Veinte
After Easter I went to confession every Saturday and on Sunday morning I took communion, but I was not satisfied. The God I so eagerly sought was not there, and the understanding I thought to gain was not there. The bad blood of spring filled us with strange yearnings and tumult, and the boys from Los Jaros split off from the boys from town and there were gang fights. Since I was not from across the tracks or from town, I was caught in the middle.
“It’s all part of growing up, Anthony,” Miss Violet told me one afternoon after school when I stayed to help her.
“Growing up is not easy sometimes,” I said. She smiled. “I will come to see you next year when school begins,” I told her.
“That would be nice,” she said and touched my head. “What will you do this summer—”
I wanted to tell her that I was searching for something, but sometimes I didn’t even know what it was I sought. I would see the golden carp, but I couldn’t tell her about that. “Play,” I answered, “fish, take care of my animals, and go to El Puerto to learn about farming from my uncles—”
“Do you want to become a farmer?” she asked. It was difficult to leave her, but outside I would hear the clamor of the departing kids. I had to get home.
“I don’t know,” I said, “it’s part of the thing I must learn about myself. There are so many dreams to be fulfilled, but Ultima says a man’s destiny must unfold itself like a flower, with only the sun and the earth and water making it blossom, and no one else meddling in it—”
“She must be a wise woman—” Miss Violet said. I looked at her and saw that she was tired, and somehow she seemed older. Perhaps we were all older.
“Yes,” I said. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” she smiled and waved after me.
I ran very hard, so that by the time I was at the bridge I was exhausted. My lungs were bursting with clean air and my heart was pounding, still I had the nerve to call out a challenge to the Kid.
“Raaaaaaaaaaaaa-ssssss…” I shouted. He was walking with Ida. I had never seen the Vitamin Kid walking before, but there he was, just starting across the bridge, side by side with Ida. I raced by him and called the challenge again. I put all I had into that race, I ran as hard as I could, but the Kid never passed me. I reached the end of the bridge and turned to look back. Through watering eyes I saw the Kid and Ida, still walking side by side across the bridge! Andrew said that someday I would beat the Kid across, I remembered. But there was no sweetness to the victory, instead I felt that something good had ended.
In a way I felt relieved school was over. I had more time to spend with Ultima, and in her company I found a great deal of solace and peace. This was more than I had been able to find at church or with the kids at school. The llano had come alive with spring, and it was comforting to walk in the hills and see the new birth take root and come-alive-green. But even in the new season and in the hills there were ominous signs. We found tracks near the junipers that surrounded the house. I asked Ultima about them and she laughed and said it was someone out hunting rabbits, but I saw how she studied the footprints carefully and then took a dry juniper branch and erased the prints in the sand. And at night I heard the owl cry in warning, not the soft rhythmic song we were so used to, but cries of alarm.
“It is Tenorio,” I said.
“Bah, do not bother your mind about that wolf,” she laughed.
But I had heard the grown-ups rumor that Tenorio’s second daughter was dying and that she would not last the summer, and I remembered his threat. And then there were the rumors about the evil things happening on the Agua Negra ranch. A curse had been placed on one of the families of the Agua Negra, and because the man knew my father and about Ultima’s powers he came seeking help.
“¿Cómo estás Téllez?” my father greeted the thin, weather-beaten man with an abrazo.
“Aye, Gabriel Márez,” the gray, emaciated face smiled weakly, “it does my heart good to see an old compadre, an old vaquero—”
They came arm in arm into the house where the man called Téllez greeted my mother and Ultima. The formalities did not last long, we all knew the man had come to seek Ultima’s help. My father would gladly give his help to anyone of his old compadres, it only remained to be seen if my mother would allow Ultima to go help. My mother had been very afraid for Ultima since the night Tenorio and his mob came, and she had not allowed Ultima to help anyone since.
“People are ungrateful,” she said, “they seek her help and after la Grande has risked her life to help them then they brand her a witch. Nonsense! We have no use for that kind of people!”
But now we listened intently while the man told of the horror that had enveloped his life.
“I swear before God Almighty,” Téllez’ voice cracked with the tremble of fear in it, “that there are things that have happened to my family that are directed by the devil himself!”
“¡Ave María Purísima!” my mother exclaimed and crossed her forehead. “The pots and pans, the dishes lift into the air and crash against the
walls! We cannot eat! The skillet full of hot grease badly burned one of my children. Just yesterday morning I reached for the coffee pot and it jumped up and spilled the scalding coffee on me.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed us the blistered pink flesh of the burn on his forearm.
“Téllez,” my father said calmly, “the imagination—”
“The imagination!” Téllez laughed sardonically. “This is not imagined!” He pointed again to the arm. “It was not an accident,” he insisted, “and I had not been drinking!”
“Perhaps it is a bad joke, someone who has a grudge against you,” my father the skeptic questioned.
“Gabriel, the people of the Agua Negra are good people. You know that! Who would carry out a joke this far. And who could make stones rain from the skies!”
“Stones from the skies!” my mother gasped.
“¡Sí! Day and night, without reason, the stones fall and pelt the house!
Why? And how is this done? I am at my wit’s end! It is the devil’s work—” Téllez moaned.
“Courage,” my father said and reached across and placed his hand on Téllez’ shoulder.
“There was a curse like that at El Puerto when I was a little girl,” my mother nodded, “the dishes would move, the statues of the saints themselves were found in the pigpens and the outhouse, and stones would fall like rain on the house—”
“Sí, sí,” Téllez nodded in agreement. He knew if my mother believed then he could get Ultima’s help.
“The curse was lifted when the priest blessed the house with holy water
—” she did not finish.
“Ay, mujer,” Téllez groaned, “do you think my good wife did not think of that! The priest from Vaughn came and blessed the entire house. It did not help. Now he will not come anymore. He says no evil can withstand the blessing by holy water, and so we must be making up stories. Stories—” He nodded his head and laughed bitterly. “Such stories! We cannot eat, we cannot sleep. My children are like walking zombies, the evil presence moves them like ghosts and the priest says we make up stories! It is too much—” He cupped his head in his hands and cried.
So again the power of the priest has failed, I thought. Why can’t the power of God work against the evils that beset the family of Téllez? Why is it allowed to continue?
“What can I do?” my father asked, trying to console the poor man. “Come with me and see with your very eyes the things I speak about.
Someone must believe!” Téllez exclaimed, taking some faith in my father’s offer.
“I will go,” my father nodded.
“¡Ay, gracias a Dios!” Téllez stood and embraced my father.
They left immediately, and my father did not return until late that night.
The lights of the truck came bouncing up the goat path and I ran to meet him, but he did not greet me when he stepped down from the truck, in fact he did not seem to see me. He walked mechanically into the house, his eyes wide and staring straight ahead. He looked very tired.
“Gabriel,” my mother said, but he did not answer. He sat in his chair and looked ahead, as if peering into a dream; and it was not until he took a long drink of the hot coffee Ultima put in his hand that he spoke.
“At first I did not believe Téllez,” he whispered. “I am not a believer in spirits, good or bad, but—” and he turned and looked at us as if he were
coming back to reality, his eyes bright and watery, “but I saw the things Téllez spoke about. I still cannot believe it—” his chin sank to his chest.
“¡Ave María Purísima!” my mother cried, then she turned and went to the sala to pray. Meantime, we waited in the kitchen.
“What is it that is happening out there at that ranch?” my father asked.
He did not look at Ultima, but it was obvious he was seeking some understanding from her.
“A curse has been laid,” she said simply.
“Like on my uncle Lucas?” I asked. I was already wondering if she would take me to help this time.
“No,” she said, addressing my father, “this curse was not laid on a person, the curse was put on a bulto, a ghost. It is the bulto that haunts the house—”
“I don’t understand,” my father said. He looked up at her searchingly. “A long time ago,” she began, “the llano of the Agua Negra was the land
of the Comanche Indians. Then the comancheros came, then the Mexican with his flocks—many years ago three Comanche Indians raided the flocks of one man, and this man was the grandfather of Téllez. Téllez gathered the other Mexicans around him and they hanged the three Indians. They left the bodies strung on a tree; they did not bury them according to their custom.
Consequently, the three souls were left to wander on that ranch. The brujas who laid the curse knew this, so instead of placing the curse on a member of the family and taking the chance of getting caught, they simply awakened the ghosts of the three Indians and forced them to do the wrong. The three tortured spirits are not to blame, they are manipulated by brujas
—”
“It is unbelievable,” my father said. “Yes,” Ultima agreed.
“Can they be stopped?” my father asked.
“Of course,” Ultima smiled, “all evil can be stopped.”
At that moment my mother returned from praying to the Virgin. “Téllez is your friend,” she said to my father.
“Of course,” my father answered, “we grew up on the llano together. We all count each other as brothers—”
“And he needs help,” she said, tracing the very simple steps for us to hear.
“There is no one more deserving of help at this moment,” my father said.
“Well then, we must help in any way we can,” she said with finality. She started to turn to Ultima, but my father motioned her to be still. He got up and went to Ultima.
“Will you help this poor family, will you help my friends?” he asked. “You know the rules that guide the interference with any man’s destiny,”
Ultima said.
“I know,” my father said. “I have tried to lead my own life, and I have given other men room and respect to live theirs. But I feel I must do this for my friends, so let the bad consequences in your chain of destiny fall on my head.”
“We will leave tomorrow at sunup,” Ultima said.
I was allowed to go, and so early next morning we got in my father’s truck and headed westward. We traveled halfway to Las Pasturas and then left the paved road and turned southward on a dirt road of the llano. The llano was beautiful in the early morning, beautiful before the summer sun of August burned it dry. The mesquite bushes were green, and even the dagger yucca was stately as it pushed up the green stem that blossomed with white bell flowers. Jackrabbits bolted from shady thickets at the approach of the truck and bounded away into the rolling hills spotted with dark juniper trees. The sun grew very white and warm in the clear, azure sky. It was hard to believe that in this wide beauty there roamed three souls trapped to do evil.
We had left home in the gray of dawn, and we had all been quiet. But now the lovely expanse of the llano filled our hearts and we forgot for awhile the strange, foreboding job ahead of us.
“Ah, there is no freedom like the freedom of the llano!” my father said and breathed in the fresh, clean air.
“And there is no beauty like this earth,” Ultima said. They looked at each other and smiled, and I realized that from these two people I had learned to love the magical beauty of the wide, free earth. From my mother I had learned that man is of the earth, that his clay feet are part of the ground that nourishes him, and that it is this inextricable mixture that gives man his measure of safety and security. Because man plants in the earth he believes in the miracle of birth, and he provides a home for his family, and
he builds a church to preserve his faith and the soul that is bound to his flesh, his clay. But from my father and Ultima I had learned that the greater immortality is in the freedom of man, and that freedom is best nourished by the noble expanse of land and air and pure, white sky. I dreaded to think of a time when I could not walk upon the llano and feel like the eagle that floats on its skies: free, immortal, limitless.
“There is power here, a power that can fill a man with satisfaction,” my father said.
“And there is faith here,” Ultima added, “a faith in the reason for nature being, evolving, growing—”
And there is also the dark, mystical past, I thought, the past of the people who lived here and left their traces in the magic that crops out today.
Enveloped in our thoughts, we bounced down the sandy road that at times was no more than a cow path. I was lost in the immensity of land and sky, but my father knew where to go. At the foot of a hill ahead of us crouched the troubled home of Téllez. It was a simple adobe ranch house, squatting low to the good earth, its rusted tin roof shielding it from the hot sun. To the side of the house were the corrals.
“That is his place,” my father announced. He drove the truck near the corral and stopped. Téllez came running.
“¡Gracias a Dios que venites!” he cried. He believed in Ultima’s power, and he knew it was his last source of help. He took Ultima’s hand and kissed it, then led us excitedly into the house. A frail, thin woman and the children cringed against the wall when we entered. “It is all right, it is all right,” Téllez said soothingly, “la Grande has come to help us.”
Only then did the woman, whose eyes were burning with fever, come forth and greet Ultima. “Grande,” she said simply and kissed her hand.
“Dorotea Téllez,” Ultima greeted the woman.
“These are bad times,” Téllez’ wife whimpered, “I am sorry but I can offer you nothing to eat or drink—” Her voice broke and she went to the table, sat, bowed her head on the rough wooden planks and cried.
“It has been like this,” Téllez threw up his arms in exasperation, “since the evil thing came—”
As he spoke a strange thing happened. A cloud passed overhead and darkened the house. Téllez looked up and cried, “It’s here! It’s here!”
“Benditos sean los dulces nombres,” his wife moaned. She crossed herself and fell to her knees.
A few moments ago the sky had been clear, and now in the gloom we saw each other as dark bultos. My father started for the door but Téllez leaped in his way and shouted, “No! Do not go! The evil is out there!”
Then the pounding began. The darkness had already terrified me, but now the strange pounding noise on the roof made me seek Ultima’s hand. She stood quietly, listening to the devil’s bombardment that held us with such terror that we could not move. The fear of the deafening, evil noise held us prisoners. The children cringed around their mother, but they did not cry. They seemed accustomed to the devil’s beating on the roof.
“¡Jesús, María y José!” my father cried out, and he crossed his forehead. “Aiiiiiiiie,” Téllez groaned, “it is the devil dancing on my roof—” His
body twisted to the crescendo of the fearful drum beat. But almost as quickly as it had begun the noise stopped and the dark cloud moved away. My father ran to the door and we followed.
It was incredible, but we stepped out into the perfectly quiet day we had known earlier. The llano was so quiet I could hear the drone of the grasshoppers and crickets in the grass.
“The rocks,” my father muttered, “they weren’t here when we came—” He pointed at the melon-sized stones that lay around the house. That is what had pounded on the roof! But where had they come from? We looked up.
There was not a cloud in the sky.
“Incredible,” my father said and shook his head. “The cloud darkened only the house, and the stones fell only on the roof—” As he spoke the two boys who had been inside with their mother came outside. Without a word they began picking up the rocks and carrying them to the nearby corral where there was already a pile of rocks.
“We stack the devil’s work in the corral,” Téllez said. “This is the third time the rocks have fallen—”
“But from where,” my father cried, “and how?” Téllez only shrugged. “You have searched around the house, into the hills?” Téllez nodded. “My God!” my father shivered.
“It is the work of the devil, I tell you,” Téllez murmured.
Ultima, who had stood quietly by us, answered. “It is the work of man,” she said. “But let us not waste time while the spirits grow stronger. Gabriel,
I want you to erect a platform here.” She pointed to the ground and marked four spots. “Make the holes there. Use some of those cedar posts in the corral, make it this high.” She held her hand above her head. “Place many juniper branches on the platform. Cut many branches because we may have to burn a long time. Have Antonio cut them, he understands the power in the tree—” Then she turned and herded the family back into the house.
After that we did not see her for a long time.
My father found an axe in the tool shed and gave it to me. I went into the hills and began cutting juniper branches. Where possible I took dead dry branches because Ultima had said we would be burning them, but when I had to cut into a live tree I first talked to the tree and asked it for its medicine, as Ultima had instructed me to do with every living plant. I dragged the branches to where my father worked on the platform. He dug four holes and placed the cedar posts in them. “Notice,” he said, “it is not square but long, as if it could hold a coffin.” With wire he securely tied some rafters across the top of the posts then we put the juniper branch roof on the platform. When we were done we rested, and looked at the altar that we had erected.
The day was very long. We had not brought food and so the only thing we had was water from the well, which tasted brackish. “That is why they call these the ranches of the Agua Negra,” my father explained. I wondered if the water which flowed beneath this earth connected to the waters beneath our town, the waters of the golden carp.
“Strange that there are no animals around the ranch,” my father said. “The animals sense this bad business and stay clear of it—just as we have stayed clear of those evil rocks.” He pointed to the pile of rocks in the corral. “What we have seen today is incredible,” he finished.
“It is good that we have Ultima to explain it,” I told him, and he only shrugged. We waited. A strange singing, a low chanting song emanated from the house all day long. Finally, at dusk when the nightjars and bats began to fly and the setting sun had passed from orange to gray, Ultima came through the front door of the house. She carried what appeared to be three bundles, and she stepped to the platform quickly.
“You have done well,” she said and placed the three bundles at the foot of the platform. “Place the bundles on the platform and set fire to it,” she commanded and stepped back. My father was surprised when he picked up
the first bundle and found it heavy. Ultima had carried the three lightly but he had to strain to lift them up on the platform. There was another strange thing about Ultima as she stood with her arms crossed, quietly watching my father work. The way she stood, the bright sash around her waist, and the two glossy braids falling over her shoulders made me feel that she had performed this ceremony in some distant past.
My father picked up a dry brush of yerba de la vívora and striking a match to it he used it as a torch to set fire to the platform. The fire sputtered at first, but as it found the drier branches it hissed and crackled then whooshed up in a ball of yellow fire. The fragrance of the dry bush had been sharp and tangy, but as the green branches caught fire the sweet, spermy smell of the evergreen filled the air.
“Continue feeding the fire until I return,” Ultima commanded, and she turned and walked back to the house. We piled branches beneath the platform and kept it burning. Soon even the cedar posts were burning. Their popping sound and their sweet scent filled the night air. Somehow the fire seemed to dispel the brooding mystery we had felt since the shower of rocks.
“What is it we burn?” I asked my father as we watched the inferno envelop the bundles.
“I don’t know,” my father answered, “it is all so strange. My father once told me a story about the early comancheros on this llano, and what they learned from the Indians about their burial ceremony. They did not bury their dead the way we do, but they made a platform like this one and cremated the body. It was part of their way of life—”
He paused and I asked, “Are these the—” but before I could finish he said, “I don’t know, but if it will help Téllez be rid of these ungodly things who are we to question old ways—”
In the dark night we heard an owl sing. It was Ultima’s owl. It seemed the first sign of life we had heard around the ranch all day, and it lifted our spirits. Somehow the memory of the falling rocks faded with the owl’s cry, and what had been frightening and unexplainable grew distant. I looked for the rock pile in the corral, but I could not see it. Perhaps it was because the bright fire made the shadows around us very dark.
“¡Cuidado!” my father shouted. I turned and jumped back as the top of the platform toppled into the ashes beneath. A flower of sparks blossomed
into the night air. The four posts which had held the platform continued to burn like torches, one for each of the directions of the wind. We threw the rest of the juniper branches in the fire. Already the platform and the three bundles were only white ashes.
“You two are good workers,” Ultima said. We had not heard her and were startled at her approach. I went to her and took her hand. She smelled sweet with incense. “It is done,” she said.
“Good,” my father answered and wiped his hands.
“You know, Gabriel,” she said to my father, “I am getting old. Perhaps this would be the best burial you could provide me—” She peered into the dying fire and smiled. I could see that she was very tired.
“It is a good way to return to the earth,” my father agreed. “I think the confines of a damp casket will bother me too. This way the spirit soars immediately into the wind of the llano, and the ashes blend quickly into the earth—”
Téllez came and stood by us. He too peered into the embers of the strange fire. “She says the curse is lifted,” he said dumbly. He too looked very tired.
“Then it is,” my father answered.
“How can I pay you?” Téllez asked Ultima.
“Instead of my silver,” she said, “you can bring us a nice lamb the next time you come to Guadalupe—”
“I will bring a dozen,” he smiled weakly.
“And stay away from the one-eyed Tenorio,” she finished. “¡Ay! That devil was in this too!” my father exclaimed.
“I was at El Puerto about a month ago,” Téllez said, “I went to the saloon for a drink, and to play some cards. I tell you, Gabriel, that man has nothing but revenge in his heart for la Grande. He said something insulting, and I answered him. I thought nothing of it, I was only upholding my honor, our honor, the pride of those from Las Pasturas. Well, a week later the bad things started here—”
“You picked a bad one to tangle with,” my father shook his head thoughtfully as he stared into the dying fire, “Tenorio has already murdered one of our friends—”
“I know now of his true evil,” Téllez muttered.
“Well, what’s done is done,” my father nodded. “Now we must be on our way.”
“I can never thank you enough, old friend,” Téllez said and embraced my father warmly, then he embraced and kissed Ultima.
“Adiós.”
“Adiós.” We climbed into the truck and drove away, leaving Téllez standing by the dying embers of the fire. The bouncing lights of the truck cut a jerky path through the night as we traveled out of the dark llano back to Guadalupe. My father rolled a Bull Durham cigarette and smoked. The fatigue of the day and the humming sound of the tires on the highway made me sleep. I do not remember my father carrying me in when we arrived home.
In my dreams that night I did not recall the strange events that happened on the Agua Negra, instead I saw my three brothers. They were three dark figures driven to wander by the wild sea-blood in their veins. Shrouded in a sea-mist they walked the streets of a foreign city.
Toni-eeeeee, they called in the night fantasy. Tony-reel-ooooo! Where are you?
Here, I answered, here by the river!
The brown swirling waters lapped at my feet, and the monotonous chirping of the grillos as they sang in the trees mixed into a music which I felt in the roots of my soul.
Oooooo Tony… they cried with such a mournful sound that I felt a chill in my heart… Help us, Toni-eeeeee. Give us, grant us rest from this sea- blood!
I have no magic power to help you, I cried back.
I carefully marked where the churning waters eddied into a pool. There the catfish would lurk, greedy for meat. From my disemboweled brothers I took three warm livers and baited my hook.
But you have the power of the church, you are the boy-priest! they cried. Or choose from the power of the golden carp or the magic of your Ultima. Grant us rest!
They cried in such pain for release that I took their livers from the hook and cast them into the raging, muddy waters of the River of the Carp.
Then they rested, and I rested.
