Naked Sun

Chapter 2

2

Father Miguel took a deep purposed breath. He loved the smell of the church, the beeswax that coated the thick stucco walls, the lemon oil on the mesquite wood benches, the fine desert dust mixed with the scent of burned sage incense and candle wax. The smell was clean and cathartic.

He loved the heavy silence in the cool air of the pre-dawn desert. He could hear his heart, he could hear his thoughts, and he could hear his God. He loved his God and he loved where God had placed him to serve.

Mission de Santa Catalina in the Ciudad Mia Nuevo was a 200 year old Franciscan mission church that had become the center of the prospering southwestern town. It had been established to minister to the local Pima Indians in the late 1600’s by Jesuit priests from Spain. Over time the church had succeeded in converting the indigenous tribes, helping them turn from their pagan worship and tribal warfare to the passive cultivation of the rich river valley which inevitably brought prosperity and civility to the region.

The church stood at the heart of the traditional town square, an anchor and center piece to every town activity and every life event of its parishioners. Baptisms, weddings, funerals, Saint’s feast, Holy holidays, weekly mass and daily confessions made it a solace and a symbol of God’s faithfulness. The whitewashed tower and belfry literally pointing the way to heaven.

There was a school for the children, an infirmary for the sick, a monastery for the called and an orphanage for the fatherless. God’s work was being done. Father Miguel was certain of that. However, recently there were things that concerned him. There was an uneasiness in his spirit. He sensed dark motives amidst the joy of his congregants. He took another deep breath and prayed for clearer thoughts and a clearer path.

He was kneeling at the foot of the altar, eyes closed, the only perceptible movement in his body were his hands, expertly rolling the rosary beads through his fingertips, and the slow easy rise and fall of his chest. The first rays of morning light cast benevolent golden beams of sun across his back and the wooden floor beside him. He reached the end of the prayer row and waited, calming his mind. God’s peace could only be found by a calm mind.

“Dear Lord,” he whispered. “Give me the wisdom to know Your will and the strength to do Your bidding. I pray for Your Holy Church and for its followers. Give them Your peace and direction, Your healing in their spirits and bodies. Show me opportunities to serve You and reflect You to them in that service. Protect us God my Father…..In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He kissed the rosary and crossed himself

The morning bell rang with the dawn of another day in the Lord’s house, a worthy crescendo to his fervent entreaty. That bell, that beautiful bell, the only one of its kind in the territory, maybe in all the world. Cast well before Father Miguel’s time, it was a rare beauty in this harsh land. A bell plated in pure silver, made for a pure God, to call the faithful to purity.

The Jesuit priests who had led the way in this desert and started this mission had cast the divine instrument. Soon after their arrival they learned from their new local converts that the surrounding desert mountains contained gold and silver. A great deal of gold and silver. It wasn’t long after that Spain knew as well.

After the Jesuits explained their eternal debt of the tribes to “the one true God”, and the debt of gratitude they owed to Mother Spain, the Indians could think of no better way to pay their homage. The ore was gladly mined and donated by the Indians for the benefit of God and Spain. The priest’s too, at first, considered the mine a divine appointment and worked side-by-side with their native brothers.

Over time, however, the work became grueling. The mountain trial was treacherous. And as it often had before, man’s tenacity for the heavenly waned under the strain of worldly toil. Several Indians and priests lost their lives bearing their loads. The Indians, still new to Christianity, became afraid and began to combine their superstitious pagan beliefs with their newly learned doctrine. In order to appease their lesser gods, a sacrifice would have to be made in hopes of warding off future disasters.

They planned a ceremony in which the tribal chief’s son would be married to the kidnapped daughter of a warring neighboring tribe and then she would be sacrificed. Her blood would cover any sin that had been committed by removing the precious metals.

The princess was captured and r***d but before her blood could be shed, the priests learned of the ceremony and interrupted the sacrifice. The Indians were beat into submission, imprisoned and starved until they were convinced that the only way to repent of their pagan ways was to continue their mining work. What had started as a partnership quickly deteriorated into a slave-master relationship.

The priests enslaved the Indians to mine the precious metals, using the gold and silver to ornament their mission and please their monarchy. Greed infiltrated the church and the minds and hearts of the priests like a putrid disease. After some time the Indians lost all faith in their cause, and this new found god, and were determined to end their suffering.

Using the guise of a large new find of silver ore, they easily lured the infected priests, sick with the lust of this world, into an ambush. They killed their captors and the Pima people left the “cured” holy men and piles of their treasure in the mine, closing it forever with a solid silver door.

The Indians then free, disappeared into the illusory desert landscape of the Catalina Mountains along with any and all knowledge of the mine. It was never discovered again, although many sought to find it.

If that was all it was, a legend, an ugly blot on the history of the mission, Father Miguel’s heart would be at peace. After all, God’s will had many paths and just as many converts had been made in times of strife in the church’s history, maybe more, as in times of peace. The very reason he served at this mission was because the Franciscan brothers he belonged to replaced those very priests that fell to the Indians.

God’s will always finds a way.

But there were rumors, whispers, a recent unrest that could only be born of greed and ungodly selfish pursuits. Gold had been discovered again in the Catalina Mountains, the legends of the lost mine was resurrecting, the sickness was returning.

Men’s hearts were so easily turned by the powers of this world, so easily infected. Father Miguel feared for his parishioners. He could sense a fever rising in the village. He didn’t know what the changes would mean to his village or his church¸ but he knew change was coming.

He lifted his gaze to the sculptured face of the Crucified Christ above the altar. He looked into his Savior’s eyes, finding immediate comfort there. This Christ who took away all sin, all sickness. Father Miguel didn’t know, but his God did, and Father Miguel trusted his God.

He crossed himself and rose from the floor. This mission had stood for nearly 200 years and by God’s will it would stand for 200 more. He would trust his God.

Yesidro DeSantiago made his way down the steep narrow path of the desert mountain using his one good eye. His burro, also visionless in one eye, followed faithfully behind him, one tiny sure footed hoof in front of the other. Y, as people called him, had always joked that God had made he and the burro two halves of a whole since they were blind in opposite eyes.

They were making their way slowly into the valley to the town of Mia Nuevo, hoping to quench the unrelenting thirst that only comes from weeks and months in the desert. A thirst for the sound of a human voice, for fresh water and food, and for liquor from a bottle, not from a cactus.

“He sees the left half and I see the right. The half in the middle wasn’t meant to be seen,” Y would chuckle through his missing teeth and wandering tongue, widening his white cataract eye for effect. As if on cue his burro would curl back his lips as if laughing at the tired joke.

No one was certain how old Y and his burro were, yet everyone knew him. It was suspected that he was well over one hundred. Generation after generation told of Y and his one eyed companion coming and going from the mountain. Time had not changed them. On the contrary, decades in the desert had somehow preserved them.

Sometimes if enough free tequila was offered in the saloon, Y ‘s one good eye would glisten and he would tell wild stories of years ago. Stories of wild native Indians, kidnapped Indian princesses, human sacrifice and of a silver mine that only he and his one eyed burro had ever seen.

“I had two eye’s then, saw all of it. I know the way,” he would spout assuredly.

If the lucky patron who inadvertently sat next to him at the bar was a stranger, he would just nod politely as Y continued his rant. The locals would nod politely and pay for another shot of his tequila.

It was on one of these nights, during one of his rants, that a stranger offered Y another drink and sat down beside him.

“I have been listening to you old man.” The stranger sat with his back to the bar, elbows bracing his weight. “Your stories interest me.” He turned to look at Y, keeping his gaze fixed on the one good eye.

The stare stopped the old man. He tipped his dusty, sweat soaked hat back on his head and tried to focus on the man in front of him

“Oh they do, do they..” He rubbed his silver stubble chin, a jack o lantern grin spreading across his weathered face. “Which ones?” He lifted the empty shot glass towards the stranger who understood and in turn summoned the bar keep to fill the glass again.

“The one about the mine,” he said casually as he watched Y throw back the shot and lick the last drop out of the bottom.

“Ohhhh…they all like that one. Lots of takers on that one.” Y blinked slowly. Finally he mustered, “What’s your name?”

“Don Santos Juaquin,” the stranger offered.

“Saint Juaquin, huh? The father of Mary, if I got my ‘caddy cism’ right…”

The stranger nodded and smiled at the old man.

“Yes, he is my patron saint. Honored of God.” He poured another drink and passed the glass to Y. “Will you tell me old man? Tell me about the Lost Silver Mine.”

Y paused, his caution had dissolved with the tequila.

“Sure, Santo Honored of God! Sit back, this one will cause your hair to curl, or maybe cause you to lose an eye.” Y snorted, slapped his new friend on the shoulder and began to tell his tale once more.