Listen to the Mockingbird (36 page)

I took his hand. “Come back this way. Promise it.”

He held my eyes for a long time, then moved his head in a motion I took for a nod. From the corral, I watched his steady gait carry him away from the mountains, toward the river until he was only a black dot. Perhaps Tonio was not designed to be a violin in a sea of strings, but an oboe, reedy and alone. Perchance I had been fashioned by the same design.

For months after I would take Fanny and ride to the place near the cuevas where I could see the entire valley, hoping to spot a dark speck growing slowly larger, a figure on foot returning.

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