Page 33 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

I T FELT LIKE the end of the world: mountains beyond mountains, dissolving into blues and purples in the vast distance, the landscape prostrate below a hot afternoon sky.

The Jeep was straining to keep its interior cool in the beating sun.

Nora had left Santa Fe at five AM , crossed into Mexico through the Columbus port of entry around ten, and continued on into Chihuahua.

She had finally arrived in San Luis de Majimachi.

She pulled off the road at the top of a ridge and looked down into the town that lay below.

It was five o’clock and the village was bathed in a yellow light, the whitewashed cinderblock and log houses with their red corrugated roofs scattered among dusty fields, pine trees, and bleached rock formations.

She could see, near the center of town, two crude towers of a small mission church, built in stone, standing in a field of yellow grass.

It had been far more challenging getting to San Luis than she had thought.

She had lost cell reception and navigation hours before, but she’d been ready for that and was prepared to work from paper maps.

But as she penetrated deeper into the back country of Mexico, and the towns turned to villages—La Junta, San Juanito—the roads on the maps corresponded less and less to the roads on the ground.

The journey involved driving across several rivers, some of which were so deep she was worried the water would run into the car.

And San Luis de Majimachi itself seemed almost like a mirage.

Twice she’d gotten directions from local peasants, and twice she’d ended up in minuscule hamlets that, apparently, had no names.

It occurred to her that mentioning Don Benicio might have had something to do with their misdirection, and the third time she asked directions, she mentioned nobody’s name—and, it appeared, she had finally arrived at the right town.

Shifting the Jeep back into drive, she descended the road and in five minutes had pulled up in front of the church.

She got out, the smell of dust and heat hitting her like an anvil.

She was relieved to see the church door was cracked open, which she hoped meant someone was inside.

She eased the door open with a creak and entered the silent space, blessedly cool and scented with wax and myrrh.

After the dazzling afternoon light, it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom.

As they did, she noticed a form hunched over in one of the pews, praying.

She walked down the central aisle, looking for the priest, but the altar area was empty.

The only person in the church was the praying figure, face bowed and wrapped in a brightly colored shawl and scarf.

Nora took a seat in a pew behind her and waited, unwilling to interrupt her prayers.

After a few minutes the woman rose, and Nora watched as she went over to a small bank of candles below an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, took one out of a box and lit it, and then knelt and prayed at the shrine.

Nora had begun to fidget when the figure at last rose again and walked across the pews to the central aisle, heading out of the church.

She raised her head and Nora saw her face for the first time.

It wasn’t the old lady she’d expected, but instead a young, attractive woman.

Nora rose and approached her.

“Buenas tardes, senorita.”

The woman smiled.

“Buenas tardes, senora.”

Nora introduced herself in her workmanlike Spanish, explaining that she was in San Luis to visit a certain Don Benicio Bawi, and wondered if she knew where he was.

Nora was hoping to find him before dark, and further hoping he might offer her a place for the night.

The woman introduced herself as Maria.

At the mention of Don Benicio, a troubled look passed across her face.

“Don Benicio lives up in the mountains,” she said.

“A long way from here.”

Nora tried to hide her dismay.

A long way? She had hoped that San Luis de Majimachi, mentioned several times in the book, was where she’d find Don Benicio.

“How far?”

“Twenty, maybe twenty-five miles.”

Nora winced inwardly.

“That’s… not too far, I guess.”

“The road is bad. The maps are bad. You won’t be able to get there before dark—and the chances of your getting lost on the way are very great.”

When she saw the look on Nora’s face, she quickly added that she lived with her father and family, and that Nora would be welcome to spend the night at their place, at the edge of town—and of course share their evening meal.

Nora gratefully accepted and gave the woman a ride back to her house.

They drove through the small, dusty town and out the far end, where the woman indicated a shotgun house, built of whitewashed logs, with a deep and shady portal.

At the approach of the car, it seemed that all the inhabitants of the house came out to meet them: an old man in a straw cowboy hat and two shy boys about eight and ten.

Maria got out of the Jeep and spoke in an Indigenous language to the man, who was leaning on a cane.

He was clearly the padre de familia , and she introduced him to Nora as Don Alvaro.

He took off his hat, smiled toothlessly, and gave her a little bow, his hat on his chest, without extending his hand.

“He doesn’t speak Spanish,” Maria explained.

Inside, the house was mercifully cool.

“Let me show you where you can sleep,” Maria said.

She led Nora to a banco in her own room, covered with a thin straw-filled mattress and pillow and a brightly colored weaving, and then gave her a quick tour of the house before bringing her back to the living area.

“I’ll make dinner now,” she said.

Maria prepared a meal of tortillas, chicharrones, nopalitos, and beans over coals in a kiva fireplace in one corner.

Nora helped, grateful to be able to refresh her Spanish, while Don Alvaro sat in a large chair near the fire, hands propped on his cane, smiling broadly and smoking a corncob pipe, watching the two women work.

The two shy boys sat on a banco nearby, also watching Nora with apparent fascination.

Cooking finished, they sat down to dinner as the light vanished over the mountains, filling the house with a purple twilight.

A single kerosene lantern was lit and hung from a hook above the table.

Don Alvaro, who had said nothing up to this point, spoke to Maria in their Indigenous language.

Maria turned to Nora.

“My father wants to know if the dinner is satisfactory.”

Nora assured him that it was very good and thanked them again for their hospitality.

A few more superficial questions followed, and then the old man asked—with Maria translating—why she was going to see Benicio.

Apparently the old man knew a fair amount about him—or, at least, appeared to.

Nora had already worked out the answer to this question in her mind.

Although she hated to lie, she couldn’t tell the truth about the investigation: the strange deaths and other details would likely put people off.

She told them she was an anthropologist, that she had read about Don Benicio in the famous book by Professor Oskarbi, and that for this reason she wanted to meet him herself.

When Don Alvaro heard this, he frowned, his face becoming impossibly wrinkled with displeasure and disapproval.

He responded at such length that Maria grew uncomfortable.

When he had finished, Nora said to Maria, “Please translate directly—don’t worry about offending me. I want to know what your father said.”

Maria shifted in her chair.

“My father says that Benicio is not a good man. He practices the old ways, the devil ways. He thinks you should not go to him for spiritual advice.”

“Why does your father think so?”

Maria translated.

“He chews the devil’s root, and his ways are not that of a Christian. And, he says, he lives so far up in the mountains you will never find him, but fall off a cliff in your car. Besides, he has not been seen or heard of in several years. My father thinks he is probably dead.”

Nora frowned, then leaned forward.

“Did Oskarbi tell you that?”

Maria translated, and the two of them looked back at Nora with blank expressions.

“Who?”

“Carlos Oskarbi. One of Benicio’s followers was a man named Carlos Oskarbi. Do you know of him?”

Maria translated and the old man looked blank.

“We have never heard of him.”

“What?” There had to be some mistake.

“But he came down here over a decade ago. To join Don Benicio and to continue his… his discipleship. Perhaps you know of him, under a different name?” Oskarbi cut a charismatic figure that, she knew, would not be forgotten by the closest villagers.

The old man shook his head.

“I do not know of any white man living up there—with him, or anyone else.”

This was beyond strange.

“But this is the closest village to Don Benicio’s residence—right? He would need to come here for supplies.”

“Don Benicio left his house very rarely. In the old days, followers would bring him what he needed.”

“Followers?”

“Long ago there were many. More recently, only a few. But nobody goes to him now.”

“Did you know there was a book published about him, written by Professor Oskarbi?”

“I know of no book.” The old man hesitated, then spoke again, Maria translating.

“You are clearly a good lady, so I want to tell you something. Please be careful. If he is alive, and you find your way to him: do not believe what he tells you. Be doubtful, do not give him money—and afterward, go to the church here and confess to the priest.”

She assured the old man she would be careful, and with that the dinner drew to an end.

The family, clearly all early risers, began to prepare for bed—but not before the old man extracted a promise from Nora that she would let the older boy guide her part of the way to Don Benicio.

As she lay on the narrow, hard banco in the dark, Nora felt sleep eluding her.

Nothing Maria or the old man had told her aligned with her expectations—or what she’d understood to be the case.

Oskarbi, as a disciple, must have taken up the reclusive, hermit-like ways of his teacher.

She wondered about that teacher: if, assuming Benicio was still alive, he was the wise, Yoda-like figure depicted in Oskarbi’s book…

or if he practiced the “devil ways” as the old man had said.

Tomorrow, if all went as planned, she would finally meet him, along with the elusive Professor Oskarbi—and then she would know the truth.