Bettina truly didn’t know where to begin. The desert was the forest she carried in her heart, a seeming contradiction in terms unless one knew the Sonoran. But what part of it? She understood from what her wolf was saying that she must focus on a particular aspect of it, but she’d walked so much of it, alone or in the company of her abuela and Adelita, with Ban and his mother and her own father. What one place could her basque del corazon echo? The desert was large and she loved it all. And complicating matters was how she’d always wandered in and out of la epoca del mito when she did go out hiking.
But then she remembered another gift that had arrived the morning she’d been reminded so strongly of los cadejos. She reached into the pocket of her vest and drew out the rosary that her mama had sent along in Adelita’s package. Though undoubtedly Mama hadn’t meant it to be used for such a purpose, it was exactly what Bettina knew she could use to focus.
Her wolf regarded the rosary with interest.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“My mamá sent it to me.”
He reached out with a hesitant finger to touch it.
“This is a potent geasan” he said as he let his hand fall back to his side. “Your mother has Indio blood, too?”
Bettina nodded.
“I didn’t think the geasan of old spirits and the church could join in such a fashion,” he said. “She must be a remarkable woman.”
Bettina hadn’t even considered that her mother might have made this herself. How could she have known how to do it, to combine the mysteries of church and desert like this? Who would have guided her hand? No one in the church, that was certain, but when had her mother even believed in the spirits of the desert, little say let one of them instruct her in anything?
But, “She is,” was all she told her wolf.
She held the rosary in both hands.
“Virgenbendita,” she said, closing her eyes. “Espíritus de los lugares ocultos salvajes. Help me find this place I seek. Lo imploro.”
When the image came slipping into her mind it was like greeting an old, long-lost friend. Of course, she thought. How could she not have remembered this place on her own? It was the crest of low-backed rise that stood in a part of la epoca del mito a few miles from her mother’s house, a secret place guarded by saguaro aunts and uncles that looked down into a dry wash. In the human world, one could see the Baboquivari Mountains in the distance, rising tall and rugged on the western horizon. In la epoca del mito, those same mountains shone with an inner light, the mystery of I’itoi Ki rising up from Rock Drawn at the Middle in a spiraling column of multicolored hues, reaching for the heavens. It was as though the most amazing desert sunset had been captured in cadejos…
How often had she and Abuela walked there, camped there, talked long into the night and through the day in that place? She had been there with her father, too, on more than one occasion.
There, she thought, gathering her will and focusing it on that image in her mind. That is where we must go.
There was no sensation of transition. She only heard her wolf say something softly in Gaelic that roughly translated to “Oh my,” and then the cool autumn glade was gone and she had bright sunlight bathing her face. She could smell the desert, felt the shifting dirt underfoot, heard the quail and doves in the mesquite that grew down in the wash.
She opened her eyes, the rosary still held fast in her hands, her face turned to the sky. The first thing she saw was a red-tailed hawk, coasting on its broad wings as it rode the air currents high overhead.
“Papa,” she said.
But it was only a bird, not an old spirit in the shape of a hawk, his human form lying forgotten under his feathers. She knew a moment’s sadness, then put the old ache aside. It was too hard to hold onto it at this moment. She drew a deep breath, tasting again the familiar air. It was enough to lift her spirits once more. She turned to her wolf, astonishment and delight dancing in her eyes.
“Well done,” he said. “If this is the forest of your heart, then you are well-favored, indeed. Only… where are the trees? Or did your grandmother only mean this to be a forest in a figurative sense?”
Bettina laughed and pointed to the tall saguaro.
“What do you think those are?” she asked.
“Very tall cacti.”
She nodded. “A forest of aunts and uncles.”
El lobo smiled at her infectious pleasure.
“You see?” he said. “Your father’s blood runs true.”
Bettina turned slowly around, drinking in the sounds and smells and sights. Not until this very moment did she realize just how much she had missed it. Truly, the desert was in her blood and she would not be whole living any where else.
That thought made her look at her wolf and recall what he’d said earlier, how perhaps it had been to heal herself that she’d sensed this mysterious call drawing her to Kellygnow. Sometimes one needed distance to appreciate what one had, lying close at hand. So perhaps it was true. Because she had long forgotten how it was to be so grounded as she felt at this moment. This is how it had been for her before everything had changed. Before la Muerte had sent the clown dog for Abuela. Before Papa had forgotten his human form. Before she had turned her back on the promise she had made to los cadejos.
Those old sadnesses rose up to nibble at her joy. She could do nothing for Abuela and if her father slept in a hawk’s thoughts, it would do no harm for him to sleep so a little longer. But the broken promise…
“To call los cadejos to me,” she asked her wolf. “Is it the same as how I brought us here? I must hold the thought of them in my heart and mind and will them to return?”
He nodded. “All but the willing part. It might be better if you simply asked.”
“Porsupuesto,” she said. Of course.
And if they would not come?
She shook her head and told herself not to think like that. She looked down at the rosary she still held and put it back in the pocket of her vest, unsure of how los cadejos would react to it. Besides, she didn’t need it to help her focus. The memory of their happy voices and rainbow colors was too immediate for her to need any sort of talisman.
She closed her eyes and let the memories rise up.
“Perdona,” she whispered. “Forgive me. It was unfair of me to turn away from you as I did.”
She listened for the sound of their voices, the high-pitched merry yelps.
“Come back. For favor. Tell me how I may make amends.”
She could feel her wolf’s sudden tension at her side and knew what troubled him. One did not lightly put oneself in debt to old spirits such as these. But she didn’t care. The broken promise was an enormous weight that she hadn’t recognized she was carrying until el lobo had spoken of it earlier. She was at fault, so it was up to her to atone.
“I will do whatever you ask,” she said, “so long as it harms no other living thing.”
She reached out into the desert and deep into her heart, searching for the rainbow dogs, but could find no trace of them.
“Perdona,” she said again. “Por favor, mis amigos los espiritus. Do not abandon me as I abandoned you.”
She feared her wolf was wrong. That not even calling to them in this place would be enough.