Shaman Winter by Rudolfo Anaya

enchiladas, huevos con papas fritas, meat stew. Red chile smothering ham and turkey for Thanksgiving, natillas for dessert, biscochitos for Christmas, lenten food for Semana Santa. Children conceived embodied the food of the people, the food of the season. To make love was to eat, to eat was to make love.
    â€œI’m hungry,” he said.
    â€œYou’re always hungry.” Lorenza smiled.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI know a lot about you, Sonny Baca.”
    â€œI’d better watch my thoughts.”
    â€œWatch your dreams. Rita says you eat everything she serves.”
    â€œShe’s a good cook.”
    â€œShe’s also a very good dish.” Lorenza was teasing.
    â€œYeah, she is.”
    â€œI’ll feed you as soon as we get to Santa.” She winked in the mirror. “Not as good as Rita’s, I’m sure. What about the Romeros?”
    â€œI don’t think I’m going to be of much help. He’s the mayor of Santa Fé, a millionaire. I think it’s a kidnap/ransom thing. Anyway, no sense in going hungry to the job.”
    â€œYou’re right about that. Roberto Mondragon used to have a restaurant near the plaza. I’ll look for it.”
    â€œBueno.”
    He looked out at the barren landscape, the rolling hills tawny in the winter, dotted with juniper trees, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising blue over Santa Fé, the high peaks covered with blue clouds that presaged a storm. To the west the clouds also gathered around the Jemez peaks. The kachina spirits of rain and snow gathering on the mountains. The place was sacred, divine with the light of the sun that made the hills glow with a biblical light of redemption.
    He had seen photographs of the light of the setting sun shining on Jerusalem, on Toledo, Mecca, Machu Picchu. The light blessed the sacred places, like the light shining across the sage of the Taos llano and its mountains. It was the light of New Mexico that drew the original inhabitants, drew prayers, drew artists, brought holy people and hippies alike searching for the center. Light at the center of the universe, even here on the road to Santa Fé, the light of the approaching winter solstice glowed and brought the winter earth to life. Beneath the frozen earth lay the spirit touched by light, and the spirit responded by absorbing the light and giving it back to the viewer.
    Buzz of life, Sonny thought.
    â€œI’ll call Rita and tell her where we’re headed.” He dialed Rita at her restaurant, explained what they had found in the library and how it might just be connected to the Romeros’ missing daughter. He gave her their number in Santa Fé and asked her if she could monitor his answering machine at home. Raven, he thought, might be calling. And he told her to be careful.
    â€œRita says to take care,” he said as he clicked off the phone.
    â€œWe will,” Lorenza replied.
    He could smell faint traces of her perfume in the van, and a faint aroma of sweet herbs that clung to her. Ah, yes, he thought, we will.
    â€œSixteen ten, Governor Peralta moved the capital to Santa Fé,” Sonny said, entering the note in his notebook. “Raven was there.”
    Lorenza nodded. “Probably. It was the beginning of a new era for the manitos.”
    Sonny read on, making notes as he read.
    From 1610 to 1680 a great missionary spirit would fill the Franciscan friars of New Mexico. They wanted souls for Jesucristo, but in the process they would also teach the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico a great deal of Hispanic culture. Language; use of iron, horse, sheep, and cattle; and the arts of the church, music and the making of santos and retablos. The Pueblos would accept much, even accepting some of the saints of the church into their kachina pantheon. The saints would become guardian ancestral spirits who joined the old kachinas to do good and bring rain to the earth of the Pueblos.
    The problem lay not with