Jemez Spring

by Rudolfo Anaya

  I’ll take the turtle to Rita, he said. In her garden it can eat the succulent herbs and flowers, ripe parsley and turnip greens, chile verde, verdolagas y quelites, bright tulips. Two Lips the turtle.

  He tore a clump of wild alfalfa that grew by the side of the road and made a bed for the turtle in the back of the truck. He placed the grateful creature tenderly on the alfalfa. You’re going home, he said, then jumped back in the truck and headed with urgency down 1-25, the fastest way to get to city hall.

  Normally he would drive along Fourth Street, the most interesting street in the city with its sense of history still lingering along the route. Fourth Street was part of the original Route 66. It was once the Camino Real, which connected Nueva España with New Mexico.

  Driving into Alburquerque on the interstate he was always struck by the city’s continual, painful growth. Large subdivisions spread up the slope of the mountain, and businesses had sprouted along the interstate. Across the river lay the mushrooming Rio Rancho. As usual Sonny’s sight, as troubled as it was now by his puffy eyelid, rested on the lava escarpment of the old volcanoes that dotted the West Mesa.

  Hundreds of times, 432 by his own count, he had hiked around the volcanoes, looking for the Zia Stone. He knew the major petroglyphs by heart, could stand on the escarpment in the sun and the wind and hear the whisper of the old people who had etched messages from the spirit world on the faces of the dark boulders.

  On the extinct volcanic cones the wind was constant. Its refrain played on dry grasses and chamisa. If one stood still, the mantra of the wind resonated to the gurgle of the hidden waters running beneath the ancient lava flow, pure water of ancient ages sizzling as it encountered the boiling magma far below. Somewhere on that lava bed a golden seal might reveal itself.

  Affordable land on the West Mesa, he said. Good thing the politicians saved the Petroglyph National Monument.

  They do things right—sometimes, the old man said. But if bulldozers cut roads through the lava flow they’ll disturb the Zia Stone. A great tragedy if they bury it for another 432 million years. And that’s just one day in the life of the eternal dream. One day of eternity.

  The sun was past its zenith as Sonny turned on Martin Luther King Boulevard and drove into downtown, with its flashy new court buildings. Center of law, the logos law, that which is written, that which knew very little of Sonny’s dream.

  Laws were written to be applied equally. But Sonny knew a rich man can buy what a poor man can’t.

  Why here? the old man asked.

  Fox will know what kind of deal they made with Raven.

  He screeched to a stop in front of city hall, parking illegally, not heeding the traffic cops who signaled furiously and blew their whistles.

  “You can’t park there!” was the last threat he heard as he jumped out of the truck and dashed inside, past startled workers rushing out of the building. His boots echoed on the marble floor, and even amidst the confusion in the building, a few well-groomed secretaries turned to admire the tall and slim Sonny Baca.

  In long, purposeful strides he made his way quickly to the mayor’s office, past the startled city cops, past the secretaries’ foyer, where one held up her hand and said, “Hey, you can’t go in there!”

  “Urgent business,” Sonny replied as he burst into the mayor’s office. The room was full of embattled city officials and a film crew from CNN interviewing the mayor.

  This is it, thought Sonny. Raven mentioned the movies.

  “Sonny—” the startled Fox uttered as Sonny reached out and picked him up by the lapels.

  “You made a deal with Raven!” Sonny shouted.

  “What the hell do you think—” the mayor cried, his face flushing.

  “What is it?” Sonny repeated, shoving his face into the mayor’s.

  “You’re crazy!” Fox cried out as two cops grabbed Sonny and jerked him back, flinging him down to the floor where they pressed their knees into his back. They twisted his arms and handcuffed him.

  “Is this what you’re after? National spotlight?”

  The startled film crew had turned their cameras on him and the cops, beaming the picture around the world.

  “Damn you, Sonny! I’ve got the cell phones dead, a bomb on the Jemez, and you charge in here—”

  The cops lifted Sonny to his feet. He looked into the Fox’s eyes, and the gleam that was always a political plot, in spite of the ever-handy smile, told Sonny more than he needed to know. Raven was a shape shifter, and he had taken on the mayor’s mask to play the game. Yes, ravens and foxes were cut from the same cloth, even the wily Odysseus knew this as he made his way home from Troy.

  Okay, more than one could play the game.

  “I just want to know what you gave him,” Sonny whispered.

  “Get the cameras out of the room!” Fox waved at his startled aides, and they rushed to hustle the interviewer and camera crew out.

  The room settled down and Fox glared at Sonny. “I ought to have them throw you in jail. You just screwed up the biggest interview of my life—”

  “My life!” Sonny retorted; the image of himself dangling from the helicopter and the bullets whizzing flared up.

  “Okay, okay. Settle down and we’ll talk reason.”

  Sonny glanced around him. He had surprised the politicos gathered in the office, frightened the good-looking secretary so her breath quickened. And for a moment he had startled the police guard. But now he was handcuffed. Best to talk.

  “Who do they interview next, Raven?”

  “I don’t give a damn what happens to that madman,” Fox replied, straightening his red-chile-spotted tie. “If I didn’t know you better I’d throw the book at you. I just don’t need wild cowboys during a national emergency. The cell phones are down, and there’s a nuclear device sitting on the Jemez. Gotta keep cool.”

  “Working for Dominic is keeping cool,” Sonny taunted.

  “I don’t work for Dominic!” Fox shouted. “My concern is water for the city’s future! Yes, Frank is buying up water rights, but I’m ahead of his game. I’ve secured enough water to keep the city afloat! Your grandchildren are going to thank me, Sonny. Not Dominic!”

  The men around him nodded. In the end his prophecy might turn out to be true. Had Fox outwitted Dominic? If the city secured enough water rights along the river’s basin, there would be precious little for Dominic’s cartel.

  Fox’s gleam disappeared. He’s telling the truth, Sonny thought. I’m out on a limb, again. “What did he offer?” he asked.

  “He claims to have the code to disarm the bomb. Claims he was the one who took it from the terrorists. Al Qaeda. Can you believe? In New Mexico?”

  Here he paused, drew himself up, puffed a little, watching his cronies out of the corner of his eyes. The same pose Mephistopheles must have struck when he swore damnation on the seventh seal.

  “What does he want in return?”

  “You.” Fox chuckled. “He wants us to sit with him on stage and bow. His five minutes of fame in front of the cameras. The cell phone problem is a temporary nuisance. We’ll eventually find the hackers and get everything back on line. But the bomb has the Los Alamos scientists scared. We play ball with him and he defuses the bomb. After that, you can have him.”

  Sonny nodded. He should have guessed. The net was tightening; Raven was at the movies, but not at Fox’s interview. The rift was already happening, the politicos were washing their hands of Raven, as the governor tried to do. But there were a dozen movie houses around town. Where?

  “Turn me loose.”

  “On one condition. You stay away from him till he gives up the code we need. After that, he’s all yours.”

  Get Raven, Fox was saying. He’s too much trouble for us. The entire Dominic scheme was unraveling and those who could were jumping ship. They hadn’t planned on the governor’s murder. Raven, they quickly learned, could not be trusted. Make him disappear, Fox was saying to Sonny. We don’t care how. We don’t want to know.


  “We’re meeting with him at the Hispanic Cultural Center. Seems he likes the theatrics. Wants to show off in that beautiful new auditorium. The directors didn’t want him there, but he holds the trump card. The bomb’s code. So, for now, whatever he wants, he gets. And he wants a show. National TV and all that.”

  For a moment Fox grew serious. “Isn’t it funny how the mind works. There’s a megalomaniac in all of us …”

  Genetic drift, Sonny thought.

  “Anyway, all we want is the code to disarm the bomb.”

  “I understand,” Sonny said.

  “I’m glad you see it our way,” Fox said, puffing up his chest. “Take the cuffs off.”

  The two city cops, big, burly men left over from the Neanderthal age, took the handcuffs off and stepped back. The others in the room breathed a sigh of relief, as did Fox.

  Sonny turned and walked out of city hall.

  Let Raven have his fun. He’s given me the clues I need. I’ll be there.

  17

  Sonny, give it up! the old man cried in exasperation, as they fled the labyrinth of city services and city ordinances, the Maze of Laws that was the postmodern pyramid, city hall, the ziggurat of the city council, lobbyists, lawyers, police, burro-crats, wannabes, all sorts of folks suffering from the genetic drift of a quantum universe gone wild.

  Sonny didn’t listen. He was following the thread of his frustration, a deep ache that told him too many deals had been made for him to trust the makers of social justice. He wasn’t the only one who had been sold out by “the system.” A lot of people had been bought and sold and the ripping at the seams was the sign the seals were not holding, the structure was falling apart, as sooner or later all social structures run by men of greed are bound to collapse.

  People forget: every nation born of human dreams and desire rises and falls. No one can divine history’s purpose; in fact history, like evolution, can be said to have no purpose.

  The thread of betrayal led Sonny to the exit and the shining light outside, where the frenetic rush and panic-stricken atmosphere reminded him of Dante’s inferno, a vociferous circle of lost causes, his own painful need reflected in the cacophony of the city’s spiraling down.

  Gotta find Chica, he gasped, trying to find purpose in the center, which was slipping away.

  It’s not just Chica you’re after, the old man said, nearly shouting, still trying to get Sonny’s attention.

  Find Raven.

  Raven’s playing games all around you! You can’t think straight. Get hold of yourself!

  Post-9-11 angst? No, I know what I’m doing.

  Don’t kid me, it’s that damn obsession. It’s no good, Sonny, you can’t bring back the dead.

  They’re not dead! Raven was able to get into Rita’s womb and take the spirit of the child, and we both know he holds prisoners! I need to find him!

  He sensed he was shouting, unaware of the rush of women fleeing city hall, gorgeous dolled-up Chicanas who spent half their pay on Lancome cosmetics, or Maybelline if they were on the lower end of the city’s pay scale. These modern-day sirens sat in warm offices in winter and air-conditioned in summer, doing the people’s work day in and day out, whiling away the time singing siren songs, tales of last weekend’s pleasures if they were single, the pressures of family life if they were married, and plans for next weekend, for that’s the way time was measured, from weekend to weekend.

  But Sonny seemed unaware of the phalanx of women rushing by him, and he didn’t smell the sweet plumes of their perfumes, desert currents that any other time would have flared his coyote nose to catch a whiff and turn his head in admiration.

  Now he could only sense Alexandria was falling, Ephesus burning, Burque, the City Future on the Rio Grande, was grinding shut. Raven-created panic lay as thick as the smog cloud that fell over the city on winter days when the cold kept the pollution trapped along the valley floor.

  Sonny! the old man cried. It’s not just the spirit he took. I was there when Rita miscarried. I saw the blood. The flesh is gone. There’s nothing to hold the spirit!

  Sonny stiffened. A cold chill ran through him.

  The old man had hit him as hard as he could with a burning hammer from the forge of truth. The blacksmith is after all an alchemist, one who can shape forms, so dross metal may become Thor’s hammer, or Santiago’s sword. Either can kill the dragon, and as everyone knows the ancients were misguided dragon slayers. Always thrusting at the projection, never at the dragon within.

  Sonny stopped cold, the old man’s words ringing in his ears. Around him the blare of sirens announced Fox and his henchmen rushing out of city hall, skipping out, surrounded by cops and media, fleeing to the Hispanic Cultural Center, where Raven was to hold his press conference, where he would bargain with the city fathers as ravens and foxes are wont to do.

  The afternoon sun was warm, but the old man’s words froze his blood. No, Rita’s babies weren’t gone. There must be a place where a few ancient heroes had trod, perhaps a heaven of sorts, a Limbo, any hint of a promise where Sonny might yet meet his child, or two if they were twins. That place had to be Raven’s lair, and he had to get there.

  He had to cling to this hope. It was all he had left, and even the warning of the old man, his mentor these past few years, would not deter him.

  But the old man’s words took so much out of him that he had to sit down on the steps of the building. His obsession had created a burning energy, but his frustration—realizing he might not know how to get into Raven’s circle—depleted his strength.

  Was he the Fool on the tarot card? Could he live up to the reputation of his bisabuelo, Elfego Baca, the Chicano lawman of New Mexico who had stood against a gang of bad-ass Texas cowboys? Sonny carried his great-grandfather’s Colt 45. in his truck, a family heirloom handed down to the firstborn, like the bow of Odysseus, but everybody knew they just weren’t making men like the grandfathers anymore. Was it really the fear of failure that had caught up with the young Sonny Baca?

  There is a time in every Chicano’s life when he feels the gods and all the universe have conspired against him, and all he can say is que chinga! That’s what Sonny whispered. “Que chinga!”

  He wiped his eyes. This is preposterous, he thought. Cowboys don’t cry. What would Rita say? That I’ve lost it? I’m all right, he told himself, as he sought to control the awful sense of loss that racked body and soul.

  You’ve got to get a hold of yourself, the old man said.

  Yeah, Sonny replied.

  The rush of workers fleeing city hall skirted him swiftly. Some recognized him. His exploits were well known in the city, but all treated him like a homeless person. All were hurrying home to see if the phones were still working, or to turn on TV sets where they could watch the story of the bomb on the Jemez unfold. CNN was already there! So was Dan Rather! They would tell the truth!

  No one stopped ask why Sonny sat so forlorn on the steps. Except one, a young woman. She recognized Sonny. Stout and big-bosomed, her large hips wrapped in a tight Tyrian-purple dress, the indigo of royalty, her tiny fat feet sore from shoes that pinched, her black hair bubbles of curls that rose like an afro teased beyond teasing, a birthmark on her chubby cheek, a gleaming spot she had glued there right after she curled her eyelashes with a mascara as black as her tiny pupils.

  She stopped by Sonny and felt a pity in her round heart, which already was pounding with some fear that she would arrive late at her lonely apartment and find Bosque, her dog, had eaten her box of chocolates, the last one on earth if truly the world was ending. She bit her puffy lower lip, a lip glistening with red, greasy lipstick, which she had paused to dab on before she rushed out of the building.

  A stout girl had to look her best, no matter what. She had sat at enough singles bars with her thin friends who got picked up and driven to weekend pleasures, while she wound up walking alone across dark parking lots to her beat-up Ford Escort and driving home in that terrible loneliness that only late Satu
rday nights can lay on the soul. Wasted days and wasted nights, Freddie Fender’s elegy.

  Doing what humans do when they find someone more bereft of direction than themselves, she lifted her tight skirt just a few inches and sat down beside Sonny, her large, ballooning nalgas immediately warming the cold cement. Soft and motherly, she touched Sonny. The bracelets on her fat arms chimed a sad song, costume bracelets from Dillards, for this was no queen of the desert, no queen of Sheba, this was a city worker who was paid lowly wages and who always tried to look her best.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  Sonny looked at her and wondered who had stopped to greet him. He glanced at her ample bosom, two large, soft pillows where she had always hoped some seafarer cast on her shore might find a welcoming dock.

  Instead, there sat Sonny Baca, in a moment of loneliness she recognized so well.

  Sonny welcomed her touch, and thought, is this the sylph who caught a ride in my truck when I wasn’t looking? Or the turtle? Yes, that tortoise I picked up could be a bruja who took the form of a turtle. But he knew that in New Mexico folklore there were no recorded stories of witches becoming turtles. And the turtle had given off very little heat while the woman at his side was as hot as a carne adovada enchilada.

  Sonny smiled. Her voluptuous breasts gave off the aroma of ripe watermelons, awakening Sonny’s memory of childhood afternoons on his grandparents’ farm in La Joya, when summer watermelons were lifted from the cold water of the well where they had sat all day, then sliced open with grandma’s kitchen knife, splitting the rind with a cracking sound, exposing the red meat, and at the center the dark, seed-spotted heart.

  He looked into the woman’s small jewel eyes, the glistening beads of perspiration on her forehead, and the beauty spot wet with sweat on her chubby cheek.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Sophie,” she replied.

  Sofia, the goddess of wisdom, not Athena, come to guide me, thought Sonny.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Sophie Valdez. You don’t remember me. I used to sit behind you in twelfth-grade English.”