A Timeless Christmas by Patricia Chandler

Author:Patricia Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin

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FATHER KINO was worried about what was happening in Los Reales. The rumors that reached his ears were ugly and vicious. He was afraid someone was going to get hurt.

It had been a long time since any serious violence had erupted in Los Reales, the last time being when a mining company had tried to reopen the copper mine at Wood Rat Wells.

The de Pima and McAllister contingents of aspiring miners had fought tooth and nail to keep the other side out, and the whole bloody mess had culminated in Petit Cobb’s shooting of Raoul de Pima outside a south-side bar.

The mine project had gone south to Tumacacori, and with it, the hundred-plus jobs Los Reales had sorely needed.

At sundown, on his knees before the altar of the Mission church, Father Kino decided to offer his vespers prayer for peace in the town.

It was, perhaps, a thankless task, to plead for Divine intercession, especially for people who hugged their hatred to their bosoms as if it were treasure, but he felt it necessary to try.

Even as he recited his vespers, however, Father Kino couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts on the town, or on the feud.

Images ran through his mind, disjointed and out of focus, like a film poorly spliced.

The pretty, freckled face of Dallas McAllister was one such image; odd, because she wasn’t a member of his flock. But Father Kino liked her and respected her for the fair and evenhanded way she handled her position as justice of the peace—the first McAllister ever to do so, and at great personal risk, he knew.

Miguel de Pima’s image also moved through his mind. What was it about the strange young Indian, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, that captured the priest’s imagination and held it?

Father Kino pictured him standing beside an almost man-high heap of dark green cat’s claw vines, the leaves already beginning to wilt in the sun.

Patience, Miguel had advised in the matter of uprooting weeds in a garden, although, of course, the same could apply to many things. Patience. And hard work.

Unbidden, Father Sebastiani’s journals came into his mind.

His rosary forgotten, Father Kino stared at the altar, trying to envision the violent and godless scene that had taken place there one hundred years ago.

Fear...and pain, and foreboding...horses filling the open spaces where the pews now stood...armed men. The McAllister, the personification of evil as drawn by Father Sebastiani’s pen...

And a young Indian, who for some inexplicable reason, bore the face of the man who had appeared at his door a week ago... A screaming, red-haired woman... The McAllister’s daughter... The desecration of God’s holy altar, and a courageous priest risking his life trying to prevent it...

Would he have had the courage of that old priest? Father Kino wondered. Different things were required of priests today—the ability to make small talk at social gatherings, for example; the ability to coax money out of board members and trustees; administrative and financial skills. At bottom, were they

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