Look for me by moonlight,
watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight,
though hell should bar the way.
Sir Alfred Noyes

Sonora Moonlight

Chapter I: Arrival

"It's a Black Robe. Probably the new priest!"

Were they speaking Upper Pima? Hazy figures and hovering silhouettes crowded around, peering down. I was not on the mule but on my back, with something fuzzy underneath, a blanket maybe. The dark mound looming above me wavered and became a mud and stick hut that threw its shadow over me, but the glare from the sun just beyond it still hurt. My eyes squeezed shut in protest.

"Is he drunk?" asked another voice.

"No, idiot, he's sick! He needs the medicine man! Send someone for Jevho, the maakai."

"The healer's at Sonoitac. We'd better get the priest to the mission at Guevavi. Jevho can go there. It's closer," said the original voice.

Many hands lifted me onto my mule.
 
"Will he fall off?"

They waited. I waited too. I clung to Conejo's bristly mane, weaving but not falling.
 
"Shoiga! Walk beside him and catch him when he falls."

But I did not fall. A few times, Conejo gave a little hitch to balance me, like a father making sure the baby sits squarely on his shoulder. The sun was on its way toward the horizon when we came in sight of the mission church, a bell hanging in an arch over the door, an unfinished tower at its left corner. A square compound enclosed by a six-foot adobe wall extended from the right side, the gate sagging open. The procession halted, waiting for me to get down. I pulled a leg up and over Conejo's back, but my foot hung up in the stirrup.

"Shoiga, grab him! He's falling now!"
 
The young man who'd walked beside Conejo caught me and set my feet on the ground. He smelled of sweat and his cheek against mine was slippery with it. Another arm thrust under my armpit and snaked across my back. They half carried me through the compound gate and into a cell in the unfinished convento.
 
The tiny room was full of sand, debris, straw, sticks, and cobwebs in the corners that looked like lairs of black widow spiders. A fireplace-oven filled one corner and a warped table stood, flanked by a single chair, with only three legs touching the earthen floor. In the opposite corner stood the bed, the frame bound together with dried rawhide strips. It was made of mesquite branches, unpeeled, but without thorns as far as I could see. Rawhide thongs also spanned the width of the cot to support whatever mattress could be devised.
 
"Wu'ai! Get his saddle pad and his sleeping blanket. Take the saddle, too. Lay them on the bed."

I croaked a few words in their language, but there was no word for 'violin,' so I ended in Spanish. "The package behind the saddle! Bring my… my violín!"
 
Wu'ai nodded and returned a moment later to make the bed that only a mystic from India could find comfortable. Someone, Shoiga maybe, wedged my saddle at the head, then with grunts and groans he and Wu'ai picked me up and stretched me out, pulling my robe down to cover my shins. I groped beside the cot to see if they'd brought the violin as I'd asked. Wu'ai lifted the case so I could see and touch it. I sighed and gave a little murmur of satisfaction.

A hand lifted my head. Had I slept? A wizened little woman bent over me and poured drops of water on my parched tongue. She then sponged my burning forehead and cheeks with a wet rag and cleaned away crusts at the corners of my mouth. I smiled with gratitude and her pleated lips stretched wide in response.

I next opened my eyes to semi-darkness, the tiny cell lit only by a fire in the oven. Flickering light played upon the wrinkled woman, and, near my bed, on a man and a young woman. Was I awake? I blinked to make sure. She was striking rather than beautiful, tall and slender, part Indian, with high cheekbones, a prominent nose, and dark skin. But, incongruously, the firelight gleamed on chestnut red hair pulled back and tied in a knot behind her head, and a soft forest of wisps framed her face. A leaping flame made her dark eyes seem blue.

The man was a bit shorter but powerfully built, with broad shoulders and massive arms. His chest was bare except for a necklace of bear claws interspersed with macaw or parrot feathers. He wore wristlets, the feathered one on his left arm might be yellow and green—hard to tell by firelight—bear or wolf claws on the right, and a mask on his upper face. One hand held a rattle; the other a pipe giving off a peculiar-smelling smoke, unlike tobacco. I blinked again. Surely, this pair was a figment of my fevered mind. The man began to dance in rhythmic motion, uttering guttural sounds and keeping time with the rattle. At intervals he filled his mouth with smoke and blew it into my nostrils and mouth. I could not avoid inhaling it. Before long, my body drifted, light and remote, free of pain. He gave an order in clear Upper Pima.
 
"Give him the potion."

The red-haired woman moved toward the oven, and the crone handed her a clay vessel full of liquid. Warm vapors wafted from it when the young woman raised me by the shoulders with surprising strength and pressed it to my lips. The contents were bitter but cloying. I gagged, then gulped it down and lay back with a sigh when she released me. The warm potion soothed my raw stomach. The medicine man continued his weaving dance, fanning me with an eagle wing, chanting in what seemed to be archaic Pima language. He might be invoking the names of strange gods, gods of the earth, of the storm, the ruler of all flesh, who were to come to my aid.
 
If this were Devil-worship performed over my helpless body, I should feel fear and loathing, but instead I felt a visceral connection to this man who held my life in his hands. He became my protector, my brother, my father. I was like an infant, totally at his command. My panting breath sounded loud in my ears as I tried to reach out to him. Then the dancing and chanting ceased.

* * *

With me, the Black Robe would not need a drug. Our maakai is intoning his incantation—an especially powerful one, I think. That means he believes this man to be gravely ill, on the point of death. He says the priest has one of the wandering sicknesses, easy to detect, and not needing a long Dúajida ceremony. I think we Irish call that a "diagnosis." I watch Jevho, thrilling at his beauty, wanting to reach out to him as this poor priest just tried to do. My two natures, Indian and Irish, are at war inside me. I am the maakai's apprentice. My Pima mother, Hohoi, wants me to carry on her family's traditions, even though she now goes to church with my father, Patrick. I'm here thanks to her, learning everything I can about Jevho's art and his faith. For he has a faith—deep and abiding—that rivals and in some ways contradicts the one the Spanish have brought to this land, and the one my father believes in. I'm not sure just what my mother believes, in her heart of hearts.

I'm torn between the power of Jevho's lore and what the Europeans have taught me. I believe in the power and authority of Nature and what She tells us. And yet, the missionary I knew best, Father Gustavo Holzmann, told me to resist my natural impulses. Sad for him he didn't—couldn't, perhaps—resist his! I'm eighteen years old, and I've lived a great deal, had many experiences of the awe-inspiring power of Nature. I learned the most important lessons not from my Indian relatives and friends, but from the Spanish or the Irish, who profess not to believe in Nature but only in the Christian God.
 
My uncle Michael was one of my most important teachers. He's been gone for days, and my father is frantic about him, I can tell. He hasn't said much, but he walks the floor and snaps at mother and me. The maakai tells me he knows where Uncle Michael is, but he refuses to reveal what he knows.

I watch Jevho weave his spell over this new priest. I marvel at the beauty of his smooth, dark skin, shining with sweat, revealing the undulations of his powerful muscles. He knows how to use his body to fascinate and heal.

Now I study our patient, the priest. He is also beautiful, if a dying man—almost skeletal—can be considered so. His face has perfectly molded features: a prominent, hawk-like nose that gives him character, good cheek bones, a strong chin and jaw line, and yellow hair. I haven't seen hair quite like that before. It's lighter and finer than Uncle Michael's or my father's. His eyes are a clear, bright blue, if I can trust what I see in the firelight. They seem larger than normal because he's so thin, striking even though the whites are darkened with his illness. His mouth is wide and curving, as if he'd smile a lot if he were well. If he recovers, I think he—with his Christian message—will be a worthy opponent for our maakai, if he recovers. But he is dreadfully weak. Right now, he seems to want to reach out and touch Jevho again, but he's too feeble to lift his hand more than a few inches off the cot. My master the maakai blows another puff of that new medicine, marijuana, into the poor man's mouth. He has brought it back from his trips much further south to visit his mother's tribe, the Tarahumaras. Other medicine men here don't know the new drug or its power. The priest is already drunk on the smoke; his pupils are dilated. My teacher wants to lessen his discomfort and put him to sleep, I think.
 
My mother taught me these missionaries are special human beings, set apart from the rest of us, not allowed normal human relations. I pity them, and especially this one. I long to mother him, hold him, caress him, and sing him to sleep. With me, he would not need a drug. The maakai asks for the potion with the white powder, which I give to the priest. I lift him ever so gently, my arm under his shoulders. How thin, how light he is, poor man! He drinks the potion, choking and making a face at first, then accepting it. Jacinta has made it sweet enough to be tolerable.

At last, Jevho is through with his cure, and I sit on the cot next to the priest. I tell my teacher the priest is handsome. I cannot resist touching him. I stroke his face, my index finger outlining his lips, touching his nose, tracing his eyebrows. I smooth his hair back out of his eyes. He looks at me with a question in those bright eyes, his blond eyebrows raised a little. Now, he relaxes and his eyes close. I know that with me, he would not need a drug.

* * *

"He'd be handsome if he were not such a skeleton, don't you think, Maakai?" the young woman said. He merely grunted. She sat on the edge of my cot and caressed my face, smoothing the hair out of my eyes, her fingers soft and cool on my fevered skin.
 
"Handsome if you like bleached-out skin and corn-silk hair," the maakai replied.
 
I squinted to see him better. Maakai means healer, and can be a title like Father or Doctor. His name was Jevho—had I heard right?—the name of a bobcat or lynx, probably his spirit or totem animal. The healer removed his mask, revealing rugged features with a heavy brow ridge and a jutting nose, his black eyes peering out with a fierce gleam. He might be in his mid forties.
 
He nodded toward the old woman. "I'll leave the powder and the syrup here with Jacinta. She must give him daily doses. He has had the repeating fever, the shaking fever, for a long time. Traveling for days in the heat of the sun with a raging fever would have killed a stronger man than this one. He's been touched by the sun as well, maybe too far gone for the Spirits and the powder to help him. Only time will tell." He rose and turned to Jacinta. "Give him more of this twice every day, starting tomorrow, and let me know when you run out. See if you can get him to eat something. Try pinole, and boil some of his jerky and give him the broth. If you have chia seed, grind it and mix a handful into his pinole every day. He must have food he can keep down if he is to improve."
 
He glanced at the red-haired woman and jerked his chin toward the door. She rose in almost reverent obedience, but only after looking into my eyes with a half-smile and caressing my cheek with one gentle finger.
 
"Goodbye, Father Whatever-Your-Name-Is. May we meet again in happier times. I wish you strength and healing."

"M-my na-…" I got no farther. I had floated too far away, wafted on a billow of pipe smoke. Hazy longing and regret possessed me as they crossed the threshold, and then there was only emptiness and the white moonlight. Had they been real? Was my drifting and distant self real? Did it matter? Did anything matter?

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