Dark Moon Crossing (12 page)

It was downright chilly, so I pulled on my jacket and
watched the shadows slowly surrender to the ruby glow on the horizon that
gradually ripened to a radiant shade of scarlet-orange. The fiery tide of
light chased away the goblins of the night as it spread across the rolling
grasslands to the foothills, finally igniting the granite face of Baboquivari
Peak to a breathtaking shade of crimson. “Wow,” was all I could muster in the
way of adulation as my grandma’s old proverb,
Red at night, sailor’s
delight, red in the morning, sailors take warning,
came to mind
.

Behind me, the kitchen door squeaked open and all I
could think about was hot coffee and an even hotter shower. I exchanged a wave
of greeting with Celia, grabbed my overnight bag from the car and hurried
inside. After helping myself to a mug of aromatic coffee, I made a beeline for
the bathtub, passing Sister G in the hallway, all decked out for Sunday
services. The vision of her simply styled salt and pepper gray hair, the long
flowing white robe, along with the Bible clutched in her right hand, imparted
an aura of dignity she’d lacked yesterday. For the first time since my
arrival, she favored me with a smile that was almost amicable.

“Will I be seeing you in the chapel this morning, Miss
O’Dell?‌ My sermon begins promptly at eight.”

I hesitated. I planned to leave early with Lupe so
she could retrieve her car before we met the UFOlogist for breakfast, but I was
also curious to hear what this woman had to say. “I have an appointment in
Arivaca at nine-thirty, but I’ll certainly stay as long as I can.”

She sniffed in approval, squaring her shoulders.
“Good. I’ll expect to see you there.” She continued down the hall and I
watched her until she was out of sight. It was true. People often assume a
different persona when they don costumes and uniforms.

Forty-five minutes later, freshened up and feeling
much improved, I opened the door to Javier’s room, expecting to find Lupe in
the closet grilling him for more answers. Instead, she was still sprawled on
the cot. Apparently ten hours of sleep wasn’t enough for her. And since I’d
slept maybe two at best, I couldn’t work up a lot of sympathy. “Hey, come on,
we’ve got things to do,” I said, whipping the blanket off her. “Time’s a
wastin’.”

She cracked her eyes open and met mine. “I’m sorry, I
don’t feel very good this morning.” Her voice sounded faint and her skin had a
grayish tinge.

“What’s
wrong?‌”

“I
don’t know. I think I’m running a fever.”

I
laid my palm across her forehead. It was burning hot. I winced inwardly. Oh,
great. This was all we needed.

She
struggled to a sitting position, sniffling. “I’m sure it’s just a cold. The
kids I was babysitting last weekend were all sick. Don’t worry, I’ll take some
aspirin and be fine soon.” As if to contradict her statement she sneezed
twice.

I perched on the far edge of the cot to think. This
trip had been one huge headache since its inception. Perhaps it was time to
cut bait. “I don’t think we have any choice but to head back,” I said as
Lupe’s eyes drifted shut again. “One of us has to cover the office tomorrow,
and I can’t expect you to do it if you’re sick.”

Her
lids popped open and accusation flared in her bloodshot eyes. “But…but you
promised!”

“I
know I did, but this thing is turning out to be way, and I mean
way,
more complicated than you can imagine. If I stayed another week, it’s doubtful
I’d be able to find out what’s really going on.”

She
grabbed my hand. “I will not break my promise to you. I’ll go back home
early, stay in bed today and get better. Tomorrow morning I will be at my
desk. Please, Kendall! What if it was your little brother, your uncle that
was missing?‌ Could you just go away and do nothing?‌”

I
studied her grief-stricken face while trying to imagine my own family embroiled
in such a tragic situation. “No, I couldn’t,” I said, stifling a weary yawn,
“but there are quite a few things you don’t know yet.”

Squaring
her jaw, she leaned back against the wall and pressed the blanket to her
chest. “Then tell me.” I watched her frown deepen as I relayed
my telephone conversation with Walter, recapped the contents of his articles,
shared my suspicions about Sister Goldenrod and Froggy and then described my
early morning experience.

“So…what
do you think?‌” she asked, her eyes searching mine.

“To
be honest, I don’t have a clue.”

She
was silent for a few seconds. “What were you planning to do today and
tomorrow?‌”

Just
thinking about it made me tired. “Talk to Bob Shirley’s widow, see if I can
extract more information from Froggy and Sister G, and then make a trip over to
Morita to question the caretaker. If I have time, I’d like to visit some of
the ranches where these animal mutilations took place, find out if anyone saw
anything unusual. Even then, I may not have any answers for you.”

“But
at least you can try,” she said in a small voice. “Please.”

The
guilt was full-blown now. If she kept her end of the bargain, sick or not, I
had no alternative but to keep mine. “Okay, I’ll stay and do what I can.”

The
gratitude shining in her dark eyes heightened my sense of responsibility
towards her, but also feelings of dread. Something terribly weird was going on
here and my instincts told me the outcome would probably not be something she’d
want to hear. “We still have to get your car. Do you feel up to having
breakfast with me and this lady UFOlogist?‌”

She
threw off the blanket. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready.”

We
looked in on Javier before leaving, noting his empty breakfast tray on the
floor beside him. Sister G must have fed him early. But then, she may have
already been up at the crack of dawn for other reasons. He and Lupe exchanged
a few sentences and when he edged me a shy smile, my heart warmed and broke at
the same instant. What was to become of this little guy?‌ “Were you able to
find out anything new from him before you went to sleep last night?‌” I asked
Lupe after she closed the closet door and shouldered her overnight bag.

“Not
much. He did say that when he was running from the creatures, he fell into an
arroyo and slept for a long time. When he woke up, he had trouble remembering
exactly what happened.”

“Fell
into an arroyo,” I repeated. Why did that sound familiar to me?‌ “He slept a
long time?‌ Sounds more like he knocked himself out. Perhaps he’s suffering
from temporary amnesia.”

Lupe
nodded in agreement. “I just asked him to talk about anything that came into
his head.”

“And?‌”

“Well,
he talked more about his momma. She is very pretty, very young. He said his
father stopped sending money home to them and that’s why they were coming to
look for him. He also said before they were picked up by the
coyote
at
the border, his mother told him they were taking the same path through the
desert to the special crossing place that his great-grandfather and other
relatives had used for many generations to come to this country.”

“Word
of mouth,” I mused. “Now, if we could only find out where that particular spot
is. And if your brother and uncle crossed at the same place, then maybe we can
make a connection. Did you ask Sister G to see if she could contact the
coyote
?‌”

“She
says she does not know the name of the man
since all of her information
comes second and third hand, but she will try to find out. ”

“Good.”

I
glanced at my watch as we stepped into the hallway. “While you’re getting your
shower, I’m going to listen in on Sister G’s sermon. Will half an hour be
enough time?‌”

She pressed a tissue to her nose and nodded. “I’ll be
ready.”

I turned to go when something occurred to me. “One
more thing. Did Javier say anything else about seeing this horse he’s so
afraid of?‌”

“No, why?‌”

“Just curious. I can’t seem to make a correlation
between that and the UFO memory.”

“Maybe they rode from his home to the border on a
black horse.”

I shrugged. “Beats me. Well, see you shortly.”

Quilted gray clouds hung overhead when I stepped
outside and strolled across the clearing. An impressive number of cars and
pickups were parked near the old mission. I watched with interest as a
well-dressed Mexican family with four children piled out of a late-model
mini-van and trooped inside the wide double doors which now stood open in
welcome. Inside the tiny sanctuary, the parishioners were packed shoulder to
shoulder in the wooden pews. Curious heads turned in my direction so I smiled
in return, seating myself in the back pew in hopes that I could make my escape
later without disturbing anyone.

At
eight sharp, Sister G limped to the podium and asked us to bow our heads in
prayer. In the wake of yesterday’s inauspicious introduction, together with
all the other things I knew and didn’t know about her, I was surprised by the
passionate tone of her sermon. It contained thought-provoking messages of love
and truth, good versus evil, and the need to practice kindness and tolerance to
those different from us. The dialogue was generic in nature, included quotes
from the Bible and preached all-encompassing, familiar and nonsectarian
themes. None of the rough edges of this coarse woman were apparent today. Okay,
so maybe she really was a minister. That made the entire situation even more
puzzling.

It
was time to go, so I quietly got up, dropped the donation check I’d promised
her into the collection basket near the door, and slipped outside. A few
raindrops spattered on my head as I made my way across the parking lot. “Way
to go Grandma,” I murmured, thinking about her weather proverb. Perhaps a good
drenching would wash the accumulation of crud off of my car. I fetched Lupe
from the kitchen and we retraced the previous day’s route to Arivaca, again
passing very little traffic along the two-lane road. She was silent most of
the way, but suddenly said, “Tell me again why we are meeting with this woman?‌
How is she supposed to help us?‌”

“I
don’t know that she can, but according to the stuff I read last night on the
Internet, these people research UFO sightings and related stories. What’s
really important for us is the fact that she hosts this abduction encounter
group. I want to hear if there are similarities between their accounts and
Javier’s.”

“But
what about our promise to Sister Goldenrod not to tell anyone about him?‌ And
what about me?‌ How much do I tell her?‌ What if she repeats the story to INS
or someone else?‌”

As if to emphasize her fears, Lupe stiffened as a
Border Patrol van sped past in the opposite lane. “Until we can determine how
trustworthy she is, we’ll have to be careful how we word our questions,” I
answered after a brief glance at her pained expression, “so, if it makes you
feel better, I can handle most of the interview.”

She
sneezed into her hands and mumbled, “sorry” as she fished in her purse for
tissues. “I hope you don’t catch this.”

“Me
too.” I opened the window a little further to let in fresh air. She blew her
nose again before saying, “I’d feel better if you ask the questions. You know
as much as I do about this mess, probably more.”

I
agreed and slowed speed as we entered the town limits of Arivaca. A sizeable
number of cars and trucks were lined up in front of the café and parked at odd
angles on the opposite side of the wide street. As we rolled past La Gitana,
my pulse accelerated when a big red pickup truck backed out a few car lengths
ahead of us.

“Oh,
no,” Lupe whispered, her watery eyes widening with anxiety. “Not those
bastards again!”

The
same young dude with the black Stetson who’d tongue-washed my window yesterday,
narrowed his eyes at us in a menacing fashion as he and a companion drew even
with my car. His hostile scowl, designed to be intimidating, didn’t invoke the
fear in me it had yesterday because there were plenty of witnesses milling
about town this morning. Boldly, I returned a glare of my own.

“Not
such a big shot today, “ I muttered to Lupe, watching him disappear around the
corner in my rear view mirror. “I’m going to make it my business to find out
who that guy is.”

“Be
careful. I can tell by his eyes that he has an evil heart,” Lupe remarked,
dabbing the end of her nose.

I
had a suspicion that the young man’s hatred was directed more towards Lupe than
myself but, because we were together, that also put me squarely in his
sights.

After
retrieving her car without incident, we returned to the main street, Lupe
following close behind me. Preoccupied with the appetizing prospect of what to
order for breakfast, it took a few seconds for the ominous sound of squealing
tires to penetrate my thoughts. My insides clenched at the sight of the
familiar pickup rounding the corner a block ahead of me and barreling in my
direction. “Shit!” What was this moron doing now?‌

Apparently
playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, or who would flinch first, he aimed
the grill of his truck at me and floored it. Thinking about it afterwards, I
couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events. While frantically motioning
for Lupe to pull over to the side of the road behind me, I noticed a little
orange cat dart from underneath a parked car and run directly into the path of
the truck. The young cowboy saw it too, but did not slow down. “Stop it, you
idiot!” I shouted, absorbing the wrath of his demonic smile as he cut the wheel
away from me at the last second. The next thing I knew I was staring at the
terror-glazed eyes of the little cat as it slammed into my windshield. “Oh, my
God!” It clawed desperately for a foothold, but when I instinctively hit the
brakes, the ginger-colored bundle of fur tumbled off the hood and disappeared
beneath the car with a sickening thud.