Bless Me, Ultima (5 page)

“And the owl—” I gasped. My mind searched for answers, but my body was so tired that my knees buckled and I fell forward. As small and thin as Ultima was she had the strength to lift me in her arms and carry me into her room. She placed me on her bed and then by the light of a small, flickering candle she mixed one of her herbs in a tin cup, held it over the flame to warm, then gave it to me to drink.

“They killed Lupito,” I said as I gulped the medicine.

“I know,” she nodded. She prepared a new potion and with this she washed the cuts on my face and feet.

“Will he go to hell?” I asked.

“That is not for us to say, Antonio. The war-sickness was not taken out of him, he did not know what he was doing—”

“And the men on the bridge, my father!”

“Men will do what they must do,” she answered. She sat on the bed by my side. Her voice was soothing, and the drink she had given me made me sleepy. The wild, frightening excitement in my body began to die.

“The ways of men are strange, and hard to learn,” I heard her say.

“Will I learn them?” I asked. I felt the weight on my eyelids.

“You will learn much, you will see much,” I heard her faraway voice. I felt a blanket cover me. I felt safe in the warm sweetness of the room. Outside the owl sang its dark questioning to the night, and I slept.

But even into my deep sleep my dreams came. In my dream I saw my three brothers. I saw them as I remembered them before they went away to war, which seemed so very long ago. They stood by the house that we rented in town, and they looked across the river at the hills of the llano.

Father says that the town steals our freedom; he says that we must build a castle across the river, on the lonely hill of the mockingbirds. I think it was León who spoke first, he was the eldest, and his voice always had a sad note to it. But in the dark mist of the dream I could not be sure.

His heart had been heavy since we came to the town, the second figure spoke, his forefathers were men of the sea, the Márez people, they were conquistadors, men whose freedom was unbounded.

It was Andrew who said that! It was Andrew! I was sure because his voice was husky like his thick and sturdy body.

Father says the freedom of the wild horse is in the Márez blood, and his gaze is always westward. His fathers before him were vaqueros, and so he expects us to be men of the llano. I was sure the third voice belonged to Eugene.

I longed to touch them. I was hungry for their company. Instead I spoke.

We must all gather around our father, I heard myself say. His dream is to ride westward in search of new adventure. He builds highways that stretch into the sun, and we must travel that road with him.

My brothers frowned. You are a Luna, they chanted in unison, you are to be a farmer-priest for mother!

The doves came to drink in the still pools of the river and their cry was mournful in the darkness of my dream.

My brothers laughed. You are but a baby, Tony, you are our mother’s dream. Stay and sleep to the doves cou-rou while we cross the mighty River of the Carp to build our father’s castle in the hills.

I must go! I cried to the three dark figures. I must lift the muddy waters of the river in blessing to our new home!

Along the river the tormented cry of a lonely goddess filled the valley. The winding wail made the blood of men run cold.

It is la llorona, my brothers cried in fear, the old witch who cries along the river banks and seeks the blood of boys and men to drink!

La llorona seeks the soul of Antoniooooooooo…

It is the soul of Lupito, they cried in fear, doomed to wander the river at night because the waters washed his soul away!

Lupito seeks his blessinggggggggg…

It is neither! I shouted. I swung the dark robe of the priest over my shoulders then lifted my hands in the air. The mist swirled around me and sparks flew when I spoke. It is the presence of the river!

Save us, my brothers cried and cowered at my words.

I spoke to the presence of the river and it allowed my brothers to cross with their carpenter tools to build our castle on the hill.

Behind us I heard my mother moan and cry because with each turning of the sun her son was growing old…

T
he day dawned, and already the time of youth was fleeing the house which the three giants of my dreams had built on the hill of juniper tree and yucca and mesquite bush. I felt the sun of the east rise and I heard its light crackle and groan and mix into the songs of the mockingbirds on the hill. I opened my eyes and the rays of light that dazzled through the dusty window of my room washed my face clean.

The sun was good. The men of the llano were men of the sun. The men of the farms along the river were men of the moon. But we were all children of the white sun.

There was a bitter taste in my mouth. I remembered the remedy Ultima had given me after my frightful flight from the river. I looked at my arms and I felt my face. I had received cuts from tree branches before and I knew that the next day the cuts were red with dry blood and that the welts were sore. But last night’s cuts were only thin pink lines on my flesh, and there was no pain. There was a strange power in Ultima’s medicine.

Where was Lupito’s soul? He had killed the sheriff and so he had died with a mortal sin on his soul. He would go to hell. Or would God forgive him and grant him Purgatory, the lonely, hopeless resting place of those who were neither saved nor damned. But God didn’t forgive anyone. Perhaps, like the dream said, the waters of the river had washed his soul away, and perhaps as the water seeped into the earth Lupito’s soul would water the orchards of my uncles, and the bright red apples would….

Or perhaps he was doomed to wander the river bottom forever, a bloody mate to la Llorona… and now when I walked alone along the river I would always have to turn and glance over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of a shadow—Lupito’s soul, or la Llorona, or the
presence
of the river.

I lay back and watched the silent beams of light radiate in the colorful dust motes I had stirred up. I loved to watch the sunbeams of each new morning enter the room. They made me feel fresh and clean and new. Each morning I seemed to awaken with new experiences and dreams strangely mixed into me. Today it was all the vivid images of what had happened at the bridge last night. I thought of Chávez, angered by the death of his brother, seeking the blood of revenge. I thought of Narciso, standing alone against the dark figures on the bridge. I thought of my father. I wondered if he had fired down on Lupito.

Now the men on the bridge walked the earth with the terrible burden of dark mortal sin on their souls, and hell was the only reward.

I heard my mother’s footsteps in the kitchen. I heard the stove clang and I knew she was kindling last night’s ashes.

“¡Gabriel!” she called. She always called my father first. “Get up. It is Sunday,” then she muttered, “and oh such evil things that walked the earth last night—”

On Sunday morning I always stayed in bed and listened to their argument. They always quarreled on Sunday morning. There were two reasons for this: the first was that my father worked only half a day on Saturdays at the highway and so in the afternoon he drank with his friends at the Longhorn Saloon in town. If he drank too much he came home a bitter man, then he was at war with everyone. He cursed the weak-willed men of the town who did not understand the freedom a man of the llano must have, and he cursed the war for taking his sons away. And if there was very much anger in him he cursed my mother because she was the daughter of farmers, and it was she who kept him shackled to one piece of land.

Then there was the thing about religion. My father was not a strong believer in religion. When he was drunk he called priests “women,” and made fun of the long skirts they wore. I had heard a story told in whispers not meant for my ears that once, long ago, my father’s father had taken a priest from the church and beaten him on the street for preaching against something my grandfather Márez had done. So it was not a good feeling my father had for priests. My mother said the Márez clan was full of freethinkers, which was a blasphemy to her, but my father only laughed.

Then there was the strange, whispered riddle of the first priest who went to El Puerto. The colony had first settled there under a land grant from the Mexican government, and the man who led the colonization was a priest, and he was a Luna. That is why my mother dreamed of me becoming a priest, because there had not been a Luna priest in the family for many years. My mother was a devout Catholic, and so she saw the salvation of the soul rooted in the Holy Mother Church, and she said the world would be saved if the people turned to the earth. A community of farmers ruled over by a priest, she firmly believed, was the true way of life.

Why two people as opposite as my father and my mother had married I do not know. Their blood and their ways had kept them at odds, and yet for all this, we were happy.

“Deborah!” she called. “Get up. Get Theresa cleaned and dressed! Ay, what a night it has been—” I heard her murmur prayers.

“Ay Dios,” I heard my father groan as he walked into the kitchen.

The sun coming over the hill, the sounds of my father and mother in the kitchen, Ultima’s shuffle in her room as she burned incense for the new day, my sisters rushing past my door, all this was as it had always been and it was good.

“¡Antonio!” my mother called just when I knew she would and I jumped out of bed. But today I was awakening with a new knowledge.

“There will be no breakfast this morning,” my mother said as we gathered around her, “today we will all go to communion. Men walk the world as animals, and we must pray that they see God’s light.” And to my sisters she said, “Today you will offer up half of your communion for your brothers, that God bring them home safely, and half—for what happened last night.”

“What happened last night?” Deborah asked. She was like that. I shivered and wondered if she had heard me last night and if she would tell on me.

“Never mind!” my mother said curtly, “just pray for the dearly departed souls—”

Deborah agreed, but I knew that at church she would inquire and find out about the killing of the sheriff and Lupito. It was strange that she should have to ask others when I, who had been there and seen everything, stood next to her. Even now I could hardly believe that I had been there. Had it been a dream? Or had it been a dream within a dream, the kind that I often had and which seemed so real?

I felt a soft hand on my head and turned and saw Ultima. She looked down at me and that clear, bright power in her eyes held me spellbound.

“How do you feel this morning, my Antonio?” she asked and all I could do was nod my head.

“Buenos días le de Dios, Grande,” my mother greeted her. So did my father who was drinking coffee at the big chair he kept by the stove.

“Antonio, mind your manners,” my mother urged me. I had not greeted Ultima properly.

“Ay, María Luna,” Ultima interrupted, “you leave Antonio alone, please. Last night was hard for many men,” she said mysteriously and went to the stove where my father poured her some coffee. My father and Ultima were the only people I ever knew that did not mind breaking their fast before communion.

“The men, yes,” my mother acknowledged, “but my Tony is only a boy, a baby yet.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and held me.

“Ah, but boys grow to be men,” Ultima said as she sipped the black, scalding coffee.

“Ay, how true,” my mother said and clutched me tightly, “and what a sin it is for a boy to grow into a man—”

It was a sin to grow up and be a man.

“It is no sin,” my father spoke up, “only a fact of life.”

“Ay, but life destroys the pureness God gives—”

“It does not destroy,” my father was becoming irritated at having to go to church and listen to a sermon too, “it builds up. Everything he sees and does makes him a man—”

I saw Lupito murdered. I saw the men—

“Ay,” my mother cried, “if only he could become a priest. That would save him! He would be always with God. Oh, Gabriel,” she beamed with joy, “just think the honor it would bring our family to have a priest—Perhaps today we should talk to Father Byrnes about it—”

“Be sensible!” my father stood up. “The boy has not even been through his catechism. And it is not the priest who will decide when the time comes, but Tony himself!” He stalked past me. The smell of gunpowder was on his clothes.

They say the devil smells of sulfur.

“It is true,” Ultima added. My mother looked at them and then at me. Her eyes were sad.

“Go feed the animals, my Toñito,” she pushed me away, “it is almost time for mass—”

I ran out and felt the first cool touch of early autumn in the air. Soon it would be time to go to my uncles’ farms for the harvest. Soon it would be time to go to school. I looked across the river. The town seemed still asleep. A thin mist rose from the river. It blurred the trees and buildings of the town, it hid the church tower and the schoolhouse top.

Ya las campanas de la iglesia están doblando…

I wanted not to think anymore of what I had seen last night. I threw fresh alfalfa into the rabbits’ pen and changed their water. I opened the door and the cow bounded out, hungry for fresh grass. Today she would not be milked until the evening, and she would be very heavy. I saw her run towards the highway, and I was glad that she did not wander towards the river where the grass was stained—

Por la sangre de Lupito, todos debemos de rogar,

Que Dios la saque de pena y la lleve a descansar…

I was afraid to think anymore. I saw the glistening of the railroad tracks and my eyes fastened on them. If I followed the tracks I would arrive in Las Pasturas, the land of my birth. Someday I would return and see the little village where the train stopped for water, where the grass was as high and green as the waves of the ocean, where the men rode horses and they laughed and cried at births, weddings, dances, and wakes.