One day Asagao asked her to come along, the two of them alone, and help pick berries in a hidden nook of the hills, more than an hour away on horseback. They packed a lunch and took their tune. On the way home, shy young dreams began to reach lips. Asagao well knew how to keep talk aflow without pushing.
Yesterday a thunderstorm had broken a hot spell. The air was full of wayward breezes and soft smells. Light was lengthening from the west, but still held that upland brilliance which made the mountains seem almost next door and yet left you feeling what a vastness you looked across. Clouds towered white into dizzying depths of blue. The valley rolled in a thousand shades of green, twinkly with irrigation, on and on toward the orchards and ranch buildings. Red-winged blackbirds darted and cried over the pasture, and cattle near the fence line lifted large eyes to watch the horses pass. Leather squeaked, hoofs plopped, riding was oneness in a lazy sweet rhythm.
“I really would like to learn about your religion, Mrs. Tu,” Juanita said. She was a dark, thin girl who walked with a limp. Her father used to beat her, as he did her mother, till at last she put a kitchen knife in his shoulder and ran off. In the saddle she was on her way to centaurhood, and corrective surgery was scheduled for later this year. Meanwhile she did her share of chores, assigned to allow for the handicap. “It must be wonderful if—“ she flushed, glanced aside, dropped her voice—“if it’s got believers like you and Mr. Tu.”
Asagao smiled. “Thank you, love, though we are quite ordinary, you know. I think you had better get back into your own church. Of course we’ll be glad to explain what we can. All our children have been interested. But what we live by can’t actually be put in words. It’s very alien to this country. It might not even be a religion by your standards, but more a way of life, of trying to get in harmony with the universe.”
Juanita gave her a quick, searching regard. “Like the Unity?”
“The what?”
“The Unity. Where I come from. Except they—they couldn’t take me. I asked a guy who belongs, but he said it’s … a lifeboat as full as it can carry.” A sigh. “Then I got lucky and got found by—for—you. I think prob’ly this is better. You’ll fix me to go live anyplace. The Unity, you stay with it. I think. But I don’t know much about it. They don’t talk, the members.”
“Your friend must have, if you heard about it.”
“Oh, word gets around. The dope dealers, now, they hate it. But I guess it’s only in the New York area. And like I said, the higher you go in it, the less you tell. Manuel, he’s too young. He grew up in it, his parents did too, but they say he’s not ready yet. He doesn’t know much except about the housing and education and—well, members help each other.”
“That sounds good. I have heard of such organizations.”
“Oh, this isn’t a co-op exactly, and it’s not like, uh, the Guardian Angels, except for what they call sentinel stance, and— It’s sort of like a church, except not that either.
Members can believe anything they want, but they do have—services? Retreats? That’s how come I wondered if this was like the Unity.”
“No, can’t be. We’re simply a family. We wouldn’t have any idea how to run anything larger.”
“I guess that’s why the Unity stopped growing,” Juanita said thoughtfully. “Mama-lo can only keep track of so much.”
“Mama-lo?”
“The name I’ve heard. She’s kind of a—a high priestess? Except it isn’t a church. But they say she’s real powerful. They do what she wants, in the Unity.”
“Hm. How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know. A long time. I heard the first Mama-lo was the mother of this one, or was she the grandmother? A black woman, though I hear she’s got a white woman works close with her, always has had.”
“This is fascinating,” Asagao said. “Do go on.”