“Pinche yerbas!” Don Toto cursed the burrs that stuck to him.
The tall grasses and weeds were dry and sharp, and the rain had already formed mud puddles in the hard caliche earth. River willows and salt cedars slapped at their faces as the three duendes plus one worked their way through the thick brush.
“Shh,” don Eliseo whispered. He was taking his job seriously.
“Can we stop for a drink?” don Toto asked.
“I need to pee,” Concha added.
“Shh,” don Eliseo repeated.
Sonny could see the old man’s bulk of a shadow in the dark and rain and heard the urgency in his voice. Yes, they had found something, the pattern was there. His old friends knew evil when they encountered it, and the woman who owned the goats, they believed, was evil.
“Aqui!” don Eliseo called and stopped abruptly. Don Toto, Concha, and Sonny stumbled into him.
Don Eliseo had brought them around the back of a rambling adobe, one of the houses of the valley. Sonny could smell the goat smell in the rain. He cocked his ear and heard a bleating sound. He slid next to don Eliseo, and together they crept up to the side of the pen.
“Concha, your flashlight!” don Eliseo called.
Somewhere a dog barked. They were making too much noise, Sonny thought. He would have to get them out of there and take a close look at the place himself.
“At your service,” Concha said and passed forward the flashlight. Don Eliseo shone it into the pen. There in the corner stood a big red goat, sans balls. The cut was healing well, and if don Eliseo hadn’t known what he was looking for, it would have been difficult to spot the wound.
“There it is, Sonny,” don Eliseo said proudly as he focused the light on the red goat. “I told you it was a red.”
“El cabro sin huevos,” Concha whispered and shivered.
“Que lástima,” don Toto added, and fished out his bottle of wine.
Yes, there it was, the castrated goat whose balls had been hung on Rita’s porch to frighten him away. He was close to something evil, he could feel it in his guts. “She alone?” he asked, nodding toward the house.
“I think so,” don Eliseo answered. “A bunch of others left when we were here before.”
“Any dogs?”
“No, but the neighbors have dogs.”
He had to get a look into the house, but it wouldn’t work with Snap, Crackle, and Pop tailing him. They made too much noise, and there was the possibility of danger.
“It smells like hell,” Concha complained.
“Take my truck back and go tell Rita I’ll be a little late,” Sonny said, handing the keys to don Eliseo.
“No, Sonny, we gotta stick with you. These people are dangerous. They’re not amateurs,” don Eliseo insisted.
“I’ll be careful,” Sonny whispered. “But Rita has to know I’m okay.”
“Oh, he’s worried about his honey,” Concha crooned. “True love,” she sighed and struck a match to light the roll-your-own she had been working on while sitting against the goat pen, but the wet match only sputtered against the wet cigarette. Don Eliseo snatched the matchbook away from her.
“Que ’stás tonta!”
“I need a cigarette,” she groaned. It had been a long night, and she was tired and wet. Detective work was okay in the day, but not at midnight in the rain.
“Get her home,” Sonny whispered to don Eliseo, his tone meant to make the old man understand they were in the way.
“Ten-four,” don Eliseo replied. “We better put Concha to bed before she catches cold,” he said.
“I already got pee-monia,” Concha said and sneezed.
“Vamos.” Don Eliseo motioned to Concha and don Toto. “We’ll take Concha home, give her a glass of Toto’s wine, and put her to bed.”
“Oh, how romantic,” Concha groaned. “I’m as wet as a chicken crossing the river, and these guys want to put me to bed.”
“You’ll live, m’ijita.” Don Eliseo smiled and took her arm. “I’ll call Rita, tell her you’re okay,” he said to Sonny. “Soon as I can, I’ll came back and wait for you where the truck is parked. Okay?”
“Okay.” Sonny nodded. “Thanks.”
“Cuidate,” the old man said and punched his arm. “That woman in there and her friends are bad mujeres.”
He turned and led Concha and Toto back to the truck, disappearing with much complaining and rattling of brush and weeds.
“See you later, Sonny,” Concha called in the dark. “Be careful, honey.”
Sonny waited until the noise of the three disappeared and he heard his truck start and drive away; then he turned his attention to the house. It was shrouded in darkness, an ominous shape in the mist. There was danger in it, he was sure. And perhaps the answer to Gloria’s murder.
Then he thought of his pistol: still in the truck. He crouched and moved along the edge of the goat pen. He felt a tingle along his spine, the warning that danger was near. He turned the corner of the goat pen and moved in the dark to a small shed, then to the back door of the house. He turned the knob gently and the door opened. Damn, he thought as he walked into the dark, I should have kept Concha’s flashlight.
He heard someone move in the dark, the rustle of cloth, but before he could jump back something crashed against his head. He heard a loud ringing, saw flashes of light, and he lunged at his assailant as he fell. He scratched at a dark cloth and caught the whiff of lilac before he hit the floor and was enveloped in darkness.
28
Sonny awoke to a throbbing headache, darkness, and a tangle of cobwebs covering his eyes. Caked blood from his nose stuck to his mouth and chin. He kicked out at his tormentor but felt no resistance. He shook his head, the cobwebs fell away, but the throb in his head remained.
“Cabrones!” he cursed the dark. “Where in the hell am I?” he groaned. His arms were tied and stretched up to a ceiling rafter. His feet barely touched the floor. Whoever knocked him out had removed his shirt and hung him like a sheep ready for slaughter.
“Ah, pendejo,” he cursed himself when he remembered walking into the house. “You walked right into it! ’Stúpido!”
When he spoke, the headache coursed through his head like a bolt of snake lightning. He closed his eyes again, the pain subsided.
“I am sorry, Mother,” he whispered, “you raised a dumb kid. I am sorry Great-grandpa Elfego, I disgrace your name. Your great-grandson is a pendejo.”
He pulled on the ropes, but they only tightened around his wrists and cut into his numbed flesh. The beam he hung from was solid; the nylon rope would not break. The cement basement floor was damp and cold; his left foot ached.
His vision cleared and his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Smells returned, and the overpowering smell in the dark roam made him turn slowly to look at the figure hung next to him. At first he thought it was a man. But no, it was the big red goat. Its throat had been slit; the coagulated blood formed a pool on the floor. A few dark, fat flies buzzed at the cut.
“Chingao,” Sonny groaned. “I’m next.”
There was a small window high on the wall behind him. He was in a basement and the window was a crawl space with a dirty, muddy pane.
I have to cut the rope, that’s the only way out, he thought. He pulled again at the rope, then tried swinging his legs up, but his weight only tightened the rope at his wrists.
The stench of the goat filled the room. The air was damp and stifling. They’re going to kill me, he thought, and felt a tremble along his spine. Being shot at in Escobar’s ranch had scared the hell out of him, but there he could have made a run for it. Here he was tied and hung.
“Jodidos!” he yelled and waited, but there was no answer. The headache struck again, and a wave of nausea made him pass out momentarily.
How much time has passed? he wondered when he regained consciousness. He stayed still and his head grew clearer and his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark. The only other thing in the basement besides him and the goat were th
e box shapes leaning against the wall in front of him. Suitcases. With a large gold monogram: “GDD.” Gloria’s luggage.
It took a great deal of concentration before he recognized the smallest form leaning against the wall. It wasn’t a suitcase as he first thought. It was a mortician’s old-fashioned hand pump. The kind Howard said was used to drain Gloria’s blood.
The flies buzzed around the goat’s open wound. He had let a lot of people down, he thought. Manuel Lopez, for one, his mentor, who must be rolling over in his grave knowing Sonny had walked blind into such danger.
“Do things right,” Bisabuelo Elfego said in the dark, “or the Texans will kick your ass. You know they tried to kick mine the first time I was deputized in Socorro. I held my ground for two days and two nights, and when they thought I was dead, I climbed out and took ’em in.”
Now it was Sonny’s turn to take them in, but unlike Elfego Baca’s first battle at Frisco Plaza, he couldn’t walk away. He knew he should have called Howard or Garcia. Now it was too late.
Don Eliseo and his cronies would be putting Concha to bed by now, well into another bottle of wine, arguing and telling stories and finally falling asleep. How long would Rita wait for him to return? If she gave up and went home, she wouldn’t find him missing until late in the day. By that time he would be in the same condition as the goat.
His eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and he spied a small table near the goat. Something glinted on top of it. A knife! The knife they used to slice the goat’s throat, still covered with blood. It was the same knife they would use on him!
“Unless,” he thought, and he heaved himself up, grabbed the rope in his hands, and began swinging. He swung closer and closer to the table, until he could slip his feet under the edge and pull. The table jerked toward him, teetered momentarily then both table and knife clattered to the floor.
“Chingao,” he cursed. Could he reach it now? He swung again, reached out painfully with his feet as far as he could, and finally touched the knife and drew it a few inches forward. The bloodied knife scraped along the floor. He swung again, pulled it closer, until he could grasp it in both feet, but he couldn’t hold the gory blade between his boots.
“Take off your boots,” Bisabuelo Elfego said in the dark, and Sonny spent the next five minutes slipping his boots off. When that was done, he could grasp the blade with his toes.
He heard voices somewhere in the dark. They were coming; he had to hurry.
Using all his strength, he raised his legs upward, even though the ropes cut painfully into his wrists and hands. He knew he had to free himself fast. He had only seconds left; the voices were nearer. They were coming for him, las brujas don Eliseo feared, Gloria’s murderers.
He strained as he lifted the knife between his feet up toward his hands. With the remaining energy and his entire body trembling, he slipped the knife from between his feet to his right hand. His quivering hand grabbed the knife, and he let his feet drop to the floor.
“Ah,” he breathed in relief, sweating, feeling the buzzing of the flies around him. Awkwardly, he began to saw at the rope around his wrists.
The voices grew closer. They were outside the door now. Free and armed with the knife, he might be able to make a fight out of it, even if he was outnumbered. But the knife would be useless for defense if he was still strung up like the goat. He cut furiously, felt one strand of rope snap. It was working, he smiled, but as he changed the blade to his left hand, it slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor again.
“Damn!” he cursed and looked up to see the door open and two women enter. A fat figure stood outlined in the light of the doorway. Beside her a smaller woman. He tugged at the rope, but it held. They looked at Sonny and approached cautiously. They wore long, black gowns, and each wore a yellow mask on which was painted the sign of the Zia sun.
“Look,” the thin woman said as she picked up the table, then the knife.
“Stupid! I told you not to leave it there!” the large woman cursed.
They’ve come to do their surgical work on me, Sonny thought and struggled. The nylon rope only bit deeper into his wrists.
“He’s okay,” the thin woman said and touched the knife to Sonny’s stomach. “He ain’t going anywhere.”
“Yeah,” the fat one said and checked the ropes, satisfying herself that they would still hold. A sweet, almost putrefying smell of lilac oozed from her. She spoke in Sonny’s face: “You know too much, Mr. Baca. I’m going to cut your balls off.” She laughed and took the bloodied knife from the thin woman. Sonny felt his stomach contract. He knew the voice. There, pressing the knife against his skin, stood Veronica. Gloria’s “healer.”
“Not now,” the smaller woman said. She drew close to Sonny. “We gotta wait till sunrise. Sacrifice his blood to the sun of the summer solstice.”
“Yeah,” the large woman answered. “But I’d like to cut his balls off right now and be done—”
“Not me,” the thin woman said softly. “He’s too good-looking. Wish we could have a little fun with him before you do your operation.”
She caressed the flat of Sonny’s stomach. “Come on, Sister, let’s cut him down and have a little fun.”
“You’re crazy!” The fat woman shook her head. She drew close, the knife ready to strike, and again her friend held out her hand.
“Wait till sunrise. We got our orders,” the small woman said, hugging Sonny. “Oh, he is gorgeous. I liked him the first time I saw him.”
“Damn you!” the larger woman cursed. “I say we do it now and be done with it! He’s been trouble from day one.”
The small woman looked up at Sonny. “The sun needs blood on the solstice day. I tried to warn you, now it’s too late.”
“Yes, you did, Dorothy,” Sonny replied.
“He knows your name!” the larger woman hissed.
“So what?” Dorothy said and took off her mask. She looked intensely at Sonny. “It don’t do you no good, does it? You shouldn’t’ve mixed in any of this. Now, you got about an hour before the sun rises—”
The fat woman laughed. “The Zia sun has reached its journey to the north. Now it returns to its home in hell. All will die as winter approaches. The black sun is angry. It wants the blood of a man, the blood of a warrior. Only blood will appease our sun on this solstice day.”
“Is that why you murdered Gloria?” Sonny asked.
“Murdered!” the fat woman spat out. “She went willingly to serve the glory of the Zia sun.”
“Bullshit!” Sonny shot back. “She was running away.”
“She was crazy!” Dorothy responded angrily. “No one can leave us!”
“Shut up!” the fat woman shouted.
“What difference does it make?” Dorothy said defiantly. She ran her fingers on his stomach, outlining a circle around his navel. She put her arms around his waist and softly kissed his navel.
Sonny felt a chill.
“You horny bitch,” the fat woman cried out, grabbed her, and pushed her away. “We came to mark him, not fuck him!”
She raised the knife and quickly and deftly cut the circle of the Zia sun on Sonny’s stomach, just deep enough to draw blood, blood that oozed from the circle and the four radiating lines.
“There,” she whispered, “you’re marked for death. Your sacrifice will give the sun the power it needs.”
She pushed the smaller woman toward the door.
“One question, Veronica!” Sonny called.
The two women turned to face him.
“Now ain’t he smart. He knows your name, too,” Dorothy chuckled.
“A lot of good that will do him,” Veronica replied. She walked slowly to Sonny, pulled off her mask.
A surge of anger swept through Sonny as he strained at the rope. This was the woman who had killed Gloria.
“Why did you kill her?”
Veronica leered. In the dim light shadows played on her bloated face. “She was a willing sacrifice—”
“Bullshit! You murdered her!”
“No one leaves the cult of the sun! No one!” Veronica shouted back, holding the knife at Sonny’s throat. “What do you think we are, Sonny boy? Amateurs? You think we’re playing games? We’ve been following you. We know where you’ve been and who you see! You’re going to find out that this isn’t a game!”
He thought she would lunge, stick the knife in his throat, cut as she had cut the goat. Instead, she hesitated.
“We thought you would be a worthy enemy,” she whispered, drawing close. “But you don’t understand Raven’s power! You don’t know that on this solstice we have signed a pact to bring down the world! It’s bigger than you think, much bigger! And the time is at hand. Come,” she said to Dorothy, turning away. She paused at the door and stuck the knife into the door frame. “There’s an hour until sunrise. We must finish preparing for the ceremony. One hour, Sonny, and you join the goat. And Gloria.” She pushed Dorothy out, closing the door behind them.
The room grew dark again. Sonny looked down at the blood oozing from his throbbing belly.
“Damn!” he cursed. He hated himself for having walked into the trap and for being unable to free himself. And most of all he hated not understanding what she meant. She had confessed to killing Gloria, but the intimations in her words pointed at something bigger.
He struggled against the ropes, swung up and kicked, and the beam creaked with his rage and weight but did not give. The ropes only tightened deeper into his wrists, bringing a numbing pain that coursed through his arms into his shoulders.
“Elfego!” He called on the spirit of his great-grandfather. “I need you!”
29
Moments later, his call was answered by a rap on the small window. Sonny turned, a shadow appeared at the small window, then a hoarse whisper. “Sonny?”
“Quién es?” he answered.
The window creaked, gave way, then a body slid through the small opening and landed with a thump on the floor.
Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Shaman Winter, and Jemez Spring Page 32