River Walker

by Cate Culpepper

  “We’d best discuss your plans for the fall term. The Lava Room, one o’clock.” With an arched eyebrow, Dr. Lassiter turned and clicked down the hallway.

  Grady’s shoulders relaxed. Her dean had a rather peremptory way of inviting her to lunch, but that had indeed been her intent. She checked her watch, looking forward to this outwardly mandatory meeting. Between Elena and Dr. Lassiter, Grady figured she must be developing an inordinate fondness for the company of crabby, bossy women.

  *

  If Grady felt no real urge to kneel upon entering a Catholic church, she had to resist that reverent gesture every time she walked into La Posta. The light aromas issuing from the historic restaurant’s kitchens would inspire instant piety in the most adamant atheist.

  Grady followed the red brick hallway past the gift shops and the glittering tank of piranhas—yes, piranhas—in the lobby. The friendly space was alive with screeching music from the large aviary in its center, where macaws, African grays, and cockatiels offered a usually raucous welcome to La Posta’s diners.

  She found Dr. Lassiter seated in the Lava Room, so called for the porous black rock lining the adobe walls, visible through the greenery festooned from the eaves overhead. In keeping with Grady’s religious theme, her scowling mentor looked almost angelic, bathed in the natural silver glow of a skylight, peering at her menu through her glasses. The menu peering was a ruse, as they both always ordered the same thing.

  “Tostadas compuestas and coffee.” Ignoring Grady, Dr. Lassiter handed her menu to their smiling server.

  “Combination plate number two, please, no egg on the enchilada.” Grady lifted a tortilla chip and slid it through a small bowl of savory salsa. “Can we have sopaipillas?”

  Dr. Lassiter sighed. “It’s like dining with a five-year-old,” she said to the server, and waved him off.

  “I can’t help it. Sopaipillas are crack.” Grady crunched her chip contentedly, the spicy salsa making her eyes stream. La Posta was fairly affordable; maybe she and Elena could bring Sylvia and Cesar and Janice here to celebrate the upcoming wedding, and ply them with sopaipillas. If they liked glazed donuts, sopaipillas had to be on their hit parade.

  What gave Grady pause was she could picture this happening. Having lunch with her students and with Elena, who was proud that she was her friend. Sitting with them at one of these red-clothed tables, just like any woman who had friends, who talked and laughed with them over lunch. She hadn’t been that woman for well over a year; she hadn’t considered even wanting friends again. Interesting. She thoughtfully munched another chip.

  “And who resided in the room behind the balcony above our heads?” Dr. Lassiter polished her glasses with her cloth napkin. “Back when this building was a luxurious hotel?”

  “That creep Kit Carson.” Grady was happy to play the apt pupil, knowing the dean relished the rich history of this square block in Mesilla. “And the man who built this place died up in that room. Of the plague,” she added, not above enjoying a few morbid details herself.

  A glint of humor softened Dr. Lassiter’s austere features. “Before our victuals arrive, I have something for you.” She lifted her omnipresent briefcase onto her lap and opened it, then drew out a small package wrapped in plastic and handed it to Grady.

  Grady recognized a new gleam of greed in her teacher’s eyes. She felt an answering chime of excitement go off in her belly. “What’s this?”

  “I found it in the archives at the Brannigan Cultural Center. We absolutely cannot keep it, but Vera Schrader was kind enough to lend it to me for a day. If you spill salsa on this, Dr. Wrenn, I’ll see to it that you never work in this field again.”

  “I believe you. I’ll be careful.” Grady unwrapped the plastic delicately, eager as a kid with a Christmas present. Inside the protective wrap, a transparent binder further shielded a single sheet of paper. It was the color of yellow smoke, thicker and more like parchment than modern paper, perfectly square, about six inches to a side. Grady handled it lightly, noting two small circles in one corner of the page that might have been drops of lamp oil or candle wax.

  She turned the page in her hands, skimming the many lines of spidery black writing on the other side, faint but legible. The letter was written in Spanish, but the date at the top of the page was clear: el 23 de abril 1903. Grady wished she could handle the page itself, breathe in whatever faded scent might linger in the candle wax. “Do we have a translation?”

  “We do.” Dr. Lassiter shook out another sheet and adjusted her eyeglasses. “This letter was written in 1903 by one Señora Elodia Martinez of Mesilla, New Mexico Territory. It was addressed to her sister in Santa Fe, but apparently never mailed. It was found among the family’s papers when their estate was settled several years ago.” Dr. Lassiter offered Grady the translation.

  Grady shook her head, her gaze still on the letter. “Would you read it, please?”

  “Surely, if you wish.” Dr. Lassiter was in her sixties, and her voice matched the age of the woman beginning to form in Grady’s mind, the writer of this century-old message. The penmanship was cramped but neat, the lines more orderly than those drawn by a younger woman. Dr. Lassiter began to read, and the hum of conversation and clinking glasses around them faded for Grady as she stepped into the past.

  “‘My dearest Fatima.’” Dr. Lassiter’s tone was measured and formal. “‘I pray this finds you in good health, and safe in the merciful grace of Our Lord. I am sorry but you must not visit here. Mesilla is no longer safe for God-fearing Christian families. The Weeping Woman has taken three lives, and her servant, the Hidalgo witch, is always searching for more mortal souls to feed her. We should burn the wretched woman at the stake! God will turn His eyes from us forever if we suffer a witch to live. But until the cowardly men in this village destroy Hidalgo, the she-demon who commands her will continue to kill. You and the children stay safely in Santa Fe until this cursed season has passed. Please pray for us! Yours in the promise of Life Eternal, Your Loving Sister Elodia.’”

  Neither of them spoke as their server came to the table bearing a tray of fragrantly steaming dishes. Grady stared at her plate: a folded taco, a chile relleno, and a green chile enchilada with refritos and rice. No egg on the enchilada. Elodia Martinez probably prepared meals very like this for her family a hundred years ago, when she wasn’t wishing a fiery death on Juana Hidalgo.

  “Thoughts?” Dr. Lassiter asked at last.

  “This is amazing.” Grady returned the letter carefully to its plastic wrapping, still immersed in the age in which it was written. “Thank you for finding it.”

  “I knew you would be pleased.” Dr. Lassiter dug into her tostadas compuestas with relish. In her more inelegant moments, she referred to this dish—toasted corn tortilla cups filled with frijoles and red chile con carne—as an orgasm on a plate. “Señora Martinez comes across as a bit bloodthirsty, but doubtless this letter is an accurate expression of the paranoia of the day.”

  “That paranoia drove Juana Hidalgo to slit her wrists on the banks of the Rio Grande.” Grady fingered her taco, remembering the small, sad stone in the weeds, forty paces from consecrated ground. “Some remember her as a good woman, kind to her neighbors.”

  Dr. Lassiter laid down her fork. “Do you know more about this alleged witch? Wonderful. Tell me everything.”

  Grady shifted in her seat. Elena’s history felt like a private thing, a story shared in trust. She heard Elena’s voice in her mind: If we’re going to talk about such things, I need to see your eyes. In Dr. Lassiter’s eyes, Grady saw intelligence and curiosity and a reverent respect for the past. “Do you remember the night Cesar Padilla went into that strange trance at the river? The curandera I brought him to is descended from Juana Hidalgo.”

  She traced Elena’s story to present day, omitting such details as La Llorona’s perch on her family tree. Grady would let Dr. Lassiter absorb this tale over time, if further discussions were necessary.

  “So now Elena Montalvo is
persecuted by the people of Mesilla, just as Juana Hidalgo was a hundred years ago.” Dr. Lassiter stirred her coffee thoughtfully. She frowned at Grady. “You reported your mishap on the road the other day as an accident, Dr. Wrenn. You might have told me it was the result of mob hysteria and a modern-day witch hunt.”

  “I guess that’s a more colorful way of putting it.”

  “A more dangerous way.” Dr. Lassiter pointed her coffee spoon at Grady. “You were entirely right to pull your students out of field work after this ‘accident.’ I’m thinking of pulling you out, as well.”

  “Well, you can pull.” Grady’s voice was polite, and she meant no disrespect. But she was going to the river with Elena tonight, and no sixty-year-old department head was butch enough to stop her.

  “You will take all precautions, at the very least.” Dr. Lassiter sighed and regarded the skylight overhead. “What must life be like, I wonder, for this young curandera. Despised by the people of her town, harassed on the street. Her very life threatened.”

  “But Elena’s loved in Mesilla, too.” Grady remembered the expression of gratitude on the face of the old woman in Elena’s shop, and Rita’s heartfelt thanks. “People go to her for help, and she’s known as an excellent healer. It’s a source of great sadness for her, I think. Elena wants friends, she cares about her community. It’s killing her to be hated and feared.”

  Dr. Lassiter patted the corners of her mouth with her napkin, studying Grady. “Has Ms. Montalvo come to mean something to you?”

  Grady assumed a relaxed slouch. “What makes you ask that?”

  Dr. Lassiter’s rare smile flickered. “You’ve never been much good at dissembling, Grady. Your candor is one of the first qualities I admired in you. Your body language changed entirely the moment this curandera’s name came up.”

  Grady gave up on the slouch. She started to answer, then stuffed an entire chile relleno in her mouth instead.

  “I have all afternoon.” Dr. Lassiter lightly drummed her neatly trimmed nails on the tabletop.

  Grady swallowed hard, twice. “She might be,” she said finally. “Coming to mean something to me.”

  “I thought as much.” Dr. Lassiter’s smile held warmth this time. “Look at you. Your eyes are clear for the first time in months. That haunted look is starting to leave you. Perhaps we have Ms. Montalvo to thank for this.”

  “She’s also responsible for these.” Grady raked her fingers through the gray streak in her hair.

  “I like her already.” Dr. Lassiter lifted a small sopaipilla from a basket and broke off a corner. She tipped a small jar over it, watching Grady as the light bread filled with warmed honey. “You’ve been spending considerable time with Elena?”

  “We got together a few times this week for Spanish lessons. And we’re supposed to go river-sitting tonight.”

  “You lesbians have such odd courting rituals.” Dr. Lassiter passed Grady the dripping sopaipilla. “All right, Dr. Wrenn. Just see to it that you’re as protective of your own safety as you are of your students’, moving forward. I’m certainly not paying you enough to risk bodily injury for an undergraduate seminar.”

  Grady bit into the warm pastry and entered into holy ecstasy. Bullies and witches were far from her mind. All was well in her world, for now. Her belly was full, her boss was her ally, and she was seeing Elena again in ten hours.

  *

  Grady pulled up to Elena’s shop, turned off the engine, and checked her hair in the rearview mirror. Her collar was slightly crooked, so she straightened it. She touched her fingers to her tongue and patted down a stubborn cowlick. She started to open the door to her truck, then checked her hair in the rearview mirror again.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said to her reflection. “We’re going to the river to wait for a ghost, not to the senior prom.” She stared sternly at herself, but saw the corners of her mouth curve irresistibly. She was going to the river with Elena.

  She ducked out of the truck and brushed her butt off, just in case. Twirling her keys in her hand, Grady grinned again as Elena stepped onto the boardwalk in front of her shop. She was dressed in denim shorts and a light cotton blouse, an alluring sight in the moonlight.

  “I got your present,” Elena called. She waved a small box at Grady, then began to open it. “Thank you, for whatever it is.”

  “I got you a present?”

  “Well, someone did. It was sitting right here, in front of the do—ay, mierda!”

  “Elena?” Grady bolted around the truck. Elena had dropped the box, and she was clutching her wrist. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think this was from you.” Elena nudged the box with her foot and peered closely at her index finger.

  Grady took Elena’s hand gingerly. There was a red indentation in the tip of her finger, a single drop of blood welling from it. “What the hell stung you?”

  “It didn’t sting me, it bit me. It’s a niño de la tierra. Don’t worry. They’re not venomous.”

  “A who?” Grady spotted the small creature scuttling out of the light cast by the bulb over the shop door, and she crouched beside it. “Ah, man. A Jerusalem cricket. I haven’t seen one of these in years.”

  “You don’t find them in town much. Just give me a second, Grady, I’m going to go put something on this.”

  “Is it hurting a lot?”

  “Less and less now. But it’ll itch like crazy if it’s not treated. I’ll be right back.”

  Grady nodded, fascinated by the little nightmare crawling slowly along the base of the wall. Jerusalem crickets looked like they were assembled by a psychotic and vindictive child. Well over two inches long, the bizarre bug had the striped body of a bee and a spider’s thick, jointed legs, albeit only six of them. The clumsy monstrosity was topped by a round bald head, bearing its most distinctive feature—markings that looked eerily like a human face. Grady wiped her palms on her knees, glad to see the sinister insect creep off into the shadows. She knew Elena was right—in spite of their alarming appearance, they weren’t poisonous. But the bugs had powerful mandibles and could inflict a painful bite, and Grady wanted to know what the hell one was doing gift-wrapped on Elena’s doorstep.

  She got up and retrieved the box, shaking it out carefully to be sure it was empty. It was an ordinary cardboard box, about an inch deep and a few inches long. A sour odor clung to it, another unattractive feature of this species. It might not be able to poison anyone, but it could stink up the place.

  Elena emerged from the shop, smoothing a Band-Aid over the tip of her finger.

  “What a lousy place to be bitten.” Grady took her hand again, tilting it toward the light over the shop door. “Must have hurt like crazy.”

  “It did, for a few seconds. It’s better now.”

  Grady was tempted to plant a healing kiss on her finger, but contented herself with a lame pat on the wrist before releasing her hand.

  Elena was watching her with a slight smile. “What did you call it, by the way?”

  “Oh. A Jerusalem cricket, but I know it’s not a cricket. Some creatures are just so peculiar we can’t come up with a fitting name.”

  “We come closer. We call it a niño de la tierra, child of the earth. It’s because they have faces, I think.” Elena looked around the worn planks of the boardwalk. “You didn’t kill it, did you?”

  “No, but maybe I should have. I wouldn’t want it to get in and scare your mother.”

  Elena laughed. “If it gets in and my mother sees it, that’s going to be one terrified little niño in the two seconds before Mamá blasts it to bug heaven with her shotgun.”

  “Who put it here, Elena?” Grady stepped down off the boardwalk and scanned the dirt lining the edge of the street, hoping for distinctive footprints. “Best guess. Hector Acuña? Antonia Herrera’s grandson, Manny?”

  “Possibly.” Elena went to the truck. “Or Rudy Barela. The cousin of the second man to kill himself last spring.”

  “You sound pretty casual about
all this.”

  “Ay. Bullies, Grady. How much power can we give them? It’s not like they put a scorpion on my porch.”

  “Well, they could have. It might have been.” Frowning, Grady opened the passenger door to her truck, and Elena slid inside. “You think it was a warning?”

  Elena nodded. “Lots of people are more afraid of niños de la tierra than they should be. They think they’re the souls of unbaptized children, as if our Mother would allow such a cruel thing. Supposedly, if you put a niño on a witch’s doorstep, you could trap her. She wouldn’t be able to leave her house.”

  “Sheesh. I remember reading something like that in a book on Mexican folklore.”

  “Stop fretting, Grady.” Elena reached through the open window of the truck and patted Grady’s face. “I’m out of my house. Either that was a really incompetent little niño, or I really am the pious and devout curandera I claim to be. Come on, it’s a beautiful night. Don’t let this cowardly act spoil it.”

  Muttering, Grady went around the truck and slid behind the wheel. She opened her glove compartment and tossed the box inside. “Heaven forfend I should spoil a night where we hope to see a bloodthirsty, murderous ghost-witch.”

  Elena laughed again, a light and carefree sound, and Grady turned the truck toward the river.

  *

  “Try this one,” Elena said. “‘This woman is the last of your line. She speaks to you through me.’”

  “Esta mujer es la última de tu línea.” Grady closed one eye to better engage her mental translator. “Ella habla a través de mí.”

  “Not bad.” Elena sidestepped a snarl of high grass, her features illuminated by the bright moonlight. They had parked Grady’s truck close to the river, near the Picacho Bridge, so it wasn’t a long walk. Elena had chosen to return to the section of the river where they first met for this night’s witch-waiting. “How about, ‘You must promise the killing will stop.’”

  “Usted debe prometer que la matanza parará.” The words rolled off Grady’s tongue like Spanish silk.