River Walker

by Cate Culpepper

  “Yes, Manny is named for him. The two of them were good friends.” For the first time, clear regret filled Antonia Herrera’s faded features. “Manuel was never any good with females. With his wife or his daughters, or even his madre. But he loved his grandson. I will give him that. Manny still grieves very much for him.”

  Grady hesitated. Her interview subject had offered an appropriate entry to the questions Janice had detailed in her notebook, but she left it closed on the coffee table. Grady had a good memory, and this woman seemed willing to talk. “Can you tell us what living with Mr. Herrera was like?”

  “He was a good provider,” Mrs. Herrera said at once. “Never in trouble with the law, not since he was a teenager.” She glanced at the painting of the Virgin over the hearth. “But he was free with his drink, and with his fists. This was no secret to anyone in Mesilla. I walked into Elena’s grandmother’s shop with black eyes more than once.”

  Grady considered the pain of that, the humiliation of knowing all her neighbors saw what happened in the sanctity of her home. She was beginning to understand the stoop in this woman’s shoulders.

  “I hope you won’t judge my family for this, Grady.” Mrs. Herrera’s voice was still soft. “I honored my husband, and I obeyed him as I promised to. I would defend Manuel’s memory today, to anyone who insulted his name. But mostly, I feared him. So did his daughters. And there is peace in this house now, for the first time in many years.”

  “I understand, Mrs. Herrera. Thank you for your honesty.”

  “Grady, may we ask about the others?” Elena’s tone was tentative. “Mrs. Herrera knows everyone in Mesilla. She’s lived here all her life.”

  “Ay, anyone who lives in Mesilla can tell you about the other men who have died,” Mrs. Herrera said. “We saw most of them every week at Mass. The second to drown himself was Jaime Barela, then Celia Guzman’s husband, Raul, in late May. Then, just three weeks ago, Enrique Acuña.”

  Grady consulted her mental Rolodex. Her students were interviewing Jaime Barela’s widow today. Anything Antonia Herrera told her about the other deaths would be hearsay and gossip, but Elena’s stillness held a kind of muted urgency. “Do you think the men who have died have anything in common, Mrs. Herrera?”

  The older woman turned to Elena. “Do you still go to the cemetery to wash your great-grandmother’s stone, Elenita?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you know the section with the children’s graves. With the little white marker for Jimmy Guzman. He was two years old when his father, Raul, beat him to death.” Mrs. Herrera reached for her coffee cup. The tremor in her hands had increased. Grady remembered the sad white patch of stones in the San Albino churchyard and blew out a bleak breath. “Raul Guzman is the only man who actually killed a member of his familia. But they were all husbands and fathers, those who Llorona frightened to death, and they were all violent men.”

  “Was Raul Guzman never prosecuted for the death of his son?” Grady asked.

  “Yes. He served seven years at the penitentiary in Santa Fe.” Mrs. Herrera shook her head. “Seven years. And then Celia let him come home. And his violence poisoned them all until the night he died.”

  Grady’s eyes lingered on the portrait of the Virgin over the hearth, silenced by the simple weight of human misery bound up in these tales. Elena had been right about the link between the suicides. Now all Grady had to do was accept that these suicides were actually murders, brought about by a protective and/or vengeful ghost. She wished matrons in New Mexico served tequila instead of coffee at brunch. Elena threw her a look that was both sympathetic and searching.

  “Sometimes I look at the Mother, and I see La Llorona.” Mrs. Herrera had followed Grady’s gaze to the portrait. “I would never say this to Pastor Rodriguez, Elena. But they were both mothers who lost their sons. I know Llorona is a murderess, but I pray to Mary to intercede for her forgiveness.”

  “So do I, abuela.”

  Antonia Herrera saw them out with the same courtesy she had shown throughout their visit. She pressed two slim boxes into Elena’s hands. “Our chocolate pecans. Both sugar-free, since your grandmother had the diabetes. Has Inez gained much weight in the past years?”

  “Not really. But she drinks too much Pepsi.” Elena accepted the boxes with a grateful smile, and Grady saw a new softness in her face. Exposure to this woman’s friendly maternity seemed to warm Elena, as if she were holding chilled hands before a fire. “Thank you for the candy, and for seeing us today.”

  Grady couldn’t shake her pensive mood as her truck rumbled back toward the main dirt road. “Four men dead. I wonder how many more there might be. How many lives does Llorona take every hundred years, according to legend? Ten? Twenty?”

  Elena seemed immersed in her own thoughts, and she pulled her gaze from the truck’s side window with effort. “As terrible as these suicides are, there have never been many of them. All my grandmothers kept a careful tally over the years. Less than ten men die each time Llorona returns to the valley. I doubt there will be a greater number in this visitation. Considering how many men beat their wives around here, ten is a small number.”

  Elena winced as if in apology for this cold summary. “The men who died in the past four months all met certain criteria, Grady. They were all out on some business late at night, and always alone. Their business brought them somewhere near the river. They heard Maria’s cry. Only men who have met all these criteria drowned themselves.”

  “How does it happen, do you think?” Grady had been trying to picture Llorona’s attacks. “Mrs. Herrera said the men who died were frightened to death. So they’re near the river, they hear Llorona’s scream, and they’re so terrified they just dash for the water and jump in?”

  “That’s how it’s said to happen, yes. Everyone believes the men Maria kills die of terror as much as drowning.”

  “But were these intentional suicides, then?” Grady remembered a fervent desire to save her own butt while under the ghost’s aural assault. “Or were they just trying to get away from Llorona, to escape her?”

  “I’ve imagined it in my mind. Maria’s cry is said to be hideous to hear, filled with a killing rage. But it’s not like the roar of a wild animal. Men don’t simply run away from it to seek safety.” Elena stroked the top of her shoulder, and Grady recalled the small birthmark that rested there. “My own belief is that her voice fills these violent men with remorse, as well as fear. Something in that sound finally goads their conscience, and it’s penitence, as much as terror, that leads them to the water. It’s not a pleasant thing to imagine.”

  “There’s as much grief there as rage.” Grady stared at the narrow road disappearing beneath the wheels. “In Maria’s voice. Her suffering is…immense.”

  “I’ve never heard this.” Elena was watching her closely. “But of course, there would be great sadness. Maria is mourning her children. We only hear accounts of her cry from men who babble about her fury. A woman would hear her grief as well.”

  Grady felt a suspicious tightness in her throat and swallowed grimly. “I wonder if these men actually saw Maria before they died. I know she’s been sighted many times, and almost everyone describes her the same way—this mild young woman in a shroud, floating along the riverbank. She seems so harmless. But in all those descriptions, Llorona is weeping. How does she appear when she screams?” She was picturing the kind of creature capable of such a sound—a floating wraith of gargantuan proportions, with hypodermic needle fangs and wild streaming snakes for hair. She remembered the huge black serpent of her nightmare.

  “There’s no way to know how Maria looks to these men when she is on the hunt, Grady.” Elena nudged her. “But here’s a new wrinkle of Llorona lore for you, Professor. Maria’s wail is loudest when she is very far away. No one who hears it is close enough to see her. But if her cry is soft and faint, if it seems to come from a great distance, you know she is quite near. Look for her then.”

  “Yeesh. You look for
her then. I’ll wait here.” Grady shifted on her creaking seat. “Are you sure you didn’t get some of this stuff from Stephen King, Elena? That’s genuinely creepy.”

  “I know.” Elena chuckled, apparently unoffended. “Can you see why the mothers of Mesilla still use the threat of Llorona to keep their children home at night? She—”

  A blue truck shot suddenly out of a side road and hit the left rear of the cab. A glancing blow, but sharp and powerful enough to punch them into a slide, and the back side window shattered in a spray of glass. Grady gasped, her right arm whipping out to brace Elena. Elena surged sideways against her, knocking her shoulder hard, but their lap belts kept them both in their seats. Grady’s truck rocked to a stop, dust boiling around them.

  “What the fuck!” Grady’s vocabulary deserted her. “Elena, are you all right?”

  Elena was breathing a series of Spanish curses of her own. She looked past Grady, and her eyes widened. “He’s coming back!”

  Grady didn’t turn to verify Elena’s warning. The engine was still running, and she floored it. The rear of her truck slewed in the dirt, but then the tires grabbed and she took off down the road. The broad grill of the blue behemoth behind them loomed in the rearview mirror.

  Grady had faced some dicey situations in her field work before, a few of them fairly harrowing, and she kept her cool now. She drove fast and well, pressing the motor to its fullest speed, hyperalert for any oncoming traffic. The jittering road before them remained empty. Her senses were highly attuned to Elena beside her, and she was aware of an unexpectedly strong and protective resolve to see her safely out of this.

  “I recognize the truck.” Elena was craning to see out the back window. The wind whistling in from the empty side frame and the jouncing of the cab almost drowned out her voice. “It belongs to Rudy Barela. His cousin was the second man to kill himself.”

  That garish blue color was unmistakable. Grady had seen Manny Herrera lounging with two men against that truck, near Elena’s store. “Can you see how many are back there?”

  “Just the driver. It’s Hector Acuña. His brother was the third to die. I can’t see anyone in the truck’s bed, but—Grady!” Elena’s hand clamped hard on her shoulder, and the next second Grady felt the fearsome thud against the back bumper. Her tires spun in the dirt and she lost control. The blue truck shot past on her left as she wrestled for traction. She caught a quick flash of a flushed face behind the wheel.

  “Muerte a las brujas!” Death to the witches.

  One raw shout and the man was gone, but Grady had lost interest in him by then: she was busy crashing. She kept one arm pinned across Elena’s chest as they crested the lip of a shallow irrigation ditch. She braced to capsize, but the truck thudded down into the ditch hard on its front wheels. Grady’s head caught a nasty crack against the side frame as the airbags deployed in an explosive rush, and things grayed out for a moment.

  “Grady.” Elena’s eyes were inches from her own, and her fingers were cold on her face. “Are you back now?”

  “I’m falling in love with you,” Grady said. She moaned and touched her head, her thoughts scattered and then lost in confusion. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Grady opened her eyes. Elena sounded very odd. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m fine. Grady, you blacked out. Where are you hurt?”

  Grady shifted cautiously, pushing the collapsed airbag off her lap. There were several ominous twinges of newly born bruises, and her head hurt, but not with an unbearable ache. She was starting to feel more alert, at least enough to be keenly aware of Elena all but lying against her, both of them sprawled against the driver’s door. Elena’s fingers were beneath her hair, probing the base of her neck.

  “I think I’m good.” The odor of gasoline reached her. “Can we get out of here?”

  It took several more questions and repeated probing, but Elena finally allowed Grady to move. She swung the side door open. “We’ll have to go out this way.”

  They climbed out gingerly, bracing each other. Grady felt some post-crisis shakes, but she stood erect on the bank of the irrigation ditch without swaying. Elena looked pale but unscathed, and Grady was grateful for her supporting arm. The road before and behind them was empty, not even the dust of their pursuer in the air now.

  Grady looked glumly at her canted truck and fished in her pocket for her cell phone.

  “Are you calling your students?” Elena asked.

  “I’m calling the cops.” Grady frowned. “No, I’m calling my students.” She clicked the keys quickly to find Sylvia’s number.

  “Grady, there’s no use—”

  Grady lifted her hand for silence, a new anxiety filling her. “Sylvia? Grady. Where are you?”

  “Hey, hello.” Sylvia’s voice sounded tinny, but friendly and carefree. “We’re all back at my place, Grady. We had a fantastic talk with—”

  “Great. Stay there. Elena and I had some trouble a few minutes ago. Someone ran us off the road. We’re all right, but I want the three of you to be careful tonight. I’ll catch you up when we meet in the morning. Is that clear?”

  Sylvia was silent for a moment, and Grady could hear her suppressing a flood of questions. Janice’s voice asked something in the background. “Yes, Grady, we’ll be careful. Are you sure you guys are okay? Do you need help?”

  “No, you three stay away from here. Eight a.m. sharp tomorrow, please. Take care.” Grady tapped off, then started to dial 911 when Elena touched her wrist. “What?”

  “There’s no use calling the police, Grady. I’d rather we didn’t.”

  “Elena.” Grady’s thumb still hovered over the last key. “Someone just tried to kill us both. I think nice little Manny made a call himself while we were talking to his grandmother. To a man you apparently recognized, right? Someone named Barela?”

  “It was Rudy Barela’s truck. Hector Acuña was driving it. He’s a Mesilla deputy marshal.”

  Grady lowered her phone. “Are you saying the cops will refuse to help us?”

  “I’m saying Mesilla is a small town. My family has never been able to turn to the law for help. Grady, we can talk about this later. I don’t like your color. Let me call my friend Rita for a ride.”

  “Elena, my family has always been able to turn to the law for help, and besides, I promised your mother I’d look after you.”

  “You what?”

  “I promised your mother I’d look after you.” Grady couldn’t believe she’d said that, to say nothing of saying it twice, but suddenly nothing made much sense anymore and her knees hit the dirt road with a solid thud.

  Chapter Twelve

  Grady didn’t faint, and she explained that to Elena several times. She explained it to Elena’s friend Rita, too, when Rita drove up in her battered Toyota to give them a ride to Elena’s home. Grady recognized Rita as the customer she’d seen in Elena’s store, which she offered as evidence of her mental acuity. In an odd cultural role reversal, Elena hammered at Grady to go to an ER for a head scan, and Grady stubbornly refused.

  “You blacked out twice,” Elena repeated as she unlocked the door to her shop.

  “I did not black out the second time,” Grady explained again. “I just sat down hard. Elena, I’ve had a concussion before, I know what one feels like. I don’t have a concussion now. I have a bump on the head. I really don’t need a nursemaid.”

  “Well, you don’t have a choice about that.” Elena waved her in impatiently. “Someone needs to watch you for a while, so unless you have a better nursemaid to suggest, you’re stuck with me.”

  Elena escorted her to the back room she used for healing sessions. “Take off your boots and get comfortable, please. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Grady sighed. She had to admit it was good to be out of the day’s heat and glare. The bed in the cool, dim chamber looked freshly made and inviting. If that curvaceous young crab out there was going to order her around, at least she gave orders Grady could
live with.

  She sat cautiously on the edge of the bed, wincing at the ache in her side, and began the difficult business of removing her boots while simultaneously opening her phone to tap through stored numbers. By the time she was bootless and had finished her call, Elena was stepping through the bead curtain, carrying a small tin dish. She glanced at Grady’s phone.

  “The police?” Elena sounded resigned.

  “No, Triple A. Arranging to have my truck towed.” Grady tossed her cell into her boot. She hadn’t made up her mind to keep the law out of this, but she was willing to mull it over for a while. “I might have to borrow your horse to get home, if you ever spring me.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s a very used Ford out there in the stall, along with my horse. I’ll get you home.” Elena set the dish on a side table and then sat beside Grady on the bed. “I am sorry about your truck, Grady.”

  “Well, the back end damage looked fixable.”

  “Good, but I’m sorry for the two boxes of sugar-free chocolate pecans that are melting all over the seat right now.”

  Grady chuckled, and Elena smiled up at her. They were sitting close enough that their shoulders touched.

  “Are you going to let me look at you?” Elena leaned against her briefly. “You cushioned the landing for me a bit, but you hit your door pretty hard.”

  “Nah. I’m really all right. Appreciate the thought, though.” Grady was largely telling the truth. Her body aches were minor and her raw nerves were beginning to settle. But if having Elena look at her meant the removal of any pertinent clothing, she didn’t think she could take any more adventure today.

  “Okay. Lie down, please.”

  “Lie down?” Grady frowned. “You’re still worried about my head?”

  “Not your head.” Elena rose and pulled back the light bedspread and sheet. She went to the side table and struck a match to the dry shredded leaves in the tin dish. “Will you trust me?”