Free El Paso Way by Steven Law Page A

father prepared the stew and Enrique took the donkey to the stable. The Chinaman was still sitting there when Enrique came in with his saddlebags drooped over his shoulder and his sombrero hanging loose on his back from the thong around his neck. He coaxed the Chinaman inside and to sit at the wooden table where Enrique had eaten most of his indoor meals for the last seven years. He removed his serape and hung his sombrero on a peg near his bed. He walked up to a washbowl and rolled up the sleeves of his white cotton shirt. After washing his face and hands, he dried them on a towel then sat across from Pang at the table, poured him some milk from a stone pitcher, and cut some bread from a loaf and spread honey butter over it with the same knife.
    He held the thick bread slice out in front of Pang. “You sure you’re not hungry,
amigo
?”
    The Chinaman merely shook his head, and then glanced nervously at the priest, who sat down next to him with a tin plate of steaming stew.
    Enrique wrinkled his nose, then bit off a chunk of his bread and chewed. “The priest eating the serpent . . . must be another of his ways of ridding the earth of sin.”
    Father Gaeta chuckled, and Enrique winked at the Chinaman. It was the first he had seen Pang smile, even though it was a slight smile and lasted only a few seconds. Then he was back to his uneasy demeanor, sitting away from the table on the chair, his hands in his lap and his shoulders somewhat stooped.
    â€œSo, Pang, what brings you to the desert?” the priest asked, after swallowing a bite of his stew.
    The question didn’t seem to be hard for the priest to ask so directly, as he took another bite of stew and awaited an answer from the Chinaman. The question certainly cut to the quick, especially since Enrique had been unable to get such an answer through his own roundabout and less direct methods.
    â€œI am looking for someone,” Pang said.
    The priest nodded as he chewed, then swallowed. “And who might that be?”
    â€œA man named Valdar. He killed my father.”
    Enrique felt as though he had just been jabbed in the stomach with a red-hot poker. It was the first he’d heard Valdar’s name spoken in years, even though he had thought of him daily since the great tragedy of his family.
    The priest had just put food in his mouth, but he stopped chewing for a moment as he looked at Enrique, then swallowed the food whole and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Valdar . . . I see. When did this happen, my son?”
    Pang looked at the priest. “A few days ago. He and two men came to our home. They took my sister and my fiancée, then killed my father. The law will not help me, so I will help myself.”
    Enrique quickly rose from the table and went outside the mission. He ran to the river and stopped abruptly, breathing heavily. He looked west at the orange-and-purple sunset. He had never in his life felt so frightened and exhilarated all at the same time. He thought back to the day, almost a year ago, when he and the priest had returned from a trip to Tucson, and on the way back had argued about whether or not he was ready to go to El Paso to try and find his grandfather and sister Amelia. To settle the argument, the two of them sat down across from each other at the table. They both rolled up their sleeves, put their right elbows on the table and joined hands. They stared at each other, and after the priest counted to three, the challenge began.
    Enrique had never beaten the priest at arm wrestling, and they had made an agreement that he couldn’t leave the mission to start his journey until he received a sign. Enrique knew the priest would never let him win intentionally, that he wanted too badly for him to forget about Valdar and start a new life with a new direction. To “turn the other cheek,” he had said. But Enrique could never forgive, and never forget, no matter how hard the priest