The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation

by Belinda Vasquez Garcia

  He left the operation of the mine to his superintendent, Oscar Hughes. He left the town to the local rubble, as he called the mixture of Anglo, Hispanic, and the occasional American Indian traveling the Turquoise Trail into Madrid. He much preferred Albuquerque, with a population of 27,000 compared to Madrid’s 4,000. However, duty called. There was unrest in Madrid, and it wasn’t because natural gas had diminished the need for coal, and production slowed at the mine.

  He stepped off the train, snorting with disgust at the shacks, some hanging haphazardly among the black hills, making the village appear carved into the mountains. He petitioned the state to change the name of the Ortiz Mountains, which lay between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, to the Stuwart Mountains, but to no avail, the politicians being loathe to change New Mexico’s history. The government in Santa Fe merely sent him an apology, something having to do with Spanish aristocrats and the old Ortiz Spanish land Grant. Their arrogance infuriated him. To hell with Spanish land grants. New Mexico was an American territory since 1848, and became the 47th state in 1912. Well, he would have to make his own history. Besides Madrid and the railroad, he owned the American Lumber Company that cut trees from his ranch in the Zuni Mountains, the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Company, the Montezuma Saloon and the White Elephant Saloon, and one of the four banks in Albuquerque.

  Samuel shoved his hanky to his nose, in case any coal dust fluttered about, infecting the air. He waited impatiently for his mine foreman, Tom Dyer, who hurried towards him. Two strangers accompanied Dyer. One was an effeminate dandy and the other a short Hispanic, dressed in black. Samuel had no affection for either type.

  “Sorry, we’re late, Boss,” Tom said, twisting his hat in his hands. He wore work overalls and was barrel-chested. His dishwater blonde hair washedout his face. He was a good foreman. The men could relate to his simple ways, yet he was shrewd. He always grew nervous around the big boss, as he referred to Samuel, and nervousness caused him to stutter. “The car’s this way,” he mumbled, dipping his head.

  “Where’s Hughes?” Samuel barked, his dark-blue eyes flashing. “I expected him to meet me.”

  “Oscar had to go into Santa Fe.”

  “I trust all is well with the mine.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good. You look vaguely familiar, Sir,” Samuel said to the blonde, soft-looking gentleman with a pink rosebud mouth.

  “You don’t remember me, Monsieur Stuwart?” the man sniveled in a thick French accent. “I am, Pierre, manager of the Engine House Melodrama Theatre and Opera. The producer. The director. I am responsible…”

  “For the last two failed plays produced at my theatre,” he snapped.

  “The isolation of Madrid in the mountains is responsible. It is impossible to get the more cosmopolitan audiences from Albuquerque, or the elite from Santa Fe to make the trip so, we must make do with the locals.”

  “The whole point, Pierre, is that if the audience was not local, then the hotels, which I, also, own would be filled on weekends with people coming from out of town to see a play at my theatre. My restaurant would be full. That is the point of the theatre, you imbecile!”

  “The theatre is what I wish to discuss with you, Monsieur Stuwart. There is this, this creature turning up for every rehearsal, insisting she be in the musical. I can no longer have her disturbing the actors. It is most disconcerting.”

  “How old is this creature?”

  “Eighteen or nineteen, I think.”

  “So young and you can’t handle her yourself? No, I suppose your type wouldn’t know what to do with any female,” he said, snorting.

  Pierre blushed, making him appear even more girlish. “I’m afraid of her.”

  “Has she threatened you?”

  “Boss, you misunderstand. The reason I brought Pierre along is because it’s the same girl,” Tom said.

  He swayed, closing his eyes. He could feel a chill in his bones. “Who’s the same girl?” he muttered.

  “The girl who’s been charged with witchcraft, Patrón,” the Hispanic answered. “The bruja whose trial you were asked to preside over as judge. She and her kind have caused the cave-ins of the mines, causing you a loss of profits.”

  “Salia Esperanza,” Pierre whispered, looking at the Hispanic with fearful eyes.

  Samuel turned to Tom. “Why wasn’t I informed of a cave-in?”

  “No cave-in, Boss. Oscar would have telephoned for sure.”

  Samuel lifted an eyebrow at the Hispanic. “And who in damnation are you? I ask my foreman a question about some girl, and you answer like an insolent son of a bitch who can’t mind his own business, scaring the hell out of everyone with cave-ins.”

  He bristled at Samuel’s language, lifting his chin high in the air.

  “Take that smirk off your face, Mex, or I’ll have it beaten off you.”

  “Boss, this is Pacheco Sandoval,” Tom said in a worried voice. “Surely you’ve heard of him. Everyone just calls him Pacheco.”

  “No, I haven’t heard of this little man. Do you play baseball, Pacheco, for my team, the Madrid Miners?”

  He snorted. “I do not waste my time with such frivolities—I am a man of God.”

  “Pacheco is the Mayor of the Penitentes here in Madrid,” Tom said.

  “Oh, a local politician. Sorry, but I already gave at the office. The pen-a what?”

  “We are a religious order, like the Holy Spanish Inquisition. We bring God to the people of Madrid, the way it was intended in the Holy Bible for God’s chosen people.”

  Samuel scoffed, kicking at the snow with his shiny boot. “I think that much of Holy Roly rig-um-roll.”

  Pacheco turned red, his moustache shaking with indignation.

  “Pierre,” Samuel said, pointing a finger at the dandy. “Shouldn’t you be at my theatre, making preparations for a new play or musical? A good one that will make me some money?”

  Pierre opened his mouth to speak, but Pacheco interrupted. “Patrón, this theatre is not righteous.”

  “Oh, is that right, Mayor?” he said, bowing mockingly. “And who made you the conscience of Madrid? There’s nothing wrong with a bit of entertainment. My men work hard at my mine. That’s why we have a matinee, so that the miners can afford to see the performance with their families.”

  “But…”

  “I am the owner of Madrid, Mayor, and what I say, goes.”

  They were at his car, his chauffeur holding the door for him. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mayor, I have important business to discuss with my foreman—private business.” He turned to his driver. “Take us to the Mine Shaft Saloon.”

  Pacheco said with barely controlled anger, “We are both leaders of men, Patrón. Not since I was a young boy, growing up on my uncle’s farm in Golden, living between the fringes of poverty and prejudice, have I been treated in such a low manner and disrespect.”

  Samuel slammed the door in his face.

  Pacheco walked away from the train station, his body held stiff.

  “I’m not sure, Boss that was such a good idea, making Pacheco mad. He’s been looking forward to meeting you for a long time. You and he have more in common than you think. He holds sway with the men. The Hispanos really look up to him. Why, some of them even die for him at Easter.”

  “Religious fanatics,” he scoffed. “Next time you catch the men worshipping Pacheco, remind them exactly who it is puts food on their tables. Pacheco may have the men convinced he can part the Ortiz Mountains, but he can’t feed them. Unless a man’s a saint, the hunger in his belly is a stronger call than God.”

  The car stopped at the saloon. Samuel got out of the car, slamming the door in Pierre’s face. He rushed from the cold into the warmth. “No fuss, Shifty,” he muttered to the bartender, who polished the elaborately carved bar of cherry red wood. “Just a quiet corner, a big steak and a couple of beers. And have that damn piano player stop his ragtime music.”

  Shifty nodded his head, searching for the boss’ glass, so he cou
ld wash the dust from it and fill it with beer. The Prohibition law was passed six years ago, but illegal drinking didn’t apply in the private town of Madrid.

  Pierre and Tom trailed behind Samuel, sitting down across from him.

  Shifty, who was round and bald with spectacles and wore a red and white striped vest, served up a round of beers for them.

  Samuel washed the taste of coal from his mouth with beer.

  Pierre cleared his throat. “About Salia Esperanza, I must be rid of her before Amelita Galli-Curci’s performance in April.”

  “The opera star is performing here in Madrid?”

  Pierre beamed. “She is to perform in the opera, Rigoletto.”

  “Well done. Galli-Curci should bring in the crowds.”

  “But, I’m afraid the Esperanza girl will frighten Mademoiselle Galli-Curci.”

  “Get rid of her then,” he growled.

  “I was hoping you would get rid of her for me.”

  “Everyone is hoping you’ll hang her tomorrow,” Tom added. “There’s not a soul in Madrid who would mourn her.”

  “Well, it’ll be a short trial, I promise you. I won’t be around for the hangman to put the noose around her neck. I have to get back to Albuquerque for a meeting about the fallout from the markets crashing. Good thing I don’t trust stocks so I didn’t lose any money.”

  Pierre said, “One look at this girl and you’ll know she’s guilty. Her mére was a witch, her gran-mére a skeleton. There’s this coyote, see…”

  “If my brain and your brain were drinking bottles of intelligence, I’d drink you under the table in no time flat,” Samuel said. He sighed into his glass of beer, thinking, damned superstitious villagers. He turned to Tom Dyer, pointedly turning his back to Pierre. “How’s my baseball team looking for the spring season? This year I intend for the Madrid Miners to beat the Albuquerque Browns. I’ve got an exhibition game scheduled for the spring at the state fairgrounds.”

  24

  Salia’s hands were tied together by a rope, her wrists reddened. Her blue-grey eyes flashed with defiance at the people gathered to see the spectacle. As she passed, they lowered their eyes.

  She cussed at them, her legs trembling. She would not let them see how much the rope hurt. The albino, Whitie Smithson, Sheriff of Santa Fe County, yanked at the rope, making her feel as if her arms would be yanked from their sockets. Mother or Grandma would never have been caught in such dire circumstances. She might hang.

  Whitie shoved open the doors of the Impatient Amusement Hall. He cautiously walked up to her, holding her hands so she couldn’t swing her fists.

  She tried to kick him, but it was impossible in her long skirt. She showed her teeth, snapping.

  “Wild cat bitch!”

  She growled at him, like an animal.

  He shoved Salia to her knees, her skirt ripping. She bit her lip, holding back the pain shooting through her leg. She was in danger of being hung yet, instead of worrying about her neck, a river of sadness flowed through her because her now torn skirt had been the only decent thing she had. I should have tried harder, when Grandma taught me how to sew, she thought, pushing her fist through the hole. The rip was in the middle of the skirt, not the seam. It was ruined.

  Many skirts and dresses were packed away in trunks, but Mother had been much taller and Grandma wider. Salia was not skilled enough to make their clothes fit her delicate form. Nor did she care for neither Mother’s flamboyant clothing, nor Grandma’s gloomy clothes. She pulled up her skirt, wiping the sweat from her brow.

  Samuel Stuwart sat behind the desk in the makeshift courtroom and stared down at the girl sprawled in a heap on the floor. He had power over her of life or death. Madrid was a company town, owned by him. The houses, the hospital, the school, the store, the barber shop, the car dealership, the electricity, gas and water. Everything, including the miners, who were indebted to him through scrip, credit issued with company tokens, of which the full value could only be realized in the company stores. However, this girl did not belong to him. He was told she was an orphan and had no father or male relative in his employee. Nor did she work for him.

  Her head was bowed, her hair clean but tangled and uneven, as if she never had a proper hair cut in her life. Her hair was a windblown mess. There was so much copper-red hair on her head that she appeared to be on fire, seething with a festering emotion, loneliness most likely. She looked like a homeless gypsy, wild and unkempt, with a hole in the bottom of each filthy moccasin. He had never seen such a pathetic looking creature. She looked worse than a cat in the gutter.

  His cold examination of the girl turned to anger. It was because of this poverty-stricken wench he traveled in the dead of winter to Madrid. The Impatient Amusement Hall was aptly named. He had never been a patient man. He dismissed the girl and turned to Whitie. He barked in a voice grown hoarse with temper, “You’re late, Sheriff.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor,” he mumbled, “But there’s such a crowd gathered outside.”

  Samuel frowned at the slight girl slouched in front of him, wearing a multi-colored skirt which had risen up around a leg shaped with perfection, the golden color of a ripened peach. He closed his eyes as the smell of peaches assaulted his senses, making him wish for summer and the hot sun.

  The girl perplexed him. There were black streaks on her skirt, like she’d been dragged through the coal-black streets. She had the dirty look of a bruised peach, yet her skin looked fresh and dewy, like the inside of a ripe peach.

  Maybe the peach contained a rotting pit.

  She was a contradiction, delicate and weakly built with small ankles and slender legs. Her wrists were fine boned, her hands small. She did not look like she could threaten anyone, much less an entire town.

  “Now, what exactly is she supposed to have done?” he asked.

  “This woman is accused of practicing the dark arts,” Drew Goodson, the prosecutor, spit out.

  “I know that. But what exactly has she done to warrant such a preposterous accusation?”

  Drew’s Adams apple bobbed at the word, preposterous. He wiped the sweat from his hands onto his shiny black suit. He lifted his hands to hair slicked back with oil. He patted the sides of his hair then, placing a hand on each side of his open jacket, struck a serious pose. “Judge,” he boomed with great passion, “Over the centuries in New Mexico, witches were condemned to serve Christians. They were whipped, sentenced to years of hard labor in ankle-chains, or executed…”

  A voice interrupted, coming from the balcony, where the native Hispanos were gathered. “In 1626, the Spanish Inquisition was established here in New Mexico, and witches were burned, just as witches were burned in the Salem Witch Trials back East, Patrón.”

  Samuel lifted his head to the balcony and locked eyes with Pacheco Sandoval.

  Pacheco simply nodded his head in acknowledgment. He was in his element, cockily surrounded by all his followers. He spoke, with inflated importance. “For 200 years, before New Mexico became an American territory, the city dwellers and farmers filed charges of brujería before both the Spanish and Mexican governments. The complaints of the villagers were taken seriously then. The people could depend on the justice of their government and patróns.”

  The villagers gathered in the courtroom murmured their agreement with Pacheco.

  “I don’t need a history lesson, Sandoval,” Samuel snapped, “and you’re…”

  “Pacheco’s right,” Goodson said. “Troops were even dispatched to burn out nests of witches and destroy tokens of witchcraft. Records exist today in Santa Fe, which prove for centuries in New Mexico witches were lawfully hung.”

  “That may be, but this is neither Spain nor Mexico. In the United States of America, citizens are not burned nor hung for witchcraft anymore.”

  There was a curse in the court room, and Samuel looked up to where the cussing came from. The crowd at the top was all seated, except for one man. Looking down on Samuel and clenching the banister, was Pacheco.


  “The arrogant American government can believe what it wants about superstition and brujería,” he said, “But the people who live in the villages of New Mexico know what we witness with our very own eyes. A witch is like a plague infesting a village. The community must ban together to protect its citizens.”

  Samuel looked straight at Pacheco and continued his speech. “Furthermore, America is not barbaric nor is the Spanish Inquisition still ruling New Mexico.” With a challenging smile, he lifted an eyebrow at Pacheco.

  In answer, Pacheco narrowed his eyes at him, muttering beneath his breath.

  “I will not tolerate speaking out of line in my court room, do you understand? Any man who does so will be found in contempt.”

  His face flushed red. He started to move towards the stairs, but the Penitentes held him back.

  Samuel looked back at the prosecutor. “Who is this young woman’s accuser?”

  A grey-haired, broad hipped, froggy-looking woman stepped forward. Her eyes were swollen and red. “I am,” she said, sniffling.

  Samuel sighed. The last thing he needed was to deal with a hysterical woman. Hysterics never led to reason. “And you are?”

  “Mrs. John Gelford.”

  “What has she done to you, Mrs. Gelford?”

  “Salia Esperanza murdered my husband, John Gelford. You are short one miner because of her. John was a good worker.”

  Samuel looked back at her with a blank face. He knew most of the men in Madrid worked for him, but he knew very few of their names, other than Shifty, Dyer, Hughes, a couple of others who managed his businesses, and the ones who played on his baseball team. As for the others exiting the mine with coal-black faces at the end of the day, well, they all looked alike.

  She sobbed uncontrollably into a lace handkerchief.

  He didn’t know what to do. To say he knew her husband, and he felt sorry John Gelford died would be lying, and Samuel had never been a good liar, nor had he ever been good at comfort, other than seeing to his own.