Chapter Thirty-Seven

Donovan had cause to remember Carina's words about the length of Catholic Masses. It seemed to go on forever— the kneeling, the rising, the responses he didn't know and wasn't prepared for. The sermon about the Christ child started off well enough with some readings from the Bible, but devolved quickly into a long ramble about the joys of parenthood, punctuated by little waves and affectionate glances at the woman and baby in the front pew. Even Carina, who adored children in much the same way she loved animals, was disgusted.

"Sometimes I swear they should've kept that rule about priests not marrying," she muttered to no one in particular.

Emma nodded. "Or at the very least teach them the difference between Baby Jesus and their own brats."

"Did he even go to seminary?" Carina asked. "Or did the family just set him up and that was the end of it?"

"He went away for a couple years," Emma whispered back. "They say he was at seminary, but who knows?"

The young man dropped the communion wafer while intoning, "This is my body. . ."

"Which is dropped on the floor and stepped on for you," Emma muttered while Carina suppressed a giggle. Both women skipped communion.

* * *

When it was over and the congregation dismissed, they filed into the sunlight of the warming December day. Donovan took a deep breath and admired the cloudless sky. "Sure is beautiful."

"Yes," Carina said. "It would've been nice to have had a white Christmas, but this is so pretty I don't think I care."

"A shame the service wasn't any better," Emma sniffed. "I had hoped Joaquin would be a little more serious about it once he got settled in."

"He's still young," Carina said. "He'll get better."

"It's easy for you to be patient. You're not Catholic."

While Carina visited with the valley farmers, Donovan walked around the property. The grounds were neatly tended with rock beds and native plants. Already Donovan had learned enough to distinguish nopal, yucca and the drought-resistant vine that produced a stinking gourd. Behind the church lay a fallow vegetable garden and a low adobe building, whether house, school or some other type of official structure he couldn't be sure.

A trail wound past the house and up a dusty hill. Curious, he followed it past more fields, all lying fallow for the winter. The trail dipped and rose again, curving past another adobe building and up to the crest of a low mesa. It was hard going for Donovan with his weak leg, but finally he reached the top, breathing hard. He looked at the desert landscape all around and then stopped short, noticing the wall and iron gate. He was almost as surprised the gate hadn't been stolen for scrap, as he was by what lay beyond. This was the local cemetery.

He put his face against the bars, gazing in wonderment at the long rows of neat headstones and crosses, many decorated with votives, homemade paper flowers or winter greenery. The stones seemed to spring of their own accord out of the land, backdropped by the string of mesas that formed one of the boundaries separating the valley from the rest of the world. The wind swept down off the range, fluttering the ribbons of the decorations and stirring up clouds of pale dust that swirled across the graves.

At the sound of a footstep, he turned around. Carina stood wrapped in her faded cloak, regarding him with an unreadable expression. "Do you want to go in?"

Donovan hadn't been considering it, but hesitated to say so. He tugged at the gate and said, "It's locked," as if that settled the matter.

She motioned for him to follow her. "The other gate is always open."

She led him to a smaller gate farther down the wall and it creaked open with a sound that echoed in lonely waves that carried on the wind. Inside, the ground was packed hard as stone, covered with a light film of dust and punctuated by a few hardy weeds. They walked the rows of graves in silence, stopping every now and then to examine a decoration or read a name. The nicest stones were from the early years of the century. They were polished, deeply carved, and had flowers or trees inscribed as part of their motif, along with fading photographs behind glass. The earliest stones were worn nearly smooth by the constantly-blowing dust, and the most recent ones were poorly made and already chipping or fading. Some of the new graves had only wooden slabs with names scratched into them, and a few were marked only by an outline of stones and a wooden cross with no names at all to identify the dead.

Donovan turned to Carina, an unspoken question in his eyes.

She led him to a plot outlined with rocks, and pointed to a long double headstone. It was a handsomely carved and polished piece of granite, but contained only names, no dates. "They bought it long ago, when their money was still worth something. Maybe someday we'll be able to find someone to add the dates."

"At least their names will be remembered," he said, taking her hand. He thought it odd that the grave was bare while so many of the others were covered with offerings. Now that he considered the matter, he had never known either woman to go to the cemetery. "I'd be happy to drive you here to decorate, if you like."

Carina pulled her hand away. "I don’t like to think of them as something in the ground. Let's go back." Clutching the velvet wrap against her body, she started toward the gate.

Donovan hung back for a moment, then followed. Outside the gate, she waited, head down, face obscured in the shadow of her hood. He held out his arm and she took it without a word.

They were halfway down the hill before she spoke. "If I didn't know Miles was coming back some day. . ."

"You'd be strong, just the same.”

"No, I wouldn't. Amalia would, but I wouldn't be able to stand one more death."

Donovan chose his next words carefully. "Things happen, you know. Unexpected things. And we have to-"

"No." She let go his arm and hugged herself, shaking her head so hard the hood fell back and her curls tumbled across her shoulders. "Bad things aren't inevitable. They can't happen all the time."

"You're right," Donovan said, putting an arm around her. "Good things happen, too. I guess I just never had any faith to lose, let alone any to try and hang on to." They were at the base of the hill and he guided her across the yard toward the wagon. "Finding your farm was the best luck I ever had, but it looked like the worst luck possible when I was lying on the ground with Amalia threatening to shoot me. I guess I'm trying to say not to take it all so hard. Things have a way of working themselves out."

"Of course they do. My husband is coming home and we're going to start a medical clinic. Things will get easier."

"Aren't they a little easier now?" Donovan asked, slightly hurt. "I know I'm still learning, but I sort of hoped I was helping a little."

Carina's face broke into a smile. "Of course you're a help. You're one of the best things that's happened to us in a long time, too.”

He gave her a quick hug and offered her a hand into the cart.

Carina gathered her spangled skirt, then hesitated. "I don't suppose," she said, "That you've learned how to manage those hobbles?"

Donovan cast a wary glance at Goneril's legs, still in their leather hobbles. Working around the feet of an animal that could kill with a single kick made him nervous. It seemed like a foolish way to die. "I think I can manage it.”

He put Carina into the wagon and she sat back and closed her eyes. "Good," she sighed. "Funny how sometimes you don't realize how tired you really are."

Next>>
<<Previous