She would need to try again. Somewhere where she was not surrounded by people watching her, interfering with her focus. Somewhere where it was quiet.
The panic that the attack had caused still thrummed through her own body. Now that they had no occupation, a tremor shook her hands. If Beto had not insisted she come back to camp, whatever attacked him would have harmed her.
She straightened, sending a silent prayer into the night that she would not fail. That when she tried the limpia again, in quiet, Beto would wake and be whole again. She had only met Beto a day before coming on this journey, but it was impossible not to be fond of his long, roaming stories and steady presence. The Los Ojuelos men’s morale would be devastated if he fell the night before joining the Mexican army. She would be devastated.
Though perhaps not as devastated as Néstor.
He still knelt in the dust near Beto’s head. The firelight snuck under the brim of his hat and played over his expression: drawn, fearful. He had returned to the rancho at Beto’s side. The most colorful stories Beto told, as much as she resented them, were about Néstor. For a moment, pity tugged at her heart.
“What’s going on over here?” Papá’s voice announced his approach. He and Félix were walking toward the group of vaqueros hovering around her and Beto. They took in the scene: Beto, bloodied but breathing, and Nena with her curandera’s materials.
Papá almost never saw her working, but now he could see with his own eyes that she was already proving her worth. Through the worry that hung over her, thick as the humidity, a spark of hope flared. This was what she wanted. This was exactly what she wanted Papá to see.
“There was an attack by the river,” she said, lifting her chin and forcing confidence into her voice. “He has susto. But he will be all right. I have healed this before.” Louder, to the vaqueros who had gathered around them, she added: “Beto needs to be taken to a tent to rest.”
“You heard her,” Papá barked at the vaqueros who hovered around Nena. “Be quick.”
He nodded curtly to her—his usual stoic sign of approval—and turned on his heel.
A flush of victory warmed her chest as she watched Papá’s retreating back.
She stood, brushing dust from her skirt and collecting her bag of herbs. Néstor had taken the herbs as he stood and handed it to her. As she took them to place in her bag, he grasped her wrist gently.
“That’s what happened to you,” he said, voice ragged.
She cast him an accusing look. He pointed down at Beto, whose face was now so peaceful he could have been sleeping.
“That is what happened to you,” Néstor said. “They all said you were dead.”
For a moment, she had forgotten she was angry at him. He helped her without question, grinding herbs just as Abuela had taught them both how, the movements of their hands around each other like a pair of faithful swallows, always aware of where the other was.
But the familiarity of this touch, the very assumption that he had access to that kind of intimacy, sent a flash of resentment through her. She snatched her hand back.
But she had waited a moment too long. The movement was too conspicuous. Félix had not left with Papá; now, she could feel him watching her. The last thing she needed was for him to question whether Papá had been right to bring her, if she could be trusted to behave appropriately while with the squadron. If not, she proved Mamá right and sealed her fate before she had a chance to convince Papá otherwise. He would tell Papá, and she would be put under lock and key until she could be sent home to await whatever marriage her parents insisted upon.
Damn Néstor.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.
“You have to understand,” he barreled on. Casimiro was looking at him strangely, as was Félix, especially when he pointed at Nena’s brother. “He was there,” he said, voice cracking. “He saw what I saw. They said you were dead and it was all my fault.”
Néstor was spinning a vaquero tale, embellishing a pathetic excuse for his nine years of absence. Worse, he was doing it in front of her brother and a half dozen vaqueros. He was entirely without shame or a sense of propriety.
In a sharp movement, she turned her back on him.
“I need Beto in a quiet place, alone,” she said, directing the words at Casimiro. “I will need fresh water and a fire to be made nearby so that I can work.” She then jerked her chin over her shoulder, a sharp gesture at Néstor. “I do not want to see him and I do not want to speak to him.”
“You have to listen—”
“Sí, se?orita,” Casimiro said quickly, cutting Néstor off and taking him by the arm. “Whatever you say. Néstor, get out of the way. Néstor.”
She adjusted her bag on her shoulder as men lifted Beto and carried him away. Before she followed them, she cast a quick glance at Néstor. She hoped he would be angry at her, that he would look ready to draw knives and fight as he had earlier, when he called her a brat and goaded her into a brawl.
But that was not what she saw at all.
He had pushed his hat back to run a hand over his face. For a fleeting moment, there was something etched there, in the solemn, grief-deepened crescents on either side of his mouth, that made her think he was about to cry.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
THE VAQUEROS LAY Beto in a tent far from the main fires, in a part of camp where it was quiet. As one vaquero made a small fire, Nena pinned back the flap of the tent so that Beto would be illuminated. Kindling caught and crackled behind her, emitting the distinctive smell of mesquite.
She sat back on her heels. She could ask for someone to bring her more of her things from across camp: incense, perhaps. Abuela often lit incense for limpias that she knew would be more difficult than most.
But that would only waste time.
Whatever had attacked Beto gave him the same susto and the same wound as Ignacio had. His aura was bruised with the same darkness. Ignacio could not remember what had happened to him, but at least half an hour had passed between when he was attacked and when Nena revived him. What if that time spent unconscious was what prevented victims of susto from remembering what had happened to them?
Beto had been unconscious for mere minutes.
The sooner she called him back, the sooner she would be able to ask what had attacked him. The sooner she would know what plagued the rancho. What had left its mark on her as well.
When she appeared at Ignacio’s jacal, Elena had looked over her shoulder, searching for Abuela. She didn’t trust her.
But she had healed Ignacio. She could heal Beto as well.
She edged closer to him, taking the rosemary in her right hand. She put her left on Beto’s shoulder, resting it lightly there.
She closed her eyes and began to envision his aura, began to rid it of bad energy with her limpia. Clearing the way for his soul to return.
“Regresa, Beto,” she murmured. “Regresa.”
The aroma of rosemary filled the tent; she clutched her bundle of herbs tightly as she brushed it over his chest, over his arms, down his legs. She returned to where his wound was and directed her energy into him.
Sweat broke out along her hairline and rolled down the small of her back.
Still nothing happened.
“Regresa.” Her jaw was tight from clenching. “Beto Cepeda, regresa.”
She was failing. She had done everything right, yet it was not working.
Could Abuela be right? Was she spiritually blocked, unable to heal others, because her own aura was wounded? That couldn’t be so. She was able to heal Ignacio only weeks ago.
But then Néstor came back.
He disrupted everything. Reopened old wounds and poured handfuls of salt on them.
Say Abuela was right. Say her aura was wounded, that she could not be the full self that curing others demanded of her. What of it? Being wounded had never made her less strong in the past. It had not prevented her from healing Ignacio. She would not let it—nor Néstor and all he stood for—hold her back now, not when so much was at stake.