11

The next day, they traveled as usual, the horse out of habit and Teresa because she wanted to find the wise woman. They were so relieved at the absence of fear that no one brought up the subject. Even the boy seemed unwilling to say the obvious, as if that might bring the wall of smoke back, curling behind them on the path.

Daydreaming about the wise woman, Teresa had even more questions than before. For the first time, she tried to think: where was the wise woman’s village? How far north? What path should they take next? Teresa had thought she would know instinctively how to find that crumbling adobe house—that her vision in the Governor’s barn would tell her where to go. Riding the horse now, she concentrated. She had to work backward through her journey with Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, and the Moor Esteban. Where had they met the Spanish slave hunters and the captain with stumps of rotting teeth? How many leagues was that from the hill where Teresa had listened to the coyote and owl? The phlox had rung like copper bells. The limestone in the earth had hissed with the sound of waves. Somewhere close, a fang-tooth mountain scratched the sky. In truth, all this had happened so long ago. She had been a child. She hadn’t paid attention to distances and forks in the trail.

Where the path divided again, the horse stopped and waited for her decision.

Teresa tried to think—but a sound interrupted her, a human voice high-pitched and female.

Cautious, Teresa did not dismount. “Who’s there? What’s wrong?”

Get ready to run, she told the horse as she tightened her hold on the boy.

The place where they had paused was flat and grassy, a meadow fringed by a row of wind-swept pines growing close together like brush. On the other side of the meadow, the land dropped, with a view that showed a valley of irrigated green and yellow fields. Below, Teresa could see a cluster of houses, part of what she assumed to be a village. The way down to these houses looked steep but well used. The other way continued upward.

The sounds came from the brushy pine trees. Something in them moved as though an animal were struggling, and then a young woman emerged with scratched arms and twigs in her hair. Her stomach protruded, for she was very pregnant. Red designs patterned her bare breasts, and her leather skirt lifted to show strong legs and sandaled feet. Although she looked and dressed like one of the Indians in this area, she spoke Spanish.

“Please help me,” she whimpered, holding her stomach. Her dark eyes shone. “Take me to the village.”

Startled, Teresa lifted the boy down and slid to the ground herself. “Are you ill?” she asked. Where she came from, it was the first question everyone asked.

“No, no,” the woman smiled and then made a sound again. “I am near my time. I want to be in my house.”

Teresa had to wonder why the woman was not in her house now. The woman seemed to understand. “I’ve been gathering herbs for the birth. I misjudged and the pains have come.” Her face twisted. “Please, take me home!”

Unwillingly, Teresa felt sorry for her—and curious. She had never seen a pregnant woman so close. She knew nothing about birthing. Also it seemed they must have left the sarampión behind. This woman, at least, didn’t fear them.

“Can you ride a horse?” she asked, looking doubtfully at the huge belly.

“Oh, yes,” the woman fluttered her hands. “I am fine, for the moment. I can ride, and the boy can ride with me.”

Her dark eyes lingered on Boy, who leaned against Teresa’s leg. Teresa turned to speak with Horse. Would he let the woman ride him?

But the gelding had backed away, his ears pointed forward.

She is not what she says, the horse said to Teresa.

“I can ride,” the woman was saying out loud. “The boy and I can ride, and you can lead us. The path is steep.”

Teresa felt an absence and an alarm, for the boy was no longer leaning against her. She looked down and around, and he was gone! But no, he had only moved away, too, a little distance into the meadow. He also stared suspiciously at the woman.

He knows, the horse said. He can tell. She is a shape-shifter like him.

Like him! Teresa was startled. She is a jaguar?

No, the horse hesitated. Not that. Something else.

The pregnant woman waddled closer. The horse and boy kept moving out of her reach. The boy skirted toward the brushy pine trees, while the horse went in the opposite direction back down the path. Teresa stayed where she was, blocking the woman’s approach.

“What is it?” the woman wailed. Her eyes were wet, her face contorted. “Why won’t you help me?”

“Who are you really?” Teresa rapped out.

The woman gave another cry and dropped to her knees. “Please,” she begged. “I must get to the village. Please!”

Teresa could sense it herself now. Very slightly, the woman’s shape was wrong. And there was something familiar about that wrongness. Teresa had had this bad feeling before. They all had. The curls of black smoke. The black wall of fear.

“Stay away!” she said, her voice shaking. What could she do? She had lost the knife. How could she defend herself or the boy? Teresa looked over at the child, who watched the scene tensely, ready to run. That was good, at least. The boy had his own means of escape. If he were frightened enough, if he were in danger, would he make the change?

On her knees, the pregnant woman lifted her hands in frustration. “Oh!” she half-snarled, half-groaned. Then she grew smoky. She thinned. She blackened. She lengthened. She rearranged herself, swirling into a new shape. Her stomach shrank. Her skin lightened, and her hair fell away. She was bald. Her eyes were blue. His eyes were blue, a pale watery color like evening light. Her leather skirt softened and expanded until it covered his body in a brown woolen cloth, the robes of a monk. The monk knelt in prayer and raised his hands, a gesture of supplication and welcome.

“Teresa,” Fray Tomás said. “Help me. Take me to the village.”

Teresa wanted to weep, something she had not done since her father left her. She wanted to throw her arms around the friar. He wasn’t dead after all. No matter how she had behaved toward him, no matter that she refused to speak or listen, no matter her glares and hard heart, no matter how much she denied him, he had remained her friend. Always kind, always patient. He had watched over her in the Governor’s house. How she missed him. How she loved him. She only realized it now.

“Walk with me to the village,” Fray Tomás said. “You and the boy. We will go down the steep path together.”

Teresa felt even more confused. “But why?” she stammered.

The monk shook his head affectionately, as he had done in the past. “To save their souls, of course. To bring them to Christ. We must meet them with kindness, as they have so often met us lost in the wilderness.”

The words irritated Teresa. Her father had also said that—to her and in his report to the King of Spain. What did it mean really? She didn’t care about saving the souls of the villagers or anyone else. She didn’t care about bringing them to Christ. Of course, Fray Tomás cared about that because he was a monk. Fray Tomás had loved the bleeding heart of Christ and the whitewashed adobe chapel and the comfort of Mass and the boys and girls he had taught to read. Fray Tomás had surely gone to Heaven after he died, and Teresa didn’t begrudge him that. The monk was with his beloved Christ now.

The monk was dead. Teresa remembered his body in the chapel, the black blood leaking from his nose and mouth. In her vision, she had seen his soul slip away, a yellow sheen. This was not Fray Tomás.

Get on my back, the horse urged. I’ll take you away!

Teresa looked for the boy, who had moved even closer to the line of pine trees, far from the monk but also far from the horse.

“Let us get the boy.” Fray Tomás rose from his knees and adjusted his woolen robe. “We will walk together.”

“No,” Teresa shouted as the man took a step toward the child. “Get away from him!”

The horse lifted his front legs and drummed his hooves on the ground.

“Teresa, what is wrong with you?” the friar asked with a deep disappointment in his voice. He lifted a pale hand to brush his bald head and then let the hand drop. He stared at her sorrowfully. “What have I done to offend you?”

“What are you really?” Teresa asked, not expecting an answer. She glanced at the boy and spoke to him urgently, hoping he was old enough to understand. “If you have to run, run. Do what you have to do.”

“Oh!” The monk theatrically shook his fists. “I must get to the village.” He shifted again. He grew smoky, disappearing and reappearing. He became tall and short and tall and short and tall and short and stopped when he was average height, and completely naked. His wide shoulders and chest were those of a man who had once been strong and well muscled, but now his collar bones stuck out like two jutting stones. His ribs looked like the parts of a musical instrument. His stomach curved inward like a hollow bowl. His arms and legs were spiky branches, his gray face hollowed, his hair a wispy cloud. Teresa could see the sores that covered his scalp. They covered his face, too, and ran down the length of his body—rashes, welts, leaking pustules. There was no way to know his race, Spanish or Indian, Mayan or Opata. His eyes glittered. His hands shook.

He was Plague.

His voice sounded harsh from the lesions in his throat and the weakening of his windpipe. “You know who I am,” he said and grinned, his mouth bloody. “Take me to the village!” he commanded.

Teresa found her own voice, “Go!”

The boy turned into the line of pine trees and disappeared.