Chapter 1

This story takes place in the Mexican Territories.

Padre Humberto and Mayor Ramirez silently rode their horses slowly down the treacherous mountain pass. The mule bearing the gift trudged slowly behind them, tethered by an old, frayed rope. Far below, they heard Maria ring the old bell in the town circle, tolling their approach. The sun shifted in the sky, beating down on their backs as they rode. The mayor tried to push his dusty hat back further on his head to protect his neck with shaky hands, the smell of burned wood and ash still strong in his nose.

The shadow cast by the steeple of the old, abandoned church of Maldito behind them danced darkly on the dust they kicked up, pointing their way back to the town of Esperanza like a ghostly hand. 

His arthritic legs making his dismount slow, the Padre’s boots hit the dry dirt of the town circle. The mayor, after handing the reins of both horses to the stable boy, joined him. Villagers lined up in the order they arrived in, no class, no ranks. The stable boy untied the sacks from the mule, dropping them in the dirt, before leading all three animals away.

Sheriff Randall Mendoza joined them. There was no worry about keeping the peace for the people of Esperanza. Randall was more concerned about keeping strangers from seeing what was about to take place. He greeted the Padre and Mayor Ramirez with solemn handshakes before departing for the edge of town to keep watch.

Dropping to his knees in the dust, the mayor pulled the first of the sacks towards him, and handed a portion of the coins he produced to the Padre.

“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Padre Humberto said, blessing the coins as the bright sun skittered across their shiny surfaces. 

He nodded, and the first person in line walked up, hands folded and head bowed. After blessing herself, the girl held her hands out to the Padre, as he filled them with coin. She bowed to him, and with a solemn face, walked to her home in the village. The next in line stepped up to receive their Harvest.

Maria did not join the line. She was the reason the town of Maldito bestowed this gift upon the town of Esperanza.  Instead, she mounted her mare and headed out to join the sheriff.

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Randall heard her long before she was in sight. His eyes never left the horizon as he listened to her dismount and approach him from behind.

“Sheriff Mendoza.” Her voice fell on his ears like music, soft and low, the cadence perfectly in tempo with his beating heart.

“Randall, please. Miss Ramirez, you really should stay in town with the others. You know it’s safer there.”

“Please call me, Maria. My father knows I am here. I hate standing there, all the stares, or worse, the ones who will not meet my eyes.”

‘I go between those options myself, but not because of your past.’ Randall wanted to say, but propriety kept his thoughts imprisoned. She was the mayor’s daughter, and he doubted that, even though he was good enough to be elected sheriff, his mixed blood would not be welcomed into the mayor’s family.

Instead, he searched his mind for something comforting. “Everyone loves you, Miss…Maria.” The words left his lips before he knew it, and instead of adding ‘Especially me’, he sought to correct the near breach of etiquette. “You’re always welcome, but you must be ready to ride back if I ask you to.”

‘Idiot!’ he scolded himself. His heart leapt in his chest when she placed a hand on his shoulder. He knew it seemed rude, but if he turned to face her, he’d be lost in her eyes and an army could sweep in and massacre the entire town before he’d notice.

“I will do as you say, Randall. I give you my word.” She was close enough that her breath stirred his long, dark hair at his shoulder.

 He took a deep breath of his own to steady his nerves, and instead caught the sweet sent of lavender that always surrounded her.

‘Focus! You’re here for a reason!’ he commanded himself. She had been riding out to stand watch with him for almost a year now, since she had come of age. Most men in town were afraid of her, but he wasn’t most men. Maybe because he felt like an outsider himself, it gave them a bond.

At first, the silence between them was comfortable. As the months went by, he began to feel differently. Suddenly, he longed to share conversation with her. She seemed to have no such need, so they sat on the fence, and walked the borders in silence together through the long, hot days while Padre and the mayor did their work.

Today, he was startled by her voice, so near him. “Do you remember your mother?”

Randall had to think for a moment, not just because the question came out of the blue, but because her nearness startled him. “Just a little. She had blond hair, and blue eyes, and she always smelled like apple pie. I was eight when she died, and my pa brought me here to Mexico back to his family. It was hard to learn a new language, but ma’s family up north never liked my father much, so it was best we moved on.”

The only thing he could remember about his mother’s people was the word “Half-breed” falling from their mouths whenever they looked at him. He didn’t feel the need to share that with Maria. He toyed with asking her the same question, but he knew others must ask her that all the time, and he was determined to be different from them.

“Apple pie. That is a happy memory. I only have one of those, because I was pretty little.”

‘She must want me to ask, but what if I’m wrong?’

“Do not be afraid to ask me. I want to share this with you. I remember my mama used to sing. She sounded like an angel to me. Sometimes, when I dream at night, I can still hear her sing to me.”

“Well, that’s a happy memory, too. I’m right glad you have that to keep in your heart.”

“I have a very blessed life. When the mayor and his wife took me in, they made me their own. They give me love, and do not fear me.” She paused, unsure if she could make him understand.  “But I will always be a child of Maldito. Those ties are stronger than just a memory. Would you like to hear the story; the real story of what happened that day?”

“I don’t need to, Ma’am. The past is the past.  I know who you are now. That’s all that matters to me.”

“That, Sheriff Randall, is what makes you a good man. I tell them about you, you know, when I visit them on the mountain.”

Randall knew she made pilgrimages up to Maldito, to pay her respects, to pray for her parents and all who died in the massacre. He didn’t know if they’d marked the mass grave with a monument or not – he’d never thought to ask. He pictured her there, kneeling in the grass, placing flowers she’d picked on the trail. ‘She talked of me? What would she have to say about me?’

“They would like to meet you. Will you come with me to the mountain tomorrow?

‘Meet me?’ There were many things in this world that Sheriff Randall Mendoza did not know. There was one thing he was completely sure of. There was not a soul alive on that mountain. He gave the only answer he could in that situation.

“Of course. I’d be honored.”