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the radio station who knows all the local history—you know, the same guy who writes that column in the newspaper about the customs of northern New Mexico? He was reluctant to say much at first, but finally he told me that Cassie Morgan was remembered for depriving, humiliating, and beating the Indian children.”
    â€œMan,” I said, more to myself than to Diane. “What a broken world this is sometimes.” I felt my spirit standing at an emotional crossroads, not knowing which way to go. On the one hand, the shocking image of Cassie Morgan’s desecrated body came up like bile, the killer’s fury still clinging to the corpse long after the abominator had left the scene. I should feel some sympathy for someone so wronged. And yet the things I had seen and sensed in the abandoned school were even more horrific to me. If the woman who died had caused the sorrows that still clung to the walls of San Pedro de Arbués Indian School, then the temptation was to feel some satisfaction at her death. This last thought caused me discomfort. I clicked off the connection without even saying good-bye.
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    Tired as I was, there was no way to get out of the commitment I had made to help the Tanoah women from Anna Santana’s clan make up Christmas baskets that night. Before going to the pueblo, I shopped for goods to put in the baskets at a little market on the north side of Taos. When I told Jesse, the grocer, that I wanted something special to give, he helped me pick out some small, sample-sized bags of piñon coffee.
    â€œWhere you been?” he asked, as he put the little coffee bags in a sack. “You look like you got all banged up.” He pointed at the torn sleeve of my coat.
    â€œI was out all night tracking a mountain lion.”
    â€œIn that storm? How could you track in a storm like that?”
    â€œI couldn’t. When the storm hit, I had to take shelter out by that ruin, Pueblo Peña.”
    â€œOh, that’s no good.”
    â€œIt was better than being out in the weather.”
    â€œYes, but do you know what Pueblo Peña means?”
    â€œNo.” I handed Jesse some cash for the purchase.
    He took time to carefully count out my change from the register. As he was putting the money into my open palm, he looked up from my hand to my eyes. “It means Place of Sorrow.”
    I picked up my sack. “I’d say that’s about right. Thanks, Jesse.”
    â€œI hope you will forgive me for saying this, Señorita Wild, but you don’t look so good.”
    â€œI’m just tired.”
    â€œYou must get some rest then, my friend. Would you like for me to get you a bone for El Lobo? I got some nice beef knuckles.”
    â€œThanks anyway, but Mountain doesn’t need to add to the deer sausage he stole from my boss this morning. If he eats anything more today, I won’t be able to ride home with him in a closed-up car. And it’s too cold to drive with the windows down.”
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    At Tanoah Pueblo, several bonfires blazed in the plaza at the center of the ancient walled village. Dark silhouettes of figures wrapped in blankets surrounded the towering fires smoking with the perfume of trementina, the spicy-smelling sap of piñon wood. Behind this scene rose the massive four-story, stair-step structure that was the oldest and most distinctive element of the pueblo. Its adobe face glowed mango-colored in the firelight against a backdrop of black mountains and deep indigo sky.
    I drove past the wall and down a narrow dirt lane to the home of my medicine teacher, Anna Santana, who had instructed me from the beginning of our relationship to call her “Momma Anna.” Nine aunties from her clan had gathered at her house that evening and were ready to begin work.
    â€œI saw bonfires in the village,” I said, after I’d greeted Momma Anna.
    â€œSome those men, they happy tonight,” she said. “We got work