“There is if you’re a Catholic!” Lloyd countered.
“Yeah,” Horse agreed, “Red don’t know nothing about anything. He’s going to hell because he’s not a Catholic!”
“Bullshit!” Red said.
“It’s true,” Lloyd said, “heaven is only for Catholics!”
“Not really—” Florence nodded, his angular figure rocking back and forth.
“Come on, Tony,” Ernie said coming closer, “she is a witch, ain’t she! They were going to burn her, huh!”
“They would have to drive a stake through her heart to make it legal,” Lloyd said.
“She is not a witch; she is a good woman,” I answered. I barely heard myself speak. Out of the corner of one eye I saw Samuel sitting on the seesaws.
“You calling me a liar!” Ernie shouted in my face. His saliva was hot and bitter. Someone said he only drank goat’s milk because he was allergic to cow’s milk.
“Yes!” I shouted in his face. I had felt like running away, but I remembered my father and Narciso standing firm for Ultima. I saw Ernie’s eyes narrow and felt the vacuum created as everyone held his breath. Then Ernie’s arms snapped out and the football he was holding hit me full on my face. I instinctively struck out and felt my fist land on his chin.
“Fight! Fight!” Horse shouted and jumped on me. I opened my watering eyes as I went down and saw Bones pile on top of Ernie. After that, it was a free-for-all. Everyone jumped into the swirling, thrashing pile. Curses and grunts and groans filled the air briefly, then a couple of the junior high teachers reached into the pile and pulled us out, one by one. No one was hurt and it was the first day of school, so they did not report us to the principal. They only laughed at us, and we laughed along with them. The bell rang and we ran to begin another year of school.
No one teased me about Ultima after that. If I had been willing to take on Ernie I guess they figured that I would fight anybody. It wasn’t worth it. And besides, behind the force that Red and Samuel would lend me in a fight lay the powerful, unknown magic of Ultima.
The pleasant autumn days were all too quickly eroded by the winds of time. School settled into routine. As the cold settled over the llano and there was less to do on the farms and ranches, more and more of those kids came into school. The green of the river passed through a bright orange and turned brown. The trickle of water in the river bed was quiet, not singing as in the summer. The afternoons were gray and quiet, charged with the air of ripeness and belonging. There was a safe, secure welcome in opening the kitchen door and being greeted by the warm aroma of cooking, and my mother and Ultima.
Just before Christmas the snows and winds of the llano locked the land in an icy grip. After school the playgrounds were quickly deserted, and if you had to stay after school it was eerie and lonely to walk alone through the deserted streets. Snows alternated with the wind of the llano, the coldest wind of the world. The snows would melt then the wind would freeze the water into ice. Then the snows would come again. The river was completely frozen over. The great trees that lined the banks looked like giant snowmen huddling together for warmth. On the llano the cattlemen struggled to feed their herds. Many animals were lost, and the talk was always about the terrible cold of this winter that competed with other years lost in the memories of the old people.
The entire school looked forward eagerly to Christmas vacation. The two weeks would be a welcome relief from trudging back and forth to school. The last thing we looked forward to doing in school was the presentation of the play we had done in Miss Violet’s room. Actually the girls had done the work, but we all took credit for it.
No one had expected the blizzard that blew in the night before we were to give our play. “¡Madre mía!” I heard my mother cry. I looked over frosty, frozen blankets and saw my small window entirely covered with ice. With the cold hugging me like death I dressed and ran steaming into the warm kitchen. “Look!” my mother said. She had cleaned a small spot on the icy window. I looked out and saw a white countryside, desolate except where ripples of blue broke the snowdrifts.
“The girls will not go to school today,” she said to Ultima, “what’s one day. Deborah, Theresa!” she called up the stairs, “stay in bed! The snow has covered the goat path!”
I heard squeals and giggles from upstairs.
“Will Tony go?” Andrew asked, walking to the stove and shivering, dressed to do battle with the snow drifts.
“I have to go,” I answered, “the play is today—”
“It is not good,” Ultima whispered. She did not mean the play, she meant something in the weather because I saw her raise her head slightly as if to sniff the scent of the wind outside.