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doesn’t know how. But the only thing he seems to respect in this world is his fraternal bond with Moses. And that’s worth
something. It counts.
    Okay, Abraham says finally.
    Okay what?
    Okay, then, let’s find ourselves a purpose.

Four
    White Dove of the Desert » Acolytes » A Saint and the Virgin Mary » Ignatius » Supper and Appetites » A Measurement of Saints and Sinners while a
Mission Sleeps »
Interlude
» The Canoness » A Demonstration at a Grotto » Where the Vestal Came From » A Job of Work » Treachery » Escape
    Purpose is sometimes a building. The architecture of order.
    Two miles from the graveyardof the Tucson airport, they discover the Mission San Xavier del Bac. Long ago, someone built a high stone wall around the whole place, but there is a painted sign on
the arching gate doors:
    TRAVELLER
    YOU ARE WELCOME
    RING THE BELL
    High up on the wall, a rope has been tied around a cleat in the adobe. Moses gives the rope a tug, and above them a copper bell soundsits tinny note through the desert heat. A
few minutes later, they are greeted by a woman who without speaking bows to them, her hands folded in prayer to her lips, then beckons with her hand for them to enter and shuts the big gate behind
them, securing it with a whole series of iron bars slid through huge hasps.
    The mission itself is a wash of whiteness towering against the cloudlessblue of the sky. Two octagonal towers rise up on either side of the façade, and between them is an ornately carved
stone entrance that looks to Moses like a massive holy book with a door in it – as though you were being asked to step into the very illuminated manuscript of faith. Three wrought-iron
balconies protrude from the front of the structure, and in one of them sits a young girl, maybeseven years of age, her legs dangling over the edge, her hands gripping the bars. She watches the
Todd brothers enter below, and in her expression is there more manuscript than in all the building façades in the country.
    In the front courtyard are planted many varieties of cactus and, at their bases, herb gardens in thick verdant patches. There is a full community here, and as the two menenter, they are greeted
with serene nods by the residents: plainly dressed men and women who are carrying baskets of tomatoes or digging in the earth with hoes or stitching up child-sized overalls.
    How many are you? Moses asks the woman.
    But the woman doesn’t answer. Instead, she puts her fingers to her lips and shakes her head apologetically.
    You don’t talk, Moses says. That’s allright. Mostly palaver’ll just get you in trouble. That’s been my experience anyhow.
    Then Moses comprehends the weighty silence of the place. He realizes that no one is saying anything.
    Hold on a minute. It ain’t just you, is it? It’s everybody here? You
could
speak if you wanted to, but you opt not to. Is that the thing?
    Again the woman holds up her hands apologetically and invitesthe two brothers to follow her through the huge, arching mesquite doors and into the church itself.
    White dove of the desert. Just beyond the threshold into the Narthex, the air cools considerably, as though God were a force of balance where all things hot become cool, all things cold become
warm, and good and evil are meted out as on a swaying balance that always finds itself, eventually,level. Rows of wooden pews with arching backs line the nave, and some silent supplicants sit in
individual prayer with heads bowed on folded hands. Were there whispers of devotion, they would reach high into the octagonal domes painted with robed angels – but instead there are only
shuffling echoes and the aching sound of wood creaking beneath faithful bodies.
    At the cross aisle, the womangestures at them to wait, and they do, casting their gazes upwards to the dome and all around. Candles being scarce, homemade torches illuminate the interior with
flickering movement like breathing. Could you read human circumstances