Tricksters and Angels

Chapter 1-5

Carlotta Moore stood on the porch of her adobe home. She was a tall, large-hipped, big-busted woman, sculpted like the ancient depictions of Gaia, the Earth goddess. Hair rolled down her back in a waterfall of white and yellow curls. She wore a circlet of olive wood around her head and a gauzy white dress that flittered upward in the afternoon breeze, revealing legs shaped like muscled pillars. Her eyes were dark and piercing, and yet she held out her arms and hugged Ramsey to her like an old friend.

“Let’s sit outside,” she said and led him to a side porch where a carafe of coffee and two cups sat on a glass table. “I was glad you called. I'm happy to talk about that first night.”

Ramsey raised his eyebrows at the mention of first night.

She sat facing the Sangre de Christo Mountains and the Milagro Shrine, which Ramsey, looking over his shoulder, could just see in the distance. The large cottonwood tree seemed brighter from here, and yet ethereal. He suddenly felt as if its essence had crossed the miles of rabbit grass and mesquite and now hovered about him in whispers of wind. Ramsey paused for a moment, trying to translate what the breeze was telling him.

“So you’re a human geographer. Remind me again what they do.”

“We study the importance of place in every kind of human activity. Some of the most important places in the history of humanity are sacred places.”

“Like you said on the phone, you might study the history of the shrine?”

“I’m interested in how it got started. It’ll help me decide if I want to proceed.”

“So, what would you like to know?”

If Ramsey had a special skill it was his ability to listen. To listen to a place. To listen to people while setting his personal preferences aside. “It is perhaps the most important skill a human geographer can have,” Jared Diamond had told him when he arrived at UCLA. From that moment on Ramsey consciously practiced developing that capacity.

Ramsey said, “Rosa Cisneros said you were at the Milagro Shrine from the beginning.”

“There was no shrine then. I’m the only one left from the original group.”

“What happened to the others?”

“They’ve all passed on.”

“They’re dead?”

She laughed lightly. “I meant they’ve gone out into the world. That night changed us all.” Carlotta took a sip of coffee. Ramsey did the same and pursed his lips against the strong taste. “I brew it until a wooden spoon can stand up in the mix by itself. Then I add a little water. It’s better for you that way.” She set hers down and leaned back.

Ramsey relaxed, his smile inviting her to tell him all about the original group and that first night.

“Back at the turn of the millennium a group of us teachers from our county started coming up here in August during the Perseid meteor shower. We thought of it as a way to inaugurate the new school year. If you’ve ever taught you know there’s something special about the beginning of a new year. Gathering together to watch the meteor shower became sort of a ritual or pilgrimage. The place was special because it had a single cottonwood growing on a dry ridge. Plus, the owner of the land didn’t mind us being there. Then in 2003 we trooped up to the top of the hill and something different happened this time. It was August 12th at the height of the meteor shower. They were zipping across the night sky like Fourth of July fireworks. They seemed brighter than usual as though the gods had breathed fire into the night sky. The cottonwood tree shivered with every meteor that passed behind its massive branches.

“We are all gathered, sitting at the base of the tree, and that’s when it happened.”

“What happened?” Ramsey asked.

“It was like a benediction … a feeling of deep peace and love fell over everyone. We all felt joy and goodness. Not just the good you feel waking up every morning glad you’re still above ground, but good like you can go out and tackle the world. You believe in that kind of possibility?”

Ramsey gave a slight nod. “Go on.”

Carlotta smiled at him and said, “Guess how old I am.”

Ramsey sat back. In some of the Indian tribes he studied in the sss, a woman’s age was a mark of respect and wisdom. Women in the U.S. weren’t so blasé about getting older. “I’m thinking forty-five,” he ventured, ready to take it back in an instant.

She laughed loudly and said, “Fifty-five, but I feel half that age and have every day since that night. I have the energy of people thirty years younger than I am. The feeling has never gone away.”

“That’s remarkable. Can you tell me what happened to the others?”

“The most amazing transformation was a teacher from West Fork, named William Benedict. He had rheumatoid arthritis. By the time we walked down to the cars he was flipping coins in the air and catching them. It was a true miracle.”

“Any other ‘miracles’?”

“Within a month Agnes left a bad relationship. My best friend, Francis resigned and went home to take care of her ailing parents. It was like we all experienced our own special miracle. I would say transformational miracle.”

Ramsey’s mind was racing. It was the old paradox—did these people make the place miraculous or did the place make the miracles?

“Then what happened?”

William was a science teacher and wanted to test to see if it would happen again. The next night he brought some other people with different illnesses and some of them got better. The shrine grew from that time to what you see out there now. People coming here getting healed finding new direction in their life, until … I’m sure you know what’s happened.”

She stopped, reached for her coffee. Her hand shook slightly as if a great sob entered her chest. Ramsey could see there was something more about the first days of the Milagro shrine she wanted to share, something that brought a touch of sadness and uncertainty to her life. He let his eyes smile, sending out gratitude and support to her. It was an interview technique he’d honed to get people to relax so they would speak more honestly about issues.

She tapped her fingers against the cup. “There’s something I believe you should see.” Carlotta got up and went into the house, bringing back a picture. “Here’s the original group a couple years later.”

Ramsey studied the photograph. Ten people were clustered about the cottonwood tree. It was late summer, judging by the dark brown grass. The sky was dark blue without a cloud. Everyone was dressed in shorts and t-shirts. They smiled brightly and a couple on the far left held up fingers in a ‘V’ for peace. He was drawn to a man standing next to the couple. He was standing a bit apart, as though he wasn’t really a member of the group. That looks like the person I saw under the cottonwood this morning.

He pointed to the man and asked, “Who’s that?”

“My half-brother. He wasn’t part of our teacher’s group, but I brought him along because I thought the exercise would do him good. He’d been in a terrible motorcycle accident a few months earlier while living in Des Moines, Iowa. I brought him here to convalesce. At the time he could barely walk and couldn’t talk at all. It was like his brain and body had been pulverized. My two sons and me are his only living family. As he got better, he became sort of the unofficial caretaker of the shrine. That is, up until around two months ago.”

Ramsey raised his eyebrows. “Where is he now?”

Carlotta’s jovial manner deadened and she shook her head. “Don’t know. He just disappeared. A tear fell from her eye. “No explanation, no good bye. At the shrine on a Tuesday and gone on Wednesday.”

Ramsey briefly wondered if he should say anything to her about the man he saw, but he couldn’t be sure it was the same person, and he didn’t want the conversation to get stuck here. Instead he asked, “His name is–?”

“Gwillt,” she answered. “Adam Gwillt. His father was a Scot. He died two years after Adam was born. Mom returned to the states and married Clement Moore, my father. I wish Adam were here, he could tell you a lot more about the everyday working of the Milagro Shrine than I can. Of course, you can always talk to Father Michael.”

“I might,” Ramsey said, remembering the former priest he’d met at the shrine.

“Good.” Carlotta frowned, the sudden disappearance of her brother still quite painful. “Call him … Father Michael can answer the questions I can’t.”

Ramsey nodded, wondering what those questions might be. In the next instant, he stifled a yawn, realizing he would never call Father Michael to find out. The visit with Carlotta was interesting, but it didn’t change his mind any about taking the job.

He got up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee and I’m so sorry about your brother. I hope Adam turns up.”

She followed him out to the driveway where he’d parked his rental car. As he started to get in, she put her hand on his and said, “You really should call Father Michael. I have his number.”

“Thanks. If I come back, I’ll get it.” Ramsey was anxious to leave. The correlation between the person who spoke to him under the Cottonwood tree and Adam Gwillt had shaken him. He searched his memory for what he knew about apparitional experiences. Apparitions were at the heart of many sacred sites. Appearances of Mary or even Christ at holy Christian sites were common phenomena. In some cases, mass apparitions were at the center of a sacred site’s beginnings. He also remembered that many people experience ghostly apparitions of recently departed lovers, friends, and family members. A few months ago he had read an article about how quantum scientists postulated that our linear time is flexible in higher dimensions and that we can on some occasions slip in and out of our four-dimensional world and experience apparitions of celestial beings. One researcher even speculated these dimensional shifts could account for phenomena such as the sudden appearance of guardian angels. Ramsey reasoned that if he just experienced an apparition of Adam Gwillt it meant that he must be dead. Or did it?