The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

  “What really happened?”

  “Her boyfriend died.”

  “He died? How?”

  “In a motorcycle accident. She was injured, too.”

  “Badly?”

  “Very bad. She lost her leg and she got these scars, on her face, on her arm. That was why she wanted me back, no one else in my village wanted her after that.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I married Rosa.”

  Adam found a pebble between his boots and tossed it into the darkness.

  “And you think the witch did this?”

  “I wanted her back…I didn’t want her to get hurt. That’s why I don’t go near witches anymore.”

  Adam felt for his wallet in his shirt. He took it out and stared at the empty window flap where he had kept the picture of Elena.

  He knew he had to get it back.

  * * *

  It was long after dark when they saw the jeep’s headlights swing up the road from the town.

  “Bernard,” Luis said.

  Bernard parked in front of the clinic and jumped out. He looked drained. “The boy’s still alive,” he said. “They had to remove his spleen.”

  “He should be dead,” Adam said. “How long was he lying there on the floor? I didn’t even put an airway in.”

  “His friends all say it was the amulet. The story will be all over the district by morning. The Crow will get all the credit.”

  “Well, this time I don’t deserve any. I did everything I could for the other boy and he died anyway. I didn’t do anything for the other one and he lived.”

  “God works in mysterious ways.”

  Adam scowled. ‘Mysterious’ was not the word he would have chosen.

  When he finally got to bed the moon was rising over the mountains and the cross on top of Bernard’s church was silhouetted against the night sky. He heard a coyote howl somewhere in the vastness.

  He had told Jamie that he didn’t believe in miracles, but she was right when she said that there were many things that did not quite meld with his philosophy; like the dog that had survived a car accident in Denver that had killed its owner and then was found weeks later on the front doorstep of the family home in Boston; a six week old baby brought in to the ER uninjured from a car wreck that killed four adults; and now this.

  He had read somewhere that nothing was impossible, that given enough time even the most unlikely event must happen. It was called the law of averages.

  He had left one man to die and he had lived; he had used all his skills to save the other and he had died. He supposed nothing in life was fair. He had seen too many children die in trauma rooms to believe that.

  If you tried to make sense of the things that happened in an emergency room you’d go mad. Once he had a biker and a cop brought in to the ER after a shoot out. The cop died on the table and the biker survived what should have been a fatal gunshot wound. He was told later that the biker was on parole for rape. What kind of God would save the cop and let a rapist live?

  He didn’t know and he didn’t care to know. He suspected that perhaps the rules of life were nothing like he thought they were. In fact he wasn’t sure he knew anything anymore.

  Chapter 41

  After he finished up the morning clinic, he told Luis to finish tidying things away, that he was going for a walk. As he was walking out of the door he heard Luis call after him: “He’s gone.”

  “Who?”

  “The Crow.”

  He wondered how he knew where he was going. Perhaps everyone knew, everyone except Bernard; they knew but no one would say.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’? Gone where?”

  Luis just shrugged his shoulders.

  It was all Adam could do not to break into a run.

  * * *

  The skull with the cigar and the altar with its little effigy, they were both gone. When he came in view of the house, there was no pick-up parked outside. But as he got closer he heard a growl and saw the dog, still there, chained to the veranda post. The front door banged in the wind. He hesitated, buffeted by the hot wind.

  For a moment Adam wondered if he could somehow circle around the dog and break into the house, but decided against it. The Crow could be back any minute. Even the devil didn’t leave his dog to starve.

  He watched a snake uncoil itself from the shadows and slither off the veranda.

  To hell with Luis and his horror stories. To hell with the Crow.

  He turned and walked away.

  Chapter 43

  They all watched the SUV bounce up the dirt road from San Cristobal.

  Adam’s suitcases were packed and ready on the veranda. He was eager to get back to Beacon Hill, to a modern medical facility, no more dust and heat, no more fucking tortillas. He wanted a steak and eggs, and a Starbucks. He wanted to go to the movies.

  He tried not to let his eagerness show out of deference to the others. Bernard had said he was sorry to see him go, kept telling him what a good job he had done. He thought Luis was going to cry. They waited with him as the SUV pulled up.

  When Jamie jumped down from the cab she hugged her father, shook hands with Luis, and gave Adam a curt nod.

  “Me gusto verte,” he said. It’s good to see you.

  She gave him a chill smile. “Why?” she asked, and went inside to have coffee with her father.

  Luis helped him load his cases into the back of the SU,. and together they carried in the medical supplies she had brought with her. One of the village dogs appeared, barking at Adam and baring its teeth.

  “He doesn’t want you to go either,” Luis said, but Adam didn’t think his imminent departure had anything to do with it. In fact it unnerved him. He couldn’t wait to leave Santa Marta now, and he promised himself he would never ever come back.

  * * *

  He waited until they were back on the asphalt before he tried to break the ice. “can we talk?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “You have every right to be mad at me.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened. Can we let it go?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s two sures and a thanks. What should I try for next? A maybe?”

  She turned for a moment to look at him. “Maybe.”

  “Okay I give up.”

  He stared at the wretched landscape. There had been thick forest here once, Bernard said. Now it was barren.

  “You humiliated me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t know why I bother with men. I think I’ll get a dog. They’re loyal, they don’t go looking for other owners after a couple of months and they don’t steal your money or your apartment. I mean who needs sex, right?”

  “I’ve been in a mountain top valley for the last six months. Apparently, I do.”

  “Well don’t look at me. There’s a few truck stops along the highway to Vera Cruz that have girls. I can drop you off for ten minutes. Would that be too long?”

  He let that slide. “Maybe I preferred it when you didn’t say anything.”

  “I’m sick of machismo. You don’t want a woman; you want a conquest. My ex wouldn’t close his eyes when he kissed me in case something better walked past. I bet this girl of yours, if she came back to you, you’d lose interest in six months.”

  He thought about that. Was it true, did he only want Elena back because she had left him? Was it just wounded pride then? But he had to stop thinking about that now, he had promised himself that when he got back to Beacon Hill he would make a fresh start, go to concerts and movies, have beers with his buddies, perhaps even head up to New Hampshire, see his mother as she was always pestering him to do.

  Perhaps even start dating again--properly, not just for revenge.

  And also, the next time he was with a woman he wouldn’t call out Elena’s name again. That would be a step in the right direction.

  He found himself thinking about the Crow. He fe
lt dirty even thinking about that afternoon. He would try to pretend none of that had ever happened.

  “What did you think of the competition?” she asked him, almost as if she could read his mind.

  “The competition?”

  “The witch.”

  “You know what I think.”

  “You never went up there to see him?”

  “Why would I do that?” he said. For a moment he was tempted to confess, unburden himself to her. Perhaps she would laugh it off and tell him he was stupid and that he’d thrown his money away. If he heard someone tell him that, perhaps it wouldn’t bother him so much anymore.

  But he couldn’t tell her what he’d done; he was too ashamed.

  They drove in silence for a while.

  “Dad said the Crow finally packed up and left. He was pretty happy about it.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “How do you know?”

  He was about to tell her about seeing his dog still chained up outside the house and thought better of it. “Just a feeling.”

  “Dad’s pretty sure he’s gone for good. Said he just got on his broomstick and lit right on out of there.”

  “Actually, he drove a pick-up.”

  “For someone who doesn’t believe in witches, you seem to know a lot about him.”

  “I just know he drives a pick-up.”

  “Go figure. Where’s the romance in that?”

  “I guess. But you can fit more in the back.”

  “Hard to fit all those dead bats in a standard boot, right?” she said, and he supposed it was a joke, but he didn’t smile.

  “We had a lot of trouble with amphibians.”

  He waited for her to ask the obvious question, but she didn’t.

  “Specifically frogs. Sometimes toads.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Every week I had at least one woman come to the clinic claiming there was a frog inside her. They all said the Crow put it there. Most of them had stopped eating and were getting very sick, either from mental stress or actual malnutrition.”

  “What did you do?”

  “At first I tried placebos. You know, sugar pills. But that didn’t seem to work, so then I tried operating. A frogectomy. I pioneered a new branch of medicine in fact.”

  He saw her lips curl slightly in a half smile.

  “You operated?”

  “I used large forceps. I showed them to my patient and they were always sufficiently impressed and terrified. Then I told them I was going to remove whatever was inside. I’d tape their eyes shut and then I injected a mild dose of novocaine to numb their mouth. Then I pretended to fumble around inside them, with sufficient theatrics of course. At the end of this little performance I un-taped their eyes and presented them with a glass specimen jar with a dead toad in it.”

  “A toad.”

  “Or whatever was available. I had Luis catch them in his shower every day. When he ran out he used to catch them in the creek.”

  She actually laughed. A promising sign. “Did it work?”

  “A one hundred per cent success rate, better than most surgeons I know. All smoke and mirrors. I fought the Crow with his own weapons.”

  “I have a question. How did these women know that the Crow had put the frog inside them?”

  “Someone told them, I suppose.”

  “You never asked them?”

  “I never believed them.”

  “Because I wonder if the Crow can hurt someone if no one tells one of his victims that he’s cast a spell on them?”

  “An interesting question. I’ll have to invent some kind of device to measure how far a spell can travel. A spellometer.” He looked out of the window at the vapour trails high in the sky, planes heading north across the Gulf back to the US. “It seems quite localized. Personally I don’t think his magic can travel further than people can gossip.”

  “Well I’m glad you have it all figured out,” she said.

  * * *

  A few hours later they were in Mexico City.

  They stopped at the lights on Rio Churubusco and a mime with a painted face and a flowerpot hat ran up to their car. He mimed spraying the windshield with water then went through the motions of scrubbing the glass clean and scraping off the water. Adam wound down his window and handed him a few coins.

  “He did a good job,” Adam said, tapping the glass. “Look at that, it’s sparkling.”

  “Santa Marta has changed you,” she said.

  “He’s just trying to make a living.”

  A few minutes later she pulled in to the terminal at Benito Suarez. He hesitated before getting out.

  “I hope we meet each other again,” he said.

  “Why would you hope that?”

  “I like you.”

  “Yes, but not the way you like this other girl. I have proof of that.”

  “I’m never going to get past that, am I?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Guess I really blew it.”

  “You’re just horny because you’ve gone dry for six months. In two days you won’t remember me, in a week you won’t remember Mexico.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I believe in fate, Adam. If we’re meant to see each other again, we will. Have a good flight.” He went to the boot and got his suitcases.

  Another few hours and he would be back in Boston. It didn’t seem real.

  He went to the driver’s window and leaned in. “I really feel like I missed a great opportunity here.”

  “So do I,” she said and sped away.

  Chapter 44

  Boston

  There was an Irish pub on the street where Elena worked in the Financial District. He sat by the window with a pint of Guinness and pretended to stare at the laminated menu. He used to meet her here for lunch on his days off. That seemed like so long ago now.

  He glanced at his watch, wondered if she was working through.

  He saw a tall, dark-haired man in a business suit standing outside her building with his back to the glass doors. Adam watched him, tapping his coaster against the window in a fast tattoo.

  He saw her run out and embrace him. They kissed.

  He crumpled the coaster in his fist.

  They started to walk toward him. For a brief moment he panicked, thinking they might come into the pub, but they walked straight past on the other side of the street. She had her arm around the man’s waist. She looked happy.

  But his eyes were on him, not on her. Hardly George Clooney, he thought. He didn’t have personal bodyguards or a Rolex or perfect hair. Just another guy.

  They were leaning into each other with that casual intimacy of lovers, and they were both laughing. She used to walk hand in hand with Adam like that once.

  He left his Guinness on the table and walked out. He shouldn’t have come here. What was he thinking?

  I just wanted to see her again, he told himself. This was just a test. If I knew I could see her again and not feel anything, I would know I was finally over her.

  Well if it was a test, he had blown it. He thought about what Jamie had told him about the Aztecs, how they could rip your heart out while you were still alive. “It’s just a pump,” he had said, ‘a piece of muscle.”

  Just a pump.

  * * *

  The sheets had tangled around his feet and he kicked them off. He lay awake for a long while, got hard just thinking about her, imagining her there beside him. He needed relief and found it alone, crying as he came. Afterwards he got up and went to the kitchen and looked through his liquor selection and took down a bottle of Black Jack.

  He had a headache he couldn’t shake. He swallowed a couple of Advil, chased it with the bourbon. He wanted her back--no matter what it took, he wanted her back. He couldn’t go on living like this. He thought about the Crow. Do your worst, he thought. Show me your stuff. Work your magic.

  Bring her back!

  Chapter 45

  He dialled her numbe
r and held his breath. This is what it must be like, he thought, when you get hooked on junk or the blackjack tables, this same cold dread, at the same time you feel like you’re just so alive, like only one thing matters and everything else is just a blur.

  He heard her pick up. He tried to make it light: “Hi, Elena, how’s things? It’s Adam.”

  There was a long pause, then a tentative: “Hi, Adam.”

  “I just got back from Mexico.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the photos you sent me. Looks amazing.”

  “Yeah, it was really something. I guess we don’t realise how lucky we are, the health care we have here.”

  There was silence, as they both waited for him to get to the point.

  “I wondered if we could catch up for a coffee or a drink or something.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “You said we could still be friends. I haven’t seen you for over six months. It would be good just to talk to you again.”

  He held the phone in a death grip and waited.

  “Maybe lunch tomorrow then. I don’t have long; we’re really busy at the moment, we’re pitching for a big account.”

  They arranged to meet in the Irish pub across the road, where he had spied on her that afternoon. He hung up before she had the chance to change her mind.

  Chapter 46

  She looked glorious; perfectly tanned, she was wearing a white power suit with a powder blue blouse. She could turn heads like no woman he ever knew.

  As she walked in she looked around the bar, then saw him and gave a little wave. As she came over he saw the ring on her finger and couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “Hi, Adam, you’re looking good.”

  “Not as good as you.”

  She sat down and immediately started fidgeting with her coaster, tearing it into little pieces. He’d already ordered her drink.

  He tried not to look at the ring.