Guns on the Border

Sabio and Caridad rode as hard as the horses and the hill trail would allow for over an hour. Then they slowed to a walk and let the animals walk gently and pick their way into the entrance of a vine-covered valley away from any trails or paths. When they’d ridden nearly a mile deep into the valley, they stepped down from the tired horses for the first time since fleeing the two gunmen. Sabio slipped the rifle into the saddle boot and looked back on the silent forest as if someone might be following. Satisfied, he sighed and smiled at their remote, peaceful surroundings.

‘‘We are safe here. This hidden forest is my friend and it will allow no one to harm us,’’ he said. ‘‘To-night it will rain and wash away our tracks. By the time they follow us here on foot, we will have vanished.’’ He gestured toward an ancient tree whose trunk opened at the ground like the entrance to a small cavern. ‘‘In there you will find a canvas full of blankets and supplies.’’

‘‘Oh, Sabio,’’ Caridad said, looking all around in sheer wonderment, ‘‘how do you know about such places as this? All my life I have lived in these hills and yet—’’

‘‘Shhh,’’ said Sabio, barely above a whisper. ‘‘You must speak quietly in this place. This is my special forest. We are guests here. If we are not quiet and respectful it will cast us away.’’ He gazed upward into the tops of tall reaching trees draped in the same thick vines that guarded the entrance to the valley.

‘‘I am sorry,’’ Caridad whispered, turning her dark eyes upward too, for a second, as if apologizing to the forest itself. Then lowering her eyes back to Sabio, she whispered, ‘‘You know everything, Sabio. Again you have protected me from harm.’’ Before Sabio could say a word, she’d thrown her arms around him and hugged him tightly. ‘‘Thank God for you, mi ángel del guarda!’’

Her guardian angel . . . Feeling her breasts hot against his chest even through his tattered robe, Sabio tried not to let lustful thoughts and images seep into his mind. Yet he was only human, he reminded himself. He held her loosely and stroked her long hair, her face nuzzled against the side of his neck. ‘‘Please, Caridad,’’ Sabio whispered, almost in the anguished moan of a lover.

‘‘It is true,’’ Caridad insisted, unaware of the effect her warm young body had on him and therefore holding none of herself back. ‘‘You are my savior, my confessor, my holy man, my brave rifleman!’’ She squeezed him tighter, her body naturally undulating against his. ‘‘Is there anything you cannot do?’’

Sante Madre! He lifted his aging eyes to heaven as if praying for strength. ‘‘Caridad, Caridad,’’ he said softly, sadly, ‘‘what am I to do with you? What is God to do with the two of us?’’

Caridad pushed back from him, to arm’s length. ‘‘What a strange thing to say. What have we done to make God wonder how to deal with us?’’

‘‘Dear Caridad,’’ said Sabio. ‘‘How I wish you could stay as innocent as you are now for the rest of your life.’’ He turned her loose and stepped back. ‘‘Yet when I see the trouble your innocence nearly brought upon you today, I think perhaps it is time for you to come forward and join the rest of us.’’

‘‘It was my innocence that caused all the trouble at the waterfall?’’ Caridad asked. At first she tried to make sense of his words; but then she shook her head, knowing there was no sense to be made of them. ‘‘Why do you say such a thing? Did my ‘innocence’ as you call it draw those men to us and make them want to do things to me?’’

Sabio looked at her, wondering for a second if he could explain to her that it was not her innocence that had brought on the trouble. Yet he knew from experience that innocence attracted the wicked the way fresh meat attracted wolves. Still, he knew that what he’d said was not even close to what preyed upon his mind. In his mind he’d meant what must he do to keep from spoiling her? Or, given his lifelong lust for women, what must God do to save her from him? No, he could not explain any of this to her, he thought.

‘‘Caridad,’’ he said instead, speaking benevolently, the way he’d learned to speak to his subjects as a young priest who did not want his authority questioned. ‘‘It does not matter what I meant when I said it. That moment is gone. What matters is what I am saying now.’’

Sabio folded his hands at his waist in a priestly fashion and smiled gently. ‘‘I am saying we must rest the horses and ourselves. It is not good to have so much talking when one is weary from the trail. It makes any of us say things in ways we do not mean them.’’

‘‘Yes, I understand,’’ Caridad said meekly. ‘‘Forgive me for being bold. Please do not think less of me.’’

‘‘No, my dear Caridad,’’ said Sabio. He stepped back close to her and cupped her cheek. ‘‘Nothing you will ever say or do will change how I feel for you. I have raised you from a baby. You are the child I was forbidden to father.’’ He smiled, genuinely, warmly. ‘‘Have I not told you this throughout your life?’’

‘‘Yes, you have told me this many times,’’ Caridad said, looking into his eyes. She never quite understood everything she saw there, especially these past couple of years.

‘‘Then do not trouble yourself over what I say or what I mean,’’ Sabio said, caressing her cheek. ‘‘Now go lie down and rest out of the heat. We have much more traveling to do before we return to the mission.’’

‘‘Yes, I will go rest now,’’ she said dutifully. She walked away. She knew Sabio carried secrets about himself. Dark secrets? Yes, she was certain of it. She knew that when his eyes took on the look they now had it was time to leave him in peace, to his thoughts, the profound and troubled thoughts of her holy man. . . .

Sabio watched her walk away, her long hair swaying gently. He considered how many times he had longed to make love to such a beautiful young woman as this, here in this lush forest, on the soft fertile belly of the earth. But not with his Caridad, he told himself, as if he needed constant reminding lest his lower nature overwhelm him. He blew out a breath and shook his head.

Do not destroy this one’s faith in you, the way you have done with everyone else, he heard his stern inner voice call out. In reply to that voice he bit his lip. No, he would not do such a thing. Not to Caridad, not to the only soul left on God’s earth who still thought him divine and without fault. He realized how deeply he needed to be seen with such blind adoration and reverence throughout his entire life; yet he realized too how low and unworthy of such treatment he’d become.

Were he to destroy what Caridad saw in him, his miserable life would end, he reminded himself, taking the reins to both horses and leading them to a small pond fed freshly from a trickling stream. ‘‘When God washes his hands of a man, why does he not remove himself from that man’s heart and spirit?’’ he asked the horses under his breath.

But even as he asked, he knew that it was not God who washed his hands of him. ‘‘Holy Mother Church,’’ he said bitterly, casting a scowl upward through the towering treetops. Whatever goodness remained in him lay in the eyes of Caridad. She did not see that his powers through God had turned into coincidences he’d learned to play upon, or twists of random fate he’d only purported to understand.

He’d managed to turn God’s power into cheap sleight-of-hand tricks like those of a traveling street performer. Shame overcame him. He stopped the horses, sat down in the dirt and buried his face in his crossed arms. Yet even in his shame, he yearned deeply for the cradling mothering arms of a woman—of Louisa, he thought. Or of any woman.

Ah, the women of my life, he pondered, hoping only to take his mind off his misery. Yet, in recalling their faces, their soft naked forms lying beneath him, his misery only grew, until finally he looked over to the large tree and saw Caridad spreading a blanket on the ground beneath its shading canopy. She added a gauzelike sleeping cover that floated weightlessly to the ground. When you finish with a man, he whispered silently to God, you leave him with nothing. No wonder a man must take—for nothing is given to him.

He watched Caridad step out of her peasant dress, fold it and set it aside. Naked, she lowered herself out of his sight. In her innocence, did she not know? He mused. But how could she not know? he asked himself. For the love of God! How could she not know? He sprang to his feet and rubbed his bald head vigorously in his frustration. ‘‘I owe you nothing!’’ he growled at the sky.

He stomped off into the forest and walked in a wide circle to take his mind off of the sleeping Caridad, lying naked beneath the sheer cover. But at the end of his half-hour circle he found himself standing above her, looking down at the rise and fall of her breasts.

After a moment he stopped and raised the gauzy sleeping cover and pulled it aside, his heart nearly stopping in his chest. He stared in awe, not having to take only a quick glance before looking away. He could look at her—she would not know; and if she awakened, he would say he was only checking on her comfort as any good savior would do. Shame on you, Sabio!

No! It’s all right! He assured himself. He could look at her, and who but he would ever know? And if no one else ever knew, what harm had he done anyone beyond himself? As he looked at her, he could not keep from reaching out with his hand and holding it near her—just near her, he cautioned himself. Yet, as his hand moved back and forth only a hairbreadth above her warm flesh, he heard her moan in her sleep.

‘‘Oh, Sabio,’’ she whispered, and he swooned headily at the soft, steamy liquid sound of it. What harm would come from him slipping in quietly beside her? She wouldn’t mind, he convinced himself. She had grown up sleeping in his arms. . . .

When she awakened, she did so with a start, escaping a troubled dream. She had seen Sabio standing over her and had felt his hands caressing her in a manner that had caused her to writhe and moan in ecstasy. It was like nothing she had ever experienced; yet even in her pleasure, she had known it was wrong and had forced herself to awaken. She sat up, grasping the sheer sleep cover to her, relieved that it had been only a dream, however vivid and real it had seemed.

At a small fire he’d built a few yards away, Sabio sat staring blackly into the low dancing flames. He did not look over toward her as she stood and slipped into her dress. Nor did he look up at first when she’d shaken out her hair and combed her fingers through it and walked over and stooped down beside him. She would never mention the dream; she dared not. Yet when he finally turned his eyes to her, she wondered if perhaps she had spoken her dream aloud, or if he had not somehow known about it.

Such is this holy man’s power, she thought. She had had two similar dreams in the past, but neither of them was as real as this, and in neither had his hands touched her, or had she felt him against her, as if he absorbed something from her warmth and her nakedness.

Sabio did not ask how she had rested. He only searched her eyes for a moment, then looked away as if having answered something for himself. ‘‘You must eat,’’ he said quietly. He handed her a small wooden bowl of hot crumbled corn cake—torta de maíz—that he’d made on a flat rock above the flames.

She took a piece of the soft cake and blew on it, then held it for a moment before eating. ‘‘Did you rest?’’ she asked.

Sabio seemed to stiffen at her question, then breathed in a sigh and said without facing her, ‘‘Sí, I am rested.’’

Her dream! She made no reply, but waited for him to continue. If somehow he knew about her dream and confronted her with it, she would not deny it. How could she if his power let him know these things? She would not deny it, and she would not deny how it had made her feel.

But instead of mentioning her dream, Sabio said, ‘‘Once your life has returned to normal in Esperanza, I must leave here.’’

‘‘But, Sabio, why?’’ She scooted closer to him and hooked her arm into his. ‘‘These hills are your home. What would Esperanza do without you? What would I do without you?’’

Sabio did not try to explain. ‘‘I have been here too long. It is time I go somewhere else, perhaps across the border. Or perhaps it is time to find my ancestors in la tierra de los muertos.’’

‘‘No, I did not mean that,’’ said Sabio, shaking his bald head. ‘‘But I must go—for many reasons it is time I leave here.’’

Again her dream crossed her mind. ‘‘Have I done something to cause you to want to leave?’’ she asked, ready any second for him to confront her with what he knew, with what he’d somehow witnessed while she’d slept.

‘‘No, my dear Caridad, you have done nothing,’’ Sabio said, rounding his arm from hers and taking a short scoot sidelong, putting a few inches of distance between them.

‘‘Oh . . .’’ She looked surprised and hurt by his actions. It came to her that lately he had been cross and irritable the same way he’d been when last she’d had such a dream. He had mentioned leaving then, too, she recalled, wondering more earnestly if he knew what she had dreamed and felt he must leave rather than shame her with what he knew.

‘‘You are a young woman now, Caridad, and I am an old man,’’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘‘For a time God brought us together, for you to be the daughter he felt I needed, and for me to be both the father and mother you did not have. But now our lives are changed. You do not need a father and I—’’ He let his words stop, realizing that what he was about to say was neither honest nor kind.

‘‘I will always need you in my life, Sabio,’’ said Caridad. She risked scooting over against him again and hooked her forearm under his. ‘‘I want you to always want me, no matter what.’’

‘‘Oh, my dear Caridad, you have no idea how badly I want you,’’ he said, giving in to her and squeezing her arm under his. He closed his eyes tightly and whispered under his breath, ‘‘No idea . . .’’

When she had finished eating the crumbled corn cake, she sipped from a water gourd she’d taken from the supplies beneath the tree and filled at the trickling stream. ‘‘Now, then,’’ she said, standing, ‘‘no more talk of either of us leaving.’’

Sabio nodded. ‘‘All right, but there is a time coming when one of us must leave the other,’’ he said, ‘‘for this is the way life works.’’ He also stood, and adjusted his tattered robe. He looked at her and continued, raising a finger for emphasis. ‘‘You may someday want to go across the border and find a better life for yourself. Your father was an American and it shows in your face. You can go there—you have a right to go there.’’

‘‘Silence!’’ he insisted, his senses focusing on the way they had ridden in through the draping vines. ‘‘They come! The two gunmen!’’

‘‘They have found horses. It is them!’’ said Sabio. He rubbed out the small smokeless fire with his sandal. ‘‘Quickly, get the horses while I say the words that will turn this forest against those two and protect us from them.’’

Caridad hurried away to gather the horses, finding nothing strange in what the old holy man had just said. When she returned, Sabio had rolled up the blanket and sleep cover and hidden them beneath the tree. ‘‘Will it still rain tonight and wash away our tracks?’’ Caridad asked, handing him his reins.

‘‘Of course it—’’ Sabio stopped and looked up at the sky above the towering trees for reassurance. ‘‘Yes, of course it will,’’ he repeated. He climbed up into the saddle and turned his horse deeper into the forest.

But in his heart of hearts he doubted if the forest would still protect him the way it once would have. The forest had seen him and his impure thoughts. What little power had remained was now gone. He was certain of it.