The Night at Pecos
- Book 4: Snake Root. Let's do this.
- Shortly after his trip to Ácoma, Bishop Latour decides to suspend a Mexican priest in his diocese. He then puts Father Joseph Vaillant in charge to whip the people's faith back into shape. The transition turns out to be easier than he thought. The Mexican people make just as much a hobby out of obeying rules as they once did out of disobeying them.
- Latour gets bad news shortly after Joseph leaves though. It turns out that Vaillant has gotten really sick from black measles while administering the last rites to a bunch of dying people.
- We learn that Father Vaillant has made a habit out of coming really close to death and then pulling through in the last second.
- Bad weather delays Latour's journey to get Joseph, though, and with every hour that passes, Latour worries that he'll be too late. He and his guide Jacinto decide to spend the night in Jacinto's house before setting out the next day.
- While he sits in Jacinto's house, Latour hears about a secret fire that the Natives have kept burning inside one of the nearby mountains for centuries. It's a place that no white man is ever allowed to go. He also hears about how all of the diseases that white people have brought to North America have decimated the Native populations. All he can really do is listen and nod.