The men of the town had murdered Lupito. But he had murdered the sheriff. They said the war had made him crazy. The prayers for Lupito mixed into prayers for my brothers. So many different thoughts raced through my mind that I felt dizzy, and very weary and sick. I ran the last of the way and slipped quietly into the house. I groped for the stair railing in the dark and felt a warm hand take mine. Startled, I looked up into Ultima’s brown, wrinkled face.
“You knew!” I whispered. I understood that she did not want my mother to hear.
“Sí,” she replied.
“And the owl—” I gasped. My mind searched for answers, but my body was so tired that my knees buckled and I fell forward. As small and thin as Ultima was she had the strength to lift me in her arms and carry me into her room. She placed me on her bed and then by the light of a small, flickering candle she mixed one of her herbs in a tin cup, held it over the flame to warm, then gave it to me to drink.
“They killed Lupito,” I said as I gulped the medicine.
“I know,” she nodded. She prepared a new potion and with this she washed the cuts on my face and feet.
“Will he go to hell?” I asked.
“That is not for us to say, Antonio. The war-sickness was not taken out of him, he did not know what he was doing—”
“And the men on the bridge, my father!”
“Men will do what they must do,” she answered. She sat on the bed by my side. Her voice was soothing, and the drink she had given me made me sleepy. The wild, frightening excitement in my body began to die.
“The ways of men are strange, and hard to learn,” I heard her say.
“Will I learn them?” I asked. I felt the weight on my eyelids.
“You will learn much, you will see much,” I heard her faraway voice. I felt a blanket cover me. I felt safe in the warm sweetness of the room. Outside the owl sang its dark questioning to the night, and I slept.
But even into my deep sleep my dreams came. In my dream I saw my three brothers. I saw them as I remembered them before they went away to war, which seemed so very long ago. They stood by the house that we rented in town, and they looked across the river at the hills of the llano.
Father says that the town steals our freedom; he says that we must build a castle across the river, on the lonely hill of the mockingbirds. I think it was León who spoke first, he was the eldest, and his voice always had a sad note to it. But in the dark mist of the dream I could not be sure.
His heart had been heavy since we came to the town, the second figure spoke, his forefathers were men of the sea, the Márez people, they were conquistadors, men whose freedom was unbounded.
It was Andrew who said that! It was Andrew! I was sure because his voice was husky like his thick and sturdy body.
Father says the freedom of the wild horse is in the Márez blood, and his gaze is always westward. His fathers before him were vaqueros, and so he expects us to be men of the llano. I was sure the third voice belonged to Eugene.
I longed to touch them. I was hungry for their company. Instead I spoke.
We must all gather around our father, I heard myself say. His dream is to ride westward in search of new adventure. He builds highways that stretch into the sun, and we must travel that road with him.
My brothers frowned. You are a Luna, they chanted in unison, you are to be a farmer-priest for mother!
The doves came to drink in the still pools of the river and their cry was mournful in the darkness of my dream.
My brothers laughed. You are but a baby, Tony, you are our mother’s dream. Stay and sleep to the doves cou-rou while we cross the mighty River of the Carp to build our father’s castle in the hills.
I must go! I cried to the three dark figures. I must lift the muddy waters of the river in blessing to our new home!
Along the river the tormented cry of a lonely goddess filled the valley. The winding wail made the blood of men run cold.
It is la llorona, my brothers cried in fear, the old witch who cries along the river banks and seeks the blood of boys and men to drink!
La llorona seeks the soul of Antoniooooooooo…
It is the soul of Lupito, they cried in fear, doomed to wander the river at night because the waters washed his soul away!
Lupito seeks his blessinggggggggg…
It is neither! I shouted. I swung the dark robe of the priest over my shoulders then lifted my hands in the air. The mist swirled around me and sparks flew when I spoke. It is the presence of the river!
Save us, my brothers cried and cowered at my words.
I spoke to the presence of the river and it allowed my brothers to cross with their carpenter tools to build our castle on the hill.
Behind us I heard my mother moan and cry because with each turning of the sun her son was growing old…