Beyond the Grave

THREE

The ruins of the church of San Anselmo de las Lomas reflected a white-hot glare in the afternoon sun. As I approached the stark adobe wall, I waded through the knee-high wildflowers, smelling their oddly bitter fragrance. It was hushed there on the hill; the only sounds were an occasional birdcall and a constant, reedy whisper as the wind blew through the leaves and tall grass. It had been warm in the village, but now I felt a chill in the air and gripped my bare arms above the elbow, trying to insulate myself.

I rounded the rear wall of the church and stopped by the crumbling foundation, once again attempting to picture the building as it had stood in 1846. The other day, by narrowing my eyes and viewing the scene through the haze of my lashes, I'd been able to raise the walls and bell tower and the cross crowning the red-tiled peak. Today, however, that didn't work; all I saw were the blurred outlines of the church's lonely remains.

A gust of wind swept across the foundations, rippling the vegetation that carpeted the cracked brick of the church floor. It tossed the tall grass in the adjacent graveyard, revealing the weathered granite tips of a few stones. Unbidden, the haunting words that Quincannon had found on the scrap of paper in Luis Cordova's dead hand echoed in my mind: “Mas alia del sepulcro … donde Maria.…”

I said them aloud, hearing their compelling rhythm, feeling their shape on my tongue. Released into the silence around me, they reverberated hollowly, and I clutched my elbows tighter, suddenly afraid, as if the words themselves had a dark, magical power. Then I started toward the graveyard.

The largest of the stones-cracked granite crowned with a dirty marble crucifix-marked the resting place of Don Esteban Velasquez. I knelt and brushed aside the thick blades of grass and foxtails so I could read the inscription: EN ESPIRITU ADMIRABLE. Great in spirit.

Several feet away from this stone was another, simpler one: Padre Urbano, UN HOMBRE BUENO Y RELIGIOSO. The date of death on the stone was the same as that on Don Esteban's. There were other graves, also plain ones, with inscriptions such as CRIADO FIEL-faithful servant-and TRABAJADOR BUENO-good worker. And there were two tiny markers, telling of the early deaths of Juan Gerardo and Manuel Nicolas Velasquez-Felipe's brothers, whose names had been inscribed in the family Bible. These reminders of days when many of one's sons and daughters did not survive to adulthood were finely carved, each topped with a marble angel whose chipped, upturned face was meant to inspire hope of a better life mas alia del sepulcro. I stood staring from one to the other for a long time, the haunting phrases once again pulsing through my brain.

Donde Maria … None of the stones that I had looked at marked the resting place of a woman named Maria. Nor had I found the grave of Felipe Velasquez. Mrs. Manuela had said her father had died when she was quite young, before she and her mother moved to Santa Barbara. It would seem logical for him to be buried here, among his family and servants. I began wading through the weeds, examining the remaining stones. There was still none for a Maria, but finally, on the far right-hand side where the wrought-iron fence leaned at a dejected angle, I found Felipe's: a plain marker, plainer than Padre Urbano's, engraved with only the name. There was no date of birth or death, no inscription extolling the good works he'd done in his lifetime.

The remaining Velasquez family fortunes, I supposed, had taken a swift downward plunge in the years after Quincannon's investigation. Possibly Felipe's attempt to find the missing artifacts had been a last gamble at saving their holdings, and this poor stone was evidence that Quincannon had failed in his search. A sadness descended upon me and I turned, pushing through the grass toward the ruins of the lavanderia under the big olive tree, some ten yards away.

Halfway there, however, I stopped, feeling a chill between my shoulder blades. It wasn't the kind of cold I'd felt before from the passage of the wind. This was an emotional chill, icy and striking straight to the bone. I whirled and looked back at the church, expecting to see someone there.

The church looked the same as before. There was no one, not even a bird, in sight.

I shook my head and kept going, but now the icy feeling intensified. I spun around, thinking someone might be hiding in the ruins, playing games with me. This time I thought I saw a swiftly moving shadow at the jagged corner of the rear wall. I waited, but there was no further motion. It could, I thought, have merely been the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the nearby trees.

What is this, Elena? I asked myself. Perhaps you're afraid of espectros. Ghosts. Don Esteban and the padre and Felipe. The men and women and children who died here during the days of los ranchos grandes, and those who fell before Fremont's troops. Perhaps, like Quincannon, they're trying to tell you something.

The idea of ghosts was one I would normally have dismissed as ridiculous. Ghosts belonged to el Dia de los Muertos, November second, when my people bring bread, food, drink, candles, and flowers to the cemeteries in honor of our departed loved ones. On that night the ghosts are supposed to come and feast, to visit their friends and relatives who have been left behind. But most people like me don't really believe that-any more than I believed that ghosts could stalk ruined churchyards in the middle of this bright spring afternoon.

But then, I reminded myself, people like me didn't normally hold conversations with a long-dead Anglo detective.

Forcefully, I pushed the idea of haunts from my mind and continued past the lavanderia, planning to look for more foundations, perhaps those of the stables, and-farther up on the distant hill-the hacienda itself. My problem, I thought, was that I was too sensitive to atmosphere, too easily swayed by my imagination-

Then I felt it again. The chill returned, this time spreading over my whole body, raising goose bumps on my arms and legs. I whirled once more and was sure I saw a shadow by the back wall of the church. Without considering what I'd do if I found someone there, I began running toward it.

The tall weeds caught at the legs of my jeans. I jammed my foot against some hard, protruding object and stumbled. I jumped over the foundation and skirted the massive charred roof beam. On the other side of what was left of the right-hand wall, my foot hit a patch of crumbled red tile, and I slipped to the ground. Pushing myself up with both hands, I lurched around the rear of the ruins.

No one was there. Not a blade of grass moved. Not a flower was trampled.

I scanned the area between me and the road; the grove of oak trees looked as if no one had passed through it in centuries; the fields and orchard lay similarly untouched. I listened, but the only sound was the shriek of a nearby jay.

I stood there for a moment, feeling foolish, ashamed at having let my overactive imagination panic me. The chill was gone from my shoulder blades. I was certain no one watched me now.

I continued looking around. Nothing moved, except for a few errant wildflowers. Then I lowered my gaze to the ground. There was a place where the grass was bent, as if someone had been standing on it quite recently. And in among the trampled green stalks lay a foreign object. A cigarette butt-or more accurately, a cigarette filter tip. It had been burned all the way down, singeing the white porous material.

I went over and picked it up; it was still warm. The paper that might have identified the brand was completely burned; this could be any kind of cigarette with a white filter.

I stood with the butt pinched between my thumb and forefinger, staring at the landscape, which once again seemed ominous. The chill I'd felt had not been a product of my imagination; it had not been caused by the wandering of ghosts. A very real flesh-and-blood person who smoked filter-tipped cigarettes had been hiding behind this wall observing me. A person who for some reason had chosen not to reveal himself.

Somehow, I thought, I'd have preferred a ghost.