The other man joined him and finally Francisco el Penitente and yet the young woman could not be budged. The first brother, irate that his strength seemed no match for such a slight person, motioned to yank her along by the hair. “Stop!” Francisco el Penitente called, dropping to his knees. “It is not for us to bring this handmaiden of Christ back to her family. Can’t you all see that? It is not our Lord’s will.”

He said a quiet prayer on Caridad’s behalf and the men left, resigned that it was for them to simply relieve her mother of her worry by reporting that they had found her.

The word spread quickly, however, that a woman hermit was living in a cave up there and that she had resisted with passive yet herculean strength three men who tried to carry her back home. Many people remembered the stories regarding La Loquita Santa and were not surprised that her sister also showed out-of-the-ordinary abilities.

So it was that during that Holy Week, instead of going to Mass at their local parishes, hundreds of people made their way up the mountain to la Caridad’s cave in hopes of obtaining her blessing and just as many with hopes of being cured of some ailment or another. Not only the nuevo mejicano–style Spanish Catholics went to see her but also Natives from the pueblos, some who were Christian and some who were not, since for more than a year Caridad’s disappearance had been a mystery throughout the state and her spartan mountain survival alone seemed incredible.

The three men whom Caridad resisted by making herself into lead weight turned into a score of men as the story spread. Francisco’s humble gesture of delivering a prayer for her well-being became the act of many men brought to their knees before the holy hermit, all begging forgiveness for their audacious attempt at manhandling her. It was said that she lifted the very horse in the air that the hermano had tried to force her to mount—with him on it—but out of benevolence brought it back down safely without so much as spooking the horse with her defiant magic.

The word had even gotten as far as Sonora to Yaqui land. The stories grew until some began to say that she was the ghost of Lozen, Warm Springs Apache mystic woman warrior, sister of the great chief Victorio who had vowed “to make war against the white man forever.” And Lozen, among the last thirty-eight warriors, was the only woman. It was Lozen who alerted the others when the enemy approached, being warned herself first by the tingling of her palms and her hands turning purple.

When left by herself, Lozen turned toward the four directions and sang to her god Ussen to guide her through the wilderness.