DC03 - Though Mountains Fall by Dale Cramer

finally being united with the only man she had ever loved, yet haunted by twinges of unspeakable grief over the absence of her family. The entire morning went by in a disoriented blur, right up until the moment when Father Noceda asked quietly, “Who gives this woman?”
    Her padrino answered, “I do,” then placed her hand inDomingo’s and stepped back. As Domingo’s fingers closed around hers she looked up at his face and felt herself falling straight through those dark confident eyes, into his soul. His unshakable devotion calmed her, instantly and completely—a love that would weather any storm without complaint, for her. Domingo was the embodiment of grace and patience wrapped in a towering strength, and all of it laid freely at her feet. She could trust him. He would always be there for her. Miriam was at peace, her mind no longer divided, and it was in that precise moment that she and Domingo Zapara became one.
    She kept her eyes on Domingo while they repeated the vows spoken by the priest. Words. She barely heard them. In her heart she was already married.
    The ring bearer, one of Kyra’s young sons, handed a long pink ribbon to the priest, who tied the ends together and draped the loop over their shoulders, a symbol of binding.
    Domingo took a small leather pouch from his pocket. Maria had told her about the arras in advance, so she knew what to do. When he opened the pouch she held out her hands, fingers splayed, and he poured thirteen little gold coins into her palms, a symbol of abundance. But it was only a ritual; the coins were, and would remain, the property of the church. The priest’s helper held out a basket to catch the coins as she let them slip through her fingers, a symbolic offering to the poor.
    As the young robed assistant whisked the basket of coins away the ring bearer opened a small hand-carved box and held it up to the priest. Father Noceda took a gold band from the box and slid it onto Domingo’s finger, then handed him a smaller duplicate, which Domingo slipped onto Miriam’s hand. This too Maria had told her about. Gold rings were expensive, so for a peasant wedding such as this the church provided the rings, but only for show. They would be returned in three days, replacedby leather bands like all the peasants wore. It didn’t matter. A ring was, after all, only a symbol.
    After the priest blessed them and pronounced them man and wife, Miriam and Domingo kissed and turned about, arm in arm, to be saluted as a couple by the throng of family and friends in the courtyard.
    The ceremony was only half done. There were still certain religious rites to be performed inside the church, but as the priest threw open the huge front doors a commotion rolled through the streets.
    A barefoot peasant charged out from the main street across the churchyard, one hand holding his sombrero in place as he ran, shouting something to the guards on the parapet wall around the hacienda grounds. Miriam couldn’t make out the words, but Father Noceda brushed past her and flew down the steps, through the crowd and across the yard to see what was happening.
    Domingo froze, listening.
    Then she heard it—the unmistakable sound of gunfire in the distance. She gripped Domingo’s arm.
    “ My family! ”
    “Come with me,” Domingo said, pulling her with him through the big doors into the narthex, then pressing her shoulders against the stone wall.
    “Don’t move!” he commanded, and then dashed through a side door and up a spiral staircase to the belfry.
    The commotion outside grew, and in a moment Domingo flew back down the stairs, burst into the narthex and whisked her out into the churchyard.
    “Bandits,” he said. “We must get everyone behind the walls of the hacienda. Come.”
    Fifty yards from the church, the massive iron gate in thehacienda wall swung wide. Bedlam ensued as everyone from the wedding and most of the people in the hacienda village crowded through. Miriam dropped her flowers and