River Walker

by Cate Culpepper

  “Ah.” Grady smiled and sauntered over. She wasn’t much daunted by desert fauna, even the creepier varieties, and Elena’s uncharacteristic timidity was charming. Then she stopped short. The tarantula sunning itself on the flat stone was easily the size of a soup bowl.

  “Ish,” Grady said.

  “I know.”

  Grady pointed her water bottle warningly at the magnificent bug. She took Elena’s hand, and together they sidestepped a stiff, wide arc around it. The spider glared at them.

  “Did you know they can jump?” Elena whispered. “And hiss?”

  “Elena, I’m going to have to call in a helicopter to airlift me out of here, if you insist on discussing this.”

  “Creeped you out too, eh?”

  “You could see that thing from space.”

  They finally put enough distance between their ankles and the sullen spider, but Grady kept her hold on Elena’s hand. Elena seemed to notice this, too, and she turned back questioningly. Grady opened her mouth, but nothing came out, so she just smiled.

  Elena pressed her fingers gently. “We’re almost there.”

  Clasping hands like two trusting children, they climbed higher into the silent wedge of red rock. The yucca and barrel cactus that studded the desert floor grew more sparsely here, but the honey mesquite brush was thick on either side of their trail. A wet drop rolled between Grady’s shoulder blades, and she wasn’t sure if she was sweating because of the exercise, the blazing sun, or the cool hand resting in hers.

  They topped a small stone rise and Grady spied the large, nearly rectangular opening in the rock’s face. She grinned in delight.

  “La Cueva, the cave.” Elena, slightly breathless from the climb, obviously enjoyed Grady’s reaction. “We think Indian tribes—the Jornada Mogollon, some nomad Apache—found shelter in this cave as early as the sixteen hundreds.”

  Grady’s mouth actually watered, and she tugged Elena on. She knew there would be no real artifacts left at such an accessible site, but the rich history of the place called to her like enchiladas to a starving woman. She had to duck slightly when they reached the cave’s opening but found she could stand almost fully erect once inside.

  La Cueva was about as long and deep as a railroad boxcar. Stepping inside it was like entering another ecosystem. The shadowy interior was blessedly cool. No tarantulas were readily apparent.

  Grady walked the cave’s length, brushing one hand lightly and respectfully over the craggy wall’s surface, the soot-stained ceiling, listening for the echoes of a hundred lost voices. Elena seemed to understand that quiet would be appreciated, and she sat cross-legged on the stone floor just inside the entrance.

  Images of her office kept appearing in Grady’s head as she explored, and for some reason, flashes of the small healing chamber in Elena’s house. This ancient space held the same aura of friendly reverence, and Grady was puzzled by how personally benevolent that energy felt.

  “His name was Agostini Justiniani. Most of Mesilla just calls him abuelo, grandfather.” Elena was looking out the cave’s entrance, at the achingly beautiful view of the wide vista of the Mesilla Valley below. “He was born in eighteen hundred to a noble Italian family. He studied to become a priest but refused to take his vows.”

  Grady deduced this guy had to be dead by now and steeled herself for the ghost story. She sat on a flat raised rock beside Elena, relieved to feel her lower back crackle loose. Elena still looked tired, but now her features held that familiar dreamy cast, and a small smile played about her lips.

  “He renounced his wealth when he was twenty years old, Grady. He spent the next forty years traveling all over the world, mostly on foot. Everywhere he went, he learned about healing, and about God. They called him El Ermitaño, The Hermit. And he walked into Mesilla in 1867.”

  Grady rested her elbows on her knees, enjoying Elena’s hushed voice. This was so vividly different from listening to Elena tell stories about homicidal witches. Her face was shining, as if she was sharing a much-loved tale from her childhood.

  “Some families in Mesilla are honored, even today, because their ancestors befriended the Hermit. They still tell stories of his kindness and healing powers. But my abuelo was a truly solitary soul, and he chose to live the last years of his life alone here, in La Cueva.”

  “This was in 1867?” Grady whistled softly. “This must have been pretty rough territory back then.”

  Elena nodded. “Yes, it was dangerous. Lots of bandits and renegades passed through this valley.” She smoothed her hand over the stone beneath her. “The Hermit promised his friends in Mesilla that he would light a fire here at the entrance every Friday night to assure them he was safe.”

  “And one Friday night,” Grady guessed, “the cave remained dark.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the Hermit was found lying in here, a smile on his face, having died peacefully in his sleep?”

  “Well, no.” Elena sighed. “He was found with a knife in his back. It’s one of New Mexico’s great unsolved murders. But,” she added quickly, “tell me how you feel right now, Grady.”

  “How I feel?” Grady leaned back against the rock wall and considered it. She felt great. The long muscles in her back were relaxed, she was cool, her mind was clear and content. Elena watched her face, and then nodded as if satisfied.

  “That’s my abuelo. We can’t see him, but he’s here.” Elena rested her elbow on Grady’s knee. “There’s so much goodness in the realm of the spirit, Grady, as well as meanness. Just like here. I brought you to La Cueva because I wanted you to feel that. In death, Maria chooses to kill and spread terror. But the Hermit continues to heal and give comfort, just as he did in life.”

  A pair of dark smiling eyes filled Grady’s mind, their edges crinkled with age. They looked like the eyes of the old Cayuse holy man who had breathed a prayer for Grady into a stick of petrified wood. She felt Elena’s fingers brush the side of her face.

  “It’s just that you keep surprising me,” Elena said softly. “You don’t act like a brainy gringa with no belief in any god. You don’t look down on me, or the beliefs I cherish. You try to protect everyone you care about. You’re a kind woman, Grady, and you have a brave heart. I’m proud that you’re my friend.”

  Elena sat close against her, her face tilted up. Grady knew it was only a matter of lowering her head a few inches and letting their lips meet. She began to do just that. Then the aged eyes in her mind changed into wide, laughing blue ones, fringed by lavish lashes. Max’s eyes. As if it were happening that moment, Grady felt his small, pudgy hand slip out of her own, and he was gone.

  She sat up.

  Elena was still, but if she sensed Grady’s withdrawal, she chose not to mention it. They sat together quietly for a while, watching the valley.

  “I’m hoping they buried the Hermit at your Heart of the Mountain,” Grady said at last. “I bet that’s a beautiful spot.”

  “It is, and that would have been the perfect choice.” Elena looked pleased. “But of course everyone in Mesilla wanted to visit his grave, so he was buried in the cemetery. The oldest section. His headstone reads, ‘Agostini Justiniani, Hermit of the Old and New World. He died the seventeenth of April, 1869, at sixty-nine years, and forty-nine years a hermit.’” Elena yawned, and rested her head in Grady’s lap. “You still see fresh flowers on his grave all the time.”

  Grady let her hand hover over Elena’s shoulder, then settle on it gently. Her feelings for this woman were a bewildering morass of tenderness, irritation, protectiveness, and outright lust. One moment she was on the verge of a stroke at Elena’s stubbornness, the next she wanted to take on anything in the world that might dare harm her. Right now, Elena’s touch felt light and sisterly. She spoke so quietly Grady almost missed her words.

  “Do you think you’re ready to face her with me?” Elena asked.

  Grady blinked, playing quick mental catch-up. “You mean face Maria?”

  “That’s who
I mean.”

  “And what would that entail, exactly?”

  Elena’s shoulder shook as she laughed. “Now you sound like a brainy gringa, Grady. It would entail going with me to the river at night. As many nights as it takes. Waiting until she comes to you again.”

  “To me? You think she comes to me?”

  “Well, some people in Mesilla live their entire lives without ever hearing or seeing Llorona. You just moved to this valley, and you’ve heard her twice in one month.”

  Grady shivered, uncomfortable with the role of spook bait. But Elena thought she had a brave heart. “All right, and if Maria does show up? What then?”

  “When Llorona comes, I’ll speak to her through you. I think she’ll hear you, Grady. You’ll give her my message.”

  The part of Grady’s heart that clearly remembered the shriek of the River Walker was not very brave, and she settled on the first of many possible objections. “Elena, my Spanish vocabulary consists of about thirteen words.”

  “I know, and you mispronounce ten of them.” Elena smiled; Grady felt it against her thigh. “That’s why the professor needs to take lessons. To learn phrases like Usted no tiene que protegerme.”

  Grady squinted and attempted to translate. “I don’t have to program you?”

  “You don’t have to protect me,” Elena said, so softly Grady wondered who she was speaking to. “I have about twenty messages like that for Maria, and you’ll have to learn them all.”

  Grady was glad Elena couldn’t see her face. Sensitive as she was, Elena couldn’t know what she was asking; she had never heard Llorona’s wail. Grady wasn’t sure she could bear to expose herself to it again. She was equally sure she didn’t want Elena going to the river alone, not with thugs in blue trucks after her. Therefore, she would find the cojones somewhere.

  Grady drifted her fingers gently through Elena’s curling hair.

  “Also…” Elena’s voice was drifting off. “La matanza debe parar…the slaughter must stop.”

  “Yes, it must,” Grady murmured. If she helped stop the River Walker, would Elena’s goddess reward her with letting her see Max again? The thought revealed such craven longing she shrank from it. This aspect of the afterlife, reunion with those lost, was too tantalizing to consider rationally. And, paranormal experiences aside, she was still essentially a rational woman.

  Elena had fallen asleep. Grady was a connoisseur of sleep, and she recognized deep and peaceful slumber when she saw it. She leaned closer to her.

  “You are sayen,” Grady whispered. “That’s a Mapuche word meaning ‘lovely.’ I might have messages to teach you, too, curandera.”

  Because Grady was still essentially a rational woman, the swish of robes behind her, and the hand that rested gently on the crown of her head, had to be her imagination. The long fingers patted her hair and then withdrew.

  Elena slept for a solid two hours, and Grady didn’t stir once.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning dawned bright and hot. Grady slammed the door of her battered truck with her hip, balancing two big paper tumblers of coffee in her hands. The truck had been deemed dented but serviceable by her trusty mechanic, but the door creaked loudly in the dawn stillness and didn’t close quite true.

  Grady still didn’t understand why Elena insisted they hold this interview so early or exactly why they were talking to this man at all. But the sight of Elena’s pleased smile when she opened the door to her shop convinced Grady that this outing was a terrific idea.

  “Buenos morning.” Grady handed Elena one of the tumblers.

  “Ay, caramba.” Elena laughed as she tucked a small satchel under her arm and accepted the steaming cup. “It’s enough coffee to keep half of Mesilla awake for a week.”

  “This is not coffee. This is clover-brewed blend, filled with flavorful nuances, with a piquant aftertaste.” Grady waited while Elena locked the door to her shop. “You’ll have to trust me on this. The desert Southwest knows salsa, the Pacific Northwest knows coffee.”

  “Thank you for this exotic drink from your strange culture, Professor Gringa.” Elena stepped down off the boardwalk and nodded down the street. “We’re going this way.”

  Grady strolled beside Elena, taking in the awakening village. Mesilla was never a buzzing hive of activity, but on this early weekday morning, the street was starting to fill. Slow cars trundled down the road past them. Kids were out of school for the summer, and she and Elena dodged around two of them running into a store.

  “I guess Janice isn’t joining us.” Grady had mixed feelings about this development. Janice was supposed to have met them at Elena’s shop, and Grady was surprised she hadn’t shown. She had seemed excited about being in on the interview. Grady had to admit she wasn’t overly sorry Janice had slept in, though; she was enjoying this time alone with Elena.

  “Oh no, Janice will join us.” Elena sipped tentatively from her cup. “She’s just running a little late. She called me this morning to ask how to get to the house.”

  “Ah,” Grady sighed.

  “Are you unhappy that I invited her?” A line of worry appeared between Elena’s brows. “I know I should have asked you first.”

  “Well, you’ve said this interview won’t be risky, so I’m okay with Janice tagging along. I guess I still don’t understand why you singled her out for it, though.”

  “Janice isn’t coming so she can ‘tag along.’ I feel she needs you, Grady.” Elena touched Grady’s arm to turn her down a dirt road dotted with small adobe homes. “She seems very much alone to me, and she’s looking for a guide, a mentor.”

  “You feel these things about Janice?” Grady was developing a healthy respect for Elena’s curandera super powers. “Dr. Lassiter tells me the same thing about her.”

  “Your hero, Dr. Lassiter?” Elena smiled. “I like what you’ve told me about her.”

  “You would like her. Both of you are ganging up on me to be Janice’s hero.” Grady kicked a pebble with the side of her boot. “I guess I’m not sure I’m up to that yet.”

  “Then heal as fast as you can, Grady. Nurturing our young is a sacred thing.” Elena smiled. “I don’t mean to sound like a nun, but it is. I’ll never bear children, but I will always look for ways to help young people.”

  “This sounds like some more good teaching from your grandmother.”

  “From my grandmother, from mi Diosa. But it’s the teaching of Mesilla, too.” Elena nodded at the opposite sidewalk, where an elderly woman walked clutching the hands of two small children. “So much of Mesilla is good-hearted and wise. I never forget that.”

  In another life, where Grady’s heart wasn’t tattered and she and Elena were not walking down a residential street in Old Mesilla, she would have lifted her arm and settled it around Elena’s shoulders. The prospect of doing so was a light and natural urge, which Grady quelled with some difficulty. “So tell me what I need to know about our mystery man, please.”

  “Yes, okay. This is excellent, by the way.” Elena waggled her tumbler of coffee at Grady. “To understand our mystery man, you’re going to have to think back. To the night we met, as a matter of fact. The night you first heard the River Walker.”

  Grady frowned. “Will I like where this is going?”

  “It’s doubtful.” Elena sounded sympathetic. “Think back and tell me when the body of Enrique Acuña was found. The fourth man to drown himself in the river.”

  Grady calculated. “About three weeks ago. My seminar had just started. Oh, it was the day after you and I…” Her voice faded.

  “That’s right. The first time you heard Maria on the riverbank, Enrique Acuña heard her, too. He drowned that night.”

  Grady had never made this simple connection, and it creeped the crap out of her now. It was all too easy to picture this man flailing in the dark waters of the Grande, gasping for his last agonized breath under that horrible wail.

  “Hold it.” Grady stopped walking, and Elena turned to her. “Wha
t about the night Cesar heard Llorona’s screams? That was over a week ago. There was no suicide that night. Was there?”

  “No, there wasn’t.” Elena nodded toward a neat two-story house on the corner of the next street. Grady saw Janice leaning against her car, parked in front of the house. “Maria does not always bring down her prey, Grady. The night you brought Cesar to me, Maria attacked the man who lives in that house. He escaped with his life. Or most of it.”

  Elena crossed the street, leaving Grady behind her with her mouth hanging open. She trotted to catch up.

  “Good morning, Grady.” Janice smiled at them both. “Sorry I was running a little late.”

  “That’s okay. He what?” Grady said to Elena. “This man did what?”

  “Janice, I was just telling Grady that the man we are about to meet encountered Llorona at the river and lived to tell about it.” Elena shaded her eyes and checked the position of the sun. “We should go in. He won’t be awake much longer.”

  “My God. He didn’t drown himself?” Janice caught up to Elena quickly and followed her up the stone steps to the house. “But is he abusive, like the others? How did he—”

  “Janice.” Grady tapped her gently on the shoulder. “All good questions, but this is a time to listen.” She felt some empathy with her student. Her mind teemed with the same thoughts, but working with Phyllis Lassiter had taught her the discipline of patience.

  “Oh, of course.” Janice looked crestfallen. “I’ll hang back and watch, I promise.”

  Elena pulled open a screen door and knocked on the inner one. “We should remember to speak softly, and not make any sudden movements or loud noises. Mr. Perez’s hearing is very sensitive right now, and he startles easily.”

  “Hey. I know that car.” Grady looked at the battered Toyota parked at the curb. “That’s Rita’s car.” Elena’s friend had picked them up in it, after they were run off the road.