She left the cave, looking for someone to speak to along the footpaths; she found astonished shepherdesses who did not understand her halting and confused message; she found woodcutters who lightened the weight of her load; she found people who were returning from the market in Jobel and her news quickened the steps that took them back to their villages; it brought families together around the fire; it fueled conversations into the depths of the night.

When Catalina arrived at her hut, Pedro had already heard from other mouths that the gods were once again in their place. He was not as easily delighted by the news as others were. Why do they return? he said to himself. We do not know how to worship them, we cannot defend them. They come only to expose us to the anger of the Caxlán, they come to incite our enemies against us. Between man and god, Pedro thought, woman is no more than an unconscious instrument. That was why Catalina abandoned herself to the fascination of the miracle without seeing the abyss that was opening up below it.

Ay, if he could drop a word, one single word, into her ear as she slept. And if that word could be placed on the altar, so the idols would pick it up!

Pedro leaned over his wife’s sleep and slowly pronounced the only prayer he knew: “Land, Catalina. Tell them to give the land back to us. If they ask us for blood, if they ask for our lives, we will give them. But let them give back the land.”

A shiver ran through the ilol’s body and she covered her ear with her hand. Pedro drew back, certain he had been heard.

But Catalina, still awake, had paid no attention to him. She was dreaming of what was to come. The great pilgrimages of supplicants filling the pathways with accordion music and the sounds of the harp; the heavy wax candles chasing darkness from the sacred precincts, day and night; the copal smoke slackening the priestess’s senses until a channel was left clear for prophecy. And afterward the body, her own body, caving in like a squeezed fruit; the slow recuperation of her powers; the gaze that discovers, little by little, a circle of wondering faces, quick hands, docile ears. Once again, between her and her people there was no rupture. Catalina had taken their hand once again, as if it were a child’s, to lead them.

XXIII

CHAPTER XXIII