The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

  They left.

  He saw Father Bernard speaking to them outside, saw him pat the girl on the head and smile at her. He looked around and saw Adam watching him. Their eyes met for a moment. Bernard shrugged. He looked every bit as baffled as Adam did.

  Chapter 34

  As the weeks went by, there were more and more villagers coming to the clinic with strange maladies that they attributed to the effects of the maldad negra. If they had no money they would come to him looking for el poder blanco. More often he suspected they went up to the bluff, to visit the Crow and have the curse removed.

  Adam decided it was time he went to take a look at the Crow for himself.

  * * *

  There was a full waiting room in the clinic that morning, as there was most days. Around midday a little boy was brought in with an anaphylaxis, he guessed from an insect bite. He was blue and wheezing. He gave him an adrenalin shot and within half an hour he was resting quietly with an intravenous line in place. His parents fell on their knees and prayed to God for the miracle.

  He wanted to say to them: never mind God, what about the white witch of Boston?

  The first moment he had alone was later that afternoon. Bernard had driven in to San Cristobal for supplies and Luis had slipped away for a siesta. He walked to the edge of the village and looked up the track that led to the Crow’s adobe house on the bluff.

  He started up the path. It was narrow and rocky, followed the lip of the deep gully and the creek bed far below. Halfway up he stopped in his tracks, staring at the skull placed beside the path, a fat cigar jammed between its teeth. Another fifty paces further on there was an altar with the skin and skull of a snake and a cloth effigy with pins stuck in it.

  The Crow’s house stood on its own. There was a dusty pick-up parked outside. A dog lay on its side on the veranda but as he came closer it picked up his scent. It jumped up and started howling. It was chained to one of the veranda posts or it would have attacked him.

  He supposed that was as close as he was going to get unseen. The Crow came out and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and dragged it back onto the veranda. Adam turned and started back down the hill. He turned back once to look over his shoulder and he saw the Crow watching him.

  He swore he saw him smile.

  Chapter 35

  He pulled out the photograph that he kept in his wallet and stared at it, as he had done every day he had been in Santa Marta. It was creased and dog-eared. He didn’t really need it, he could conjure her smile, the look in her eyes, even her scent just by closing his eyes.

  “come back to me,” he whispered.

  * * *

  He and Bernard hiked up to the Olmec ruins at the top of the valley. It was a two-hour climb along narrow goat tracks through thorn bush and cactus, and by the time they got there they were both bathed in sweat and their legs were covered in long, deep scratches.

  But it was worth it, Adam thought. A stone pyramid rose from the plateau, grey, silent and unexpected. Bernard laughed at his look of surprise. “Hurry up before the tourists get here,” he said, a private joke.

  They sipped from their water bottles and got their breath back. Tumbleweed scattered in the face of a searing wind. A turkey vulture glided overhead, searching for animal remains in the gully.

  “How old is this?”

  “It was probably here at the time of the Crucifixion.” Bernard said, ‘and probably a long time before. It’s something, isn’t it?”

  The stones had been worn smooth by wind and rain but he could make out the face of an ancient serpent god snarling at him.

  “Do you want to go up?” Bernard said.

  Adam nodded.

  It was steep, and by the time they reached the pinnacle they were both labouring for breath and Adam could feel his heart banging inside his chest. Bernard was wiry and hard for his age, accustomed to hard climbs, but even he slumped to his haunches when they got there.

  The very top of the pyramid was flat and about the size of a racquetball court. From it they had a view all the way down the valley towards Santa Marta and the mountains of Guatemala to the south.

  They sat there in silence for a long time.

  “They sacrificed people up here,” Bernard said. “They weren’t as bloodthirsty as the Aztecs but they practised human sacrifice, the same as they did. The blood of young men and women flowed down those stone gutters once, so that the gods would send rain and make the crops grow.” He stood up and spread his arms. “They would have had a shrine to one of their diabolical gods right about where you’re sitting. They gods each held a stone bowl and that was where they placed the hearts of their freshly killed sacrifices as offerings. They invited great evil into this place. That is how it happens, I believe. You invite it in and it comes.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the Devil?”

  “If you love the light, then you have to believe in the darknessalso.”

  “You mean the Crow?”

  “I do not think the Devil interferes in the world, and neither does our Creator. I think all evil is done through the power of persuasion.”

  “Persuasion?”

  “We all hear two voices calling us either to the light or the dark, Doctor Prescott. There’s a story in the gospels, perhaps you know it? It tells how Jesus went up the mountain to do battle with the devil. Lucifer showed him the whole world below and said, ‘look you have all this power, why not take anything you want?” But Jesus resisted him, he said it’s God’s will that matters, not mine. But most of us do not have the power to resist, and that is how the devil breaks us. He shows us the things that are not ours to have, the things we think we want but that will ultimately destroy us.”

  The sun was fast sinking in the sky. The wind whistled through the ancient stones.

  “come on, Doctor Prescott, it’s time we left. It will be getting dark very soon. This is one place I do not wish to be without the light.”

  Chapter 36

  Bernard drove them into San Cristobal. Adam felt like a yokel dumped in the middle of Times Square; there were tourists, women selling coloured straps, belts and dolls, there was traffic and tourist buses and crowds. While Bernard went to get supplies Adam wandered off to look for an internet cafe. His chest felt tight as he opened his email, hoping to see her name in his inbox. Two weeks ago, when they had last come into town, he had sent her pictures of the village and a chatty email telling her what he was doing. He had been hoping for some sort of response.

  But there was mostly junk mail, pages of it. “You pathetic bastard,” he muttered to himself and closed down the page. He passed some coins to the girl at the desk and walked out into the bright sunshine.

  He was like a junkie craving a fix. She’s not coming back, he told himself. Why can’t you leave this alone?

  He had rehearsed it over and over in his mind, how it would be: one day he would get an email from her telling him what a terrible mistake she had made and how she had changed her mind. She would beg him to take her back.

  You dumb fuck, Adam. It’s not going to happen, it’s not ever fucking going to happen. Get over it.

  Move on.

  Chapter 37

  He and Luis ate their usual dinner of beans and hot tortillas and wiped their plates clean. When they had drunk their milky coffee they went outside and Luis sat down on the steps beside him and rolled a cigarette.

  Except for an occasional lumbering flatbed truck, the street was quiet.

  “What do you think of the Crow?” Adam asked him.

  “The brujo? I’m frightened of him.”

  “You believe what he tells people?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you been to see him?”

  Luis looked frightened.

  “No, never. I’m a good Christian.”

  “You won’t get into any trouble, Luis. You can tell me the truth.”

  “It’s not good to go to see a witch. Father Bernard says so.”

  “Yo
u must have been once in your life.”

  Luis shook his head.

  “I’m not going to tell the padre. I’m just curious how it works. I need someone to tell me, someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

  Luis hesitated. “Well, maybe once.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was a long time ago. Before Father Bernard came here.”

  “Did you see the Crow?”

  “No, it was another witch. It was when I lived in San Cristobal. People said he was very powerful.”

  “Why did you go to see him?”

  “My girlfriend left me for another boy. I wanted her back.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got her back, like he said I would.”

  “So it works?”

  “If it is a powerful witch, not just anyone. You just need a photograph or a piece of hair or something that belongs to her and he will do the rest.”

  “And the Crow is a powerful witch?”

  “They say he is the most powerful witch in all Mexico. Everyone is scared of him.” He lowered his voice. “Almost everyone in the village has been to see him, but don’t let Father Bernard know. He will be very upset. But people still go to the church. It can be a very hard life here in Mexico, and you cannot have too much magic.”

  “No,” Adam said. “I guess no one can ever have too much magic.”

  * * *

  The clinic was finished for the day. Bernard had gone to visit a nearby village, said he would not be back before dark. Luis had gone with him.

  He sat on the steps, staring up at the hill. Everyone had taken shelter from the heat of the day; even the village dogs were asleep. Adam put his hands over his ears, trying to shut out the drone of insects.

  Another week and he would be back in Boston. He had marked the days on the calendar in his journal, crossing them off like it was a tour of duty.

  This might be your last chance, Adam.

  He took his wallet out of his back pocket and stared it yet again. Come back to me.

  He made up his mind and set off through the village. He stopped when he reached the path up to the bluff and looked back over his shoulder, as if he was being watched.

  No one need ever know.

  He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and set off.

  * * *

  He walked with his head down, past the skull with the cigar and the altar with its little effigy. When he came in view of the house, there was no pick-up outside, and he was afraid the Crow was not there. But as he got closer he heard a growl and the Crow’s yellow dog leaped to its feet and started to run towards him. It only got as far as the length of its chain and was held there, straining at the leash, red-eyed, howling.

  The door crashed open and the Crow stepped out in leather cowboy boots and a broad-rimmed hat. When he saw Adam he gave a wolfish grin.

  “I wondered when you would come,” he said.

  Chapter 38

  Adam glanced around the room. There were boxes of roots and dried evil smelling herbs everywhere, dried bats, rattlesnake skins. There was a niche in the wall with a statue of Santa Muerte, a Madonna with a skull instead of a face. There was an inverted crucifix beside it. A fat, pale lizard sat frozen on the wall.

  The Crow leaned towards him. The rattlesnake tooth on its silver chain flashed in the light of the candle.

  “What is it you want?” he said. “I can give you anything, anything. Todo que quieres.”

  Anything, anything.

  Chapter 39

  The waiting room at the clinic was full. Adam was examining one of the village children, trying to figure out the cause of the rash on her back and arms while she screamed and wriggled in her mother’s arms. He heard a jeep screech to a stop outside, then voices shouting in the waiting room.

  “Momentito,” he said to the woman, and he and Luis went outside.

  Two men had rolled their pick-up in the mountains. Their friends had rescued them and brought them straight to the clinic. They stood there in the waiting room, eyes wide with panic, covered in sweat and dirt and blood. Luis translated the machine gun Spanish for him; the truck had rolled down a gulley, they had to climb halfway down a mountain to get them.

  He ushered the mother and child out of the examining room and the inured men were brought in on makeshift stretchers made from pine saplings and blankets. He had them lay one of them on the table, the other on the floor. He told Luis to fetch Bernard, that he would need help. He cut the blood-drenched clothes from the men’s heaving bodies.

  He had to make a decision: which one of these men would live or die, because he knew he could not give his attention to both. The one on the table was choking on his own blood; he coughed up a fine, pink spray. He put a tube into his lungs to help him breathe, and when Luis came back he showed him how to work the bag-mask.

  He stepped away to check his friend on the floor. He was already blue-grey; Adam could barely find a pulse. He needed a rapid infusion of plasma and they didn’t have enough.

  He would have to leave him to die.

  He found a scalpel and clamped off a length of tube and then went back to the table. He used alcohol swabs to wipe away the blood on the man’s chest and found himself looking into the face of Jesus. He had been tattooed onto the man’s torso. He had to cut through his crown of thorns to make his incision, felt a pop of air as he inserted the clamp, and then put his finger into the man’s chest to ensure the opening into the pleural space. He thought Luis was going to pass out.

  “Don’t look,” he said to him. “Just concentrate on doing what I told you.”

  He inserted the tube and kept it in place with a Z stitch and tape. The drain appeared to be working. He set up an intravenous line.

  “We need an X-ray now,” Adam said, and they carried the stretcher through to the next room and laid him on the X-ray table.

  It was a primitive machine but it was all they had. Adam put a lead apron on himself and Luis and ushered everyone else out of the room while he got film of the man’s chest. When Bernard arrived he left him to develop the X-rays and he and Luis carried the patient back into the treatment room.

  His patient was still losing blood pressure despite the fluid he was pushing into him. In Boston he would have sent him straight up to the operating room. But the closest hospital was two hours away down a dirt road in San Cristobal. This guy wasn’t going to make it.

  Bernard brought him the X-rays but he didn’t have time to look at them. The alarm went off on their ECG. The heart was fibrillating. There must be a massive internal bleed somewhere, Adam thought. He gave him three shocks with the paddles, found another vein, opened another line. He went into fibrillation a second time.

  Bernard fetched his Bible and oils and read him the Last Rites. Adam stopped compressions and glanced at the ECG. The man’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

  It was over. He stood back. Luis was still working the bag mask, diligent to the end. Adam told him to stop.

  He looked down at his other patient, lying on the floor at his feet, expecting to see him lifeless as well. An eye blinked open and he groaned. He knelt down and checked his pulse. Incredibly, the man was still alive.

  “I don’t believe it,” Adam said. “Okay, help me get him up on the table.”

  Chapter 40

  “Can we move him?” Bernardsaid.

  “He’s stable enough. But he needs a proper hospital.” He turned to Luis. “Tell his friends they should take him down to San Cristobal now.”

  “No, I’ll take him,” Bernard said. “These boys look like they’ve been through enough.”

  As they were lifting him, Adam noticed the amulet around the man’s neck, secured by a leather thong. It looked familiar.

  One of his friends saw him examine it and said, in Spanish: “It’s his lucky charm.”

  “Well, it seems to have worked for him. Where did he get it?”

  “He got it from the Crow,” the man whispered, clearl
y hoping Bernard would not hear.

  They loaded the stretcher into the back of Bernard’s jeep and Adam watched it kick up a trail of dust as they headed down the dirt road. It was late in the afternoon; he must have been working on those men for hours, though it seemed like only a few minutes. The sudden release of adrenalin left him exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  He felt someone tugging at his elbow. It was the woman. She held up her child and showed him the rash. She was still waiting.

  “This way,” he said. They went back into the examining room. It reeked of sweat and the coppery smell of blood. Luis was still cleaning away the bloodied bandages and sheets. The dead man lay on the floor, the tube flopping useless out of his ribs.

  The woman didn’t even give him a second glance.

  Adam sat her down on a chair and lifted up the child’s dress and took another look at the rash.

  And life went on.

  * * *

  Luis helped him carry the dead man out to the pick-up. Two of his friends had stayed behind to take his body home to his family. After they put him on the tray Adam flipped back the white sheet and stared at the inked face of Jesus, livid now against the ashen skin. He shuddered and quickly covered him again.

  As they watched the old truck trundle away with its sad cargo, he turned to Luis. “Tell me again, that time you went to a witch, when you wanted that girl to love you again. You remember telling me about that?”

  Luis looked away.

  “You remember?”

  He nodded.