Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest (6 page)

Food was a critical factor, so the older generation was sacrificed for the sake of the tribe. If food was plentiful, the old ones were allowed to remain
for another season. But as soon as hard times came, the dreaded decisions were made. Sometimes they left in groups of three and sometimes alone, to go down the mountain. Only the tribe's leaders were excluded from this rule of expulsion.

A time of famine had hit the tribe, and the old man was the only one who had reached the dreaded age of fifty. He had been chosen to leave the village the following morning. It had been hard to say goodbye to his family. His wife would be reaching the dreaded age next spring. He had hoped they might have gone down the mountain together.

But here he found himself going down the mountain with two warriors who were to accompany him three-quarters of the way. The last leg of the journey he had to make on his own. The warriors would sit and watch his descent, and any attempt on his part to return up the mountain would bring him instant death from the two warriors. These were the rules of the elders. There was to be no return, only a one-way trip for the chosen ones.

They reached the three-quarter mark, a point known as the Three Little Old Men because of the three ancient trees that stood there. Past this point, the old Yaqui would be on his own.

He looked back at his young companions, and they called out to him, “Goodbye, old one! Go with the god of the mountains!”

He called back to them, “Goodbye, my sons!”

They looked at him sadly as they watched him go down the mountain like a lonely creature lost in the vast space of the rocky landscape.

The Yaqui hiked down the mountain slowly. He would not look back, he told himself. He felt like an
old wolf run out from his pack's lair. The only strong feeling within his body was survival. Survival was the key now! His limbs felt old and his body was aching, but he walked down the mountainside and into the valley. Then he headed toward the hill of huge boulders and rocks known as the Bones of Death.

Once he reached the hill, he would have to decide whether to remain there and die, or to walk further into the valley and into the village of the half-breeds and beg for his life. No Indian would ever think of going into the village. The Indians hated and feared the mestizos. Stories were told in hushed tones of the cruelties that befell any Indian who was caught in the lowland village. The lowlands had been forbidden by the elders since the great dispersion of the tribes at the hands of the Spaniards. No contact with mestizos was permitted. They were to be avoided at all costs. The rule was lifted only when the dreaded age came and the outcasts were sent down to choose their fate.

The Yaqui reached the hill of boulders and rocks. He now realized why this hill was called the Bones of Death. Everywhere lay skeletons and bits of broken bone. Large crows sat all over the rocky area. At first he felt revulsion at the sight, but he calmed down and told himself, “These are the bones of my predecessors. Why should I fear them? Why should I fear my own people?” Tears welled in his eyes. All his friends were here.

“Why? Why?” he yelled. His voice echoed down into the valley and hillsides. This frightened the crows and they all burst into flight, cawing and cawing. The noise overwhelmed the previously quiet valley.

The tired Yaqui stood in a stupor among the dark boulders with the bones at his feet lying around in a loose pattern like bird droppings on the rocks. He did not move even after the crows had settled once again among the rocks and sat there looking at him, miniature judges in their black robes ready to sentence him to death.

“What shall I do? Should I choose life and walk down to the feared mestizo village and take my chances, or should I choose death?” The old man was aware of the mass of bones scattered around him, the bones of his predecessors who had chosen death.

“All my brothers and sisters,” he thought as he glanced around at the scattered bones.

He felt sad, yet within himself he felt an ancient feeling that was arising strongly, gnawing at his brain. Life, life, choose life! it said to him. He knew that this feeling would be hard to fight. You must live! his mind told him. He really wanted to live. This feeling was inbred within his soul. It was a feeling born from centuries of tribal suffering, nomadic wanderings, and battles against human adversaries and natural calamities.

He had seen so much during his lifetime. He knew that someday his wife and children would have to pass this way. The old man hoped that their journey would be merciful. The thought depressed his spirits.

The decision was his to make on this quiet lonely hillside. The sun was starting to go down and long shadows were forming across the valley floor. The light was beginning to fade. If he were to live, he needed to start down to the village now.

He looked up at the darkening sky, and at the
birds rustling their feathers and settling down to sleep. He had no food, no water, and his strength was ebbing.

“Even birds must eat, even worms must eat. Let my body feed these poor creatures after I am gone. I will stay with my brothers and sisters. My spirit will be free, and my life will not have been in vain for my death will beget life. On this earth, in order to survive we feed upon the death of one another.”

His thoughts disappeared as he slowly fell asleep. The old Yaqui lay there sleeping, shivering from the cold, wrapped only in a thin deerskin.

But soon he was awake again. A cold chill ran down his back. His whole body shuddered. He heard howling and barking coming from the bottom of the darkened hillside. He could make out countless shadows leaping over the rocks and boulders in the distance. The shadows seemed to be heading up the hill toward him.

He now knew! The strong odor that he had smelled among the rocks and boulders—he remembered well now the dreaded wild dogs of the valley floor! The leaders of the tribe were aware that those who chose to starve on the hill would not suffer for long. They had known about the dogs all along!

He had no choice now. The dogs had been waiting for the darkness to set in the valley, for they only hunted at night. They sensed when a human was brought down from the mountains. If he had headed for the village of the mestizos, he might have lived! He sat there waiting, trembling.

“I want to live!” he whispered to himself as tears ran down his cheeks.

The elders had been merciful to him and the
others before him. They had given them a chance to save themselves by giving them a choice between the mestizo village and maybe life or the hill with its sure death.

He had waited too long to make his decision and had sentenced himself to death. He would be silenced forever. He could hear the dogs closing in. It would only be a matter of minutes. There was nowhere to go, to hide, or escape!

“The dogs, the hungry dogs!”

Heavy tears clouded his eyes. They were getting closer. The gods of the mountains had sealed his fate. He stood and looked up at the glittering stars in the sky. The snarling and barking of the dogs filled the air. He could hear them jumping on the rocks, over the dark boulders, on the hill known as the Bones of Death.

THE CAVES OF DEATH

THE CAVES OF DEATH

I
n the small towns of Chihuahua, the people speak in hushed tones of the treasures hidden in the dry hills out in the surrounding desert. They say the treasures are precious jewels, and objects of gold and silver taken by Pancho Villa during his sacking of Mexico City. They tell of the secret mule trains that moved during the night and headed north with hordes of treasure taken from the rich and the churches. In the caves that go deep into the earth, Pancho Villa buried his booty of treasure. He would take three or four men with him and travel for one or two days, find a cave, unload the mules of their heavy burdens, and hide the treasure. Then he would shove the bewildered peasant soldiers against the cave walls and execute them with a machete or shoot them with his pistols, leaving their corpses to guard the treasure forever.

Only Pancho Villa would know where the treasure was hidden. No maps were ever made. He kept the location of his booty buried in his mind. No one else would ever know where the treasure-filled caves were.

According to the Indians of the region, it is bad luck if you try to find the Caves of Death; that it is
smart to walk away if you happen to find one of these caves. They say that if you decide to go into one of them, you will first hear the voices of the dead, of the soldiers who were killed by Pancho Villa once they hid his treasure; that if you go deeper into the cave, the voices become louder and you can hear what was said when the treasure was hidden; and that if you are brave enough to keep on going, you will hear the screams of the soldiers as they were hacked or shot by Pancho Villa. As far as wandering any further than that, the Indians say to you, “Beware!” They warn that no one who has ventured that far has ever returned.

The caves are like a spider web. They let you go in like a careless fly. Then you find yourself trapped, struggling and becoming more entangled in the web. When this happens, the spider hurries over to toy with you while it weaves a shroud around you. Finally, it destroys you. And this is what happened to Polito when he accidentally wandered into the Caves of Death.

Polito, the old prospector, had endlessly searched the dry desert hills looking for gold and silver. Ever since he was a young man, he had been hoping for one rich strike. But it had always eluded him. Polito's only companions were his mule and his dog Mocos. In the villages where he occasionally stopped for supplies, the people thought of him as a crazy old man.

“Crazy old man, where is your treasure?” they would yell at him. But Polito paid them no mind. He would leave the village and return to his beloved desert and his hills.

One particular evening after returning to the desert, Polito decided to camp out on a nearby hill
because it was chilly. Just when the breeze was beginning to blow, he happened to find a cave and decided to shelter himself and his animals inside. This, he thought, would be his home for the night.

Polito unloaded his mule, started a fire, and cooked his food. After eating, the prospector fed his mule and gave Mocos the scraps left from his supper. (The dog's bony frame testified to the fact that Polito's fare was not too abundant.) Just inside the mouth of the cave, Polito's fire crackled and sent sparks of light into the darkness.

Because the wind began to blow harder, Polito moved deeper into the cave, where he lay on his humble bed. Mocos came over, stretched himself out alongside the mat, and watched the old man moving about. Finally, the dog rested his head between his paws.

The wind sounded like people whispering as it blew across the mouth of the cave, and Mocos raised his ears to better catch the sound, his head moving from side to side trying to determine the source. Polito also heard it. “Such an eerie sound,” he said to himself. There was something strange about this cave, he thought.

Grabbing a burning piece of wood from the fire to use as a torch, the old prospector moved deeper into the cave to investigate. Mocos followed him.

As he advanced, the noise grew louder; the whispers became moans, the moans of people in despair, moans of suffering; sorrowful moans that made Polito tremble and his skin tingle with fear.

Still the prospector moved onward, deeper and deeper into the cave. Mocos began to whimper. The moans became voices. Suddenly, the voices stopped, and an overpowering silence was felt in the cave.
Polito's torch sputtered, sending dancing shadows all over the cave walls.

“I hope the flame doesn't go out,” Polito muttered. He was uneasy. He stood there in the eerie silence, listening and looking into the far reaches of the perimeter of light, and wondered what his next move should be.

The moaning suddenly started again. The moans echoed and re-echoed throughout the cave-long sad mournful moans, moans of despair. Polito stopped in his tracks after a few steps. He could feel the evil in the air. It wasn't a destructive evil; it was more like an evil that was trying to repel him, a feeling that he had entered a dimension of the supernatural, a place where he did not belong. He hesitatingly moved forward. He could not stop moving forward.