They left immediately, and my father did not return until late that night. The lights of the truck came bouncing up the goat path and I ran to meet him, but he did not greet me when he stepped down from the truck, in fact he did not seem to see me. He walked mechanically into the house, his eyes wide and staring straight ahead. He looked very tired.
“Gabriel,” my mother said, but he did not answer. He sat in his chair and looked ahead, as if peering into a dream; and it was not until he took a long drink of the hot coffee Ultima put in his hand that he spoke.
“At first I did not believe Téllez,” he whispered. “I am not a believer in spirits, good or bad, but—” and he turned and looked at us as if he were coming back to reality, his eyes bright and watery, “but I saw the things Téllez spoke about. I still cannot believe it—” his chin sank to his chest.
“¡Ave María Purísima!” my mother cried, then she turned and went to the sala to pray. Meantime, we waited in the kitchen.
“What is it that is happening out there at that ranch?” my father asked. He did not look at Ultima, but it was obvious he was seeking some understanding from her.
“A curse has been laid,” she said simply.
“Like on my uncle Lucas?” I asked. I was already wondering if she would take me to help this time.
“No,” she said, addressing my father, “this curse was not laid on a person, the curse was put on a bulto, a ghost. It is the bulto that haunts the house—”
“I don’t understand,” my father said. He looked up at her searchingly.
“A long time ago,” she began, “the llano of the Agua Negra was the land of the Comanche Indians. Then the comancheros came, then the Mexican with his flocks—many years ago three Comanche Indians raided the flocks of one man, and this man was the grandfather of Téllez. Téllez gathered the other Mexicans around him and they hanged the three Indians. They left the bodies strung on a tree; they did not bury them according to their custom. Consequently, the three souls were left to wander on that ranch. The brujas who laid the curse knew this, so instead of placing the curse on a member of the family and taking the chance of getting caught, they simply awakened the ghosts of the three Indians and forced them to do the wrong. The three tortured spirits are not to blame, they are manipulated by brujas—”
“It is unbelievable,” my father said.
“Yes,” Ultima agreed.
“Can they be stopped?” my father asked.
“Of course,” Ultima smiled, “all evil can be stopped.”
At that moment my mother returned from praying to the Virgin. “Téllez is your friend,” she said to my father.
“Of course,” my father answered, “we grew up on the llano together. We all count each other as brothers—”
“And he needs help,” she said, tracing the very simple steps for us to hear.
“There is no one more deserving of help at this moment,” my father said.
“Well then, we must help in any way we can,” she said with finality. She started to turn to Ultima, but my father motioned her to be still. He got up and went to Ultima.
“Will you help this poor family, will you help my friends?” he asked.
“You know the rules that guide the interference with any man’s destiny,” Ultima said.
“I know,” my father said. “I have tried to lead my own life, and I have given other men room and respect to live theirs. But I feel I must do this for my friends, so let the bad consequences in your chain of destiny fall on my head.”
“We will leave tomorrow at sunup,” Ultima said.
I was allowed to go, and so early next morning we got in my father’s truck and headed westward. We traveled halfway to Las Pasturas and then left the paved road and turned southward on a dirt road of the llano. The llano was beautiful in the early morning, beautiful before the summer sun of August burned it dry. The mesquite bushes were green, and even the dagger yucca was stately as it pushed up the green stem that blossomed with white bell flowers. Jackrabbits bolted from shady thickets at the approach of the truck and bounded away into the rolling hills spotted with dark juniper trees. The sun grew very white and warm in the clear, azure sky. It was hard to believe that in this wide beauty there roamed three souls trapped to do evil.
We had left home in the gray of dawn, and we had all been quiet. But now the lovely expanse of the llano filled our hearts and we forgot for awhile the strange, foreboding job ahead of us.
“Ah, there is no freedom like the freedom of the llano!” my father said and breathed in the fresh, clean air.