“That sounds fair,” Stammer said. He looked around the table, and the others nodded in acquiescence. The fiesta lasted ten days, and each day it was canceled meant millions of dollars lost.
“What do you say, Sonny?” Stammer asked. “We expect immediate results. We can’t wait.”
“It’s a deal.”
“What makes you think you can find the man in the black balloon before the police?” one of the board members asked. The man ran one of the biggest sporting goods stores in town.
“Intuition,” Sonny replied, and turned to Madge. “What do you say we go flying tomorrow?”
“Fly?” she whispered.
“We’ve canceled tomorrow’s flight.” Stammer shook his head. “There’s a madman out there—” He paused and looked at Sonny then at Madge.
“Weatherman Morgan says there’s going to be good flying weather. Hate to waste it,” Sonny said.
“I’m game,” Madge answered, smiling, knowing what Sonny was suggesting. Go up and draw the man in the black balloon out. Why not? The cops wouldn’t do that, but Sonny would.
“I see.” Stammer nodded. “But it’s too risky.”
“It’s the only way I know,” Sonny said, his eyes fixed on Madge.
She returned his stare. Sonny had proposed danger, and the excitement washed over her and rose in her voice.
“Let’s do it!”
“We can’t be responsible,” Stammer muttered, looking around the table, then at Sonny.
“Take out a one-day life insurance policy on us,” Sonny suggested.
Stammer looked puzzled, then grinned. “Not a bad idea.” He chuckled. “Thank you for your time, Sonny. Madge will see to it that you get whatever you need.”
Madge stood and Sonny followed her out of the room.
“I haven’t been up in a balloon since I did security here,” Sonny said in the hallway. “I need someone with me who can fly or I’d take my chances myself.”
“Will it work?” she asked. “Will whoever murdered Mr. Secco be crazy enough to come after us?”
“I think so. Have your men place a half-inch sheet of steel on the floor of the basket. An inch sheet if you think the balloon can carry it and still fly.”
“Only on the floor of the basket?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?” she answered.
“Put out a press release. You and I are going to fly, but absolutely no one else. Announce the time, location, everything.”
“Done.”
“It could be dangerous.” Sonny’s brow knitted. “I know who killed Mario Secco. He wants me, so he’s going to take a chance and come after us. You have to be sure you want to—”
“I am,” she assured him; then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “See you in the morning. What time do we fly?” she asked.
“Sunrise. I’ll pick you up at five thirty.”
“No, I’ll pick you up.” She winked.
12
“Hasta mañana,” Sonny said, and walked out.
Sure he was fishing, but he knew Raven would take the bait. Time and again Raven played games, drawing Sonny out, positioning him. Well, it was time to play games back.
Sonny walked through the crowd outside to get to his truck. He tried Rita on his cell phone, but there was no answer. They were still out shopping. He had to see Lorenza Villa, he thought. He called her, and yes, she was free. He drove across the new Alameda bridge to Corrales.
The balloon fiesta board wants to save the festival, and I want to catch Raven, Sonny thought, but the whole thing was a bigger game. The FBI knew about Raven, but agent Mike and his sidekick Eddie weren’t talking. And what would Raven have against Mario Secco?
Lorenza opened the door and greeted Sonny. “Buenos días, Elfego. Come in.”
“Buenos,” he answered, and entered. “Thanks for taking the time.”
“Rita told me everything,” she said as she led him to the kitchen. “The fiesta has turned tragic.”
She was barefooted. A cotton huipil molded to the soft contours of her body. She motioned to a chair. “Would you like some coffee? Or tea?”
“Café, gracias,” he replied, and as she served him coffee, he told her about going to see Veronica’s body. “There’s no doubt. She was murdered.”
“By Raven.”
“Yes. Why did I see the body falling? As if I knew that she had been killed?”
“Your vision told you Raven had returned.”
“And the coyotes?”
“Your nagual.”
My nagual, he thought. I find the coyotes, I run with them. Is she saying I am of them?
Coyotes? He had seen them as a kid, and once in a while on the range. One summer he had worked a ranch with a friend near Cabezon, and he ran into one. His rancher friend took a shot at the coyote, but it got away.
Ranchers hated coyotes. Poisoned them, shot at them. Still, they survived.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“The coyote is your guardian animal,” she replied.
He stood and walked to the window that faced east. The river bosque was brilliant with October sunlight. Clear, Indian summer days, a time of harvest. The fruit stands were piled with apples, chile, red ristras, pumpkins.
In the northern Sangre de Cristos, the aspens were already gold, shimmering with light. Woodpiles grew around the houses of the pueblos. In high forests the elk were mating, the bulls bugleing, and people were getting ready to go hunting. People were storing food, preserving jellies and jams, the sweets of the harvest.
The nights were cool now, not yet freezing but brisk, and the scent of piñon logs burning in fireplaces permeated the valley. It should be a time of peace, a time of home, a time of storytelling. But it wasn’t.
In the city of el Duque de Alburquerque, there was only one thing missing from the scene: hot-air balloons flowering in the crisp, October sky.
“Qué piensas?” Lorenza asked.
She had been watching Sonny. As he stood there, looking out the window, she felt his intensity. He sniffed the air like a coyote that enters new territory. Someone had entered his territory; he was in trouble. Raven’s return threatened Sonny’s life.
“Thinking about the coyotes.” He turned to face her. “I heard a lot of stories when I was a kid. From my abuelos. Old people from the nearby farms would come to visit, and they told the stories. Brujas changing to owls, coyotes, birds. As a kid, I believed everything.”
“And as a man you put away childish things,” she said.
“Why change into the animal form?”
“It’s a way to enter the world of spirits.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The world of spirits?”
“The soul can travel in many forms. This is just one way. You must learn it because it is Raven’s method. He is working through his nagual, so must you. Later you will learn to use your dreams …” Her voice trailed.
He partly understood what she meant. He had to meet Raven on his own terms.
“Use my dreams?” He was puzzled.
“Yes. To create your own dream,” she replied. “But now Raven calls the shots. You see, the world of nature is our world. We think entering this age of technology erases the past. It doesn’t. Our nature is linked to that of our ancestors, to their beliefs. The surface changes for us, but we know that beneath the surface lies the true world, the world of spirits.”
“A world I entered during the ceremony.”
“Yes. You found your soul.”
Sonny nodded. “Don Eliseo always reminds me of those stories I heard as a child. My abuelos believed in the world of spirits. It was all around them. They were staunch Catholics, and they didn’t want to give the stories of the witches too much credence, but they believed.”
He paused and looked deep into her eyes, the eyes that fascinated him because he couldn’t make them focus to meet his stare. Shaman eyes. One eye, the eye of an owl.
“Going into that vision, meeting the c
oyotes … I didn’t think it could be done.” He shook his head.
“It’s as old as the Aztecs. Moctezuma Ilhuicamina sent forty of his brujos, that’s the word the Spanish friars used to describe the shamans, to the underworld. They went as jaguars, eagles, birds, other creatures of the earth. They returned to tell their king that the Aztec empire was doomed.”
She paused and poured him a fresh cup of coffee.
The same battle don Eliseo saw taking place, Sonny pondered. It was older and bigger than simple witchcraft games. It involved civilizations. A way of life was ending, a new one was coming into being.
“The Spaniards destroyed the temples. Paganism and the worship of idols, they called the old religion. They saw the skulls of the ancestors on the temple walls and made up stories that the Aztecs were cannibals who sacrificed people. That served their purpose, which was to control the people with a new religion.”
“So the experts write that the Aztecs did sacrifice.”
“Those people worshiped their ancestors. Just like today, one of the most important holidays is el Día de los Muertos. People go to the cemeteries to be with those who have died. They set up altars, they take food, they have a fiesta. It’s a form of remembering the ancestors and celebrating the good they did on earth. Long ago the celebrations lasted longer. The skulls of the ancestors were taken from their chambers where they were kept; they were lovingly cleaned and placed along the temple walls. What the Spaniards called idolatry were days of prayer and remembrance. Days of thanksgiving to the ancestors.”
“And the Spaniards got it assbackward,” Sonny said.
“They needed to invent stories of idolatry to tear down the temples and impose their religion. Conquerors everywhere have always done this to people they conquer. They make them pagans or subhuman, and they call their beliefs superstitions. They rationalize destruction.”
“Yeah, look around you,” Sonny mused.
“I was in Mexico on Día de los Muertos. I saw how the people celebrated and honored their ancestors. The more traditional the Indian tribe, the more they understand this connection to the ancestors, and the honor due to them.”
“We honor them, too, don’t we,” Sonny whispered.
Sonny thought of masses for the dead his mother offered at church for his father. The altar she kept at home with the statue of la Virgen de Guadalupe, the Mexican virgin, and statues of the saints. And there on the altar, amid the statues and the burning votive candles, the photographs of her family.
He thought of his father and how almost daily the man was in his thoughts. Even el Bisabuelo, Elfego Baca, the great-grandfather he had never known, was a spirit guiding his life. Yes, he honored them, for their work, for the history, for the traditions and beliefs they had passed down.
“The conquering Spaniards had to make something evil out of the indigenous beliefs,” Lorenza said. “So they killed the priests and destroyed the temples. They built their churches on the sites of the old temples, but the people kept their beliefs. Long after most of the Aztec civilization was destroyed, the people knew they moved in and out of the world of spirits.”
“And the curanderas helped.”
Lorenza smiled. “That’s our work. To take people to that world. People go on having soul-troubles, and our work is to help.”
She echoed don Eliseo’s thoughts, told stories just like the old man and his friends. They whispered their stories around the fire on summer evenings when they sat out to enjoy the cool of night. She could be their daughter. They trusted her; they knew she was one of the few who sought the old indigenous ways.
“My mother used to say I had a guardian angel,” he said, “but now I learn I also have a guardian animal? Do you have a nagual?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“It is best not to speak about it.”
“Why?”
“It takes its power away.”
“It really does protect you?”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“The evil forces.”
“Forces?”
“The struggle has always been between a harmonious universe and one which collapses into complete chaos. Put another way, it’s the struggle between good and evil. All resides in our souls, so the energy of evil brujos works to defeat us.”
“And this is made clear in the world of spirits,” Sonny said.
She nodded. “But we’ve lost so much of the knowledge of our ancestors.”
“It’s not just losing traditions,” Sonny said. “It’s losing a kind of inner knowledge. I see that inner harmony at work in don Eliseo, and I wonder why can’t we all acquire the wisdom he has.”
“Because we live surrounded by those who don’t believe in the old knowledge. The world is full of doubt, and people no longer communicate with their souls. People come here and feel this place is spiritual, but they don’t go deeper. They stop at the gate.”
That’s what don Eliseo often said, Sonny thought. The Río Grande valley was the meeting ground of spiritual ways. Hispanos and Mexicanos had learned the Pueblo ways, but the Indian religion had gone underground under the persecution of the Spanish friars. The pursuit of the Franciscans to convert and baptize the Indians was relentless, and the civil authority backing them was as vicious. The esoteric knowledge had been driven underground.
With the coming of the Anglo Americans, the Nuevo Mexicanos did the same. The ceremonies of the church remained in the open, but the deeper beliefs and folk remedies, the stories of the brujos, went underground.
Other communities had gone secret. The conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity and came to Nueva España to avoid the Holy Office of the Inquisition, had also kept their traditions secret.
The Pueblos went into the kiva and learned the hard way they had to protect the knowledge that anthropologists might misuse.
“A lot of people in hiding,” Sonny said.
“A lot of knowledge,” Lorenza replied. “We have so much to offer each other. Ways to care for the soul. The ways of our ancestors.”
“And fewer and fewer believe in the soul,” Sonny mused. “Like me. Have I lost my soul?”
“You had lost the way of knowledge of your ancestors,” Lorenza replied. “You remember the stories of your abuelos, but you lost belief in them. Then Gloria’s spirit came to haunt you, and you realized you needed help. You’ve begun your journey.”
“I can’t do it alone,” Sonny said, admitting for the first time that there were some things he didn’t know.
“Everyone needs a guide. Women have passed the knowledge down generation to generation. Now we have so few who can keep the brujos in check.”
“Part of what you do is keep Raven, and those like him, in check?”
“It’s what we all should be doing. Raven represents a very destructive evil.”
“Yes,” Sonny murmured.
He leaned back in the chair, admiring Lorenza’s fine-chiseled face, the Indian cheekbones, the flare of her nostrils, the light brown skin. Her brown eyes. Her inner beauty shone on her face, as it did with Rita, don Eliseo, others he loved. A truly positive spirit radiated from within.
“Will I see the coyotes again?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “Are you ready?”
“Raven tried to kill me. I need to find him.”
“You need to prepare,” she said. “Come.” She led him into the small consultation room at the back of the house where she had performed the limpieza.
She closed the door. “Unbutton your shirt,” she commanded. Sonny did as he was told, exposing the Zia medallion, a piece of the sun burning on his chest.
“Tamara said it’s the only protection I have against Raven,” he explained.
“It can be,” she said. “But it needs to be blessed. Raven had possession of the Zia symbol on the medallion, and he was using it to carry out his destruction. You must do good work with it. It will fill you with light. Take the m
edallion and place it at the altar.”
He took the medallion from around his neck and walked to the altar and laid it at the foot of the statue of la Virgen de Guadalupe. The gold burned his hand and he was startled. He returned to sit next to Lorenza. She pulled her chair close to his, their knees touched. She reached out and held his hands. Her hands were warm, enveloping. Her fragrance was a mixture of the incense and herbs she used in her healing, and the wax of the candle that burned at the altar.
“Finding Raven can be dangerous,” she said.
“More dangerous if I don’t.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and looked out the window toward the river bosque. She appeared irritated for a moment.
“Is anything wrong?” Sonny asked.
“No, it’s just that I’ve had so little time to prepare you. You know Raven has special powers.”
Sonny nodded. “Don Eliseo calls him a brujo.”
“Yes, a very dangerous brujo. A sorcerer. He draws people into his cult and will not let them go.”
“Veronica was one of them,” Sonny said.
“Yes, the women killed Gloria, but they don’t have his power. He controls them. Raven lives in the world of darkness. He wants people under his control.”
“How do you know so much about him?” Sonny asked.
She leaned back. Sonny didn’t know the world of the brujos. He had met his guardian spirits, but now he was threatened by his ancient enemy. Now he needed the coyotes, the guardian spirits who could take him into the world of spirits and give him the power to fight Raven. Sonny was awakening from a long sleep.
“Brujo is the Spanish word for witch,” she said. “But that really doesn’t describe Raven. He’s more than a brujo.” She paused. “Those of us who guide people in search of their souls know about Raven. He has the power of his nagual.”
“Raven can become a raven?”
“Yes.”
“Then all I need is a raven trap,” Sonny joked.
She looked into Sonny’s bright, mischievous eyes and laughed. Sonny did have the spirit of coyote. That was good. He was a trickster caught in a dangerous and tangled web, and he didn’t know what it held for him, but he could still laugh. He had the spirit to learn and survive.