Wild Penance

9

My next stop was Agua Azuela, a scattering of old adobes tucked into a crevice carved between two mountains by a bubbling stream, which the Hispanic residents referred to as the río. In the village center, an ancient-looking church, poor and sad, struggled out of the lower slope of the mountain. Farther up in the hills, newer homes built by Anglos perched on lofty precipices with panoramic views. Their owners did not have to concern themselves with protection from Comanche and Apache raiders, as the original inhabitants of Agua Azuela did. The early settlers here needed to be within quick running distance of the well-fortified churchyard wall in case of attack, and so this was the sole basis for the original design of the community. There were no streets other than the one-lane dirt road that ran through the narrow canyon right up to the church. Rutted dirt drives fed off the main road back into the folds of terrain where the houses nestled. An old wooden bridge spanning the rio rumbled whenever one of the residents drove over it. An abundance of large gray-white cottonwoods and red willows lined the blue-green water for which Agua Azuela was named.

I aimed my Jeep toward the home of a friend of mine. Regan Daniels lived right on the rio in a beautiful adobe with a wall of south-facing windows. I left my Jeep at the bottom of her drive and walked up the hill to a corral-style gate. Her silver Toyota was in the open-front garage there. Neatly stacked cords of firewood stretched from the corral to the house, and an old nag stood catatonic in a patch of brush beyond a fence. I walked up a path to the kitchen entrance, grabbed the leather loop on the bottom of the old iron bell that hung beside the door, and gave it a hard shake. The sharp clanging pierced the quiet day. I shuffled my feet, looked in through the sidelight at the elegant terra-cotta tile on Regan’s cocina floor, the intricate carving on her handmade cabinets. No answer. I walked around the house and looked farther up the path toward the barn. Its doors were closed. Still higher up, beyond the barn, at the casita Regan rented to bed-and-breakfast guests, I saw a mud-covered green Land Rover with California plates. I knocked loudly on the French doors at the back of Regan’s house. No answer still. I could see the cool, dark living room within. No one in sight.

Knowing Regan was a little hard of hearing, I wanted to open a door and call to her, but somehow I knew that would not be well received. I sensed that she hoped no one would notice this infirmity. In her youth, Regan had been a dancer and even performed her way around the world doing USO tours. She had done a smattering of bit parts on television and ended up a long career as a dancer in summer stock musicals. She had retired here because she was born and raised in northern New Mexico, and she appeared to have plenty of money, from what I could see. Her beautiful home was by far the largest and most distinctive in the old part of Agua Azuela, and perhaps even among most of the newer homes in the surrounding mountains. She had told me that her house overlooking the rio was once a morada, where the Penitentes held rituals in the old days.

This was, in fact, how I came to meet Regan. Her land abutted BLM acreage, and I had occasion to patrol this area once last fall when I discovered a nearly abandoned old Penitente cemetery, or campo santo, as they are called-which means “field of saints.” The graves were scattered along a flat shelf of open ground about a hundred yards below the canyon rim, just above Regan’s land. The view of this unique landform was blocked from below by boulders and stands of scrub piñon and juniper.

When I first happened onto the cemetery, I recognized Penitente features in the headstones and other markers. And one of the graves had an exceptional marker: a massive, weathered wooden cross, crude and simple, its base piled with great stones. The upright stand of the cross had split; shards had broken away in such a way that it was partly hollowed out just above the base. Above the transverse beam, a relief of glyphs had been carved in the surface of the wood, but these had eroded so much that they were impossible to make out. A stipe-such as that on which the crucified’s feet would either rest or to which they would be nailed-was affixed to the cross; however, it had gone askew and was positioned almost vertically. In the center of this cross, a broken crucifix, the large ceremonial kind-perhaps ten inches in height, ornately cast in metal and with trefoil ends-had been screwed to the cross, the two pieces at angles to emphasize the break between them. On a flat stone in front of the rood, a small bunch of wildflowers, recently placed and barely wilted, marked the shrine.

I took a small notebook from my pocket and made a quick sketch and a few written comments, jotting a note to come back and do a more detailed drawing later. I was studying the shrine, thinking how lucky I was to have found it, when I heard a deep, husky voice calling, “Hey! You there!” I stood up and looked around. Coming up the slope from below was a tall, lean, white-haired woman, obviously quite agile. She was wearing a long oatmeal cotton sweater. Her khaki pants were tucked haphazardly into big, sloppy work boots caked with dried mud, which looked as if they had been hastily pulled on and not tied. The tongues of these monsters flapped against her pant legs when she walked. I waited, and as she came near, I could see her tan, deeply lined face and dark eyes, which were looking at me the way a raven might regard a hawk who had just invaded her nest.

“You’re not supposed to be on this land.”

“I’m with the BLM, ma’am.” I opened my badge holder and showed her my RPA shield. “I’m a resource protection agent.” I pulled my folded quad-the detailed map of the terrain for that quadrant-out of my back pocket and held it up. “I’m pretty sure this old cemetery is on BLM land. We can look for the survey marker, and I’ll show you, if you’d like.”

“Oh.” She began shaking her head up and down as if in agreement. “Yes, I think you’re right, don’t bother. This campo santo used to belong to the village, not to anyone in particular. That was before the BLM came in here. But things have changed. Nobody looks after it now. I own the land below here. I try to keep trespassers off my land, you see. Not too many people know about this place, but if I see anyone up here, I try to run them off. You never know what someone will do.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be able to keep everyone from coming up here, no matter what you do. There’s a shrine up here, and it’s being tended.”

“Oh, that? Yes, you’re probably right.” She had a deep, contralto voice, a smoker’s voice, but age had given it a tremor more characteristic of a tightly wound tenor. She extended her hand. She must have been nearly six feet tall. Even though she was standing below me on the slope, our eyes were at the same level. “I’m Regan Daniels. I guess I’m sort of territorial about this place. I’ve never seen you here before-are you new with the BLM?”

I shook her hand, noting her pleasantly firm grip. “No, ma’am, I’m not. But this is my first time in this section. My name is Jamaica Wild.”

“Jamaica Wild. My, that’s a pretty name. Unusual, isn’t it?” She turned her head to one side and peered intently at me out of one eye, like a crow. She had strong features-high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, a long, elegant nose, and a full mouth-the kind of face a model could take to the bank while young. I could still see that youthful beauty behind all the decorations that maturity had bestowed. “Will you be assigned here permanently?”

“I don’t believe so, Ms. Daniels. I usually work the high country, mostly range-riding the fence lines in remote areas. But when the weather starts to get cold, I do other assignments. I’m just familiarizing myself with the BLM land in this area right now.”

“Oh, I see.” Her questions answered, she looked now as if she were in a hurry to end the conversation. She made as if to leave, then stopped and looked back at me. “Would you like to come down to the house? I was just about to make some tea.”

In Regan’s cocina, she brewed some poleo, a native wild mint that grows near water. I wandered through the large, open rooms of her beautiful house, through the dining room and the enormous living room, looking at all the pictures on the walls-many of them featuring a young Regan with well-known television stars and even a former president, once a movie star himself. Others were of Regan in front of the world’s landmarks. The glazed tile floor in the living room was a deep, lustrous blue. Three modern, oversized, white leather sofas seemed to float like barges on this vast expanse of glistening ultramarine, with artfully tossed fur throws and big woven pillows riding on them like passengers. The coffee table in the middle was a horizontal slice through the trunk of a giant cedar-pink, white, and deep red-that had been glazed with a heavy coat of polyurethane. On this table rested a stack of large art books. The sun streamed in the windows, and the exquisite antique porcelain and cast-iron woodstove threw off a pleasant warmth. I tried one of the plush barges and sank deeply into the cushions. I felt like I was being cradled in a soft deerskin glove.

“How did you know that was a shrine?” Regan asked, that fast, uncontrolled vibrato causing her voice to oscillate. She handed me a cup of the fragrant tea.

“I’ve started a sketchbook about the brotherhood.” I took a sip. The sharp, intense mint flavor of the poleo cleared my head. “I’ve been mapping and sketching shrines all around this area, trying to find out more about them, and about the Penitentes, but the locals don’t much want to talk to a white girl like me.”

Regan perched on the edge of one of the sofas, but she didn’t allow herself to sink in-or to sit still. She fidgeted nervously with the arrangement of the art books. “You’re doing a book about the brotherhood? I’m sure that must be very difficult. They’re very enigmatic, those Penitentes. They don’t want anyone knowing what they’re up to, although there aren’t many of the crazy old fools left anymore to keep their secrets.” She twisted her tea mug around and around in her hands.

“I don’t need to know their secrets. I’d just like to know more general stuff, really. I think it’s okay for them to have some mystery and intrigue. That’s what makes them interesting.”

Regan did not respond, but instead stared out the windows at the rio. We sat in silence for a minute or more. She seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. Then a quite unexpected event occurred-one that instantly endeared this nervous, high-strung, somewhat peculiar woman to me. Over this, our first of many cups of poleo, Regan became the first local elder to break the silence and talk to me.

“I want you to know that I don’t hold to any of their beliefs,” she said, raising the flat of her palm up to me as though she were swearing in at a trial, “but I could tell you a few general things. If it would help with your book, that is.”

She began by telling me about the processions of Easter week. “Around here, everything stops for La Semana Santa, Holy Week. In many of the small villages, you will see several processions of the Penitentes to and from their moradas. I promise you, it is not for the fainthearted. You see, they flagellate themselves with yucca whips. One of them uses a sharp flint, called a pedernal, to cut the brothers’ backs so they will bleed and not swell.” She mimed the cutting action. “It makes deep, mutilating gashes. Then the ones doing penance scourge these wounds with their own whips. Sometimes they even lash themselves with ropes tied with tiny thorns or nails called la disciplina. Or they press cacti into their bleeding backs and bind it to them with ropes. I’ve seen them lash fence wire together with rope and whip themselves, and even ask others to whip them with this.” She shook her head back and forth and grimaced with displeasure. “They march out of the morada in a procession, whipping themselves. They go back to the morada for nursing and cleansing with rosemary water. Again, they march and whip themselves. Over and over and over. A Penitente will sometimes walk on his bare knees for hundreds of yards in beds of razor-sharp cacti. Others half carry, half drag huge crosses that are half again their weight and height up the side of the mountain to the Calvario-the place where they reenact the crucifixion. In the old days, if one of them died in these rituals, his death was like a sacred event,” she said, raising both palms toward the heavens in a pantomime of praise. “If he survived, his sins were forgiven, and he was absolved from worldly sin, at least until the next season of Lent. They are still extremely superstitious about all this. One day of suffering is supposed to pay for a year of sin.

“Oh, my, I can still remember it,” she said, her deep voice cracking with an occasional low-pitched squeak. “On Good Friday, when they would make procession from the morada to the church, we would get blood spattered all over us as they passed by whipping themselves! You see, this was supposed to make them pure, even purify the community, or bargain souls out of purgatory-making these brutal penances.”

I called on Regan many times after that. Each time, I brought her a little gift-tamales, fresh bread from the pueblo, candles. It was clear that she looked forward to our visits as much as I did, and we developed a kind of routine. She would always brew the poleo while we made small talk. Then I would take out my book and a pen, and she would have a story ready. Over time, she relaxed more and more in my presence, if one could ever call Regan relaxed. And her fondness for our time together was made evident as she began to prepare for my visits by making notes of her own, so she would not forget to tell me something she felt was important-either some of the local history or more of her own personal experiences.

Once she told about a time when she was a child, and she and a friend had gone up into the mountains to an old morada. “We couldn’t have been any more than eight or nine years old. We hid behind large boulders, watching as the Penitentes prepared for a crucifixion. This man had a black bag tied over his head with a rope, and he was made to drag this enormous cross up the hillside. And then they tied his arms and chest and feet to it and raised him up! If they had found us watching,” she said, her big dark eyes almost popping out above her high, pronounced cheekbones, “they would have stoned us to death!”

She paused for a moment, then went on: “They left him there-they would leave them there sometimes for the whole day, even overnight, you see-exposed to the weather, almost naked. It’s very often freezing that time of the year! And they bind their limbs tight, to cut off the circulation, as part of the emulation of Christ’s suffering. They bind their chests tight.”

I was taking notes as fast as I could write, trying to capture every word Regan said. When she hadn’t spoken for a minute or so, I stopped writing and looked up.

“You know,” she said softly, “if a wife found her husband’s shoes on the doorstep after a night of ceremony, she would simply know that he had been chosen, and he had not survived the ritual. No one was permitted to speak of this, and no one did. Whoever was selected to endure the trial of crucifixion was supposedly blessed”-Regan raised her eyebrows-“whether he lived through it or not.”

Regan seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment as she shook her head repeatedly in disbelief. “It was barbaric, like they were trapped in the dark ages. Some fool started this ridiculous behavior-what was it? Five hundred years ago? And they were still doing it, without question, even thirty years ago. But at least not too many do these things anymore,” she insisted, still shaking her head. “It was the old ones-they believed in this terrible penitence. They thought the way to salvation was to experience Christ’s agony, his pain. As if they could. They believed that nonsense about paying for their own sins and those of others with their anguish.” Her voice got louder as she went on, “You know, the Church forbade this, even the law forbade this. But they didn’t listen. Instead, they moved their rituals to secret places and held them after dark. They even had the sympathy of some of the local priests.”

“But if someone died,” I asked, “how could they cover that up?”

“What little government there was here turned heads and allowed all this. Deaths were not investigated, some not even reported!” She set her tea mug down hard onto the cedar table, and the poleo sloshed out of the cup and onto the beautiful pink and white, making a pale green pool. She didn’t seem to notice the spill. “You see, many times, the authorities were Penitentes themselves.” She paused. “But that was in the old days. Now, thank God, we have returned to the Catholic Church, and almost nobody does those things anymore. New Mexico needs to move out of the dark ages.”

She stopped talking and was quiet for a few moments. Then she began the conversation at a new place. “You know, Jamaica, you must come to mass here in Agua Azuela sometime. I think you would surely enjoy it. We have one monthly mass, usually on the second Sunday of the month. We have to share Father Ximon with Embudo, Dixon, and Pilar, but he does still make it here once a month.”

She had repeated the same invitation every month, and I always answered that I would try to come to a mass sometime. But for months, I had never gotten around to it.

Now, I had come to tell Regan about the theft of my book, to enlist her help in starting again, but there was no sign of her. And I felt the least I could do was to try to make it to mass, as she had so often requested. I owed her that much for all the help she had given me.

As I was walking back to my Jeep, I saw something on the ground beside the path near the corral. I went toward it and found a rosary that looked to be quite old. It was made of intricately carved wooden beads with a large, ornate, carved wooden crucifix. The drops of blood on Christ’s hands and feet and where the crown of thorns touched his brow were the only places where color had been applied-a red stain of some kind. A larger patch of the same color symbolized where his side had been pierced. I turned the cross over and saw the name A. Vigil crudely carved by hand into the back. The writing had almost been rubbed smooth from repeated handling.

As I examined this find, I heard footsteps coming down the path from the direction of the barn and casita uphill from where I stood. An attractive man came toward me. He was tall and dark haired, wearing a black sweater and jeans. “Hello, there,” he called in a deep, pleasant voice. He smiled as he approached, his white teeth gleaming.

I smiled back.

“Are you here to see Ms. Daniels?”

“Yes. I’m a friend of Regan’s; I hoped I would find her home, but I guess I missed her.”

“She went into town on some errands. I’m a temporary resident-I’m renting her casita for the month.”

“But I saw her car-”

“One of her neighbors drove. I guess they take turns driving when they go for groceries together. What’s that you have there?”

I held up the rosary. “I just found this on the path, right here next to the corral.”

The man smiled at me again and held out a hand. “Mind if I take a look?”

“No, not at all. It’s quite old, I think.” I handed it to him.

“Oh, I recognize this,” he said. “Regan takes it to church with her every time she goes. They only have mass here…”

“I know, once a month. She’s told me.”

“That’s right. But a few villagers gather at the church every morning and a lay member leads a worship service. Regan goes to that most days. I would be happy to give this back to her when she gets back from town. That is, if that would be all right with you.” He smiled and looked at me with handsome dark eyes.

“Sure. That works for me. I’ll just be going now. I’m headed into Santa Fe.”

“It was nice talking to you,” he said, his eyes still holding mine, his lips still forming a pleasant smile.

“Nice talking to you, too,” I said. “Have a nice day.” I turned and started down the drive toward my Jeep. As I came back past the corral, the old mare flinched suddenly as if I’d startled her out of her catatonic state. She shook her head in a slow pendulum motion, from side to side, tossing her strawlike, scruffy mane. I think that was the first time I ever saw the horse move at all. I remembered Regan telling me that twice she had paid a neighbor to dig a grave for that horse in the fall before the ground froze, thinking the nag would not make it through the winter, and twice she had paid the same neighbor to fill the hole again in the spring.