“Aieee…” He moaned and tumbled into the dust.
“May your evil deeds speed your soul to hell,” I heard my uncle whisper as he tossed the pistol on the ground, “and may God forgive me—”
“¡Antonio!” my father came running through the dust and smoke. He gathered me in his arms and turned me away. “Come away, Antonio,” he said to me.
“Si, papá,” I nodded, “but I cannot leave the owl.” I went to Tenorio’s side and carefully picked up Ultima’s owl. I had prayed that it would be alive, but the blood had almost stopped flowing. Death was carrying it away in its cart. My uncle handed me a blanket from the truck and I wrapped the owl in it.
“¡Antonito! Antonito, mi hijito!” I heard my mother’s frantic cries and I felt her arms around me and her hot tears on my neck. “¡Ave María Purísima!”
“Ultima?” I asked. “Where is Ultima?”
“But I thought she was with me.” My mother turned and looked into the darkness.
“We must go to her—”
“Take him,” my father said. “It is safe now. Pedro and I will go for the sheriff—”
My mother and I stumbled down the hill. I did not think she or my father understood what the owl’s death meant, and I who shared the mystery with Ultima shuddered at what I would find. We rushed into the still house.
“¡Mamá!” Deborah cried. She held trembling Theresa.
“It is all right,” she reassured them, “it is over.”
“Take them to their room,” I said to my mother. It was the first time I had ever spoken to my mother as a man; she nodded and obeyed.
I entered Ultima’s room softly. Only a candle burned in the room, and by its light I saw Ultima lying on the bed. I placed the owl by her side and knelt at the side of the bed.
“The owl is dead—” was all I could say. I wanted to tell her that I had tried to come in time, but I could not speak.
“Not dead,” she smiled weakly, “but winging its way to a new place, a new time—just as I am ready to fly—”
“You cannot die,” I cried. But in the dim, flickering light I saw the ashen pallor of death on her face.
“When I was a child,” she whispered, “I was taught my life’s work by a wise old man, a good man. He gave me the owl and he said that the owl was my spirit, my bond to the time and harmony of the universe—”
Her voice was very weak, her eyes already glazed with death.
“My work was to do good,” she continued, “I was to heal the sick and show them the path of goodness. But I was not to interfere with the destiny of any man. Those who wallow in evil and brujería cannot understand this. They create a disharmony that in the end reaches out and destroys life—With the passing away of Tenorio and myself the meddling will be done with, harmony will be reconstituted. That is good. Bear him no ill will—I accept my death because I accepted to work for life—”
“Ultima—” I wanted to cry out, don’t die, Ultima. I wanted to rip death away from her and the owl.
“Shhh,” she whispered, and her touch calmed me. “We have been good friends, Antonio, do not let my passing diminish that. Now I must ask you to do me a favor. Tomorrow you must clean out my room. At sunrise you must gather my medicines and my herbs and you must take them somewhere along the river and burn everything—”
“Sí,” I promised.
“Now, take the owl, go west into the hills until you find a forked juniper tree, there bury the owl. Go quickly—”
“Grande,” my mother called outside.
I dropped to my knees.
“Bless me, Ultima—”
Her hand touched my forehead and her last words were, “I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you—”
I gathered up the owl and slipped out of the room without looking back. I rushed past my worried mother who cried after me then ran to tend Ultima. I ran into the darkness of the quiet hills. I walked for a long time in the moonlight, and when I found a forked juniper tree I dropped to my knees and with my hands I carved out a hole big enough to hold the owl. I placed the owl in the grave and I put a large stone over it so the coyotes would not dig it out, then I covered the hole with the earth of the llano. When I stood up I felt warm tears on my cheeks.
Around me the moonlight glittered on the pebbles of the llano, and in the night sky a million stars sparkled. Across the river I could see the twinkling lights of the town. In a week I would be returning to school, and as always I would be running up the goat path and crossing the bridge to go to church. Sometime in the future I would have to build my own dream out of those things that were so much a part of my childhood.