Shaman Winter

  Back and forth Sonny and Raven parried, the blows of Raven’s sword landing like thunder on the dream catcher, and Sonny’s slashes swirling with the force of a hurricane. The earth trembled as the battle continued, first one taking the lead, then the other. Both knew what was at stake.

  As they fought, they shouted at each other, calling each other by ancient names, names from battles fought long ago.

  Sorcerer of the Evil Ring! Sonny exclaimed.

  Son of the Last Lord of Light! Raven answered.

  As they drew near Raven’s circle, they also drew near the manger and the light hovering over the crib. Slashing and swinging the dream catcher, Sonny turned Raven toward the light. When the brilliant light shone on Raven, he cried as if in pain.

  I curse the light that blinds!

  He raised his hands to cover his eyes and Sonny struck the fatal blow. Raven howled in pain and threw his sword down.

  I’m blinded! Raven cried, sinking to his knees.

  Sonny waved the dream catcher as don Eliseo had instructed, bringing it down over Raven’s head, sucking him through the hole. The shadow that lurks in every dream disappeared, passing like a gigantic gushing wind through the dream catcher. A howl far more frightening than any Llorona ever cried split the darkness as Raven passed into forgetfulness.

  The powerful gush of wind knocked Sonny to the ground. He lay there, panting for breath, sweating from the nightmare, listening to the last curse of Raven as he disappeared. Then a calm settled over Sonny’s dream.

  A weak but triumphant Sonny rose. The first light of the rising sun shone in the east. The shepherds he had seen when he entered the dream were drawing near.

  He put the medallion and the pouch over his neck and walked into Raven’s circle. The crows rose threateningly, but Sonny waved his battered dream catcher and they fled, limping away like defeated scavengers. With Raven dead, their power was gone.

  A limping Chica followed Sonny as he hurried to the four grandmothers.

  You’re free! he shouted. I set you free!

  One by one the four grandmothers embraced him and thanked him. When he stood in front of Owl Woman, he bowed.

  You have come a long way, hijo, she said, smiling with pleasure at her son.

  It has been a long journey, Sonny said. I am glad to see you.

  Owl Woman nodded. I will go north with Andres Vaca and raise his children. We will take the Calendar of Dreams with us, and we will pass it to each new generation. The people of La Nueva México will suffer much. Great changes will come to the land. They will strike out against each other with enmity. But the bowl will be there, waiting for them to pour their dream of peace into it.

  Thank you for this gift, grandmother, Sonny said.

  He stood in awe as Owl Woman, Caridad, Epifana, and Soledad entered the bowl, disappearing back into their own time, returning to their memory, returning to their own dreams.

  Sonny turned to the four girls Raven had kidnapped. Somewhere in the city he held them prisoner, but here he held their spirits. By waving the dream catcher over them and catching them in the web, he was returning them to safety. They would walk away from Raven’s prison, not knowing what had happened to them, but they would return to their homes unharmed.

  Go Consuelo, Catalina, Carmen, Celeste. Return home, he said.

  Then he turned to the aura of light that was Rita’s child, the light that had blinded Raven. Return with me, he said softly, but in his heart he knew the impossibility of such a thing. The spirit remained light, light shining on him, bathing him with the clarity of love.

  In his heart he knew it wasn’t possible. This spirit could not return. Not now. Maybe in the future it would find its way to earth. In another time, for another chosen man and woman.

  Sonny felt tears wet his eyes. You will live in our hearts forever, he said, allowing the light that was the love between him and Rita to bathe him.

  He turned to don Eliseo and gathered the crumpled body of the old man in his arms. The old man had become pure light, so his body weighed nothing.

  Carrying the body, Sonny walked through the Door of Light, calling to Chica, who limped after him. Two warriors returning home, returning to La Paz Lane.

  The sun was rising over Sandia Crest when Sonny returned. He walked across the frozen cornfield, crunching the stubble beneath his feet, feeling a great sadness that came from knowing don Eliseo had died that night. Feeling a deep ache for Rita’s child, who could not return.

  But, as don Eliseo had taught, all grief was to be balanced with knowledge. The spirit never died. Don Eliseo would leave his body behind, but his soul was already flying into the morning light. The warm and joyous energy of the sun was returning. It was the day of the winter solstice, and the battle had been won. The sun was rising, returning north, and even as winter gripped the land, the days would begin to get longer. In a few months spring buds would soon proclaim the new season.

  “Gracias, don Eliseo, for all you taught me,” Sonny whispered as he lay don Eliseo softly on the ground. He pressed his forehead to the old man’s. The kiss of life as the old man had taught him.

  “Gracias por todo.”

  28

  Sonny opened his eyes to Lorenza’s clapping, leaving behind him the brilliant light of the door, stepping into the pearl light of dawn that suffused the room.

  She sat by the side of the bed, her face drawn from the night’s work.

  “Don Eliseo’s dead” were the first words he uttered.

  She nodded. “I’m sorry …”

  “Chica?”

  “I bandaged her. There’s a cut above her eye. She may lose it. But she’s sleeping.” She glanced in the direction of Chica’s bed.

  “God Almighty,” Sonny whispered. He felt washed, full of the grief he had felt when he lay don Eliseo to rest, exhausted from the journey.

  “Raven’s gone.”

  “For now,” she said. “The sun is rising. Don Eliseo’s death has a meaning.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without him. And Chica. How was it possible?”

  “The power of the dream,” Lorenza replied. “Just before you returned, the bowl stopped turning, and a light seemed to fill it.”

  Sonny looked at the bowl. Now it contained the souls of his grandmothers, the soul of Rita’s child. He smiled.

  “Rita?” he asked.

  Lorenza handed him the phone and he dialed her number. “Amor,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Sonny. I’m fine. I’m so glad to hear your voice. You made it.”

  “Yes, thanks to Lorenza and don Eliseo.” He looked at Chica sleeping in her basket. “And Chica.”

  “I prayed all night. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

  “I’m okay. It’s you we’re concerned about.”

  “I feel much better. I felt your dream last night. Somehow we, me and the child who couldn’t be born, were there. With you.”

  “Yes.” Sonny nodded. “I have something to do, then we’re coming right over.”

  “I love you, Sonny.”

  “And I love you, amor.”

  He turned the phone off and looked at Lorenza.

  “We can go see her as soon as you feel ready,” she said.

  There were shadows of fatigue around her eyes. The night had drained her energies.

  On the dresser the candles by the Bowl of Dreams had burned out. Light entering from the window fell on the bowl. An aura of peacefulness filled the room.

  Outside, the storm had passed. The winter solstice sun had just burst over the Sandia Mountains.

  “The storm’s over,” he said.

  “It will be a beautiful day,” she replied. “Thanks to you.”

  Sonny thought a moment. The loss of don Eliseo lay heavy on his heart. Like losing a father. The old man had taught Sonny a path of life, and he had been there when Sonny entered Raven’s circle.

  So Raven was destroyed for now, and a new cycle of time could wrap itself around the earth. A new beginning.
A beautiful day, Lorenza said, made possible by those like don Eliseo, those who said the daily prayers for peace and harmony. So it had always been, so it would be.

  But it wasn’t just prayers and chants the old people knew, they knew the way of evil and they fought it actively. They put their lives on the line so their children would know a better future. The dream of peace, after all, had to be forged by the hands of courageous men and women. It didn’t come easy.

  But one could learn to be the actor in one’s dream, and once that was learned, the harmony of the soul could not be destroyed.

  “I had good teachers,” Sonny said.

  “Yes,” Lorenza said, “and now you’re the teacher.” She touched his forehead. “You have taken back your dream, Sonny. You have the knowledge. Now I have to tend to don Eliseo.” She gestured toward the window.

  “No,” Sonny said. “I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll fix you something to eat.”

  Yes, he was hungry. He felt as if he had just come back from a long trip, exhausted and hungry, but filled inside with the revelation of the journey. He slipped off the side of the bed and tested his legs. They held him, obeying the simple automatic commands from his brain.

  “A miracle,” he whispered, pulling on his jeans, a sweatshirt, and his boots. He went to the window, and looked out. There in the middle of the winter-withered cornfield, in his old rocker, sat don Eliseo.

  Sonny went out the front door, across the dirt road, and through the brown and beaten field. The old man sat quietly, like a Buddha, facing east, face uplifted in prayer.

  Sonny walked softly, aware of the crunching, frozen earth and the corn stubble beneath his feet, aware of the plumes of his icy breath in the cold morning. As he drew near the old man, he understood anew the power of dream. The center of the dream returned you home. Don Eliseo had come home to rest.

  This valley of the Río Grande had been home to don Eliseo. The Romeros had been in the valley for centuries. They farmed and raised crops, they married and had children, they prayed the Catholic prayers their ancestors had brought to the valley. Some, like don Eliseo, also said the prayers they learned from the Pueblo Indians, their vecinos. Prayers to keep the sun on its path. Prayers from their inheritance.

  “Don Eliseo,” Sonny whispered, as if afraid to awaken the old man. Yes, perhaps don Eliseo had come out to greet the sun and pray, and he had fallen asleep. That was what Sonny wished as he touched the old man’s shoulder.

  The body was frozen. But his eyes were open, open to the sun that now rose over the crest of the mountain and bathed the face in radiant light. Now in this moment of stillness and magic, los Señores y las Señoras de La Luz came like a host of angels across the dark, cold space to bless the earth. Don Eliseo’s Lords and Ladies of the Light came streaming down to create a halo around the body of the old man.

  Don Eliseo’s soul became light, became the light of the universe, for that was the purpose of life as don Eliseo taught, to fill the spirit with light, to become one with that cosmic light that flowed across the universe. To become God.

  Sonny stood beside the old man for a moment. The old man had been his mentor, his guide into the dreamworld. He had died so Sonny might live. He put his hand over don Eliseo’s eyes, and they closed. He bent and picked up the old man, the temple of flesh that was left after the spirit departed. He turned and faced the rising sun.

  “Señores y Señoras de La Luz,” he prayed, the words choking in his throat, tears filling his eyes. “Receive the soul of this señor who honored you and honored life. Come and bless all of life. This was his prayer.”

  He stood with the old man in his arms, head bent, allowing the tears to flow. He wondered how it was the old man could weigh so little. So much of his substance had been soul, and that, once departed, left only the body.

  If he had his way, he would bury the old man in the cornfield, right now as the morning sun made the valley brilliant with light. Dig into the frozen ground and return the flesh to earth. But don Eliseo had sons, and they would come and claim the body, and knowing little of the old man’s way of life, they would want to deliver the body to a mortuary. A ceremony very different from don Eliseo’s way would be performed. The sons had forgotten the ways of their father.

  The old man should be buried here in the cornfield or under the old cottonwood where he sat on summer days. Buried where he could daily listen to the comings and goings of his neighbors, where he could hear the gurgling water of the acequia as the water was turned down the ditch to water the corn. Here in his garden the old man’s body would dissolve back to the earth in peace.

  The bones of don Eliseo’s ancestors and the ancient bones of his vecinos from the pueblos lay beneath the earth of the valley. Construction workers digging foundations for homes or swimming pools in the North Valley often dug up the bones. Shards of pottery. Broken bowls in which women once cooked, stored seeds, stored the blood of life. But the old man’s family, and the law, would have it otherwise.

  “I will bury your ashes here,” Sonny said. “I promise you that.”

  The old man had said that his ashes should be returned to the earth that nourished him. Sonny was sure the sons would see it his way.

  He turned and carried the body back to don Eliseo’s house. The front door was open, an old habit of don Eliseo. One’s door was never locked. He lay the body on a bed and covered it with a sheet. Then he walked back across La Paz Lane.

  The fragrance of coffee, eggs, chorizo, and tortillas filled the house. He entered the kitchen and Lorenza looked up.

  “I laid him on his bed. I’ll call his boys later. Right now I think don Toto and doña Concha should know.”

  He called doña Concha and told her don Eliseo was dead. “Ay, Dios mío,” she cried, “mi viejito se murió. I’ll get Toto. We’ll be over right away. Don’t worry, Sonny, we’ll take care of everything.”

  Sonny thanked her. The two old friends knew what to do. They would bathe the body, dress him, and then sit with him. They would pray. Don Toto would sing alabados, songs for the dead. Catholic songs with the high pitch of a Moorish canto, songs from the old world.

  Don Toto would also bring a bottle of his homemade wine, and between their prayers they would also drink. They would sip wine and remember all the good times they had with don Eliseo. They would talk to him as if he were still with them, sharing old memories with him, asking him if he remembered such and such an event. Memories of their life.

  Later Concha would prepare a meal and they would eat. The living had to eat. And so those hours would be their personal velorio, their wake for dead.

  “It’s going to be hard on them,” Sonny said when he hung up. “They were always together.”

  Lorenza nodded. “But they understand the flesh must die. Don Eliseo’s spirit is now their companion. Do you feel strong enough to drive to the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll stay with them. Take care of don Eliseo’s things.”

  Sonny nodded. The old man had told him to take his Bible when he died, and the things the medicine men at the pueblo had given him over the years. A few simple things wrapped with prayer.

  “Gracias,” he replied. Yes, it was important Lorenza stay with doña Concha and don Toto.

  “Now the good news about the girls.”

  “They were found.”

  “Yes, Chief Garcia just called. He’s going to call right back. The girls were found downtown this morning. In a building believed to have been rented by Raven.”

  “Lord, I’m glad!” Sonny exclaimed. He sat and she handed him a cup of coffee.

  “Is that the way it is?” he murmured. “We return from a dream.”

  “Yes,” she said, and sipped her coffee.

  “What a mysterious world,” was all he could say.

  The phone rang and Sonny picked it up.

  “Sonny, you up?” Chief Garcia thundered. “Ah, the life of a PI. Sleep late, breakfast in bed. Us ordinary cops have to w
ork twenty-four hours a day, and you guys drink coffee all morning. Work when you want, party at night. But today I’m the one breaking the good news.” He laughed. “Did Lorenza tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damnedest thing,” Garcia continued. “One minute they’re bound, the next they’re free. Got up and phoned the police. I got down there right away. Took them to St. Joe’s to get checked. They’re all right.”

  “Good,” Sonny said. “And you called—”

  “Yeah, I’ve notified the parents. The girls are tired, but they’re safe and they weren’t bothered. So we beat you to two catches this morning, Sonny.”

  “You found Raven.”

  There was a pause. “How in the hell did you know? Yeah, we found his body this morning.”

  Sonny was intrigued. “Where?”

  “You won’t believe this. Last night he broke into Sandia Labs, into a lab where they had some kind of laser experiment going. He got burned by the Z machine. Lab security figures he was back trying to steal plutonium, and he walked into a fusion machine. Fried him.”

  “How can you be sure it’s Raven?” Sonny asked.

  “You don’t sound too goddamned excited,” Garcia chortled. “I’m sure it’s Raven. There wasn’t much left of him. A black cape. You know he likes to dress like a vampire. There were feathers stuck to his body, like he was some kind of a bird!”

  Garcia laughed again. “Dead Raven if you ask me. Dead as a chicharrón. The lab will check the prints out, but I’m confident they’ll match. So, while you were sleeping safe in bed, we nailed the sonofabitch!”

  “Did you get the plutonium?” Sonny asked.

  “Well, no, but … We’ll find it. It’s only a matter of time. He’s dead, and sooner or later the plutonium will show up.”

  “And the Ebola vials he was carrying?”

  “Well, no, but the stuff is going to turn up. I’m sure.”

  “Yeah, let’s just hope it doesn’t turn up in the city’s drinking water,” Sonny replied.