“No, no,” Sailor said, “your anxiety is natural. It is always natural. I knew your mother, or at least I knew her family in the Azores hundreds of years ago. They and others like them have always thought these Basque tribes, if they exist, favor the Egizahar over the ‘diko.’ That somehow, if you are ‘diko,’ you will be found out and harmed. That is wrong. First of all, they do exist, and second, they make no distinction between us. Unfortunately, only we make a distinction between us. It is an old, tired practice and needs to be done away with.
“No, Ray, you have nothing to fear from these Basque we shall meet. They are good, honorable people descended from the tribe of Vardules, simple shepherds really. And they would all give their lives to save Zianno and what he wears around his neck. They always have, they always will.”
I thought this was as good a time as any to ask him what had been on my mind for some time. “Why do they protect us? And if they do, why haven’t they come to me?”
Sailor turned the ring on his forefinger, pausing, then looked me in the face. His “ghost eye” was cloudy and swirling. “The answer to that,” he said, “is older than I. I only know that they know of us, they always have. The Basque and the Meq are like sky and water — each taking credit for the other’s origin.
“There are few left; few of them and few of us. And the few who are left honor the old traditions. The first one of which is, Zianno, you come to them — they do not come to you.”
“What do they know about the Stones? Do they know what we can do?”
“Of course. The Stones are a sacred mystery to the few Basque who know of them, as they are to us.”
“What do they think of someone like you? Someone who outlives them all for countless generations and remains a kid? A boy?”
“We have worked that out,” he said. “You will find out what I mean for yourself.”
Ray got up from his seat and walked the length of the car and back. He rubbed his hands over the soft velvet of the furniture and the burl walnut finish of the cabinets. “You say they’re shepherds, is that right?”
“Yes,” Sailor answered.
“Damn.”
The trip through Missouri went too fast. Every stream was blue and every tree was in full leaf and still colored a spring green, not the deep green they would soon be. We were treated like princes by the porters and given everything we needed. By the time we hit the endless, flat prairie of Kansas, we all agreed that if you had to cross this land, this was the way to do it.
In Denver, we were surprised to find that Owen Bramley wasn’t there. After what Solomon had said about him I expected him to be opening our door before the train had stopped. He did leave a telegram for Sailor though. It was sent from San Francisco and said, “Sorry didn’t make connection STOP Am waiting for extra cargo STOP Will meet in Boise STOP Owen Bramley STOP.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Sailor folded the telegram in quarters and placed it inside his boot just below the knee. “I’m not sure,” he said and then smiled. “We may have an unexpected guest.”
Just then, I felt a presence, a presence laced with fear — the net descending. I looked at Sailor and Ray and they felt it too. We instinctively looked around and through the crowd. Someone was watching us and it wasn’t the usual glance of curiosity. I searched the faces, at random, quickly, chasing the eyes that were following mine. And just for a split second, I thought I caught the razor-thin eyes of a man in a bowler hat, like Ray’s, staring back, knowing me. Then he disappeared in the crowd.
“Was that the unexpected guest?” I asked Sailor.
“I think not,” he said.
“Then what was that?”
“I do not know. Let’s hope our train leaves soon.”
“Does Solomon have any enemies?”
“I presume many, but that presence was directed at us. There is always danger when two or more of us who carry the Stones travel together. That is the first time I have felt danger since we met.”
“Have they been stolen before? The Stones, I mean.”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never, though it has been attempted a thousand times. The gems have always attracted the Giza’s attention.”
“But how would they know? How would they ever know where any of us were going to be?”
“Mistakes, inattention, carelessness, fatigue, taking time itself for granted, false security, the Fleur-du-Mal—”
“The Fleur-du-Mal!” I shouted.
“Yes, his greatest avocation is selling the Giza on a plan to steal the Stones, getting his money, and laughing as he leaves, knowing they will not succeed.”
“What stops them?”
“Our. abilities. and the kind of people we are on our way to meet. They and their ancestors are tireless sentinels.”
Solomon’s railroad car was recoupled to the appropriate line and we departed for the spectacular route through the Rocky Mountains and into the Great Basin and Salt Lake City. I watched Ray watch the mountains and I could tell he really had never seen them before. As we snaked through passes, only to find more mountains, more passes, more of everything, he watched in silence and awe and truly became twelve years old again.
I thought briefly of Mama and Papa, but not in a sad or nostalgic way; I felt that their bones inhabited a good place; a place of clean rock and water, pine, aspen, and hawks. Their material passage back to dust would be a good place for their spirits to rise.
Sailor rode through the mountains in silence. He was alone in himself, but his memories were crowded. He turned the ring on his forefinger sideways and stroked the priceless sapphire with the smooth part of his thumb.
We made a connection in Salt Lake and turned north toward the high desert and Boise, Idaho.
We arrived in the late afternoon. It was hot, dry, and windy. Sailor opened a window and a fine mist of grit and dirt blew in. You could feel it like sand in your eyes and teeth. Our railroad car was uncoupled on a side track and left by itself as the rest of the train pulled back on the main line. We stepped down from the car and looked around for our hosts. I saw people scurrying in and out of the station, holding on to their fedoras, Stetsons, bonnets, and scarves, most keeping a handkerchief over their nose and mouth.
Ray was holding on to his bowler too. “I wonder if it’s always like this?” he said.
Out of nowhere, a voice answered, “Not always, señor. In the winter it snows.”
We all turned at once to see a wiry young man of about twenty years old holding a red beret in his right hand and motioning us toward a wagon with his left. He and three other men on horseback, all wearing red berets, had appeared silent as shadows around the corner of the station.
“This way, please,” he said. “I will take you to the Aita.”
Sailor took a step toward him, squinting with his ghost eye. “Are you Pello?”
“Yes, señor, I am.”
“In the blink of an eye,” Sailor said, “I swear, Pello, in the blink of an eye you have become a man.”
It was odd. I had never seen it before, but the young man, who looked to be at least Sailor’s older brother, maybe even a young father, was self-conscious and slightly embarrassed, as he would have been if an uncle or grandfather had made the same remark.
Sailor turned to me and told me he wanted to check and see if Owen Bramley had sent a message. He left for the station and the Basque men dismounted and loaded our things onto the wagon. Sailor was back in minutes and I couldn’t tell from his expression whether there was a message or not. He jumped in the wagon and we headed south across the Snake River, trying to shield our eyes and mouths from the grit. The Basque didn’t seem to notice.