Read Online Puzzle for Pilgrims by Patrick Quentin - Free Book Online Page A

sugar cane and the cool jade of bananas. I had lunch in Cuernavaca in a patio that was hot with bougainvillea and carnations. Twenty minutes later I was up again in the barren cactus highlands.
    I was making good time until I got a flat between Cuernavaca and Xoxocotla. After that, it was hell. I had no jack. It had been stolen in Mexico. I had to thumb a ride back to Cuernavaca and dicker with a lethargic garage. It was quarter of six before I was on my way again. There was still time to keep my date with Sally, but I was unreasonably anxious about Marietta. If I’d understood her, I wouldn’t have been worried. But I didn’t understand her, and because I didn’t understand her I imagined her capable of the most foolhardy things.
    The evening was a faded pink when a twist in the road brought Taxco into view. Clinging to the mountainside with its weathered red roofs and its twin-steepled cathedral frothy as meringue, it is to me one of the most beautiful towns on this continent. That night the very air seemed rose-colored from the sunset. It wasn’t a town; it was a spray of peach blossom.
    I thought of Sally sitting in it, waiting for me, like a little yellow spider with its web spun between the blossoms.
    I turned into the street which led into the town. It was cobbled, steep, narrow, never meant for an automobile. I’d been in Taxco six years before, but Sally hadn’t been there then. I didn’t know where she lived. It was eight fifteen. There was no time to try to find out whether Marietta and Jake were there. I parked in a side street below the Zocalo next to a dilapidated burro and a tethered turkey. Two small pigs liked it. They came squealing out of a doorway and, squeezing underneath the car, collapsed into sleep.
    From the Zocalo above me, wheezy steam-organ music blared down through the thickening twilight. Some church fiesta must have been getting under way. An Indian with a red and gray serape started coping with the pigs. I asked him where the Señora Haven lived. Everyone knows everything about everyone in Taxco. He pointed up the hill to a higher church. It was near there. The next house above the church.
    I started on foot up the cobbled street. It was impossible to take the car any farther. The street was so steep that I had to lean forward to keep my balance. Apart from an old, old woman with an empty kerosene can, the place was deserted. Everyone must already have congregated in the public square.
    I reached the church which clung precariously to the mountainside. A footpath wound upward past its pink walls. Chickens scurried out of my way. A pig lumbered toward the church door. The path swerved right, and there was Sally’s house, new looking and rich, spread across the hill above the town.
    I passed through iron gates and up a twisting driveway, somber with the heavy green of bananas. I came to a flagged area with a tiled pool full of showy goldfish. The front door was beyond it. It was open. I moved to it, hesitated on the threshold, looking for a buzzer to ring. I couldn’t see one. It was exactly eight thirty. I called, “Sally,” tapped on the door, and walked in.
    I was in the living room, a huge, tall room glowing with the pale colors of modern Mexican furniture. The air was dusky, and no lights had been lit. A girl was crouched in a chair near the window. I assumed it was Sally because I was expecting her.
    I went toward her, saying, “Hello, Sally.”
    She stirred. Her hair was dark. No trick of light could make Sally’s metal hair that dark. With disproportionate anxiety, I thought it was Marietta sitting there alone in Sally’s living room.
    The girl got up then. She stood silhouetted against the tall windows. I crossed to her through the puzzling half-light. I was almost at her side before I recognized her. It seemed incredible to me that I could have been in a room with her and not known her. It was just that the possibility of her being there had been so remote. For a second