The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 8

8

After the dogs killed the chickens and there wasn’t enough money to pay Se?or Echeverria the rent, Nena had accompanied her mamá to the tíos’ trucking business next to Union Station. The streets around the train station smelled of axel grease, coal smoke. Men and women in clothes not much better than rags waited in front of the entrances, selling small paper bags of pecans, single cigarettes, ugly pink roses.

At the Montoya Brothers warehouse, trucks idled at the loading dock. Nena walked with her mamá up the steps, through the warehouse, past a shiny new Ford, to the glassed-in offices at the back. After Tío Agripino listened to Nena’s mamá request a loan, he opened the safe, took out a small stack of bills, and put them in a manila envelope. He made Nena’s mamá sign a slip of paper saying how much he’d given her, $31, exactly what she owed, and then he added interest on top of that. Nena hated that the tíos were going to make them pay the money back. It was wrong to treat family like this, especially since her papá would have worked for the family business if he were able.

The loan was only enough to cover rent, with nothing left over to buy more chickens. Nena had to do something to help the family, and she had an idea where she could start. When Nena had her vision that Se?or Echeverria would die, she’d been terrified, but she also sensed that the place she’d been taken then was full of possibilities.

She waited until she was alone later that week, and then she took the money from where her mamá had hidden it, a pot at the back of the cupboard. Holding the envelope, she opened her mind, asking for assistance from the other side. Nena heard a buzzing in her ears, and her vision flickered. She tasted dust, saw the hooves of horses trampling her, felt them land on her body. When she came back to herself, she was lying on the floor of the kitchen, staring up at the ceiling, the long crack that went from the light fixture to the door frame wobbling. Nena got up, rubbing the back of her head, a bump already forming, but that didn’t bother her. She was pleased, sure that her gift had shown her a way to make a lot of money out of not enough.

From the age of ten, Nena’s father rode with his brothers out into the hills around Tularosa every spring to round up wild horses to break and then sell. The three brothers slept outside and made campfires of mesquite, cooked tortillas on a comal, ate dried beef. Once they drove the mustangs home, her papá’s job was to hold the gate open while Agripino and Hernán herded the horses into the corral. The horses kicked and bit, they bucked, and her papá had to learn quickly how horses behaved so that he wouldn’t be hurt or killed. He said that he only started to love horses once he’d learned to respect them, and he often talked longingly about the racetrack in Juárez.

Nena understood what the vision had commanded her to do. If her papá could see the racehorses in person, he would know which one would come in first place. When their horse won, her papá would praise her for being a smart, good girl, and her mamá wouldn’t need to pray the rosary for so long every night, the sound of the beads clicking through her fingers. They could pay their rent, settle the loan with the tíos, buy new chickens, and everything could go back to the way it was supposed to be.

Nena should have left it at that. But she wanted to make extra sure that their bet on the horse would work, and so she went to see Do?a Hilaria.

There were two curanderas in the neighborhood, Do?a Hilaria and Se?ora Beatríz. Se?ora Beatríz was the nice curandera. She wore white huipils with pretty stitching, and she had a long braid that she wound around her head. Se?ora Beatríz always kept hard candies in her bag, little peppermints she gave to Nena when she saw her on the street. She did most of her business in love charms. One time she gave Se?or León a charm, a maroon bag on a string that he tied around his neck, tight, so that it looked like a tumor. The charm was supposed to make Daisy Camacho fall in love with him, but then Se?or León died of a stroke. Daisy met his nephew Raimuldo at the velatorio, the wake, and the next month they were married. Another time, Juanita Espinosa wanted to have a baby, so she went to Se?ora Beatríz for a charm to use with her husband. She didn’t get pregnant, but her cat, who she thought was a gato macho, soon gave birth to six kittens that she had to give away to the neighbors.

The other curandera, Do?a Hilaria, didn’t make mistakes like that. When she put the mal de ojo on people, they got very thin, or they lost all their hair, or their teeth fell out all at once. And if she was paid to get rid of a curse, she could make someone who had a terrible cough and blue fingertips look rosy within the week.

Do?a Hilaria lived alone with five little dogs. Everyone in the neighborhood said the chihuahuas slept with her in her bed, and that she fed them raw chicken from her mouth like she was a mama bird. Nena didn’t know what stories about Do?a Hilaria were true, but they all scared her. It took all of Nena’s courage to make herself go to Do?a Hilaria’s house, to walk up the dusty road and stop in front of her yard. Mesquite grew so close together that their branches were woven into a thorny thicket that hid the house. Nena walked through the gate, past the mess of mesquite, and up the steps to the front door. She knocked. The dogs yapped, scrabbling at the door. She knocked again.

“ándale pues,” Do?a Hilaria yelled. That could either mean go away or come in. Nena reached for the handle and turned it, pushing the door open. The dogs barked louder, jumping up and snapping in the air. Nena could feel their little teeth on her hands, their spit wetting her skin. She tried to push them away with her feet. The house smelled like dog, along with the sour, yeasty smell of things fermenting. In the kitchen, Do?a Hilaria was at a big pot, boiling up something that didn’t smell edible. She was a tall woman, stooped, and very skinny, wearing a thin housedress, white printed with blue polka dots. Her feet were bare, her toenails dirty and long.

“Sientate,” she said, though there was no place at the kitchen table to sit. The smell of dog now hit the back of Nena’s throat. Do?a Hilaria must have let them go to the bathroom inside, and there was hair everywhere, on the chair, clumps of it on the floor, even on the wall where they dragged their bodies. Nena tried to brush the hair off her dress, but that just matted it down. Do?a Hilaria poured milk in a saucepan. From where Nena sat, she could smell that the milk had turned sour, and no wonder. It was the summer, and Do?a Hilaria didn’t have an icebox.

Do?a Hilaria unwrapped a bit of chocolate from a piece of wax paper and used a paring knife to shave the chocolate into the milk. Her fingernails were as grimy as her toenails.

She started to stir the chocolate into the hot milk, spinning a wooden molinillo between her palms. She dribbled the chocolate into a little clay taza and cleared room on the table for it. Nena was afraid to offend her by not drinking the chocolate, so she took a sip, tasting sour milk and dog. Nausea roiled in her stomach, and she swallowed hard to push it down. Do?a Hilaria poured the rest of the chocolate into a saucer that she set on the floor. The dogs licked up the hot chocolate, chasing the rattling plate under the table and snapping at each other.

“Speak,” Do?a Hilaria said.

Nena told Do?a Hilaria what she wanted, the name of the winning horse, and Do?a Hilaria nodded, naming her price. Nena counted out the bills from the stack, handing them to Do?a Hilaria, who put them in a tin on her counter. She took herbs down from her rack and shook them next to Nena’s right ear, nodding her head yes, or no, making two small piles. The dogs calmed down, lying in a tangle on an old blanket in the corner of the kitchen. Do?a Hilaria banged around tins and jars, putting herbs into a molcajete, pounding them into a fine dust. She poured the powder onto a piece of paper that tipped through a funnel into a little bag that she tied with red thread from a spool, using her tiny sharp teeth like scissors.

Do?a Hilaria stopped, turning her head, like someone was saying something to her. She grumbled a sentence Nena didn’t understand, and then cleared her throat, collecting a big wad of mucus that she spat in the sink. She pulled a glass from a shelf and filled it with water from the tap, then banged it down on the table in front of Nena.

Do?a Hilaria then handed Nena an egg, pretty and brown, with freckles, as perfect as the eggs from their best hens, now departed.

“Crack it into the glass,” Do?a Hilaria said.

Nena was disappointed that this was what she was spending her money on. Telling the future by looking at eggs was nothing special.

“What are you waiting for? I have other things to do today,” Do?a Hilaria said.

Nena held the egg, cupping it between her hands. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer over it. Please let us win at the horse races, please let us make enough money to pay the rent for this month and for many months to come . She pictured a fast, muscular horse ridden by a jockey wearing blue and white, and she saw the cheering crowd, her papá holding a big wad of twenty-dollar bills. Nena prayed. Dios nos bendiga. Amen.

She opened her eyes, giving the egg a little shake for extra good luck. Do?a Hilaria leaned in, watching her closely. The dogs got off their bed, clicking their little nails over the linoleum, pointing their noses up at Nena.

She held the egg in her fingers, then cracked it on the side of the glass, carefully opening it. The white and the yolk slipped out of the shell, but something else did, too. Blood filled the glass, bright red.

Do?a Hilaria jumped at Nena, grabbing her chin in her hand. “What is this? What kind of trick are you playing on me?”

“I prayed to win. That’s all.”

“Liar. Mentirosa. Bruja. Get out, demon, and take your money with you. Don’t come back here ever again,” she said, retrieving the wad of cash from her tin, almost throwing it at Nena. Nena shook, dropping the bills on the floor. She bent to gather them away from the snapping teeth of the dogs. “Out!” screamed Do?a Hilaria, like Nena wasn’t just a girl, like she was something evil. When she shut the door with a bang behind her, Nena could hear the hum growing louder on the other side. She ran all the way home, not sure what she’d done.

Sitting in her cell in the cold convent after the last prayers of the night, Nena pondered why she hadn’t taken the blood in the glass for the sign that it so clearly was. Stop, the blood meant. Danger ahead. Why had she persisted in taking her papá to the racetrack? She’d stupidly thought that the magic from La Vista was the solution to her problems. Instead, La Vista had brought more disaster. Here in the convent, she’d yet again called the awful power of La Vista to her, setting something in motion that she had no control over. Nena wished she’d refused to take part in the aquelarre, wished she’d walked right back out through the turnstile. She’d been careless, not having learned the lesson that magic always complicates.

But Nena was no longer that girl who went to see Do?a Hilaria. She had to start acting like a responsible person. Step one was to focus on the most important thing: getting herself home. It may have been impossible to jump through time, but Nena had done it somehow. That meant there had to be a way to do it again.

And—exciting thought!—maybe she didn’t have to look that hard for the solution. What about the ladybugs? In the chapel, she’d sent a ladybug through space to Carmela. That was how Nena had moved through time, fast, blinking from then to now, not even sensing that she’d made the jump. Learning how to send ladybugs might give Nena an understanding about how the movement worked. If she could transport a small body, maybe she could move a large one, her own.

Finding time alone with Carmela was harder than Nena could have imagined, and it wasn’t until a couple of days later that she saw her chance. Carmela told Nena she was going to the portería to buy food, and Nena volunteered to come along.

The portería was the lobby to the convent, a space where the nuns could do business with the townspeople without having to leave the compound. When they reached the lobby, the majordomo was unlocking the big door to the outside.

“You said you’d teach me how to send ladybugs,” Nena said as quietly as she could. She didn’t have any time to waste, and that this was as close to private as a conversation was going to get in the convent.

Carmela scanned the room with her eyes. “First things first. To control the ladybugs, you have to be able to call La Vista to you without fainting.”

“I was able to do it in the chapel.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have any idea what you were doing. And when you called La Vista to you in the aquelarre, you cracked your head on the floor. Here,” Carmela said, lifting her little silver cross up over her head and placing it around Nena’s neck. “My cross has spells sung into it that’ll help balance you. Hold on to my arm so that you feel steady. La Vista uses your whole body. When you call the ladybugs to you, keep one foot on the riverbank—that’s your body, this time and place—and one foot in the river—the river’s La Vista—so that you’re not swept away. Sí?”

“No,” Nena said. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“When you touch the cross, pray for God to help you control La Vista,” Carmela said, but this felt wrong to Nena. Did God want things to be controlled? Nena thought not. From what she could tell, God liked chaos. She’d prayed plenty, and terrible things kept happening. “Are you paying attention? When you call to the ladybugs, you’re going to allow La Vista to take over your mind, but at the same time, make sure all of your human body parts are working, your lungs especially. You have to breathe. That’s what makes you faint, when you don’t breathe.”

“What if when I call the mariquitas, the coyote encanto comes for me instead?” Nena felt strange putting words to the image in her head, but she was truly scared. “I might grow fur or start to yip or howl. If the majordomo saw that, wouldn’t he tell the priest?”

“If you grew fur, I would imagine so. We couldn’t keep that a secret,” Carmela said, laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Nena said, bristling. “What do they do to witches here if they’re found out? Burn them alive?”

“What are you talking about? The Inquisition isn’t interested in that kind of offense, they only care about heretics. Nobody believes in witches in the civilized world. And anyhow, that’s not what we are. We live to glorify God. We don’t make love spells, or help other people see the future, or put curses on people for money. Those are the sorts of things the Indios do, not educated ladies of God like ourselves. We practice using La Vista so that we can control it. Same thing with being a nun, an ordinary nun. We pray to help us get rid of our desires so that we can focus on God.”

“What do you mean about the Indios?”

“What they do is not Christian.”

“I’m part Indio,” Nena said, shocked and hurt that her friend would say something like that. “On the side of my mamá.”

Carmela put her finger to her lips. “You don’t ever want to admit something like that here.”

“My mamá was stronger and smarter than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“That may be, but keep that to yourself. You couldn’t stay here if anyone knew that you had Indio blood.”

There were plenty of other women in the convent who were as dark as Nena, and not only the servants. But Nena stayed silent, not wanting to argue with Carmela.

The food sellers arranged their wares on the floor, unloading baskets and small wheelbarrows.

“I want you to try to call the ladybugs without letting any of these people see what’s happening,” Carmela whispered. “It’ll be good practice for you. You wouldn’t want to be caught doing magic and then get burned at the stake, would you?”

Nena wasn’t ready to joke about any of this, and she didn’t laugh at Carmela’s teasing.

A woman with a shawl covering her head laid out a blanket on the floor, lining up bunches of dried oregano, thyme, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, chiles, epazote. She didn’t look well, this woman. She kept coughing, pressing a handkerchief into her mouth, her body shaking with each hack.

Carmela pointed at the bundles she wanted. The herb woman bowed, and then the majordomo paid her a few coins, since the nuns weren’t allowed to handle money.

Carmela pulled Nena down the line, stopping in front of a wheelbarrow with meat piled in it. The butcher was a stout man, a filthy once-white cloth wound around his neck. He smiled at Nena.

“Now? I should do it now?” Nena whispered.

“Yes. Tell me what kind of meat I should buy. Remember, one foot in the river, one foot on land.”

Nena focused on the cross around her neck to hold her in the portería, while the waters of La Vista pulled at her. In this in-between place, she called a ladybug to her, part of her brain along for the ride as the ladybug shot through a tunnel of time and space, landing on her finger. She inserted a message in the ladybug’s mind: “goat leg stew, with chile and cumin.” She sent the ladybug back through the tunnel to Carmela, who nodded at Nena, a smile lighting up her face.

Nena smiled back, feeling love and appreciation for Carmela. This was the very first time she’d used La Vista on purpose and managed not to faint.

Carmela turned to the butcher, flashing fingers at him but not talking, and Nena discovered that this was how they bargained, with hand signals, so that the nuns never had to speak to anyone who didn’t live at the convent.

The butcher bowed to Carmela, and the majordomo took care of the money. The leg was left for the servants to prepare.

“Go back to the kitchen and find yourself some food,” Carmela said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“It requires a lot of energy to use La Vista,” Carmela said. “Your body needs to be replenished.”

“I have one more question,” Nena said, racking her brain for what she could do to prolong the conversation. She missed talking to other people, to her sisters. She landed on a topic that she was curious about anyway. “Is it true that Eugenia’s marrying Sister Benedicta’s brother?”

“Why do you ask?”

“She seemed so proud of it, I wondered if she was exaggerating.”

“Sister Benedicta’s family, the de Galvezes, own most of the vineyards along the Rio Bravo. Eugenia’s father is as rich as the de Galvezes because he controls a lot of the trade that comes through El Paso del Norte, up to Santa Fe and down to Chihuahua along El Camino Real, but he started out as a mule driver, and everyone remembers where he came from, sleeping with the animals. He’s trying to buy himself into a better class. The contract was made between the families when Eugenia was twelve. I’m sure they didn’t expect that she’d turn out to be such a horror.”

“Carmela!”

“Now, go and eat, or you’ll faint, and Sister Benedicta will know what we’ve been doing.”

Nena hurried back to the kitchen. One of the servants was frying empanadas, placing them on a tray next to the pot of bubbling oil. Nena picked one up and burned her lips as she bit through the crispy pastry, reaching the filling, meat and potatoes and raisins spiced with cumin and cinnamon. Nena devoured one after another. So much for not being hungry. And Carmela had been right, Nena felt much better once she had eaten.

She licked her fingers when she was done and tied an apron around her waist, ready to work. In the convent kitchen, there were always piles of pots to scrub. Of all the jobs around the house she shared with her sisters, Nena minded washing dishes least, enjoying the sensation of her hands in the warm water. She fell into the rhythm of the washing, reflecting on what she’d done in the portería. She was proud of herself, hopeful that with more practice she would be able to manage her gift without causing harm. She stretched her arms above her head. She felt free. Maybe she didn’t need to get back to her time as quickly as she’d thought she did. Maybe there was more to learn here.

She wished she’d had someone like Carmela to teach her when she was younger. Maybe Nena would have been able to change what happened at the racetrack, saving her family so much pain.

Se?or Obregon from the corner market went to the Jockey Club once a week, and when Nena had asked him for his help, he’d said he’d be happy to drive Nena and her papá to Juárez the next time he went.

In the grandstands, Nena smelled the tacos and hot dogs with sauerkraut for sale in the kiosk, and she longed to use ten cents of their money to buy herself a treat. But that would be a waste, and besides, she’d brought food for her and her papá to eat, tortillas wrapped tight around beans and chiles. She and her papá sat close to the part of the track where they could see the horses in the paddock. Her papá trembled, pale, with sweat beading up on his face. It didn’t take La Vista to see how sick he was, but he was smiling, really smiling, and his brown eyes flashed, matching the dashing way he wore his hat. Nena felt proud of him.

Her papá examined the horses through Se?or Obregon’s field glasses, running his finger down the racing form. Nena could imagine him at her age, galloping across the mesa. Nena had a harder time imagining Papá’s brothers riding, let alone whooping and chasing each other, pretending to be Apaches. She couldn’t fit that in with how she knew them to be, wearing their suits and fedoras, smoking in their office, those greedy men with big noses, big floppy ears sprouting hair, and wild eyebrows that twirled into the air.

Her papá chose a horse named Potato Chip, whose jockey was dressed in blue and white, just like in Nena’s vision, and, for the first time, she was glad she’d gone to Do?a Hilaria’s. Now she had a fix, a confirmation that this was the right horse. Nena’s papá handed Se?or Obregon all of their money.

“Just on the one horse?” Se?or Obregon asked. The odds were twelve to one, Nena’s papá explained when Se?or Obregon left with the money, which meant that when they won, they’d have enough to pay rent for the year. This made sense to Nena, and it seemed like a good sign that the odds were so perfect.

It was a bright day, windy. The first race ended faster than Nena had expected, and then before the second started, the one their horse was in, the wind picked up. The horses spooked in the paddock, snorting and stomping. Papers fluttered. Nena looked to the east and saw a wall of dust approaching across the desert, fast.

The sandstorm hit all at once. Men clutched at their hats and ran for the shelter of the betting rooms. Nena’s papá couldn’t move fast enough to make it inside, but he put his body over hers to keep the sand from pelting her face. Nena heard thunder, but she didn’t see any lightning. Pellets of hail fell down on them through the blowing sand as Nena buried her face in her papá’s chest. This was not like any sandstorm Nena had ever experienced. It was wet, and the water turned the sand to a kind of mud that stuck to Nena’s face and hands as a howling sound grew louder, roaring itself out in a big whoosh.

The wind died down as if a switch had been flipped, dust hanging in the air, far up, turning the sun into a big pumpkin. People slowly came back down to the grandstand, taking their seats. The announcer’s voice echoed. The races would resume soon.

It took a while to get the horses calmed and ready, and then, at the pistol shot, the race started. Their horse sprinted fast out of the gate, leading the pack up until the first turn, running even faster around the bend. Papá stood, shaking, holding on to Nena’s shoulder, shouting, “Córrele! Córrele! Run!” Their horse pulled ahead by half a length, hugging the inside rails, stretching out his long legs, his nose pointing toward the finish line.

And then he stopped.

The other horses streamed around him like he was a rock in a river. Potato Chip’s jockey whipped the horse, but the act only made the animal turn around and start running the wrong way. Nena’s papá dropped the betting slip. She watched it fall to the ground through the gaps in the grandstand. Her papá shook, pale. He held on to Nena as he sat down.

“Está bien, it’s OK, mi hija,” he said. But it hadn’t been fine.

Nena was jolted from her memory by someone tugging on her sleeve.

“What are you doing?” Eugenia asked.

“What does it look like?” Nena said, pouring ash onto a rag and then attacking the bottom of a pot, using her weight to scrub. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Plucking chickens. But it’s too nasty. I told one of the kitchen maids to do it.”

“You should work harder,” Nena said, having spent the past few days watching Eugenia do as little as possible during her shifts in the kitchen. It was evil, not to mention lazy, to shirk one’s duties.

“I don’t know why they treat me like a slave. They should give me something else to do, a task I want to do and that I’m good at.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t mind sewing,” Eugenia said.

Nena freed the last bit of crust from the bottom of the pot, satisfied with her efforts. She started in on the next pot.

Eugenia took off her apron, wadding it up and placing it on the table. “When Carmela comes back, I’m going to tell her that I will no longer work here.”

Nena looked up from her pot. Behind Eugenia stood Sister Benedicta.

“Eugenia—” Nena said.

“What?” Eugenia said sharply. “I’m not afraid of that cow. I can’t wait to tell her, to be honest.”

Sister Benedicta placed a bony hand on Eugenia’s shoulder.

A wave of surprise washed over Eugenia’s face, quickly replaced by a tight, proud look. Eugenia spun around, tilting up her chin to look Sister Benedicta in the eye. Eugenia may have been stupid, but she was also brave.

“I refuse to work in this dirty kitchen anymore,” Eugenia declared, as a challenge.

“Yes, you will. This is the task assigned to you,” Sister Benedicta said.

“You can’t make me do anything. I’m going to write to my father and tell him how I’m being treated.”

“Put your apron back on and get back to work.”

“No.” Eugenia maintained eye contact with Sister Benedicta, her chin still jutted out.

Sister Benedicta didn’t respond, instead taking slow steps to the cupboard and pulling out a jar of lard. She dipped a rag in the jar and brought it back to the table, where she dunked it in the ashes that Nena had been using to scrub the pot. The kitchen had gone silent, the nuns and the servants watching with wide eyes. Sister Benedicta grabbed Eugenia’s upturned chin in her hand and proceeded to rub Eugenia’s face with the cloth, smearing the black grease all over her skin.

Eugenia began to cry, softly, her tears slipping down the grease.

“Put your apron back on,” Sister Benedicta said.

“Yes, Vicaria,” Eugenia said, bowing, but her hands made tight fists at her sides.