“I will accept that responsibility on behalf of all my brothers,” my uncle pedro intoned.
“And I accept your help on behalf of my family,” my mother added.
“Very well,” Ultima nodded, “I will go and cure your brother.” She went out of the kitchen to prepare the herbs and oils she would need to affect her cure. As she passed me she whispered, “Be ready Juan—”
I did not understand what she meant. Juan was my middle name, but it was never used.
“Ave María Purísima,” my mother said and slumped into a chair. “She will cure Lucas.”
“The curse is deep and strong,” my uncle brooded.
“Ultima is stronger,” my mother said, “I have seen her work miracles. She learned from the greatest healer of all time, the flying man from Las Pasturas—”
“Ay,” my uncle nodded. Even he acknowledged the great power of that ancient one from Las Pasturas.
“But tell me, who laid the evil curse?” my mother asked.
“It was the daughters of Tenorio,” my uncle said.
“Ay! Those evil brujas!” My mother crossed her forehead and I followed suit. It was not wise to mention the names of witches without warding off their evil with the sign of the holy cross.
“Ay, Lucas told papá the story after he took sick, but it is not until now, that we have to resort to a curandera, that our father made the story known to us. It was in the bad month of February that Lucas crossed the river to look for a few stray milk cows that had wandered away. He met Manuelito, Alfredo’s boy, you know the one that married the lame girl. Anyway, Manuelito told him he had seen the cows moving towards the bend of the river, where the cottonwoods make a thick bosque, the evil place.”
Again my mother made the sign of the cross.
“Manuelito said he tried to turn the cows back, but they were already too near that evil place, and he was afraid. He tried to warn Lucas to stay away from that place. Dusk was falling and there were evil signs in the air, the owls were crying to the early horned moon—”
“¡Ay, Dios mío!” my mother exclaimed.
“But Lucas did not take Manuelito’s warning to wait until the next morning, and besides our papá, Manuelito was the last person Lucas spoke to. Ay, that Lucas is so thick-headed, and so full of courage, he spurred his horse into the brush of the evil place—” He paused for my mother to serve him fresh coffee.
“I still remember when we were children, watching the evil fires dance in that same place,” my mother said.
“Ay,” my uncle agreed. “And that is what Lucas saw that night, except he was not sitting across the river like we used to. He dismounted and crept up to a clearing from where the light of the fireballs shone. He drew near and saw that it was no natural fire he witnessed, but rather the dance of the witches. They bounded among the trees, but their fire did not burn the dry brush—”
“¡Ave María Purísima!” my mother cried.
I had heard many stories of people who had seen the bright balls of fire. These fireballs were brujas on their way to their meeting places. There, it was said, they conducted the Black Mass in honor of the devil, and the devil appeared and danced with them.
Ay, and there were many other forms the witches took. Sometimes they traveled as coyotes or owls! Only last summer the story was told that at Cuervo a rancher had shot a coyote. He and his sons had followed the trail of blood to the house of an old woman of the village. There they found the old woman dead of a gunshot wound. The rancher swore that he had etched a cross on his bullet, and that proved that the old woman was a witch, and so he was let free. Under the old law there was no penalty for killing a witch.
“When he was up close,” my uncle continued, “Lucas saw that the fireballs began to acquire a form. Three women dressed in black appeared. They made a fire in the center of the clearing. One produced a pot and another an old rooster. They beheaded the rooster and poured its blood into the pot. Then they began to cook it, throwing in many other things while they danced and chanted their incantations. Lucas did not say what it was they cooked, but he said it made the most awful stench he had ever smelled—”
“The Black Mass!” my mother gasped.
“Sí,” my uncle nodded. He paused to light a cigarette and refill his cup of coffee. “Lucas said they poured sulfur on the coals of the fire and that the flames rose up in devilish fashion. It must have been a sight to turn the blood cold, the dreariness of the wind and the cold night, the spot of ground so evil and so far from Christian help—”