Chapter 2 - The Gathering Storm
The afternoon heat was oppressive, shimmering off the red-dirt roads of Barranca Colorada as Cruz made his way toward the modest adobe church at the center of town. The wooden doors stood half-open, letting in a sliver of dusty light and the faint, sweet scent of melting beeswax and stale incense.
Inside, Father Baltasar Urrutia sat at a heavy oak desk in the small vestry, poring over parish ledgers with a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his bulbous nose. He didn't look up as heavy footsteps echoed on the flagstones.
"If you're here for confession, my son, evening mass is at six," Baltasar said without lifting his head.
"I'm not here to confess, Father," Cruz said, his voice dropping into the quiet gloom like a falling stone. "I'm here to listen to what you have to say about the girl at the edge of town."
Baltasar slowly pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead, blinking against the dim light. He looked at Cruz—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing the dust of the trail and the cold, unyielding gaze of a man accustomed to tracking wolves.
"Ah," Baltasar sighed, leaning back in his chair with a theatrical weariness. "The stranger. The town has been buzzing about you. You're poking into matters that do not concern you, Mr. Montoya. Isidora Paredes de Reyes is a pillar of this parish. She contributes generously to the roof fund, and her Christian devotion is—"
"A lie wrapped in a shroud," Cruz interrupted, stepping closer to the desk until his chest nearly touched the edge. "She beats her stepdaughter daily. She starves her, forces her to eat from animal troughs, and keeps her in conditions that would make a cattle drover sick to his stomach. And you—you take her hams and her silver coins and look the other way."
Baltasar’s face flushed a mottled red, his dignity bristling like a cornered cat. "How dare you! You come into the house of God and throw baseless accusations based on the bitter gossip of cantina drunkards? Isidora is strict, yes. Raising a difficult, troubled girl after the tragic loss of her father requires a firm hand—"
"A firm hand?" Cruz slammed his palm down on the desk with a crack that made the brass crucifix rattle. "That girl has bruises on her collarbones that don't come from discipline. She has scars on her wrists from iron chains. You're a priest, Baltasar. Your collar says you serve a higher law, but your ledgers say you serve whoever pays for your silence."
Cruz reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, and dropped it onto the desk.
"What's this?" Baltasar muttered, eyeing it suspiciously.
"That's a record of every transaction between Isidora Reyes and the church over the past three years," Cruz said coldly. "Coincidentally, every time the county welfare inspector threatened to ride out from Chihuahua to look into Samuel Reyes's estate, a matching donation of twenty gold pesos appeared in your discretionary fund. Care to explain that to a circuit judge?"
Baltasar went completely pale. The righteous anger drained out of him, leaving him looking small and shriveled in his black cassock. "You... you have no proof of—"
"I have the bank receipts from the assay office in the next town over," Cruz lied smoothly, though he had no doubt the trail existed. "And tomorrow morning, if I see so much as a red mark on Elena Reyes's skin, I won't just go to a judge. I'll take this ledger straight to the bishop in the state capital. And I'll let the miners know how their hard-earned tithes are being used to buy silence."
The priest gripped the edge of his desk, his knuckles turning white. "You don't understand... Isidora, she... she has influence. People listen to her."
"They listened to her because everyone was too cowardly to look her in the eye," Cruz said, turning toward the door. "Start praying, Father. Because your time of looking away is over."
Meanwhile, back at the white house, Isidora was pacing the length of the kitchen floor like a caged panther. Her instincts screamed that something was shifting. The town felt different. The air felt heavy, charged with an impending storm.
She turned her venomous gaze toward the corner where Elena was quietly folding laundry.
"You," Isidora snapped. "Go down to the cellar and bring up a jar of pickled peppers. And don't trip this time, or I'll take a switch to your bare legs."
Elena rose silently, her heart hammering against her ribs, and walked down the dark, wooden steps into the cool, damp earth of the root cellar. But as she reached for the shelves, her hand brushed against a hidden ledger tucked behind the wooden crates—a book with her father's handwriting on the cover.
May you like
Her breath hitched. She opened it in the dim light.
And what she read made the blood freeze in her veins.
