“I can tell you she wasn’t dressed for the occasion, cheri!” doña Felicia laughed. “But then, who’s to say how a handmaiden of Christ should dress!”

“A handmaiden of Christ? Now who is calling her that?” Sofi asked.

“My godson Francisco. But I think he’s in love with la Caridad … No matter. Tomorrow I’ll start up there and she’ll be back home soon enough!”

But as it turned out, by the time the old lady made her way up to the cave home of her apprentice who had absentmindedly let a year pass without letting her know where she was, not even in a dream, Caridad had found her truck, had some trouble starting it up, but had been able to take off, remembering only that she was on her way to Ojo Caliente to take a mineral bath.

She didn’t have money and the price for a bath and wrap had gone up a buck anyway since the year before, but fortunately Caridad had brought with her some animal pelts and she traded a flawless deer skin for the bath. It was worth much more than one bath and the woman behind the counter gave her credit for a series of visits before she sent the bewildered-looking mountain woman in filthy rags off to the locker room.

Slowly Caridad took off her handmade deer-skin moccasins. She laid her Raiders cap beside her on the bench. And finally she pulled off her T-shirt. She scarcely noticed the attendant, who had placed a clean towel next to her, pick up her Raiders cap. “I’ll be a sonofagun!” the attendant said, and still Caridad did not look at her, more shy than ever around people after not having been around no one for so long. The woman had a kind of singsong accent that Caridad took to be Native American. Slowly she glanced up, sensing the woman was waiting to meet her eyes.

“I remember you! You’re the woman who was at Chimayo last year! You came up to me and my friend and then went off right away!” The woman spoke as if she had just run into an old high school chum and wasn’t being recognized because she had gained too much weight or had had too many babies or didn’t wear bangs no more. She looked straight into Caridad’s eyes, expecting Caridad to respond to her own enthusiasm at any moment, but Caridad’s stare was dull and blank.

This woman before Caridad had nice teeth. She had shiny black hair pulled back, half in a ponytail and half down. She was confident and kind and full of stories of good times and bad times—all this Caridad was sure of. But she could not possibly be la Woman-on-the-wall-later-woman-on-a-hill that had obsessed her to such an extreme that she had all but abandoned life itself … could she?