River Walker

by Cate Culpepper

  “I guess that’s reassuring.”

  “Tell your new gringa amiga the rest of it, Elena.” A rasping voice from the stairway startled Grady. She twisted but couldn’t see the woman who stood in the shadows at the top of the stairs. “Tell her why Maria loves you best of all! Why crazy men are trying to kill us both, because you won’t stop talking—”

  “Hush, Mamá, cálmate.” Elena’s voice was firm, but she sounded more weary than angry. “Go back to your TV show. I’ll be up soon.”

  Grady heard a muttering of Spanish curses recede upstairs.

  “She’s still pretty shaken up. I need to be with her.” Elena looked at Grady closely. “Wait a moment.”

  Elena got up and went to one of the shelves behind the counter. She took down a small packet and came back to Grady. “This is a special tea blend. It has valerian and a few other herbs. It’s not a heavy sedative, but it might bring you enough peace to get some real sleep.”

  Grady took the packet of ground leaves, surprised her insomnia was so obvious. She was surprised again when Elena stepped nearer and reached up to cup the side of Grady’s face in her hand.

  “It must be very lonely,” Elena said quietly. “Not believing there’s a loving deity out there who cares about your pain. Thinking you’re alone.”

  A ready quip came to Grady’s mind, but it died on her lips. Elena’s palm was cool and soft against her cheek, and the kindness in her voice turned Grady into a young child. For a moment, she wanted badly to close her eyes and turn her face into Elena’s hand, and something told her Elena would allow that. But she held still.

  Elena tapped her cheek gently. “Go home and take a nap, nosy gringa. I need to babysit my crazy madre.”

  Grady got to her feet. “Thanks, for this.” She slipped the packet of tea into her pocket.

  “That will be six dollars. I take Visa and MasterCard.” Elena smiled. “I’m teasing you.”

  “Take care of yourself, Elena.”

  “I always have.” Elena showed her to the door and patted Grady’s shoulder sweetly before she closed it behind her.

  Grady snapped on her sunglasses as she stepped down off the wooden boardwalk. She headed vaguely north, unfamiliar with this particular warren of winding streets, but knowing the plaza, where she parked her truck, lay that way.

  Three men stood behind another truck, a big battered blue one, a block up the street. They watched Grady as she walked past, muttering to each other.

  “Buenos días,” Grady called, deciding to acknowledge their obvious scrutiny. She checked the position of the sun. “Well, buenas tardes, anyway.”

  She received neither a returned greeting nor a single smile. The men, two middle-aged and one younger, all Hispanic, stared at Grady silently long after she passed them. She could feel their muddy gazes on her back.

  Grady glanced back at Elena’s shop, but made herself keep walking. Elena and her mother were grown women. And Grady had had a long day, considering it was just past noon, and she had much to think about. There was a six-pack of Corona calling her name, chilling in her fridge at the condo that passed as her home.

  Grady touched the packet of tea in her pocket. Maybe she’d pass on the beer. The side of her face tingled pleasantly all the way to the plaza.

  Chapter Five

  What an interesting voice this strange gringa has. Have You heard her speak, mi Diosa? Of course You have, even though she never talks to You. Her voice sounds like she’s talking through rich, dark cocoa all the time. I don’t mean that she sputters. You know what I mean. Grady Wrenn has a nice, low voice.

  They could have gotten in today, those men with their rifles. The lock on the front door is not very strong. They could have smashed it and destroyed everything in the shop. They could have run upstairs and shot my mother. How much time do I have, Diosa, before it gets that bad?

  The deaths are coming faster now. They are only weeks apart. And after every body washes up on a riverbank, Mesilla’s fear grows, and so does their rage against Mamá and me. I must stop these killings. How many more men will die if I don’t? Sweet Mother, I feel their blood on my hands.

  I begin to understand why You placed Grady Wrenn in my path. She is like my grandmother in one way; when she listens to me, it’s like there is no one else in the world who is more important. She listens to me with her whole body. But of course, she doesn’t believe anything I tell her. She doesn’t believe in anything. You could have saved me a lot of time and trouble by sending me a person who came equipped with some small faith in an afterlife, mi Diosa. I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing out.

  But I must admit, tonight, for the first time, I don’t feel so alone. As the sun goes down I have the anger of the street mob in my mind, yes, but I also have Grady Wrenn’s warm chocolate voice drawing me out, hearing my story.

  I’m glad she took the tea. Glad that she was willing to let me help that much, at least. How old is the soul behind those green eyes? They seem to carry the wisdom of many long years, but Grady is still a young woman. She looks so tired, like she has never slept, not since the day You put her on this earth.

  I pray she has found healing sleep tonight, and now I must seek my own. Sweet Goddess, send my abuela, my grandmother, to me in my dreams. I so need her comfort now, and her strength.

  As always, with love from Your Elena.

  Chapter Six

  A week later, Grady again found herself standing beside the Rio Grande at midnight, but not solely because she thought Elena Montalvo might be sitting in it. She had purely professional reasons for being there, but she admitted other motivations occurred to her. She had scanned the water’s rippling surface more than once for nubile Hispanic curanderas. No luck so far.

  And no Llorona. The night was peaceful and still.

  “Shrouded she comes, gliding silent on the water,” Janice intoned, reading from a worn, hardback text. “La Llorona seizes the unwary child. She snarls his shirt in her taloned hands and drags her small screaming victim into the river. Blood flows from the boy’s nose. He howls and retches with terror. The merciless wraith—”

  “Man, Janice, is this some slasher novel?” Sylvia tossed a twig playfully at Janice’s sneaker.

  Seated cross-legged on the ground beside Sylvia, Cesar smiled, too, but a bit stiffly. “It sounds like a horror movie.”

  “It’s from the Cordova text, that compilation of Southwest ghost stories.” Janice showed them the cover of the book, illuminated by the fire that crackled between them. “Listen, this is great stuff. We can excerpt this in our paper. ‘The merciless wraith drags the thrashing child beneath the chill waters of the river…’”

  Janice’s voice faded behind Grady as she left them and wandered farther down the riverbank. Her students had managed an hour of silence awaiting Llorona as the stars filled the sky, but then their scholarly focus had faded. These guys had far to go if they wanted to build the discipline to do real field work, but Grady hadn’t the heart or inclination to rein them in.

  The moon was all but invisible tonight, and she missed its friendly light. It had been in its full glory two weeks ago, when she first saw Elena. Funny, in Grady’s mind that had become the night she first saw Elena, not the night she heard the shriek of a centuries-dead witch. Talk about losing scholarly focus.

  She’d actually tried to talk her students out of this nocturnal jaunt, but they were adamant. They wanted to preface their paper with a descriptive passage about Llorona’s natural habitat, the Rio Grande by moonlight. Janice was especially keen on the idea. And these weren’t high school kids, Grady couldn’t forbid them a legal activity. But she felt antsy and protective, uneasy at the thought of exposing these callow bairns to a ghost that inspired five hundred years of terror.

  And her worry was crazy. Grady didn’t believe in ghosts. She didn’t believe in God or in an afterlife, so there were no ghosts. Sylvia, Cesar, and Janice were in no danger from a folktale.

  She bent and swept up a handful of p
ebbles and tossed them one by one into the river. Perhaps the mere casting of pebbles would again summon Elena, cause her to rise up from the dark waters to comfort lonely anthropologists. But the Grande seemed empty of such promise tonight.

  “Grady?”

  “Shit fire!” Grady whirled, knocking the hand from her shoulder, scattering the remaining pebbles.

  Janice yelped and jumped back two feet.

  Grady slapped a hand to her chest, high-fiving her own heart. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “God, I’m sorry!” Janice was wide-eyed. “I thought you heard me coming. I tried to scuff my feet.” She smiled, tentatively. “Did you think I was La Llorona?”

  “I thought you were back there.” Grady knew she sounded sullen. She was growing fond of Sylvia and Cesar, even given the sappiness of their young love, but she still felt no real connection to Janice Hamilton. The girl had an unfortunate tendency to fade into the woodwork. Or the adobe, as it were. “Are we about ready to pack it in for the night?”

  “Oh, no. Do we have to?” Disappointment flitted across Janice’s sallow features. “I’ve never been out to the river at night. It’s really kind of cool out here. Beautiful, but spooky. I can almost hear the witch out there in the dark. Can’t you?”

  “Clear as a bell.” Grady folded her arms, then nodded toward the distant campfire. “Did you guys get tired of bloody ghost stories?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Well, mostly I thought those two might want some time alone.” Janice glanced back too, her expression wistful. “They’re really into being together. Very nice people. I like them both. But they’re really together, you know?”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Janice seemed to pick up on Grady’s lack of enthusiasm for this conversation. “Well, I’m going to take a little walk. I want to check out some more spooky riverbank.”

  Grady relented to a twinge of guilt. She had always known she was a good teacher, and her bond with her students meant something to her. It wasn’t Janice’s fault that she wasn’t particularly keen on bonding with anyone with a pulse right now. And she didn’t want any of her charges out of her sight tonight. “What did you learn about Llorona, in the Cordova?”

  Janice turned back and her face lit up. “That is one gruesome text. I loved it. If getting a degree in anthropology means reading stuff like that all my career, I’m set for life.” She walked back to Grady quickly. “Okay. So everyone can see Llorona, men and women both, right? And the descriptions of her are crazy consistent—a young woman in a shroud, walking slowly along, hunched over, always seen somewhere near a river, especially this river.”

  Grady stared at Janice, astonished. She had a notion she was meeting her for the first time. The shy, empty expression was gone. It was like switching on a lamp. The girl’s face looked like Grady felt when that small shiver of academic pleasure ran up her spine. Janice was going to love this work.

  “But only men can hear Llorona weep. What’s up with that?” Janice looked at Grady intently. “Is there some kind of symbolism going on there? Like, Llorona’s husband hurt her so much with his infidelity, now only men can hear her sadness, something like that?”

  “Yes, that was Cordova’s take on the legend.” An uneasy quiver went through Grady’s stomach. “Though I’ve heard recently that some women are able to hear Llorona, as well. Particular women.”

  “Really?” Janice’s eyes sparkled with a new idea. “And when Cordova calls Llorona a witch, what does he mean, exactly? I don’t know whether to picture an evil woman casting spells, or some Mexican version of a Wiccan.”

  “Wicca is neopagan. It’s a nature-based religion. Those who practice it spend a lot of time dispelling the whole cackling crone image.” Grady’s shoulders relaxed as she warmed to her topic. She was rather enjoying Janice’s rapt focus on her every word. “The stories Cordova collected sprang from a more primitive concept of witchery. Spells and hexes and the dark arts were involved.” She looked out over the river. “But then, I’ve also heard recently that there are many kinds of witches.”

  “Well, I have to admit I find the primitive concept of witchery much cooler. Um, is it okay if I smoke?”

  “Sure, if you stay downwind.” Grady watched Janice pull out a crumpled pack and flick a lighter, the small flame illuminating her chewed fingernails.

  Leigh had been a smoker in her twenties. She quit the habit, for sensible health reasons of her own, shortly after she met Grady. She took it up again during the last year of their marriage. Her cough had jarred Grady awake more than once during the few nights she truly slept that terrible year. She realized Janice was still talking and made herself focus on her voice.

  “I’m glad your seminar was offered this summer. I’m really enjoying it.” Janice’s smile was tentative again. “I still don’t know many people in Cruces. I’m wondering if you know of any places lesbians might hang out in town?”

  Grady pondered this. She wasn’t surprised or dismayed that Janice knew she was gay. Students often Googled their professors, and Grady had sponsored a gay/straight alliance group at Evergreen College that would have come up with her name. She had always been able to be fairly open about her life throughout her career, even here. New Mexico might not smack of the same progressive spirit as parts of Oregon, but Grady’s current boss was solidly supportive. Still, she noticed that Janice’s interest in her personal life was accompanied by that shy smile, so she decided to answer her literally.

  “Actually, Cruces is a more open town than you might think, Janice. NMSU has a GLBTQ Student Resource Center, and this July is Gender Identity Education Month. They’ll have panels on—”

  It began as a low, snarling cry.

  Grady’s hands clenched at her sides and her spine grew rigid, stiff as a hickory staff. The sparse flatland bordering the river was empty. Llorona was invisible again tonight, but her rising wail went through Grady like a bullet through a stained-glass window.

  “Grady?”

  “Hush.” Grady closed her eyes, shivered hard, and kept telling herself it would pass.

  The ghostly shriek, in full power, carried both the insane trilling of a young woman and the hoarse fury of an old one, bitter and lost. Somehow, if Grady could just block out the grief in that terrible howling, if she could hear only the rage, it would be bearable; she could endure this. But the stark suffering in Maria’s unnatural song shredded her heart. It resounded there because Grady recognized this grief. She shared it.

  After a full, excruciating minute, the roar dwindled to a keening and faded. Her ears still rang with it, but Grady couldn’t miss the terrified bellows coming from the direction of the campfire.

  “Come on!” She snatched Janice’s wrist and tugged her into a run.

  The distant spark of the campfire jittered in Grady’s vision as she raced toward it over the uneven ground. When she got closer she could see Cesar on his knees beside the fire, his arms outstretched. Sylvia knelt beside him, clutching Cesar around the chest.

  Grady forced herself to slow and step calmly into the glowing circle, already trying to ease the horror she saw in Cesar’s face. His glasses hung askew from one ear, and his eyes were wide and staring. His mouth hung open in a fixed rictus of fear.

  “Grady, he just started screaming.” Sylvia looked frightened, too, but her attention was entirely on Cesar. Her arms around his chest were trembling. “He won’t look at me.”

  Grady knelt slowly in front of Cesar, and moved into his range of vision. She called his name gently, twice. He didn’t move, and his eyes didn’t focus.

  “He fell into the fire.” Sylvia seemed to be making a determined effort to quell her panic. She reached across Cesar and clutched his sleeve. “He burned himself.”

  “Buddy, I’m going to touch you. I want to look at your arm.” Grady kept her voice low but firm. Cesar didn’t react as she took his wrist and lowered his arm. She heard Sylvia hiss as the firelight exposed the charred tear in his sleeve. Grady moved the cloth asid
e and saw a series of small burns and scratches across his elbow.

  “That’s not good.” Janice stood beside them, her hands on her knees.

  It wasn’t, but Grady was more concerned about Cesar’s fixed stare and the bellows-pumping of his chest as he drew in air. His shirt was soaked in sweat in the cool night, and a drop slid down the side of his face. She thought quickly and fished in her back pocket for her keys.

  “Janice, here, go get my truck. I don’t think we should try to walk him back to our cars.” Her eyes still on Cesar, she handed Janice her keys. “Sylvia, bring us your backpacks over there. Cesar? We’re going to lay you down for a minute—”

  “I’ve got my cell,” Janice said. “Shouldn’t we just call nine-one-one?”

  Grady shook her head. “Cesar doesn’t need a medical doctor. Go on, Janice, get the truck.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  There was a pause, and then Janice’s swift footfalls sounded behind Grady.

  “Are you going to let us lay you down, Cesar, or will we have to hit you with a body tackle?” To her great relief, Cesar slumped to the ground in jerky stages, guided by her hands and Sylvia’s. She checked out Sylvia again, content that she was physically unhurt, at least.

  “Baby, you’re going to be fine,” Sylvia’s voice shook, but her hand stroked Cesar’s damp forehead gently. “Te adoro, querido. Just lie still.”

  Grady lifted Cesar’s heavy sneakered feet and rested them on the backpacks, hoping elevating his legs would do something to stave off shock. Cesar seemed to be calming slowly under his girlfriend’s tender touch. “Tell me what happened, Sylvia.”

  “Grady, I swear I don’t know.” Sylvia looked up at her through her tousled hair. “We were fine, and then Cesar just started screaming like a madman. He clawed at his ears and tried to get up, but then he fell into the f-fire.”

  Grady looked at Cesar’s face, ashen now, his eyes still staring sightlessly into the sky. Every brain cell she had told her Janice was right; they should have called for medics. But every other cell in her being knew Cesar needed Elena. Her certainty was immediate and complete.