La Llorona Tells a Tale in New Mexico

"El quien haga su fortuna, no se olvide de su cuna."

Excerpts from Las Mujeres Misteriosas, a novel by Carmen Baca

Esmeralda

​"When I came upon Esmeralda by the Rio Grande near El Paso—yes, I move around from one water source to another when the mood suits me—she startled me more than I did her. I was not expecting to ever meet a human who did not run in fear. Almost immediately, I sensed in her a certain love of material goods. She was a little older than you and had already begun working. Every penny she earned she saved until she could buy things which suited her fancy. So I gave her the gift of—well, the ability to make money—since that was the only thing I could gather from her. Even when she looked upon me, she was collecting her thoughts about how best to make a profit from me, how she could convince me to allow her to use me as a psychic, a mind reader of sorts."
     The old woman laughed long and loud, startling Rosita for the first time. She forgot María’s true mind reading ability and allowed a twinge of fear to enter her thoughts.
     "Do not be afraid, my child," the old woman continued. "I meant I merely conveyed to Esmeralda that I could not be used by her or by anyone other than those with higher powers than I. Then I gave her the ability and let her go on with her life. It was how she used the gift which created her own downfall."
     "Esmeralda went forth from our meeting that day as though she were Ploutos, the god of wealth, himself. Every money-making scheme she attempted brought her profits. She started as a street vendor. Her aguas frescas were so fresh, so sweet to the taste, they were like ambrosia to her customers. Everyone flocked to her stall and left refreshed as though they’d drunk from the chalices of the gods themselves."
     "But of course, she was not satisfied. She tired of the calor—the heat—and thefrío—the cold of the weather after only a year and let her brother take over her stall. Esmeralda had made enough money to open a restaurant and employed more of her family members to work for her. Sadly, the street vending business failed under her brother’s management. No one knew what happened. The same juices were sold on the same corners Esmeralda had done her business, but the customers complained the taste of the aguas was different. They stopped coming, and word of mouth did the rest."
     "She blamed her brother and refused to extend him a loan to try again. Her eatery was thriving, and that was all she cared about. Again, the customers raved over the food and the drink. Again, she prospered. She even contemplated opening another and dreamed of creating a chain across the city and perhaps even to Juarez across the border. Images of how much profit she could make and what kinds of things she could buy fed her greed. Like a glutton who grows fat on favorite foods, she allowed her appetite for money to cloud her judgement. Avarice fed on her need for cash, and she would have allowed it free rein but for the failure of her first small business. This thought gave her pause. She was only one woman, and her experience with leaving her vending stall with her brother only to have him run it to the tierra stopped her. She realized that she and she alone had the ability to capitalize on her business ventures. She could involve no one else."
     "Before that year was over, she had earned enough to buy the biggest house in El Paso and enjoyed becoming part of the elite, those few Texans who enjoyed their new wealth in the early nineteenth century. She hired a personal valet from France who taught her how to act and talk like a lady; she wore only the most expensive evening gowns and jewelry; she learned how to appreciate the opera and the ballet. The only reward she refused herself was love. She could not afford to fall in love because she simply could not share her wealth with another. Hers became a lonely existence once she realized she cared more for her money than she ever could for a man, much less children. Her personal life was almost non-existent because her desire for more, bigger, and better, took over."
     "This was when my counterpart came into the situation. You see, another woman occupies the same plane as I occasionally although she seems to exist everywhere at once. La Muerte, Saint Death, I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She intervened to show Esmeralda the error of her thinking and to get her back on the right path. The saint came to Esmeralda every few weeks to influence her dreams. She dreamed of the Devil’s minions, those fallen angels who hovered above, watching and waiting for what came next. All around her the buzzards and other carrion-eaters perched, biding their time. And she was mired in a sort of quicksand with no way to escape. Sometimes her nightmares showed her what came after. The heat of the hot sun on her body in the sand won out and exhaustion overcame her, and she could fight it no more in those dreams. She would begin to fall asleep long enough to wake to the birds plucking the flesh from her face, inching closer to her eyes. Esmeralda’s screams shocked her awake on those nights. She knew this was a vision of what her afterlife would be, but not even such gruesome pesadillas could take away her gluttonous thoughts ofdinero."
     "How to make a bigger profit and how to make money faster took over her being. She assigned her cousin Ramona to do the purchasing and gave her only a meager amount to spend while she furiously tried to keep up with the food preparation. Her cousin’s protests that she didn’t have enough funds to buy quality products fell on deaf ears. Ramona knew Esmeralda cared only for the profits. In her anger with her cousin for being such a cheapskate, she took shortcuts when she bought produce. She didn’t care that the vegetables were not as fresh nor that she left them unwashed, so the occasional worm or grub made its way into the meals she helped her boss to prepare. When some of the beef went bad in the ice box, she boiled it anyway. Laughing to herself that the maggots would dissolve, and no one would be the wiser, she turned the meat over to Esmeralda. She, in turn, created the final product which she served her guests in one of her most popular dishes that evening. Ramona wore the smile of self-satisfaction that night when she watched Esmeralda count all the bills in her cashbox. She sensed something major would befall her greedy prima because of the dish."
     "Sure enough, the very next day when every patron who had eaten at her place became ill, some so violently that it killed them with excruciating pain, the entire city turned against her. Her own family, some of whom had distanced themselves from her because of the disaster with her brother and some who worked for her only because they had no alternative, did nothing to help. There was no time for her to flee. The authorities moved quickly to close her establishment down and dealt with her just as fast. Jailed for only a fortnight, she was hanged for the murder of the customers who died. La Muerte stood by the hangman’s platform with her horse-drawn carriage and swept Esperanza up inside after she drew her last breath. La Muerte sped away in the direction of the setting sun rather than flying toward the clouds above since the woman’s final destination had been predetermined by her actions on earth. There would be no resting in eternal peace for her: the sands and the carrion-eaters awaited."
     "So you see, I had nothing to do with her life after giving her the gift. She allowed her greed to govern her actions and brought about her own downfall. If she had treated her employees, her own family members, fairly, her cousin would not have fostered such dislike that she sabotaged Esmeralda’s business."
     "Yes," Rosita agreed in her thoughts. "If she had been happy with earning only a modest income and enjoying life with her loved ones instead, she wouldn’t have come to such a bad end."
"There’s a lesson to be learned here." La Llorona crossed her legs and adjusted her skirt, "El quien haga su fortuna, no se olvide de su cuna."
"He who makes his fortune should not forget his cradle."
"Yes, that is the literal translation, but cradle is a metaphor for home—more specifically, one’s family."
"Esmeralda forgot that her family was more valuable to her than her fortune."
Rosita nodded.
"Let me tell you about Penelope now."

​El Aviso Más Peligroso 
(The Most Dangerous Vision) 

​ Before Rosita knew it, the summer gave way to a new school year and September arrived. Now, she and Susie alternated driving Anita and Sarah so the four could travel to and from school. As inseparable as the young women were, none had any inkling of Rosita’s secret. Even if she could have told them, she had no idea how she would’ve explained her unstable situation. She never brought up la Llorona or la Muerte, and none of the others ever mentioned the two legendary ladies of the darkness, not even in jest. She guarded herself as best as she could when an impulse hit her or when an aviso made itself clear in her mind’s eye. Since the other three hadn’t said anything about her behavior, she figured she’d done a good job of hiding the times when her strange ability awoke within her.
     They had only started their classes when Susie’s brother, Raphael, met them in town for lunch, having come down to visit from Ratón, many miles to the north. He held the job of steward on the Big Chief railroad line and was very proud of it. He likened his job to that of airplane flight attendants who provided passenger services. His duties included assisting travelers to board the trains, helping with their bags, checking their tickets and helping them to their seats or sleepers. He even helped prepare and serve meals if needed. He held the three girls enthralled with his stories all through lunch, and they had a hard time finishing their food around the laughter he caused.
     “Once,” Raphael told them, “we had a passenger who understood only English. The steward he was trying to receive assistance from spoke only Spanish. When I got to where they stood in the dining car, I could see the passenger nodding and smiling the entire time the steward was looking at this man’s ticket in his hand. The steward, my friend Julian, kept waving it, pointing at the print, and then pointing his finger at the man.
When I asked what was wrong and Julian explained, I had to stop from saying a curse word on behalf of the passenger. “¿Como puede ser?” I asked Julian how this could be.
“Está equivocado este señor. Se subió en el mal tren, el pendejo.”
“Oh!” laughed Sarah. “He was confused and got on the wrong train!”
     We agreed that what he did was pendejo, stupid, indeed.
“But how did he board the wrong train?” asked Anita.
“Eventually, I got the explanation from the man. He arrived at the station an hour early and just jumped on our train, thinking it was the right one since it was the only train at the platform. He fell asleep when we left and only discovered his mistake when I explained it to him. Good thing he was going in the right direction, just a farther destination. We got him on the right train when we got to Albuquerque. But it was so funny, he sat at attention the entire way and fought hard not to fall back asleep. Apparently, he had been traveling from back east somewhere to California and hadn’t slept much. His head kept nodding no matter how many cups of coffee I took him. He reminded me so much of my own abuelito. Believe me, I took care of that pasajero the whole way, just to make sure he got where he was going. Seems he was off to visit his brand-new granddaughter and had been saving his money for the entire nine months to make the trip. You know the Super Chief is, after all, the most expensive.”
“There was another time,” Raphael reminisced, “that this group of college boys missed their train entirely—three times! See, the four were across the street at a bar having highballs. By the time they heard the whistle, the train was pulling out of the station. So, they went back to have another drink. The same thing happened twice more.”
“Oh no!”
“¡Que barbaridad!”
“¡Que estúpidos!”
     “Wait, that’s not all,” Raphael held up a hand to prevent more outbursts. “When the last train pulled in, three of the guys ran and jumped aboard just as it was leaving. When the fourth guy caught up and just stood there, the station master ran out to the platform, too. The one they left behind was bien pedo, really drunk, just laughing and laughing. When the station master asked why he was laughing ’cause, you know, he expected the man to be crying maybe, the guy explained that he had all their tickets.”
     “Oh, no! What happened to the boys when they got to the next stop?” Susie asked.
     “Probably detained by the local authorities for riding for free, I’m not sure.”
     The girls’ giggles became full out laughter. “Oh, my,” said Rosita when she could breathe. “Those cocktails must’ve been strong.”
“Um hm,” agreed Anita. “The drinks gave them a loco motive to travel.”
     Her four companions groaned, but that didn’t stop the punning which ensued. Since they had ordered appetizers and were munching away, Sarah reminded them, “Choo-chew your food, people.”
     “Oh, groan, c’mon, let’s stay on the right track here,” added Anita before she choked on a gulp of her water.
     Rosita, clapping her hard on the back, laughed. “Do we need to turn you over like a toddler and slap you on the caboose?”
     The group parted ways after several hours with promises to meet again when Rafael was back in town. Rosita was especially anxious to see him again, having developed an interest in him and wanting to get to know the young man better. He was good looking in a Ricky Nelson kind of way. Clean cut with chiseled cheekbones and full kissable lips like the teen heartthrob Rosita thought was so handsome, this was the first young man who captured her interest and made her want to see what having a boyfriend would be like. She was more than a little thrilled when he lingered with her apart from the others and gripped her fingers a bit longer when they shook hands goodbye, especially when he pressed a paper with his home address into her palm and asked her to write him once in a while until they met again.
     Of course, her friends had noticed the spark of interest between the couple, and when Rosita and the girls went back to school the following day, their good-natured ribbing began in earnest. Every little while, one or the other of the friends made a comment here and another there, making Rosita blush like a school girl and protest that she and Raphael had barely met. That didn’t deter her friends though. They were happy someone had finally caught her eye and that it was a great guy like Raphael was even better. They hoped and even conspired to make sure the young pair would turn into a couple.
     So the friends’ routine of class, work, chores, rest, and back again resumed. However, it was September fourth when Rosita got that feeling in her gut, the one she didn’t look forward to anymore, the one she was hoping either to master or to bargain with the gift giver to remove from her once and for all. A short time after she got home at the end of her shift at the drugstore, the premonition hit her with such force she doubled over with the intensity of the feeling. She heard a whistle, a huge roar, a crash, and then an explosion so loud whatever happened had to be massive. The difference with this particular vision from those that had come before was striking. She could see no details except large broken pieces of what looked like silver metal, the red-orange glow of fire in darkness, and black smoke rising like a gray fog through the flames. She heard screams of people in pain, and she both fought to see more and yet struggled to see less, knowing this time was worse than any which had come before.
     She burst into tears and gave in to the despair until she got hold of herself and decided enough was enough. Yelling over her shoulder that she was going for a walk, she left the house before her mother could see she’d been crying and took the same path as before to visit the one woman who could make this stop if she so desired. Or so she hoped.
     Along the way Rosita began to think the gift was cursed. What if she were the conductor who endangered the lives of the people she was supposed to save, primarily because everyone who she had an aviso about was either someone she knew or someone with whom she was acquainted? She had to know if la Llorona had somehow managed to alter her ability even more than she’d indicated at their last meeting.
     Meanwhile, la Muerte had been observing, standing aside rather than interfering because Rosita had made a deal with her nefarious counterpart, after all. Though the girl didn’t know what she was getting herself into, she shouldn’t have entered into the contract from the start. She would see what would come if Rosita and the lady met on this day, but she had her own plan to put into action. With that in mind, she jumped into her carriage and flicked the reins over her horses’ backs to urge them forward. She knew just whom to recruit to help her assist this foolish human get out of the mess she’d gotten into with the murderess who haunted the riverbanks.
     As la Muerte’s carriage rose into the sky, Rosita reached the clearing and looked at the rock ledge before her. ‘Are you here?’ she asked in her thoughts. She waited, but there was no reply. She looked around and wandered listlessly along the edge of the large outcropping. Her steps took her to the back side where she spotted a copse of trees and lowered herself to the grass beneath. Sitting cross-legged, she picked a shoot of wheat grass and twirled it listlessly between her fingers. She looked up at the valley spread before her, each patch of property a square of green, some vibrant like the hue of limes, others paler, like the tint of honeydew melons, with other squares of brown here and there. These indicated the harvested alfalfa, oats, and wheatgrass had already been cut, baled, and collected into the barns of the farmers who worked their lands to provide for the livestock, which, in turn, provided sustenance for the farmers’ families. She loved the patchwork look of it all and thought perhaps she’d like to take over the farm which had been left to her family by a cousin of her mother’s, the one they still called la Lunática. Though rumor held that the house she left behind was haunted, Rosita took no stock in such tales. Even now that she struggled with her decision to accept a gift from a ghost, she believed she could live there in peace one day. She would see. "Where are you?" she silently asked again. "I really need to talk to you, Señora María."
​     The señora was inside her cave, sitting comfortably on her cushioned ledge as she watched her young friend and listened to her thoughts. She felt almost sorry that the girl suffered and would fall into despair when she learned the truth of what she envisioned, but there was nothing she could do. She did not have that kind of power, and the other who did would merely observe as she always did when disaster struck. Only then would she swoop down to collect the dead and take them to the place which had been determined for each.
     After about an hour, Rosita gave up on the ghost and began walking slowly home. They were in the last of the dog days of summer, right before the fall, and she heard a tractor in the distance, saw the machine maneuver in circles in the field, listened to the rhythmic chunk, chunk as the cutting blade moved back and forth in steady cadence. She stood for a moment and watched as the tall tassels of oats fell in a line of several feet, the length of the cutter’s blade. Would that she could cut herself away from the gift as easily, she thought to herself as she continued toward home.

Las Mujeres Misteriosas is available via this link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/carmen-baca/las-mujeres-misteriosas/ebook/product-23771238.html

​Carmen Baca taught a variety of English and history courses, mostly at the high school and college levels in northern New Mexico where she lives, over the course of 36 years before retiring in 2014. She published her first novel in May 2017, El Hermano, a historical fiction based on her  father’s induction into the Penitente society and rise to El Hermano Mayor. The book is available from online booksellers. She has also published eight short pieces in online literary magazines and women’s blogs.

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