19

Teresa rose up again toward the surface, the hot desert floor. Again she listened for the footsteps of the two Opata hunters, the hard hooves of the gelding. She glided back and forth underground, straining to hear and understand what she was hearing. There, yes. That was Horse. And there were the two hunters, walking faster now, for they had used up all their water and food and didn’t want to spend another night in the desert. They wanted to reach the village by dark.

Teresa had to think about what to do. Under the Opatas’ quickening feet, she glided and hovered and plotted, not wanting to get too far ahead or too far behind. The hunters had to be in the exact right place. She had to do this exactly right.

Finally they were where she wanted them to be—where two monstrous slabs of rock almost-rubbed against each other, where the almost-shuddering space ran just below the surface of the ground. Here in this gap, the two parts longed to touch and did not dare touch. The two parts created a tension, a pulling back and forth. What did these great slabs of rock want? What was pushing them away? What was pushing them together? Questions had gathered. The rocks almost-shuddered with energy. They were almost-alive with energy. They shouted over and over in their great rock voice: What Should We Do?

And Teresa put her mouth to the almost-shuddering slabs of rock and told them what to do. Move, she said.

The rocks were still, as always, and then they moved. One slab buckled sideways. The other slab crushed against it, grinding in the opposite direction. The energy was released. The questions met, and the gap closed, sending a wave of excitement in every direction. For a second, the rocks were alive, a second of explosive joy, and then they were rock again.

Teresa flew up to the surface, where everything had occurred in the best possible way—as much as she had dared to hope. In the earthquake, the two Opatas had been thrown to the ground. One was unconscious with a bloodied head. The other looked dazed, half-sitting. A crack had opened next to him, a jagged dividing line, the Opatas on one side and Plague and Horse on the other.

Teresa came partly out of the earth, near where the hunters lay in shock and pain. Run, she told Horse. Can you run away?

The gelding was badly frightened, and his front legs reared. Plague looked startled, too, barely holding on to the end of the rope. With satisfaction, Teresa saw Horse jerk so violently now that Plague lost control of him. The horse rose up again on his back legs, wheeling and turning. Run! Teresa shouted. Run, run! Her voice seemed to energize the animal further, and he galloped away for his very life. Every step weakened Plague’s power over him. With every step, the animal grew stronger, and his mind cleared.

Meanwhile Teresa grabbed the hand of one unconscious Opata and the hand of the other dazed Opata and pulled at them as hard as she could. Determined, unstoppable, she dove back into the earth, dragging the two men behind her, willing the top of her head to propel her forward. She streaked down like a comet, using the weight of the two Opatas, adding them to the force and speed of her descent.

Almost immediately, she passed the fault line where the slabs of rock had touched each other. The moment of explosive joy was over. The questions would gather again. What Should We Do? Where Should We Go? The energy would build and the tension and the almost-shuddering.

Teresa plunged, dropped, dove. When the Opata hunter who was still conscious began to scream, she put him to sleep. Then she put the other one to sleep, too, deeper than a knock on the head. She passed through blurs of granite and limestone, layers of sand and silt, veins of copper, veins of gold. She passed them so quickly she couldn’t hear them singing. This time, she thought, it was true. This time, she would succeed. This time, she was really outrunning Plague!

At last, when she felt she had gone far enough, Teresa slowed and tried to catch her breath. Of course, she had no breath to catch, but it felt as though she did. Her heart raced. She could feel its pounding. She gripped the hands of the two hunters. She had seen Horse run away. She had left Plague behind.

Very interesting, the earth said.

Is he coming after us? Teresa asked.

I don’t think so, the earth said. I think he is quite confused.

Teresa made a camp in the earth, somewhat like a camp she might make on its surface—only she had no need here for fire or food or water or grass for a bed. Only there were no stars at night, no sun or shade, no breeze, and no real change in the white light of hardened river sand or the purple glow of volcanic rock. She put the two Opata hunters off to the side, a good distance from her and Pomo, where she could still see them. Like Pomo, they seemed to be resting comfortably, their eyes closed, their faces peaceful. After a while, she stopped worrying that they or the boy would sink further into the earth, even though she herself could still go down as far as she wanted.

Now she had many more days to wait, for she could not bring the Opatas back to their village until they no longer carried the disease. She remembered well what Plague had told her. Four days before the rash appeared, and four days afterward, a person with measles could give the disease away as you give away a shawl or cooking pot. She had done this to Pomo when her stomach and groin were still speckled, a few days after her fever broke. Then Pomo had carried the gift to the hunters. Now she had to be patient until the sarampión raged through their bodies and was finally gone.

She wondered if she should wake Pomo or let him sleep. She asked the earth.

Let him sleep, the earth said.

But I could show him the animals, Teresa argued. He would like the giant creature with his sharp teeth and still-bright eyes. He would like swimming through the forest of kelp. He would . . .

He does not belong here, the earth interrupted. This is not his power.

After that, Teresa did not like to leave the boy for long, not knowing what would happen if he woke by accident and found himself alone. Because of this, she explored mostly what was around her camp and did not venture on longer trips, not back to the skeletons in the limestone bed or down to where the earth burned with rivers of fire. Longingly, Teresa thought about those rivers with their glimmering darting schools of fish, red and yellow, gold and green—but she would not risk losing Pomo now. They had gone through too much together. She had exposed the boy to disease, given the horse to Plague, and left Pomo in the desert to die. She would not be so careless again. She would only take short walks, not far from the slab of purple rock.

Once when she came back from such a walk, Pomo was gone. In the boy’s place, the spotted jaguar lay asleep, his paws twitching. Teresa ran to the big cat. No, she thought sternly. Before her eyes, the animal blurred, shifted, and grew smaller. Pomo reappeared, his dark eyelashes curved against his cheek.

I thought the jaguar was gone, Teresa complained to the earth.

Then the boy would be gone, the earth said. They are the same thing.

After this, she stayed even closer to her camp. She felt the calm and boredom of nothing to do, something she hadn’t known since she was a child watching her mother pick blackberries. She listened to the hardened sand, the memories of a river rushing to sea. She listened to the volcanic rock, its memories long ago as fire. She listened to the crooning of a seashell, and she thought of the wise woman and her necklace of shell with gleams of coral pink. Often, she and the earth told each other stories. Often, she was the one telling the story, all the stories she had heard in her life, all her father’s stories, all the stories in the Governor’s kitchen, all the stories by Fray Tomás and even Plague. After she had exhausted these, she went on to make up new ones—for the earth was insatiable. Tell me more, the earth begged.

The earth begged for secrets but did not always share its own. Once, waiting next to Pomo, Teresa saw a brown speck in the distance coming toward her, coming closer and growing bigger until she saw that this was a bear swimming through stone just as she swam through stone, its paws moving effortlessly. This bear was much bigger than the black bears she had seen in the mountains while traveling with her father. Its head and shoulders were as massive as a buffalo’s, with a great hump over the neck. Its fur was grizzled silver-gray. Its mouth widened into a kind of grin. Now the bear seemed to see her and veered off, and Teresa felt relieved.

How many others, Teresa wondered, played in the earth?

It was hard to keep track of time. Time passed in the usual way—the Opatas became feverish in their sleep, red spots appeared on their chests and arms, the pustules broke open and scabbed shut—but it was hard to remember how the hours were rushing by. There was never a real day and never a real night, just a seamless stretch of glowing stone.

Finally, at some moment when it was neither day nor night, neither time to eat nor time to sleep, Teresa bent to look at the sleeping hunters. She saw that their skin was clear and unblemished. The scabs had fallen away, leaving only a few scars, here, here, and here. During the earthquake, one of the Opatas had suffered a bloody gash on his head, and that also had healed and left hardly a sign.

She could take them home now.