

I made love to him that night, slowly, tenderly, taking in every part of him, whispering sweet words into his ears. He smiled, contented, and drifted into sleep.

In the hour before dawn, my padrino came to the foot of the bed. There were no more tricks, no deceptions. He held out his hand and I went to him, grateful for a life well-lived and well-loved.