ONCE THERE WAS A FATHER FROM MEXICO, a skilled curandero who could find powerful medicine in the most barren deserts. He moved to Arizona with his wife in the first few years of the 20th century, but after his second son, Patrociño, was born, he found himself a widower. When Patrociño’s father heard that a healer was needed in the northern New Mexico town of Taos, he and his children headed east.
Life in Taos wasn’t easy. Winters were cold, and food was scarce. The curandero’s second son never learned to read or write, but through hard physical labor, he grew up strong. He laid railroad tracks, mended fences, herded sheep, and split rocks with sledgehammers. He patched the pale pink adobe walls of Taos Pueblo—where he met his wife—and in the summer, he went to Colorado to harvest peaches. More than anything, though, the man was a storyteller, one who carved his stories into slabs of cedar and pine.
The man struggled, and watched others struggle. In the houses he lived and worked in, he was surrounded by santos, wood sculptures of beloved saints and members of the Holy Family, and he became skilled at carving them. In time, his work
