Battle for His Soul Page 7

  “You probably do not remember me at all, or my wife Señora Kemina.” He shook hands with Roland and Jarret then gestured to the woman.

  Señora Kemina greeted Papa. Then she smiled and gave Papa a hug that made him lose his hat. As pretty as she was now, she must’ve been totally hot in her younger years. A Mexican beauty, Papa would say.

  The little girl stood with her hands behind her back, staring through round brown eyes, watching everybody.

  “This is our youngest daughter, Rosa,” Señora Kemina said, smiling with obvious affection for the girl.

  Still with her hands behind her back, Rosa gave a little curtsy.

  “Where is Selena?” Señor Juan turned toward the doors they came through and looked at the old servant woman as if he’d just realized Selena’s absence. The woman shrugged. In Spanish, he asked her to fetch the girl. Muttering, she left the room.

  Señor Juan motioned for everyone to sit. He took the chair cattycorner to the couch where Papa sat. “I know it was short notice,” he said to Papa, “but I am glad you came. I do not ask for favors often. You do know I appreciate it.”

  “Favors?” Jarret whispered to Roland as the two of them took a seat on the couch opposite Papa.

  Roland shrugged.

  “Should’ve figured.” Jarret spoke low so that only Roland would hear. “He’s gonna put us to work . . . like he always does when we go places. I should’ve stayed home. I’m not doing it. Whatever it is, I’m not doing it.”

  “Maybe Papa’s doing something for him. He would’ve told us if he expected us—” Roland’s attention snapped to the doors on the far side of the room.

  “Would he?” Jarret looked to see what had caused Roland to blush again.

  The girl in the yellow sundress came into the room, gaining everyone’s attention. She gave a polite nod in Jarret and Roland’s direction but bounced right over to Papa. Papa visited the Zamoranos once every two or three years, by himself, so it made sense that she knew him well enough to run to him. But the smile she gave him sure was fly.

  Papa got up and hugged her. “Selena, how are you?”

  “I am good, Tio Ignace.” Clutching his hand, she sat down beside him and gushed over him.

  “Makes you jealous, huh?” Jarret mumbled to Roland. “Sure hope she ain’t our cousin.” Selena might be just the girl to get his mind off Zoe. Interesting . . . they both had long black hair. He loved long black hair on a girl.

  Roland jabbed him with his elbow.

  “Tio means uncle,” Jarret said, thinking Roland needed the explanation. “Which would make her our—”

  “I know.” He glared as he whispered, “The Zamoranos aren’t related to us. Just because Mama was part Mexican and they were friends, doesn’t mean—”

  “Shut up.” Jarret glared. Roland was an idiot. Couldn’t he get a joke?

  The Zamoranos had been talking with Papa about his work when Señor Juan looked at Selena again. “Selena, why do you not show the boys around the house and grounds? They would like to see the stables and the pool, I am sure.”

  Selena blinked a few times at her father, and then her gaze shifted to Jarret and Roland.

  “I uh . . .” Roland leaned forward, his eyes on Papa. “I really want to see your house, the place where you grew up.”

  Papa’s eye twitched. “Oh. No you don’t. I mean, not right now. How about another day for that?” He looked to Señor Juan. “I’m sure Rufino—”

  “Don’t be silly. Now is a very good time. Rufino is dying to see you.” Señor Juan stood. “You don’t mind to see a little clutter, I hope.”

  Papa chuckled. “It’s not my house anymore.”

  ❖

  The sun beat down with fierce determination and reflected off the stone path that cut through the hard, dry dirt in the front yard. Selena and Papa led the way to the little house down the road. Roland and Jarret followed at a distance so they could talk without being overheard. Roland put on and adjusted his black cowboy hat.

  “You gonna wear that every day now?” Jarret said.

  “What, the hat? Probably.”

  “Trying to fit in?” He grinned, knowing his comment would annoy Roland West, Loner.

  “No.” Roland didn’t appear the least bit annoyed. “It keeps the sun out of my eyes.”

  “You mean off your pale skin. I know, you’re trying to be the Pale Rider.”

  “The pale rider?”

  “Yeah. Clint Eastwood . . . Spaghetti Western . . .”

  Roland shook his head and huffed.

  “I’m gonna start calling you that. The Pale Rider.” Jarret grinned. Nothing satisfied him more than riling up certain people, especially Roland. That reminded him of what Peter had done to him. “I still owe you anyway, for that prank. You know how long it took to get that glitter outta my hair?”

  Roland smirked and averted his gaze. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Peter’s your friend, and he’s back home. Not much I can do to get him back. So there’s just you.”

  “But I had nothing to do with it.” His voice squeaked. “Besides, you already destroyed my bike. Can’t we call it even?”

  “Hey!” Papa motioned for them to hurry up. He and Selena had reached a dinky, little house no bigger than a trailer.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Jarret said to Roland. “The place looks like a dump. If Papa grew up there, it’s gotta be over forty years old.”

  “So wait outside.” Roland picked up his pace, reaching them as the screen door swung open.

  “Hey, amigo.” A scrawny, shirtless man stood in the doorway, giving them a lazy smile. “You are here already?” About Papa’s age but more weathered, he sounded tired and moved like he had molasses running through his veins. “I guess you want to come in.” He held the screen with one hand and backed out of the way.

  Either the place was very dark or Jarret’s eyes wouldn’t adjust. The walls seemed to close in on him, and the place smelled funny, so he stayed near the door.

  “My air conditioner does not work so good, little amigo,” Rufino said, nodding for Jarret to move. “Have to keep the door closed.”

  Jarret stepped aside.

  Papa, Roland, and Selena strolled to the kitchen, but Jarret remained near the door, hoping they wouldn’t stay long. As his eyes adjusted, he saw why they didn’t go to the living room to talk. The couch had clothes and piles of junk on it, and the recliner looked like Rufino probably slept in it every night. And what was the sweet, oily smell that lingered in the air?

  “Zamoranos tell you what has been going on over there?” Rufino took a seat at a Formica-topped table-for-two and opened a bottle.

  “A little,” Papa said with a shifty glance at Jarret and Roland. He shuffled to the sliding glass door off the dinette and gazed out at a flat backyard of dirt.

  Rufino took a swig from the bottle. “Señora Kemina, she thinks it is somebody close to the family, maybe a friend. There was a party there the first time it—”

  “Rufino.” Papa threw him a squinty-eyed glare and then turned to Roland. “So this is where I grew up. Nothing to it, huh? I mean my folks owned some land, farmland, you know. Zamoranos own it now but . . .”

  “I like it,” Roland said. “It’s simple. It’s all you need.”

  Jarret huffed. Roland could live in a cardboard box. This place couldn’t have more than two bedrooms. There wouldn’t be a shred of privacy. The only advantage would be the rich neighbor. Growing up, Papa probably spent all his time—

  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something on the coffee table rolled.

  The coffee table was a cluttered mess, covered with dirty cups and dishes, junk mail, TV remotes, and science magazines. A paper had probably settled. But wait . . .

  Something white and thin—a cigarette?—stuck out from under a magazine. If it was a cigarette, Rufino rolled his own. But the smell in the house . . . Yeah, now that he thought about it, he recognized that sweet smell.

>   Jarret chuckled. Rufino smoked weed.

  Returning his gaze to the kitchen, he found Papa staring at him. Papa glanced at the coffee table, looked back at him, and his eyes narrowed.

  A wave of heat washed over Jarret as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. No way had Papa seen the joint from the kitchen. Jarret stuck his thumbs in his belt loops. “Can we get going?”

  Papa shook his head and returned to his conversation with Roland, talking about his boring ol’ past. The two of them shuffled down the hallway and stood in a doorway, yapping more. Selena and Rufino stayed in the kitchen, Selena with folded arms, Rufino flirting with her. Selena flashed a fake smile at Rufino and turned away from him to face the sliding glass doors. Rufino kept on as if he hadn’t noticed her rejection.

  When Papa returned from his jaunt down the hall, Jarret got a glimmer of hope that they could leave, but then Rufino started telling a tale about some mountain nearby. Apparently, Rufino had lived in some other dinky house down the street, and he and Papa had played together growing up. They dared each other to climb this mountain at night and bla, bla, bla. Jarret tuned out the rest of the story.

  Rufino had another tale, which Papa made him stop telling. It must’ve been something wild that Papa had done but didn’t want to admit to in front of his boys.

  “Hey,” Jarret shouted so Papa would know he was talking to him, “I’m gonna head back.”

  “Hold your horses.” Papa pushed off the wall and straightened up. “There’s something I want you to—”

  “No.” Jarret looked at Selena now. “You gonna show me the rest of the place?”

  Selena opened her mouth and then glanced at Papa. “Um, I suppose—”

  “Jarret”—Papa had a hard edge in his tone—“you can wait until—”

  “I’m not here to work. This is my vacation. See ya back at the house.” Jarret yanked open the door, bolted out alone, and didn’t look back.

  Squinting against the sunlight, his gaze fixed on the mansion, he strutted along. A moment later, someone came running up behind him. He didn’t bother looking to see who.

  “Jarret.”

  At the sound of Selena’s voice, he stopped and turned around.

  She slowed her pace and lowered her head, watching her steps as she approached. Black hair cascaded over her face and bounced with every step. She stopped a few feet away, tucked her hair behind her ear, and met his gaze. “If you’re on vacation, why are you in such a hurry?”

  “You gonna give me the tour?”

  She stared. Then, instead of heading for the front door, she cut around to the back of the house. He followed.

  They reached the backyard, and his attention snapped to a long, curvy swimming pool under the shade of a pergola. The calm aqua blue water called to him. He could almost see himself diving in, feel the cool water refreshing his sweaty skin and giving him goose bumps when he got out.

  Selena glanced at the pool and at him but didn’t stop. She led him down a stone walkway that wound through a garden of cacti, grasses, and big rocks. The walkway branched off to two stone patios with umbrellas and outdoor furniture, and two sets of glass patio doors.

  Jarret set his sights on the glass door, anxious to feel a cold burst of air as he stepped inside, but Selena strolled out into the yard, toward a fenced horse corral.

  “Do you see the far fence?” Selena leaned against the wooden fence and flung out her slender arm, pointing.

  He squinted. Beyond the horse corral, acres of pale dirt stretched out to a desert landscape spotted with scruffy plants, and purple mesas along the horizon. A little white building with a cross on top sat off to the right. He thought sure that he saw a fence farther back, white against a row of dull green shrubs.

  “I see it,” he said.

  “Our land goes beyond it. I take the horses out there.” She smiled but not at him.

  “How far out do you ride?”

  “We have orange markers to show where our property ends. It could be dangerous to go out too far, to go past our boundaries.”

  “Dangerous, huh?” He smiled and wanted to give her a flirty glance, but the horizon held her gaze.

  “The canyons sneak up on you and there is rough terrain. You can lose your direction or get stuck if you’re not careful. And the rattlesnakes. They can spook a horse, you know.”

  “So you don’t go out that far, huh?”

  She looked at him, straight-faced, not answering, probably not wanting to lie. His take: she rode out as far as she wanted. She wasn’t afraid of anything.

  He smiled.

  She didn’t smile back, but her eyes twinkled as if she were amused. “Why are you so rude to your father?”

  “Rude? Me? I’m not rude. He’s always trying to put me to work, that’s all. We can’t go anywhere without it involving work. He flat out told me this was vacation.”

  A smile stretched across her face, a smile for him, finally. “Are you thirsty? I’ll make lemonade.” She pushed off the fence and glanced over her shoulder at the house. “If your brother is back, I’ll bring him out too. We can sit in the shade.” She flashed another smile, one that he couldn’t interpret, and then bounced to the house.

  He shielded his eyes from the sunlight and gazed at the mesas. Why did Papa always put them to work when they went places? He rarely made them work at home. Papa sure enough made him work at that monastery in California. He did nothing but work there. Nothing but work . . .

  ❖

  “Here, hold these.” Papa handed Jarret a small statue of Jesus, then one of Mary.

  Jarret backed away and looked for a place to set them.

  A few minutes ago, a silent monk had come to their room and led them across the grounds to the winery. The building was longer than Jarret remembered from his first glance. As they descended the stone steps to the cellar, he peered into darkness which seemed to go on forever in either direction.

  The monk glided past rows of wooden shelves filled with bottles of wine and directed them to a dark corner. He motioned toward a sheet that hung on the wall over a table, and then he left them to their business.

  “These are your crates, right?” Jarret set the statues on one of two wood crates nearby. Papa had said something about shipping his supplies ahead of them.

  “Uh, yeah.” Papa snatched the statues from the crate and shoved them at Jarret. “Put these someplace else.” He waved his hand as if he were swooshing a fly, without indicating any particular place.

  Jarret ventured a few feet into the darkness and set them on the first thing he came to, an old, dusty cart. The distant wine shelves rose up like a wall and dim light showed in the direction they had come from, but he could make out nothing else. The few glowing bulbs that hung from the high ceiling did little to drive away the dark. His skin crawled.

  He zipped back to Papa. “Why isn’t there any light in this cellar?”

  “Grab an end.” Papa had started without him, moving the wooden table away from the wall, scraping it along the concrete floor.

  Jarret lifted one end and helped lug the table to a different wall.

  Papa wiped his hands on his jeans and opened one of the crates. A few minutes later, he had a dozen lanterns, safety goggles, gloves, and a sledgehammer laid out on the table. He put the goggles on, picked up the sledgehammer, and yanked the sheet from the wall.

  “Turn on one of those lanterns,” Papa said. “Let’s see what we got here.”

  A hole about two feet across and chest-high opened to utter darkness. Papa spent a moment peering through the opening, lantern in hand, then stepped back. “That little crack . . .” He pointed to small hole in the bottom of the wall, directly under the larger hole. “. . . and a rat started this whole thing.”

  “Huh?”

  “Brother Maurus, one of the monks who tends the winery, was pestered by a rat, so he followed it. It squeezed right through that crack. Got him curious about what was behind the wall.”

  Jarret’s gaze we
nt to the chest-high hole. He grinned, considering the audacity of the monk. “So he tore apart the wall?”

  Papa chuckled. “Curiosity can be a dangerous thing.”

  “Now that’s a monk I’d like to meet.”

  “Stand back.” Papa drew the sledgehammer back and with a batter’s swing let go at the wall. It was a good, strong swing, but only a few stones so much as shifted and sighed. Bringing the sledgehammer back, he made ready again.

  “Why don’t you let me have at it?” Jarret snatched a pair of goggles.

  Papa surrendered the sledgehammer with a smirk and stepped out of the way. “It’s all yours.”

  The sledgehammer had some weight to it. It felt good to swing it and slam it into the wall. Stones budged at the impact, smaller pieces sprinkling to the ground behind the wall.

  Grunting, Jarret swung again and again, a cool sweat gathering on his chest. The hole widened. Stones caved in and dropped down. His mind went numb to all else, as it did toward the end of his workouts on his weight-set at home, the burning in his muscles giving him a sort of high that made him crave more.

  “Jarret. Jarret, that’s good.”

  Papa’s voice sounded distant but it snapped him from his trance. He lessened his grip on the sledgehammer and studied his accomplishment. He’d made a jagged opening the size of a door. It opened to pitch-blackness.

  “Good job. You saved my back.” Papa rubbed Jarret’s shoulder and pried the sledgehammer from him, eyeing him strangely. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Chest heaving, Jarret took a few deep breaths through his mouth to regulate his breathing. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

  Papa nodded. “It’s perfect.” He shoved a lantern at Jarret and nodded toward the new doorway. “After you.”

  “Huh?” Jarret pushed the lantern away. “You want me to go in there?” His heart pounded from the workout, but it skipped a beat and his skin crawled at the thought of stepping into the darkness, the unknown. “You go on ahead. I’ll wait out here and catch my breath.”