A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [21]
The fine warm weather didn’t last long enough, though. It didn’t have to, because stands of millions of aspen trees, propagated through their roots, covered the slopes on both sides of the valley. Their translucent pale green leaves trembled at the slightest breeze. The Mexicans called them “money for the pope.”
In the second or third week of September came the announcement that winter was not far behind as the leaves turned solid gold with the occasional dark green spike of a conifer piquing the stand.
Spring and autumn were muddy and sloppy from snowflakes holding too much water. Around Thanksgiving, as the real cold snapped in, the flakes became so light you could blow them off a branch with the slightest breath.
Father Sean was coming!
For three years he had been in one of those godawful places in Africa where only a Catholic missionary would go. Ravaged by ailments, he had been recalled to the States. The three years in Africa had earned him the respect due a full and sacrificing priest in the eyes of Paul Cardinal Watts, archbishop of Brooklyn. The cardinal sequestered Sean.
The priest needed healing. A light course of duty was set up in which he could spend part of his time at nearby St. John’s in study and teaching.
Cardinal Watts agreed that a month off in Colorado would put some roses back in his cheeks. Father Sean was picked up at the Denver airport and whisked to the small aircraft side of the field. He nearly fainted with fear when his sister, little Siobhan, took the controls of the Cessna. She had waited long for this golden moment and flew it high and down into Troublesome’s dirt runway flawlessly.
Another surprise—an apartment, Sean’s apartment, had been added to the ranch house! It had everything from his own vehicle to a futuristic sound system, to a mighty fireplace, to a veranda which afforded a grand vista.
At the fire, Father Sean’s initial fire, they gathered around. Siobhan unlaced her brother’s shoes and slipped his feet into a pair of woollies. He groaned with delight, and soon the smoke of his pipe danced with the smoke of the fire.
“How’s it going to go?” Dan asked.
“Cardinal Watts is the kind of man you want to work hard for.”
Sean sipped a rare velvety cognac, audible in his contentment, then stared from one to the other.
“Siobhan, you’ve been back to Brooklyn how many times?”
“Eight, ten. I don’t know exactly.”
“Everyone glories in the life you’ve made in Colorado. But that room at the end of the hall stays locked.”
“You know what happened,” Dan said. “For a time I traveled to God knows where to see fertility doctors. I even dropped my pants for Jewish doctors. They all said sterility from mumps is rare, and there is a chance I may become whole again.”
“How long do you plan to wait?”
Dan’s paws fell into his lap, and he lowered his eyes. “We may be ready to adopt,” he said in a whisper.
“We looked into our Catholic agency. Somehow, it seems very risky, getting an ill child, and after months, maybe years, of waiting,” Siobhan said.
Father Sean tapped out his pipe. “I did some investigating of my own,” he said. “Cardinal Watts’ closest aide is a Monsignor Gallico. He is the diocese fixer. When I told the cardinal of your situation, he said, ‘Why don’t you talk it over with the monsignor?’”
Both of them tensed noticeably.
“You don’t have to do much more than meet Monsignor Gallico to realize he is a wheeler-dealer, a real Jesuit. In the past few weeks he showed me a number of infants, but I just couldn’t square any of them in terms of the ranch and the mountains. Just before I was to fly out here, Gallico called me, very excited. One particular baby he had been tracking was found. The child had lived with his birth parents for its first year and was placed in a convent with special attention told to be given. I have a suspicion that the monsignor might have known about this child all along and showed me the others as a straw man. You know the church, we’ve got to