Muladona

by Eric Stener Carlson

  Copyright, acknowledgement and dedication

  Muladona by Eric Stener Carlson

  First published by Tartarus Press 2016 at

  Coverley House, Carlton-in-Coverdale, Leyburn,

  North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY, UK.

  Muladona © Eric Stener Carlson, 2016

  ISBN 978-1-905784-84-4

  The publishers would like to thank Jim Rockhill

  for his help in the preparation of this volume.

  My appreciation to Perla Montiveros de Mollo, the renowned

  Argentine folklorist. I fondly remember the afternoon spent

  in your library in Buenos Aires, discussing over tea

  the legend of a woman who transforms

  into a demonic mule.

  To E.J. and Juance

  CONTENTS

  Copyright, acknowledgement and dedication

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Epilogue

  PREFACE

  My name is Vergil Erasmus Strömberg. This is the story of the terrible events I witnessed as a young boy in Incarnation, Texas, back in October 1918. Only a handful of people still living know what happened there. The memory of it has gradually disappeared, like the town itself: fields gone fallow, husks of abandoned barns fallen in on themselves.

  Years ago I swore a sacred oath never to tell what happened. I’ve let my memories, like the town, become overrun with weeds. However, recent events have forced me to break that promise for reasons that will become clear.

  A writer named Bulgakov once said that manuscripts don’t burn. By that, I think he meant that some stories can’t be silenced. Even if you hide them in a box in the attic or toss them on a bonfire, they have a way of being told.

  And there are so many stories haunting me from that Fall, so many years ago! Many voices still whisper in my ear.

  So, with a trembling hand, I’ll describe the events as I witnessed them. I won’t leave anything out—my fear and my regret at not being able to save the ones I loved—except for the location of the town. For no one must ever go back to Incarnation and risk provoking the malignant forces that cost us so dearly.

  I don’t know if telling this story is the right thing to do. I just know I have no choice.

  May God have mercy on my soul.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Just before the outbreak of the First World War, about a hundred people lived in my hometown of Incarnation, mostly farmers and small tradesmen. Many of their kin had arrived with my grandfather, the Reverend Magnus Amund Strömberg, back in the late 1800s.

  Grandpa Strömberg had been a righteous member of the Swedish community in Bosque County, Texas. For a while, he and his congregation lived in peaceful isolation, fearing God and working the land. But, as the railroad and telegraph began to encroach, bringing news of the decadent world outside, the pastor yearned to start society afresh. So Grandpa gathered about him his most faithful and drove them into the Texan wilderness, in search of the promised land.

  After months of travel in their covered wagons, they came across the bones of an old town, set on a wide prairie hidden by desolate hills. It wasn’t on any map, but the local Mexicans called it la Encarnación de la Virgin María. Back in the days when Old Mexico ruled, it had been a gold-mining town. Judging from the opulence of the grand old empty houses and the richly-adorned cemetery on its outskirts, it must have done quite well before the mine finally went bust and the town, for the most part, was deserted. Even though dilapidated, the houses were more magnificent than anything my people had ever seen back in Bosque. They were astonished by the faded Italian marble, the broken stained glass and the worm-eaten oak staircases.

  Grandpa Strömberg, too, was enraptured by the sight. But it wasn’t the lure of tarnished comforts that appealed to him. It was the niches with figures of the Virgin Mary, to which the locals still lit votive candles. It was the dark hovels on the outskirts of town, through the openings of which peered suspicious, dirty-faced Indians.

  After much prayer and meditation, Grandpa realised that the task God had set him was not to start society from scratch. That would have been far too easy for him and his group of the Elect. Building upon the remnants of the town would give him the challenge of converting both papists and heathens. There he would erect a new temple, strengthened and purified, upon this pagan base. He would expose these people’s wicked beliefs for the chicanery of the Deceiver, and he would set them on the One True Path.

  He would be Moses going into the land of Canaan.

  So that is how my people stopped and made their new home in the town they renamed Incarnation. They dismantled their wagons for timber to replace the rotten planks of the old mansions. They felled trees and raised a schoolhouse for their own kind and for the local children whom they bribed or cajoled to attend. They found the largest altar to the Virgin Mary, set within a grotto on a hill, and with hammers and shovels hacked and smashed until it was nothing but rubble. Then they used the rubble in the foundations of a new church made of clean, white-washed planks.

  They kept bees, and they constructed a mill. The result of my people’s toil was rows of clean faces—white and dark—in the classroom benches and the pews, and a scattering of successful homesteads. Swedish and English slowly replaced Spanish as the language of trade. The descendents of the natives who had once lived in the grand old mansions were relegated to polishing our silver and ironing our linen.

  In this way, the Scandinavian culture began to overlay the Hispanic one, like a mosquito net over freshly-baked pies. Out of earshot of the Pastor it was rumoured that some inhabitants still venerated the Holy Mother, and the Indians outside the town limits worshipped their old gods in secrecy. . . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  My father, Calvin Justinius Strömberg, was a tall thin man with blonde hair. He had the hollow look of a fasting ascetic.

  When he was a young man, Father left Incarnation for two years to study theology at the Southern Missionary Seminary. Just as he was completing his degree, Grandfather Strömberg, ailing with pneumonia, called him back home. On his deathbed, our patriarch bequeathed the care of the Church to my father. Father immediately took over and never left Incarnation again.

  In an attempt to stave off any potential defection of the flock, Father gathered the community about him with renewed zealousness. He organised prayer groups and temperance committees. He baptised more Indians into the faith. He preached of the jealousy of God and the dangers of anarchists.

  Even with all his new work, Father still kept up the research he had begun at the seminary. At night, around the dinner table, he would make sharp, cuneiform-like notations in his notebook. He called it his magnum opus.

  He never explained what he meant by that. Father rarely said anything, but his silences spoke volumes.

  M
y mother, Agnes, also said very little. But there was a gentleness and beauty in all she did, so that words didn’t matter. She had prominent cheekbones and long, raven-black hair. Her eyes were the palest blue, like a sad summer sky. She was what people called back then a ‘black Swede’.

  We didn’t know anything about her people because, as a baby, she was abandoned at the door of Grandfather’s church. Grandmother took her in. Took her in, but didn’t adopt her.

  Mother was kept at the back of the house with our ancient housekeeper, Lupita. From an early age she learned to serve the family. When Father took over the ministry, she married him.

  The house we lived in was carved out of dark granite from the mining boom. It was more like a fortress than a home. Iron latticework covered the tall windows. Heavy wooden shutters forced out the light.

  Ever since Grandfather took over the place, the rusty garden gate was chained and covered in vines. Behind it he stored the wagon that had brought him to Incarnation. The stone walls were ten feet tall and three feet thick, so you couldn’t see the garden behind or even guess that it was there. The garden was a hidden treasure, aflame with all the local flowers: Sweet acacias. Catclaws. Honey daisies. The exotic remnants of the ancient garden grew up amongst them: flaming-scarlet bougainvillea, yellow calendula, violet agapanthus.

  This explosion of colour and nectar was managed by our gardener, Carlos Sotomayor, who lived in a tumbledown house next door. He resuscitated old stumps, made new cuttings and nurtured back to life bulbs thought long dead, turning our garden into a fairy world where birds and butterflies flocked.

  Carlos was a mass of furrowed, sun-darkened skin. He looked as old as the hills: this was probably the result of a life of hard labour, as he’d worked the mines as a boy. Even though his family had once been prominent in the town, and their house leaned in wasted splendour against our wall, I never sensed any resentment. In fact, Carlos was always kind and good to us, and his kindness was expressed through his care for the garden.

  To this bright and magical place my mother invited the townspeople. Our dinner parties in the garden were the life of Incarnation, and she was its soul. If I close my eyes for a moment, I can see the huge plank table laid out in the garden with fried chicken and ham sandwiches, and devilled eggs and potato salad with chunks of dill pickles in it. I can still hear the murmur of laughter.

  As the nights drew on, the adults would form a circle with the garden chairs around a campfire. Men lit their hickory pipes. Lupita filled tin cups with coffee from an ancient copper kettle and served hot peach pie, her gnarled old fingers like knots on an oak tree.

  When the stars came out I’d run off into the grove of peach trees that grew deep in our yard. I’d dip my feet in the cold water of the old stone pool—another extravagance left over from the mining days.

  In these escapades I was accompanied by Carolina Sotomayor, Carlos’ daughter, who often helped her father around the garden.

  When Carolina and I were both about eight, she was half-a-head taller than me, with black curly hair and a deeply sun-tanned face. Her father could never get her to wear anything but a dusty pair of overalls. In the summertime, Carolina would come over and help me and my older brother by four years, Jonas Sebastian (my mother called him Sebas, which stuck with everyone but my father) to siphon the mucky water out of the pool and whitewash it. Once it was refilled, we stuck by the pool all summer long.

  With the sun beating down on us and the trees heavy with hot, juicy peaches, our favourite game was to toss a handful of the fruit into the pool. Then we’d dive into the cold water and grasp as many as we could until our breath ran out. I never was a great swimmer, but I pushed myself to impress Carolina.

  One time, I was fooling around in a tree overhanging the pool, beating my chest and making monkey noises. The branch broke, and I fell into the pool, smacking my head against the bottom.

  Stunned, I lay there, my lungs quickly filling with water. I saw the shimmering figures of my friends: they looked like angels. Then there was a thunderous SPLASH! My world was a thousand bubbles, and through them I saw my brother’s slim figure making strong, determined strokes towards me. He grabbed me by the waist, coiled his legs and pushed off from the bottom.

  In an instant, I was back up at the surface. Sebas pressed me on the chest, and Carolina slapped me on the back until, sputtering and coughing, I could breathe again.

  All that summer long, we laughed about my ‘death’ in the pool.

  CHAPTER THREE

  During one dinner party in our garden, Carolina, Sebas and I were sitting around the campfire with the adults. For a long time that night they had spoken of incomprehensible things, like ‘the Balkan question’ and ‘the balance of powers’. When there was a lull in the conversation, my brother piped up, ‘Carlos, please tell us a story, about the time before we arrived in Incarnation.’

  Carlos had no formal schooling, but he was sharp as a whip and knew all the local legends. He would tell the most terrifying stories of the lobisón, the dreaded wolf man, and the nahual that transformed itself into a jaguar. But the story that filled me with the most dread was the tale of the Muladona, a doomed soul transformed into the Devil’s mule, with gnashing, jagged teeth and horseshoes forged in the fires of hell.

  Carlos would usually only tell these stories when Father wasn’t around. I hoped that Mother’s calming presence might make him feel more secure. Turning to look at my father, Carlos asked, ‘ ’Sta bien, mi buen pastor?’

  My father sniffed indifferently and cast his glance towards the peach trees.

  ‘Go on, Carlos,’ my mother urged, stroking Father’s hand.

  Staring into the flames, Carlos began. ‘The most famous conquistador around these parts was Hernando de Soto. You’ve heard of him, I reckon. He arrived in 1541 with a gang of fortune hunters. El Rey Ferdinando said “get gold, humanely if you can, but at all hazards, get gold.” There weren’t nothin’ humane ’bout what they done.

  ‘Back then, this was the land of the Apache, Lipan and Kaddo. Fact is, ya gotta know the word tejas means “friend” in the language of the Kaddo . . . which they done mistook the Spanish for. De Soto and his gang butchered, burned and slaved their way through east Texas.

  ‘Now, the story is that one conquistador separated from de Soto’s lot and made his way through the wilderness alone. Some say he was a deserter who slit a guard’s throat to escape. Others say he was an honest man, disgusted by the bad things he was forced to do. Some say mebbe he was one of my ancestors, and that’s why our name’s Sotomayor. But I ain’t got no idea if that’s true or not. Nobody ’members his name.

  ‘Whatever the reason, this español comes thunderin’ on his horse through the endless brush, facin’ fiery days and frigid nights. He got no food. He got no water. As he hurtles by the very spot where the town now stands, his horse falls dead from exhaustion and sends the rider flyin’. In the gatherin’ dark, the bruised and broken rider huddles against the dead horse for warmth. His teeth chatter as the night covers him with its frost.

  ‘In that dark and terrible night he feels the fever overtake him. He knows his end is comin’. He has nothin’. No friends. No water. He won’t make it to the dawn. So he prays to the Good Lord that he might be faithful to the end, that whatever happens, he may enter the Kingdom.

  ‘In the midst of his prayers and the fever, he has a dream. A beautiful woman with long flowing hair covers him in a soft blue cloak and says: “La tierra te da la bienvenida,” that is, “The earth welcomes you.”

  ‘The rider awakes with the first rays of dawn, and he realises he’s still alive. The fever’s broke, and he’s got a new feelin’. A kind a stirrin’ inside. A . . . what’cha call it?. . . a good spirit. So he gets down on his hands and knees and thanks la Madre María, for he’s convinced she was the woman in his dream. Then he goes about gatherin’ rocks to build a small chapel to the miracle. And that’s where our town got its name, the Chapel of the Incarnation of the Virgin Ma
ry.

  ‘Pryin’ up rocks with the point of his sword, he unearths a mound of flake gold! And there’s plenty more. So there he is, in the middle of nowhere, richer than any man ever was in these here parts. But he ain’t got nothin’ to eat and nowhere to go. But he’s got hope, which is what the Holy Virgin gave him. So he slits the horse’s throat and drinks its salty blood, and this revives him a bit.

  ‘He stuffs his pockets full of gold and sets out into the hills. By some miracle, he makes it out of the wilderness on foot. What’s even more miraculous is he comes back with horses loaded with tools he’d traded with some French trappers. And he brings with him a mix of Apache and Jumano workers, to help him dig a mine.

  ‘Those were my people. We owe this town to the Lady who appeared to the patrón in his time of need. That’s what we call the man who founded this town—the boss—for he gave us wealth, if only for a time. But more than that, he gave us faith.’

  Carlos lapsed into silence once more, staring at the fire. I looked at my mother, her head on Father’s shoulder, her eyes lit up, while he sat rigid, his thin lips pursed.

  There was a silence, and I heard the fire crackle. Then my father blasted, ‘Why do you talk such nonsense, Sotomayor? The Lord does not dabble lightly in miracles. This is surely a local superstition, a way to enslave your people to the Empire in Rome.’