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“But something went wrong.” Dream Teo sat up on his cot, excited over this part of the story. Because it was a mystery and he loved a good mystery as much as his mother.
“Yes, something went wrong. Because even though this…” She searched for the perfect word.
“Superwarrior!” Matt announced.
She smiled at him with such love the adult Matt swallowed the lump that formed in his throat, even in his sleep. No one had ever loved him like that since.
“Yes. But even though this superwarrior had powers beyond imagination, in the end he was buried there.” She pushed Matt gently back onto his bed. “And where will we find him, mi hijo?”
“‘Where the tree of life springs from a land awash with the blood of the sun,’” he recited.
One of several phrases she had translated from the Aztec writings of the Mecates. Gibberish until you saw a photo of a place where it just might make sense.
There’d been other translations. Other places. Other pictures, legends, rumors. But none of them had ever seemed as right as that one.
They’d searched. Years upon years. Miles upon miles. Nora wasn’t easily dissuaded. She read travel magazines, collected tales of the weird, haunted libraries and secondhand bookstores. She combed through everything she could find that held photos or drawings of the Southwest. She’d found two sites that way. But the true boon to her research had been the Internet.
There she’d been able to discover the next three sites that matched her translations by searching through travelogues and touristy vacation photos. Unfortunately, those pictures, some no better than fading Polaroids of trips taken by families in DeSotos, did not help to silence her naysayers when site after site produced only more dirt.
But Nora remained determined. She had believed in that superwarrior, and her son had believed, too.
Until he didn’t.
Her voice whispered out of the darkness: Find the truth. For me, Teo de mio.
My Teo. Teo mine. The translation was actually Teo of mine, but his mother translated Spanish as creatively as the academic world believed she translated Aztec.
Assholes.
Matt jerked awake. Had he said that out loud? Perhaps. Remembering how Nora’s so-called colleagues had treated her could still make him furious. Probably because they treated him the same way.
And there was the added guilt of how he had treated her. Refusing to go along on that final dig. Telling her she needed to grow up and face facts instead of continuing to believe in a fantasy long past the point of sanity.
Matt pushed on his forehead, wishing he could make the echo of his words go away. The only way he could atone for his lack of faith was to prove his mother’s theory. He needed to remember that. But, right now, it was so difficult for him to remember anything but Gina.
Matt sat up, gathering his dream-damp hair into a tidier queue. He’d been distracted by Gina, this place, the others, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted anymore. He had to find that tree that seemed to erupt from the earth. The one that turned as red as blood beneath the rays of the sun.
He dug through his pack, then pulled out the photo that had brought him to Nahua Springs Ranch. It was better than most. No Polaroid this time, not even an Instamatic. Whoever had taken it had known what they were doing, and since coming here Matt knew just who that someone was.
He’d go to her now, tell her the truth, make this journey theirs instead of his. Excitement flowed through Matt at the thought. He got dressed, shoved the copy into his pocket, then stepped into the chilly darkness that would soon give way to the dawn.
The sky had just begun to lighten. Not a hint of color yet, only that fuzzy blue-gray haze that seemed to buzz with the approach of the sun.
The fire was banked, the camp completely silent. Even the horses seemed to hold their breath. Matt knew he was.
A tent flap burst open just as the first rays of pink split the blue. A shadow trod softly in the smoky morn, moving past the horses, which now breathed and stomped and snorted again, and paused about fifty yards away, face tilted to greet the coming dawn.
* * *
Every morning on the trail, Gina rose before everyone else. It wasn’t hard. In all her years of leading tours at Nahua Springs Ranch, she’d never once gotten up later than a single guest.
Gina enjoyed watching the sun rise. It centered her for the day, made her remember why she was here, why she worked so hard.
The only thing that mattered was this place.
“Am I interrupting?”
Gina tensed, but when she recognized the voice she relaxed. Even though she’d thought she’d come out here to be alone, she realized now that she’d come to be with him.
