River Walker

by Cate Culpepper

  Grady shifted on her knees to Cesar’s side, and took her folded bandana from her pocket. “Cesar, I’m going to wrap up your arm real lightly to keep it clean. We’ll have those burns looked at right away.” He still made no response, so she looked at Sylvia. “I want to take him to a spiritual healer, Sylvia. A curandera in Mesilla. What do you think?”

  “A curandera?” Sylvia rubbed Cesar’s chest in soft circles. She looked at him silently for a moment. “I know curanderas can heal. If it was me that was hurt…I’d say the hospital. But Cesar’s family, they’re very traditional. He believes in a lot of the older ways.” She drew in a breath, then nodded. “Yes, okay. We’ll take him to this healer.”

  Grady caught the flare of headlights as her truck roared toward them over the rough ground. “Come on, Cesar. We’re going to help you stand up. And Sylvia’s telling the truth, you’re going to be fine.”

  *

  The tendons in Grady’s jaw creaked, and she unclenched her teeth. Losing a filling wouldn’t get Cesar to Elena any faster.

  The big kid was conscious and sitting upright beside her, that was the good news. He was crammed between her and Sylvia in the small cab of her truck. Janice followed them in her own car, closely enough that her headlights glared in Grady’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Can’t you talk to me, baby?” Sylvia tried to pull Cesar’s head down onto her shoulder, but his body stiffened and resisted. “Please, Cesar, you don’t have to look so scared. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Grady chanced a quick glance at Cesar’s face. His mouth was still slack, and his eyes retained that vacant cast that resembled a drugged stupor, but fear still seemed to radiate from his pores. He shivered with cold now, and Grady was seriously worried about shock.

  She braked hard, gritting her teeth again in hopes that Janice would slow down, too, and cranked the wheel to the left. The winding streets in Elena’s neighborhood were even more disorienting by night, and she had circled this block twice already. With a rush of relief, Grady spotted the white boardwalk that fronted Elena’s shop, and she pulled up in front of it, spinning gravel.

  “Cesar, you and Sylvia sit tight for a moment. I’m going to go find our healer.”

  Grady saw a light go on inside over the stairway even before she raised her hand to knock on the glass-paned door. She randomly noted the neat plywood square fitted over the frame of the broken front window, then saw Elena’s silhouette moving swiftly down the stairs.

  Elena shook her hair out from under her long shawl, apparently tossed on hurriedly over the shorts and T-shirt she slept in. She unlocked the door, surprise and concern in her eyes when she saw Grady.

  “Elena, I’m sorry to bother you and your mother so late.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s not me. One of my students needs your help.”

  “Of course.” Elena craned past Grady and saw her truck. “Can you bring them inside?”

  “Yes, he can walk.”

  “Please, bring him in.”

  Elena vanished into the recesses of the store, and Grady loped to her truck to help Sylvia with Cesar. He was disturbingly pliant as he climbed out of the cab, and he shuffled between them like a shivering zombie. Janice followed them into the shop, looking around curiously.

  Elena came out of a back room, drying her hands in a silk cloth. Her eyes went directly to Cesar, taking in every nuance of his stance and expression. She smiled briefly at Sylvia and Janice. “I’m Elena Montalvo. Tell me about our friend, here.”

  Grady started to speak, but then nodded at Sylvia. She might be young, but she was every inch Cesar’s partner, and she was proving herself worthy of his devotion tonight.

  “We were at the river just now,” Sylvia said. “Cesar went from perfectly normal to terrified in about five seconds. He kept grabbing his ears and screaming. He fell in a fire and burned his arm.”

  “The burns aren’t too serious,” Grady added quietly.

  Elena murmured and stepped closer to Cesar, and took his face in her hands. “Has Cesar used any drugs tonight?”

  “No, he never does.” Sylvia shook her head. “Except pills for his allergies.”

  “Any major health conditions I should know of?”

  “No.” Sylvia rested her head briefly on Cesar’s slumped shoulder. “He’s very healthy.”

  Elena measured Cesar’s pulse at the throat, then stood on her toes to smell his breath. “Does he have a faith?”

  “Cesar is Catholic.”

  Elena nodded and took Cesar’s right arm from Grady. “Let’s bring him back here.”

  Cesar moved when they urged him to, and he might have walked off a cliff as mindlessly as he stumbled between Elena and Sylvia toward the back of the shop. Grady started to follow, but Janice touched her arm.

  “Grady, wait. I really respect any local customs in Mesilla around folk healing and everything. But does this woman have a license? Any kind of license? Is that how she takes a medical history? Why did she ask about Cesar’s religion?”

  “Elena is a curandera, Janice. She does both physical and spiritual healing.”

  “Spiritual healing?” Janice blinked. “As in exorcisms?”

  “I guess, if necessary.” Grady glanced over her shoulder, wanting to be with Cesar.

  “Grady.” Janice took a step back. “Do you really think Cesar was attacked by the ghost of a dead witch tonight?”

  “What’s important tonight is what Cesar believes. Come on, Janice.”

  Grady stepped through the curtain of beads that separated the back area of Elena’s shop and saw a mild gold light glowing from a side room. Sylvia and Elena were there, helping Cesar stretch out on an elevated bed.

  Grady let out a low whistle, her worry deflected by the uniqueness of this small chamber. She had never been in a space that doubled so well as a cozy place to rest and an area designed for healing. While Elena’s outer shop featured artwork from dozens of religions, the walls of this small room carried every healing symbol Grady recognized, and several she wasn’t sure of—the caduceus, the Eye of Horus, several Native American icons. The single raised bed Cesar rested on looked sturdy and comfortable.

  Elena’s fingers were probing the base of Cesar’s jaw. She looked at Sylvia. “What is your name?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m Sylvia.” She smiled fleetingly, clasping Cesar’s loose hand. “I’m Cesar’s fiancée.”

  “I’m glad you’re with him tonight.” Elena glanced at Grady. “Sylvia, I have some hard questions to ask you. They might not make sense to you, but I need to know the answers. All right?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  “You love Cesar, very much?”

  “With all my heart.”

  “Has he ever raised his hand to you? Ever hit you in anger?”

  “Cesar?” Sylvia’s brow furrowed. “Oh, no, Elena. He would never be violent with me. I’ve known him all my life, and he’s never hurt anyone. He’s a very loving person.” Tears rose in Sylvia’s eyes, but she held Elena’s gaze steadily.

  “That’s what I needed to know.” Elena patted Sylvia’s hand and went to a maple chest of drawers in one corner. She slid open the second drawer and lifted out a small vial of clear fluid. From the top drawer, she took out a string of rosary beads. She went back to Cesar and wound the rosary around his right hand.

  “Shouldn’t we try calling him again?” Janice’s voice was respectful.

  “I’m afraid Cesar can’t hear us right now.” Elena dipped an eyedropper in the vial, then lifted one of Cesar’s lids gently. “He’s listening to someone else.”

  She applied the drops to both of Cesar’s eyes, then laid the vial aside. “This is a highly distilled lavender oil, Sylvia. It’ll help him see us again. You’re also Catholic?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then keep hold of his hand and pray, in any way you see fit, while this remedy takes effect. I’ll do the same.” Elena laid her hand on Cesar’s chest and spoke s
oftly to him. “Cesar. Usted no tiene nada temer de La Llorona, mi hermanito.”

  Sylvia looked at Grady in sudden alarm, and Grady nodded reassurance.

  “What did she say about La Llorona?” Janice whispered.

  Sylvia swallowed. “She told Cesar he had nothing to fear from the woman who weeps.”

  “Let’s be still, please.” Elena lifted her shawl over her head and crossed herself. She closed her eyes and her lips moved.

  For the next few minutes, all Grady heard was the soft ticking of the clock in the other room, and the occasional creak of a floorboard overhead. Elena’s mother couldn’t have slept through all this drama, and she seemed to be pacing upstairs. Sylvia stood beside Cesar, holding his hand to her heart as she prayed.

  His shivering began to ease first, and his big body relaxed by degrees against the white sheet. Cesar’s staring eyes finally fluttered shut, and Grady sighed in relief. She felt an ominous tightness in the back of her neck and she rubbed it absently as Janice shifted from foot to foot beside her.

  Elena traced a cross between her head and shoulders again and slipped her shawl off her hair. She touched Cesar’s forehead as tenderly a mother caressing her child. Then she went back to the dresser and sprinkled a pinch of dried powder onto a small tin disk. She took out a box of wooden matches and struck one, sending a tendril of smoke to the low ceiling.

  “Cesar’s ready to come back to us now. This will wake him as gently as possible.”

  Elena held the disk beneath Cesar’s chin and blew very softly, sending the light smoke from the flickering powder toward his face. Grady caught a mild scent of thyme, blended with faint traces of something like yucca flower. Elena set the tin aside and waited, her hand over Cesar’s heart.

  Grady watched Elena’s calm profile. She could almost feel the curandera’s hand on her own chest, the warmth of her palm against her shirt. Elena looked tired, as if the effort of this ritual had drained her, but she no longer looked worried. As if drawn by Grady’s regard, she turned her head, and they smiled at each other.

  Cesar awoke suddenly and with a titanic start, his entire body jerking hard on the bed. Sylvia cried out in surprise and Grady nearly bit her tongue, but Elena seemed prepared for this abrupt surfacing.

  “Shh, Cesar, you’re with friends. You’re safe.” Elena’s tone was soothing as she helped him sit up against the headboard.

  Cesar was gripping the sides of the bed and looking around wildly, but when he saw Sylvia, he sagged against her and closed his eyes. “Madre de Dios,” he gasped.

  “Exactly.” Sylvia stroked his hair and murmured endearments in two languages.

  Elena measured Cesar’s pulse at the wrist and waited until he lifted his head from Sylvia’s breast. “My name is Elena, Cesar, I’m a curandera. You’re in my home, in Mesilla. Your friends brought you here for help.”

  “Was it her?” Cesar was starting to tremble again. He stared hard at Elena. “Was she really out there?”

  “Tell me what happened to you, Cesar.” Sylvia pried one of Cesar’s hands off the bed frame and held it in her own. “Where did you go? You wouldn’t look at me, you wouldn’t talk to me. You scared the shit out of me.”

  “She became the sky,” Cesar said, and Grady started. She couldn’t imagine a more dead-on description of how Llorona’s cry invaded the human heart. “Her screams, they poured all over me. It was like the whole world hated me. I just kept saying my beads.” Cesar blinked at the rosary wrapped around his hand, then looked up at Elena. “It was her?”

  “Yes, Cesar.” Elena took his free hand in hers. “You heard the screams of the River Walker tonight.”

  Grady’s head was starting to pound. She never should have caved and taken her students to the Rio Grande tonight. Cesar looked better. In spite of his trembling he was Cesar again, not that paralyzed zombie, but he should be home in his own bed. She was an idiot to expose any of them to this craziness.

  “But I didn’t hear anything.” Janice shifted in the small room, apparently trying to catch Elena’s eye. “I was right there, and there wasn’t any cry. It’s really true only men can hear her?”

  “Only men.” Elena didn’t look at Grady. “And good men have nothing to fear from her.”

  “You believe the witch is real, Elena?” Sylvia’s eyes were wide again. “That Cesar heard her ghost tonight?”

  Elena nodded. “You can walk through the Mesilla Plaza and find a dozen men who have heard Llorona. Mostly, they hear her weep. But on some nights, she roars.” Elena went to a bowl filled with water on a side table and bathed her hands in it. “But she hunts a specific kind of prey, Cesar. You were never in any danger. She wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “I’m sorry, but what kind of prey?” Janice looked from Elena to Grady and back again. “What kind of men is this ghost supposed to be hunting?”

  “Men who hurt the women and children who love them.” A stony note had entered Elena’s tone, but she softened again when she looked at Sylvia. “Not men like Cesar. You love a good and decent person, mi hermana.”

  “Yes, I do.” Sylvia smiled tremulously.

  Cesar lifted the rosary wrapped around his hand and kissed it. He leaned back against the pillows, looking spent.

  “You’re probably going to sleep for several hours, Cesar.” Elena adjusted the pillow behind him. “Your system’s had quite a shock. I’d like you to stay here, so I can keep an eye on you. Should we call your family?”

  “No,” Sylvia and Cesar chorused, and they smiled at each other sheepishly. That smile settled the last of the quivering uneasiness in Grady’s gut, leaving only the thudding headache.

  “Cesar’s mama babies him too much already.” Sylvia brushed a strand of grass from Cesar’s shoulder. “I’ll stay here tonight, too. I can sit right there.” She nodded at an armchair in the corner, as if Elena might object.

  “Then I’ll sleep on the sofa in the shop,” Elena said. “I’ll be able to hear you if Cesar needs anything. I want to take a look at those burns, and then we’ll let you get some rest.”

  Cesar’s eyes were already drifting closed, but he lifted his elbow and peered at it. “What the hell?”

  “Hush, Cesar.” Sylvia tapped his head sternly. “Don’t curse in here.”

  “It hurts, though,” Cesar protested.

  “We can help that.” Elena went back to her dresser, then looked questioningly at Grady and Janice. “Will you two be staying as well? You’re welcome, but I think things are pretty well settled for this evening.”

  “I’d like to stay, if it’s all right.” Grady hadn’t spoken in so long her voice was slightly hoarse. She nodded her aching head toward the shop. “I can just crash in there somewhere. Janice, it would be nice if someone besides Cesar got a decent night’s sleep. You should go on home.”

  “Yeah? Okay. I will, then, if we’re sure Cesar’s all right.” Janice gave Cesar’s foot a light tap. “Night, Sylvia.”

  Grady was relieved at Janice’s lack of resistance. Her post-crisis edge was wearing off fast, and she was exhausted. She followed Janice into the shop to see her out.

  “Grady.” Janice opened the door and hesitated. “I know you were right to bring Cesar here for help. I’m still clueless about how Elena did it, but he looks like he’s going to be fine. You’re not going to be in trouble over this, right? We can all back you up with Dr. Lassiter, if she gives you any flack.”

  “Thanks, Janice, but I’m not worried. I’m seeing Dr. Lassiter first thing in the morning, I’ll fill her in. Good ni—”

  “Grady? You heard it, too, didn’t you? That scream Cesar heard. You looked so—”

  “I heard Cesar yelling, Janice. Go on, now. Try to get some sleep.”

  Janice stared at her. “Okay. Let Sylvia know she and Cesar can call me in the morning, if they need anything.” Grady set the small chain on the door and watched through the thick glass pane until Janice made it safely to her car. She rested her elbow on the door frame and squeezed the bac
k of her neck.

  If Grady had grown up in Mesilla, maybe Elena’s claims about Llorona would make more sense to her. But nothing in her academic training or her experience in the world prepared her to accept the possibility of life after death. The very notion was heartbreaking to her now. She still half hoped there was some kind of rabid cougar out there, bellowing its way up and down the river, some natural explanation for all this. But animals don’t grieve. A cougar couldn’t produce the terrible mourning in Maria’s cry.

  “I have some blankets in this chest.”

  Grady hadn’t heard Elena come in. She was kneeling by an antique trunk in one shadowed corner of the shop.

  “I think we can make you comfortable in here,” Elena said. “On the floor, of course. I’m not giving up my sofa.”

  “I would never ask it.”

  “You can always go upstairs and bunk with my mother, if you wish.” A dimple appeared in Elena’s cheek.

  “I think I’ve cost your poor mother enough sleep.” Grady accepted an armful of thick folded blankets. “Thank you, Elena. I’m not sure what I’d have done if you hadn’t been here tonight.”

  “This must have been very frightening for you, Grady.” Elena got to her feet. “I’m grateful you thought to bring Cesar here. A medical doctor would just have sedated him. He needed help waking from his nightmare, not to be locked inside it.” She studied Grady’s face. “Are you in pain?”

  “No. Well, yes, I have a headache. What do you think we should expect with Cesar tomorrow?”

  “Sylvia will want to watch him carefully, not just tomorrow but for several days.” Elena closed the chest and latched it. “He could have problems sleeping. He might relive what happened tonight. It might be hard for him to think of anything else for a while.”

  “All the symptoms of PTSD.” Grady sighed. “Damn.”

  “A crisis counselor would tell you to watch for PTSD. I doubt if they’d encourage Cesar to go to Mass several times, but I’m recommending that, too.” Elena slid her arm through Grady’s. “Come and sit with me for a while. If you’d like something for your headache, I think I have some pure-grade heroin in one of these drawers.”