"You must suffer like a hero, you must pay a hero's price."
"Shall I see again?"
"That is in God's hands."
Juan's hope fell away again, sinking as water vanishes in sand. Padre Ignacio was cutting away the mealsack shirt, touching his burns with exploring finger as they were revealed. He stretched Juan on his rawhide bed and washed his injuries, bringing him immeasurable relief. As he worked he talked, lightly, of his expedition into the mountains on a false trail.
"Old as I am, I am not past learning, then, it is plain," he laughed. "I rode away without reason, certain of my keen sense, forgetting to watch the roads for tracks that turned aside. It is fortunate I did not see them, for I never could have followed them in the night as you did. Even if I had found them, I could not have brought Don Geronimo through the fire. An old priest is a poor figure for an adventure. Is it not true, Juan?"
"On the other hand, if you had waited for daylight, as I advised, neither of us would have found Don Geronimo," said Juan.
"There is a complexity in the direction of our lives that we would need to be more than men to understand. If we had gone this way, and not that; if we had said one thing, and not the other. It is always so in life. We do not swim; we drift in the current of our providential destiny. It lies in the hands of God."
