by Carmen Baca

I took my usual route home. Or started to, anyway. The blowout changed everything. My car slid on the snow-packed road until the bar ditch swallowed the right front tire. The car tilted and hit bottom. The motor died, taking the warmth from the heater with it. I turned the key, but the car was deader than dead. I reached for my phone, cursing myself when I remembered it was still on the charger at my folks’ house.

I looked out at the slush turning to ice. I’d left before dusk, but the overcast skies made the sun vanish over the mountains quicker than usual. I had to walk or freeze. Maybe a car might come by, who knew? Granted, I was on a dirt road in a rural area, but people lived in small communities up ahead. I put my parka and gloves on, grabbed my flashlight, and exited through the passenger door since it was closest to the ground. I took a big breath and set off.

I didn’t know how long it was before I noticed crunching behind me. I turned in a circle with the light sticking straight out. There was no one, not even the otherworldly glow of animal eyes. I listened for a bit and then kept going. Four-footed creatures didn’t concern me much; I’d had my share of encounters with deer, elk, even bobcats a couple of times. But I also watched true crime. Those are some of my favorite podcasts, too, so my traitorous brain turned to serial killer or rogue murderer. Meeting either one out here would end with me dead. The steps had stopped when I slowed anyway, so I kept walking—what choice did I have? The road was in the middle of a llano—a plain with few bushes and piñon trees not big enough to offer a hiding place. I walked faster, searching for something I could use as a weapon.

The crunching started up again. The steps matched mine in speed but sounded uneven. My imagination took another unwelcome detour to the shuffling walk of Frankenstein’s monster. Houses up ahead gave me hope. Some were abandoned, but several had cars and trucks in front. The nearest one had lights on. I covered the next stretch of road at a jog, acutely aware the steps behind me quickened, too. When I got winded, I stopped and turned around fast, ready to face whoever followed. A pair of shiny eyes made me take a deep breath to yell. And then I exhaled in relief. It was an owl. It was still a ways behind me, but I could see the dark silhouette shuffling nearer. The shape was unmistakable.

“Oh, hey, why didn’t you call out?” I laughed to stave off the hysteria which had been building up ready to explode. I took a few steps toward it. It stepped back.

“I’m going over there, wanna come?” I pointed to the house just as whoever was inside turned out the lights. I could see the progression through windows from one room to the next as each went dark. “Oops, not that one.”

I took off again, spotting another house with a light. The owl’s steps joined mine. I sped up. It was a bird, and I no longer felt real danger like I had for a panicked moment. But my thoughts started their winding journey through my mind again, and the apprehension remained. Why would an owl follow me? I remembered my grandmother, a Sioux, believed the owl was a messenger for evil creatures, though I forgot the name. It was a legend though, wasn’t it? Yeah, my dark mind supplied, but don’t some legends come from truth?

Either way, an owl followed me on a deserted road, something I didn’t think was normal unless it wasn’t an owl. Really? You would think about that now. It’s just a curious bird, geez. I talked myself down from another panic and kept an eye on the road. That was when I noticed the light had gone out at the house I’d been walking to as if fate didn’t want me to reach help.

“What the—,” I blurted. “They barely went to bed. They can’t fall asleep that fast.” I took those final steps to the entry. I banged on the wrought iron screen door, the reverberation making a racket I was sure the nearest neighbors, not just the resident, would hear. I rang the doorbell a few times, but no one came. I shouted a couple of times, too. Not a peep.

“What now?” I couldn’t camp out on the threshold. I’d freeze by morning, and the homeowner would find me a corpse on his doorstep. If the owl turned into something else that attacked me, I’d damn well fight back. I knew enough to leave evidence like scratches on attackers. It would wear my bite marks, too, pájaro o no.

I started off again, searching some more for something I could use to defend myself if I had to. My pal still traveled behind me, keeping the same distance. I wondered why it didn’t fly. I was more concerned about the question, is it just an owl? repeating in my head.

I never did find a weapon, not even a stick. I hadn’t thought to look for a rake or something back at that house. I climbed a small rise, and on the other side was the village of Los Tecolotes, The Owls, since it boasted a healthy population of them. “Is that where you live?” I threw over my shoulder at my companion, keeping my eyes on the cluster of houses and hoping to see lights. Granted, more owls than people probably claimed this place as their home. I quickened my speed. I walked so fast I got shin splints and limped along for a while, just like in nightmares where I ran in slow motion from danger and snapped awake when I was about to get caught. That’s how it felt.

My flashlight dimmed. I gave it a whack, and it brightened. “That’s all I need,” I muttered. The moonless night wasn’t as dark as it would be with no snow, but if I didn’t stay on the road, I knew I would jeopardize my already concerning situation. The light finally gave out after a while.

“Whadda say?” I yelled to the owl. “Can we go to your place?” I turned to look back at the bird without stopping. The image of me cuddled with an owl somewhere was so absurd I burst into laughter. After a while, I snorted when I couldn’t catch my breath and made myself laugh harder. I don’t know when it turned to hysteria and sobs, but it did, and I stopped. Stood there with tears running down my cheeks until I yelled at myself again. Covered my freezing face with my gloved hands and made myself quit. I glanced at the tecolote, wondered what it must think of me—a madman who talked to himself.

I shouted, “C’mon then. Keep moving.” I repeated the last phrase in a mantra with each step. After a while, I glanced up again. A house on my left made me blink. A light went on, propelling me forward. The bar ditch conspired against me again. I stepped right into it and fell face-first. The sharp pain in my left wrist from landing on my palms made me groan out loud. “Dammit.” Probably just a sprain, I didn’t know, but I cursed myself for not having looked first before taking that step.

I got to my feet, cradling my wrist. The light went out. I took care as I approached. In the pitch black of the porch, I felt my way along the wall of the adobe house until I found the door. “Help!” I called, pounding on it. Surely, whoever shut off the light hadn’t gone to sleep that fast.

I yelled loud enough to wake the dead. The thought made me laugh again, and as I slid with my back down the wall, once more my laughing became hysteria.  

The owl was gone. Before I could think about its absence, the click of the lock made me rise so fast I saw stars and wobbled like a drunk. The night’s vibes, the owl, and now—these weird clicks and menacing hisses coming from inside—gave off “get out of here fast” warnings. I took off again and ran until I couldn’t, and then I fast-walked and jogged and ran some more. Nothing followed that I could see. Other than my noisy footsteps and my heavy breathing, quiet ruled the frosty winter night. Numb with cold and spent, I would have probably found a place where I could hide and try my chances at surviving until morning if I hadn’t seen approaching headlights.

The attack came from behind. A weight landed on my back and shoved me forward. I would’ve fallen but for something clamping my shoulders. When the pressure turned to pain, I reached up and back, my fingers sinking into something soft as sharp claws fought for better purchase. With a pop, what felt like blades penetrated my down-filled jacket, clothes, and my skin. 

I screamed then. My feet left the ground, and I rose about a yard. The headlights swept over the rise of the road at that moment. The driver must’ve slammed on the brakes because the car fishtailed and careened straight for me. I kicked my feet and punched at the creature’s torso and claws, right, left, right, left. It tightened its grip when my legs crashed onto the windshield and then let go. The car stopped when it hit a mound of snow, and I slid down the hood like a chunk of melting ice. I hit the road feet first and leaned over the car for balance.

“Oh, hell! I hit you! Did you break anything? Are you hurt? Answer me, dammit!” I heard all this as my friend Tony got out of the car.

“Behind you!” I pointed at a huge owl about seven feet tall—I could see it now—big and black in the taillights—as it took a step forward with wings outspread.  

Tony turned and bent over almost in one movement. Then he stood up, holding a chunk of snow-packed ice, and threw it at the beast. The direct hit to the head resounded with a crack before the owl screeched loud enough to hurt my ears. It advanced and then rose into the air, whooshing over our heads, and disappeared.

Tony slid right past me on the icy road. I heard his “What the hell was thaaaat” as he passed.  

“Get back over here,” I yelled, watching him stop a few feet away. He returned in short, sliding steps. I stood, holding onto the hood with one hand and reaching out for him with the other. When he clutched my glove, I felt Tony’s tremors like they were my own. The night had gotten downright terrifying.

“I hit it. Did you see? I got it.”

“I did,” I replied. “But did you kill it or only wound it? And will it be back?”

Tony looked at me with a face so filled with horror I got the chills. I had never felt such fear even when the bird had me in the air. My thought at that moment had been escape. My body had felt nothing but the pain and my response to danger: fight for my life.

If we weren’t still filled with terror, we would’ve laughed at ourselves slipping and
sliding, arms windmilling, short gasps and yells as we struggled to reach the car doors. I couldn’t dispel the feeling that every second we moved toward safety wouldn’t be fast enough. The owl would catch one of us this time for sure. But we got inside. I said a silent prayer of thanks when the engine turned over and heat blasted on high from the vents.

“What the hell, Marty!”
​
“I know, I know,” I said through chattering teeth. “Get us out of here.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying.” Tony’s shaking made his foot fall from the clutch twice before he got the car moving. After a while, he found space to make a careful U, and we headed back to town. “Your mom called me around eleven. You never called her when you got home, and she was worried. She called your phone, and it rang in her kitchen. What happened? Where did you come across that thing? It was a lechuza, wasn’t it?”

“I—I guess. Perfect timing, dude, thanks.”

“What’re superheroes for? Mickey to the rescue.” He opened his coat and in the light of the dash, I saw his Mickey Mouse PJs. I chuckled despite the close call of a few minutes before. My shivers subsided as I told Tony about my night up until he found me.

“If you hadn’t come by when you did…” I couldn’t finish with the mental pictures of my being eaten alive by the raptor.

“Damn.” Tony shook his head. “At first, I didn’t see any bird. I just saw you rising into the air like you’d grown wings, and then you slammed into my car. When you yelled at me to watch it, I saw the lechuza. And then I just reacted.”

“I’m glad you did, look,” I pulled at my jacket, showing him the rips in my shoulders.
“Son of a—!”

“Yeah,” I interrupted. “I woulda been a goner for sure.”

Tony changed the subject, asking, “Where’s your car?”

“I don’t know exactly. It’s halfway in a ditch. Can you take me to get it tomorrow? I want to find that house again, too.”

When Tony gasped, I explained, “Aren’t you the least bit curious about what we’ll find there? As far as I know from the legend, the lechuza is a witch who turns into an owl. Maybe that was her following me all along, or maybe she was hiding inside. Somebody turned a light on to get me there. I wonder if I was supposed to be supper.” I shivered again. “I want to see her in human form. Meeting a real live lechuza—no one’s ever done that and lived.”

Tony threw a look at me, a mix of disbelief and dread. “Did you just hear yourself? Either way, if she was your owl escort or if she was at the house, she’ll know who you are. She’s gonna want to get rid of witnesses. Hell, if she recognizes me, I’m a goner, too.”

“But it’ll be two against one.”

“Well, yeah—two against a monster bird with razors for talons and a carving knife for a beak.”

Tony got me home safe and somewhat sound. When I opened my door, he reached over and plucked something from my hair. “A black feather,” he said, holding it between his fingers. “There’s more,” he nodded, pointing to my clothes.  
We made plans to go for my car around ten, hoping the sun might melt some of the ice by then. I silently thanked my old-fashioned landlord for leaving a phone line and called my mother. I retold my story, omitting the sensational details and assuring her I was fine. I tended to my wounds which were less serious than they felt, threw myself into bed, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the morning after we pulled my car from the ditch and changed the tire, I made a mental note to equip my trunk with survival gear. Lesson learned. We got back on the road, and I kept an eye out for anything familiar to show me that spooky casa. I drove until a small adobe house came into my line of sight. Two state police, a coroner’s van, and the sheriff’s cruiser were parked helter-skelter in front. I slowed to a crawl, Tony right on my tail. It was definitely the house. A deputy waved at me to keep moving, so I did. Tony followed.

“Was that it?” He asked from his car as he rolled by my apartment. “What d’you
think that was about?”

“Yeah. Nothing good,” I answered.
           
Three days later we found out. The resident had been discovered frozen just outside her front door. Evidence pointed to foul play. Shoe prints in the snow, feathers strewn around the body, and a deep gouge in her head might’ve revealed the identity of the killer, but the person who discovered the body confessed he’d stepped into the mess to check on the woman’s condition. Too bad for law enforcement. They tried to shut down any gossip of her having been a lechuza, but the believers kept the conjecture alive. Equally bad was the feather incident in the laboratory when the evidence bag was unsealed. It was empty.
Tony and I breathed easy when we heard. We agreed never to tell anyone the señora had indeed been a lechuza. No one would believe we killed a shapeshifter in self-defense, not when so few thought such anomalies exist at all. Instead, we’d be found guilty of her murder. After that night, I didn’t doubt others outright when they shared their incredible stories of strange sightings. Neither Tony nor I had believed lechuza was real until the night we faced her down. I didn’t like to think why she’d gone after me, I just figured she’d thought I’d been convenient prey. Good thing I wasn’t an easy victim, thanks to Tony’s timely rescue. We counted ourselves lucky to have escaped. The price for our silence we paid for with our internal and lifelong struggle with guilt. But we never jeopardized our freedom for a truth we could never prove. We made a vow the night we burned the feathers.

Carmen Baca taught high school and college English for thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. Her debut novel El Hermano, published in April 2017, was a 2018 finalist in the NM-AZ book awards program. Her third book, Cuentos del Cañón, received first place for short story fiction anthology in 2020 from the same program. To date, she has published five books and close to fifty short works in online literary magazines and anthologies. Her goal to make her mark on New Mexico literature comes from her desire to pass on elements of her Hispano culture which have disappeared almost entirely since she was a child. She believes we should embrace our culture, cherish our roots, and remember our elders to prevent losing important facets of our identities as Hispano people

Cumbia Therapy is an intergenerational story told in three distinct sections, each exploring intimate relationships and la maldición put on four generations of women and meant to undo those relationships. Part I, Alzira, tells the story of Elena, a Mexican-American woman in her early twenties, and her Brazilian girlfriend, Alzira, as they meet in Italy, travel through Spain and Morocco and live for a time in Seattle in the mid-1990s. Part II, The Curse, explains the origins of la maldición, starting with Adela in revolutionary México and continuing in New Mexico. Part III, El Camino, explores how each generation of women questions the validity of the curse and deals with it in her own way. Cumbia Therapy has received an Illinois Art Council Fellowship. “Better a Bridesmaid” is an excerpt. 

When Tío Freddy finally married Natalia, my sister Sofía and I had to be bridesmaids. We’d never been in a wedding and, as I had no interest in them generally and didn’t want to have one personally, I was not looking forward to all the hype.  It didn’t help that Cristina, Natalia’s best friend and maid of honor, wasn’t thrilled about our inclusion and wanted to argue over every chingadita, including the scriptures Natalia had chosen for us to read at the cathedral.
 
Cristina barked at me, “El pasaje tuyo is longer and more dramatic.”
 
“Has leído ​El Anarchist Cookbook​?” I asked.  “If you want dramático, maybe slip in a paragraph or two from that.”
 
She moved on to the dresses.  “Este no me queda bien.  These dresses aren’t suited for a mature figure.”
 
Sofía said, “Ay, por favor.  You’re just jealous because our figures are fifteen years younger.”

Cristina stopped speaking to her and that meant she wouldn’t stop chatting me up.  In truth, I hated the teal taffeta dresses and thought they suited Cristina much better. With the exception of a few hours on Sunday that included Mass, she wore miniskirts and midriffs everywhere and, after getting her chichis done, she liked showing off her cleavage—which the dress definitely did.  
 
By the second fitting I was tired of looking at dresses and hearing about Cristina’s date for the boda: a paleta man from Potosí.  So, I decided to convince her to let me feel her chichis.  The fitting area of Betty’s Bodas was crowded and stuffy and I whispered to her that we should step outside for some air.  Then I slid around the corner, to the quieter side street, and as innocently as possible, said, “All this looking at women in dresses made me curious about your operation, Cristina.  And I was wondering if I can touch them.”
 
She stared at me a moment.  “If you give me one good reason for wanting to, I’ll let you.”
 
“I’ll give you two.  First, I’ve never felt chichis other than my own.  Second, I’ve never seen falsas.”
 
“They’re not falsas,” she sniffed.  “They just needed a little ​lift.”
 
“Why not just get a good bra?”
 
“You’ll understand someday.”
 
I doubted it, but when she straightened her back and said, “​Á​ndale,” I reached out and touched them.  They felt like plastic baggies filled with Jell-o.
 
Cristina lifted her shirt and bra and quickly showed me the scars.  “¿Qué piensas?” she asked.
 
“Pues...in my humble chichi opinion, the scars look painful, pero las chicas look nice and lifted.”
 
The day of the gran ceremonia toda la familia met at mi abuelita’s to pick up boutonnieres and corsages.  Mi Tía Gisela had a summer cold, but she didn’t let it stop her from walking around snapping fotos of everyone.  Her fotos always came out blurry, off centered and with our heads chopped off, so no one bothered to pose.  
 
Abuelita was following Freddy around the house trying to convince him “to groom himself.”  His reddish-brown hair fell to his shoulders in waves and he brushed it frequently and was careful about what he put in it.  Women loved it, pero abuelita thought it made him look uncouth and insisted he tie it back, at least for Mass.
 
“Do it for me, hijo,” she pleaded as he went from room to room, inspecting himself in every mirror.
 
“Pero, mami, Natalia won’t recognize me.”
 
“Then, por lo menos, shave your face. Natalia should see what you really look like.”     
 
“Oh, she’s seen me...”
 
“No quiero saber, Freddy.  Listen to me, please.  You’ll thank me years from now.”
 
We were just about out of time when abuelita and Freddy went into the blue baño and closed the door.  When he emerged with his hair in a ponytail, without his mustache and forked-beard, we couldn’t believe it.  Abuelita beamed and Freddy walked out of the house like a chamaquito forced to attend his big brother’s wedding.
 
We got to the church and smashed into the back room where everyone congratulated each other on how lovely they looked.  Cristina was wearing a pair of aqua-colored contacts that matched her dress.  Abuelita took one look at those eyes and said, “¡Ay, Cristina, qué susto!”
 
When the first few notes from the organ flooded the cathedral, I joked, “No turning back now,” and Natalia burst into tears.  Sofía and I shared a we’ll laugh about this later look, then we grabbed our partners—Natalia’s cousins, shy as feral cats—and we headed up the aisle.  After taking our places in the pews, we watched Natalia in her weeping moment of glory.  When she got close enough to see Freddy’s face, she did a double take and Tía Gisela’s flash went off. 
 
As soon as everyone settled into the hard creaky benches, the priest began the old New Mexican tradition of roping the novios together with a large wooden rosary that resembled a lasso.
 
I whispered to Sofía, “Ya vez, that’s what marriage is.”
 
When the novios knelt, we saw someone had taken Kiwi’s white shoe polish to the bottom of Freddy’s shiny rental shoes. The left said ​Help and the right said ​Me. ​While the congregation attempted to stifle their laughter, Gisela started a stream of squeaky sneezes.  Her gringo-date kept passing her tissues as if they were love notes, not snot catchers.  The novios got to their feet and the sin vergüenza Cristina began motioning for Natalia to look at the bottom of Freddy’s shoes. Instead, Natalia snuck a peek at her own and, finding no chicle or puppy poop, shot Cristina a ​watchale!​ look.
 
It didn’t take long for the ceremonia to lag.  Prayers, preaching, promises to do this and not do that.  I was ready for the fiesta.  We’d already had a few, including an underwear party where we bought Natalia new chones, ate taquitos and played silly games for silly prizes.  I knew that, in the hall adjacent to the church, kegs were being tapped, wine uncorked and champagne chilled.  It was easy to imagine la cocina full of aromas and comadres arguing over who put too much salt in the frijoles and how picante the chile should be.
 
The wedding finally concluded with a big beso where Freddy bent Natalia back like they were doing the quebradita.  Then we marched into the hall that Natalia’s friends had decorated with blue-green streamers and purple paper flowers.  Tío Freddy let down his hair and I traded my heels for Vans.
 
The mariachis started with “Un rinconcito en el cielo.”  They invited abuelita to sing a few songs with them and, after applauding louder than anyone, Sofía and I tried sneaking a beer to the bathroom.  Tía Gisela, who should have been paying attention to her gringo-date, intercepted us.
 
I said, “It’s for Carolina.”
 
Our older cousin never drank, but Gisela just said, “In the baño?”
 
“Yeah, she doesn’t want anyone to see her taking a swig.”
 
I looked at Sofía and followed her eyes to Carolina, who was in a bright red dress talking to a group of people not far from us.
 
“Hand it over,” Gisela said, holding out her germy hand.
 
“¿Qué te importa?” I snipped.
 
“¿A ti te importa if I tell your mamá?”
 
We handed it over.
 
After dinner the novios knelt again for La Entrega, which must have been uncomfortable con panza llena.  It’s supposed to release the newlyweds to their new life and, though some people stage it at end of the night, my familia does it right before the dance, to release the novios to their fiesta.  As the band tuned up, los compadres roped Freddy and Natalia together with a sandalwood rosary and gave them la long bendición while people tossed money onto Natalia’s long white train. Con el último amen Gisela tossed a dirty green bill that slid down Natalia’s silky back.
 
As soon as the money was scooped up the band began to play.  They waited about an hour for people to start feeling buzzed and generous before they started The Dollar Dance.  I paid $4 to dance with Natalia and $3 to dance with Tío Freddy.  He told me he liked my Vans, then he picked me up and spun me around.  Sofía said it was dumb for me to dance with Natalia and I said what was dumb was her pinche statement.  Natalia looked so stunning with her heavily outlined eyes and her blue-black hair pinned up that some men paid twice to dance with her, making The Dollar Dance nearly as long as the wedding.
 
Freddy’s best man pinned dollars on my tío’s tux, but everyone in Natalia’s line pinned the bills on her themselves.  When her train was covered men began carefully pinning money on the front of her dress.  It made Natalia’s mother nerviosísima and she told the band, “Wrap it up, chicos!”  She probably cost the novios fifty bucks.
 
After all the bills were unpinned, one by one, Natalia danced with Freddy a couple of times before Gisela singlehandedly “stole the bride.”
 
To no one in particular, her gringo-date said, “Is that a Mexican tradition?” 
 
I was standing next to him and answered, “No, it’s more of a Southwestern scheme to get more loot.  One that happens to imitate the kidnappings latinos have become infamous for.” 
 
He stared at me and excused himself to get a drink.
 
Gisela led Natalia to a coatroom at the back of the hall where she would voluntarily stay sequestered.  Knowing everyone would just be removing more money from purses, pockets and wallets, when Cristina followed, I went too.  It didn’t take long for Gisela to pop open a $200 bottle of champagne intended for the newlyweds’ private party and, while flattering Natalia and filling her glass, she snapped fotos.
 
In between songs we could hear the bandleader: “Oye, the bride is still missing!  Come and make a contribution to Comadre Yolanda so we can raise enough ransom to bring Natalia back!” 
 
The coatroom hosted more fotos, more drinks and, at last, the band announced, “Ya está.  Tenemos el dinero suficiente and the novios are $453 richer!” 
 
By the time Yolanda tiptoed into the room in impossibly high heels, Natalia couldn’t have subtracted five from ten and she just hiccupped uncontrollably when Yolanda handed her a wad of cash.  She passed it Cristina, who started counting. 
 
“What’d you do to her, Gisela?” Yolanda asked, nodding at Natalia.
 
“¿Yo?’ Gisela sniffled, ‘pues, nada...”
 
They argued, Natalia hiccuped and Cristina, who’d counted the money twice, asked, “What’d you do, Yolanda?  Slip a fiver in your bolsa?”
 
“How dare you!” Yolanda glared at Cristina as if she were a cucaracha.
 
“We all heard the band say the crowd raised $453.”
 
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yolanda scoffed. “I needed to make change.”
 
A new argument ensued that Natalia interrupted with her silence.  Everyone stared at her.
 
“Hiccups are gone,” she giggled.
 
Cristina and Yolanda shuffled her back to the dance and the band said, “Let’s welcome the bride back!  Let’s hear it for Natalia.”
 
The crowd cheered.  But Natalia’s mamá took one look at her daughter and cried, “¡Válgame dios! Natalia missed half the dance and, look at her, she’s as clumsy as a cow!”
 
Natalia probably should have sat down and had some water, pero she fell into Freddy’s arms, in the middle of a Cumbia, and away she went.  He had no idea his wife’s head was spinning like a top when, holding her hand above her head, he spun her halfway around so they both faced the same direction. He held her tightly for a few pulses, her back against his chest and his hand on her stomach. Then he gave her a media vuelta so she faced him again. Finally, he twirled her three hundred and sixty degrees with the left hand, a quick one eighty with the right, another with the left and, with two hundred eyes upon her, Natalia puked like a cat.
 
I turned to Cristina and said, “¿Sabes ​qué? Forget the dinero—better to be a bridesmaid.”
 

​“I love it!” Conchita cried when she placed la corona on her head. “I feel like royalty. Someday, Marguerite, someday, I’ll wear a real one with genuine diamonds, and everyone will wait on me hand and foot,” she added, turning from the mirror to hug her prima Marguerite on the day before she joined the convent. She secretly wanted to jump for joy. She had coveted that crown the entire night her cousin had worn it. She loved Marguerite genuinely, and she would never have asked for the prized jewels herself, but she was ecstatic when her cousin decided to give it to her. 

“You know what they say,” Marguerite replied, quiet and serious in her demeanor. “Be careful what you wish for. You might just get your heart’s desire, but it will come with a price. If you don’t believe that, think of me and what my vanity brought. It will serve as a reminder to keep you humble.”

“Oh, Marguerite,” Conchita cried. “Don’t think like that, you—”

Marguerite shushed her prima, adding, “Hey, let’s not part arguing. If I know you, you’ll make your wish come true and wear a crown of real jewels one day if that’s what you want. And you’ll get it through pure determination.”

After her cousin left, Conchita turned to the mirror to admire her new possession. The jewels were fake, of course, but that didn’t matter. The paste diamonds still shone as brightly as any real ones, especially in the light. The tiara was small enough that it didn’t look pretentious but beautiful enough that she could wear it to dances and other events as an accessory without feeling self-conscious. Too bad she couldn’t wear it to work, she thought. It would make what she did more enjoyable at least.

Employed by a wealthy businessman’s wife as housekeeper, Conchita was forced to wear a uniform which included a cap on her head. At work, she kept her hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. But she hated having to confine her waist-long wavy brown hair which was her pride and joy, and she wore it down when she wasn’t at work.

She could tell her boss, la Señora Benson, was envious of her hair and of her young, lithe body. Hell, the woman coveted her youth, period, Conchita thought. She was twenty-one, just beginning to live, saving every penny she didn’t spend on clothes so she could move to the big city when she turned twenty-five. That was her plan, anyway. Either Albuquerque or Denver, maybe even El Paso, she didn’t know yet. All she knew was she had to get out of the small town of Pajarillo, or she’d die an old maid here, alone and stifled. She spent her weekend evenings out with Sally and Patricia and the rest of the gang. She used to go out with Marguerite and Viola, but the first was already committed to the cloister and the latter was so smitten with her new boyfriend, Allen, she rarely went out with them unless he came, too. Though Conchita was in no hurry to become involved, she would’ve liked to have more variety of male companions and escorts to go out with on real dates.

The problem with Conchita was her taste, which ran to men who could eventually become husband material. Her choices were limited in the places she frequented. The guys at the area’s night spots were either laborers or college students. She had no desire to become involved with a laborer; she wanted a man who would keep her in the riches and luxury she didn’t have. The college boys were no better, still sowing their oats and wanting female companions for partying and a good time, not potential sweethearts and wives. So even though she went out on weekends with the gang, it was more for the purpose of having a great time with her buddies and to show off her beautiful hair and clothes. She knew she wouldn’t find a man until she moved away.
 
#
 
“Un peso por tus pensamientos,” Diego almost shouted, tapping her temple twice with his forefinger. The music at El Cantinero was so loud they could barely hear each other speak though they were seated across the dance floor from the band.

“Ha,” Enrique scoffed. “You don’t have a dollar to your name, fool. How are you going pay her for her thoughts?”

“I do too have a dollar, more than a dollar. Today was payday at the ice plant.”

“Oh, good, you can pay for the next round then,” Enrique proposed, motioning to the waitress from the booth where the three sat.

“I’m thinking that if I didn’t come out on the weekends with the two of you and the others sometimes, I’d have no fun in my life at all.”

“That’s true,ˮ Enrique laughed. “Sad, but true.”

She punched him and Diego did the same on the other side. “I can’t wait until I move away from here, you know? I feel like I’m just existing from day to day, not living. I want to live!”

“Well, come on then! Let us live!” Enrique pulled her out and up onto the dance floor and swung her every which way to the beat of the salsa number until she was dizzy.
She ended up accepting dance offers from a number of young men after that, and the night turned into a fun one once Conchita quit allowing herself to think depressing thoughts.

She chastised herself for her selfishness and remembered the fun-loving Gloria. Life was too short to spend on “what if” or “I wish” thinking. She crossed herself and blessed Gloria, and that night she made a pact with herself to think only positive thoughts, even at work. She began to imagine that the three story house was her own, and she began to take pride in each task. She couldn’t wait to have a home like her employer’s for herself, but she could use it as practice for how she would keep her own sparkling and clean and make her future husband proud.

Living in a five room casita on the wrong side of the tracks with her parents, Rubel and Josie Paiz, and her four siblings, Conchita was tired of her older sister’s and her friends’ hand-me-downs and tired, too, of scrounging for everything. Making seventy-five cents an hour and giving almost half of her earnings weekly to her mother for groceries, Conchita knew moving out wasn’t in her immediate future. But as long as she kept up her positivity, she also knew the opportunity would be hers for the taking before too long.

“Don’t forget to scrub the oven today, Conchita,” Mrs. Benson started with the list of what she wanted done while she was out at her morning charity meeting, luncheon with the library association, and afternoon tennis lesson and cocktails at the club afterward. Between washing the downstairs windows inside and out, polishing the silver, and about seven other chores the woman had already gone over with her, Conchita knew she wouldn’t have a moment to spare, earning her daily pay with chafed hands and sore muscles. Tomorrow she’d have another lengthy list to complete, and the day after that, and… She stopped herself and entered her world of pretend where everything in the house belonged to her and she took pride in keeping it spotless.

Before, she had felt like a Hispanic Cenicienta, the Cinderella from the fairy tale. But for her there was no fairy godmother to take her away from it all. She had only herself to rely on to make enough dinero and get the heck out of town as soon as she was able. So she cleaned and kept up her daydreams, the hours passed, and before Conchita knew it, the lady of the house returned and brought reality with her.

 She went over every inch of what Conchita had done. The windows were spotless, the silverware gleamed, the linens and carpets smelled fresh and new—every detail of every job she performed that day she did to the best of her ability. Mrs. Benson took note as she usually did and nodded her approval as she handed over her payment for the day.

The singular concession the woman made to Conchita when she hired her was that she pay cash at the end of the day; Conchita had insisted just in case the día came when she had enough. When she had first taken the job, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to contain herself with her servile employment or her employer. She expected the occasion would arise when she would tell the woman to stuff her hoity toity attitude up her very long narizota since she held it up in the air so high. Conchita was five, two, but the older middle-aged woman was five, seven, so when Conchita had to stand before her for her instructions or for her wages, the dark, elongated nostrils were about the only thing she saw from her vantage point. But the woman wasn’t that bad, after all. Yes, she considered herself above Conchita and people she considered servants, but she was fair and kind. And she always paid what she promised.

For the next few months after Marguerite had given Conchita the crown, she wore it the moment she got home and visualized a future where she would have a real one and be waited on by others. One morning as she got ready, she put her tiara on as she did her make-up and talked herself into wearing it at work. She tucked it into her purse and caught a ride with her father to the rich part of town where her employer lived. After Mrs. Benson left for the day, Conchita donned her crown and set off to do the laundry.

She remembered the first time her employer had taken her to the mudroom and shown her the bright, white washer. Conchita had never used one before and studied the knobs on top and looked inside with both awe and confusion. Mrs. Benson explained how to use it, and now Conchita looked forward to laundry days since all she had to do was hang the clothes outside in the back yard when the machine had finished the heavy work. She had told her mamá about the wondrous machine, and Josie began saving two dollars a week to get one of her own. The wringer washer on the back porch lost its reputation as a modern convenience the day she heard about the new appliance at the casa of la ricacha, the rich one.

Conchita was scrubbing the downstairs wood floors when the back door opened and her employer walked in. “Hi, there, Conchita. The city council meeting ended early, and I didn’t have any plans, so I thought I’d…”

Conchita had sat back on her haunches and looked up at the woman in surprise. Too late, she realized she was wearing the crown. She yanked it off and tried to hide it beneath her hands and felt her face reddening with embarrassment.

“May I see it?”

Conchita handed it over without saying anything. What could she say? I’m over twenty but I still play pretend? Working for you makes me feel like Cinderella? She waited with her eyes focused on the hangnail she was trying to yank off. Knowing the soapy water would sting when she continued her scrubbing, she figured it was a small penance she deserved for trying to be something she was not.

Mrs. Benson handed the tiara back. “It’s lovely, I remember I had one similar when I was about your age.”

Yeah, but yours was probably real, Conchita thought but said nothing.

“I remember I was so happy when my mother presented it to me,” the woman added. “But I found out a few days later it was fake when she yanked it from my head and threw it out my upstairs bedroom window. I saved the shattered pieces in my jewelry box for years to remind myself of…of certain things,” she finished with a small smile. “Go ahead, put it back on. Lord knows it looks so much lovelier on you than mine ever did on me. I’m going up to my room. Would you let me know when you’ve finished the floors?”

She left and Conchita tried to tuck the tiara into the pocket of her apron, but it didnʼt fit. She ended up putting the thing back on for expediency and continued her work, wondering why the beautiful, rich Mrs. Benson had said her own tiara hadn’t looked good on her. She began to think there was something more about her employer she didn’t know, something which made her sad sometimes even with all she had.

Conchita knocked on Mrs. Benson’s door when she had finished for the day. The woman answered and went downstairs to check on Conchita’s work, approving everything before pulling the dollar bills from her slacks pocket and bidding her good afternoon.

The following morning when Conchita arrived, Mrs. Benson told her she had something she needed help with in the attic. She led the way and pointed to a corner.
“There are many outfits in these three trunks over here,” she continued, “designer clothes, all the accessories—hats, gloves, shoes, and even jewelry, I believe. I will not kid myself any longer. I will never be a petite again, and I refuse to allow such beautiful garments to mold away when someone could be enjoying them. I want you to go through each one and take whatever you want from these trunks. Perhaps you’ll find some for your mother and sister, too.”

For a moment—just a tiny second of a moment—Conchita felt a twinge of anger. She had never accepted charity (her friends’ contributions to her wardrobe didn’t count) and didn’t know how to feel about the rich woman’s proposition. But she looked into la señora’s eyes and saw a sincerity there. “I was so vain in my youth, Conchita,” she admitted. “I thought I would be young forever and my good looks would also last forever. Do you know that’s the reason I never had children? I never wanted to lose my tiny waistline, isn’t that just stupid?”

Conchita saw tears forming in the woman’s eyes, and she sprang to action on impulse. She went to the closest trunk and pulled out a lovely silk scarf and a handbag of the same shade of lavender. “There are many things in here you can still use or wear, Señora.” And she brazenly but gently wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck. “See?” This sets off your complexion beautifully. We should see what there is you can still wear before I take anything. If you’re anything like me, I know what’s in these trunks were probably some of your favorites.”

There was a hint of wistfulness in Mrs. Benson’s expression, and so Conchita pulled up a stool, wiped the dust from it, and settled the woman down. Pulling out one garment after another, she struck up outlandish poses and crossed her eyes or stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth. Conchita had Mrs. Benson laughing so hard a few times she almost fell from the small stool. Conchita found a bureau mirror against one wall and pulled it forward so they could see themselves as they donned more outfits over their clothes.

“Look at this lace wrap, Mrs. B,” Conchita gushed over the shiny gossamer material that glowed in golden shades. She placed it on her employer’s shoulders and turned her to the mirror. “It’s perfect on you.”

“I think you’re right, Conchita,” the woman smiled at her in the mirror. “Mrs. B, huh?”
“Oh, forgive me for being forward…”

“No, don’t apologize, I rather like it.” She adjusted the wrap and turned left and right as she kept talking. “No one has ever had a nickname for me—ever, not even as a child. My mother always called me Elizabeth, never Liz, never Beth or Betty or Betsy, always Elizabeth, so formal. And when she was angry, which was often, she called me Elizabeth Monique Davinia Jones, as if I needed to be reminded who I was. The woman had no love for me, I don’t think.”

Conchita turned introspective. She thought of her relationship with her own mother. By the time Conchita was born, her mother had been in her thirties. They had more of a formal relationship than one of friend or confidant though there was love between them, and her mother didn’t treat her coldly as Mrs. B’s had seemed to.  However, there were just some things she could never talk about with her mother.

Take her menstrual cycle. Her mother had tried to talk to her about it before the event came, but she stumbled over words and faltered in details so much she called Conchita’s older sister, Lourdes, to explain. So, on the night when Auntie Flo came visiting, Lourdes was the one who told their father to run to the store and bring home some feminine napkins.

“¡Qué ’stas pendeja o qué, napkins a la fregada!” Señor Paiz had protested. His grumbling over Lourdes being stupid enough to think he would go and buy such a product made her laugh all the way to the bathroom where she’d left Conchita stranded. Their mamá had to accompany him, never mind that she left the ropa in the washer waiting for the wringer just to be the one to buy the feminine products her father wouldn’t. When Conchita got her first French kiss and panicked it would make her pregnant, Lourdes was again the one she ran to, confessing tearfully and fearing her parents would throw her out of the house. Lourdes had laughed even louder and longer about that and educated Conchita about the truth of male-female relationships.

On a hunch, she told Mrs. B about these memories, and they shared a good laugh and shared even more. A camaraderie was created between the two that day, one which saved Conchita’s life in the years to come. The two women spent the entire morning up in that attic, trying on each garment they pulled from the three trunks and separating them into piles while they shared more cuentos from their pasts.

“Oh my heavens,” Mrs. Benson cried when the clock downstairs announced that it was noon. “We’ve spent the entire morning up here, girl! What say we go make some sandwiches. You can use that luggage over there by the back wall to pack the clothes you liked, and I’ll give you a ride home. We shall declare today a personal holiday. Tomorrow is soon enough for you to do what I wanted done today.”

And so they did. Conchita felt like royalty indeed in the woman’s shiny, new sedan. Again, a twinge of shame hit her in the chest when they passed the main street and entered the poor side of town. But when she pointed out her modest house to the wealthy woman, she raised her head defiantly and realized that indeed she was proud of their little adobe casita. Her father had repaired the plaster and made them paint it each year, and he taught her brothers to fix the picket fence. Her mother guided them all in planting fresh flowers each spring. The windows gleamed, and the entire façade presented comfort. Theirs might not be a mansion, but it was a home, one which they all worked toward presenting a welcoming exterior so people would see there was love on the inside.

“Would you like to come in?” Conchita asked. “Meet my mother?”

Mrs. Benson looked at the house for a long minute, taking in every detail, Conchita was certain. But she wasn’t sure what the woman thought or whether she’d accept her invitation.

“Of course,” the tall, refined señora replied with a smile. “I’d love to meet your mother.”

They pulled two large valises from the trunk and struggled to carry them through the little gate. By the time Conchita opened the front door, they were laughing at their awkwardness in carrying such heavy luggage and banging their shins with each step they took.

They found Conchita’s mother Josie in the living room where she had been ironing in front of the TV tuned to a daytime soap opera she had become addicted to. The look of horror she gave her daughter showed Conchita her mother was mortified. To have been discovered doing a household chore in the living room was bad enough, but to be caught with her braid falling down with her exertion and to be seen sweating in an old housedress was sacrilege.

Too late, Conchita realized she should have called ahead. Rather than watch her mother suffer, she plunged on in with both feet. She was already going to be told off anyway, might as well go full hog. “Mom, this is my employer, Mrs. Benson. Mrs. B, this is my mother, Josie Paiz. I am so sorry I didn’t warn my mother we were coming. The woman cleans twenty-four hours a day. The house can be spotless, but she always finds something to do.” She knew she was scrambling to say something, anything to make her mother feel at ease and vice versa.

For a moment the two women looked at one another in awkward silence. But then Josie spoke up after wiping her brow on her apron and wiping her hands as well. “Welcome to our home, Señora,” she said, putting her hand out to shake Mrs. Benson’s. With seriousness, she added, “I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to watch TV or do the ironing, so I chose to do both to save time. I’m glad you didn’t stop by yesterday when I was doing the dishes on the coffee table.”

The moment of silence passed when the two women burst into laughter at the same time, and Conchita sighed in satisfaction. She should’ve known her mother would save her own day. No longer embarrassed, she motioned for Mrs. Benson to take a seat on the sofa and bade Conchita to go bring them some glasses of tea. By the time she got back, Mrs. Benson had opened the suitcases, and the two women were pulling out all the dresses so Josie could put them up to her chest to “try them on.” She oohed and aahed over the jewelry and then kicked off her house shoes to try on a pair of red dressy heels, posing her legs one way and then the other while the señora whistled her approval.

By the time Mrs. Benson left, Josie had agreed to accompany her to her charity luncheon the following day so she could introduce her to her closest friends. “Wear that blue dress, Josie,” she pointed at the frock lying on the arm of the couch. “That will look so great with your black hair. I’ll pick you up at eleven. Conchita, come walk me to my car.” When they reached the sidewalk, the woman turned and caught Conchita up in a hug so abruptly she almost didn’t hug back. “Wear your crown proudly, my young friend,” she whispered into Conchita’s hair. “In fact, I insist you wear it at work every day to remind yourself what a priceless gift you are to me.” She stepped back, gave Conchita’s arms a last squeeze, climbed into her car and left.

Closing her mouth when a fly hit her cheek head on caused Conchita to register the words that had left her employer's mouth and into her ears…“wear your crown proudly…a priceless gift you are...” She brushed away the tears with the heels of her hands and went back to the house. Her mother stood over the mess of clothing and accessories everywhere as though a whirlwind had just come into the living room and thrown beautiful garments willy-nilly and left without damaging a thing. Conchita waited for the telling off that never came.

“She’s something else, your boss.”

“Yes, she is.”

“I thought I was going to die of embarrassment when she walked in, but she’s alright. Down to earth, that one.”

“I didn’t see that side of her till today.” And so Conchita proceeded to tell her mother how Mrs. B and she had spent the morning as they grabbed hangers for the dresses and gathered everything else to find places to put it all. 

The next day Josie and her new friend attended the charity luncheon, and Conchita went back to work, but instead of being dissatisfied with her lot, she felt a new pride in her duties. She caught a glimpse of herself in her crown in the hall mirror and laughed out loud with a new happiness, a new self-satisfaction she’d never felt before. She embraced a new desire to do her best for the woman who had given her a job when she could find no other, the woman who had befriended her mother moments after they met.

The months flew since the relationship between the wealthy señora and Conchita had changed. The woman even began calling Conchita the daughter she never had, the sister she always dreamed of, the confidant she wanted for so much of her lonely life. Conchita, her mother, and Mrs. B even began shopping together so each could try on outfits, make up, and all the accessories their new clothes needed to get the others’ opinions on the spot. Life was good, and the three were happy with their newfound friendship. 

For the first time in her adult life, Conchita was content with what she had even though she still wanted better for her future. From time to time as she worked, she thought of Marguerite and all that she gave up to become a nun. Invariably, Nicola and Gloria came into her thoughts, too, and Conchita offered a prayer for her primita and her friend and reminded herself what had happened to them. This never failed to keep her humble and thankful for the life she did have. This was what she was thinking of that afternoon when she was walking from the rich side of town to the poor, a forty-five minute walk through the heat of summer and the cold of winter and every type of weather that came with the seasons.

She had forgotten to take off her tiara and strolled content and happy with the day’s work and with her new relationship with her employer and her mother. It was still warm on this spring afternoon, the sun beginning to go down. It was that hour of the day when anyone driving toward the sunlight was blinded if they didn’t raise an arm or lower a visor to shade their eyes. So when the noise came up behind her, she was knocked forward so violently she had no idea what hit her. She felt pain so severe that after a moment her body numbed with the intensity. The last thing she saw was her shiny tiara flying in front of her and rolling like a wheel down the side of the street. It disappeared into a storm drain, and that was all she remembered until she awoke in the hospital weeks afterward.

The hit-and-run driver still had not been identified, much less apprehended, by the time Conchita came to and was told what had happened to her. Considering it had happened on a main residential avenue with at least twelve side streets branching off of it, no one had seen a thing. The loud commotion sent people to their windows and screen doors, and several had reported seeing a dark vehicle speeding off on one of the side streets. But no one caught any clear details, not a description of the driver and not a single number off the license plate, nada.

Another few weeks and more sad news greeted her when she awoke from a mid-morning nap. The doctors didn’t think she would ever walk again. The tears shed by family, friends, and even Mrs. Benson could have washed the entire town of Pajarillo clean, they fell for so long and so hard from the eyes of everyone who loved her. But they were nothing compared to the crying she did for herself in the state of self-pity into which she plunged after that last announcement. There would be no moving away for her, no attracting any future husband, no large house or beautiful clothes, no social occasions or children later in her life—the life she had come to live gratefully was over. Replaced by a crude and unwelcome wheelchair, the indignities of being  handicapped, the pitying looks from strangers—that was the life she now had to look forward to.

She was released from the hospital and welcomed by the entire neighborhood when she arrived home. Her father and brothers had made ramps to accommodate her, and her mother and sister were prepared to take care of her for the rest of her life. Once her oldest brother positioned her chair in the living room, her mother presented her with a new tiara, this one more elaborate and more bejeweled than the last. For her part, Conchita tried to be cheerful when she was with others, sinking into the depths of her despair when she was alone. Everyone was careful not to leave her to herself for long, but the late hours of the night and the early ones in the mornings drained her of life little by little as she focused on the bleak future ahead. She lost her appetite, lost her will to fight with her family and friends when they tried either sympathy or anger to get her out of her doldrums, lost her love of life. They feared she wouldn’t last much longer, and no one could figure out how to change what they knew would come true.
Señora Benson came to the rescue shortly after Conchita’s family tried and failed to get her to want to continue. After an evening of consultation with her parents, the señora came for Conchita the next morning in her car, accompanied by a driver this time. Her mother and sister had bathed Conchita, styled her hair, applied her make-up, and practically forced her into a presentable dress before sitting her back into her chair and then placing her new crown on her head. Conchita gazed at her reflection in the mirror and smiled faintly. Like the corona of the Virgin Mother, she thought, that’s what it looks like. She prayed a “Hail Mary” for the Mother to take her to eternal sleep soon. She prayed to Gloria, too, asking if she had any influence in heaven to use it, please. She did not want to go on anymore, not without a future to look forward to.

When the señora arrived, she said she had a surprise, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but they were going for a ride. When the sedan left the town behind, the sound of the tires on the pavement lulled Conchita into a deep sleep, and she remained asleep for the almost three hours it took to get to their destination.

She awoke when the vehicle began slowing and looked up to see a small airplane right in front of them. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Mrs. B smiled. “Let’s go for a ride, hmmm?”

“You’re kidding?”

“Would I be so cruel?”

Conchita knew the answer and did what she could to assist the driver in putting her into her wheelchair. Then he drove it up the ramp, unloaded her gently, and then fastened her into a seat in the aircraft. The plane taxied and took off with Conchita clutching the arms of the seat but with her nose pasted to the small round window. She watched as the earth receded beneath and behind her, the houses and cars getting smaller, the people turning into the size of insects from her vantage point, until moments later they were in the sky with clouds beneath them.

Oh, the ironies of life, Conchita thought. She had envisioned marrying a wealthy man who would fly her to exotic places, yet here she was, flying to…to…

“Where are we going?” she blurted to her companion.

Mrs. B laughed. “I was waiting for your curiosity to be too much for you.” And she talked for the next half hour, filling Conchita in about her plans for her future, with or without her consent. “So you see, sweetheart, everything’s been taken care of. All you have to do is will yourself to make this work. You and your powerful crown will make you a queen after all, mark my words.”
 
A year later…
 
The tiara Conchita wore on her wedding day glittered in the candle lights of the cathedral in Santa Fe where her fiancé had brought her back to make her his bride. Dr. Richard Stewart had been her doctor for the year since her benefactor, Mrs. Benson, had taken her on her first flight. He was her nephew, a specialist in spinal injuries. He had taken Conchita as his patient at his very own clinic in New York City, vowing to do everything he could to make her see that she could still have a quality-filled life even from a wheelchair.
​
The physical therapy combined with medication, psychiatric support and life skills instruction. They worked in tandem until Conchita accepted her condition and learned to live with it. Dr. Richard didn't intend to fall in love with the tiara-wearing beauty, and Conchita never in her wildest dreams saw herself as a bride to the man who had saved her from herself. Indeed, she had to travel across the country to find her Prince Charming. And so here they were, him standing at the altar beaming with pride. And her, holding her bouquet, being guided to meet him by her father on one side and her mother on the other. He smiled and everyone assembled could see the love in his eyes he never took off her as she came closer. And Conchita, with her own eyes locked on his, lifted her head proudly, her crown catching the light and sparkling with all the colors of a prism. Her dream had come true. She felt like royalty and she would be waited on just as she would wait upon the man who had captured her heart.

​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.

A novel by Carmen Baca
​
Somewhere in the void of nothingness where la Llorona had been keeping herself in secluded oblivion for the past decade, there was a spark of something. Almost as if the small ember beneath the kindling set to light the morning fire came to life with the breath of a breeze, something in the old ghost’s mind ignited and came alive once again. She couldn’t quite grasp what it was that sparked her to consciousness, but she knew it could only be one thing: Rosita or someone she loved was approaching the boundaries which kept her restrained to the southwest.
 
As the Tapias had made their home so far away from anything they ever knew and tried consciously not to think of the ghost who was the cause of their move, she lay dormant. Not moving, barely existing, but thinking, always thinking of her revenge and plotting different means to accomplish it when the time was right. She relied on the patience she'd developed over the 148 years of her eternal life.
 
From time to time, her own son came into her mind and had she been able to cry tears, she would have flooded her location with years of sobs. Instead, she tried minute after minute, hour after hour, and day upon day to reach the Tapia family with her thoughts. Searching everywhere for the boy who escaped her clutches and whom she longed to capture and never release, she did not give up her quest, even though she knew her boundaries limited her reach. In Rosita's old neighborhood, there was a house which held promise. There lived a young woman about the same age as Christino, and like clockwork every Sunday evening she sensed a connection between this girl and the young man though she could also tell there was some distance between the two. She felt that using this girl would enable her to get closer to her goal, and she bided her time until this something or someone crossed the southwest boundaries and fell into her hands. That's how relentless she was and how ruthless.
 
So, while one part of her mind acted like the ever-undulating snakes sprouting from the head of Medusa constantly using their forked tongues to feel for her prey, she used another part to entertain herself with the memories of contented times to pass her period of isolation. Of course, her chief enjoyment was recollecting all the instances she had encountered humans.
 
She recalled an occasion where she had just bitten into a succulent wild strawberry she found in an orchard when she spotted a trio of adolescent boys walking past. Sure they were up to no good—apple stealing, most likely—she moved to stand before them when they paused under the first large tree with fruit-laden branches which almost touched the ground.
 
Before they could move, she blew a strawberry-scented breath into their faces, first left to right and then back again, watching as their eyes opened wide and their mouths too in preparation to speak.
 
"What the…"
 
"Did you feel that—"
​
"Oh, Shi—"
 
Thoughts did not quite make the exclamations complete so quickly did they take steps back. Each turned in all directions to figure out what it was.
 
"There's no wind," reasoned one.
 
Another, who began shuffling a foot through the fallen leaves and underbrush and looking at the growth, chimed in, "I don't see a single strawberry."
 
Then the last said what they had all been hoping none would voice: "La Llorona—it had to be!"
 
As if to prove him right, an apple fell from the tree they stood beneath and hovered before them in the air as though suspended from invisible string. María had it from the stem and allowed it to swing toward the boy who had said her ill-gotten name. Then the ghost let it loose where it struck him smack in the center of his chest. She didn't throw it hard; it barely hit with a small thump, but he fell back in a faint.
 
"Oh, my God! He's dead!"
 
"Quick, grab his arm!"
 
The other two took an arm and dragged the boy backward as fast as they could get away with tree limbs and shrubs in their path. No matter—though the boy's head got stuck in a large weed once and bumped into a small log on their way out of the arbolera, the three kept going until she could see them no longer.
 
The memory triggered more, and María retained her position where she lay, knowing the end to her self-imposed banishment was near. She need not waste what time she had to remain dormant in guessing what was to come.​

#
 
So, as the two travelers made their way down the Alaskan coast toward Washington, still far from their destination, the evil phantasm the older one wanted to avoid and the younger one knew nothing about kept her senses aware. With each mile that passed, she kept her patient vigil.
 
The days of travel passed routinely for Thomas and Tino; as the number of miles beneath the car's tires grew, so did Tino's impatience to get to their final destination. The earthquake of 1964—ten years before—when he'd been five-years-old, bothered him. Sometimes, when any significant alteration of his daily routine occurred, he became so anxious that Rosita had to teach him how to ward off panic attacks and accept what he couldn't change. Marisol's leaving was an especially trying time for the boy, but the weekly phone calls and letters between the two kept him from experiencing too much anxiety.
 
Rosita hoped the intervening years between Marisol's departure and Tino's reaching his eighteenth year would make him more amenable to change, and she worried about his leaving to college at all if he weren't able to adapt. But then Marisol's mysterious illness arose, and the defect in his character seemed to disappear from the moment he heard her mother's tearful voice say, "Oh, hito, I think our Mari's dying." Concern for the love of his life had done what nothing else, not even subsequent earthquakes brought by Mother Nature herself, could have made him do in all his formative years—accept change and move forward with it, rather than pretend it wasn't happening or worry himself sick over it. He had a quest at last, and a journey ahead that would prove his mettle. Like Odysseus, Tino would face dangers he didn't expect. Unlike the epic hero though, Tino had no idea. 
 
So Thomas and Tino traveled through Washington, the top right corner of Oregon, and the bottom left corner of Idaho without incident and made good time. Thomas gave the wheel over to Tino on the long, flat stretches of highway so he could rest his eyes to make the best time of the almost twenty-three-hour trip. Thomas needed no sleep, no resting of any body part, but he had to convince others he was human. And so he did human things he remembered but had no need for any longer.
 
When they reached Utah, something happened which made Thomas well-aware they had reached the southwest. As he drove down the highway, Thomas began getting the feeling he always did when he sensed danger. He glanced at his passenger and saw Tino was awake, so he asked him to keep an eye out.
 
"For?"
 
"I don't know, but something feels off, like maybe a thunderstorm is coming."
 
"I don't see—" Tino began, and left his statement unfinished when he saw it. A sudden dust devil appeared to their right off in the distance, which was strange because Utah isn't known for tornados. Tino called attention to it, but Thomas had already seen it and was debating either accelerating or decelerating to avoid it since it looked to be coming right for the road they were on.
 
"What the heck—" Tino began when it shifted course and seemed to head right at them. It seemed Mother Nature wasn't finished teaching Tino lessons.
 
"Hang on!" Thomas did speed up then, the car shaking and rattling as it shot over eighty miles per hour and the dust devil spun itself into a full-blown tornado. Rocks, gravel, brush, small branches, tumbleweeds, and who knew what else slammed into the vehicle on all sides as Thomas fought with the steering wheel which was shaking so badly Tino feared it would fly right out of his friend's fists. And just as fast as the twister hit, it blew itself out with a giant puff of dirt and dust behind them.
 
Thomas looked at Tino; Tino looked right back.
 
"Did you see that? What was that? Why did—"
 
Thomas held up a hand as he began slowing the car to its normal pace but kept going. "I'm not sure why it happened just as we passed, but that twister must've caught a nice updraft to form as fast as it did," he offered a half-educated opinion and hoped he'd halted Tino's questions. He knew the young man was ignorant about his mother's plight with la Llorona, and he didn't think it was his place to set him straight. And though he didn't like not being truthful with Tino, he didn't know what else to do. Surely, he needed to have a conversation with Doña Sebastiana after all. After another period of travel, they reached a small town. Here was as good as anywhere, Thomas thought, to have supper and a short rest before continuing on.
 
So the two stopped at a quaint diner with '50s memorabilia, and Thomas waited for the inevitable questions Tino was bound to have. The younger man surprised him, however, and spent the time waiting for their order by strolling along the walls featuring old black and white photographs of '50s stars and plugging quarters into the jukebox. When their food arrived, they ate as though they hadn't eaten in days and sat back when they finished, sated and lazy with the fullness of their stomachs. They didn't waste time, both anxious to get going again and left shortly thereafter.
 
Before long, they crossed into the southwest corner of Colorado, and again, Thomas listened to his inner voice warning him of impending danger. Again, he asked Tino to keep vigilant.
 
"Not again," he groaned, sitting up in his seat and sweeping his gaze from one end of the windshield to the other. Turning in his seat to look behind, he saw nothing amiss in any direction. He should've looked up. Everything happened simultaneously—just as they were passing an especially high cliff to their left with a precipitous drop to a canyon on the right, Thomas' acute intuition kicked in, and both he and Tino heard a rumbling from above. The older man floored the accelerator at the same time a boulder larger than the car crashed onto the highway behind them.
 
Slamming on the brakes, Thomas jumped out of the car on his side, and Tino did the same on the other.
 
"Did you know that was going to happen?" He looked wide-eyed at his mentor. Then he accused, "You knew that was going to happen. How, why—"
 
"I heard the rumble before you did, I guess," Thomas interrupted. "I've always had exceptional hearing," he added as both looked back at the cars that were lining up one behind the other due to the obstacle in their way. "At least we're not trapped on the wrong side of that rock." He got back into the car, and Tino followed suit. When Thomas offered no more explanation, Tino remained quiet, vigilant eyes looking in all directions. As he drove, Thomas' thoughts took him back to the twister in Utah and the landslide in Colorado. He had a feeling in his gut the incidents had been orchestrated, not accidental. There was something more at play here, and he wondered if he should let Doña Sebastiana know. Then again, the ancient one knew almost everything, so he determined to be extra alert and keep his concern at bay unless more happened to cause concern. ​
​

Finally crossing the state line into the uppermost corner of New Mexico, the travelers were anxious to arrive. Thomas knew, though, that here was the most danger—and now he realized that the boundaries which held María in this land of enchantment were more of her own making than that of a higher power. Thomas had read up on the state, which he now entered. This land held so much more than beautiful vistas. It was home to a melting pot of peoples: several Native American tribes, Hispanics whose ancestors settled here from mainly Mexico and Spain, and many others of varied and many nationalities, races, and cultures who sought the peace and serenity of the diverse landscapes the state provided.
​
From mountain ranges in the north and south-central portions, to desert like sections in the southwest, central and south eastern parts, with gorges and rock formations, cliff dwellings and caverns, the state had much to offer its residents and tourists alike. So many who ventured into the enchanted part of the southwestern United States fell in love with the varied landscapes and left their homes elsewhere for the fresh air and mystic mystery of the place. It was no wonder la Llorona and so many others of her ilk refused to leave it even when they passed. Haunting their favorite places, from hotels to individual houses, cemeteries, and churches, bars and brothels alike, like Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner, an unknown woman in white by the highway around Santa Rosa, and even a little boy haunting the Kimo Theatre in Albuquerque. New Mexico has always been a safe haven for ghosts. And they were spotted regularly enough that everyone believed in all of them.

The legend of la Llorona was, by far, the most widely known, however. She was the only one who had been spotted through the recent centuries in all of the south west states. Others, like el serpiente, were seen in specific locations. There were still others who were spotted in many places, but they seemed to be ghosts of different people. It was la Llorona, the Weeping Woman, who was spotted throughout the decades searching for her lost children as she wandered along both lush and nearly barren river banks from Utah, to California, to Mexico and the states between.

Just as Thomas approached the border at the top corner of the state, his intuition kicked in, stronger than at any time since his demise on the train collision. It was a punch to his mid-section that left him bent in pain as the hand not on the wheel pressed hard against his stomach. He inhaled with the intensity of the blow and sat up straight so fast his spine gave a crack.

And it was gone.

The moment the car flew past the state line dividing Colorado from New Mexico, he felt exhilarated—still concerned, wary, but not fearful—gee, had it been fear—he wondered, interrupting his own thoughts.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, alert like a watchdog to danger he senses in each bristle of hair on his spine, but not yet having caught the scent sufficiently to know what or where it was. Thomas opened his mouth to tell Tino once again to watch out for something, but there was a whoosh to his right—a blast of light from the window next to Tino as though something like a fireball had been flung from the sky into the forest with great strength.

"Ahhh!" The two pitches of baritone from older and younger man simultaneously would’ve been funny, especially when they turned to look into each other’s wide eyes before turning again to the woods. But what they saw was far from humorous.

Thomas floored the gas pedal for the third time and caused Tino to clutch what he could find to hold on. The trees caught fire, and within seconds the flames raced toward them.

Tongues of red, orange, yellow, and even white flames fluttered and reached for them.
When the car shot forward, so did the fire. It was as though a giant had blown a big breath toward them right from the spot of the initial explosion. The danger was immediate; Thomas felt the heat of the flames as they shot over the roof of the car before it accelerated. When Tino, crouching still in the passenger seat, looked into the door mirror, he could swear the flames formed a giant face—the face of a woman who seemed to be crying fire. He rubbed his eyes with both fists, blinked several times, and looked again. The flames were gone; there was no fire. Only a plume of black smoke rose into the sky like a finger pointing ever upward. And as it rose higher, the black turned gray, then white, and then dissipated into the air into nothing. The forest was intact, the trees as green as they always were. 

"I did not imagine that." Tino’s voice started with a quaver and finished with certainty. "What innocent explanation are you going to try to cover this disaster up with? At least with the avalanche you didn’t even try to explain, but with that tornado—when you tried to make light of it—nuh huh, no, no way. I need the truth, Thomas. Don’t try to pacify me anymore. There’s something up—something that’s been going on for a while, I can tell. I just don’t know what it is or why it seems to target us. This has to do with my parents' refusal to come back to New Mexico, doesn't it?"

Within a few hours, Thomas knew they’d reach their destination. He hadn’t changed his mind. He was not the one to tell the boy the truth.

"You need to go to sleep, son."
"Whaaa—"
"Hear me out." The hand he held up caused Tino to shut his mouth.
"Because of what you’ve witnessed on this trip, you should trust what I’m about to tell you will work, and do as I say. The answers you seek will come to you in sleep. Only in a deep, genuine sleep. So force yourself to relax with the sound of the road beneath the tires and the silence of the air around you. Sleep."

He said no more, and Tino didn’t ask for more. Just as he had stopped asking questions about the matter through the years because his parents always refused to answer, he knew he had to stop now and do as his older friend said. He gave himself a shake, loosening his limbs from tense to relaxed, leaned back against his seat, and crossed his arms over his chest. With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes and gave sleep his best effort. For a few miles, nothing happened. His mind swirled with questions and answers he guessed at, and he didn’t think he could stand a moment longer trying to quiet his thoughts. And that was when sleep came and drove his consciousness down into blackness, nothingness, and left his mind open and malleable to the entrance of the ancient ghost’s thoughts. ​

​Carmen Baca taught a variety of English and history courses from grades six through twelve and college levels over the course of thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. Her command of both English and Spanish enables her to write with true story-telling talent. Her debut novel, El Hermano, published in April of 2017 and became a NM-AZ Book Award Finalist. She has since published three more books and twenty-three short pieces in online literary magazines, women’s blogs, and anthologies. She and her husband enjoy a quiet life in the country, caring for the land and for their animals.

by Carmen Baca 

"La Muñeca" was a runner up in the 2018 Extra Fiction Contest
See here to read the first, second, and third winning entries and stay tuned for this year's upcoming Extra Fiction Contest.

​The redness of the flames stood out vividly against the blackness of the night. They rose from the open windows of the façade of the building front like multi-colored streamers from the Día de los Muertos celebrations in their varied hues of red, orange, yellow, even green and blue closer to the source of the fire. As if the Devil and his armies were celebrating some spectacular event in the old, formerly grand hotel, the sporadic flashes from within announced with small explosions that something else had just been consumed by the hungry beast. The roar was like nothing before heard in the town center, only on the outskirts if one stood close to the rail line when the Big Chief passenger train rushed through without stopping. If Hades could be imagined by humans, perhaps then this came close. Sudden flares rose through the roof and burst into flying embers and sparks rivaling the best Fourth of July fireworks display.   

Flames rose so high in the sky that night that people who lived in the hilly area south of the town could see, and many a head of the household left their comfy casitas to rush to the rescue while others simply went to have first-hand reports to tell anyone who would listen in the days to come. That is the way of human nature: some true altruists rush into the fray without stopping to consider their own safety while others seek their fifteen minutes of fame by being the center of attention when news, mitote (gossip,) or innuendo of any kind presents itself. It wasn’t until these two kinds of people reached the town plaza that they discovered the majestic and historic Casa Encantada was so engulfed in flames that they didn’t think even one wall would survive. 

​Earlier, three permanent inhabitants of the hotel began their day in their normal fashion: conversation, introspection, and reflection. They wandered through the halls and rooms of the building without constraint and only caused small gasps or shivers in the people they encountered occasionally. The younger of the trio loved yerba buena which she found growing in the patio and enjoyed blowing a breath of mint-scented air in the faces of the people she passed in the hall just for fun to watch their eyes widen, their mouths fall open, and their bodies shake themselves like a dog after taking a swim. Aside from curling up in the window alcove with a good book, that was one of the ways she entertained herself since going to school or anywhere else was out of the question.
​
When darkness began to replace the dusk of the late afternoon, the girl’s two adult companions sat in the parlor of the suite they inhabited. The lady’s laughter trickling from the second floor was so lovely it sounded like crystal chimes in a light breeze to the young man walking below the open window. When he glanced up, she moved back into the room. “Not again,” she giggled. “Reminds me of how I almost gave myself away when you caused Nicola to stumble upon the staircase the day of the quinceañera. I was afraid she was going to fall and hurt herself—all because you wanted a better vantage point.”

“That was a close one,” her husband, Señor Theodoro Barela, agreed. “I tried to push against her with my arm so she wouldn’t fall forward. I was trying to get out of the woman’s view, but she still caught my image in her camera.”
“You are not the only one in the photographs,” Señora Romulda Barela added with sudden solemnity. “The photo of the three of us must have caused much consternation among Nicola’s people.”

The young subject of their discourse walked into the room, carrying her rag doll in one arm as she usually did. Had she lived with her parents, it was unlikely she’d still be attached to the special symbol of what she’d left behind. She sat on the settee, the very same one where she’d been pretending to sleep when the couple appeared before her and asked if she was ready to join them that night several years before.
“That’s the one action I still have difficulty feeling good about,” Nicola sighed. “That I caused my mother such pain by leaving with you that night.”

The couple exchanged a concerned glance.

Nicola looked out the window down at the plaza and the townspeople of Mariposa. “But I’m sure the pain she would’ve felt seeing me get sicker every day with an incurable illness would’ve been worse. I’m content to be here with you and to catch an occasional glimpse of her when she comes to the plaza.”

The three sat in pensive silence as they watched the people of the town come and go in the early coolness of the evening. They were unable to leave the confines of the hotel, but they spent much of their days by the windows looking at people doing simple activities like walking, window shopping, visiting with others on the park benches, or playing with their children and pets on the green lawns in the summers or in the pristine snow of the winters. The couple had inhabited the hotel for over a hundred years while the girl had only been there for five. They were ghosts of the people they once were, but they existed just as sure as any of the humans they observed. Theirs was a quiet afterlife, and they were as content as they could be, given their circumstances.

But the trio didn’t know their happy ethereal existence in the historic hotel was about to come to an end. Left unattended for but a few minutes, hot grease in a skillet bubbled up and splattered on a dish towel someone had carelessly left by the stove. The chef and his two assistants were in the stockroom nearby taking inventory and preparing a grocery list. None knew a grease fire was searching for oxygen in the kitchen. By the time one of the men smelled the burning oil and they scrambled back into the cocina to tackle the flames, some had already begun to consume the nearby window curtains. The busboy opening the swinging door to the dining area created just the right amount of air flow to fan the hungry beast. With a sudden whoosh, the starving fire flashed into an explosion and before anyone could take action, the blaze engulfed the entire room.

The conflagration found more air through the open door to the dining area and the sparks jumped like lively, devilish creatures from furniture to carpet. Freed from any constraints, the embers soon followed, rolling along the wood floor and leaving more sparks to ignite. The employees at and around the reservation desk heard the roar of the hungry monster. Just as their attention flew in the direction of the wide entrance to the dining room, they felt the heat and saw the rising swirls of black smoke coming toward them at the same time the tongues of searing flames burst through. Cries of alarm rose in crescendo like the fire truck would only a few minutes later. Everyone rushed to the bar behind the reservation desk and ran through the exit to raise the cry of “Fire!”

The fire department was just down the block, but by the time the small engine got into place, the entire first floor was rapidly being devoured by the hungry conflagration. The guests and employees in the upper four stories evacuated quickly through the exterior fire escapes, so not a soul was lost that they knew of. Most of the back of the building suffered most of the damage when all was over. But the water damage and the blows of the bomberos’ axes made the building uninhabitable. The Casa Encantada closed its doors that day, leaving the three spiritual inhabitants alone.

Afterward, it stood abandoned but fenced in to prevent hoboes from attempting to live there and to deter any of the neighborhood adolescents from daring one another to explore, to vandalize, and most importantly, to become hurt by the fragility of the frame. Of the former classic and sophisticated building, only the front remained, like a painted façade of a movie set with nothing much behind to hold it up. The rear was reduced to a skeleton; in some areas only the basic framework of the exterior walls still stood. The wood was blackened, charred so badly in some places one had only to give a slight push and it cracked, splintered, and fell. During the night sometimes in the slightest breeze, neighbors heard the crash of another piece of lumber and shook their heads in dismay that the city leaders didn’t just tear it all down before someone was hurt.

Several months later Señor and Señora Barela and their young charge, Nicola, sat in the small space left relatively untouched by the fire, the parlor where they’d been conversing when the blaze began.

“Are we to reside here in this one cramped room for the rest of eternity?” Nicola asked, plopping down on her favorite window seat with her doll in her lap.

“Since we can’t leave this building, I don’t see any alternative, mi hita,” the elder man replied. “You know we have tried to go beyond our limited confines and what happens when we do.”

The lady sighed and shook her head. “Esposo querido, I cannot stay here, not like this.” She stood and waved her hand to the charred and water-damaged walls. “I am sure this frame will fall before long or will be torn down by the town fathers. It is time to leave this earth and welcome what awaits us in the next phase of our existence. Please, join me in this, mi amor.”
Sadness came to his face and made its home in the dying sparkle of his eyes, the downward turn of his lips, and in the resigned shrug of his shoulders as he finally nodded in acquiescence. “You are right. I know you are. We’ve spent too much time here already and have been of assistance to only a few others from this place.”

He recalled the custodian whom they’d saved over seventy years ago and who had already made his way to his own afterlife. There was also the hobo who’d come into the patio nearly fifty years before and also left his earthly existence for what came after only ten years later. There were several others, but nowhere as many had they been in a larger city and been able to leave the confines of the hotel. So much time had passed, neither he nor his wife could even remember why they were restricted to the walls of the previously large and comfortable building they called home for over a century.

“When would you like to go?”   
“Well, we’ve made up our minds. What’s wrong with tomorrow? Let us enjoy our last night here, for we don’t know whether we will be together after we leave.”
“I guess I’m ready too,” Nicola sighed. Her face was a reflection of the man’s, her eyes sad and her mouth trembling from the cries which gathered in the back of her throat.

The older couple comforted her as best they could, trying to be optimistic about their future together even though neither knew what was ahead. They’d lived good lives on earth when they were alive and expected that surely what they’d done as spiritual beings would count for something. They never knew why they had been unable to move forward previously, only existing to help those whom they could without question. The burning pyre which had consumed their home and their inability to move elsewhere on earth left them no choice but to move on.

The three spent the rest of the night in more conversation, reminiscing about their pasts with equal parts of laughter and sorrow until the fingers of the dawn began to part the curtains of darkness and sunrise was imminent. They enjoyed one last group hug, holding one another tightly and then moving to the first floor to stand before the front doors with clasped hands.
“Ready, my loves?” Señor Barela asked.
“I am.”
“Me too.”

With Señor Barela on the left and his wife between them, Nicola clutched her precious muñeca in one arm, wondering if somehow, some way, the doll would accompany her to her next destination. Not wanting to let either of his companions’ hands go, the Señor touched the tip of his boot to each door to get them to open. They stepped outside into the welcome warmth of the sun and lifted their faces to the rays which enfolded the three for the first time since each had died. For only a moment they stood still, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, they took a few steps more, and a few more until they reached the center of the park. They were allowed to feel the sunlight on their faces and arms, to take deep breaths of the freshness of the air, and to enjoy one last time the feel of the grass beneath their feet, their sight of the green foliage and trees and the bountiful and beautiful hues and scents of the flowers—and they were gone. No fanfare of angels’ trumpets, no clap of thunder, no opening in the clouds revealed the stairway to heaven. But the gated doors opened wide, and the saints were there to welcome the couple as they passed.

Nicola was not so lucky. Perhaps the powers which govern life, death, and the afterlife decided it was not her time. Perhaps she had unfulfilled duties on earth. But when the señor and his señora ascended through the gates to meet their Maker and to receive answers to all their questions, she was not with them.

The neighborhood kids, Anselmo, Gabriel, and Guillermo, decided on a dare several weeks later to pass through a loose board in the fence which enclosed the remains of the hotel.

​They were joined by the only girl they considered a friend, Carlotta, whom they called Charlie. Truthfully, she blackmailed them into letting her accompany them or they most likely would’ve left her behind. But there they were, the four of them, sneaking through the opening and prowling amongst the ruins for any treasures they might find. Of course, there wasn’t much on the ground. And everything was soot-covered, so touching anything left them with black fingers.
When Guillermo was the first to wipe his hand on his pants, it was Charlie who reminded him to “wash” the hollín off with dirt instead. Otherwise, their parents would all know where they’d been, and they wouldn’t be able to get away with coming back.

Other than a few coins, a couple of candle holders only partially melted, and a little metal box, they didn’t find much of value. Charlie went in one direction and the boys went opposite. She came upon a fallen chest of drawers, opening first one drawer after the other until she came to the last. A raggedy doll with only a touch of smoke damage looked up at her from the folds of a baby blanket in which it had been wrapped. She joined the boys shortly after.

“Look what I found,” she announced and held the doll up so they could see.
The boys were unimpressed, hoping she had found something of value they could pawn.
“Let’s use it for target practice,” Anselmo made to grab it with one hand while holding up his slingshot with the other.
“No!” Charlie yanked the doll to her chest to keep it safe. “I’m gonna give it to myhermanita.” And with that, she left the boys behind, taking the callejones behind the houses all the way home so no one would see her carrying a doll. She had her reputation to maintain.

Her little sister, Augusta, was only four. But she rarely spoke. She wasn’t mute, according to the doctors, nor was she simple-minded. She simply chose not to communicate with words when her actions could convey what she wanted. She had no friends since to be a friend requires some kind of communication, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she preferred her own company to that of others, except Charlie, and even then, only periodically, like when Charlie read to her at night or taught her to play jacks or some other game.

So when Charlie got home, she slipped quietly into the bathroom, washed the grime from the rag doll, and hung it to dry in her closet until the following day. That morning after breakfast, she found Augusta in her room quietly playing with her Susie Q doll. She presented the homely but somewhat homey muñeca to the little girl and told her the doll was special. She told Augusta she could tell the doll her secrets and the muñeca would keep them. Thinking that perhaps the doll could help to get the little one to talk more and perhaps be a conduit to communicating with other little girls, she made up a detail which she’d come to regret years later. She told Augusta the doll was magical and would help her learn to speak better.

From that day, the muñeca became Augusta’s constant companion. Charlie’s plan had backfired. Augusta didn’t want any human company once the doll came into her possession. She named it Esther, and when anyone asked how she came upon such an unusual choice, she always replied that the doll told her. After a month her parents thought perhaps the way she cared for, spoke to, and carried the thing everywhere was unhealthy. Truly, it appeared the doll communicated in some way as the child would whisper to it and incline her head as if listening to a quiet reply.

If the adults tried to take Esther away, Augusta’s cries were so forlorn they ended up giving it back before too long. Thinking they were making too much out of it, her parents convinced themselves she’d outgrow the muñeca with time or it would eventually fall apart. After all, it was a rag doll. 

Another year passed and still Augusta and her Esther doll were constant companions.

Though her parents were dismayed that their daughter was still too attached to the thing and that said cosa had grown no more tattered or ragged than it was when she got it, they welcomed the opportunity which arose that would allow them to separate the two. The little girl started school, and her parents insisted she leave her doll behind. Between them, Charlie, and other well-meaning family members supplying various reasons why Nicola couldn’t accompany her to school, Augusta finally relented. But she explained in as little words as possible the reason why, and it had nothing to do with any of theirs: “Esther says it’s okay.”

While she was away at escuela, her mother, Guadalupita, Pita for short, did what many mothers did in the fifties— cleaned, cooked, and enjoyed her hobbies: sewing, gardening, and crocheting. Her life was fairly uneventful, and she enjoyed it that way. Her adolescent and early adult years had had traumatic events, so she was content to have nothing of importance to contend with—nothing with life or death issues. Would that she had been able to see the future. Oftentimes, life’s lessons come in hindsight, and sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to our instinct, our own intuition to heed those little hairs that rise on the back of our necks or on our arms when we get that feeling people call “someone passing over our graves.”

So when a few days after Augusta started school and the strange phenomenon began, she tried to shake off any concern. Pita, leaving the room Augusta shared with Charlie, caught in the corner of her eye something moving. The act happened so quickly that when she turned, it had stopped. There was no window where she looked, nothing like a fluttering curtain to have captured her attention. Blinking her eyes and attributing it to exhaustion or imagination, she forgot about it.

Until the next time a week later. And the time after that. And...  She noted that every single time, the Esther doll was the object of her attention. There were instances where she’d leave the doll in one place only to discover it had moved. Telling herself she only forgot she’d left the thing there and instead had left it somewhere else, she tried to convince herself the muñeca had no powers.

But then she stopped a few weeks later to reflect about that: powers. Powers? She knew from the first she’d sensed in the doll something so mesmerizing her own daughter clung to it like a drug. Never far from the Esther doll, Augusta always kept it in her sight, perhaps afraid they’d try to sneak it away from her. When she held it, her little girl seemed to be at peace.

When she whispered to her doll, she inclined her head to place her ear close to its mouth as though listening closely to whatever she imagined (and surely it had to come from her imagination). And she wore such an expression of contentment that one would’ve thought the angels of the Lord were speaking to her. That was the moment of revelation for Guadalupita.

The doll wasn’t cursed; it was blessed. She didn’t know how or why, but if the doll insisted it was Esther and had such a positive influence on her daughter as to cause her to wear that look of bliss on her face, who was she to say otherwise? The muñeca hadn’t done anything, had not endangered Augusta or any of them. She’d merely satisfied some need in her daughter that human interaction or contact didn’t.

That very day she entered the girls’ bedroom and picked Esther up. Staring into her cross-stitched eyes, Pita was surprised to see a sort of compassion and when she held the doll close, it actually felt as if Esther’s little arms moved, as if she wanted to embrace the woman back. But instead of fear, a sudden and overwhelming feeling of absolute contentment came over her, as if the doll extended her sympathy for Pita’s past traumas and tried to offer empathy for what was and for what would come.

She tried and failed to explain to her husband later and resorted to leading him by the hand to the girls’ room, pushing him to sit on Charlie’s bed and placing Esther in his arms. She left him alone. It wasn’t long before he joined her in the kitchen where he put the beer back in the fridge and instead opted for a glass of cold water. The look on his face told her what she needed to know.

Since the girls were still at school, they rushed the doll to their parish priest and had him bless Esther for their own peace of mind. Father Carlos didn’t feel any kind of trepidation when he held it, and nothing happened at the church to any of them. Any concerns they had dissipated, and they were instead convinced they’d been right. They never spoke of what they did to their girls; they never mentioned it to anyone.

So the first two years of Augusta’s education passed without incident. She found school delightful and indeed made a few friends. Esther was still an important confidante, and both Charlie and Pita laughed between themselves that soon Augusta would confide in her doll about which boy she should return attention to of the upcoming suitors she’d be sure to attract.

That was not to be, however.

On the very anniversary of the day Señor and Señora Barela had entered their heavenly home, Augusta disappeared from her swing under the large apple tree in her family’s backyard. She was gone without a trace. Investigations from every jurisdiction in the city came together; searches yielded nothing. The parents, clearly heartbroken, were cleared. So were her sister, friends, neighbors, and even acquaintances. No suspects came to light, no leads developed—there was no closure, as they say. The entire town wanted to know what happened, especially in light of the disappearance of the little girl for that ill-fated quinceañera of five years before.

When Nicola’s parents heard about Augusta, they paid the De La Cruz parents a visit.

Nicola’s mother, Hortencia, disclosed that Esther was Nicola’s third name, her confirmation name. Her full name as recorded in her birth certificate was Nicola Frances Esther De La Cruz.

As for the muñeca, it was the one given to Nicola by the quinceañera herself, Marguerite Quintanilla, her own cousin. They proved it with a photograph from the event. Pita nearly fainted at the confirmation. Hortencia saw how deeply she had been affected and gave her one of three similar photos as a gesture of comfort.

However, no amount of rationalization on anyone’s parts could satisfy everyone with a plausible explanation—not the two sets of parents, not the authorities, nor the priest or the bishop when contacted. Sometimes those of us who live by our faith in a higher power have to accept that there are certain aspects of life, death, or the beyond which we do not have the capacity to understand. This was one of those times. No one could confirm what happened with Nicola or Augusta, or even with Esther, the muñeca, who had disappeared with her owner. The town fathers brought in their heavy equipment and their city employees and cleared out the remains of the hotel, sifting through every little pile to satisfy everyone that the girls and the doll were not somehow there. Though no rational explanation of why anyone thought they might was provided, it was something everyone wanted done.

There were only two mothers who shared a secret the next day after construction on the rebuilding of Casa Encantada began, which was the day after they had exchanged a special photograph. Before bed that night, Pita had sat with the photo in her hand. After a moment she felt a weight lift from her shoulders, and her headache, which had arrived with a vengeance the day her little girl went missing, also went away.

​She felt at peace and went immediately to bed. In her dreams Augusta came to explain that the muñeca had held the spirit of the little girl who vanished before she did. She made her mother understand that Nicola would have spent her short life in the agony of a fatal illness, and that angels had offered her a way to escape into heaven to avoid not only her own pain, but that of her mother and father.

They would have been helpless to help her, which would have hurt them in so many ways. And she was afraid they’d experience hopelessness and lose their faith. Departing as she did allowed her to leave her parents with their faith that what happened would be part of God’s plan and accept it.

Nicola’s spirit had remained in the muñeca to offer the same help to the next little girl who was fated to meet her. Nicola confirmed that Augusta was soon to have become ill; she would’ve died before the end of the year. Nicola had done what she needed to leave this plane and emerge whole and healthy in the next; she saved another as she had been saved. As for the muñeca, let’s just add a little warning here if we may. If you come across a raggedy-looking doll with cross-stitch eyes in the newly constructed Casa Encantada, you might think twice before picking her up. 

​Review of ChupaCabra Meets Billy the Kid, 
a Rudolfo Anaya Extra-Fiction Novel

By Armando Rendón

In Rudolfo Anaya’s latest book,ChupaCabra Meets Billy the Kid,  science as in science-fiction gives way to the true fundamental forces of nature as he weaves a story that flashes back and forth in time.
The title is misleading because it’s not really ChupaCabra, the goatsucker demon of Mexican lore, that meets Billy the Kid, a historical human artifact mythologized by Western writers of the purple prose, but a clash of realities. Obviously, the title suggests some weirdness going on. Is it fantasy, sci-fi, horror, a retro version of the time travel gimmick?
Or is Rudy just pulling our collective leg?
As with really good time-travel yarns, underlying the storyline are critical views of society, its social mores or disregard for humane values. I would say that in all the best science fiction I’ve read over half a century – that’s a lot of reading – writers generally conjure up the bad guys or create a social setting that contrasts with the narrator/author’s own time.
In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the protagonist reconfigures a chair with odd bells and whistles, powered by who knows what and travels thousands then tens of thousands of years into the future. It seems he never returned from his last trip, so the Traveler may still be out there.
In a way, Anaya has come, I was going to say, full circle, but only half circle back to his highly acclaimed book, Bless Me, Ultima, which is on many reading lists of schools throughout the U.S. Ultima, the curandera who becomes a spiritual guide for Antonio, the young protagonist in the story, imbues the book with her other-worldly persona and a powerful aura of mysticism.
To Anaya, his homeland is a mystical place, the mountains guardians of secrets and beauties found nowhere else, its rivers arteries of life in an otherwise harsh land, and a challenge to survival which his forebears have continually encountered for generations. I’ve caught a glimpse of these truths—seeing how mountain peaks jut up to cut off the horizon, finding a río at the bottom of a gorge by a glint of sun, leaning back a chair  against a sun-warmed adobe wall...
Anaya’s treatment here conveys the hardships of survival in the New Mexico of the latter 1800s into the early 1900s following the takeover by the U.S. government of half the territory of Mexico as a result of America’s invasion of Mexican territory beyond the Rio Bravo (Grande). Those hostilities ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848.
Yet, this book also celebrates the nuevomexicanos who survived for generations from the meager resources the earth grudgingly gave up. Their devotion to a religion which was increasingly remote resulted in the creation of homegrown zealots, los penitentes, a secretive society of men who preserved the religiosity of the communities through extreme exercises of penitence and sacrifice. The hard life of the early residents resulted in a resolute people, determined to survive in spite of the hardships faced every day.
This is how I perceive nuevomexico, from readings (Anaya’s works and others) and conversations and the few times I’ve ventured into the state, traveling far up toward the headwaters of the Rio Grande in the San Juan mountains of Colorado.
Out of this history evolved a few persons whom I got to know personally: Tomás Atencio, who created a literary headwaters in Dixon, co-founder of La Academia de la Nueva Raza and author of Resolana: A Chicano Pathway to Knowledge; Enriqueta Vasquez, who was one of the first Chicanas to publish a book on the Chicano Movement (Viva la Raza, 1974) and was part of founding the newspaper, El Grito del Norte, in 1968, about the same time that Quinto Sol Publications arose in Berkeley, which by the way was first to publish Bless Me, Ultima, and Con Safos out of East Los Angeles; Esteván Arellano, a writer and photographer, who drove me up into the mountains the time I met Atencio, and Reies Tijerina, who was a Tejano, but allied himself with and became the most prominent leader of the land grant movement in New Mexico.
And Anaya.
This sampling of people and experiences inform my reading of ChupaCaba Meets Billy the Kid. I say Anaya circled halfway back to Ultima, because the plot in this book depends heavily on tried and true sci-fi gimmicks, though the story is set in the middle of the Lincoln County War of 1878.
A super deep state government unit, operating out of the infamous Area 51, called the C-Force, which also answers directly to the White House; an incredible experiment run by C-Force gone awry which combines the DNA of chupacabra and alien DNA (think Area 51) to produce a devilishly vicious though sometimes clownish hybrid called a Saytir; the good-old wormhole angle worms its way in somehow (well, I know but I’m not telling), and the time-lapping magical laptop (magical because it seems to have a solar powered charger in 1878) that  functions for note taking and for checking emails from this now (2018).
The reference to the White House, that is, to an actual living person is rare in science-fiction. But Anaya’s story is happening in real time—his book is fresh off the presses. The president has authority over the C-Force and its members are continually advising him. (Does the C stand for ChupaCabra or Chili? Is C-Force to blame for the direction of current events? Is the current president really a Saytir?)
In other words, Anaya throws every quirky sci-fi accoutrement ever devised into the fray. You’ve got to love it.
Something seemed to be lacking in the story for me as I started to read it, but then I met the aspiring writer protagonist, Rosa, who believes it is her mission to write the true story about Billy the Kid. The true story, “it’s what every writer wants,” she says, still queasy though from some of the not so savory action she’d seen so far. So, lots of background fact-gathering, laying the groundwork for the story, but little of the spiritual or otherworldly that could connect us to his earlier writings, especially Ultima. Yet, Ultima lies in wait in the background throughout the book. For example, look for the flashback to the movie of the Anaya classic.
Rosa, the young person documenting all these events and characters, teams up with Billy the Kid, who mysteriously shows up at her new-found digs in 1878 New Mexico. A sort of platonic relationship ensues—Billy is a very approachable fellow with the young ladies even though rather reproachable otherwise.
So how does Rosa end up in 1878?
Rosa’s chief means of transportation is by horse, of course. She witnesses key events in Billy the Kid’s last few days and shares the lives of kind Mexican American hosts who give her food and shelter, even lend her a proper dress for a señorita to go to el baile, basically because she is friend of Bilito, the Kid.
Armed with her laptop and with a lot of time on her hands, so to speak, as she battles writer’s block or rides shutgun next to the Kid, Anaya, I mean, Rosa, ponders a number of issues: the very notion of time, the role of literature in culture, what is driving her even to consider writing about this outlaw and what happened in a backwater of history 140 years ago, like who cares? Rosa suggests that there is far more to comprehend beyond what we see or seek to comprehend. “Time makes something new of us all,” Rosa tells Billy as the Kid’s own timeline draws to a close. Some of us have more time than others, she fails to add. Rosa, of course, knows Billy’s last day is approaching—but she can’t reveal that fact.
After what seems like months living in this past world, Rosa begins to worry about how she is to return; there’s no ponderous circus balloon she can take to get back home.
Exactly the point, because we want to find out what happened, she has to come back to our real “time” and tell us, but how does she get back? A low-rider spaceship with hydraulics powered by frijoles de la olla?
No, chale! The force that bends space and time, Anaya tells us, is beyond quantum physics, string theory, time warps, marvelous spaceships powered by dilithium crystals to visit San Francisco Bay in the 1950s, let alone a barrio kid’s scooter that magically carries him back to historic moments in Chicano history.
We know that somehow she made it back. All the while she has been recording what she sees and hears. At the end of the book, she has graciously provided a detailed timeline, “Rosa’s Notes and Observations,” downloaded from her laptop no doubt of what she saw, so that’s proof. But the question still remains, how?
When we find out what that inexorable source of energy is, all falls into place. This is what Anaya is getting at. It’s what he has been writing about all his life. How we ourselves can be transported back in time, back to a transcendent period of our own. It’s so obvious when you read the book.


Armando Rendón is editor/founder of Somos en escrito Magazine, author of Chicano Manifesto (1971, 1996), and creator of Young Adult novels, including the four-part series, The Adventures of Noldo and his Magical Scooter, (2013-2016) and the latest Noldo novel, The Wizard of the Blue Hole (2018).

For an excerpt from ChupaCabra Meets Billy the Kid, a Rudolfo Anaya novel, the book was featured recently in Somos en escrito under the title, “I am becoming a recorder of history.” The book is available at ChupacabrabyAnaya.

¿Qué somos en esta vida?
Just what are we in this life?
Un costal lleno de huesos, 
A sack full of bones.
Y una cosa corrompida, 
And rotten stuffing.
¡Ay, ay, cuán amarga es la muerte 
Oh how bitter is death
Y qué dulce fue la vida!
And oh how sweet was life!
—Miguel Casías, San Juan, New Mexico, July 7, 1989

​​Every day in Mora two or three new graves were dug to accommodate the victims of the previous day’s scourge. So many people had died in such a short time that in some precincts the people tired of opening new graves and they began to bury the dead one on top of the other. Enriqueta Vásquez fell sick with the illness on a cold January day. She had buried her husband and seen her father-in-law, an older sister, two uncles, an aunt, and three of her cousins buried in the span of the month and a half that the influenza had raged in the mountain valley. Enriqueta was Julia Pacheco de Steiner’s granddaughter, and people often talked about the striking resemblance she bore to her grandmother. Enriqueta was a young bride about whom people said, “She is like Julia in every way.” Later, when people tried to make sense of her death, they said that the reason Enriqueta had fallen so quickly was because she had been weakened by the birth of her second daughter. “She had not yet rested the forty days a new mother should before she was out burying her kin,” they said.
Enriqueta’s second daughter was born in the first days of the influenza, and her birth brought hope and joy. Cándida had the blue eyes of her German great-grandfather and the soft dark skin of her mestiza great-grandmother. Enriqueta cradled the child in her arms and nursed her with the sweet milk of her breast in the amber light of the oil lamps that lit the rooms of her home.
One Saturday afternoon, Enriqueta felt soreness in her shoulders and she retired to her bedroom even before the sun had gone down. She laid Cándida beside her in the bed and picked up her missal and prayed the Divine Praises in preparation for hearing Mass the next morning. She could not keep her eyes open and left off reading at the epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany at the verses “Be patient in turbulence and persevering in prayer.” She slept until Cándida’s cries woke her. So deep was her sleep that at first she thought she had only napped, but her breasts were heavy with the night’s milk and she thought, “I must nurse Cándida.” At midmorning, Enriqueta began to shiver with chills and she complained of drafts through the house. Corina Lucero, the médica that attended her, did not let her up from bed, and Enriqueta slept soundly for several more hours. She awoke drenched in a copious sweat that had formed an outline of her delicate body on the sheets of her bed. On Sunday afternoon, Cándida began to show the first signs of having contracted her mother’s illness, and Corina Lucero had her crib moved to an adjoining room where she could better watch over the child. Cándida’s eyes had lost their natural brilliance and had dulled to the color of gray river rock. She cried and dozed in fits and spurts. The silver sliver of a waning moon hung over La Jicarita, and Cándida’s shrill cries threatened to rend the ice-blue sky of that January evening.
At a quarter to seven on the morning of the second day, Enriqueta spoke, but her words confounded those around her. She looked at Corina and said, “Are you the devil?” and pointing at the darkened corners of the room, she continued, “And are they your consorts?” She rubbed her fist against her left eye and shouted, “This horrid smoke, it burns my eyes! Open the dampers on the stoves!” Then she fell into a deep coma and did not regain consciousness. The fever continued to consume mother and daughter, but try as Corina might, nothing she did quelled its progress. Neither the sponge baths, nor the paper-thin slices of potatoes to cool the forehead, nor the herb tea, nor the prayers to San Ramón broke the fever’s grip. At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, Enriqueta’s breathing sounded like sand running through a sieve. Corina strained to hear a heartbeat. It was distant, like thunder in a snowstorm. The old woman advised the family: “Call the padre, Enriqueta is at the very edge of this life.” The Dutch priest, Padre Munnecom, was presiding over a funeral at Chacón in the upper valley and did not arrive till midafternoon. After giving Enriqueta the last rites, he said, “She is dead. Bury her quickly.” Before leaving, he inquired about the child’s health. Corina looked down at the floor and answered, “Gravely ill, she is very weak, Padre.”
A delegation of penitentes came to bury Enriqueta. After praying over her, those hermanos who had known her grandmother as a young woman asked each other, “How can it be that one person can be reborn into life as another?” They did as the family asked and buried Enriqueta next to her grandmother, Julia Pacheco de Steiner. They lowered the simple wooden casket into the darkness of a fresh grave at the upper campo santo on the road to the village of El Oro. Enriqueta’s sister, Lourdes Paiz, her eyes swollen and red from days of mourning, had reached her wit’s end with worry and fatigue. That evening as the family gathered to console themselves and fortify their weary bodies with sweet breads and strong coffee, Lourdes lost her composure when the old woman Corina said in resignation, “It must be God’s will.”
“Shut up, you old witch,” cried Lourdes, “if we didn’t have to depend on your foolish remedies and your useless hand-wringing, Enriqueta would be alive now! Look at the Americans,” she said, “their doctors keep them from such misery.” ’Mana Corina responded, “Child, the American doctors have their understanding of things and I have mine. But it seems that compassion is not a part of their science of things. Have you ever seen an Americano doctor cross the threshold of one of our homes? It is what we have, mi hija, foolish remedies, cure patches, and tea baths like those that cooled your old man Romaldo’s body when his skin peeled back from his flesh after the boiler exploded at Don Tito’s sawmill in Chacón.”
When Lourdes was calm again, she said, “Forgive me, Corina. It’s just that these blows that life has dealt us have been so fierce. I did not mean to blame you. You have done what you could. When Cándida’s fever breaks, send her to me.” Lourdes continued, “I will raise her and she will not want for anything nor will she know what it is to be an orphan.”
Cándida’s crying subsided, drifting into quiet sobs, then stopped altogether, but the fever would not break. Like her mother, she fell into a coma and her life grew fainter and fainter as the hours of the night pushed toward the new day. At seven the next morning, her tiny body wrenched in violent spasms and she coughed up a wad of mucus and coagulated blood. An hour later she was cold and her arms stiffened like the limbs of a doll. Her eyes were open, but she was dead. Cándida was dressed in a white gown. Corina placed a pair of brown shoes on her feet and on her head an ornate crown fashioned from an old piece of tin. Then she placed a branch of piñón wrapped with faded crepe paper and adorned with gourds for a staff at the child’s side. She was presented to her mourning family as an angelita, a little angel, because she had died without knowing either the stain of evil or the false joy of this world. All during Mass and during her Rosary, the villagers imagined Cándida’s soul winging its way to heaven along the shafts of sunlight that pierced the rolling winter clouds above them. ’Mana Cortina refused to follow the cortege to the cemetery and she turned back at the first stop. “This sickness be damned,” she cried as she touched Cándida, lying in the black cardboard casket, one last time. “Little messenger,” she whispered, “tell Almighty God in his Glory that his people suffer much upon this earth. Tell him, my child, in case He has forgotten us.”
Lourdes Paiz asked that as a proper and fitting thing the infant Cándida be interred with her mother. Again the penitente brothers opened the grave they had closed only a day earlier. The wet earth sliced open like clay on a potter’s wheel until their shovels sounded hollow drumbeats upon Enriqueta’s pine coffin. The men heaved, grasping at the edges to pry back the coffin’s lid and deposit the infant daughter. In the dark pit they drew back the white shroud, their lanterns swinging high over Enriqueta’s face until they could see it clearly.
“Ay, Dios,” came up the gasps of the men who were waist deep in the shallow grave. Enriqueta’s eyes were open and her face was contorted, her mouth agape as though locked in a silent scream. Her hands were not clasped upon her chest in peaceful repose, but were tangled in the long strands of Enriqueta’s raven black hair. Her fists were full of the tufts of hair she had torn from her head. “Ay, Dios mío,” those at the graveside shouted in horror as they stepped back, “Enriqueta was buried alive!”

​Cada día en Mora se sacaban dos o tres sepulcros más para acomodar las víctimas de la plaga del día antes. Tanta gente había muerto en tan poco tiempo que en algunos precintos los vivos se cansaron de abrir nuevos sepulcros y comenzaron a enterrar a los difuntos unos sobre otros. Enriqueta Vásquez se puso mala en un día frío de enero. Ella había enterrado a su esposo y había visto morir a su suegro, una hermana mayor, dos tíos, una tía y tres de sus primos hermanos en lo que iba del mes en el que la influenza había arrasado con los pueblerinos del valle.
Enriqueta era la nieta de Julia Pacheco de Steiner, y la gente solía comentar el parecido asombroso que guardaba con su abuela. De Enriqueta, recién casada, decían, “Es la dijunta Julia en todo y por todo”. Más tarde cuando la gente se puso a averiguar la causa de su muerte, se aseguraba que se había enfermado tan repentinamente por la débil condición en que se hallaba tras el parto de su segunda hija: “No había descansado los cuarenta días del parto cuando ya andaba enterrando a sus parientes”.
La segunda niña de Enriqueta había nacido en los primeros días de la influenza, y su llegada trajo esperanza y júbilo. Cándida tenía los ojos azules de su bisabuelo alemán y la tez blanda y morena de su bisabuela mestiza. A las tres semanas de nacida, Enriqueta la apechaba en brazos y la amamantaba con la dulce leche de su seno en la pálida luz de las lámparas de aceite que alumbraban las salas de la casa.
Un sábado por la tarde, Enriqueta sintió un dolor en los hombros y se retiró a su cuarto a descansar antes de que el sol de aquella tarde cayera. Acostó a Cándida a su lado en el lecho de su cama y agarró su libro de oraciones y rezó las Divinas Alabanzas para prepararse para asistir a la Misa del día siguiente. No pudo resistir el sueño y dejó de leer la epístola del primer domingo después de la Epifanía a lo alto de los versos, “Tened paciencia en la turbulencia y preservad en la oración”. Durmió hasta que los lloriqueos de la niña la despertaron al alba. Tan rendida estaba al sueño que quiso creer que sólo había dormitado, pero sus pechos llenos con la leche de la noche la desmintieron. Pensó, “Tengo que amamantar a Cándida”. Unas horas después, Enriqueta sintió escalofríos y se quejó de las corrientes de aire que atravesaban la casa. Corina Lucero, la médica que la atendía, no quiso que se levantara para salir a Misa, y Enriqueta se volvió a acostar y durmió unas horas más. Cuando despertó, estaba empapada en un copioso sudor que había dejado perfilado su delicado cuerpo en las sábanas de su camalta. El domingo por la tarde, Cándida comenzó a dar indicios de que se había contagiado de la enfermedad de la mamá. Corina Lucero hizo que trasladaran la cuna de la niña a su cuarto para poder mejor ver de ella. Los ojos de Cándida perdieron su fulgor natural y se volvieron gris como las piedras boludas en el lecho del río. Cándida comenzó a llorar y a dar sobresaltos y estallidos. La astilla de una luna menguante colgaba sobre la cumbre de la Jicarita, y los chillidos de la niña amenazaban con rasgar la bóveda helada del cielo azul de aquella tarde de enero. A las siete menos cuarto de la mañana, Enriqueta habló, pero sus palabras trastornaron el pensamiento de los que la rodeaban. Miró a ’mana Corina y dijo, “¿Eres el diablo?”, y señalando con el dedo las sombras en las esquinas del cuarto, siguió maldiciendo, “Y aquellas son tus consortes?”. Se alisó el ojo izquierdo con su mano derecha y gritó, “¡Ay, qué feo humo! ¡Me arden los ojos! ¡Abran los apagadores de los fogones!”. Después se desmayó y no volvió en sí de nuevo. La calentura seguía consumiendo tanto a la madre como a la hija, y por más que Corina Lucero lo intentara, no pudo abatir su progreso. Ni los remojos, ni las rabanadas de papas que colocó en la frente de Julia, ni el té de estafiate, ni las oraciones a San Ramón pudieron contra aquella fiebre. A las nueve de la mañana el martes, el aliento raspaba como arena que cae por un cedazo. Corina quiso pulsar el latir de su corazón, pero se oía distante como truenos apagados por el peso de una gran nevada. La médica les dijo a los familiares, “Llamen al padre, Enriqueta vacila entre la vida y la muerte”.
El párroco holandés, el Padre Munnecom, asistía a un funeral en Chacón, en el valle de arriba, y no llegó hasta después de mediodía. Después de darle los últimos auxilios a Enriqueta, les dijo a los presentes, “Está muerta. Entiérrenla”. Antes de irse preguntó por la niña. ’Mana Corina no alzaba la mirada del piso y respondió, “Malita, grave. Ella tampoco da de sí, Padre”.
Una comisión de la hermandad de penitentes se encargó de abrir la sepultura de Enriqueta. Después de rezarle la encomendación del alma, aquellos que habían conocido a la abuela de Enriqueta en su mocedad se preguntaron unos a otros, “¿Cómo puede ser que una persona renazca en otra?”.
Hicieron lo que la familia les había pedido y enterraron a Enri- queta a un lado de su abuela. Bajaron el ataúd de madera con cuidado, depositándolo en una sepultura recién cavada en el camposanto de arriba en el camino que sube al pueblo de El Oro.
Lourdes Paiz, la hermana de Enriqueta, sus ojos hinchados y rojizos tras días enteras de congojas y duelo, estaba loca del dolor. Aquella tarde cuando se reunió la familia para conformarse y for- talecer sus cuerpos con tazas de espeso café y empanadas dulces, Lourdes perdió su compostura cuando oyó a ’mana Corina decir con resignación, “Será la voluntad de Dios”.
“Se me calla, vieja bruja”, le gritó Lourdes Paiz, “si no tuviéramos que depender en tus inútiles remedios y el esdrujar de tus manos, Enriqueta estuviera buena y sana ’hora mismo.” “¿Que no ve a los americanos”, dijo, “sus dotores los apartan de esta miseria?”. ’Mana Corina le respondió, “Mira, hija, los americanos tienen su cono- cimiento y yo tengo el mío. Pero parece que tendremos que esperar hasta que la compasión entre en su ciencia de las cosas. ¿A caso, has visto que pase un dotor americano por el umbral de una de nuestras casas? Esto es lo que tenemos, mi hija, remedios, parches y baños de té como los que entibiaron el cuerpo de tu viejo, Romaldo, cuando se le despellejaba la piel de la carne cuando explotó la vaporizador de la máquina de rajar de don Tito en Chacón”.
Cuando Lourdes se repuso, le dijo, “Discúlpame, Corina. Pero es que estos golpes han sido tan brutales. No quise echarte la culpar. Sé que has hecho lo posible. Cuando se le pase la calentura a Cándida, mándamela a casa. Yo tendré cargo de que no le falte nada y la criaré y no sabrá lo que es ser huérfana”.
Los lloriqueos de Cándida se fueron apagando y se tornaron en pucheros, pero no se le quitaba la calentura. Igual que su madre, se desmayó y su vida se hizo cada vez más tenue a medida que las horas de la noche avanzaban hacia el nuevo día. A las siete de la mañana, su pequeño cuerpo se acalambró y la niña vomitó una bola viscosa de sangre coagulada. Una hora más tarde su cuerpo estaba frío y sus bracitos se entumecieron como los de una muñeca. Sus ojos siguieron abiertos, pero estaba muerta.
A Cándida se le vistió en una bata blanca. ’Mana Corina le calzó los pies con unos zapatitos marrones y le colocó una corona hecha de un pedazo de estaño en la cabeza. Luego puso a un lado de la niña la rama de un árbol de piñón envuelta en papel barato y adornada de guajes amarillos para que le sirviera de bastón. Se le presentó a la familia como una angelita porque había muerto sin conocer la mancha de maldad, ni había entrado en el retozo falso de este mundo. Durante la Misa y durante el Rosario, los aldeanos se imaginaban que el alma de Cándida volaba al cielo, subiendo por los rayos de luz que perforaban las nubes revueltas que pasaban por encima.
’Mana Corina no quiso acompañar el cortejo al camposanto y se volvió en el primer descanso. “Malahaya esta enfermedá”, sollozaba al tocar por vez última el diminutivo cuerpo de Cándida que yacía en un ataúd hecho de cartón negro. “Linda angelita, mandataria nuestra”, dijo, “dile a mi Tata Dios que en su reino ’stá, dile que su gente sufre demasiadas penas sobre la tierra. Díselo, niña, por si se ha olvidado de nosotros” Lourdes Paiz pidió que como justo y propio se enterrara a la niña Cándida con su madre en la misma sepultura. Otra vez los hermanos penitentes abrieron el sepulcro que acababan de cerrar la tarde antes. La tierra húmeda se rebanaba como barro en las manos del alfarero hasta que sus palas vinieron a sonar huecos golpecitos sobre el cajón de pino abeto de Enriqueta. Los hombres se esforzaban asiéndose de las orillas para levantar la tapadera y para depositar a la hija infanta. Corrieron a un lado el sudario blanco, columpiando sus faroles en alto sobre la fosa oscura hasta que el rostro de Enriqueta se dejó ver por completo.
“Ay, Dios mío”, se oyeron los quejidos de los hombres que estaban parados a media rodilla en el pozo. Los ojos de Enriqueta estaban abiertos y su cara estaba torcida, su boca estaba abierta, asida en un alarido sigiloso. Las manos de la difunta no yacían sobre su pecho en actitud de paz y reposo, sino que estaban enmarañados en los bucles de su lindo y negro cabello. Tenía los puños llenos de los mechones de pelo que se había arrancado de la cabeza. “¡Ay, Dios mío”, dijeron los que rodeaban la fosa, al tambolearse hacia atrás, “Enriqueta fue enterrada viva!”.

​The last few years have been good for books on the Northern New Mexican region.  In 2015 out came Farolito, a poetry chapbook on elder abuse set in Mora by Karen S. Cordova.  Last year, 2017, came the wonderful book about penitentes, El Hermano by Carmen Baca (featured on Somos en escrito along with her latest book set similarly,Las Mujeres Misteriosas) and The Book of Archives by Gabriel Melendez, a finalist for the International Latino Award.  


The Book of Archives is a novella of vignettes based around oral history of the hispano people of Mora, New Mexico.  It is a dual language book, the novella first in English, then in Spanish, New Mexican Spanish that is, known for retaining some archaic usages.   


Dr. Melendez has already written books on persevering New Mexican literature and culture—check out his book The Writings of Eusebio Chacón, a literary figure part of a literary renaissance in Las Vegas, New Mexico in the 1880s, something almost lost to history.


The Book of Archives takes on quite a lot—to create a book of oral tales and histories of Mora county metaphorically through the fictional book of archives, even more metaphorically destroyed by the US bombardment of Mora for its part in the Taos Revolt.  What was that, the Taos Revolt?  You mean the US bombed the town of Mora and burned all its ranches?  If you ask these questions, it exemplifies one of the needs for a book such as The Book of Archives.
Quickly, as the motif of the book of archives relates, the Taos revolt arose from New Mexicans interested in resisting the US invasion as, deceived by a paid off Mexican governor, they found themselves already occupied and offered no resistance. The likes of Kit Carson marched on to California, where he burned native villages and Californio ranches.  Pueblos and hispanos attacked Americans in the New Mexican colony and then the soldiers upon their return. The US army took revenge and bombed Mora and burned everyone’s house and ranch.  And here we get to the fictional book of archives.  The book which recorded our history and tales was hit by an American cannonball, sending pages to the wind.  The Book of Archives attempts to recreate a record of the things the US has decimated—our history, our memory, our stories.


My grandfather’s side, Fernandezes, as well as Pachecos and Arguellos, are from Mora.  Many of the families talked about in The Book of Archives would be my distant and not too distant relatives.  Some of the tales are familiar and some are rather pan-hispano, Juan Tonto or Stupid John for pochos such as myself.  Mora is a place of high altitude, around 7,000 feet, enough for a coastal person like myself (cowabunga) to draw an extra breath while walking the family ranch. I remember going to Mora for family reunions and visits since 1977 (I can remember being quite young).  Sparsely populated, many ranches and sheep, which have now given way to those Alpaca-monsters.  The Mora accent is singsong.  I joke it sounds like singsong Mexican with movie Apache.  Men of my grandfather’s generation spoke rather curt, but when I think of Mora I think of some of the kindest people who love jokes and throwing parties (hey, I’ve always been a visiting relative, your mileage may vary).  And you always have to eat.
While Mora is an out of the way place, it and its inhabitants have figured in Chicano literature.  Fray Chavez, often called the godfather of Chicano literature, grew up in Mora and became an important historian and genealogist of New Mexico. Some of his stories display some of the not so great aspects of the hispano character, but more on that later, as it comes up wonderfully in The Book of Archives.
Mora is a beautiful place.  It’s full of traditional houses and churches, wooded mountains, grassy hills and antelope, as well.  The Book of Archives gives a good sense of place and the earliest histories of Mora being a stopover place and how native people and hispanos in the early 1800s finally made something more permanent there. Comancheros, villains in such books as Lonesome Dove, have never been more than impoverished New Mexicans who sought out Comanches to trade for their buffalo hides, booty from their raids, and unfortunately captives--slaves. Though out of the way, trade routes to New Mexico have always been important and fictionalized (take a look at the bandoliered Jawas as they trade robot-captives on la frontera of Tatooine).


Mora is still a rural place, though I recall in the 1970s, you could only see the ranch house and the original shack my great great grandfather built on Rancho Fernandez.  Now that house burned down and they built a new one for my great aunt Maclovia before she passed away along with another house on the ranch and several neighbors.  Rural existence is tough, you can’t pay your land tax in sheep, so many people go far to look for work.  There are many land issues and displacements going on today as gringos having finally considered the land there valuable enough to buy up and have put the community described in The Book of Archives at risk of dissolution.


Melendez seems to have gleaned many documents and spoken to many people for the history of Mora.  Perforce many Chicano books are postmodern (thanks to Dr. Melendez for spelling it out), Old Testament-like mixes of legends, myths, letters and histories. 

The Book of Archives is even more so as it includes notes from tax documents, land titles, military reports, as well as the aforementioned myths and histories, including those within recent memory of family history (the adopted Quintana who was raised by Carmen and Mama Clarita comes to mind). 


Many pieces contain some sadness, some can be even terrible—hispanos of the area survived the US invasion, hunger, influenza and poverty. While The Books of Archivesis mostly realistic, like Cien años de soledad, what is fantastic moves further away as the stories approach the modern era, save for some potential Santo Niño sightings and speaking on the Niño de Atocha, and the Blue Nun towards the end. Witches become spoken of less as everyone thinks they must have left the valley until on old man gets accused in the newspaper of hecheria.
 
Several story lines and characters repeat, though most stories are not too connected, but all are set in the town of Mora, the area, and the mountain of Jicarita.  The beautiful Maria appears in several tales, along with the sad tale of her granddaughter.  Old Man Vilmas and the Black Poet Garcia, two New Mexican folk tale figures, who seem to be preternaturally old, appear in tales and perform the traditional entertainment of arguing  until the radio causes people to forget all about them. 


The length varies from vignette to vignette, which seems another very Chicano form,House on Mango Street and Drink Cultura come to mind.  Perhaps a people who suffer with the dangers of erasement and lack of representation exist in fragments and authors pick these pieces up and shine them up to present to us readers to draw a wholeness from. Moving from the long to the short to the shorter and the long makes for an engaging read—as well as the variance of people and topics.  It’s a collection of flash fiction and short stories that make a novel, or create the sense of a novel.


Many things written on Northern New Mexico seem either to decry our insistence for Spanishness or go through many tangles and hoops to support it. Denise Chavez speaks of it on her father’s side in her memoir, A Taco Testimony.  Fray Angelico Chavez came from Mora.  His characters go through long, tortuous explanations on how they are Spanish. For some reason, native blood and mestizoness gets disowned.  The movement didn’t miss Mora, but aside from self-hate, the US invasion caused many a hispano in Tejas, Colorado, California, and even indios, to declare themselves hispanos puros so they could own land and not be hunted, as our Indian brothers and sisters were literally. I also see it as something cultural…out on the frontier, you were on the one side culturally or the other, though these things got knotted and tangled, as someone with the last name of Duncan can tell you.  Melendez addresses this Spanish issue and is probably one of the best you’ll find in Chicano or Latin American literature dealing with it (this kind of thing isn’t limited to Northern New Mexico). A man whose grandmother was a Comanche captive goes about declaring his pure Spanish blood and looks the fool (he even tells the beautiful Maria that he will overlook her imperfect blood in light of her beauty).


Dr. Melendez has done the amazing, he has made a wonderful book that amasses functions and stories like stone hedge gathers ley lines: He has created a book of archives, giving this place in northern New Mexico a history, and validates our existence, our tales, records family histories, and keeps the memories, and moreover acknowledges and helps preserve the New Mexican brand of Spanish. This is a book for anyone who likes stories, but for Latinos it functions as an elder who remembers and will tell you all, if you would just sit and listen.

​A. GABRIEL MELÉNDEZ is Director of the Center for Regional Studies (CRS) at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is the author and editor of a number of books, among them: Santa Fe Nativa: A Collection of Nuevomexicano Writing (UNM, 2010), Hidden Chicano Cinema: Film Dramas in the Borderlands, (Rutgers University Press, 2013) and The Legend of Ponciano Gutiérrez and the Mountain Thieves (UNM 2013) an illustrated book for young readers. University of Oklahoma Press. Copyright © 2017 A. Gabriel Meléndez. Available at OU Press.

​Scott Russell Duncan, a.k.a. Scott Duncan-Fernandez, recently completed The Ramona Diary of SRD, a memoir of growing up Chicano-Anglo and a fantastical tour reclaiming the myths of Spanish California.  Scott’s fiction involves the mythic, the surreal, the abstract, in other words, the weird.  Scott received his MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California where he now lives and writes.  He is an assistant editor at Somos en escrito. See more about his work and publications on Scott’s website https://scottrussellduncan.com/

​"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."

​ 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.

The next morning, Good Friday, found me in bed with a high fever. The chill that permeated my body had increased during the night, but anxious to join the Hermanos at the morada, I struggled to rise, only to fall back weakly against my pillow. My grandmother, who was drinking coffee with my mother in the kitchen, came to the doorway. Silhouetted in the rays of the sun in the window behind her, she seemed enveloped in a cloak of white. My fears of the night were dispelled, there was no bandage, no limp to her walk; and in the light of day I chided myself for my foolishness, convinced that my fever had caused such disturbing thoughts.

That my abuela was here was no accident, no inexplicable coincidence to agitate my imaginings. For she knew that I had become a novicio the night before, and as médica, she had come to see how I fared. She moved to my side with a jar of her remedio, turned me to my side to rub the romerillo, or silver sage, on my back, and then tucked the quilts around me once again without a word.

My mother placed a mug of warm broth in my hands, brushing a gentle hand over my cheek and pulling a chair by my bed for my gramma before she left for the church with my aunt. A few of the women would give the capilla a light cleaning before covering the saints with cloaks of black this morning to symbolize the dark day of Christ’s death. They would remain concealed until Easter morning, the day of His resurrection.

Settling herself comfortably, gramma took from her apron pocket a small kerchief with a trailing thread and proceeded to continue her embroidery on its edge, the needle whipping in and out of the intricate design with a delicate, almost birdlike fluttering of her hands. I sipped the warm soup watching her, waiting for her to speak. I knew I had inherited my physical appearance from her, the small, thin stature, the nose, and her humor. Had I also inherited a mental power I didn’t understand, or want, from my beloved grandmother?

Before I could ponder the question further, before I could think of a way to phrase my question without hurting the feelings of the tiny woman seated beside me, she spoke.

“You have a gift.”

Her words revived my concerns that the warm broth had begun to dispel.

She looked up from her embroidery. Although this was one time I wished I could turn away, I forced myself to look into her eyes. Bright with tears, hers held a mixture of sadness and regret. When she blinked the drops away and smiled softly at me, there was also pleasure and expectation in their depths.

“The gift of sight,” she began, “is strong in our family though inherited by some, not all, through the generations. And,” she added, “while some seemed only to possess a strong sense of intuition, there were others who had the power to know other’s thoughts, especially of people with whom they were close.

“I will tell you a story, hijo, a cuento of a young girl you know well.” Putting her embroidery aside, she settled back into the pillow at her back and continued.

“When this girl was very young, she began to have disturbing dreams, dreams which frightened her because in the days that followed, they would almost always come true. More and more often as she grew, the dreams plagued her. And her abuelito, the only one who believed her, died before he could explain the gift she had inherited from him. She learned to keep the dreams secret because whenever she told anyone, they looked at her as if she were loca. And people, ignorant and afraid, had started to think she was either crazy or a witch.

Years passed, until one night she saw her father in her dream and knew what real fear was. In her vision her father was being dragged by horses in the field he was plowing, his leg entangled in the reins behind the arado.”

She paused, taking her sack of punche from her pocket to roll a cigarette.

I squirmed restlessly on the bed. From past experience, I knew that it was an effort in futility to urge her on, for if prodded to finish a cuento before she decided she wanted to, she was known to teach me a longer lesson in patience, sometimes making me wait for days, or until I had even forgotten the beginnings of a story and her teasing reminder would set me off, begging for the end.

I had to hand it to my abuelita; she knew how to build up the suspense in her stories like no one else. I was forced to wait as she took a laboriously long time rolling her smoke, her eyes twinkling with mirth at my discomfort.

“Where was I?” she asked, striking a wooden match on the sole of her shoe.

“Oh, yes, the dream.” Puffing a small stream of smoke, she continued, “The next morning, much to her dismay, the girl’s father had already begun to plow the fields when she awoke. Without breakfast, the girl ran out of the house, straight to the field.”

When she paused to puff her cigarette again, I could have screamed from the suspense; it was killing me. “Now, the neighbors had honey bees,” she reminisced, “and the hives were just across the river. For some reason, I never knew why, they swarmed—and the girl’s father with his horses were right in their path. It was a good thing the girl got there when she did, for her father, strong though he was, was already struggling to keep the horses from running away with the plow. When she looked down, the girl saw that the end of one of the reins had tangled around her father’s leg, just like in her dream. And just as the panicked horses took off, shaking the bees from their heads, she jumped forward, unwrapping the rein just in the nick of time to save her father from a very bad injury—perhaps even death.”

Gramma puffed at her cigarette a moment before she added, “That was the day the girl finally realized that her dreams were not the curse she had thought they were all along, for years having been afraid that perhaps she was a witch and that she had dark powers from the devil. They were forewarnings, a gift from God, and she had learned to read their meaning to help others.”

Putting her cigarette out, she looked at me closely, searching my eyes for understanding. “Sí,” she said quietly, “I have been called bruja many times, hijo, but only by the ignorant or the envious, God help them. They do not know that what I have is a gift from God and that I have learned to use my gift to avisar or to give consejo to those I see in my dreams.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that no matter what happened in the future, I would never suspect my abuelita of being a witch again. And I understood that my father possessed a different gift, a power to read my thoughts and to respond in the voice of my conscience to guide me in the journey of life. But at the same time, I was troubled. Hadn’t I also inherited such a gift, a power to see or hear things others didn’t?

I knew she picked up the apprehension in my eyes, for my gramma said softly, “No te preocupes. Do not be worried, hijo mío. Instead, thank the Lord that you have something not many people do and learn to use your gift to help yourself and to help others if you’re able. And if your friends question your intuition, you do what your conciencia tells you. If they are real amigos, they will look to you for consejo. Advise them well. If they are not, then you will have to live with their suspicions and their accusations just as I have. And though it will be hard, you will have to learn to leave them to their own consciences.”

I nodded, and we sat in companionable silence for a while. My gramma took up her embroidery again as my mind digested the importance of her story, her counsel. I knew that I would have to find within myself the strength to overcome my disquiet, to listen and watch for any avisos in the future, to use my gift of intuition wisely.

Suddenly remembering what I had seen the night before, I asked, “Do you believe there really are witches?”

“¿Por qué?” she asked, looking at me quizzically.

I described our encounter with the ball of fire and what Berto had done as it had fled.

She nodded, “There are many, including myself, who have seen them. And since there is no explanation for the balls of fire, there are many who believe that they are witches. No one knows for sure. But it has been a long time that any have been seen around here.”

“What do you believe?” I asked, a little uneasy about her answer.

“I believe that there is a power of good, which is God. But the Bible tells us that there is also a power of evil. Just as Dios gives His children gifts which help them to live as good Cristianos, then so could el Diablo guide those he chooses with the powers of darkness.”

She crossed herself before she looked at me for a moment. “That you saw one during la Cuaresma disturbs me. This is one of the most sacred seasons of the year. If it was a bruja or some other work of el Diablo, then they seem to have no fear that this is Lent, and today is Viernes Santo, the day our Savior died.”

“What could it mean?” I whispered.

The heavy silence of our thoughts spoke volumes, for we both knew that this afternoon La Procesión de Sangre de Cristo, the procession of the Blood of Christ, in which a chosen Hermano would carry the crucifix from the morada on his back, would be enacted. And even though the Penitente would not be crucified, the re-enactment of the most sorrowful day in the life of our Savior would take its toll on the Brother who played the crucial role. I wondered if it would be the Hermano who had portrayed Christ the night before in la Procesión de la Santa Cruz.
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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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Review by Scott Duncan-Fernandez
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El Hermano, a first novel by Carmen Baca, brings to life through the story of a young boy in late 1920s New Mexico, the wonder of Los Penitentes, who have been painted by rumor and misconstrued in fiction as backwards and brutal, as cult rather than a humble brotherhood of Catholic men. El Hermano could have been the story of my own great-grandfather, a Penitente brother who died a few years before I was born and thus I know as little of him as the brotherhood to which he belonged. Both the shed on the family ranch and the chapel he built down the road where perhaps he carried out some brotherhood rites still stand and have been objects for reflection on his life and Los Penitentes for me for many years.

The valleys and mountains where northern nuevomexicanos or hispanos live can be out of the way, sparsely populated areas. Due to this remoteness the Penitente Brotherhood arose out of necessity. When Mexico gained independence in 1821, the priests were recalled to Spain, and communities like this farthest colony of New Mexico were faced with a long journey to seek absolution of sin. There were already traditions of lay brotherhoods dedicated to saints (and it is said some of them in the New Mexican colony were covers for Crypto-Judaism).  

Men of the community took it upon themselves to absolve their own sins, so that they could address the sins of the community as well. Their activities included praying, procession, scourging and, at one time, electing a member to be crucified.

Los Penitentes have been a secretive and humble brotherhood. The secretiveness and perhaps lurid nature of the scourging and crucifixion had gained interest in the U.S. in the turn of the 20th century. Penitente practices were portrayed in Brave New World, and I recall as a teenager my Anglo classmates mocking the rituals. I chose not to mention to my classmates that my great-grandfather belonged to the brotherhood. Books on American cults, placed next to Ripley’s Believe It Not!, misconstrued the practices of the brotherhood and showed turn of the century anthropological photos of the crucifixion ritual that was no longer practiced.

One such book even had a “Fernandez Brother” chapter that depicted the “ghastly” activities of some of my relatives that took place more than a hundred years ago. While I have spoken to a Penitente brother and a santero, an artist who carves or paints traditional religious figures, who repaired their moradas, the small churches where the brotherhood worships, their responses rather than “secretive” seemed topics “too personal to discuss.” The brotherhood remains a practice that I have known little about.

There has been a need for humanizing countering the negativeportrayals of the brotherhood, which is a living tradition. And the novel El Hermano doesn’t indulge in the lurid portrayal of flagellation or crucifixion by the Penitentes and does an excellent job in portraying members of brotherhood as a religious people concerned for their community and their spiritual needs.

In the 1920s, the young boy, Jose, and his friends in between going to school and doing chores, wonder what the brotherhood is up to behind the walls of the moradas. They grow anxious as the time nears to join the brotherhood if they prove themselves worthy.  Their spying gains the attention of Santa Sebastiana, the New Mexican version of La Muerte (or Santa Muerte), who warns them not to spy upon the brothers.

The boys in their nightly attempts to spy, see other apparitions, and a ball of flame that could be a witch. Their elders counsel them and tell them stories to help them dispel their fear of Santa Sebastiana (fear life and its chance to commit sin, they say) and their approaching adulthood and the spiritual responsibilities of being a part of Los Hermanos begin to take shape.

Earlier on, Jose also worries about the looks of his indigenous nose. He wonders if it is ugly though eventually he accepts it as many people in his family also possess the nose. Not only is it common for teenagers from everywhere to worry about their looks, mestizos worrying about their indigenous features often comes up in U.S. literature and in the journey to accept themselves.

My sister and I, very young and not realizing what we were doing, would accuse each other of having a nose more like mom’s and run to the mirror and push our hawkish flared native noses down to no avail. The nose moment is a good example that El Hermano is a serious book about serious issues—how to be good, whether to defy elders, how to live in the face of death, and faith—it may serve as a Young Adult book but isn’t limited to that genre.

El Hermano is also a historical book—set in the late 20s just before the Great Depression. (Jose says he and his family were already too poor to notice). Eventually, the story follows Jose into the war effort of World War II and to the 1970s. As one of the last hermanos in the valley, he must watch and endure as the order ends.

The rural New Mexican setting and the coming of age of a young boy might bring to mind Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima, but El Hermano is set farther north and is at least 10 years before the confusing times of young soldiers returning home from war and allows focus on the Penitentes. The boys are also different: unlike Antonio, Jose doesn’t question his Catholic faith and is overeager for his acceptance into the brotherhood.

Though characters in El Hermano do not challenge traditions overmuch or get involved in deadly conflicts, they have the conflict of concern for their souls and leading a good life. Though El Hermano searches for answers (and may have a witch), it concentrates more on day to day rural life rather than the many questions of survival and witches at odds with curanderas, as in Bless Me Ultima. The focus is on Los Hermanos and Jose’s eagerness to join them, which makes for a different though not less enjoyable story.

The writing of El Hermano is excellent, not overly ornate, but smooth and easy to read. The story is compelling, the tension of what the boys may find, what the vision of La Muerte means, keeps one reading. The acceleration of the story to tell the whole tale of the main character’s life outside the focus of events is done well, and Jose’s testimonial at the end as an older man wraps the story up nicely.

In the afterward, the author lifts the veil. After her father’s passing, as he was the last brother, she inherited her father’s trunk that contained everything used by the brotherhood for their rituals. It was a revelation for her and seemingly an impetus to share this story.
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Though the father’s local sect died out, the author has enabled us to see the brotherhood in a new, more honest light rather than as sideshow cultists and moreover honors and sets as examples her hispano forebears. One need not be hispano, Chicano, or Latino to appreciate this book, but for me as a nuevomexicano on the periphery of the Penitente Brotherhood, author Carmen Baca has revealed insights to traditions and a living link to those men who created a way of life for spiritual survival and provided a better understanding of a great-grandfather I have never met.  

The Oñate Expedition’s Mysterious Encounter with a “Demon”, as Recorded by Capitán Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá in 1610

By Louis F. Serna, with sketches by the author

When Cortez first saw the Aztecs and their magnificent city in 1519, he must have marveled at the sight before him! Coming from the then “civilized” country of Spain which was celebrating high prominence among their European neighbors, the Spanish were very conscious of the “style of the nobility”, high fashion, and the literary arts. They saw themselves as far more advanced and civilized than the people they encountered elsewhere, including the Aztecs. They and their European neighbors such as England and France considered themselves highly educated, and entrusted with the self-imposed righteous responsibility of bringing religion to heathens at every known port.

With “soul saving” in mind, Spanish sailings included an abundance of Franciscan friars anxious to spread the word of God as emissaries of the Catholic faith and the Pope in Rome. Spanish monks saw themselves as duty bound to teach Christianity to those under-privileged savages they heard of from exploring conquistadores, and they couldn’t wait to have their names immortalized as “crusaders” and even martyrs. Certainly, those Friars would have known of all Spanish explorations of the time and of the many amazing discoveries as the Spanish sailed from port to port, seeing and reporting new places and people still in their primal evolution.

As for Cortez, he must have been in awe of those Aztecs, their culture, amazing cities, their gold, and their advanced knowledge of astronomy. And certainly, he would have known all along that he was duty bound to take every ounce of gold they might possess, to enrich his King, Country, and himself. In the process, he almost certainly also knew that he would probably have to kill them all to get it!

Thus began the Spanish “entrada” (entrance) into this new land called “Mexica”, “la nueva viscaya”, “la Nueva Espana”, “la Nueva Galicia”, and later to the north, “el Nuevo Mexico” (today New Mexico). Following the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs by Cortez, other notable Spaniards would quickly occupy the lands in the interior of what became Mexico and become rich off of its resources. Spaniards like Cristobal de Oñate, who established himself in the area of Zacatecas, rich in silver ore. He became a very rich man, taking tons of silver from “la Bufa”, that famous mountain some believed was made entirely of silver, and other mines punched into the countryside. By then, in 1540, another adventurous Spaniard by the name of Coronado was already advancing into the area to the north… the area where those Aztecs were said to have come from originally…. The lands where people lived in multi-storied structures made of mud brick and stone… lands that Cabeza de Baca, just a few years earlier, claimed to be rich in gold, and in fact, he said he saw “cities of gold…” Seven of them..!!!

As anxious as the Spanish adventurers were, to seek their fortunes up north, they knew and respected the laws of their King, which prevented them from just sauntering up into the frontier lands at their convenience and enriching themselves of what they might find. Special permission, money, and noble class were the prerequisites to any exploration. The King of Spain assured that his “right to his domain” in all explorations was protected, by requiring that the right man be selected for any explorations. A proven leader whose family would be scrutinized by the Viceroy to assure their finances, and then they would have to pass his “inspection.” Preferably, the man would be of noble birth or of royal “order”, and from a well funded family, to assure that he could afford to pay his way, and all the expenses of his expeditionary force. The King risked only a military escort, and that primarily to protect his investment. Such a man would have to take complete responsibility for the success of any expedition and in the event of success he would enjoy titles, lands, and a good share of whatever treasures the lands had to offer. Should he fail, he would lose all his investment, and probably face the King’s penalty tax for failing, as well as disgrace brought on to his family!

Who would risk all this? Knowing with some certainty that the lands to the north were probably impoverished, and knowing that the stories of wealth were spun by the deceiver, Cabeza de Baca, as reported by Coronado, and knowing that the reports filed by that earlier Conquistador painted a dismal picture of hardship to the north, the man who dared was Don Juan de Oñate, the son of the wealthy Zacatecas silver merchant, Cristobal de Oñate. Juan was a son, wanting so desperately to equal or better his father’s achievement of having gained such great wealth in the silver mines. He was also desperately anxious to prove to others that he was a manly conqueror and to become the greatest achiever of them all! And so he filed his petition in 1596, and began the process of selection and approval by the King of Spain.

Many troubles arose for Oñate in recruiting soldiers, supporters, wagons, food, tools, and hardest of all, the King’s hesitant approval. Finally, three years after he began the process, and at great expense to him as he continued to add colonists and supplies which the horde of people seemed to consume as fast as he acquired it, word came from the King that he was free to start his march. Finally, yet another Spaniard began his search for riches and a fruitful destiny! And he too, would encounter strange people, customs, and an unforgiving land!

A byproduct of the Spanish King’s “need to know” of where all his subjects were at any given time, lest he lose out on any taxes due him, was that everything worth knowing be recorded and filed with his Vicero. As well, the Monks, who also sought equal shares of notoriety and taxes to be had, recorded their activities to their superiors and ultimately to the living icon, the Pope in Rome! In view of all this need to record, the leaders of expeditions usually assigned experienced scribes to record all activities of their explorations. That man would also have the confidence and approval of the Crown, so this would be a man of considerable trust and reputation. In addition to his “official” records, “diaries” were also kept by officers, enlisted men, and all concerned.

Today, we have a great amount of information about the people, the times, and the wondrous things they encountered, thanks to the printed record of the day-to-day activities of those early Spanish folk.
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Capitán Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá

It is the writings of one of those Oñate Officers, which is the subject of this story.

The writer – recorder - author is that well respected scribe, Don Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, who was made a Capitán in Onate’s staff in 1596.

His later titles and accomplishments would be many. His writings have been preserved in several productions, and in particular in a book titled: “Historia de la Nueva Mexico, 1610”. This particular book is considered “A critical and annotated Spanish / English Edition, translated and edited by Miguel Encinias, Alfred Rodriguez, and Joseph P. Sanchez”. The well educated and well read Villagrá wrote his account of events in a Spanish prose / poetry style. He captioned them as “Cantos”, (songs), which are replete with references to the earliest biblical events and writings of scholars of earlier times such as Pliny, Plato, and others. Villagrá can be considered to be a most reliable and learned observer and recorder of his time. And so it is that the scholars of today, such as those mentioned above, took great respect and care in their treatment and interpretations of Villagrá’s Cantos, from Spanish to English. And that is how they appear in the book mentioned: his entry in the Spanish of that time, and alongside, the English interpretation.
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El CANTO PRIMERO

Villagrá entitles his Canto Primero, “Que Declara el argumento de la historia y sitio de la nueva Mexico y noticia que della se tuvo en quanto la antiqualla de los indios, y de la salida y decendencia de los verdaderos Mexicanos”.

The interpreters’ English version is: “Which sets forth the outline of the history and location of New Mexico, and the reports had of it in the tradition of the Indians, and of the true origin and descent of the Mexicans.”

My interpretation:

In his first Canto (Canto Primero and Canto I), Villagrá describes the geographical location of the point of beginning of the Oñate Expedition. In his learned way, he carefully references its location, relative to geographical north – south longitude and east – west latitude with the then known points of the compass and even compares the location on the world globe, with known places in the old world. He equates the location geographically, to Jerusalem by latitude! He also describes the mass of humanity that is the expedition, and even marvels at the attire of some of the characters. Some are well-dressed gentlemen, riding excellent mounts adorned with “finery” and “livery as in the finest courts” which clearly defines to their noble class, while others are fearful looking men, one even wearing the skin of a lion complete with mane! Some wear the skins of striped cats, leopards, and even wolf skins! They carry weapons of all sorts, and banners and standards of all colors and kinds as they slowly move along. It is a fearful and bedraggled looking lot! People, cattle, goats, sheep, and everything necessary to support the expedition walk in unison. At the end of Canto I and in Canto II, which is again, the subject of this article and the beginning of Oñate’s drive north, he describes a terrible apparition!

It is the last lines of Canto Primero and the text in Canto Segundo that fascinates me. My fascination is in that although I interpret Villagrá’s notations and descriptions of the “apparition” literally in the same way as the interpreters do, I see through Villagrá’s eyes, something quite different and amazing than they do! Being careful not to show disrespect to those interpreters in any way, I claim the right to my own interpretation and understanding of what Villagrá and the whole camp saw and what he recorded so carefully in the only way he knew how. He compared what he saw to things he could relate to at that time in 1599.

In Canto I, Villagrá ends his description of the mass of moving people by stating that as the many people (and animals) trod on over the hard baked ground, they raised a huge cloud of dust.

Suddenly, a figure appeared before them, which he describes as looking like an old naked woman:

“Delante se les puso con cuydado, en figura la vieja desembuelta, un valiente demonio resabido – cuyo feroz semblante no me atrevo, si con algun cuydado he de pintarlo, sin otro nuevo aliento a retratarlo”.

The interpreters write:

“There placed before himself, before them by intent, is the form of an old and hag-like woman. A valiant and cunning demon, whose face ferocious dare I not look at, if I must with some care depict it, set out to paint without new strength.”

My interpretation:

It appears that Villagrá and those with him have come face to face with a being, which he says carefully, or cautiously, appears before them, resembling an old naked hag-like woman. (I think he assumes it to be “feminine” as he can see no male genitalia). His first reaction is to associate this inhuman form with some kind of demon or even the devil! It has such terrible features (cuyos feroz semblantes), that he doesn’t dare assume that it is (the devil), as in his next breath (otro nuevo aliento), he may create it in his mind or in fact, create it incarnate (a retratarlo)!

So what is this being that suddenly confronts them? Appearing to look like an old, naked hag?

Follow up:

In modern times, today, his description takes on the appearance of those ugly little beings who we hear and read about, and who appear to wear a one-piece, pale gray, skin-tight garment if any at all, and who we call, Extraterrestrials!!!
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CANTO SEGUNDO

Villagrá writes the Canto Segundo in the first person, as an eyewitness to what he and others are observing. Again, Villagrá entitles Canto Segundo:

“Como se apparecio el Demonio a todo el Campo, en figura de vieja y de la traza que tuvo en dividir los dos hermanos, y del gran mojon de hierro que asento para que cada cual connociesse sus estados”.

The interpreters’ English version is:

"How the Devil appeared in the whole camp in the shape of an old woman, and of the scheme he had to separate the two brothers, and of the great heap of iron that he left so that everyone might know his true estate”.

My interpretation:

I think that Villagrá has seen what he (and the others) believe is the devil in the disguise of an old hag-like, nude woman. Although terrified, they courageously stand their ground. Somehow, the entity communicates to them, or they believe they hear it say, that it is going to separate the two “brothers?” It also leaves “un gran mojon de hierro que asento para que cada cual connociesse sus estados”.

The interpreters say “he left a great heap of iron”.

My interpretation of this “heap of iron”, is that Villagrá is describing a one-piece metal vessel, standing upright. A “mojon” in Spanish, can be a landmark… as in a real estate landmark or marker of the boundaries of one’s lands. The landmarks of old were shaped like an obelisk, and in this case, made of metal. Is this the shape that Villagrá is seeing and can only describe it in a familiar term, like a “mojon de hierro?”
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The Being’s Vessel


Above is an example of a “mojon”. A Spanish word for a landmark or monument, typically used to mark boundaries of property. Typically they are four-sided, hewn from stone, and pointed at the top to prevent snow or water from settling on its top, lest the water turn to ice in winter and crack, and eventually break the stone.

The sides are usually oriented to the four directions of the compass and may contain the owner’s name, coat of arms, and/or the geographical extent of that corner or location of the property. The size of landmarks varies, and the height can be as much as one meter. The sides can be one-fourth that, or per the owner’s specifications.




Does Villagrá mean that the creature “left” that mojon de hierro (vessel)? As in, coming out of it? And it is therefore his “estate” or “place of residence?” I think Villagrá could be saying that the entity “exited” from an upright metal vessel shaped similar to a “mojon” and came toward them. I do not interpret his use of the word mojon, as a “heap of iron”, which implies a pile of metal scrap. I don’t believe that Villagrá had that meaning in mind.

Villagrá next describes the being as:

“Delante se les puso aquel maldito, en figura de vieja rebozada. Cuya espantosa y gran desemboltura, daba pavor y miedo imaginaria. Truxo el cabello cano mal compuesto y, cual horrenda y fiera notomia, el rostro descarnado, macilento. De fiera y espantosa catadura: desmesurados pechos, largas tetas, hambrientas, flacas, secas y fruncidas, nerbudos pechos, anchos y espaciosos, con terribles espaldas bien trabadas: Sumidos ojos de color de fuego, disforme boca desde oreja a oreja, por cuyos labios secos, desmedidios, quatro solos colmillos hazia fuera de un largo palmo, corbos se mostraban: los brazos temerarios, pies y piernas por cuyas espantosas coniunturas una ossamenta gruesa rechinaba, de poderosos nerbios vien assida" .

The interpreters write:

“That accursed one, placed he before them in the form of an old woman well disguised, whose great and fearful cleverness, doth cause both fear and terror to imagine. He had his gray hair badly dressed, and like a horrible, fierce skeleton, his fleshless and emaciated face, of an expression wild and fearsome, misshapen breasts and dangling teats, starved, flaccid, dry, and wrinkled. Great chest, both wide and spacious, with shoulders terrible, well set eyes sunk and colored as of fire, a mouth small formed, from ear to ear, through whose dry and distorted lips, fangs, just four protruded, and showing themselves in good palm’s length. His arms were fearful, feet and legs, in whose fearsome joints the bones creaked loud. Well set, with muscles powerful. Just as they picture for us and do show, The ferocious person of brave Atlas, upon whose great and robust strength, the great incomparable weight and thrust of highest-lifted heavens doth rest.”

My interpretation:

Generally, I agree with the literal interpretation of the interpreters, but I feel that looking at the entity through Villagrá’s’ eyes, he sees a living being, with a very small, thin body on the one hand, (desmesurados pechos, largas tetas, hambrientas, flacas, secas, y fruncidas), yet with very broad shoulders bien tradadas, which in Spanish, can mean “shoulders with a brace or apparatus connected to them, or over them, making them look larger than they are”.

(Example: in Spanish, un buey tradado, means an oxen with an ox yolk over his neck and shoulders, which can be quite massive).
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The Being’s Bodily Appearance



Can this mean it was wearing something on or over its shoulders? Like a life support pack of some kind? Villagrá then says he could see “los brazos temerarios, pies y piernas por cuyas espantosas conjunturas, una ossamente gruesa rechinaba” Could this mean the being’s arms were such that Villagrá did not feel they were arms but were exaggerations of arms? Temerarios means overly bold or inconsiderate, or baseless. Perhaps that is how he saw the arms… covered with something that made them look bigger than arms should be? Pies y piernas por cuyas espantosas conjunturas. Villagrá describes the arms and legs as frightening in that the legs seem to be joined or connected to each other, as one… (conjunturas) Could they be covered with some kind of protective clothing or apparatus? Could the being be standing in some kind of apparatus that partially covers his feet and legs? He says that “una ossamente gruesa rechinaba”. He says that one of the “boney” legs or both as one, made a loud creaking, screeching, or whining sound, Could this be the high pitch sound of a propulsion device? Or propelled device on its legs or whatever Villagrá saw and describes as legs joined together? As if to confirm this thought, Villagrá adds to the description of the “legs”, “de poderosos nerbios vien assida”. Could the “powerful nerves, well constructed”, he is describing, be in reality, hydraulic-like tubes or lines attached to the being’s legs, or whatever he is standing on? Can we see through Villagrá’s eyes, in his description, a very frail like being, ugly to them like an old skinny, nude, woman would look, but partially “clothed” in a suit of some kind that has some kind of apparatus on or over its shoulders, and some kind of leggings or apparatus with fluid-like lines attached, that make a whining sound like a motor would make?​

My interpretation:

Again, I agree with the literal interpretation that the interpreters say Villagrá saw, and would add that again, looking through Villagrá’s eyes in that time, he could only compare what he saw to something he knew, yet ridiculous…a tortoise shell over the being’s head! If Villagrá were living in modern times, he could easily say that the being was wearing a large, shiny clear acrylic helmet, almost exactly like our astronauts wear today.

Villagrá next writes:

“Y luego que llego al forastero campo y le tuvo attento y bien suspenso, con lebantada voz desenfadada, herguida la cerviz, assi les dijo: “No me pesa esforzados Mexicanos, que como bravo fuego no domado. Que para su alta cumbre se lebanta no menos seays movidos y llamados de aquella brava alteza y gallardia de vuestra insigne, ilustre y noble sangre, a cuya heroica, real, naturaleza, le es propio y natural el gran deseo. Con que alargando os vais del patrio nido, para solo buscar remotas tierras, nuevos mundos, tambien nuevas estrellas, donde pueda mostrarse la grandeza de vuestros fuertes brazos belicosos, ensanchando por una y otra parte, etc.”

The interpreters write:

“And when he came upon the foreign camp, holding it attentive and in suspense, with a loud voice and unembarrassed, his head erect, he then addressed them thus: “I am not pained, o valiant Mexicans, because, as raging fire never quenched, which rises to its summit high, you are in no way less moved or beckoned by the rude haughtiness and gallantry of your illustrious, grand, and noble blood, to whose heroic royal character is natural, inborn, this great desire, with which you go from the paternal nest, only to seek for lands remote, etc., etc.”

My interpretation:

It seems that in this lengthy passage, Villagrá writes that the being confronts the very attentive people in camp and speaks to them, telling them that it understands how they feel, compelled to enter new lands and that it is in their nature to do so, given their royal blood, etc…. It seems that suddenly, Villagrá no longer fears or sees the entity as an ugly devil, but now it speaks to them in an understanding tone of voice, empathetic to their cause, agreeing with their right to pursue their search for new lands, etc. Or is Villagrá now writing for the eyes of the King? Or his representative, the Viceroy? Perhaps not wanting to appear less manly for previously being afraid of this being? Did the being really say these things to them? Why would it now seem to agree and invite them to continue into this new land, when at first it seemed so threatening?

Villagrá next writes:

“Y lebantando en alto los talones, sobre las fuertes puntas afirmada, alzo los flacos brazos poderosos, y dando al monstruosa carga buelo, assi como si fuera fiero yrayo, que con grande pavor y pasmo assombra, a muchos y los dexa sin sentido”

The interpreters write:

“And raising from the ground his heels, set firm upon his mighty toes, he raised his powerful, mighty arms and giving to his monstrous load a push, as though it were a mighty thunderbolt.”
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My interpretation:

Villagrá describes a being rising off the very ground, by some “force” emitting from its feet. It raises its spindly, but powerful arms and “lifts” its bulky body, (el monstruosa carga buelo), like a metallic bolt of lighting, leaving them stunned and senseless! Villagrá earlier described a heavy bulky suit over a spindly body. Now he sees the small but heavy being lift off the ground with bolts of lightning emanating from his “feet”. Could the bolts of lightning be exhaust from some kind of propulsion unit? He describes it as best he can.

Villagrá next writes: “Assi, con subito rumor y estruendo, la portentosa carga solto en vago y apenas ocupo la dura tierra quando temblando y toda estremecida, quedo por todas partes quebrantada!”

The interpreters write:

“So with a sudden and horrendous noise, he threw aside the mighty load. And hardly did it strike the flinty earth, when, trembling and shaking all, that earth was broken everywhere.”

My interpretation:

Villagrá describes as best he can, how as soon as the entity clears his “feet” off the ground, there is a mighty roar which makes the earth tremble and the ground below the entity is blown away in all directions… just like a modern day astronaut blasts off with a shoulder mounted jet-pack, like those presently being tested by our military, and even demonstrated at an NFL football game on one occasion, when the pilot flew all around and over the grandstand spectators!

Villagrá continues:

“Y assi como acabo, qual diestra Circe, alli desvanecio sin que la viesen, senalando del uno al otro polo. Las dos altas coronas lebantadas. Y como aquellos Griegos y Romanos quando el famoso Imperio didieron, Cuio hecho grandioso y admirable.” The interpreters write: “And when ‘twas done, like Circe skilled, he vanished thence without their seeing him, pointing to one and to the other pole. The two crowns raised on high, just as the Greeks and Romans when they divided the empire famed.”

Villagrá continues:

“Tan presto como viene, bemos buelve, assi con fuerte bote, el campo herido con lo que assi la vieja les propuso, la retaguardia toda dio la buelta para la dulve patria que dexaban”.

My interpretation:

Again Villagrá describes what he sees and can only compare it to a great event he knows of: the parting of the Greek and Roman Empire! He sees the being rise and fly back and forth from north to south, (the poles), and as quickly as it goes, it returns, and he sees “las dos altas coronas lebantadas”. He must be seeing the “burst” of flames or exhaust from two jets attached to the back pack the entity is wearing. which to him, from below, look like two shining royal “crowns” glittering up high.

The interpreters write:

“ Thus in a bound, the stricken camp became from what the woman had proposed to them, all the rear guard did turn again toward that sweet fatherland they’d left”.

My interpretation:

Villagrá now sees the frightened people in the camp, terrified at the sight of the being flying overhead, to and fro, beginning to turn around and beginning to retreat back to the safety of whence they came.

Villagrá now writes, as though a day or more later:

“Y por sus mismos propios ojos viendo la grandeza del monstuo que alli estaba.

Al qual no se acercaban los caballos por mas que los hijares les rompian, porque unos se empinaban y arbolaban con notables bufidos y ronquidos, y otros, mas espandados, resurrian por uno y otro lado rezelosos de aquel inorme peso nunca visto, hasta que cierto religioso un dia celebro el gran misterio sacrosanto de aquella redencion del universo, tomando por altar al mismo hierro, y donde entonces vemos que se llegan sin ningún pavor, miedo ni reselo a su estalage…”

The interpreters write:

“There still remains in the same way, the mighty mass which there was placed, in height some twenty-seven degrees and a half more. And there was no man of all your camp who did not stop, astonished, stunned, and almost senseless, considering that same story and seeing with his own two eyes the greatness of the monstrous mass was there. And of the horses, not one would approach it unless one tore their flanks, for some stood on their hind legs, rebellious, with whistling, and snorts, and others, frightened more, did shy suspicious from one side to the other from that enormous mass, such as was never seen. Until one day a certain priest did celebrate the great most holy mystery of that redemption of the universe, taking for altar that same mass of iron, and ever since we noticed that those beasts came without fear or trembling or suspicion to it’s foot”.

My interpretation:

Villagrá now writes about a huge metal vessel or ship, which now stands in the place where the previous apparitions were witnessed. It rests upright and he measures it in degrees of an angle, instead of measurement of height. Can this mean that the top of the vessel is angularly shaped? Cone-like, as like a present-day missile? And like the mojon described earlier? He says anyone (everyone), from the camp now comes to see it in complete disbelief and amazement. The horses sense something very foreign as they display terrified behavior, rearing up on hind legs and refusing to come closer.

Then Villagrá says “a certain priest celebrates a most holy mystery of that redemption of the universe, using the base of the vessel as an altar, and all seems calmed with the animals”. Is the “certain priest” an entity from the vessel? If it is one of the monks among the Spanish, why doesn’t he say it is a monk? And the “celebration of the most holy mystery of the universe”, at the base of the vessel. Is the entity simply disconnecting something or turning something off at the base of the vessel? Such as a motor, which is making high frequency waves, which scare the animals? Does Villagrá mistake his actions as some kind of religious ceremony he is conducting? Villagrá describes it as best he can, when he writes: “and ever since we noticed that those beasts came, (the horses), without fear or trembling or suspicion, right to it’s foot, as to a place which has been freed from some unloosed infernal fury”. It seems that after the “priest” did whatever he did at the base of the vessel, the horses no longer fear it.

Note that Villagrá and the people in camp no longer refer to the entity as a devil, witch, or brujo; they now seem to accept that what they have been seeing as something wondrous is apparently harmless to them as they freely come to see and touch the vessel.

Villagrá writes perhaps the most telling account of what the “heap of iron” is: “Y como quien de vista es buen testigo, digo que es un metal tan puro y liso y tan limpio de orin como si fuera una refina plata de Copella”. He further describes the purity of the metal, and can only wonder how it could have been created in that primitive land, not understanding that it probably came from beyond our world."

The interpreters write:

“And I as one who is good witness of that sight, say that it is as pure and smooth a metal, and free of rust, as if it were silver refined at Copella!”

My interpretation:

Villagrá’s’ description of the vessel’s metal surface speaks for itself. For me, the description is very familiar. For many years, I worked as a machinist and welder for the Boeing Aerospace Company in Seattle, Washington. I taught metallurgy, welding, and fabrication in several Community Colleges in that City for many years. I also worked in an Engineering office designing pressure vessels using various state of the art exotic metals, some that can withstand rust, abrasion, and acids, and remain highly polished. The metal Villagrá describes can only be a highly polished alloy, not of this earth, especially in that day and age.

Villagrá now wonders as to the construction of this “mojon” which is in fact, a wondrous craft:

“Una refina plata de Copella, y lo que mas admira nuestro caso, es que no vemos genero de veta, horrumbre, quemazon, o alguna piedra con quia fuerza muestre y nos pareca aberse el gran mojon alli criado, porque no muestra mas señal de aquesto, que el rastro que las prestas aves dejan, rompiendo por el aire sus caminos, o por ancho mar los sueltos pezes quando las aguas claras van cruzando..!”

The interpreters write:

“And what our people wondered most, is that we saw no sort of vein, nor scoria, trace, nor any rock, by means of which we might be shown or see how the great mass could be created there. Because there is no more trace of that, than the swift birds leave traces in the air through which they make their road, or, in the sea, the swimming fish, when they go plying through the waters clean”.

My interpretation:

Villagrá, again is trying to compare this wondrous metal to something familiar, as he and the others contemplate what he now calls “una refina plata de Copella”, “the finest silver from Copella”, and no longer “un monton de hierro”, “a heap of iron.” He and the others can’t understand how this vessel was constructed. It has no apparent rivets, joints, or seams, (genero de veta), there is no evidence of metal casting materials like sand or clay in evidence, (horrumbre), nor evidence of a smelting fire or oven, (quemazon) where it may have been cast. There is not even a rock with which someone might have pounded the mass into shape.

Understandably, they assume someone built the vessel where it stands, as the concept of it having flown there is not a consideration. He goes on to write that there is no trace of its fabrication anywhere, just as one doesn’t see the “trace” or track of a bird flying through the air, or the “trace” or track of a fish swimming through the cleanest water. He is obviously in awe of this mystery.

Villagrá next writes that there were stories told by the “antiguos naturales”, the ancient native Indians of the old tribes of Mexico, of people from the far off northland from whom they say they are descended. These people were “como en Castilla, gente blanca, que todas son grandezas que nos fuerzan a derribar por tierra las columnas del “non Plus Ultra”, infame que lebantan Gentes mas para rueca y el estrado”.

People who looked as white as those of Castille, of grandeur, just as our memories of those beyond the columns of “Non Plus Ultra”, who were famous for their ability to elevate themselves on platforms!

This appears to be a reference to the ancient people of Atlantis, who Villagrá knew of from Pliny and Plato’s writings, and who were said to live beyond the columns or pillars of Non Plus Ultra, (the Straits of Gibraltor.) “The place no one dares go beyond,” where the inhabitants, (Atlantians), (Gentes mas para rueca), were said to elevate themselves on “platforms” (estrados).

Finally, at the end of Canto Segundo, Villagrá writes, in reference to the people encountered: “Mas dexamos aquesta causa en vanda, cerrando nuestro canto mal cantado, con aber entonado todo aquello, que de los mas antiguos naturales ha podido alcanzarse y descubrirse”.

The interpreters write:

But let us lay this thing aside, which needs a story long to tell it all, closing our Canto, badly sung, by having sung quite all of what, by the most ancient natives here, could be remembered and discovered, about the ancient descent.

My interpretation:

Frustrated, Villagrá writes, “let us lay this event aside, which needs a story long to tell it all.” Obviously, he has seen much he cannot explain and feels it is a story too long to tell to make sense of it, and perhaps because the expedition is now moving on, and he decides to put this experience aside. He says his Canto is “badly sung,” meaning he is obviously disappointed that he could not better explain in words, all he has seen and all he has experienced, that he cannot explain it all as he doesn’t have the experience or memory to relate to, as this is all new to him…. He seems to writes it off as if to say, “Ask the natives… they can tell you more from their memories of their ancient ancestors!”

Villagrá ends the Canto Primero with these final words:

“De aqueste nuevo Mundo que inquirimos, adelante diremos quales fueron y quienes pretendieron la jornada sin verla en punto puesta y acabada”.

The interpreters write:

Of this New World which we explore, I shall say later who they were, those who the journey undertook, not seeing it done and ended in a moment.

My interpretation:

I feel Villagrá says much in his final statement.. “Of this new world,” can mean the world they are entering, meaning New Mexico, or it can mean “the new world of knowledge” he has just entered, in view of what he has just seen: the beings, their flights, the vessel, the lack of anything familiar, the lack of explanations, etc.. Certainly his mind would never be the same!!

He says he shall say later “who they were, those who the journey undertook, not seeing it done and ended in a moment…” does this mean he received some knowledge from them as to who they really were? Or does this mean he will share his interpretation of who they were at a later date? Are “those who the journey undertook”, the beings? Or, the people in the caravan slowly traveling north? I think he has learned, perhaps from the beings, that they have traveled far to come to this earth. And he doesn’t understand or can comprehend that thought as he says, “not seeing it done and ended in a moment”. Can this mean that he didn’t see them arrive, so can’t understand how that massive “heap” could have moved through the air and brought them here?

And finally, the statement: “ended in a moment”. Can this mean he saw them leave, and as many have reported even today, when the crafts take off, they do so in an instant, almost as if they disappear out of sight! Thus again, his statement: “ended in a moment”.

When Villagrá says, “I shall say later who they were”, one might think that at some later date, he wrote more of this encounter, and perhaps then, if that “Canto” or report is found, we will all know more of this strange encounter he wrote of, while on Onate’s Expedition into this land we now call New Mexico. Certainly no dream or made up story of a witch or demon, but the recording of an event that could only be explained in the words and experience of his time.

New Mexico is a land which has certainly seen its share of unexplained mysteries, such as at Roswell, Socorro, and in the mountains of northern New Mexico around Dulce, so rich in accounts of sightings of beings and unexplained flying crafts.

And so ends this interpretation that I found so fascinating and that poor Villagrá found so mysteriously perplexing!

Villagrá gazing skyward as the vessel flies away.
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