Book #3 of the Mogi Franklin Series
It was just a short cross-country ski outing over the Christmas break for Mogi Franklin and his sister, Jennifer—until they find themselves suddenly caught in a vicious blizzard. Near collapse, they ski into a mysterious valley with an ancient hacienda, a busy Spanish family, and a village with no electricity, no plumbing, no cars, no phones, and definitely no Walmart.
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Read two chapters
Library of Congress Control Number 2017942717 Distributed by SCB Distributors, (800) 729-6423
Chapter 1
Padre Franco’s room, in the village of Querencia, June, 1831
Padre Franco Dominguez sat quietly in a small candle-lit room built of mud bricks and wondered why he had become a Jesuit priest in the first place.
The son of a blacksmith, he’d been learning the craft at his father’s feet and learning it well. A good boy, a proper boy, skilled with a hammer and anvil, but hardly one given to books or the pen. It was remarkable both to him and his family when God called him to the priesthood.
Padre Franco had spent his early days in Spain learning to serve the Holy Church and to understand its mysteries. He had been a passionate young man, strong and dedicated, upright in his religious practices, and anxious to share his faith with all who would hear. It was a day of joy when he was selected to travel to the New World to bring the word of God to lost souls.
But, he now admitted, he hadn’t planned on bringing the word of God to lost souls in, well, such an isolated place. He had settled where God had led him, in a small village nestled deep in a mountain valley, remote from crowds and markets, distant from learned conversations, and far from good wine and jovial brotherhood. It took three days of travel to reach a proper town.
While in his priestly training, Padre Franco had dreamed of the mission fields he’d heard about along the coast of California. Ah, now that was the life he had seen in his future—living near the sea, journeying up and down the coast, working with other friars, priests, and monks as they toiled endlessly among the native people. He dreamed of large orchards, sprawling vineyards, and vats of wonderful drink.
And the mission churches! Oh, the stories he had heard. Wonderfully constructed of brick and stone, immense sanctuaries of arching rafters with bell towers and fountains and gardens of flowers and who knew what else. Fine places where a priest could serve in comfort!
Padre Franco leaned his chair back and smiled.
The back legs of the chair snapped and the good padre was sent sprawling across the dirt floor. A small cloud of dust rose as he stood and gave the broken chair a swift kick across the room.
He had wanted to serve in California. Instead, he had been sent to the northern provinces of Mexico, far from Mexico City in a land they called Nuevo Mexico.
His ultimate destination unknown, he had traveled the Royal Road, El Camino Real, with a caravan of merchants. They rode through great expanses of cactus and sagebrush, mile after mile of wild country with no civilization, and days of thirst and burning sun. It taught him humility, and it taught him faith. After a long day of traveling, tasting the grit and dust stirred up by the huge freight wagons and their oxen, and smelling the constant stench of the cattle brought along for food, he followed his prayer schedule with a certainty he had not felt in more comfortable circumstances.
After struggling through the desolate southern section of the trail, Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of the Dead Man, he left the caravan and traveled west into the mountains. He believed the villages in the mountain valleys, though they held fewer people than the plains, would offer a richer soil for the cultivation of souls.
As if led by God’s invisible hand, he found the people he would make his own. It was a small valley with a broad, flat bottom, fed by a steady stream. The kindness of the people, their eagerness to listen and to work together, and the mutual respect and honor he felt among the villagers was surely as great as the flocks of the Californian missions.
So the padre smiled a little as he gathered the splintered pieces of wood and stacked them neatly in the corner. He would mend the chair tomorrow. It was yet one more instance of God teaching him humility.
Tonight, as he took another stool from the corner and sat back at the table, he needed to concentrate on other things, to think about his situation. The good padre had a problem, and it centered around the gold in his trunk.
Padre Franco Dominguez was a servant of God working by the grace of the Mother Church in Mexico City. And as it was with all priests scattered in tiny outposts, he was watched over by the bishop of a large church on the outskirts of the big city. The bishop was his teacher, his guide—and his judge.
Unfortunately, his bishop was Jean Baptiste. He and Padre Franco did not like each other, to put it mildly, and the roles of teacher and guide were overshadowed by the bishop’s preference for the “judge” part of his role.
Bishop Baptiste was convinced of the need to build a new church in the valley—a big church, one that would reflect the greatness of God. Of course, it would take the labor and resources of the natives to build it, and many years. But who counts years when glorifying God?
Padre Franco hated the idea so much that he could hardly sit still. A large church building would bring no more glory to God than the padre’s simple chapel on the plaza. It was the hearts of the people that brought glory to God, not buildings.
Bishop Baptiste was even more insistent that the local villagers contribute part of their income for supporting the church’s work in Mexico City. He believed that every member of the padre’s flock should be giving money on a yearly basis, and that a fifth of their income was a proper amount.
A fifth!
The idea was preposterous. The bishop had spent too long in the big cities, surrounded by wealthy believers.
The men in the padre’s valley were pastores, simple herders of sheep, sometimes with a cow or two, living in the adobe homes so common in the countryside. There was a blacksmith (a man the padre loved to visit), a few weavers of wool, a small number of women who made the pottery shared throughout the families, and a few men who gathered meat and provided protection from bears and wolves. Those who farmed did so on small plots of land dotting the valley, growing enough apples, corn, beans, and chiles to eat, to trade, and to store for the winter.
There might be a hundred families in the village where he lived. Several of the families lived in an old hacienda of apartments built around a central plaza, of which the padre’s room was a part. Other families lived in homes scattered along two nearby streets. Up and down the length of the valley, on little farms and ranchos, there might be a hundred more.
That was it. Every family worked, and all of their work was needed to live. It was a careful balance achieved through many years of living together, a balance between needs and goods. The people were, by nature, kind and generous. Being forced to contribute to Mexico City, or to work on a building for which they received no return, would do nothing to increase their virtue, nor their devotion.
Padre Franco had spent many hours in prayer over the bishop’s demands for the building and the donations, but the source of his present problem lay outside the valley.
Many Indians made their homes scattered about in the surrounding mountains. Padre Franco considered them part of his field of work, as did Bishop Baptiste, but the bishop saw them as just another source for filling his collection plate.
The Indians, however, were even less likely than the villagers to have actual money. Printed bills or stamped coinage had never been part of their culture, and they were mostly hunters, so they did not produce goods such as wool or cloth. Thus their natural generosity did not translate to any currency that the church in Mexico City would find useful.
Nonetheless, the Indians did appreciate his services. They looked upon the padre of the valley as a holy man, giving him respect as they did their own medicine men. They liked the crosses, the statues, the padre’s special clothes, and the big book of his god’s stories. They especially liked the padre’s teachings about miracles.
Padre Franco sighed.
Yes, the Indians liked the miracle stories—walking on water, restoring a blind man’s sight, feeding thousands with only a few fish, the calming of storms. To them, healing was powerful medicine, abundant food was the mark of someone who understood hunger, and control over nature was simply wondrous to imagine.
But Jesus was the Worker of Miracles, not the padre. It was hard to convince them of this when it was the priest who spoke the words. As a result, the Indians brought gifts to Padre Franco, expecting that miracles would result. They had far fewer things than the villagers, but the Indians, long traveled over every square foot of the mountains and valleys and plains, had one resource that few would have imagined.
They had gold.
Gold was what they most often brought to pay for their miracles. They knew the whites valued the golden rocks from the earth and the shiny little flakes from the streams. The gifts came quietly, hung from his door latch during the night, mysteriously appearing at his campfire as he made his visits, or openly delivered in deerskin bags and turtle shells.
The Indians liked the jewelry the gold made, and they valued it as a trade item among the tribes. But a good horse was considered true wealth. Good rains were important. The stars, moon, and sun were significant. Colors from the earth used to paint their bodies were valued.
A gold rock was just a pretty stone. They brought other stones, too, such as turquoise and amethyst, and their children brought mounds of pretty rocks as well—quartz, iron pyrite, and copper. But mostly it was gold, and before long, the padre had quite a lot of gold nuggets and a few bowls full of flakes.
He could have solved this problem with a few choice projects—perhaps a new wood floor for his room? Some ornaments from Santa Fe’s craftsmen? Candlesticks? A new chalice? Padre Franco would have especially liked a bell to hang above the chapel doorway.
He thought of buying things for the village, but there was that problem of balance. The villagers needed nothing for which money was required. If gold were introduced, somehow, somewhere, the devil would invade the innocence of the valley, the long practiced balance of goods and needs would be upset, and things would never be the same.
So the gold remained in Padre Franco’s room, stashed in a trunk in the corner. But it could not stay that way for long.
In two months’ time, the bishop would visit, expecting the padre to have made good progress in the harvest of the Lord and expecting to collect an offering for the Mother Church in Mexico City. If the visiting bishop discovered any hint of unusual items not local to the valley, if he saw new items that had been purchased instead of being made—if he even smelled unusual riches—he would be relentless in finding the source of the wealth.
If he discovered the gold, or any sign whatsoever of gold sources nearby, the news would spread like wildfire. There would be no end to the troubles. The church in Mexico City would expect far greater contributions, hundreds of people outside the Church would invade the valley to dig wherever they pleased, land grabbers would swindle the simple people out of their homes and fields, and the Indians would be tortured unmercifully for the sources of their valuable stones.
The good padre knew that the people and the land would be forever ruined. He could not, would not, let that happen.
He had come close to throwing his mounds of gold into the cracks of the mountain gorges nearby, or burying them in the forest, but the gold had been given for the glory of God, even if the theology was a little misunderstood. He couldn’t even bring himself to throw away the mounds of ordinary rocks that the children had brought.
One cannot throw away gifts to God when a human heart had given it in His name.
He considered lying about it, pretending that the gold did not exist and had never been given, but as God as his witness, he couldn’t do it. It was an issue of his own commitment to God—it would not be right to lie or to ignore the truth. Like it or not, he had sworn allegiance to his bishop.
The padre faced the truth: He would not throw it away, and he would not lie about it. What was he to do?
There was a knock at the door. The padre opened the door to find Hector, a small boy from a family across the plaza. In his hands he held a new clay bowl.
“Buenos días,” the padre said.
“Buenos días. Mi madre le agradece sus oraciones para nuestra familia y le manda un tazón nuevo para sus necesidades.” The little boy thanked the padre for his prayers and brought a new bowl for his needs.
“My prayers are always for your family. A new bowl? I am honored. Gracias tanto! Please tell your mother she is a fine potter and I will use the bowl every day for the glory of God.”
The good padre watched as the boy broke into a smile, turned, and ran back along the path to his home. Closing the door, he set the bowl on the table and sat again on the stool. Idly running his finger around the rim, he noticed how the polish on the clay was so expertly done.
Hector’s mother was the best potter in the village. Her brother-in-law brought her clay from a faraway canyon, while the other women used clay from the local riverbanks. Their clay was not as good as hers, and sometimes the pieces fell apart in the ovens.
As he looked at the bowl, an idea formed in Padre Dominguez’s mind. It was a small thought, but it quickly grew into a big thought.
He remembered the fine pottery in the missions along the Rio Grande, the great river.
Sometimes required to travel to the capital city of Santa Fe, Padre Franco would stop overnight at the various missions for food and lodging. The Church was strong along the Rio Grande, with many years of tradition firmly in place—dances, ceremonies, finely clothed men and bejeweled women, marvelous paintings and tapestries brought from Spain, and reverently carved wooden stat- ues, called santos. Crosses were everywhere, inlaid into murals on the walls, hanging from silver chains around necks, and adorning the ends of the poles around the altars. He ate daily on marvelous pottery from the kitchens, and especially enjoyed the fine wine.
A smile grew across his face.
It would work, he thought. It would work. And it could be out in the open, not hidden at all. Spent for the needs of the people. Made for the glory of God, to lead His humble servants into a closer relationship with the Almighty. Surely there was no harm in it, only goodness. To create such things always deserved the finest resources of the land, did it not? And if the finest resources were actually finer than one expected, well, didn’t God deserve the best?
Padre Franco Dominguez sat quietly in a small candle-lit room built of mud bricks and wondered why he had become a Jesuit priest in the first place.
The son of a blacksmith, he’d been learning the craft at his father’s feet and learning it well. A good boy, a proper boy, skilled with a hammer and anvil, but hardly one given to books or the pen. It was remarkable both to him and his family when God called him to the priesthood.
Padre Franco had spent his early days in Spain learning to serve the Holy Church and to understand its mysteries. He had been a passionate young man, strong and dedicated, upright in his religious practices, and anxious to share his faith with all who would hear. It was a day of joy when he was selected to travel to the New World to bring the word of God to lost souls.
But, he now admitted, he hadn’t planned on bringing the word of God to lost souls in, well, such an isolated place. He had settled where God had led him, in a small village nestled deep in a mountain valley, remote from crowds and markets, distant from learned conversations, and far from good wine and jovial brotherhood. It took three days of travel to reach a proper town.
While in his priestly training, Padre Franco had dreamed of the mission fields he’d heard about along the coast of California. Ah, now that was the life he had seen in his future—living near the sea, journeying up and down the coast, working with other friars, priests, and monks as they toiled endlessly among the native people. He dreamed of large orchards, sprawling vineyards, and vats of wonderful drink.
And the mission churches! Oh, the stories he had heard. Wonderfully constructed of brick and stone, immense sanctuaries of arching rafters with bell towers and fountains and gardens of flowers and who knew what else. Fine places where a priest could serve in comfort!
Padre Franco leaned his chair back and smiled.
The back legs of the chair snapped and the good padre was sent sprawling across the dirt floor. A small cloud of dust rose as he stood and gave the broken chair a swift kick across the room.
He had wanted to serve in California. Instead, he had been sent to the northern provinces of Mexico, far from Mexico City in a land they called Nuevo Mexico.
His ultimate destination unknown, he had traveled the Royal Road, El Camino Real, with a caravan of merchants. They rode through great expanses of cactus and sagebrush, mile after mile of wild country with no civilization, and days of thirst and burning sun. It taught him humility, and it taught him faith. After a long day of traveling, tasting the grit and dust stirred up by the huge freight wagons and their oxen, and smelling the constant stench of the cattle brought along for food, he followed his prayer schedule with a certainty he had not felt in more comfortable circumstances.
After struggling through the desolate southern section of the trail, Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of the Dead Man, he left the caravan and traveled west into the mountains. He believed the villages in the mountain valleys, though they held fewer people than the plains, would offer a richer soil for the cultivation of souls.
As if led by God’s invisible hand, he found the people he would make his own. It was a small valley with a broad, flat bottom, fed by a steady stream. The kindness of the people, their eagerness to listen and to work together, and the mutual respect and honor he felt among the villagers was surely as great as the flocks of the Californian missions.
So the padre smiled a little as he gathered the splintered pieces of wood and stacked them neatly in the corner. He would mend the chair tomorrow. It was yet one more instance of God teaching him humility.
Tonight, as he took another stool from the corner and sat back at the table, he needed to concentrate on other things, to think about his situation. The good padre had a problem, and it centered around the gold in his trunk.
Padre Franco Dominguez was a servant of God working by the grace of the Mother Church in Mexico City. And as it was with all priests scattered in tiny outposts, he was watched over by the bishop of a large church on the outskirts of the big city. The bishop was his teacher, his guide—and his judge.
Unfortunately, his bishop was Jean Baptiste. He and Padre Franco did not like each other, to put it mildly, and the roles of teacher and guide were overshadowed by the bishop’s preference for the “judge” part of his role.
Bishop Baptiste was convinced of the need to build a new church in the valley—a big church, one that would reflect the greatness of God. Of course, it would take the labor and resources of the natives to build it, and many years. But who counts years when glorifying God?
Padre Franco hated the idea so much that he could hardly sit still. A large church building would bring no more glory to God than the padre’s simple chapel on the plaza. It was the hearts of the people that brought glory to God, not buildings.
Bishop Baptiste was even more insistent that the local villagers contribute part of their income for supporting the church’s work in Mexico City. He believed that every member of the padre’s flock should be giving money on a yearly basis, and that a fifth of their income was a proper amount.
A fifth!
The idea was preposterous. The bishop had spent too long in the big cities, surrounded by wealthy believers.
The men in the padre’s valley were pastores, simple herders of sheep, sometimes with a cow or two, living in the adobe homes so common in the countryside. There was a blacksmith (a man the padre loved to visit), a few weavers of wool, a small number of women who made the pottery shared throughout the families, and a few men who gathered meat and provided protection from bears and wolves. Those who farmed did so on small plots of land dotting the valley, growing enough apples, corn, beans, and chiles to eat, to trade, and to store for the winter.
There might be a hundred families in the village where he lived. Several of the families lived in an old hacienda of apartments built around a central plaza, of which the padre’s room was a part. Other families lived in homes scattered along two nearby streets. Up and down the length of the valley, on little farms and ranchos, there might be a hundred more.
That was it. Every family worked, and all of their work was needed to live. It was a careful balance achieved through many years of living together, a balance between needs and goods. The people were, by nature, kind and generous. Being forced to contribute to Mexico City, or to work on a building for which they received no return, would do nothing to increase their virtue, nor their devotion.
Padre Franco had spent many hours in prayer over the bishop’s demands for the building and the donations, but the source of his present problem lay outside the valley.
Many Indians made their homes scattered about in the surrounding mountains. Padre Franco considered them part of his field of work, as did Bishop Baptiste, but the bishop saw them as just another source for filling his collection plate.
The Indians, however, were even less likely than the villagers to have actual money. Printed bills or stamped coinage had never been part of their culture, and they were mostly hunters, so they did not produce goods such as wool or cloth. Thus their natural generosity did not translate to any currency that the church in Mexico City would find useful.
Nonetheless, the Indians did appreciate his services. They looked upon the padre of the valley as a holy man, giving him respect as they did their own medicine men. They liked the crosses, the statues, the padre’s special clothes, and the big book of his god’s stories. They especially liked the padre’s teachings about miracles.
Padre Franco sighed.
Yes, the Indians liked the miracle stories—walking on water, restoring a blind man’s sight, feeding thousands with only a few fish, the calming of storms. To them, healing was powerful medicine, abundant food was the mark of someone who understood hunger, and control over nature was simply wondrous to imagine.
But Jesus was the Worker of Miracles, not the padre. It was hard to convince them of this when it was the priest who spoke the words. As a result, the Indians brought gifts to Padre Franco, expecting that miracles would result. They had far fewer things than the villagers, but the Indians, long traveled over every square foot of the mountains and valleys and plains, had one resource that few would have imagined.
They had gold.
Gold was what they most often brought to pay for their miracles. They knew the whites valued the golden rocks from the earth and the shiny little flakes from the streams. The gifts came quietly, hung from his door latch during the night, mysteriously appearing at his campfire as he made his visits, or openly delivered in deerskin bags and turtle shells.
The Indians liked the jewelry the gold made, and they valued it as a trade item among the tribes. But a good horse was considered true wealth. Good rains were important. The stars, moon, and sun were significant. Colors from the earth used to paint their bodies were valued.
A gold rock was just a pretty stone. They brought other stones, too, such as turquoise and amethyst, and their children brought mounds of pretty rocks as well—quartz, iron pyrite, and copper. But mostly it was gold, and before long, the padre had quite a lot of gold nuggets and a few bowls full of flakes.
He could have solved this problem with a few choice projects—perhaps a new wood floor for his room? Some ornaments from Santa Fe’s craftsmen? Candlesticks? A new chalice? Padre Franco would have especially liked a bell to hang above the chapel doorway.
He thought of buying things for the village, but there was that problem of balance. The villagers needed nothing for which money was required. If gold were introduced, somehow, somewhere, the devil would invade the innocence of the valley, the long practiced balance of goods and needs would be upset, and things would never be the same.
So the gold remained in Padre Franco’s room, stashed in a trunk in the corner. But it could not stay that way for long.
In two months’ time, the bishop would visit, expecting the padre to have made good progress in the harvest of the Lord and expecting to collect an offering for the Mother Church in Mexico City. If the visiting bishop discovered any hint of unusual items not local to the valley, if he saw new items that had been purchased instead of being made—if he even smelled unusual riches—he would be relentless in finding the source of the wealth.
If he discovered the gold, or any sign whatsoever of gold sources nearby, the news would spread like wildfire. There would be no end to the troubles. The church in Mexico City would expect far greater contributions, hundreds of people outside the Church would invade the valley to dig wherever they pleased, land grabbers would swindle the simple people out of their homes and fields, and the Indians would be tortured unmercifully for the sources of their valuable stones.
The good padre knew that the people and the land would be forever ruined. He could not, would not, let that happen.
He had come close to throwing his mounds of gold into the cracks of the mountain gorges nearby, or burying them in the forest, but the gold had been given for the glory of God, even if the theology was a little misunderstood. He couldn’t even bring himself to throw away the mounds of ordinary rocks that the children had brought.
One cannot throw away gifts to God when a human heart had given it in His name.
He considered lying about it, pretending that the gold did not exist and had never been given, but as God as his witness, he couldn’t do it. It was an issue of his own commitment to God—it would not be right to lie or to ignore the truth. Like it or not, he had sworn allegiance to his bishop.
The padre faced the truth: He would not throw it away, and he would not lie about it. What was he to do?
There was a knock at the door. The padre opened the door to find Hector, a small boy from a family across the plaza. In his hands he held a new clay bowl.
“Buenos días,” the padre said.
“Buenos días. Mi madre le agradece sus oraciones para nuestra familia y le manda un tazón nuevo para sus necesidades.” The little boy thanked the padre for his prayers and brought a new bowl for his needs.
“My prayers are always for your family. A new bowl? I am honored. Gracias tanto! Please tell your mother she is a fine potter and I will use the bowl every day for the glory of God.”
The good padre watched as the boy broke into a smile, turned, and ran back along the path to his home. Closing the door, he set the bowl on the table and sat again on the stool. Idly running his finger around the rim, he noticed how the polish on the clay was so expertly done.
Hector’s mother was the best potter in the village. Her brother-in-law brought her clay from a faraway canyon, while the other women used clay from the local riverbanks. Their clay was not as good as hers, and sometimes the pieces fell apart in the ovens.
As he looked at the bowl, an idea formed in Padre Dominguez’s mind. It was a small thought, but it quickly grew into a big thought.
He remembered the fine pottery in the missions along the Rio Grande, the great river.
Sometimes required to travel to the capital city of Santa Fe, Padre Franco would stop overnight at the various missions for food and lodging. The Church was strong along the Rio Grande, with many years of tradition firmly in place—dances, ceremonies, finely clothed men and bejeweled women, marvelous paintings and tapestries brought from Spain, and reverently carved wooden stat- ues, called santos. Crosses were everywhere, inlaid into murals on the walls, hanging from silver chains around necks, and adorning the ends of the poles around the altars. He ate daily on marvelous pottery from the kitchens, and especially enjoyed the fine wine.
A smile grew across his face.
It would work, he thought. It would work. And it could be out in the open, not hidden at all. Spent for the needs of the people. Made for the glory of God, to lead His humble servants into a closer relationship with the Almighty. Surely there was no harm in it, only goodness. To create such things always deserved the finest resources of the land, did it not? And if the finest resources were actually finer than one expected, well, didn’t God deserve the best?
Chapter 2
Granddad’s ranch, in the Tularosa Mountains of western New Mexico Present Day
"Are you done yet?”
“Almost. Art takes time, you know.
“Art is one thing—obsession is another.”
“Hey, do I tell you how to curl your hair? Putting up Christmas lights is serious business. You have to get the colors in the right sequence or else it looks funny.”
“Maybe on a tree, but who cares about a fence? It’s cold out here! My fingers are like icicles!”
Mogi Franklin was close to the end of the fence that ran from the ranch house to the road. Starting next to the porch and tying the string of lights along the rails as his sister unrolled the coils, he had placed a yellow bulb, then a blue, then red, then green, then yellow again, then blue, red, green, yellow, blue, and red, until he was now faced with having no more greens or yellows, a couple of reds and blues, and an orange.
“Well, hmm, I guess. . .well, hmm, I must have counted wrong. . .hmm,” he muttered.
“Oh, good grief, dork-boy!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Get it over with! Do something, will you?”
“Okay, okay.” Mogi filled out the string by alternating the remaining lights and finished with the orange. He pulled the strand tight, making sure the end was securely fastened to the last fence post.
Rolling her eyes and heaving a sigh of relief, Jennifer tightened the crocheted scarf around her neck, stuck her hands in her pockets, and trudged back across the snowy yard. She climbed the porch steps and sat down in the swing.
Her brother came up behind her, shook out a folded blanket, and draped it across their shoulders. Mogi was fourteen and tall for his age, but his muscles had not yet caught up with his bones. He was gangly and spindly and a little bit awkward, which is to say, normal for his age. He took after his mom’s side of the family in his looks and his shyness, but he seemed to be a sum of both families on the brain side: He was smart, quick-minded, and mentally disciplined, with a natural talent for solving problems.
Jennifer, mature beyond her years at seventeen, definitely took after her father. Shorter than Mogi by a half a foot, with thick brown hair cut short, she was athletic and graceful. While her brother was the analytical, adventurous problem-solver, Jennifer was a cautious, emotionally perceptive people person. He pushed her to test her limits; she pulled him back into what was reasonable.
The screen door squeaked as Granddad came onto the porch. He finished buttoning his coat and then leaned against the post next to the steps, his breath making a whispery cloud. Behind the house, behind the low mountains that kept watch over the ranch, the setting sun cast its last few rays beneath the clouds. The color changed from yellow to orange to red, creating a soft, warm glow. It was three days before Christmas, and the snow had settled around the clumps of buffalo grass, the tall stalks of blue grama, and the occasional yucca. The tall, stately pine trees around the house, fully covered by recent storms, had shed enough snow to create a patchwork scene of white over greens and browns.
Mogi watched his grandfather. The eyes that had always been bright were not so bright anymore. What used to be a sparkle was now a soft sadness. When Mogi talked with him, he looked away, not at anything in particular, but as if he couldn’t focus in front of him. Granddad had always done special things, or done ordinary things in special ways; now he accepted things as they were. He had always walked; now he sat. He had always read; now he watched TV.
Mogi, Jennifer, and their cousin Jeremy had come a week earlier than their parents. Christmas Day was to be a big get-together this year. The aunts and uncles would be hosting a family reunion, and the three teenage grandkids had been sent ahead to help Granddad decorate the house and do as much cleaning as they could.
“Last year was pretty hard,” Mogi’s mom had said, “so we’re going to make this year special.”
Grandma died the day after Christmas the previous year and “pretty hard” didn’t come close to describing the misery Mogi remembered. The cancer had finally consumed her, and even though it was a relief for the pain and suffering to be over, the constant worry, fear, and waiting during the last few weeks had left Granddad and the rest of the family empty and exhausted. The house and ranch, usually bright and cheery for the holiday season, held only sorrow. What little Christmas celebration there had been lasted about five minutes.
But that wasn’t what Mogi was remembering.
He remembered that the wonderful woman who had helped raise him had withered into a helpless body that moaned and coughed and drooled and cried throughout the night. Night after night. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want the others to know, but he was glad when she died.
It hadn’t seemed fair—why did she have to suffer like that? She’d been a woman of faith all her life. God should have just let her die quickly and quietly; instead, it seemed like God hadn’t even been there.
“It’s time to plug them in,” Jennifer said as she got up and fit two plugs into the outlet. The long series of lights they’d wound around the porch posts and along the railings burst into color, showering the yard with a carpet of twinkling reflections.
Granddad gave a quiet laugh. “This is real good. You guys have done a fine job with the place and I certainly appreciate it.”
Jennifer moved to his side, circled her arm around his waist, and leaned against him. “Well, it’s not like we worked very hard at it,” she said. “I think we’ve managed to eat and sleep more than we’ve worked.”
Granddad gave her a small hug. “Well, that’s what Christmas is for. Having you kids around has brightened up the place, and you’ve worked me to death getting the tree decorated and straightening the house. I need a break, and so do you. I think it’s a fine idea that you’re taking off on a little skiing adventure before everybody gets here.”
“You don’t mind us leaving you alone?” Mogi asked. He worried that the memories would be too much for him, but maybe Granddad had gotten used to Grandma being gone. It had been a year, after all.
“Alone? Heck, we’ll have loads of people arriving by tomorrow afternoon. You ought to be more worried about having a bed to sleep in when you get back.”
The Christmas tree in the window behind them flashed to life, throwing a sparkle of colors across the porch. Jeremy bounded through the doorway. He was fifteen, and a continuous source of mischief.
“ ’Course, now, you’ve got Jeremy here leading you,” Granddad said with a small smile, “which means you may not make it back till spring.”
“What are you suggesting, sir?” Jeremy said in a fake, high-pitched voice. “That I’ll get them lost?” His voice returned to normal. “Lost is not in my vocabulary. I’ve got a shortcut to the cabin that’ll not only get us there with 100 percent success, but will show these lowlanders the beauty of cross-country skiing in the high mountains. Of course, I haven’t factored in all the ghosts and goblins that might be waiting for us along the way. There are strange things out there, huh, Granddad?”
The tall man grinned.
Mogi and the other grandkids had heard a thousand stories about local legends and unexplained happenings. That was Granddad’s thing—stories about “his” land, as he called it—New Mexico and the Southwest. Conquistadors, Spanish traders, cowboys and Indians, rustlers, gunfighters, bank robbers, trappers, explorers, gold miners, crooked politicians—you name it, he knew about it. Living at the ranch for forty years, at the foot of the Tularosa Mountains about a hundred miles southwest of Albu- querque, Granddad knew every story about the area that had ever been told.
“It’s a land of mystery, that’s for sure,” Granddad said as he watched the last light on the far mountains. “You’ve always got to be ready for the unexplained. You never know when the light on the mountains will set just right, the birds get all quiet, the sky clears, and you suddenly hear the sound of a flute on a gust of wind. That’s ol’ Kokopelli, the ancient native flute player, playing a song to let you know he’s watching, probably planning some adventure for you. Maybe some adventure that will sweep you away to a place you’ve never been before.”
It sounds as if he’s making a wish, Mogi thought.
“You think we’ll find us a ghost on this trip?” Mogi asked.
“Well, you never know,” Granddad said. “You have to remember that what would be strange and remarkable in other places is daily life around here. Ghosts, miracles, spirits—people have brought all sorts of tales out of these mountains, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all true in one way or another. In fact, you know what I really think?”
He turned to the boys as he draped his arm around Jennifer’s shoulders. “I think that some things happen because they’re needed by somebody. People think they see a ghost and it leads to something happening that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Others go searching for gold after they hear a legend about a lost mine in some mysterious canyon, and they don’t find the mine or even the canyon, but something even more important is discovered.”
He turned back to the view, as if he were now talking to himself. “This is a special place, a special country, and if somebody needs it, then that specialness reaches out to that somebody and magic happens. Maybe that’s what we should hope for.”
"Are you done yet?”
“Almost. Art takes time, you know.
“Art is one thing—obsession is another.”
“Hey, do I tell you how to curl your hair? Putting up Christmas lights is serious business. You have to get the colors in the right sequence or else it looks funny.”
“Maybe on a tree, but who cares about a fence? It’s cold out here! My fingers are like icicles!”
Mogi Franklin was close to the end of the fence that ran from the ranch house to the road. Starting next to the porch and tying the string of lights along the rails as his sister unrolled the coils, he had placed a yellow bulb, then a blue, then red, then green, then yellow again, then blue, red, green, yellow, blue, and red, until he was now faced with having no more greens or yellows, a couple of reds and blues, and an orange.
“Well, hmm, I guess. . .well, hmm, I must have counted wrong. . .hmm,” he muttered.
“Oh, good grief, dork-boy!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Get it over with! Do something, will you?”
“Okay, okay.” Mogi filled out the string by alternating the remaining lights and finished with the orange. He pulled the strand tight, making sure the end was securely fastened to the last fence post.
Rolling her eyes and heaving a sigh of relief, Jennifer tightened the crocheted scarf around her neck, stuck her hands in her pockets, and trudged back across the snowy yard. She climbed the porch steps and sat down in the swing.
Her brother came up behind her, shook out a folded blanket, and draped it across their shoulders. Mogi was fourteen and tall for his age, but his muscles had not yet caught up with his bones. He was gangly and spindly and a little bit awkward, which is to say, normal for his age. He took after his mom’s side of the family in his looks and his shyness, but he seemed to be a sum of both families on the brain side: He was smart, quick-minded, and mentally disciplined, with a natural talent for solving problems.
Jennifer, mature beyond her years at seventeen, definitely took after her father. Shorter than Mogi by a half a foot, with thick brown hair cut short, she was athletic and graceful. While her brother was the analytical, adventurous problem-solver, Jennifer was a cautious, emotionally perceptive people person. He pushed her to test her limits; she pulled him back into what was reasonable.
The screen door squeaked as Granddad came onto the porch. He finished buttoning his coat and then leaned against the post next to the steps, his breath making a whispery cloud. Behind the house, behind the low mountains that kept watch over the ranch, the setting sun cast its last few rays beneath the clouds. The color changed from yellow to orange to red, creating a soft, warm glow. It was three days before Christmas, and the snow had settled around the clumps of buffalo grass, the tall stalks of blue grama, and the occasional yucca. The tall, stately pine trees around the house, fully covered by recent storms, had shed enough snow to create a patchwork scene of white over greens and browns.
Mogi watched his grandfather. The eyes that had always been bright were not so bright anymore. What used to be a sparkle was now a soft sadness. When Mogi talked with him, he looked away, not at anything in particular, but as if he couldn’t focus in front of him. Granddad had always done special things, or done ordinary things in special ways; now he accepted things as they were. He had always walked; now he sat. He had always read; now he watched TV.
Mogi, Jennifer, and their cousin Jeremy had come a week earlier than their parents. Christmas Day was to be a big get-together this year. The aunts and uncles would be hosting a family reunion, and the three teenage grandkids had been sent ahead to help Granddad decorate the house and do as much cleaning as they could.
“Last year was pretty hard,” Mogi’s mom had said, “so we’re going to make this year special.”
Grandma died the day after Christmas the previous year and “pretty hard” didn’t come close to describing the misery Mogi remembered. The cancer had finally consumed her, and even though it was a relief for the pain and suffering to be over, the constant worry, fear, and waiting during the last few weeks had left Granddad and the rest of the family empty and exhausted. The house and ranch, usually bright and cheery for the holiday season, held only sorrow. What little Christmas celebration there had been lasted about five minutes.
But that wasn’t what Mogi was remembering.
He remembered that the wonderful woman who had helped raise him had withered into a helpless body that moaned and coughed and drooled and cried throughout the night. Night after night. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want the others to know, but he was glad when she died.
It hadn’t seemed fair—why did she have to suffer like that? She’d been a woman of faith all her life. God should have just let her die quickly and quietly; instead, it seemed like God hadn’t even been there.
“It’s time to plug them in,” Jennifer said as she got up and fit two plugs into the outlet. The long series of lights they’d wound around the porch posts and along the railings burst into color, showering the yard with a carpet of twinkling reflections.
Granddad gave a quiet laugh. “This is real good. You guys have done a fine job with the place and I certainly appreciate it.”
Jennifer moved to his side, circled her arm around his waist, and leaned against him. “Well, it’s not like we worked very hard at it,” she said. “I think we’ve managed to eat and sleep more than we’ve worked.”
Granddad gave her a small hug. “Well, that’s what Christmas is for. Having you kids around has brightened up the place, and you’ve worked me to death getting the tree decorated and straightening the house. I need a break, and so do you. I think it’s a fine idea that you’re taking off on a little skiing adventure before everybody gets here.”
“You don’t mind us leaving you alone?” Mogi asked. He worried that the memories would be too much for him, but maybe Granddad had gotten used to Grandma being gone. It had been a year, after all.
“Alone? Heck, we’ll have loads of people arriving by tomorrow afternoon. You ought to be more worried about having a bed to sleep in when you get back.”
The Christmas tree in the window behind them flashed to life, throwing a sparkle of colors across the porch. Jeremy bounded through the doorway. He was fifteen, and a continuous source of mischief.
“ ’Course, now, you’ve got Jeremy here leading you,” Granddad said with a small smile, “which means you may not make it back till spring.”
“What are you suggesting, sir?” Jeremy said in a fake, high-pitched voice. “That I’ll get them lost?” His voice returned to normal. “Lost is not in my vocabulary. I’ve got a shortcut to the cabin that’ll not only get us there with 100 percent success, but will show these lowlanders the beauty of cross-country skiing in the high mountains. Of course, I haven’t factored in all the ghosts and goblins that might be waiting for us along the way. There are strange things out there, huh, Granddad?”
The tall man grinned.
Mogi and the other grandkids had heard a thousand stories about local legends and unexplained happenings. That was Granddad’s thing—stories about “his” land, as he called it—New Mexico and the Southwest. Conquistadors, Spanish traders, cowboys and Indians, rustlers, gunfighters, bank robbers, trappers, explorers, gold miners, crooked politicians—you name it, he knew about it. Living at the ranch for forty years, at the foot of the Tularosa Mountains about a hundred miles southwest of Albu- querque, Granddad knew every story about the area that had ever been told.
“It’s a land of mystery, that’s for sure,” Granddad said as he watched the last light on the far mountains. “You’ve always got to be ready for the unexplained. You never know when the light on the mountains will set just right, the birds get all quiet, the sky clears, and you suddenly hear the sound of a flute on a gust of wind. That’s ol’ Kokopelli, the ancient native flute player, playing a song to let you know he’s watching, probably planning some adventure for you. Maybe some adventure that will sweep you away to a place you’ve never been before.”
It sounds as if he’s making a wish, Mogi thought.
“You think we’ll find us a ghost on this trip?” Mogi asked.
“Well, you never know,” Granddad said. “You have to remember that what would be strange and remarkable in other places is daily life around here. Ghosts, miracles, spirits—people have brought all sorts of tales out of these mountains, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all true in one way or another. In fact, you know what I really think?”
He turned to the boys as he draped his arm around Jennifer’s shoulders. “I think that some things happen because they’re needed by somebody. People think they see a ghost and it leads to something happening that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Others go searching for gold after they hear a legend about a lost mine in some mysterious canyon, and they don’t find the mine or even the canyon, but something even more important is discovered.”
He turned back to the view, as if he were now talking to himself. “This is a special place, a special country, and if somebody needs it, then that specialness reaches out to that somebody and magic happens. Maybe that’s what we should hope for.”