The Condemned

The shadow of the mountain range crept over the flat, arid land like outstretched fingers on San Juan Diego’s outskirts. Once known for its teeming farming, only a few residents remained in the remote village near the Mexico border. With the work gone, men had abandoned their homes for other prospects. Most reluctantly sought fortune with cartels, especially the young and aimless. For those remaining, the village diminished into a pass-through — the lack of authority and remoteness, caused by the mountainous landscape encompassing San Juan Diego, made the location ideal for the underworld.

Despite the still morning, the dust kicked up by a cartel convoy the previous night wafted throughout the main stretch of the village, caking the few buildings in a yellow-brown sludge. Since the preservation of water became a conscious necessity, only foolish residents would clean. The little market tents, bus depot, and cantina had thus become tattered and worn, with the sun’s shadows revealing bullet markings. At the end of the main road was the church and attached rectory, which were in a similar dilapidated condition. The church bell dangled on one of three hinges. Even the fencing surrounding the property was completely torn apart with pieces of wood tossed into the road and nearby alley. There had not even been a priest in San Juan Diego for years, as he was rumored to have been bribed by the cartel to abandon his mission. A wave of aimlessness and despair had since imprisoned the residents’ spirits.

Between the general store and rectory, the still morning’s harsh shadows poured into the alley, harshly blanketing the lone body of a teenager. His wide-open, blackened eyes stared at the sky, as though attempting to scream in terror or prayer. Instead, flies speckled the chapped lips and bloodstained, dirtied clothes. Only a few hours before, the teenager had been a cartel soldier, and, in an instant, became a prisoner and then condemned. The crime was the same for all the previous bodies found in the alley: treason.

An ownerless dog with stiff, mangy fur and protruding ribs emerged from around the corner near the main road and drifted into the alley. With near elation, the starving creature spotted the corpse, yet approached it with timidity and inquisitiveness. After recognizing no signs of movement, the mongrel jogged toward a feast. Its mouth salivated. The dog began to lick the calf muscle, tasting the dried saltiness from either perspiration or blood. It had not had a meal of this magnitude in its entire life.

Suddenly, a bus screeched as it approached the depot, its echo ricocheting profoundly through the shadowed alley. The dog, frightened, jolted its head up from the meal for fear of retribution. A middle-aged man stepped off the bus, his silhouette cascading toward the dog and teenager’s body. He wore an unassuming collared shirt and held a small, beaten suitcase. The only distinguishable thing adorning him was a cross necklace. Although the dog could not see the man’s eyes, the mongrel knew it was being watched. Every step the man took weighed heavily on the dirt, as he bent over to grab a piece of fencing. The dog twitched, debating whether to fight or fly — for it sought to end the pains of its starvation, yet the man’s sheer presence was frightening. Only a few seconds elapsed, but, to the mongrel, it felt eternal.

Bang!

The man knocked the plank of wood against the rectory’s façade, driving a thunderous wave toward the dog. Its eyes widened, fearing the end.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The dog bolted — ultimately deciding to not risk death over the depraved meal. The starvation would continue.

As the dog scampered away into the desert, the man solemnly approached the body of the teenage boy. Despite having stepped off the bus moments before, a wave of responsibility and failure rushed over him. He crouched over the boy — whose eyes still were screaming toward heaven — examining his fatal wounds. With a heavy hand, the man shut the boy’s eyes forever and muttered a prayer. Turning back to the main road, he scanned each dust-covered window. Except for the departing bus, nothing stirred. It was as if the whole village was silenced by either ignorance or shame. Calling for help would be a fruitless venture, he deduced; instead, he lifted the boy’s body over his shoulder and carried him into the rectory. The door was already pried opened, possibly by bandits years prior, and no one had bothered repairing it since.

As he suspected, the rectory had been raided. A tiny living room area consisted of a tattered couch and a bookcase with no books lining the shelves. The space was adjoined by a kitchenette with a circular table and two chairs, one of which had a cracked leg, making it unsuitable for sitting. To his surprise, there was a corded phone on the counter, and next to it, a small, chipped figurine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As he searched for a spot to lay the body down, he noticed a dustpan and broom propped upright in the corner of the kitchenette. Despite the sparse furniture and condition, the rectory was relatively clean. Someone had been here recently other than raiders.

The man eventually found a bedroom in the one-leveled rectory, which only had a mattress on the ground. The bedframes had been stolen a long time ago. As he gingerly placed the teenager’s body on the cot, the man was consumed with remorse — Who was this young man? Did he have any family? What if I came a day earlier, would he still be alive somehow?

There must be someone I can call, he rationalized. With renewed urgency, he went to the kitchenette, opening up every cabinet door in search of a phonebook to alert the nearest police station. As he scrambled in the bare shelves, a slight creaking sound came from behind him. The noise was disconcerting. Was someone coming to retrieve the body? Was he now a witness to the crime? Or had the wind opened the rectory door? He composed himself, stiffening his spine and controlling his breathing.

“There’s nothing here worth stealing anymore!”

That was not the voice of a cartel member, thought the man, as he turned around, standing upright. He was shocked to see a young woman, probably in her early 20s, positioned in the doorway. She wielded a mop, tightly gripping it as a makeshift weapon.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the young woman growled.

She noticed the body in the bedroom.

“Is that your friend in there, sleeping? Probably drunk or high, right? Well, you can’t stay here. Get out or I’ll call the police right now! You’re desecrating this place.”

“Please do,” the man calmly said, standing at full height.

The young woman dropped her hands — which still clenched the mop’s wooden, splintered handle — confused by the thief standing before her. A silence reverberated between the two strangers, who locked eyes. Her combative instincts flinched while studying the man’s dominating, yet tranquil expression. It effused strength, but one sheathed, and rarely drawn. She was not sure what to make of him, perplexed that he made no threatening movement. Yet his stillness frightened her.

“Is this some mind trick? Don’t take me for a fool or a coward.”

“I mean it. I was trying to search for a phone number, but there’s no book here,” the man replied, pointing to the empty cabinets.

Still defensive, the young woman stood there contemplating momentarily whether the reply was legitimate.

“And what about your friend in there?” she finally uttered.

The man wasn’t sure how to respond — he saw a young, brave woman who could probably do some damage to him with the mop she still clutched. Lying would get him nowhere. It never did. Best to be upfront, he decided.

“Unfortunately, he’s dead, and I don’t know who he is.”

“Dead?”

An empty minute passed between them where neither spoke nor moved until the terrifying realization swelled, while her eyes filled with bewilderment. Her sight bounced across the floor and into the bedroom, processing what the man said. A wave of fear crawled up her skin. The situation was more serious than she ever anticipated, and she wished she never entered the rectory. But she stayed, feeling gripped by an unknown force: perhaps a duty to bring the suspected man to justice. She inched closer to the bedroom, moving away from the rectory door to peek at the body to see if the man was telling the truth. As she scanned the body, fear turned into anguish.

“Antonio?”

She dropped the mop and rushed over, kneeling next to the body while futilely checking for a pulse. She ripped off part of her shirt and began wiping away the dried blood. Tears welled in her eyes, but she restrained sobbing with nearly every fiber of her being, not wanting to appear weak in front of the stranger. The man stood at a distance, not wanting to frighten the poor young woman even further. At least now he knew the boy’s name. He assumed she was related.

“Antonio? That’s his name?” the man asked, trying to diffuse the tension in the air.

The young woman dropped her head onto Antonio’s chest in a last-gasp effort to hear any signs of life from his heart — even though she knew full well he was dead. Slowly rising, the young woman’s emotions swiftly morphed from sorrow to silent rage. She clenched her fists to the point where every muscle in her forearms bulged, and her teeth were on the brink of shattering from the pressure of gritting them. The air in the room shackled the two in their spots — the young woman, still standing over the body, and the man in the doorway. He wished to relieve her of the anguish — and divulge his identity as a Catholic priest. A prayer for the dead can be the only comfort now, he thought. Although, he wondered if she had ever seen a priest or, at least, remembered the previous one’s name. 

“I’m no thief. And I’m no murderer. I’m a priest.”

The young woman’s head turned sharply to assess him. The light from the bedroom window revealed his glittering cross necklace. How could he be a priest? she wondered. He must be lying. The man relaxed his stance to reassure her of the truth, but she still doubted.

“Then how did you come across Antonio?”

“I found him in the alleyway outside. I had just gotten off the bus here in San Juan Diego for my new assignment. Who is this boy?”

The young woman’s muscles began to loosen slightly. She had heard the rickety bus arrive, which only came once a week, if at all. Nevertheless, she calculated a test for the stranger claiming to be a priest. She dug through her pocket, pulled out a rosary, and held it in the palm of her hands.

“What mysteries do we honor today?” she asked in a soft, almost ashamed voice. She couldn’t even look at the priest.

“Today is Friday, right? Then we reflect on the sorrowful mysteries.”

Something in his voice — the confidence and soothing nature — made her believe the man was a priest. The tears that welled in the young woman’s eyes began to trickle down her face, as the scripture passage of Satan testing Christ in the desert whipped through her mind.

“I’m sorry for testing you. We didn’t think you were coming for another day. I was here to clean,” she said through tears.

The Priest placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. What’s your name?”

The young woman rubbed her eyes, sniffing to compose herself.

“Maria.”

“Who is Antonio to you?”

“He is — was my cousin. He ran with animals, those members of the cartel,” she said, her sorrow once again veering into anger. The Priest, again, resolved to defuse the situation.

“Is there a number for local police?”

Maria sheepishly turned to face the Priest, yet she gazed toward the ground. The Priest, meanwhile, walked over to the phone in the kitchenette, picked the receiver off the hook, and waited for her reply. His finger loomed over the buttons in anticipation.

“I’m sorry, Padre. I was lying before. I thought it would scare you off.”

The Priest hung up the receiver, disappointed. He started to realize the truth: there was no law enforcement in the town. He would be the only authority. A sudden loneliness overcame him, but he pushed the feeling aside, focusing on Maria instead.

“There haven’t been police here for some time,” Maria said as she picked up the mop to reassume her initial intention of cleaning the rectory. “At least, not strong enough to stop the cartel.”

Suddenly, a zooming, foreboding noise interrupted the Priest and Maria’s conversation. With heavy footsteps, the Priest crossed to the front window with a view overlooking the main street. A cloud of dust hung in the air, and within the cloud, the Priest could see a Jeep with three men — two of whom were brandishing weapons. In their animalistic frenzy, the driver nearly ran into an older woman who had been carrying fruit to her market stand. She tumbled out of the way, escaping with her life, but the fruit was now caked with dust and unsellable. The Priest saw two of the young men laughing as they pulled up in front of the cantina and jumped out one by one. The driver, he could sense, was the alpha — wide, fit, and marked with Roman Numerals as well as a Santa Muerta skeletal tattoo across his arms and a tear underneath his right eye. The other two were younger and not as battle-tested, as they appeared less weathered than their comrade. Perhaps they were new to the lifestyle, he surmised.

The Priest felt compelled to step outside into the alley to get another look at the young men. There was one he noticed who had a more innocent face — as though he was in the cartel life out of necessity, without any other options. He had sharp green eyes; yet his youthful façade quarreled with his soul, which dangled on the precipice of becoming lost.

As the dust subsided, the Priest nearly stumbled over the suitcase he left before moving Antonio’s body. Wiping off the dirt that had drifted from the Jeep, the Priest watched the three young men barge into the cantina. He stepped back inside and heard Maria in the bedroom praying Hail Marys. She was kneeling over her cousin’s body in deep contemplation, pleading with the Blessed Mother to intercede on his behalf. The scene moved the Priest. There is still faith here, he thought, as he knelt beside Maria and joined her.

“Holy Mary. Mother of God. Pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

As they made the sign of the cross, the Priest noticed Maria struggling to move, as if affixed to the ground — laden with a guilty conscience. However, the body was starting to smell — or perhaps it already did, but the Priest finally noticed — and the flies manifested seemingly out of thin air. He could not let Maria linger in this state, dwelling on a sin she did not commit. Guilt had consumed him, driven him to dark corners in the past. He would not let this young woman suffer similarly, and Antonio had to be put to rest.

“Is there a shovel?”

Andrew Fowler is the director of internal affairs at Yankee Institute, a public policy organization committed to empowering the people of Connecticut to forge a brighter future for themselves and their families. He also is the author of "The Condemned," a novella about a Catholic priest fighting off the cartel to save the residents of a small desert town (which you can find here); and the curator of “K of C Baseball: An American Story” for the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center. Follow his Substack here.