Shaman Winter

  Sonny nodded. He knew the old man read a lot, that the bookshelves of his home were filled with dusty volumes, but this wisdom came from the heart.

  “But it was not yet time. So a new age appears. The Toltecas called it Four Rain. In this third age of time, the sun was consumed by fire. The people were like birds that flew here and there. They thought they were now connected to the spirit of the universe. Not true. To fly is not just to go from tree to tree gathering fruit, it means to allow the soul to fly into the clarity of light. We could fly, but we did not make the Great Tree of Life our home. And so all had to burn in the great cleansing fire of the creation.”

  “Like the fire of a supernova,” Sonny murmured. The universe was reflected in each person’s personal struggle for inner clarity, for growth of spirit. Man and woman on earth created their own ages of birth, destruction, rebirth.

  “Yes. And so our ancestors are eaten by tigers.”

  “Why tigers?”

  “The Tolteca priests could have used any animal, but the tiger is the animal of the jungle. The jaguar hunts in the darkness. At night the people heard the roaring tigers that came to eat the flesh so the spirit could be set free.”

  “Our own animal spirit,” Sonny said. He was listening and staring at the glyphs. The Mesoamerican myth of creation. It could have been any myth of creation handed to a community of people, one for the Navajos, the Pueblo world, the Comanches, Lakotas, Cheyennes, Utes, on and on, from Inuit in the frozen north to Machu Picchu to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip. The myths were revealed by the gods, the covenants were made, and a dream was born.

  “See here. This is the sun of Four Water, and the new people formed are drowned. Like the flood in the Bible. The entire world and all its humans are transformed. The spirit grows within, but it was not easy. To acquire the clarity of the light of the Universal Spirit is never easy. Some resisted. Some wished to return to chaos. They preferred no future time. They did not want to see the soul grow.”

  Sonny let the old man’s words sink in. Finally he spoke.

  “So Raven wants to end time because he realizes that in time we are perfecting our souls. We are being filled with light until we are one with the universal consciousness?”

  “Yes,” don Eliseo said eagerly. “You see, it’s that desire to resist the light that is evil.”

  “Those ancestral spirits who refused clarity, are they still around?”

  “Yes.”

  “They speak to Raven?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Sonny nodded. The dream of the Americas was destroyed by those who caused violence and destruction. They disrupted the prayers and meditations of those who sought the peace and joy of the universal consciousness.

  “The glyphs move in a spiral around the bowl,” don Eliseo said. “Bringing us to the present age. This sun is called Four Movement. El quinto sol, Tonatiuh. Our Grandfather Sun.”

  Don Eliseo leaned back in his chair. He looked tired.

  Sonny looked into the eyes of the old man. They held secrets, a knowledge Sonny would never in a lifetime even begin to fathom. Under the graying eyebrows and in a sea of crow’s-feet, the eyes were sad.

  “And this sun, too, will die,” Sonny said, sinking back into his chair, filled, like the old man, with a weight of an immutable law that they could not affect or change.

  “Yes, the time of the fifth sun will end in violence.” Don Eliseo nodded.

  “The dreams will die?”

  “If Raven wins.”

  “But if there have been five suns, five ages of time, doesn’t it follow there will be a sixth sun?” Sonny asked. “And a seventh. Cycles come and go.”

  Don Eliseo smiled. “Yes. One universe dies to give birth to another, one cycle of time ends on earth to give birth to the next. But now we have traveled the Path of the Sun for a long time. We know our responsibility.”

  “And that is?”

  “To create the new era of time,” don Eliseo replied. “Evolution is in our hands. The old stories told of the desire of our ancestors to end their time on earth.”

  “You mean they desired the end of time? I don’t get it,” Sonny said. The old man was leading him down a new path. The end of time as sketched out in don Eliseo’s stories had been cataclysmic, and life on earth had ended. Why would humans desire the end of time?

  “When our ancestors gathered to destroy a prior cycle of time, they were really gathering to destroy a level of consciousness they had achieved. In order to give birth to a new awareness, they had to destroy the old. Don’t you see? Gathering at the temples or pyramids was a time of celebration! The people knew that an old way of thinking would die, but from the ashes of the old fire a new consciousness would be born. So an era ended, they were creating a new one.”

  “That’s a beautiful way to put it,” Sonny whispered. Chica appeared and leaped on his lap. He stroked the dog gently, and she sat silently, looking at don Eliseo as a friend.

  “But many of those ceremonies are not held anymore. Those who fear the light of the Center fear the illumination.”

  “Fear the dream of what we can become.”

  “Yes,” don Eliseo said. “The dreams also have names. See here along the top of the bowl. These are the names of the dreams. Sueño de creación, sueño de la luz, sueño de los dioses, sueño de paz, sueño de los sueños. The dreams are difficult to read. You have to go into each one to understand it.”

  “I have to learn to read the glyphs of the dreams if I’m to stop Raven.”

  “Owl Woman,” don Eliseo replied.

  “Yes.” Sonny needed to find Owl Woman, rescue her from Raven’s claws, take the bowl to her so that the dream of the people could be known.

  “Gracias,” Sonny said, and leaned forward to embrace the old man.

  “Estamos aquí para servir,” the old man replied, and touched his forehead to Sonny’s. This was the kiss of life he had taught Sonny. The kiss of friendship. When their foreheads met, he shared the clarity of his soul with Sonny.

  Don Eliseo stood and looked out the window. Sonny understood why the old man prayed every morning for clarity. He, like other priests and medicine men, had been keeping the universe in balance. Their prayers offset the evil loose on the land. But they were old men, ready to die and pass into the mysterious winds of the universe. Those left, the young people, no longer apprenticed to learn the prayers.

  “I feel old and tired,” don Eliseo said.

  Sonny had never heard the old man confess to being tired. He was up by sunrise, working in his garden in the summer and always cleaning up around his house in winter. He visited the Indian pueblos and talked to the medicine men there. He took food to the poor. He was active and vigorous, but now the struggle was proving to be too much.

  Sonny understood that it was time for someone younger to begin to take don Eliseo’s place.

  “I’ll wash the dishes before I go.”

  “No, no. I can get these done. I stand at the sink and it helps my legs get strong. Go on,” Sonny insisted.

  “Bueno. I got to go take some sopa to Concha. She’s got a bad cold and not getting around too good.”

  “Give her an abrazo for me.”

  “I will. Adiós. Adiós, Chica. Come and see me.”

  Sonny watched the old man leave, walking across the dirt road to his home.

  Lord, Sonny thought, so many things I don’t know, don’t understand.

  The phone rang and startled him. He felt his hand tremble as he reached for it.

  “Mr. Baca?” the voice of a man said.

  “Yes.”

  “Sonny Baca? They told us you’re a detective. You find missing persons.”

  “Who are you?” Sonny asked.

  “Alberto García. I live in Taos. Ranchos de Taos. I need to talk to you.”

  “Your daughter is missing.”

  “Yes. Did the sheriff call you?”

  “No,” Sonny groaned. My dream calls me.

  “We ta
lked to the sheriff. He told us it’s just a case of a young girl staying with her friends. Or maybe she ran off with her boyfriend. She’s not like that, Mr. Baca. We need help.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Sonny said calmly.

  “Last night our daughter went out with our church group. Every year we do Las Posadas here at Ranchos. You know, the story of Joseph and Mary going around the neighborhood asking for a place to sleep. She was playing the part of La Virgen. We also went, right here in our placita. There’s never been any danger here. When Las Posadas were done, she stayed with her friends there at my compadre Horacio’s. We came home and went to bed. A little later I heard her come in, go to bed. This morning she wasn’t in her room. We called all her friends. Then I called the sheriff. It’s not right, Mr. Baca, it’s not right. Something bad has happened. The sheriff gave us your name. Can you help us?”

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” Sonny asked.

  “Catalina,” the man answered.

  9

  “Sonny, Taos is a three-hour drive. Yesterday you could have gotten killed. I can still hear the cold in your voice. Say you won’t go.”

  Sonny sensed Rita’s concern even on the phone.

  “I feel better, amor, de veras. I got up, ate the great breakfast you left me, talked to don Eliseo, feel strong, and the weather’s settled—”

  “It’s not settled. There’s a storm coming in, and Taos will get snow. And you need to do your therapy.”

  “I walked to the bathroom,” he said lamely. “The legs feel strong, really.”

  “Please stay home.”

  “I can’t,” he replied. He had told her last night’s nightmare. He had to stop Raven. “There’s a missing girl in Taos.”

  “But it’s you he wants,” Rita said, her voice tremulous for a moment, then in anger she cursed Raven. “Damn that man! I wish he had never come into our lives!”

  “Maybe your curse will stop him.” Sonny tried to smile.

  “It won’t.”

  “So it’s up to me.”

  “How did he get from Bandelier to Taos?”

  “Raven flies, remember? Anyway, he’s out of the net they set around Los Alamos.”

  “Come by here. I’ll send a lunch with you.”

  “Amor, you’re too good to me. Don’t worry, we can grab something there.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “To Taos and back, that’s all.”

  “Take care of yourself. I love you, cabrón.”

  “I’ll take care. You take care. See you this afternoon. Un beso.” He blew a kiss into the phone.

  “Un beso,” she replied.

  Am I doing the right thing? Sonny wondered as he clicked off the phone. Chasing after missing virgins. Raven’s picking sixteen-year-olds. But where in the hell is he taking them? He needs transportation and a place to hide. He needs help, like the crazies who worked for him in the past, and those kind of locos don’t work for free.

  He got hold of enough money to buy the plutonium, and probably enough to pay the scientists he needs to assemble a bomb. Even ex-nuclear physicists from the former Soviet Union came with a price tag.

  Money, he needs lots of money, and if Matt Paiz was right, the funds were coming from the extremists who wanted to create a nuclear “accident” to discredit the government.

  This is not the kind of case where I hit the streets and dig for information, Sonny thought. I need to get into Los Alamos Labs, learn about the equipment they buy when they put a bomb together, find the names of scientists. Who is who in New Mexico nuclear technology? How come we never hear about these people? A computer! I need to get onto the Internet.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Lorenza’s arrival. She honked the van’s horn once, then came inside. In jeans, a dark turtleneck, and black leather jacket, she looked ready for business.

  “Buenos días.” She smiled and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “How do you feel today?”

  “Great. And you look de aquellas.”

  “Thank you. If I’m going to be chauffeuring the number one private investigator around, I’d better look decent.”

  “I don’t feel so number one. There’s another girl missing.”

  He told her about the dream and the phone call.

  “Somehow the girls are part of a much bigger game Raven is playing. Why take the girls at the same time he’s trying to build a bomb? And why call the press and tell them something’s rotten at the Los Alamos Labs? Doesn’t jibe.”

  “It’s his style. His trickster nature is to play games,” Lorenza replied. “The four girls he wants to kidnap have something to do with his grand design.”

  “Four queens for his new universe. I think he’s crazy!”

  “He wants all of us to think that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Anyway, I have to move around a lot. I can’t ask you to keep driving me—”

  She interrupted. “Hey, I volunteered, so if I can help, I will. Rita can’t—” She stopped short, moved her finger around the lip of the cup.

  “Something’s troubling her.”

  “She’s tired.”

  “No wonder, taking care of me these past two months, and trying to run the café. I know it’s been hard on her.”

  “She needs rest. She promised to take off an hour every afternoon and go home and rest. I have her on some vitamins, a few herbs …”

  Lorenza’s voice trailed. Sonny didn’t like the sound of it. Rita was tired, he had seen it in her eyes.

  “She should see a doctor.”

  “She has.”

  “She didn’t say anything—”

  “She doesn’t want to worry you. She’s fine. She just needs to take it easy.”

  “I just talked to her. I’ll call her back—”

  Lorenza touched his hand. “Sonny, I promised her not to tell you about the doctor’s visit. It will only upset her.”

  Sonny nodded. “Lord, I appreciate everything you do. I feel haunted. Like I don’t know which way to turn. Now Rita—”

  “Rita understands you have to take care of this. It’s a matter of life and death, for the girls and for you. Let’s stick to that.”

  “I know, but Rita’s not well—”

  “You don’t have a choice. You stay put and Raven will get at you. You don’t have much time.”

  Yeah, Sonny knew that. “The question is how? Can I stop him before he kidnaps another girl? Or do I just stay awake and quit dreaming? No dreams, no Raven kidnapping the grandmothers of my past.”

  “You have to dream,” she said, her dark brown eyes staring at him over the lip of her coffee cup.

  “Why?”

  “The shaman dreams. That’s his role—”

  Sonny laughed. “Look, I’m no shaman, no brujo. I’m just me, Sonny Baca, your normal thirty-something Chicano who just wants to do his own thing. I—” He stopped short, looked intensely into Lorenza’s eyes, the eyes that always fascinated because they held the knowledge of the owl.

  “I keep resisting what I’m becoming,” he whispered, and cradled his head on his hands on the table. “I just want to be normal. Whatever that is.”

  She gently touched his shoulder. “You are normal, but you also have a gift. It’s the same gift don Eliseo has, and he’s led a normal life. He married, he had children, he has neighbors, like the rest. But he also has the gift.”

  Sonny looked up at her, arching an eyebrow. “His gift? He can fly?” Don Eliseo had never told him that, not in so many words.

  “Yes, he can enter the dreamworld. That’s how he helps people. By bringing harmony to fragmented souls.”

  “Men who can fly, curanderos, brujos.… When did it start? Where did this power come from?”

  “It’s been here all along. For our healers it started when the Spaniards were about to arrive in the New World. Moctezuma, the ruler of Tenochtitlán, had many dreams. He saw houses sailing on the Gulf. He couldn’t figure out what they were, so he asked his priests to gat
her. The priests also had the same dream. Perhaps we should say nightmares, for they knew the coming of the strangers meant an end to their way of life.”

  “But the dream couldn’t stop the course of history.”

  “No, Moctezuma had his priests killed because they had bad dreams.”

  “Like the messenger who brings bad news is killed. But I’m the messenger of my own dream. I am the dreamer. I have to be an actor in my dream, not just an observer.”

  “It’s what we all have to learn,” Lorenza said. “Owl Woman came to you for a reason. She is the Bearer of Dreams. Your dream, your destiny. Yours is the dream of your ancestors, the greater communal dream, the dream of humankind.”

  “Bearer of Dreams. I like that.”

  “Yes. Each of us has a spirit within that comes to reveal the pattern of our life, the reason for being—”

  “Whoa, whoa.” Sonny smiled. “You’re losing me. Bearer of Dreams, dream of mankind. I need to do a little research into this. Maybe some books on dreams.”

  Lorenza looked at him in a strange way, shrugged, and Sonny knew he had taken a wrong turn.

  “Not good?”

  “Books can help, but the dream, or song line as it’s called in some parts of the world, is specific for each sacred region.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Each region is a sacred place on earth for the ancestors. For the Pueblo Indians, our ancestors, it’s here. Their myths and dreamworld is connected to this place. The song line of the Maori is in New Zealand. It has to do with their place. The earth is the Mother Earth because she holds the dreams of all the tribes.”

  “And there are sacred regions everywhere: the Holy Land, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the mountains of Tibet. Each of these regions holds the dream for the people of the place. But why so much conflict in these places?”