Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest (9 page)

“You have the power of the night,” said the
curandera
, “but the day belongs to me, foolish creature! You must hide yourself from the sun, lest you become blind and burst into flames in the glow of
its rays. Then you will turn into the dust of the ancient ones and lose your chance for eternal life in the abode of our old gods.”

The bat knew the power of the
curandera
and could sense her commitment to the boy's soul. Said the bat, “I am the master of the dark, and you have interfered with my quest, María Luisa. I shall leave you tonight, but tomorrow I will return determined to overcome your defenses. The boy belongs to me! And his soul shall be mine! Beware, María Luisa!” The bat spread its wings and darted out the window.

The
curandera
knew that the following night would be a difficult one and a challenge, too. She sat there thinking about how to fight the bat. The bat is a small creature, but as an adversary it is a giant. Its knowledge of evil is infinite.

“The bat will be difficult to deal with. It has the blessing of Mictlantecuhtli,” she said to herself. She chanted an incantation to the gods of her ancestors, the powerful Indian gods of the past. She lit incense. The sweet-smelling smoke rose with pulsating swirls and covered the small adobe room. The
curandera's
voice rose to a high pitch, beseeching the gods to help her save the young boy's body and soul from the evil powers. Slowly she sank to the floor from her standing position and watched the smoke rise from the incense-burning can on the dirt floor. Her eyes glowed strangely. She knew what she had to do.

At twilight, she was once again in the boy's room. She got a small pot and applied some sticky gum to the edges of the altar mantle. Then she waited for the dreaded little bat to arrive.

Soon after darkness had settled, a flapping of
wings and a screech were heard as the bat flew in through the window and perched on the altar.

It checked the young boy. The child lay with eyes closed, breathing laboriously. “A good sign. The boy is weakening and dying. He will soon be mine,” the beast said to himself. Next, it shifted its black bulbous eyes to María Luisa, the
curandera
. It looked hard at her and said, “Well, María Luisa, it looks like your precious ward will not last much longer!”

María Luisa didn't seem to be bothered by the bat's remark.

“Mr. Bat, tell me about the wonders of your ancient Aztec empire. You have a vast knowledge of the past. I would enjoy learning from you.”

The bat eyed her suspiciously, but since she seemed to be sincere, it began to tell her of the sacrificial rituals, the battles for captives, and the glory of the empire. Whenever it stopped talking, she would egg it on to tell her more. They both lost track of time. Suddenly, the small ugly bat stopped talking.

“What are you up to, old hag?” the bat said. But the healer remained silent.

The sick young boy shifted positions on the mat. In his delirium, he started to speak in a soft voice: “Bat … bat, why do you come here? What do you want? My soul? What do you want, little rat? What do you want from me? My soul is not yours. It isn't for you! The abyss is waiting for you. There is nothing here! Leave, evil thing. Go without me!” Then the boy returned to his deep sleep.

The bat looked down at the boy. “Bad boy! You're going to die!”

The
curandera
stared at the bat. The bat
became uneasy and said, “The morning is coming! I have to be leaving you, but the boy will die soon and become my guide into the spirit world. Then I will find eternal rest! You have lost the battle. You have lost!”

“Don't go, little mouse!” said María Luisa with a smile on her face. “You still have time.”

The bat sensed something was wrong. Its instincts told it to beware. It flapped its wings nervously, but its feet would not move. The glue had hardened, and the animal could not break free and move its small clawed feet. They were stuck to the altar mantle.

“You cursed woman!” the beast shrieked, “You tricked me! You tricked me!”

“Yes,” said María Luisa, “I tricked you, and you are trapped! The dawn is arriving, and you shall perish in the rays of the sunlight. You shall cause no more harm in this town.”

The bat screeched and screeched, flapping furiously to free itself. But it was only succeeding in tiring itself out. It stopped and glared at the
curandera
. “My master will be very mad. You'd better release me!”

The folk healer sat on the floor relaxed, watching the struggling bat. Dawn was breaking and the darkness was slowly beginning to fade. The evil bat was nervous and struggling hard to free itself. But the glue held it fast.

The beast shrieked at the healer, “What do you want from me?!”

“I don't want anything from you, bat! I want to see your master, Mictlantecuhtli, King of the Abyss!” she said.

With those words, the earthen floor cracked
open and smoke poured out of the earth. Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead, appeared in the hole, but only up to his waist.

“Why do you bother my messenger of evil? What do you want, you dried-up old chili-pepper hag?” he said with a sneer.

María Luisa grabbed her walking stick and struck him on the head.

“Don't hit me!” he screamed.

“Well, behave yourself,” she said, “or I'll hit you again! You must promise me that you'll never harm this boy again or anyone else in this town!”

“All right, all right,” said the evil one, “I promise to leave this rotten town alone.”

The
curandera
looked sternly at him and said, “You have made a bargain with me. Woe to you if you break it!” The sun was beginning to shine over the surrounding hills and valleys. “Go now and take your little evil bat with you!”

Mictlantecuhtli looked at the woman with her walking stick in her hand pointed toward him. He didn't dare risk another blow, so he quickly grabbed the bat off the altar mantle. It let out a loud painful screech as it was pulled off. With one swift movement, they both sank into the hole in the earth. Then the hole closed back up.

María Luisa became famous in the valley for her craftiness in overcoming Mictlantecuhtli and the bat. The boy got well, and some say that he grew up to become the famous revolutionary leader, Francisco Villa, better known to all as Pancho Villa.

THE JAPANESE WOMAN

THE JAPANESE WOMAN

T
here is a story dating back to the days when the Spanish sailed the vast expanses of the Pacific. It is the story of a funerary urn taken by a Manila trade galleon from Japan to the Philippine Islands, and from there to the west coast of New Spain, as Mexico was known at the time.

The urn was beautiful. It was decorated with white and gold cherry blossoms, and it still held the ashes of an unknown Japanese person.

There is no record of the urn's history before it was brought to Mexico. It might have been offered to a Spanish sailor by some uncaring beggar, or maybe it was stolen from a Buddhist temple and sold as a souvenir. What is known is that the sailor took it on board the galleon, and that on his return to his home port of Acapulco, he fell short of cash and sold it to a shopkeeper. Later, the shopkeeper asked a friend of his, an old seagoing sailor, what he thought of the jar.

“It's heavy. Let's open it and check its contents,” this second sailor suggested.

Anticipating some item of value, the two men opened the urn only to find ashes and bits and pieces of human bone charred by a crematory fire.

Shocked, the shopkeeper asked his friend to kindly dispose of the ashes and the urn, something the sailor agreed to do on his way home while on shore leave.

The following morning, the sailor left the area and headed down the long dusty road home to Atoyac, a small town about three days travel from Acapulco.

On the second day, as he walked in the hot blazing sun, the weight of the urn became a small burden to him and was sapping his strength. The old sailor felt sorry for the unknown person. He had wanted to bury the urn in Acapulco, but he did not have that much money. The local priest had refused to accept the urn because the deceased had been a heathen.

The sailor was getting tired of the extra weight. He stopped to rest alongside the road by a large cactus patch. He decided to leave the urn in the undergrowth where it could remain unnoticed and undisturbed. He walked into the cactus patch, entered as far as he could, and set the urn down. He wrapped it in an old serape because he felt bad about leaving the deceased in this place.

“At least he will be warm and protected against the elements,” the old sailor said.

He knelt in the undergrowth, said a prayer, and apologized for having to abandon the deceased so far from a cemetery. He slowly turned and walked back toward the road. He looked back one last time, feeling very sorry for his action. It was not the nature of his people to treat the dead so uncaringly, but he had no choice. His village was still too far for him to continue carrying the heavy urn.

Walking away from the cactus patch, the sailor
felt the same desolation as when one of his shipmates was buried at sea and the only thing that he could see after the body plunged down into the waters was a bit of white foam on the surface of the ocean. Down, down it would go into the darkness of the deep where only the dead themselves would know where their final resting place was, the sailor thought sadly. In the same manner, no one would ever know the final resting place of the poor soul whose ashes were held in the Japanese urn.

Once more the sailor stopped briefly for a backward glance at the cactus patch. It was then that a horrible, spine-chilling screech, like the yowling of a large cat, pierced the air.

“It's probably a puma,” he said, moving away as fast as he could. “I'm lucky to get away with my life! Little did I dream the cactus patch was the home of a deadly cat, or for all I know, the Devil,” he added with relief later, once he had put some safe distance between himself and the source of the terrible cry, making the sign of the cross on his forehead, his chest, and his lips, The man was still muttering to himself as he headed home down the dry, dusty road heading home.

The days passed into weeks and months. The urn sat in the brushy undergrowth forgotten, in the shadows of the cactus trees. But soon stories were heard of a haunted cactus patch by the road out in the lonely countryside. Indians and mestizos alike would avoid the area after the evening twilight. It was not a safe place to be, they said.

A large fireball would appear at night by the cactus patch. It would float and move in various directions over the dirt road, and then it would vanish. This was usually followed by a loud screech
and a howl of what sounded like a puma or some sort of large cat.

Sometimes the wailing and moaning of a woman in much emotional pain and sorrow could be heard. There was one peculiar thing though. The ghostly woman mourned in a foreign tongue and could not be understood. The words sounded like Spanish, maybe Indian, but the language was unknown to all.

A few Indians said that on moonlit nights they could see an odd-looking cat—bigger than a puma, three times larger than a puma. It would howl and screech in the faint light. It had not one, but four hairy tails waving in the air. The next day a traveler would usually be found dead and mangled on the road by the cactus patch.

Everyone in the vicinity lived in fear. At night they would not even venture to the village well for water.

“The work of the Devil,” some folks whispered, as if they were afraid they might be heard. “The Devil has come in the form of a four-tailed cat to take souls to the Dark Pit. We are hopeless. We are but poor hardworking Indians and peasants. Why does he come to torment us? Have we not suffered enough in this sad life?”

They lit candles and burned incense to the ancient gods. Others prayed to the god of the Spaniards. But to no avail. The killings continued on the lonely road by the cactus patch. Woe to the ignorant traveler who passed the cactus patch at night. He became a sacrifice for the strange demon.