Shaman Winter (6 page)

“Hey, bro, how you doing?” Mando's sleepy voice came on line.

“Great, you?” Sonny greeted him.

“Fine as wine, hermano. What's up? You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I need a van.”

“Wheels? Hey, the only car sitting in Mando's Used Cars is a fifty-seven Chevy. Cherry, but the generator's out.”

“I need a van with a lift for my wheelchair. Can you lease one for me?”

“No problem, if you got the credit. I'm so short—”

“Call Sheila García. Here's my MasterCard number.” He read his card number to Armando.

“Ten-four. Anything else?”

“I need a mobile phone in the van. That should do it.”

“No sweat. How soon?”

“Right away.”

“Hey, bro, it's midnight.”

“It's not midnight, the sun's up. I need it now.”

“Hey, only for you would I get up this early, leave this warm bed and the loveliest Texas bluebonnet.”

Sonny heard Marlene squeal, then a purr and whispering: “You are so good …”

“Ay te watcho, bro!” Mando cried, disappearing, Sonny guessed, under the warm sheets with Marlene.

“Gracias,” Sonny said, and hung the phone.

His brother Armando was as reliable as wind in spring, always there with a smile, always broke, always with a big, nice-looking mamasota hanging on his arm. A lovable guy intent on making it big in the used-car business, but he, too, seemed cursed. He just couldn't seem to get beyond a couple of bombed-out heaps that he called Mando's Used Cars.

“If I get the van by Christmas, I'll be thankful,” Sonny said.

A knock at the front door meant Rita and Lorenza had arrived. Sonny guided his motorized chair to the door, followed by a barking Chica. Rita, Lorenza, and don Eliseo were already letting themselves in. Santa's elves were delivering a hot breakfast. Sonny smelled the aroma of the food Lorenza carried.

“Amor,” Rita greeted him, and leaned to kiss him. “Cómo 'stás? Why up so early? I thought we'd find you snoozing. Look who we found in the cornfield.”

“Buenos días le de Dios, don Eliseo,” Sonny greeted the old man.

“Buenos días, hijo,” don Eliseo said, patting Sonny on the shoulder and bending to pick up an eager Chica. “Buenos días, Chica.”

“Hi, Sonny,” Lorenza greeted him and leaned to kiss his cheek.

“Why up so early?”

“Strange dreams. And you two?”

“Huevos rancheros con chile verde for our birthday boy,” Rita explained.

“Birthday?” His birthday had come and gone in October.

“Happy thirty-one anyway.”

“Estas son las mañanitas, que cantaba el Rey David,” she sang as they all headed into the kitchen. “Hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti. Despierta, mi bien, despierta, mira que y'amaneció. Ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió.”

“Feliz compleaños!” Rita kissed him again.

“Feliz compleaños,” don Eliseo joined in.

“Ay, you shouldn't have.” Sonny winked. “But thanks.”

The aroma of hot tortillas and chile filled the kitchen as Lorenza unwrapped the packages of food. Rita owned Rita's Cocina, the best Mexican food restaurant in the North Valley. Huevos rancheros were a specialty, and his favorite morning meal. Over easy, with refried beans and fried potatoes on the side, lots of green chile, and flour tortillas with which to scoop up the food.

“We celebrated in October,” Rita said as she set the table, “your mom brought a cake, but you don't remember. You were incomunicado. Good, you started the coffee. Look, a low-fat chicken taco for Chica.” She served the dog the taco, and Chica vacuumed it up.

“Nothing dainty about her eating habits,” Sonny said.

“Or yours,” Rita kidded him. Sonny loved to eat, and when he sat down in front of one of her Mexican meals, he ate with gusto.

While they ate, he told them about the dream, knowing that the more details he could retain, the more clues it would provide. The three people in the kitchen knew about the world of spirits, they knew about dreams. At the end he told them about the phone call from Eloisa Romero, and the missing daughter, Consuelo.

Rita looked at Lorenza. The feathers were obvious: Raven.

“Why in my dream?” Sonny asked, holding Chica in his lap when he was finished eating. He looked at don Eliseo. “And the dream is about an event that took place in 1598. I've been reading that part of the New Mexico history book. Oñate crossed the Río Grande and camped near present-day El Paso, ready for his grand entrada into New Mexico. Crazy Spaniards. Why in the hell didn't they just stay home?”

“You wouldn't be here if they had stayed home,” Lorenza said.

Yeah, Sonny acknowledged. The Españoles and Mexicanos had come up the Río Grande, settled beside the Indian pueblos, intermarried, and created la raza cósmica de Nuevo México, the mestizos of el Río Grande del Norte. Those Nuevos Méxicanos, los manitos, were Sonny's ancestors.

“What was the captain's name in the dream?”

“Andres Vaca. With a
V
.”

“How did you know?” Rita asked.

He shrugged.

“It's possible you're related,” Lorenza said.

“He looked like me.”

“We have to know for sure,” Lorenza insisted.

“Why?”

Lorenza looked at don Eliseo. The old man had sat quietly, listening attentively to Sonny recounting his dream, sipping his coffee. The history of the people flowed in his blood and was cradled in his memory. He didn't invent meaning for the symbols and signposts in the dreams, he knew them intimately. And don Eliseo's soul was as clear as morning light. In his own soul resided the communal dream of the people.

“Been there, done that,” the old man had a right to say, but he was not the kind to brag.

“Andres Vaca is one of your ancestors,” don Eliseo said. “Raven, disguised as the Bringer of Curses, was there. He's back.”

“But he didn't attack Andres in the dream,” Sonny said. “He took Owl Woman.”

Don Eliseo leaned forward, his voice trembling. “Raven has found a way to get into your dreams.”

“Get into my dreams?”

“This summer he tried to get you in his evil circle up in the mountain. He thought that in his nagual, as a raven spirit, he could destroy you. You met him with the power of your coyote spirit and took the Zia medallion from him. If he can't kill you in this world, he will try to kill you in your dreams.”

“I don't get it,” Sonny said. So Raven was the Bringer of Curses and so he had kidnapped Owl Woman. It was only a dream.

“Andres Vaca is one of your grandfathers. Owl Woman is one of your grandmothers. She is one of the original abuelas of what will come to be your line of the Vaca family of La Nueva México. Andres and Owl Woman are the progenitors of your bloodline. Raven has found a way to kidnap the grandmothers. Without them, you cease to be.”

Sonny felt the fine hairs on his back and arms rise. Raven had stolen the grandmother, and if he kept her in the underworld long enough, there would be no sons and daughters for Andres Vaca and Owl Woman, and thus no bloodline leading to Sonny.

“It can't be,” Sonny said, looking from the old man to Lorenza then to Rita. “I'm here. Now. Do you mean if he kills Owl Woman, I would just disappear?”

The old man nodded, and Sonny knew better than to laugh. He wasn't kidding; he was serious.

“Haven't I taught you,” the old man replied, “that the dreams of your ancestors are yours. The most power any person can acquire is to be master of his dreams, for that means he can travel in time to the world of spirits. That is the greatest power a man can have on earth. By entering your dream, Raven can travel to your past and destroy it.”

“And thus destroy me?” Sonny whistled softly. He looked at Lorenza. She nodded. She agreed with don Eliseo. The world of spirits was the world of dreams, and Raven knew it well. Sonny had not yet mastered that world, so he was vulnerable.

“But if he captured Owl Woman, if he took her away from Andres Vaca, and thus kept their child from being born, why am I still here?”

“There are four roots to a man's history,” don Eliseo said. “As there are four sacred directions from the Center. Four quadrants of the universe. He needs to take four grandmothers in order to kill your spirit.”

Sonny looked at Rita. Her worried look told him to listen to the old man. He knew Raven's ways.

“Four roots, four grandmothers,” Sonny thought aloud. “How can I be sure I'm related to the Andres Vaca of my dream?”

“If you need to be convinced, trace your ancestry back to 1598,” don Eliseo said. “If Andres Vaca and the Indian woman are listed in church records as your ancestors, then it is so.”

Time bending, mind bending. Sonny shook his head. What the hell was the old man getting at?

“I don't have a genealogy. I know my Baca grandparents from Socorro, and the Jaramillos from La Joya. That's it. How do I trace back to 1598?”

“The archives in Santa Fé,” Rita suggested. “The library there has records dating back to 1598. Or Zimmerman Library.” She had taken don Eliseo's interpretation of Sonny's dream to heart. Sonny was in danger! She stood behind him, softly massaging his shoulders.

“Yes, the University of New Mexico library has special collections on New Mexico history,” he agreed.

He had spent time in the archives when he was a student. He had concentrated on a teaching certificate, but history and literature were his real loves. He had spent as much time as he could browsing through the stacks, letting his instincts lead him into old volumes in the archives.

Sonny looked at the old man. “It will help you to know,” don Eliseo said.

He wasn't kidding. He was warning Sonny. His life was in jeopardy. He had revealed the meaning in the dream, a prophetic and possibly dangerous meaning. It was up to Sonny to use the interpretation, wild as it seemed.

Lorenza's look also told Sonny she too agreed.

“Is the kidnapping in the dream connected to the missing girl in Santa Fé?” Sonny asked.

“Probably,” don Eliseo replied.

“How?”

“Are you related to the Romeros?”

“Not that I know of,” Sonny replied.

“There has to be a relationship, even if distant,” don Eliseo said. “So he kidnaps a young girl here, living flesh. A complement, after all these centuries, of the ancient grandmothers. You see, if Raven can kill four maternal grandmothers, he kills you by killing your history. But he needs these young girls for his own purpose.”

He stood up and looked out the window. “In three days the sun is at the solstice. It will either be born again and return to bless us, or it will sink beyond the horizon. When the sun is at the weakest point of its cycle, Raven will strike. He will bring down the sun and set up his kingdom of night that follows. He needs four women, one spirit for each quadrant of the universe.”

“His new kingdom,” Lorenza said. “He kidnaps four of Sonny's grandmothers, and four girls. Four old spirits, four new.”

Don Eliseo nodded. “In this way he controls you in this time and in the world of spirits.”

“He has taken a grandmother in my dream,” Sonny said. “And one young woman. Three to go—” He shook his head. “Andres Vaca and Owl Woman lived four centuries ago. It just doesn't make sense.”

“It does make sense!” the old man interrupted, his tone irritated. “I have been teaching you about dreams to protect you from Raven.”

“You knew that's how he would come?” Sonny asked.

“Dreams are the way of all curanderos,” don Eliseo replied. “We fly in dreams. The dream connects us to the history. Raven knows this. But go. Go to the library and see if Andres Vaca is written in the records. Then you will believe! Buenos días,” he said, and walked out the kitchen door.

“Buenos días,” they replied.

“I guess I pissed him off?” Sonny said as he watched the old man hobble across the road. It was the first time in their two-year relationship that he had doubted don Eliseo, and the first time the old man had stalked away.

“Why not satisfy yourself,” Rita whispered in his ear.

“Okay, let's do research,” Sonny said.

“Zimmerman Library?” Rita asked.

“It's the closest.”

“I can drive you,” Lorenza offered.

“I called Armando this morning to rent me a van I can drive. Going up to Santa Fé to help the Romeros may be the best way to find out if don Eliseo is right about my ancestors. Raven took Consuelo. I have to stop Raven.”

“But you're not strong enough to drive,” Rita protested.

She touched Sonny. Like him, she sensed Sonny's dream and the disappearance of Consuelo were connected.

“I can drive you,” Lorenza volunteered.

“You sure you have the time?” Sonny asked.

“I always keep the solstice week free. These are the most important days on my calendar. Now your life is connected to the time …”

“Yeah.” Sonny knew Raven worked around the equinoxes and solstices.

“You'll have to be careful,” Rita said.

“I will,” Sonny replied, holding her hand for reassurance. “If Raven shows up, I've got my trusty forty-five.”

He looked up at the single-action Colt .45 that hung in its holster on a hook at the door. His bisabuelo's pistol, the one Elfego Baca had carried into many a fight. Sonny had never fired it at a person.

3

To Sonny's surprise, his brother showed up with a van in record time. Rita helped Sonny with his leather jacket, gloves, a scarf, and his black cowboy hat. “So you won't catch cold,” she said. “With your black beard and hat you look like one of those old-timers from las Gorras Blancas.”

“Then I better go armed like them.” Sonny indicated his pistol, and Rita, with a slight frown on her face, reached for the holster and handed it to Sonny.