Apalachee

CHAPTER FOUR

chapter four Father Juan de Villalva lay awake in the darkness, unable to sleep, yet too exhausted to be up and about like Solana, who was out with the men in the stockade. Thank God for Solana. Thank the Blessed Jesus and his Holy Mother and all the saints of heaven. The convento was quiet. He could hear voices from the stockade and from the fires close around its walls and around the church. He could hear the cattle in the churchyard and a child crying. Everyone was waiting. In a few hours, when the night was almost over, they would pack themselves into the crowded safety of the stockade and into the fenced churchyard between the convento and the church and brace themselves for the attack that would come in the moments before dawn. Turning over on his side, the priest kept to the same warm spot in the straw mattress, tucking the blanket around his chin and closing his eyes, hoping for a moment of sleep. The door latch clicked softly. He opened his eyes and raised his head and saw Ana in the moonlight. She closed the door and it was dark again, so that she was barely visible as she crossed the room. He held open the blanket and wrapped it around her as she slipped in and nestled close against him, seeking his warmth. He held her tightly and rested his face against her hair. ‘‘It must be that I come,’’ she said softly. ‘‘People are everywhere. Maybe they see me, but I come anyway. This night is too lonesome. I am afraid.’’ ‘‘It doesn’t matter anymore what they see,’’ said Juan. He reached beneath her shift, a cast-off garment of a rancher’s wife, and caressed her breasts, seeking comfort in her, not passion. There could be no passion tonight, not with the wolf at the door, with Ayubale fallen into the hands of the pagans. Ana pressed against him. She too wanted to be comforted. ‘‘You think they come here at dawn?’’ she said. ‘‘Perhaps.’’ ‘‘You think they kill everyone there? At Ayubale?’’ She was asking if she would be killed. ‘‘Not the women,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m too old to be a slave. My breasts are hanging.’’ ‘‘You’re not old,’’ he whispered. ‘‘They don’t hang. Not much.’’ He could tell she smiled at him. He kissed her neck and rubbed his cheek against her hair. ‘‘We have artillery. And soldiers. And a stockade with strong walls. Ayubale had no defenses. And they were taken by surprise. Let’s sleep a little while.’’ ‘‘Do you think they kill the priest at Ayubale?’’ ‘‘Shh,’’ he whispered and changed to her language. ‘‘Sleep now. Sleep a little bit.’’ She grew silent and still, not asleep but resting, while his own eyes stayed open and stared at the slits of moonlight in the shutters. Was this the last night, like Christ in the Garden? Dearest God, how far he had come from Christ, how far from the pious disciple who had come here so many years ago, the young friar who had spread his pallet on the floor and cooked his own food and shared his friary with the sick and the old, who had prayed all the prayers of the Divine Office each day and repeated his vows each night. How far from the penitent young sinner seeking solace in Our Lady for his despair and loneliness, seeking strength from her Son in his struggle against the flesh, a struggle he often lost alone with himself, though he never touched a woman. Not until Ana. Ana had come when he was weary of struggling, after he had watched too many of his converted and baptized children grow into recalcitrant adults. He had begun to use the whip more often. More and more he had concerned himself with the church fields, with the cattle, with the profits of trade at the port of San Marcos on the nearby Gulf coast. He had stopped repeating his vows except on the anniversaries of his ordination. His house was no longer a hospital, and he allowed himself a servant, an old woman at first, and then a younger one. And then Ana. From her breathing, Juan knew she was sleeping now. He moved gently to pull free his arm, which was growing numb beneath her, and when she did not awaken, he turned carefully to lie on his back, his leg touching against...