“But he didn’t attack Andres in the dream,” Sonny said. “He took Owl Woman.”
Don Eliseo leaned forward, his voice trembling. “Raven has found a way to get into your dreams.”
“Get into my dreams?”
“This summer he tried to get you in his evil circle up in the mountain. He thought that in his nagual, as a raven spirit, he could destroy you. You met him with the power of your coyote spirit and took the Zia medallion from him. If he can’t kill you in this world, he will try to kill you in your dreams.”
“I don’t get it,” Sonny said. So Raven was the Bringer of Curses and so he had kidnapped Owl Woman. It was only a dream.
“Andres Vaca is one of your grandfathers. Owl Woman is one of your grandmothers. She is one of the original abuelas of what will come to be your line of the Vaca family of La Nueva México. Andres and Owl Woman are the progenitors of your bloodline. Raven has found a way to kidnap the grandmothers. Without them, you cease to be.”
Sonny felt the fine hairs on his back and arms rise. Raven had stolen the grandmother, and if he kept her in the underworld long enough, there would be no sons and daughters for Andres Vaca and Owl Woman, and thus no bloodline leading to Sonny.
“It can’t be,” Sonny said, looking from the old man to Lorenza then to Rita. “I’m here. Now. Do you mean if he kills Owl Woman, I would just disappear?”
The old man nodded, and Sonny knew better than to laugh. He wasn’t kidding; he was serious.
“Haven’t I taught you,” the old man replied, “that the dreams of your ancestors are yours. The most power any person can acquire is to be master of his dreams, for that means he can travel in time to the world of spirits. That is the greatest power a man can have on earth. By entering your dream, Raven can travel to your past and destroy it.”
“And thus destroy me?” Sonny whistled softly. He looked at Lorenza. She nodded. She agreed with don Eliseo. The world of spirits was the world of dreams, and Raven knew it well. Sonny had not yet mastered that world, so he was vulnerable.
“But if he captured Owl Woman, if he took her away from Andres Vaca, and thus kept their child from being born, why am I still here?”
“There are four roots to a man’s history,” don Eliseo said. “As there are four sacred directions from the Center. Four quadrants of the universe. He needs to take four grandmothers in order to kill your spirit.”
Sonny looked at Rita. Her worried look told him to listen to the old man. He knew Raven’s ways.
“Four roots, four grandmothers,” Sonny thought aloud. “How can I be sure I’m related to the Andres Vaca of my dream?”
“If you need to be convinced, trace your ancestry back to 1598,” don Eliseo said. “If Andres Vaca and the Indian woman are listed in church records as your ancestors, then it is so.”
Time bending, mind bending. Sonny shook his head. What the hell was the old man getting at?
“I don’t have a genealogy. I know my Baca grandparents from Socorro, and the Jaramillos from La Joya. That’s it. How do I trace back to 1598?”
“The archives in Santa Fé,” Rita suggested. “The library there has records dating back to 1598. Or Zimmerman Library.” She had taken don Eliseo’s interpretation of Sonny’s dream to heart. Sonny was in danger! She stood behind him, softly massaging his shoulders.
“Yes, the University of New Mexico library has special collections on New Mexico history,” he agreed.
He had spent time in the archives when he was a student. He had concentrated on a teaching certificate, but history and literature were his real loves. He had spent as much time as he could browsing through the stacks, letting his instincts lead him into old volumes in the archives.
Sonny looked at the old man. “It will help you to know,” don Eliseo said.
He wasn’t kidding. He was warning Sonny. His life was in jeopardy. He had revealed the meaning in the dream, a prophetic and possibly dangerous meaning. It was up to Sonny to use the interpretation, wild as it seemed.
Lorenza’s look also told Sonny she too agreed.
“Is the kidnapping in the dream connected to the missing girl in Santa Fé?” Sonny asked.
“Probably,” don Eliseo replied.
“How?”
“Are you related to the Romeros?”
“Not that I know of,” Sonny replied.
“There has to be a relationship, even if distant,” don Eliseo said. “So he kidnaps a young girl here, living flesh. A complement, after all these centuries, of the ancient grandmothers. You see, if Raven can kill four maternal grandmothers, he kills you by killing your history. But he needs these young girls for his own purpose.”
He stood up and looked out the window. “In three days the sun is at the solstice. It will either be born again and return to bless us, or it will sink beyond the horizon. When the sun is at the weakest point of its cycle, Raven will strike. He will bring down the sun and set up his kingdom of night that follows. He needs four women, one spirit for each quadrant of the universe.”
“His new kingdom,” Lorenza said. “He kidnaps four of Sonny’s grandmothers, and four girls. Four old spirits, four new.”
Don Eliseo nodded. “In this way he controls you in this time and in the world of spirits.”
“He has taken a grandmother in my dream,” Sonny said. “And one young woman. Three to go—” He shook his head. “Andres Vaca and Owl Woman lived four centuries ago. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“It does make sense!” the old man interrupted, his tone irritated. “I have been teaching you about dreams to protect you from Raven.”
“You knew that’s how he would come?” Sonny asked.
“Dreams are the way of all curanderos,” don Eliseo replied. “We fly in dreams. The dream connects us to the history. Raven knows this. But go. Go to the library and see if Andres Vaca is written in the records. Then you will believe! Buenos días,” he said, and walked out the kitchen door.
“Buenos días,” they replied.
“I guess I pissed him off?” Sonny said as he watched the old man hobble across the road. It was the first time in their two-year relationship that he had doubted don Eliseo, and the first time the old man had stalked away.
“Why not satisfy yourself,” Rita whispered in his ear.
“Okay, let’s do research,” Sonny said.
“Zimmerman Library?” Rita asked.
“It’s the closest.”
“I can drive you,” Lorenza offered.
“I called Armando this morning to rent me a van I can drive. Going up to Santa Fé to help the Romeros may be the best way to find out if don Eliseo is right about my ancestors. Raven took Consuelo. I have to stop Raven.”
“But you’re not strong enough to drive,” Rita protested.
She touched Sonny. Like him, she sensed Sonny’s dream and the disappearance of Consuelo were connected.
“I can drive you,” Lorenza volunteered.
“You sure you have the time?” Sonny asked.
“I always keep the solstice week free. These are the most important days on my calendar. Now your life is connected to the time …”
“Yeah.” Sonny knew Raven worked around the equinoxes and solstices.
“You’ll have to be careful,” Rita said.
“I will,” Sonny replied, holding her hand for reassurance. “If Raven shows up, I’ve got my trusty forty-five.”
He looked up at the single-action Colt .45 that hung in its holster on a hook at the door. His bisabuelo’s pistol, the one Elfego Baca had carried into many a fight. Sonny had never fired it at a person.
3
To Sonny’s surprise, his brother showed up with a van in record time. Rita helped Sonny with his leather jacket, gloves, a scarf, and his black cowboy hat. “So you won’t catch cold,” she said. “With your black beard and hat you look like one of those old-timers from las Gorras Blancas.”
“Then I better go armed like them.” Sonny indicated his pistol, and Rita,
with a slight frown on her face, reached for the holster and handed it to Sonny.
“Do you think—”
“No, I won’t need it, amor, but just in case.” He said no more, and they went outside.
“Hey, bro,” Armando greeted Sonny. “You’re looking great.” He slapped Sonny on the back. Plumes of frozen breath laced the frigid morning air.
“Feeling great,” Sonny answered. “Pretty chilly.” He shivered.
“Thank you, señor.” Armando winked. “Hey, no wonder you’re doing great. Two gorgeous women like these to take care of you. Hello, Rita.” He smiled, giving both her and Lorenza an abrazo.
“I’m not complaining,” Sonny said. He looked at his brother and the thought struck him: If what don Eliseo believed was true, Armando’s existence would also be threatened. They were twins. Could history unravel from the past to the present? How many ancestors would disappear? The entire line of Bacas from New Mexico? How many others?
Don Eliseo’s interpretation of the dream, not the cold air, made him shiver.
“Hi, wiener dog.” Armando bent to pet Chica, but she growled. “Okay, okay, be nice. I’m not going to eat you.”
“Used-car salesmen aren’t her style,” Sonny said.
“Hey, a lot of people don’t like us,” Armando replied. “But we play an important role in society. We take used cars off your hands. Now that you’ve got a van, want to sell your troca?”
Sonny’s truck stood parked in the driveway. It looked abandoned, dusty. He really hadn’t thought about his truck, but he knew don Eliseo had been starting it each morning to keep the battery alive.
“No,” he answered, thinking one day he was going to drive again.
“Old cowboys never part with their trucks.” Armando smiled and opened the van’s side door and pushed the button to let down the wheelchair lift. “This thing runs as smooth as one of those cowgirls at the Fiesta Lounge on Saturday night. An artist was using it, so there’s a few tarps and canvases in the back. I can take them out.”
“That’s okay,” Sonny said as he drove his chair onto the lift.
“I picked this one because the lift works like a charm, and it’s got a counter, like a desk. It’s like a little office. Here’s the control. Real easy to work. See?”
Sonny took the control Armando handed him. “Elfego Baca rides again,” he said, and sniffed the cold air, identifying the piñon aroma in the morning haze. Some of his neighbors were burning wood in a fireplace or a woodburning stove. Mingled with it was the faint rotting smell of cottonwood leaves.
Weatherman Morgan had predicted a low-pressure weather front approaching from the northwest. There would be snow by nightfall in the Taos mountains, but in the calm before the storm, the fragrances of winter blossomed. The cold morning would give way to a sunny day in the fifties before the front arrived.
“Ready.”
“Vamos,” Lorenza said. She turned, embraced Rita, and whispered, “Take care of yourself, promise?”
“I promise,” Rita replied. She leaned and kissed Sonny. “Cuidado,” she whispered.
“For sure,” he replied, and patted the pistol on his lap.
“You still carrying the old man’s pistol around? Have you ever shot anyone?” Armando asked.
When their father had given the pistol to Sonny, Armando had been jealous. He thought it should belong to him, and he tried to talk Sonny out of it, but Sonny wouldn’t budge. Armando finally gave up trying to own the pistol. He just wasn’t into history like Sonny.
“Not yet,” Sonny replied. He had never fired the pistol at anyone. But Lorenza had.
“Would you?” Armando persisted.
“I guess if I had to save my skin.”
The sunlight glistened on the shiny pistol.
“Hope you don’t have to, bro.”
“Me, too.” Sonny handed Chica to Rita and pushed the control buttons that effortlessly and quietly lifted the chair into the van. “Not bad. Gracias.”
“Anytime.” Armando shut the door.
“Be careful!” Rita blew him a kiss.
“Ten-four.” Sonny called back.
Lorenza got into the driver’s seat and started the van. She gave a thumbs-up signal and they were off, heading—if don Eliseo was right—to a meeting with Sonny’s destiny.
The University of New Mexico campus spread across the hill just east of downtown. Pueblo on the Mesa it was called—a pueblo of learning. The library, a stunning example of New Mexican pueblo-style revival architecture, sat in the middle of campus. The stuccoed walls, vigas, and wood interior gave the sanctuary of books a warm, intimate feeling, something felt as New Mexican in character. Something close to home.
Lorenza parked on the north side in a handicapped zone, thanking the artist who had rented the van before Sonny. He had left a blue handicapped parking sticker on the dash.
“The place looks deserted,” Sonny said as they headed for the door. Only a student or two had crossed the duck pond knoll as they drove in, and the library itself was not buzzing with the usual student activity.
“Christmas break,” Lorenza said. “The students are gone for the holidays.”
“Ah so.” He had lost track of time, spent the nights dreaming and the days analyzing the dreams. But last night’s dream had been different. Before he fell asleep, he was thinking of Oñate’s entry into New Mexico. The Nuevo Mexicanos were born on that date. The son of Andres Vaca was the firstborn. The river flowing from the Garden of Eden. He hadn’t counted on Raven showing up. But Raven wasn’t the serpent that brought knowledge; he was the ruler of the land of misty dreams, a land without clear thought, chaos.
At the reception desk Sonny asked for Teresa Marquez, a librarian who had helped him years ago when he was an undergraduate. Since then he had done most of his research and reading at the downtown city library. He was relieved when Teresa appeared, a dark-haired woman with a radiant smile.
“I’m Sonny Baca, this is Lorenza Villa—”
“I know who you are.” She took Sonny’s hand. “You’re getting to be quite a hero. I’ve saved the newspaper articles on you.”
“Me in a file?”
“Do you know the writer Ben Chávez? He’s been doing research on your great-grandfather, Elfego Baca. He suggested that I keep a file on you. Said you would become as famous as him.”
“I doubt it,” Sonny replied. “By the way, what happens if someone steals my file?” Sonny asked.
“I don’t think so,” Teresa replied, turning to greet Lorenza.
Sonny wondered if being in a file was like being in a dream. Raven the sorcerer could enter the file and wreak havoc. Some of the old traditional natives didn’t allow their pictures to be taken, believing that witchcraft could be performed on the photo. The soul could be attacked by witches who possessed the picture.
There was a history not even the file could contain, a soul few could know. Sonny had been reading the Osiris myth. Isis had sewn the pieces of Osiris together after he had been dismembered by his brother. A new Osiris had been born. Technology was moving in that direction, the creation of the hologram man. Cloning from a cell. Pure witchcraft.
“So, what can I do for you today?”
Sonny explained what they were after, and Teresa led them into the Anderson Room. One sole person sat at a table, hunched over piles of books at the far end of the room.
“It’s all here,” she said, pointing at the shelves lined with well-worn books and files that held the papers Sonny needed. “The Oñate Collection.”
“Can I check out these books?”
“Oh, no, these are special collections. They’re not allowed out of the library. But there’s dozens of books on Oñate that can be checked out. I can gather some for you if you like, and issue you a library card so you can take them with you.”
“Thanks. That would be a great help.”
“Be back in a while. In the meantime, help yourselves.”
“Where do we start?” Lorenza as
ked, placing the notebooks and pencils on the table.
“I guess reading anything that has to do with the Oñate expedition,” Sonny said. “Just start digging.”
Lorenza took books from the shelf and spread them on the large oak table.
“When does the history of New Mexico begin?” Sonny asked.
“It begins with those who write history,” Lorenza answered.
“The Spaniards.”
Lorenza shrugged. “The Pueblo Indians were living in the Río Grande valley for thousands of years before the Spaniards came, but they kept no written history.”
“The petroglyphs don’t qualify?”
“They’re not in the stacks.”
“How about ‘Paso por aquí’ inscribed on a rock?”
“History belongs to the conquerors.”
He knew the history of the state, and of the country, had often left out the native view. He picked up the volume in front of him. “Gaspar Perez de Villagrá’s Historia de La Nueva México, 1610, published in Spain. This man wrote the first epic of the region. Never read this when I was doing my undergraduate work.”
“History also belongs to those who control it,” Lorenza answered. “The Villagrá epic is hardly ever mentioned in textbooks. History is supposed to start at Plymouth Rock.”
She pulled up a chair and glanced over his shoulder.
“Raven is trying to control my history,” Sonny said.
“Yes. And if he can acquire enough control, he can …”
“Destroy me.”
“He’s an expert marksman. Why doesn’t he just stalk and shoot me?”
“He can no longer kill you that way.”
“Why?”
“It’s not your body he wants to get rid of, it’s your soul. Your real struggle is in the world of spirits. Raven knows this.”
“But I have the protection of the Zia sign.”
“Yes. So he figures out ways to get to you once and for all. He has killed you in prior lives, and maybe sometimes you got lucky and killed him. But you’re caught up in an eternal battle. That’s the meaning behind don Eliseo’s interpretation of your dream.”
Sonny shook his head. He knew Raven liked to play games. Ancient games. Taking Owl Woman was such a game. Now it was Sonny’s move.
Shaman Winter Page 5