Legends and Tales of the American West

by Richard Erdoes

  One accursed day, when Don Manuel was far away in Santa Fe on business, and all his vaqueros were out in the pastures busy with their varied tasks, a band of roving Apaches attacked the ranch. Only young Fernando and the three daughters were at home at the time. Fernando defended himself and his sisters with the courage of desperation, killing two of the raiders before succumbing to the greater number of his savage foes. Having done their bloody work, the Apaches set fire to the ranch and seized Don Manuel’s wailing and sobbing daughters, threw them across their ponies’ backs, and thundered off toward the west. When Don Manuel returned from Santa Fe, he found his vaqueros and peons, aroused by the smoke and flames, assembled around the smoldering remnants of his rancho. Within its ruins the disconsolate father discovered the pitiful remains of his only son.

  After the hurried burial of his heir, Don Manuel gathered all his men around him. Together they swore a solemn oath to recapture the abducted daughters and avenge Fernando’s death, or die in the attempt. Reinforced by a large caballada of his fellow ranchers, well armed and well mounted, they took off after the Apache war party. They caught up with the Indians within a day near Saguache Lake, a body of water which for generations had been the topic of many dark and somber tales. Facing overwhelming odds, the Apaches did not stand and fight, but galloped helter-skelter toward the lake, still holding their three wailing captives firmly in their grasp. Thus they plunged into the lake and were instantly swallowed up by its swirling waters. When Don Manuel and his vaqueros reached the spot, it was as if the Indians and their three victims had never existed. No matter how carefully the frantic father and his companions searched, not a trace of the kidnappers or the three girls could be found—then or later. The disconsolate father and his retainers had become the victims of an evil, unexplainable miracle which, the vaqueros said, was the devil’s work.

  There had always been rumors that the lake contained in its depths a maelstrom that pulled everything within its orbit into the vortex of a swift-rushing subterranean channel whose entrance and exit were known to only a very few Indian shamans. It was also said that, by holding his breath, a man, falling or thrown into the lake at this particular spot, could survive, being rushed in mere minutes beneath the lake’s bottom to be ejected somewhere outside through a secret opening in a cliff wall. In this fashion an Indian raider who knew the secret could make the watery passage unharmed, if wet, and escape his pursuers. For many a day a distraught Don Manuel and his men searched for this hidden exit from the lake, but they never found it. They returned home in utter dejection. Don Manuel’s remaining days were clouded by the uncertainty of not knowing whether his daughters had perished or whether they had emerged from their ordeal alive only to be forever captives of savage tribesmen. Don Manuel died within the year—a prematurely aged and broken man. This is the sad saga of Saguache Lake and the three lost daughters.

  The Two Witches

  One time there were two man witches and they make a bet. This a long time ago. They say they change themselves into a horse, and run a race. The witch that lose the race, he stay a horse all the time. So they run a race and one witch lose the race, he have to stay a horse because of his bet.

  So the other witch takes this horse and sell him to a man. But he say, “Don’t you ever take the halter off of this horse, or else it be too bad.” Now one day a little boy take this horse down to the river for water and a priest come by. This priest say, “What you water a horse with the halter on? That horse can’t drink; you take off the halter.” So the boy take off the halter, and the horse change right away into a fish.

  Now that bad witch is flying around like a hawk, and he see what happen, and he change hisself into a big fish. That little fish see this, and he change into a bird. The bad witch change into a hawk again, and this little bird fly, fly, until he too tired, and he see a princess sitting in a garden. Quick he fly to this princess and hide hisself in her lap. She take this poor little bird and put it in a cage, no one can get him now. He too happy, this bird, and sing all day long.

  Now something wrong with this princess, she too sad all the time, never laugh. This witch change into a physician and he come along and say he can cure her, but he need the blood of that bird. All right, the king give him the bird, and he cut its throat. But when the blood run out, it change to seed. That witch change into a hen and eat up the seed, but when he come to the last seed he can’t find it, and that seed change into a coyote and eat up that hen!

  There’s a man sees that coyote and take him home to mind his store. A witch woman comes along and she wink at that coyote. She see that coyote a witch. So that night the coyote think to go to her, and he take a big leg of mutton from the store, put it on his shoulder, and go to see her. But the town dogs they smell him when he go by, and they jump on him and tear him all apart. That the end of those two witches.

  The Owl Witch

  Don Ramón’s family was bothered by a big tecolote, a big owl. This bird of ill omen stole the chicks, carried off the pigeons, and even made off with a little kitten. Whenever there was a new moon, the owl appeared at one of the windows hooting and screeching and flapping its wings. Always after that happened, a horse went lame, or cutworms got into the beans, or a child took sick, or grandfather Miguel came down with a bad cough.

  “Madre de Dios,” said Don Ramón’s esposa, “this tecolote must be a witch, an evil bruja!”

  So Don Ramón got out his shotgun, and when there was a new moon again, he was waiting at the open window with his arma de fuego. Around midnight he heard loud screeching, and hooting, and wing flapping. Though it was too dark to see, he fired a shot in the direction of the noise. Then all was quiet.

  In the morning Don Ramón looked out the window and saw on the ground before it the dead tecolote. Its right wing had been shot off and its left eye was missing.

  Later in the day one of Don Ramón’s neighbors dropped in and said: “Have you heard the horrible news? That old woman who lives among the dead cottonwoods across the stream was found murdered. Her right arm was torn off and her left eye shot out. There was much blood. It was a horrible sight. Who could have done such a thing?”

  “I could make a guess,” said Don Ramón.

  San Isidro and the Angel

  As everybody knows, San Isidro is the patron saint of all who work on the soil, who sow and reap. San Isidro is a down-to-earth saint. He doesn’t give himself airs. He is not afraid to get his boots muddy or to get calluses on his hands. He works his little ranch near Velarde, New Mexico. He grows beans and chili peppers and other good things. He is that kind of a saint.

  Naturally, Isidro’s wife, Santa Rita, is also a saint. She is a curandera. She helps those who are sick. Being a saint, she is also a very good cook, the best in all New Mexico. How could anyone be better? Every day at noon Santa Rita goes out into the fields with a big basket full of food for San Isidro, sometimes enchiladas and posole, or burritos and tamales, or maybe, fajitas and pollo adobo. Bringing lunch to her esposo, Santa Rita has to cross a little stream. That is no problem for her. Whenever she arrives at that brook, the water parts for her, some of it flowing upstream, and some of it flowing downstream. The water does this out of respect for her, because she is a saint. A saint shouldn’t get his feet wet. So San Isidro and Santa Rita have a very good marriage. In their case, how could it be otherwise?

  One day San Isidro was plowing his bean field. It happened to be the fifteenth of May. As everybody knows, the fifteenth of May is San Isidro’s feast day. As he was plowing along, driving his big red ox before him, San Isidro heard footsteps behind him. He turned his head and saw that an angel was walking in his furrow.

  “What on earth are you doing, Isidro, working on your own feast day?” said the angel. “Don’t you know that nobody is allowed to work in the fields today? Don’t you know any better? You are setting a very bad example. God sent me to make you stop working at once.”

  “Señor Angel,” answered Isidro, “tell God he knows nothi
ng about farming. I have to plow my beans now while the weather is good and before it is too late. Tell God to mind his own business.”

  “He won’t like this,” said the angel, and left.

  After a while the angel was back telling San Isidro: “You are a very insolent and sassy saint. God wants you to stop working at once. If you don’t obey, God will send a hailstorm or, maybe, a belated blizzard to ruin your crops in order to teach you a lesson.”

  “It’s my own feast day, so I don’t have to obey Him,” said the saint. “Let him send hail or blizzards. I can manage them. Am I not a saint?”

  “You will make Him very angry,” said the angel, and left.

  In no time the angel was back: “Isidro, God is really upset with you. He ordered me to tell you that He’ll send down a blight on your fields, locusts and cutworms to ruin your crops.”

  “Let Him,” answered Isidro. “I know how to deal with such pests.” The angel shook his head and left, only to return on the double.

  “Isidro,” he said, “God will send you a very bad neighbor, a drunkard, a troublemaker, a lecher, an Anglo, a Protestant even, a cabrón who will drive his cattle into your field and steal the peaches from your trees.”

  Instantly, San Isidro stopped what he was doing. “Señor Angel,” he said, “God has got the better of me. Hailstorms and cutworms I can manage, but not a bad neighbor. God always wins.”

  A Riddle

  There once was a cruel king who squeezed out of his people the last drop of blood in the shape of taxes. He had many armed men at his beck and call. They wore armor and wielded weapons of steel. What could a poor campesino do against them? The cruel king did not like the people to complain against him because, as he said, complaints lead to rebellion.

  Yet a poor man, by the name of Pedro, did complain. “The king’s men,” he said, “have taken all my grain, even the seed corn. They took my goats and they took my lambs. They not only stole my last chicken but even took the last egg. They call it taxes. I call it robbery. So I am starving, living on roots and the wild fruits of the forest like an animal.”

  The king heard about this and exclaimed angrily: “I’ll teach him what it is to starve. I’ll make him eat his boots, if he has any!”

  The king’s men went to Pedro’s humble hut and took him prisoner. They loaded him down with chains and cast him into a dark, dank dungeon. They did not feed him, because the cruel king wanted him to starve to death for having dared to complain. Poor Pedro had a daughter called Juanita. She carried a little baby boy at her breast. Her breasts were overflowing with milk. She loved her father dearly and shed many tears over his sad fate. In the dungeon’s wall was a small hole. Through it Juanita nursed her father, keeping him alive with her mother’s milk.

  The cruel king had one weakness—riddles. He loved riddles to distraction. There was not one riddle in the whole wide world he could not solve. He made it known throughout his realm, by town crier and trumpeter, that if any person could pose him a riddle he could not solve, then this person could make a wish, and if it was in the king’s power to grant it, then he would do so.

  The poor prisoner’s daughter heard it. She boldly went to the king. She told him: “I have a riddle for you. I give you three days to solve it.”

  Antaño fui hija, hoy soy madre.

  Un hijo que tengo fué marido de mi madre.

  Aciértala, buen rey, y si no, dame a mi padre.

  I used to be a daughter, but now am a mother.

  I have a son who is my mother’s husband.

  Solve the riddle, good king, or give me back my father.

  The king racked his brain to find the answer to this riddle. He did not sleep a wink during all the three days and nights. He gave up. He had Juanita brought before him. “Tell me the answer to your riddle!” he commanded.

  “And you will grant me a wish?”

  “You have my royal word.”

  “Well, then. I was once a daughter, good king, but I nursed my father with the milk from my breasts. Thereby, I became his mother. But of course, being my father, he is my mother’s husband. It is so simple, king, a child could have guessed it.”

  The king commanded Pedro to be taken from jail and brought into the royal presence. Pedro was brought before the throne. The king told him: “Because I could not solve your daughter’s riddle, I let you go free, but if you ever complain about me in public again, I shall have your head cut off. Here, take this bag containing one hundred gold maravedis for yourself and your daughter, because it was a very good riddle.”

  To his henchmen the king said: “This is my order: Do not collect taxes from this man or from any member of his family. This is my royal command. Yo el rey! I the king!”

  The Many-Times-Killed Young Man

  There once was a sixty-year-old man, Don Policarpo, who owned a cantina somewhere between Belen and Socorro. He had a pretty esposa, Doña Inez, who was thirty-five years younger than her husband.

  There was also a certain young, no-good muchacho named Jesús María, a lover of other men’s wives.

  Don Policarpo was a busy man. Tending bar at his cantina kept him up until the wee hours of the night. Much of the time Doña Inez was left alone at home with nothing to do. Jesús María was a lazy ne’er-do-well who somehow managed to get along without working. The devil, always on the watch for souls to catch, will find some mischief to do for idle hands. One night Don Policarpo, tending bar in his cantina, suddenly felt sick. His body was sore. His head ached. His stomach rumbled. His nose ran. His ears kept ringing. So he asked his customers to leave, closed up shop, and staggered home two hours earlier than was his wont.

  When Don Policarpo arrived home, he found his place in the marital bed already occupied by that young wastrel, Jesús María. In righteous anger the injured husband grabbed a sharp knife from the table and stabbed Jesús María—once, twice, thrice—until this naughty young man was dead. He then turned to his wife, slapping her face and beating her with his fists, screaming, “Puta, whore, mujer sucia, slut, adúltera! Look, what you made me do!”

  “It’s your own fault, capón!” she screamed back at him. “Never at home, never doing what every good husband should to keep his wife happy! You have killed him! Madre de Dios! The gringos don’t understand about passion and honor. They will sentence you to hang!”

  “Válgame Dios! Evil woman, for once you are right. What am I to do?”

  “Estúpido! What an idiot the devil induced me to marry! Drag the body over to our vecino, our neighbor, and leave it on his porch. Let him figure out what to do. Take care that nobody sees you.” Don Policarpo hoisted Jesús María’s body onto his back and, bent under the heavy burden, waded across the little stream to the house of his neighbor, Vigil, the saddlemaker. There he propped the corpse against the door, muttering, “Adiós, cabrón, dissolute, adulterous son of a mangy he-goat. May you rot in hell!” After unburdening himself in this manner, Don Policarpo crept home to administer another beating to his wife, who gave him a black eye in return.

  Pilar, the wife of Vigil the saddlemaker, was awakened by the noise of Jesús María’s body being dumped on her doorstep. She nudged her husband: “Mi esposo! I think there is somebody at the door. I’m afraid. It might be a robber. There are many bandidos around. Be careful.”

  Vigil grumbled, got up, took his pistola out of the drawer, made sure it was loaded, and in his nightshirt went out the back door, tiptoed around the house, and peeked around the corner to see what had caused the noise on his front porch. In the uncertain light of a pale moon, the saddlemaker discerned the shape of a man leaning against the door—surely a bandido trying to break in. Without hesitating, he fired off his pistola at the intruder. The body crashed down with a great clatter. Dońa Pilar was screaming: “Vigil, love of my life, are you all right?”

  “I think I killed this ladrón,” answered Vigil. “Get me a light.”

  Doña Pilar, also in her nightshirt, appeared with a lighted candle.

  “
Ay de mí!” exclaimed the dumbfounded saddlemaker. “This is no bandido! It is Jesús María, the dissolute skirt chaser. He is carrying on with Doña Inez, the esposa of our neighbor, the cantinero. This evil young man must have been drunk to confuse our house with theirs.”

  “Santíssima Madre!” wailed Doña Pilar.” You have murdered an innocent man. They will put you in the calabozo for the rest of your life. What will become of pobre Pilar then?”

  “Stop cackling like a clucking hen,” said the saddlemaker. “Pull yourself together. Help me carry this unfortunate one over to the place of the ranchero, half a mile that way. He is an Americano with about a dozen vaqueros, I mean cowboys. This will confuse the policía. And you, querida, mi corazón, you have seen nothing, heard nothing, and know nothing about this.”

  It was heavy work for them to haul the body to the rancher’s place. “Look, husband,” said Doña Pilar, having a sudden inspiration, “that evil-smelling privy I can just make out, over there. Let us put him on the seat. People will think he died of a sudden colic.”

  They dragged the corpse to the outhouse and propped him up on the seat. “Gracias a Dios,” whispered Vigil, “it is done and over with. Vamos!”

  “Bufón, idiot!” hissed his wife. “Have you not forgotten something?”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “To take down his pants, estúpido! Or do you expect me to do it?”

  Don Vigil did as told while his esposa modestly averted her eyes. Then they hastened away without having been seen.