Bless Me, Ultima

by Rudolfo Anaya

“There is evil here,” Samuel said. He pointed to a clear plastic balloon beside the path. I did not know why that was evil.

  “Heeee-heee-haaaah-haaaaaagh!” Frightening, wild laughter filled the air. I froze in my tracks. I thought that surely here in the dark shadow of this bridge la Llorna lurked.

  “Ay!” I cried. I must have jumped because Samuel put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. He pointed up. I looked up at the black girders of the huge bridge and saw a figure scamper precariously from perch to perch. I thought it was the Kid.

  “Is he crazy?” I asked Samuel.

  Samuel only smiled. “He is my brother,” he answered. He led me out of the shadow of the bridge and far away from it. We walked to the bank of the river where Samuel had some line and hooks hidden. We cut some tamarisk branches for poles and dug worms for bait.

  “You fish a lot?” I asked.

  “I have always been a fisherman,” he answered, “as long as I can remember—”

  “You fish,” he said.

  “Yes. I learned to fish with my brothers when I was very little. Then they went to war and I couldn’t fish anymore. Then Ultima came—” I paused.

  “I know,” he said.

  “So last summer I fished. Sometimes with Jasón.”

  “You have a lot to learn—”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  The afternoon sun was warm on the sand. The muddy waters after-the-flood churned listlessly south, and out of the deep hole by the rock in front of us the catfish came. They were biting good for the first fishing of summer. We caught plenty of channel catfish and a few small yellow-bellies.

  “Have you ever fished for the carp of the river?”

  The river was full of big, brown carp. It was called the River of the Carp. Everybody knew it was bad luck to fish for the big carp that the summer floods washed downstream. After every flood, when the swirling angry waters of the river subsided, the big fish could be seen fighting their way back upstream. It had always been so.

  The waters would subside very fast and in places the water would be so low that, as the carp swam back upstream, the backs of the fish would raise a furrow in the water. Sometimes the townspeople came to stand on the bridge and watch the struggle as the carp splashed their way back to the pools from which the flood had uprooted them. Some of the town kids, not knowing it was bad luck to catch the carp, would scoop them out of the low waters and toss the fish upon the sand bars. There the poor carp would flop until they dried out and died, then later the crows would swoop down and eat them.

  Some people in town would even buy the carp for a nickel and eat the fish! That was very bad. Why, I did not know.

  It was a beautiful sight to behold, the struggle of the carp to regain his abode before the river dried to a trickle and trapped him in strange pools of water. What was beautiful about it was that you knew that against all the odds some of the carp made it back and raised their families, because every year the drama was repeated.

  “No,” I answered, “I do not fish for carp. It is bad luck.”

  “Do you know why?” he asked and raised an eyebrow.

  “No,” I said and held my breath. I felt I sat on the banks of an undiscovered river whose churning, muddied waters carried many secrets.

  “I will tell you a story,” Samuel said after a long silence, “a story that was told to my father by Jasón’s Indian—”

  I listened breathlessly. The lapping of the water was like the tide of time sounding on my soul.

  “A long time ago, when the earth was young and only wandering tribes touched the virgin grasslands and drank from the pure streams, a strange people came to this land. They were sent to this valley by their gods. They had wandered lost for many years but never had they given up faith in their gods, and so they were finally rewarded. This fertile valley was to be their home. There were plenty of animals to eat, strange trees that bore sweet fruit, sweet water to drink and for their fields of maíz—”

  “Were they Indians?” I asked when he paused.

  “They were the people,” he answered simply and went on. “There was only one thing that was withheld from them, and that was the fish called the carp. This fish made his home in the waters of the river, and he was sacred to the gods. For a long time the people were happy. Then came the forty years of the sun-without-rain, and crops withered and died, the game was killed, and the people went hungry. To stay alive they finally caught the carp of the river and ate them.”

  I shivered. I had never heard a story like this one. It was getting late and I thought of my mother.

  “The gods were very angry. They were going to kill all of the people for their sin. But one kind god who truly loved the people argued against it, and the other gods were so moved by his love that they relented from killing the people. Instead, they turned the people into carp and made them live forever in the waters of the river—”

  The setting sun glistened on the brown waters of the river and turned them to bronze.

  “It is a sin to catch them,” Samuel said, “it is a worse offense to eat them. They are a part of the people.” He pointed towards the middle of the river where two huge back fins rose out of the water and splashed upstream.

  “And if you eat one,” I whispered, “you might be punished like they were punished.”

  “I don’t know,” Samuel said. He rose and took my fishing line.

  “Is that all the story?” I asked.

  He divided the catfish we had caught and gave me my share on a small string. “No, there is more,” he said. He glanced around as if to make sure we were alone. “Do you know about the golden carp?” he asked in a whisper.

  “No,” I shook my head.

  “When the gods had turned the people into carp, the one kind god who loved the people grew very sad. The river was full of dangers to the new fish. So he went to the other gods and told them that he chose to be turned into a carp and swim in the river where he could take care of his people. The gods agreed. But because he was a god they made him very big and colored him the color of gold. And they made him the lord of all the waters of the valley.”

  “The golden carp,” I said to myself, “a new god?” I could not believe this strange story, and yet I could not disbelieve Samuel. “Is the golden carp still here?”

  “Yes,” Samuel answered. His voice was strong with faith. It made me shiver, not because it was cold but because the roots of everything I had ever believed in seemed shaken. If the golden carp was a god, who was the man on the cross? The Virgin? Was my mother praying to the wrong God?

  “Where?” I wanted to know.

  “It is very late,” Samuel said. “You have learned a lot today. This summer Cico will find you and take you to the golden carp—” And with a swish of branches he disappeared into the dusk.

  “Samuel!” I called. Only silence. I had heard Cico’s name mentioned before. He was a town boy, but he didn’t hang out with them. They said he spent all his time along the river, fishing. I turned homeward in the gathering dusk, full of wonder at the strange story Samuel had told me.

  “Toni-eeee!” someone called. I broke into a run and didn’t stop until I got home.

  When I got home my mother was very angry with me. I had never been late before. “¡Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! I have been crazy with worry about you!” she cried. I showed her my promotion and her feelings changed quickly. “Grande, Deborah, Theresa! Come quick! Tony had been promoted two grades! Oh I knew he would be a man of learning, maybe a priest!” She crossed herself and sobbed as she held me tightly.

  Ultima was very happy too. “This one learns as much in one day as most do in a year,” she smiled. I wondered if she knew about the golden carp.

  “We must pray to the Virgin,” my mother said, and although Deborah objected, saying nobody prayed for a grade promotion, my mother gathered us around the Virgin’s altar.

  My father arrived home late from work and was hungry. We were still praying and supper was late. He was angry.<
br />
  Diez

  The summer came and burned me brown with its energy, and the llano and the river filled me with their beauty. The story of the golden carp continued to haunt my dreams. I went to Samuel’s house but it was boarded up. A neighbor, an old lady, told me that Samuel and his father had taken a job sheepherding for the rest of the summer. My only other avenue to the golden carp would be Cico, so every day I fished along the river, and watched and waited.

  Andrew worked all day so I did not see him much, but it was reassuring at least to have him home. León and Gene hardly ever wrote. Ultima and I worked in the garden every morning, struggling against the llano to rescue good earth in which to plant. We spoke little, but we shared a great deal. In the afternoons I was free to roam along the river or in the blazing hills of the llano.

  My father was dejected about his sons leaving, and he drank more than before. And my mother also was unhappy. That was because one of her brothers, my uncle Lucas, was sick. I heard them whispering at night that my uncle had been bewitched, a bruja had put a curse on him. He had been sick all winter, and he had not recovered with the coming of spring. Now he was on his deathbed.

  My other uncles had tried everything to cure their youngest brother. But the doctor in town and even the great doctor in Las Vegas had been powerless to cure him. Even the holy priest at El Puerto had been asked to exorcise el encanto, the curse, and he had failed. It was truly the work of a bruja that was slowly killing my uncle!

  I heard them say late at night, when they thought I was asleep, that my uncle Lucas had seen a group of witches do their evil dance for el Diablo, and that is why he had been cursed. In the end it was decided to hire the help of a curandera, and they came to Ultima for help.

  It was a beautiful morning when the yucca buds were opening and the mocking birds were singing on the hill that my uncle Pedro drove up. I ran to meet him.

  “Antonio,” he shook my hand and hugged me, as was the custom.

  “Buenos días le de Dios, tío,” I answered. We walked into the house where my mother and Ultima greeted him.

  “How is my papá?” she asked and served him coffee. My uncle Pedro had come to seek the help of Ultima and we all knew it, but there was a prescribed ceremony they had to go through.

  “He is well, he sends his love,” my uncle said and looked at Ultima.

  “And my brother Lucas?”

  “Ay,” my uncle shrugged despairingly, “he is worse than when you saw him last. We are at the end of our rope, we do not know what to do—”

  “My poor brother Lucas,” my mother cried, “that this should happen to the youngest! He has such skill in his hands, his gift with the care and grafting of trees is unsurpassed.” They both sighed. “Have you consulted a specialist?” she asked.

  “Even to the great doctor in Las Vegas we took him, to no avail,” my uncle said.

  “Did you go to the priest?” my mother asked.

  “The priest came and blessed the house, but you know that priest at El Puerto, he does not want to pit his power against those brujas! He washes his hands of the whole matter.”

  My uncle spoke as if he knew the witches who cursed Lucas. And I also wondered, why doesn’t the priest fight against the evil of the brujas. He has the power of God, the Virgin, and all the saints of the Holy Mother Church behind him.

  “Is there no one we can turn to!” my mother exclaimed. She and my uncle glanced at Ultima who had remained quiet and listened to their talk. Now she stood up and faced my uncle.

  “Ay, Pedro Luna, you are like an old lady who sits and talks and wastes valuable time—”

  “You will go,” he smiled triumphantly.

  “¡Gracias a Dios!” my mother cried. She ran to Ultima and hugged her.

  “I will go with one understanding,” Ultima cautioned. She raised her finger and pointed at both of them. The gaze of her clear eyes held them transfixed. “You must understand that when anybody, bruja or curandera, priest or sinner, tampers with the fate of a man that sometimes a chain of events is set into motion over which no one will have ultimate control. You must be willing to accept this responsibility.”

  My uncle looked at my mother. Their immediate concern was to save Lucas from the jaws of death, for that they would accept any responsibility.

  “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 unc
le 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—”

  “Yes, yes,” my mother urged, “and then what happened?” The story had held us both spellbound.

  “Well, you know Lucas. He could see the evil one himself and not be convinced. He thought the three witches were three old dirty women who deserved a Christian lashing, tongue or otherwise, so he stepped forth from behind the tree that hid him and he challenged them!”

  “No!” my mother gasped.

  “Sí,” my uncle nodded. “And if I know Lucas, he probably said something like: ¡Oye! You ugly brujas, prepare to meet a Christian soul!”

  I was astounded at the courage of my uncle Lucas. No one in his right mind would confront the cohorts of the devil!

  “It was then he recognized the Trementina sisters, Tenorio’s three girls—”

  “¡Ay Dios mío!” my mother cried.

  “Ay, they have always been rumored to be brujas. They were very angry to be caught performing their devilish mass. He said they screamed like furies and were upon him, attacking him like wild animals—but he did the right thing. While he was behind the tree he had taken two dead branches and quickly tied them together with a shoelace. He made a rude cross with the two sticks. Now he held up the holy cross in the face of those evil women and cried out, “Jesús, María, y José!” At the sight of the cross and at the sound of those holy words the three sisters fell to the ground in a fit of agony and pain. They rolled on the ground like wounded animals until he lowered the cross. Then they picked themselves up and fled into the darkness, cursing him as they went.