Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [25]
After a while, she closes her book and sets it aside. With a sigh, she reaches for another. It’s substantial and I can’t see the name for the faded spine. She opens it and flips through the chapters with the eye of one reconnecting with an old literary friend. I have no doubt that she’s read most of the books on this table, but time would have relegated most of them to the position of third cousin at a family reunion—the one whose name is always just out of reach. The pages of this one give a satisfying crinkle as she turns them. I sink into my chair, giving up even the pretense of helping. I have nothing to do but watch her as she reads. I can think of worse things with which to occupy my time.
“Here it is.”
I give a guilty start, banging my knee on the underside of the table. Ignoring Espy’s smirk, I rise and cross to the other side of the table so that I can peer over her shoulder. Her finger rests on the name: Fraternidad de la Tierra, in bold font. The text is in Spanish. I reach around and move her hand so that I can read the entry. They’ve earned less than a half page in a large book, and the first two paragraphs are close to what Esperanza provided back at the restaurant.
“Not much here,” I grouse.
“I remember there being a bit more to it,” she offers, and I can see a sheepish smile in profile.
My eyes skip down the page until they alight on the material Espy didn’t cover. The only thing I find interesting is that this passage provides, while not the origin of the name, an interesting bit of information about member allegiance to it. Every man who achieved guild membership underwent something akin to what I can only determine was an anti-baptism. Rather than undergoing an immersion in or sprinkling with water, initiates were buried to their necks in dirt and left alone for six hours. It seems that the Brotherhood placed some symbolic meaning in the power of the earth. I find myself trying to draw some correlation between the dust of the ground and the decay of human bone, knowing as I do so that I’m committing the academic sin of feeding a theory without any facts to support it.
I don’t realize that I’m still holding Esperanza’s hand until she pulls it away. With a small smile, I step back, the smell of her hair following me.
“Not a lot there,” I say.
“No. Which is why I find it odd that they should figure prominently in the research.”
I shrug because, to me, it seems quite the opposite. If they were a well-known organization, then any Tom, Dick, or Harry who fancied himself an academic could have picked them from the available records. Someone would have had to have done some serious research to select this group from among the relics of South American history, as evidenced by Espy’s efforts.
“There’s a picto-index here,” Esperanza says, flipping back several pages. “There should be some kind of organizational crest represented.”
I step to her side again as she moves through the pages, hitting the glossy ones that show the black-and-white photos. There are at least twenty pages of these, many with icons that I recognize without having to think about them. Toward the end she pauses, and her slender finger taps a tiny image at the bottom.
At first, I don’t grasp what I’m seeing. It must be a full thirty seconds before I realize I’m not breathing. And I find that Esperanza has turned and she’s looking at me with a curious expression.
“What is it?”
I don’t answer. How can I put into words the amazement I’m feeling? Because I’ve seen this picture before. In fact, I’ve touched the ancient wall on which a duplicate of it is carved. And I know now where I have to go. And I also know that Esperanza was right about one thing: this project might take much longer than I thought.
Romero’s store is closed and he, Esperanza, and I are the only ones