We awakened late and hurried to pack for our trip to El Puerto. We did not talk about the awful thing that had happened that night, but I guess it was because of it that my father decided to go with us. We were excited because it was the first time he had made the trip and stayed. He went into town and arranged for a week’s leave from his work on the highway. When he returned I heard him whisper to my mother about the talk in town.
“Tenorio is in the hospital, he has lost the eye—and they say the priest at El Puerto will not allow the dead daughter inside the church for her mass.
There is no telling what will happen—”
“I am glad you are going with us, Gabriel,” my mother answered.
I went outside. Someone, I guess my mother, had cleaned away the burnt torches and swept clean the patio. There was no trace of what had happened. The sun shone white and clean, and there was chill in the air. I ran to Jasón’s and asked him to feed the animals for me while we were gone. When I returned my uncle Pedro was already there, helping to load our luggage.
“¡Antonio!” he greeted me with an abrazo. I returned the greeting and went off to find Ultima. I was worried about her. But I found her busy at work, cleaning up the morning dishes. Everyone was busy doing something, and that helped us to forget the terror of the night before.
Deborah, Theresa, my mother and Ultima rode with my father. I rode with my uncle. We drove in silence and I had time to think. We drove past Rosie’s house and I thought about the sins of the town and how the golden carp would punish the sinners. He would drown them in clear, blue water. Then we passed the church and I thought about God’s punishment for sinners. He casts them in the burning pit of hell where they burn for eternity.
We passed over the bridge at El Rito and I remembered Cico’s story of the people and the god who became a fish. But why had the new god, the golden carp, chosen also to punish people? The old God did it already.
Drowning or burning, the punishment was all the same. The soul was lost, unsafe, unsure, suffering—why couldn’t there be a god who would never punish his people, a god who would be forgiving all of the time? Perhaps the Virgin Mary was such a god? She had forgiven the people who killed her son. She always forgave. Perhaps the best god would be like a woman, because only women really knew how to forgive.
“You are quiet, Antonio,” my uncle Pedro interrupted my thoughts, “are you thinking about last night?”
“No,” I replied, “I am thinking about God.” “¡Ay! Do not let me interrupt you.”
“Why did you not come to warn us last night?” I asked. My uncle frowned.
“Well,” he said finally, “your grandfather would not allow any of us to mix in what took place yesterday—”
“But Ultima cured my uncle Lucas! Isn’t he grateful for that?” “Of course he is!” he contended, “you just don’t understand—” “What?”
“Well, the village of El Puerto is small. We have lived there a long time, and we have lived in harmony with the good and the bad. We have not passed judgment on anyone.” He nodded with some finality.
“But you allowed Tenorio to pass judgment on Ultima,” I said, “and if it had not been for Narciso he would have carried out his judgment. Is that fair?”
My uncle started to answer, but held back. I saw his hands grip the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. For a long time he fidgeted, then he finally said, “It does not decrease my shame to say I was a coward last night. We all were. We took our father’s wish as an excuse.
Believe me, my faith is bound with that woman for saving Lucas. The next time, and God grant there isn’t a next time, I will not shirk my duty to her.” Then he turned and looked at me and reached out and touched my head. “I am glad you stood by your friend,” he smiled, “that is what friends are for.”
Yes, I had stood by Ultima. And so had my father, and Narciso, and the owl. We would all have slashed out, like the owl, to protect Ultima. It was
not easy to forgive men like Tenorio. Perhaps that is why God could not forgive; He was too much like man.
There was a great deal of excitement when we arrived at El Puerto. Of course everyone in the village knew what had happened to Tenorio, and all were waiting for him to return to bury his daughter. We knew the priest would not let her be buried in the holy ground of the campo santo next to the church. But harvest time was a time for work and not for mitote. My uncles were farmers, men who took their only truth from the earth, and so by early afternoon we were out in the fields and orchards and the most important thing became the harvest.
It was good too, because it allowed us to forget what we did not want to remember. We returned from the first day of harvest by the first light of the moon as it came through the portal formed by the black mesas. After a heavy supper we settled in the room of my uncle Mateo, because he was the storyteller. My mother and Ultima kept to themselves, tying the red chile into long, thick ristras. My aunts had been very cordial to Ultima. They treated her with respect because of what she had done for Lucas, but otherwise they kept their distance from her. I think Ultima liked it that way.
“Ay, it is a very bad thing what these Trementinas do,” my uncle Mateo whispered. He glanced down the hall, but my grandfather had already retired. My grandfather would not allow any talk of witchcraft in his presence.
“I talked to Porfirio Baca today,” my uncle Juan said, “and he said the two remaining sisters spent the day making her coffin.”
“Ah!” my uncle Mateo signaled us to listen. “They were gathering cottonwood branches and weaving a coffin. That proves she was a bruja! A bruja cannot be buried in a casket made of pine or piñón or cedar.”
“They say Tenorio returned today. He is blind in one eye.”
“Yes,” my uncle continued, “and tonight they will gather around the dead body and pray from their Black Book. Listen!”
We listened to the howl of the cold wind outside and could hear at intervals the bitter bark of a coyote. In the corral the penned animals milled nervously. Evil was in the autumn night air.
“They will burn sulfur instead of holy incense. They will sing and dance around her coffin, pulling at their hair and flesh. They will slay a rooster and spread his blood on their dead sister. Mark my word, when the
Trementina bruja is brought in to church it will be in a basket woven of cottonwood branches, and her body will be smeared with blood—”
“But why do they do this?” someone whispered.
“For the devil,” my uncle answered. “They do it so that the devil himself will come and sleep with the corpse before it is buried—”
“¡Mateo!” one of my aunts cautioned him. She pointed at the children. “It is true!” he said.
“But why then will they bring her to church?” my uncle Juan’s wife asked.
“Bah! Little do they care about church. That is only to keep up appearances,” my uncle smiled.
“How is it you know all this?” she scoffed.
“Why, my sweet Orotea told me,” he grinned and turned to his wife who sat beside him and patted her good-naturedly. She looked at him and nodded in agreement. We laughed because we all knew that Orotea, my uncle Mateo’s wife, had been deaf and dumb since birth.
Sleep came, and with it came my dream-fate which drew me to the witches’ Black Mass. I saw all, and it was exactly as my uncle had described it. Then my dream-fate drew me to the coffin. I peered in and to my horror I saw Ultima!
I must have cried in my sleep, because I felt someone pick me up, and after that I felt warm and was at peace. When I awoke it was light outside. The house, which was normally alive and full of creaking, clattering sounds, was still, like a grave. I jumped out of bed, dressed, and hurried outside. The people of the village lined the street. They talked in excited, hushed whispers and craned their necks to look down the dusty street towards the bridge. Then I heard the creaking sound of a heavy, horse- drawn wagon.
I spotted Ultima, standing alone on a rise of the ground beside the house. I ran to her and held her hand. She seemed oblivious to me. Her black shawl was drawn around her head and face so that only her eyes remained uncovered. She watched intently the funeral procession that came up the street towards the church. Everyone was quiet. The still morning air carried the creaking sound of the loaded wagon, and we could hear the snorting mules and the squeaking of their harnesses as they tugged and pulled the wagon carrying the body of the dead woman. On the seat of the wagon sat
two thin women dressed in black. Black veils covered their faces, and as they passed in front of Ultima they turned away.
On the bed of the wagon rested the casket. It was a basket woven from pliant cottonwood branches, so that as the weight of the body inside shifted the coffin seemed to groan. A strong, rotting odor filled the air as the wagon passed by.
At the head of the procession rode Tenorio. He was dressed in black and sat humped on his saddle. He wore a dark, wide-brimmed hat pulled low to cover a black patch over his eye. His spirited horse pranced nervously and tossed its head from side to side.
The sky was blue and quiet. Our gazes followed the groaning wagon down the dusty street, past the saloon, to the front of the church. There the procession stopped and waited for the priest to appear. When he came out of the church Tenorio spoke to him and the priest answered. He held his arms out as if to bar entrance to the church and nodded his head. He was refusing the mass for the dead and holy burial in the campo santo. The air grew tense. There was no telling what Tenorio would do at this insult; everyone knew he was crazy enough to assault the priest.
But Tenorio was beaten. The entire village was witness to the excommunication. The priest’s refusal meant the church was taking its stand and that the evil ways of the Trementinas were known to all. Tenorio had not thought the priest would stand against him. For a long time there was silence, then Tenorio turned his horse and the procession came back down the street. He would have to bury his daughter in unholy ground, and without the saving grace of the mass her soul was doomed to perdition. But what hurt Tenorio most was that he would no longer be able to rally the townspeople around him; he would no longer be able to hold them through fear. If the priest, who had for so long been unwilling to condemn the Trementinas’ doings, had taken a stand then surely that would lend courage to the villagers.
The sisters slumped in the seat of the wagon as they passed by, and their mournful cries were as much for themselves as for the fate of their sister.
They had tampered with a man’s fate and they now knew the consequences. Tenorio, too, leaned forward in his saddle. He had pulled his long, black coat around his thin body and huddled within it as if he hoped to escape the
eyes of the villagers. Only when he passed in front of Ultima did he glance up, and in that swift glance his evil eye vowed his revenge on Ultima.
Everyone was subdued by what had occurred, but by afternoon the work of the harvest raised our spirits. Under the watchful eye of my grandfather the bounty of the fields and orchards was gathered. The loaded wagons moved between the fields and the village like ants scurrying to store their seeds. Green chile was roasted and set to dry. Red chile became huge ristras. The roofs of lean-tos were golden with slices of drying apples. The air was sweet with the aroma of boiling jellies and preserves and the laughter of the women. Corn was roasted to make chicos, blue corn was ground into meal, and the rest was stored for the animals.
Then as quietly as the green had slipped into the time of the river, the golden time of the harvest was completed. We had to return to Guadalupe. School was starting again.
“¡Adiós! ¡Adiós!” we called to one another. It was then my uncle Juan took my father and mother aside and whispered the desires of my uncles.
“Antonio has worked well,” he said stiffly. “He has the feel of the earth in his blood. We would be honored if you saw fit to allow him to spend a summer with us—the others,” he said, “did not choose our way of life. So be it. But if Antonio is to know our way, we must initiate him next summer
—” The rest of my uncles nodded at this brief speech. My uncles were not men of many words.
“¡Oh, Gabriel!” my mother exclaimed, beaming with pride. “We shall see,” my father said. And we left.
