hand weakly. “I’m Francis. I hope the ride was pleasant? Those are all your things, Miss Taboada? Can I help you with them?” he asked in quick succession, as if he preferred to end all sentences with question marks rather than commit to definite statements.
“You can call me Noemí. Miss Taboada sounds so fussy. That’s the sum of my luggage, and yes, I’d love some assistance.”
He grabbed her two suitcases and placed them in the trunk, then went around the car and opened the door for her. The town, as she saw it from her window, was peppered with winding streets, colorful houses with flower pots at their windows, sturdy wooden doors, long stairways, a church, and all the usual details that any guidebook would call “quaint.”
Despite this, it was clear El Triunfo was not in any guidebooks. It had the musty air of a place that had withered away. The houses were colorful, yes, but the color was peeling from most of the walls, some of the doors had been defaced, half of the flowers in the pots were wilting, and the town showed few signs of activity.
It was not that unusual. Many formerly thriving mining sites that had extracted silver and gold during the Colonia interrupted their operations once the War of Independence broke out. Later on, the English and the French were welcomed during the tranquil Porfiriato, their pockets growing fat with mineral riches. But the Revolution had ended this second boom. There were many hamlets like El Triunfo where one could peek at fine chapels built when money and people were plentiful; places where the earth would never again spill wealth from its womb.
Yet the Doyles lingered in this land, when many others had long gone. Perhaps, she thought, they’d learned to love it, though she was not much impressed by it, for it was a steep and abrupt landscape. It didn’t look at all like the mountains from her childhood storybooks, where the trees appeared lovely and flowers grew by the road; it didn’t resemble the enchanting place Catalina had said she would live in. Like the old car that had picked Noemí up, the town clung to the dregs of splendor.
Francis drove up a narrow road that climbed deeper into the mountains, the air growing rawer, the mist intensifying. She rubbed her hands together.
“Is it very far?” she asked.
Again he looked uncertain. “Not that far,” Francis said slowly, as if they were discussing a matter that had to be considered with much care. “The road is bad or I’d go faster. It used to be, a long time ago, when the mine was open, that the roads around here were all in good shape, even near High Place.”
“High Place?”
“That’s what we call it, our home. And behind it, the English cemetery.”
“Is it really very English?” she said, smiling.
“Yes,” he said, gripping the wheel with both hands with a strength she would not have imagined from his limp handshake.
“Oh?” she said, waiting for more.
“You’ll see it. It’s all very English. Um, that’s what Uncle Howard wanted, a little piece of England. He even brought European earth here.”
“Do you think he had an extreme case of nostalgia?”
“Indeed. I might as well tell you, we don’t speak Spanish at High Place. My great uncle doesn’t know a word of it, Virgil fares poorly, and my mother wouldn’t ever attempt to stitch a sentence together. Is…is your English any good?”
“Lessons every day since I was six,” she said, switching from Spanish to English. “I’m sure I’ll have no trouble.”
The trees grew closer together, and it was dark under their branches. She was not one for nature, not the real thing. The last time she had been anywhere near a forest had been on that excursion to El Desierto de los Leones when they went riding and then her brother and her friends decided to do some practice shooting with tin cans. That had been two, maybe even three years before. This place didn’t compare to that. It was wilder here.
She found herself warily assessing the height of the trees and the depths of the ravines. Both were considerable. The mist thickened, making her wince, fearing they’d wind up halfway down the mountain if they took a wrong turn. How many eager miners hunting for silver had fallen off a cliff? The mountains offered mineral riches and a quick death. But Francis seemed secure in his driving even if his words faltered. She didn’t generally like shy