“It’s forbidden…” she whispered. The rancher understood… and all of Dodge City trembled.
The desert armor
The July sun beat down on the Kansas grasslands, as if it wanted to melt the very earth. Jack Holster, a rancher in his forties, weathered by the wind and solitude, rode slowly on his chestnut horse Rayo, searching for some stray cows.
Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and seeped under his shirt collar. Suddenly, something black caught his eye in the tall grass.
At first he thought it was a dead crow, but no. It was a woman dressed as a nun, lying face up, her habit pulled up to her knees, her feet mangled and bleeding.
“Come on, Rayo,” he murmured and got off the horse with his heart in his throat.
He approached slowly.
The sister was young, no more than twenty-two years old, with a pale face and dry lips.
He was barely breathing.
Jack took off his hat and knelt beside her.
—Miss, sister, can you hear me?
She barely opened her eyes, frightened like a cornered deer, and backed away crawling on her hands.
“Don’t touch me. It’s forbidden. It’s forbidden,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“Well, if I don’t touch her, she’ll die here, and I won’t have that on my conscience,” he replied with the calm of someone who has seen too many dead people.
The sister tried to pray, but only moans came out.
Jack took out his canteen, moistened her lips, and then, without asking permission, lifted her in his arms as if she were a feather.
She stiffened, weeping silently, repeating: “Sin, sin.”
“Then let God punish me, not you,” he said, and settled her into the front seat.
He mounted behind her, put his arm around her to keep her from falling, and spurred his horse on towards his cabin eight miles away.
The cabin was small, made of logs, with a single room and a fireplace that was almost never lit in summer. Jack laid her down on her own bed, carefully removed her torn sandals, and washed her feet with water from the well.
They were full of thorns and deep cuts. She had walked barefoot for who knows how many leagues.
She applied arnica and bandaged them with strips of an old shirt. Then she gave her water with a little honey. The sister drank as if she had never tasted anything sweet. When she fully regained consciousness, she sat up abruptly and covered herself with the sheet up to her chin.
Where am I? Who are you?
—Jack Holster, at your service. And you’re on my ranch.
—Sister Alice, Sister Alice from Mission San Buenaventura in Dere.
—And what is a nun doing alone in the middle of the desert with her feet in pieces?
She lowered her gaze. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I didn’t run away from God, Mr. Holster, I ran away from the men who dress in the name of God.”
And then he spoke.
He recounted that Father Whitlac, the superior of the Mission, and Sheriff Collins were accomplices. They collected donations for the Indian orphans and poor Mexicans who arrived on freight trains.
But the money never reached its intended destination. They spent it at the Long Branch Saloon, at gambling tables, and on women with painted smiles.
Three sisters who had begun asking questions disappeared. One was lost in the river, another succumbed to fever. The third returned to her village in Mesore. No one found their bodies.
Alice was in charge of keeping the account books. One night, when everyone was asleep, she opened Father Whitlac’s drawer and saw the truth: false columns, forged signatures, bags of gold hidden behind the altar. That same night, she overheard the priest and the sheriff plotting to silence her forever.