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Show -5- He handed them up to the Padre and his skin brushed the chilled steel of the stirrups and the leather moccasins. Juan doubled up with the cold under the gaze of Fray Silvestre; the sun had washed his flesh to rose. He closed his eyes and felt the pain lock every joint and thunder in his blood. Fray Silvestre waved him into the stream, his face fixed impassively on the opposite shore. Juan slipped out of the shadows and into the cavernous wavas, clutching the cross around his throat, the spines of rock tearing at his feet. He fixed his eye on the distant black mound of Tucane bathed in clouds and heard the cries of Sister Blanca Negra in the wind. "Juanitol" He sank deeper into the mud and felt the current grab his legs and toss him flailing toward midstream. Every nerve cried with the cold and his white arms thrust forward and back, the spasm of ice flowing up his spine. For an instant the churning mud covered him and he was blinded as if by black lightning from storms beneath the earth; then, enfolded by the arms of the river, the boy warmed and felt his limbs grow under the weight of the water's embrace. He fought his way free of the cold, dragging ache and reached strongly for the rocks. Like a torn flower he floated to the eddies of the river and touched deep sand beneath his feet. "Ai!" shouted Juan Domingo; the man threw himself into the pool and hugged Juan who soared into his arms and clung there like an infant. The boy stretched the new strength of his flesh and wept in the sun. Far behind the gray father sailed quietly for the shore on horseback, a ghostly smile on his face. |