The land and the water have always been up for grabs. The struggle continues.
Yes, the old man said, and you’re in the way. You know Raven’s ways and what he’s capable of doing.
“Get a load of—” the pilot shouted and pointed down.
The chopper had been following the highway back to Jemez Springs.
Sonny leaned to look out the window. On the highway below them a truck was traveling at full speed. On the bed of the pickup sat two men armed with rifles. Bear and his boys?
“I thought the highway was closed?”
“Get closer!” Augie shouted, patting the pilot on the shoulder.
The pilot nodded and suddenly tilted on the chopper sideways. Sonny’s door flew open, his seatbelt slipped away, and he felt Augie’s push. With a gasp he tumbled out of the chopper. The rush of air hit him like runaway bronco. He reached out and grabbed the landing bars. For precious moments he dangled, tightening his grip on the bars.
He heard someone call his name. Holding tight he looked up into Augie’s grinning face. The chopper straightened out and zoomed down the canyon, overtaking the truck below.
He heard the zing of a gunshot and saw a window explode. Whoever was in the truck was firing at them. Were they firing at him or at the chopper?
Hanging in the air Sonny felt a premonition of death. A waking dream unlike any other. He was flying, the cold air rushing past him, and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. But he was flying, like an eagle, like a feathered serpent. Exhilaration and adrenaline pumped through his body. This was it, death. He would drop in free fall, enjoy a few seconds to reflect on his life, then smash into the road below. Like the dead snake on the road.
“Sawnnny!” the voice called his name.
He looked up and saw Augie holding out his hand.
“Take my hand!”
Sonny hesitated, then reached up, grabbed hold, and Augie pulled. Both men strained until Sonny could put his feet on the landing gear and push himself through the door.
“Damn!” the pilot shouted. “You okay?”
An exhausted and panting Sonny Baca nodded. He looked at Augie. Another bullet whizzed past as the pilot steered the chopper just over the tree line.
“I tried to grab you!” Augie shouted.
Or push me, Sonny thought. He had felt Augie’s hands on his back as he went out the door. If he pushed why did he haul me up? Did the truck on the road have anything to do with it? Witnesses?
Below them the truck pulled off onto a dirt road and disappeared under the ponderosa pines.
Augie reached for the seatbelt and pushed it into lock. Then he pulled on it and it slid out.
“Damn, Joe!” he shouted at the pilot. “You gotta fix this damn thing! It’s not locking!” He turned to Sonny. “You’re lucky to be alive. Those guys meant to kill you.”
Don’t think so, thought Sonny. Bear and his boys were good shots. They wouldn’t have missed. He wondered if he should thank Augie or smack him in the face.
The chopper zoomed over Battleship Rock, then over the village, like a dragonfly skimming over still waters it dropped into the valley, over the thin river where a stingy spring runoff trickled, over the tops of budding cottonwoods and elms, settling finally with a thump where they had taken off.
“Houston, Lola has landed!” the pilot said and gave them the thumbs-up signal. “Sorry the tour included getting shot at.” He looked at Sonny and grinned. “I’ll have that door fixed.”
“Yeah,” Sonny muttered.
“Good luck on defusing the bomb. Me, I’m just going to head down to Mexico. Watch the world blow itself apart from the beaches of Mazatlan. La perla del Pacífico.”
“Hang glide on the beach,” Sonny said. “Watch out for frayed ropes. You might drop out of the sky.”
“Yeah,” the pilot replied.
“I bet you a five-dollar bill those sonsofbitches were those Green Indians Naomi hangs out with,” Augie said as they walked away from the chopper. “The highway’s closed. How the hell did they get through?”
“Ask them,” Sonny replied. He was in no mood to discuss things with Augie. “I’m outta here.”
“Watch your back, Sonny. If they tried once they might try again.”
“What are you going to do about Naomi?”
“Let her go. For now. Or do you mean—Okay, so I made a move on her. Tried to score. Don’t mean nothing. She’s too goddamn independent.”
“What about the governor?”
“He had the hots for her too, but she wasn’t interested.”
Sonny shrugged. “And the professors?”
“I don’t give a damn about them. They can’t hurt a fly. What do they do? Read books. Write books. It’s the fucking Al Qaeda I’m going to burn. If his mother ever sees him again he’s lucky. We’re at war, you know.”
“The FBI wants him.”
“Yeah, but before I turn him over I’m going to get what’s coming to me.” He paused. “I’m in trouble, Sonny. The governor was murdered on my watch. If I don’t get this guy to confess, my name is mud. Look, if you hang around you can help.”
“I’m through helping,” Sonny said, and he turned around and walked away.
“Have it your way,” Augie called after him. He smiled and turned to meet the news media, which were pressing forward like the Red Sea closing on Pharaoh’s boys. A bombardment of questions met him.
“I know you’ve all been waiting for an explanation,” Augie said, holding up his hands. “All I can tell you at this time is that we have a homicide—” He glanced after Sonny. “We haven’t yet identified the body—”
Lying through his teeth, Sonny thought, as he got into his truck. He grabbed the steering wheel and tightened his grip until his knuckles turned white. Till now, he had controlled his anger and the sense of impotence that came from seeing himself dangling from the helicopter. He had trusted Augie and that had been a mistake. It could have been his last mistake.
“Son of a bitch,” he cursed silently. Augie used to be a nice guy; now there was too much war talk in his system. But why lie to the news media? Wait for forensics to do a positive ID? No, he was covering his ass until he got the okay from those he had called his superiors.
Maybe the governor was caught up in Frank Dominic’s plan. There were millions to be made if the state decided to allow Dominic to buy up water rights.
Maybe it was an internal political battle that killed the governor.
And was it Bear and his boys in the pickup? Was Augie really chasing them? The Al Qaeda conspiracy was just a cover-up. Augie was the governor’s personal guard, and whatever the governor knew, Augie knew.
What do you think? he asked the old man.
I think now you’re probably using your noggin, the old man answered. Close call, huh?
Yeah.
Sonny relaxed and took a deep breath. He started the truck and drove out of the parking lot, down the highway to his cabin. Now he knew a wider conspiracy was taking place, and it revolved around the most precious element in the drought-stricken region: water.
The old man said nothing more. Sonny sensed he wasn’t in a talking mood. Perhaps he felt time pressing on him. A few nights ago Sonny had asked the old man about the afterlife. What was on the other side of the bar? The old man shook his head and muttered something about the bardo, the Buddhist belief that there was a brief time on Earth during which the spirit of the dead wandered about, perhaps visiting old haunts, before it journeyed into another life form.
Was this the old man’s time in the bardo? Or was it all in Sonny’s head? What man conceived in the mind became more real than the world that could be touched, smelled, heard.
There were many ways of looking at death and what it meant. Many cultures conceived of it as a journey. The soul sought a new incarnation or its original home: heaven, the land of spirits, Hades, Nirvana, an escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth, Mictlan, the Aztec Land of the Fleshless Ones, on and on.
Maybe the soul simply returned to the same energies that once engendered it, a return to the dreaming consciousness of the universe. The Oversoul. Every culture, every religion preached its ideas about death and its aftermath.
Maybe that’s why he searched for the Zia Stone, the petroglyph that might provide a clue to the Alpha and the Omega.
But if the old man had the answer why didn’t he just spill it? Maybe there was no answer and even the search for the Zia Stone was a waste of time. Everything was a waste of time. Time had suddenly entered his bloodstream in a discouraging, intolerable way. Even the spring equinox with the light of the moon sure to shine on the valley that night suddenly felt exhausting. He felt an emptiness he couldn’t put into words. Yes, someone had stolen his heart. The child that died in Rita’s womb, the miscarried blood flowing into the earth. For what? Why?
Were Rita’s unborn babies now residing in a place like Limbo, place of infants who died? Or in a place like the bardo, awaiting the longer journey into the arms of God, if such a consciousness existed?
He turned off the pavement, onto the dirt road that led to the cabin. Passing over the acequia culvert he saw the water was flowing down to his apple trees. Melvin had come by and opened the compuerta. Thank God for good neighbors who watched over the place.
In this land, don Eliseo had said, a man is lucky if he has two things. A good wife, and a good neighbor.
Sonny had good neighbors. And he had a good woman.
The sight by the river bosque made him brake the truck to a sudden halt. There was Naomi, willow stick in hand, herding a dozen large pigs away from the apple trees, down toward the river.
“They need water!” she called.
Where in the hell did the pigs come from? None of the neighbors, as he could recall, had pigs. Big, round-shouldered pigs, every one a male as far as Sonny could tell, except for the huge, black sow in the lead. White, black, brown, a few spotted pigs, grunting, squealing, plowing the earth with their snouts, they let Naomi guide them to the river.
Maybe Joe Garcia traded his sheep for pigs, Sonny thought as he got down from the truck. Or Sam Mares, or Emmit? Naw, none of those had time for pigs.
He followed her down to the river’s edge. The pigs had disappeared in the underbrush.
“Sit here,” Naomi said. She sat under the webbed shadows of the bare cottonwood.
“Whose pigs?” she asked. Sonny shrugged. “I was in the cabin when I heard them. Figured you might not want them around your apple trees. Pigs can be destructive.”
“Thanks.”
Her raven-black hair cascaded around her shoulders. A perfume of sage and juniper berries clung to her body.
“You hungry?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“I bet your lady friend sent food with you.”
Sonny nodded.
“You’re a lucky man, Sonny. Women like you. If I weren’t already involved—” She didn’t finish. “What happened up on the mountain?”
“They say Raven planted a bomb. Augie’s got it tied into an Al Qaeda conspiracy.”
“I told you, don’t trust him.”
“I should have listened to you. Come on, I’ve got to check the place and get back to Burque.” He wasn’t going to tell her about the near fall from the helicopter.
A Mourning Cloak butterfly flitted by. Harbinger of spring in the valley.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked as they walked back to the cabin.
“I’m getting out of town.”
“Are you afraid?”
“It’s not just Augie,” she replied. “It’s bigger than that. I suggest you get out too.”
“Why?”
“You want Raven, don’t you? It’s a personal thing with you two. I read what happened at the Balloon Fiesta. I read between the lines. He threatens people, but that’s just his game to get to you. It’s personal, isn’t it?”
Sonny nodded in agreement.
“It has something to do with the loss you feel—”
“How do you know?”
“I read people’s faces. Whatever’s going on inside a person is written on the face. The face reveals everything. Even when I was a child I could tell what the person was going through. Sometimes I told people what was going to happen, but no one believed me. I learned to keep it to myself.”
They stopped at the cabin’s door.
“How do I find whoever stole my heart?” he asked.
“You know, crack an egg in water. It turns into the person you love. In this case, whoever stole your heart.”
An old custom, Sonny thought, used to be practiced on Día de San Juan during the blessing of the waters.
“That’s June 24,” he murmured.
“It will work for you today, Sonny. Today is a day of waters. We might all be dead by June 24, or just pitiful little images in your dreams.”
A honking up the road startled the red robins grubbing by the river, sparing for the moment the fat earthworms in the thawing earth.
Bear’s truck. The same pickup the helicopter had followed on the mountain. How they evaded the roadblocks Sonny could only guess.
“Naomi!” Bear called. “Come on, let’s finish!”
“I gotta go,” Naomi said. She walked away, then turned. “There’s an egg in the refrigerator. Try it. Just be careful.”
She turned, walked to the truck and got in. A war whoop filled the air as the truck caromed up the dirt road to the highway.
Sonny opened the door and looked inside, remembering all the times he and Rita had shared the place, every element in its place, even the palpable emptiness.
He opened the refrigerator door. An egg, she said. Villagers bless the river and acequia waters on Día de San Juan. In the old day communities sponsored corridas de gallo, young vaqueros showing off their horsemanship. The girls cut a lock of hair with an axe, aspects of an ancient ritual that reminded the girl that St. John the Baptist had his head cut off with an axe. On that day a young woman cracked an egg into a glass of water and the face of the man she would love appeared.
Glowing white with light, exhaling cold air like a demon’s breath, the refrigerator that had once been simply a useful appliance now appeared as a white womb, cold and lifeless, except for the egg, alone, sitting on the shelf.
Had Naomi placed it there?
Speckled with blood, it felt warm to Sonny’s touch. He held it tentatively, as if it were a live ember, glowing with the life within. Quickly he filled a glass with water, cracked the egg, and dropped the small yellow ball and its mucous into the water. It swirled and kicked, as if alive, turning in the womb of water, and Sonny thought he heard a voice calling to him.
He looked closely and saw an image forming.
“God!” he whispered. “Oh God!”
He dropped the glass on the floor. It splintered, the water wetting his boots.
The squirming egg grew still as Sonny hurried out of the house, banging shut the door behind him.
10
Spring is not a time to be alone.
It helps to have a good partner, the old man said in agreement.
Someone who understands our dreams.
I used to tell my viejita, que decanse en paz, my dreams. She was a good listener. She would be making tortillas for breakfast, serve me a cup of coffee and say, Bueno, dime tus sueños. I think los sicologisticos—
Psychologists.
Sí. They should have their office in a kitchen. Ah, with tortillas cooking on the comal, coffee perking, huevos rancheros with red chile. You know, food and sex and dreams all go together.
You had a good wife.
Yeah, she was a good cook. Sometimes my dreams got too strange. Then she gave me a dose of castor oil. This will clean up everything, she would say. The old man laughed. Yeah, right.
She knew you could walk in dreams?
Yes, she knew. But she worried. I married a brujo, she would say. Pero, what about you? You got Rita.
Yeah, but— br />
But what?
I’ve been thinking. I thought she was the one who had to get over losing the child. She does, but it hit me too.
You’ve been thinking revenge.
Yes. Then Naomi shows up. Someone stole your heart. I can read faces, she said.
She knows things, the old man interjected. If she places your soul in one of her pots, you’ll never get out. Maybe that’s what happened to the man in the tub.
What do you mean?
A woman who can shape clay can shape the man, this way or that. If she puts the soul of the man in the pot, goodbye Charlie.
What about this reading of faces?
Some people have the gift, the old man said. But it doesn’t do any good. You tell a person what you see and they don’t believe you.
So that’s Naomi’s curse, Sonny thought. Still, she had started something unraveling.
He glanced at a descanso on the side of the road, a large cross adorned with colorful plastic flowers. La raza still kept the custom of placing a cross where an accident claimed a life, where the flesh was pierced and died, setting free the anguished soul. A cross, flowers, tokens of the deceased. Flesh died, but the soul wandered on, yearning to return whence it came.
In Tibet they prayed over the soul of the departed for ten days. The soul had to be prepared for its journey, prepared to be born again in flesh, in some newly fertilized egg.
Born a dog if you had led a very good life.
He smiled and rubbed the sleeping Chica. If a dog’s spirit comes from a prior life, it must bring the dreams of that life with it. Dreams from many lives. The whole enchilada, the unconscious consciousness of the dreamer. If one believed in reincarnation, who knew how many deaths and rebirths Chica had been through? Transmigration of the soul, for the soul never died, it was forever an alien, wandering from person to person, or from dog to dog, until the karma was cleansed. Who knows how many dreams Chica brought from those distant past lives?
Did the Tibetan custom underlie the New Mexican custom? Nah, that was too far-fetched. But the soul’s journey was the essence of the spiritual life of the Nuevomexicanos, coloring their ceremonies, customs, daily life.