The Month of Mary
- Now we're onto Book 7, The Great Diocese.
- Three years after his arrival in New Mexico, Latour finds out that the Americans have bought even more land from the Mexicans, which means that his religious territory is going to grow even larger.
- Father Vaillant rides off to discuss the new boundaries with the Mexican priests who think their parishes are still in Mexico. Being a guy who tends to get sick on long journeys, Vaillant totally falls ill with malaria on the way.
- In a way, the illness isn't so bad for Father Vaillant.
- The month of May is a very sacred time for him, but he's always been too busy to celebrate it properly since moving to North America.
- This year, though, his illness allows him to pray properly all through May while he's resting. He travels back to Santa Fe, where Bishop Latour takes care of him.
- Father Joseph reveals while he's sick that he would like to take responsibility for travelling to the uncharted parts of New Mexico and converting as many people as he can to true Catholicism, and not the backward Catholicism that seems to be springing up in a lot of places.
- Latour, however, knows that Joseph and he are getting older and he doesn't want to lose his friend. In the end, he decides to let Vaillant do whatever his heart tells him.
- While Vaillant and Latour talk, they glance outside and see Magdalena, the woman they saved from the abusive and murderous Buck Scales earlier in the book.
- They are both happy to see that Magdalena is enjoying her second chance in life as a nun. She feeds the birds, and all of nature seems to embrace her.