The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation

by Belinda Vasquez Garcia

  Jefe, which means boss, was not cast out alone. Three other hogans leaned towards his hogan, surrounding him like bees buzzing around their queen. The hogans were inhabited by his disciples who followed him when he abandoned the pueblo for the fence. Rings of smoke rose from the roofs of the hogans. The reservation was so quiet, he could hear the smoke puffing from the kiva fireplaces. The reservation was isolated from the outside world, the desolation welcomed.

  His face was cloaked in darkness, even the full moon shying away from his ugliness. His grandmother had done her work well when she carved his face with her knife. A jagged knife scar ran diagonally all the way from his temple to his pock-marked chin, cutting his lips into four pieces. His eye had been split so that his view of the world became as skewered as his psyche. His vision was three quarters of the whole because his cut left eye was half-closed, giving him a noticeable cast to his eye, which was a grayish-yellow, as opposed to his right eye that was almost black in color. Jefe’s sight was deceiving. He appeared to be blind in his damaged eye but could see all of his peripheral vision to his left. It was to the right of this eye that he could not see. Thus, there was always a black hole in front of him, a little to the left of a nose that had been broken in several places.

  Jefe adjusted his head to counterbalance the black hole of his sight as he studied the odd cloud in the sky. The cloud draped the mountain top in the shape of a tipi. The full silver moon moved across and tucked inside the tipi cloud, teetering at the mountain tip.

  He stiffened, his body taut with tension, except for the shivering of his veins from the May air that had not been frigid…

  Until now.

  He glared at the tipi-moon with both fear and displeasure. All the Indian people knew what this omen meant. A tipi-moon had been seen only once before in New Mexico, on the night of Montezuma’s birth centuries ago. The great witch Montezuma was famous among the Indian people. There is a legend that Montezuma created the New Mexico Pueblos. Montezuma then flew on a giant eagle southward, founding the mighty Mexico City and all civilization there. Montezuma promised to one day return, to lead the Pueblo people once more.

  Jefe always laughed at this fairy tale, believing it would not come to pass. He never accepted the great witch Montezuma would return…

  Until now.

  “The great one has returned to the people,” he whispered. Indeed. It was true. The eagle left its mark upon his back. He now knew what his dream meant. Montezuma left twelve virgins to tend the sacred fire, lit at the altar of the sun. The twelve virgins Jefe deflowered in his dream, in which the sacred fire burned out because the virgins fell asleep, satiated by his lust. The sacred fire was supposed to remain lit, awaiting Montezuma’s return. Yet even though the sacred fire no longer blazed to light his way back, the eagle returned and conquered Jefe, carrying him away with his claws.

  Was this a vision of a certain future or a warning of what might be?

  All he worked for was threatened. There was much work to be done to neutralize this tipi-moon omen.

  By the light of that same tipi-moon, Jefe sharpened his knife against a leather strap hanging from a tree branch, until the blade gleamed. He then cut his hand, digging the knife deep into his skin to test the sharpness. He licked his blood and smiled.

  His upper lip flapped to the right by the blowing wind, while his lower lip flapped to the left, his mouth at odds with his face, just like his contrary nature. He grinned at the tipi-moon, relishing a fight and a chance to prove his power.

  Jefe was a small, wiry, dark, Native American man who was stronger than he looked. The parting of his face from temple to opposite end of his chin was comparable to a religious experience, cutting him into two men. One mean as hell. The other crazy. Flowing through his veins was a lust for power that made him feel drunk. He reeled from a head-busting hangover because the power he craved was threatened by the vision in his dream.

  He stripped to just his belt and knife sheath, a solidly built man in his forties, well hung, with hair twisting into a single, graying braid snaking across the hump on his back. His member was stiff and erect, even that part of him relishing a good fight. The virgins had been tight. The dream seemed so real…Even so. Jefe was ready to go again.

  He climbed onto a boulder and snorted at the three hogans surrounding his. Anger engulfed him, making the cold air hot, warming him with madness. He would deal later with Big-Belly, the Bat, and Dead-Man-Walking. None of his disciples were awakened by the prophetic moon. None would join him. He would do the deed himself. Besides, Big-Belly was a lazy witch and Jefe still hadn’t forgiven the Bat for speaking up for Salia. The Bat had always lusted after his half-sister, and her death had a double bonus. The Bat was now more trustworthy. As for Dead-Man-Walking, his best disciple would make a good companion in this deed but deep down, Jefe wanted the act all for himself. He did not want Dead-Man-Walking to be the one to kill Montezuma’s reincarnation, else the power might all go into his disciple when the spirit of life left the great witch. Jefe could not risk a disciple gaining more power than him, his master.

  He stabbed hawk feathers into his hair. He dug the knife into his wrist until blood dripped. He closed his eyes, muttering an incantation. He dipped his head, breathing deeply, conjuring an image of a hawk, until his eyes shone reddish brown. His black eye turned the color of wine. Veins ran down his damaged eye, dripping blood down his cheek. The blood did not blind him. On the contrary, the blood sharpened his vision until he could see as far as a hawk. Two miles away was a cactus upon which hung a rosary, probably Storm-Chaser’s beads. Jefe zeroed in on the cross hanging there and he spit. His saliva dripped down the rosary beads, and he laughed, power pulsing through his body. He flung his arms wide and raised his head to the heavens. He called out arrogantly for all to hear, “I go without God and without the holy virgin.”

  Feathers grew across his head and his body, blanketing his nakedness. His broken nose became a twisted beak. His toes curled into claws. His spread arms became wings.

  When the transformation was complete, Jefe had turned into a graying hawk.

  He lifted his arms straight up and shot into the sky like a rocket.

  What a rush!

  He flapped his wings towards Madrid some fifteen miles to the southeast. It felt good to be airborne again, and catch a tailwind, gliding through the night sky.

  He lifted his beak and sniffed. The cool crisp air smelled like flesh burning. He winked one eye at a ball of fire burning on the ground. The house at the bottom of Witch Hill was still in flames. Even from up here he could taste the dry ashes. “Burn Sister. Burn,” he said to the fire and laughed. “Slut.”

  Salia, even now, burned in the house at the bottom of Witch Hill that inclined a spell or two above the village of Madrid, a village cursed by its proximity to Jefe’s hogan. Salia was twenty years younger than Jefe. Her mother, Felicita, had been his enemy and was also dead. “Puta,” he said, staring with glittering eyes at the burning flames of the house, where the three witches once lived. La India killed Jefe’s father, her own son, carved up her grandson Jefe, and then ran away with Felicita and two year-old Salia clinging to her back. From then on Jefe tasted revenge but never swallowed it…

  Until now. Until Salia’s burning.

  Felicita and La India, together, had been too powerful for Jefe to kill. But his half-sister, though she had been part-white, was weakened with love for a white man. So now Felicita’s daughter, Salia, was being burned as a witch by the villagers. Jefe had ordered Two-Face to speak up against her. Father and daughter were willing to risk the consequences of breaking the code of honor—a witch must never turn on its own. Not with the intention of death. To maim is one thing. To blind another. But to cause a witch’s death from one’s own coven is taboo. Jefe was a renegade witch out to blaze new trails in his lust for power. To Jefe there were no rules. If he has the power, then it doesn’t matter if an entire coven comes at him.

  To make his revenge complete, Salia’
s baby son also burned. That was part of the deal Jefe cut with Pacheco Sandoval for witnessing against his half-sister. Pacheco was leader of the Penitentes, a fanatical, renegade arm of Catholicism, ruling the Hispanos in Madrid. Pacheco’s aim was to bring back the Spanish Inquisition to New Mexico and tonight, he succeeded.

  Jefe could give a rat’s ass about the Spanish Inquisition that centuries ago tried to wipe out Native American witchcraft and by its zeal, made the Indians focus even more on Tezcatlipoca. What was important to Jefe was that by destroying Salia and her son, Felicita’s line was at an end.

  “The fire is what you deserve for stealing our grandmother’s piedra imán,” Jefe said and circled the burning flames in triumph. Revenge was just the icing on the cake. Now, the rare shape-shifting stone would be his! After their grandmother’s death, the stone should have been passed to him. La India was the only mother he ever knew. She had suckled him, not Salia. In any case, La India owed him, after carving his face with her knife.

  To add insult to injury, Salia wasted the incredible power of the shape-shifting stone to be an opera singer. Salia could not have become such a great singer without the piedra imán. He would make better use of its magic. Tomorrow, when the ashes cooled he would search through the ruins of the house.

  Jefe turned his wings south to Isleta, some forty-five miles from Madrid. In true bird form he crapped from the air, as he circled the pueblo in triumph, before swooping down and landing on the soft earth of his enemies. He folded his wings, bowed his head, and transformed back into a man.

  Isleta smelled of his piss and feces. He lightly approached the first apartment.

  He didn’t notice a mountain lion, sitting atop the roof licking its paws.

  Jefe silently entered the apartment. Ah he struck gold. There was a cradle in the corner.

  Jefe tiptoed over and lifted the baby out.

  The child stirred in his arms.

  He checked the sex of the child to make sure it was a boy. He left the bleeding baby in the cradle and tip-toed out of the apartment and made his way to the next door neighbor.

  And the next neighbor. And the next. And the next.

  All the while, the mountain lion lay on the upper roof with its chin on its paws, watching him.

  When his work was done at Isleta, Jefe lifted his wings and headed home. All in all, it had been a good night’s work.

  His returned to his hogan, reeling with fatigue. If he had the piedra imán, it would not be tiring, this transformation that would now cause him to sleep like the dead. His shape-shifting could last indefinitely. La India used the rock for immortality and stayed looking 17, though she was 116 when she died, and only because Salia stole her piedra imán else she could have lived forever. Without the shape-shifting stone, his transformation could only last three and a half hours, limiting his visits to one pueblo a night. Some of the further pueblos would take him four nights. Two nights to get there. And two nights to return. But each night he had to recover, making the ordeal last even more days. This was risky because once his shape-shifting ability wore out, he was zapped of his powers, making him vulnerable. Another witch could sneak up on him while he slept, and he would not be able to defend himself. It was a trade-off. He could get killed, but his transformation into a hawk was the best way for Jefe to accomplish his mission. The only way, given the escalating danger of his mission. Unless he could get his hands on the piedra imán.

  He stood at the hogan, holding the blanket open, wheezing. He couldn’t last much longer. He would pass out soon. He could feel the faintness coming on him. The accursed weakness that made him so damned helpless. Even Weeping-Woman could kill him in his sleep. He snorted. She would never find the courage. More likely his love-starved wife might mount him while he slept the sleep of the dead.

  Too bad she didn’t die in childbirth.

  He weakly called out, “Weeping-Woman…Bitch.”

  She had been awake all this time, staring into the darkness with dry eyes, having earlier heard her husband go out. She wondered what mischief he was up to, where his lust to achieve more power led him. A decade ago, she was the focal point of his lust for power, because she was the daughter of the shaman, Storm-Chaser, who controlled the Thunder Spirit. Jefe impregnated her because he coveted her father’s power, especially the pipe of the Thunder Spirit that had been passed onto Storm-Chaser when he was a young man and his master, the old shaman, died. To achieve his goals, Jefe stalked her until he found her alone…

  One thirsty summer day. He stumbled upon her at the creek. The bottom of her skirt was tucked into her waistband. Her sleeves were rolled up. She was barefoot with water up to her knees. She was bent over with her rump sticking high in the air, and a basket between her hands that she swished in the water, washing the dirt from the wind-winnowed wheat of her mother’s field. Sweat ran between her breasts, giving her brown skin a shiny sheen.

  At first, she backed away from the man so ugly, she dropped her basket in the water. She knew who this animal was. He had been described to her by her father when he warned her to stay away from Jefe.

  But…she was thirsty. And curious. Surely, there could be no harm in taking a sip of the bottle he offered. She never tasted a cola before, a much sought after beverage sold in Madrid. Wait until she told her girlfriends! No females were allowed to go into town. They were prisoners of their sex. Hemmed in on the reservation by convention. Enforced morals. And tradition.

  And innocence. Especially innocence.

  Weeping-Woman didn’t know Jefe mixed the dark, murky drink with mashed worms and other unsavory things. She only knew she never drank anything so refreshing or tasty before, though a tad bitter. Her father never brought her a cola before. Storm-Chaser was selfish. He went into Madrid to quench his own thirst with whiskey, never giving a thought for her nor her mother, Spider-Woman.

  While she sucked on the bottle, Jefe turned his back and poured a few drops of red oil onto his palm from a little container hanging from his neck. He reached behind her ear and rubbed her skin.

  “That tickles,” she said, giggling. She could feel the oil creep into her ear and penetrate the big vein in her neck leading to her heart.

  He sat down beside her and squeezed her knee. He ran his tongue around her ear lobe. “You are so good looking,” he grunted in a husky voice.

  She looked at Jefe and blinked her eyes. Her father warned her to stay away from him, but she couldn’t remember why, because her mind was muddled by his hand creeping under her skirt. She had not noticed earlier how handsome he was. How good he smelled. If she breathed deeply, she could inhale him all the way down to her tingly toes.

  Instead of inhaling Jefe, she devoured him. She threw him on his back, ripping the clothes from his body and writhing against him, moaning. All the while, Jefe was laughing at her.

  As for Weeping-Woman, she was not born with the name she now had. It was only after her wedding night that she was renamed. Everyone at the pueblo called her by her name of sadness.

  As for Jefe, he had no patience with tears. He now snapped at her, “Quit crying, Woman, and come help me. I know you’re awake, watching my every move like a cow mooning after a bull. Being married to you is like having my neck in a noose. Bring some raw meat.”

  Her moccasins rubbed against the dirt floor as she followed Jefe. The moonlight illuminated her hips that were wide from childbirth. She limped, the result of being crippled by polio, a disease even her father had been unable to cure, although Storm-Chaser was able to use his powers so she did not end up in a wheelchair nor with braces on her legs.

  The moonlight was not kind to her narrow face. She may have been pretty if her bones did not protrude from her cheeks. She was gaunt from a near-starvation diet, a self-imposed fast. Her long hair hung in strings to her buttocks. Streaks of grey dominated her head. Even though her face was unlined, there was weariness about her, making her appear a decade older than her thirty years. She had no appetite for life, but if she was dead, her
son Flaco would be at the mercy of Jefe and Two-Face. Jefe was disappointed his son was not as strong as Two-Face. Two-Face was jealous of Flaco because she yearned to be the son Jefe always longed for.

  He devoured the raw meat. She stared like she was comatose, hiding her feelings of disgust at the specks of blood on his face and chest.

  He handed his bloody knife to her. “Clean it!”

  “What have you done now, Demon?” she said, biting her tongue for speaking. With any luck, Jefe was too weak to notice her lapse. How taxing, having to pretend she was still under the control of his love spell. He must never discover that her father reversed his spell, at her urging. She must survive. For her son. For the baby, Anjelica, a child who was not hers, but still she loved the beautiful girl.

  He flung his arm out, slapping her. Her head spun, and she noticed the tipi-moon teetering on the mountain top. She opened her eyes wide at Jefe.

  “Yes, Woman,” he spat, “The great witch has returned to the people, but he will not gain more power than me.”

  “The babies,” she said, holding a hand to her mouth to keep from vomiting. “The blood on the knife, so pure, not yet tainted with trials and tribulations of life.”

  “And I will go out tomorrow night, and the next night, and the next until I have visited all the pueblos.” He lifted the blanket to the opening of their hogan and slapped it shut behind him.

  She wiped clean the blood from his knife with her skirt. She then burned her bloodied skirt.

  She rocked on her knees before the open fire with her arms wrapped around her waist. “And a crying will be heard among the pueblos, the like of which has not been heard since the massacre by the white man. The Rio Grande will run crimson with the blood of innocence. So it is written. So it shall be.”