The Tower of Il Serrohe (25 page)

“‘
I should tell you I have gone on a… on a sojourn in the early morning. I am with the Blessed Virgin. She came in the night and took me with her to wander the high West Mesa. I will return. Do not panic. Do not go home or tell Papi and Mama what has happened. I will return soon… in a few days
(I hope to God!)
and everything will be all right.

“‘
Our Madonna, the Blessed Virgin, will take care of me. I am safe. You must be patient. She has allowed me to come in your dream to reassure you. Do you understand?’

“‘
Why do you do these crazy things, you silly witch? I get so tired of all your curandera and saintly things. I just want to touch my Angelina. Go away!’

“‘
I will, but you must promise to remember this when you awaken. I will not be in the camp for some time. Do not leave or go looking for me.’

“‘
This is a dream?’ Pedro asked plaintively. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I want so much to touch Angelina to ‘go into her’ as they say in the Bible. And this is just a damned dream.’

“
Teresa gathered herself. ‘Yes, my stupid little brother. You will have your life with Angelina. Papi and Mama know of your desires and will soon give permission, but you must work hard and start to build a home for the two of you at the south end of the fields near the ditch before they and Señor and Señora Sanchez give their final approval.’

“‘
You know this and no one has told me?’ Pedro whined, with anger and frustration.

“‘
Yes! You are just a boy in our parents’ eyes. You have to show yourself to be a man without them having to
tell
you what to do. Now I’ve told you, so shut up and remember to stay here when you find me gone this morning!’

“‘
OK, mi hermana. Calm down. I will remember. Just go away…’

“
Uneasy, but mostly satisfied, Teresa relaxed her mental focus and drifted back into the leaden streaked blackness. In the distance, she heard Pedro moan as if in carnal pleasure before everything faded. Like a dead body, she eased into a bottomless pool of oblivion.

“
The next day, she woke up in the slave cage to face the challenge of escape. Later, when her brother awakened, he discovered her missing. He suffered a day of desperate inaction. He had vaguely recalled the dream. Fortunately, in his convulsive search of the camp, for some sign of Teresa and what happened to her, he found her rosary on the ground near the foot of the young cottonwood tree.

“
The beads had arranged themselves around the cross more or less in the shape of a heart. Suddenly the dream with Teresa became clear. He took that and the rosary as a vision from the Blessed Virgin, and stayed put. Later, however, he imagined horrible alternatives to Teresa’s benign explanation in the dream.

“
He wondered what life would be like without marrying Angelina because surely it would turn out that Teresa was taken in the night by kidnappers or a pack of coyotes which would all be his fault. He knew he would never be trusted again by his parents.

“
That night, he was unable to conjure another delightful wet dream of Angelina, so he tossed and turned as he watched, in nightmares, his sister dismembered by ravaging canines and lascivious men in animal furs as they endlessly raped her.

“
When Teresa returned four days later, the first thing he said was, ‘Mi pequeña hermana, where in all of God’s Heaven and Satan’s hell below have you been? It has been
four days!
I thought you had been kidnapped or eaten by coyotes.’

“
Teresa looked at his face where she saw a network of deep creases of worry and white-faced anger. ‘Pedro, I had no time to tell you. But hasn’t it been eight days—?’

“‘
Mi Dios! How could I get
that
wrong? It’s been like
four hundred years!
Believe me, I have suffered through every second and minute.’

“
That was when Teresa knew for sure there was difference in how time passed in the Valle Abajo as compared to the Rio Grande Valley. But that wasn’t her major concern at that point.

“
She went on as if time wasn’t an issue. ‘The Blessed Virgin came to me… I thought about you and how worried you would be… but the Madonna was insistent. I could not deny her… She taught me many things about my mission to heal… the good people of Peralta and all the other villages of… the valley. I am so sorry…’

“
Pedro tried to work up a good snit. ‘What was I supposed to think? What would Papa do to me? How would Mama live if her precious, idiotic daughter had been murdered because I was asleep…’

“
At this point, he had to struggle mightily to swallow a huge sob. He refused to cry in front of his sister. Over the last few days, he had cried enough alone in the tent crazy with anger and anxiety.

“
When he finally conquered himself, all he could do was reach out and hug her awkwardly saying over and over, ‘Mi hermana. Mi hermana. What am I going to do with you?’

“‘
What you can do, little brother,’ she said, pushing him away, ‘is give me more time. I still have things to do here—’

“‘
Oh no! I’m not going to sit here alone for several more days while you wander the countryside!’

“‘
No, no, Pedro. I will be right here. But I will need my privacy at night. Just one more day.’

“
This was almost more than he could bear, but
if
she would stay right there, maybe he could go along with it. ‘You must promise me, mi pequeña hermana. You stay here,’ he said, pointing to the ground.

“‘
Yes. Right here in my tent next to yours.’ She then clammed up and would not speak to him while she got the cloth bag she used to collect her herbs for curing. She tried to appear to be in some state of somnambulistic meditation. The truth was she was trying to come up with some practical way to put her wild ideas into action. But there was nothing in her knowledge or experience that gave her hope of devising a plan.

“
He followed her around the fields like a puppy dog as she collected a strange assortment of herbs and plants. Though he stuck to her side, Pedro was sullen and glad for Teresa’s silence which allowed him to conceal how pissed he was at her. Besides, realizing she had entered his horny dreams of Angelina and, in addition, he could never tell anyone about her disappearance for all that time, he concluded she could easily control him for the rest of his life.

“
Teresa was relieved by the coincidence of beads in a heart shape around the cross of her rosary. She took it as a sign of the Madonna’s approval of what she had done and how she had lied about sojourning with her. Thus confessing this lie to the priest would not be necessary.

“
If she
had
confessed, she would have been declared by the Church as being possessed by an evil spirit and locked in the barn by her parents for the rest of her life.

“
Teresa, satisfied with the herbs and plants she had found, spent the rest of the day grinding them on her metate and created many different combinations. When a strong breeze kicked up that afternoon and continued through the early evening, she fixed supper and went to her tent.

“
That night, while Pedro slept, she stealthily removed something from his tent. She then spent most of the night passing back and forth through the Portal many times.

“
The next morning she was frustrated and distracted. Before they had finished a hastily prepared breakfast of hot cornmeal and coffee she announced, ‘We must break camp quickly. I must return home immediately. I have much to think and pray about.’

“
Pedro was delighted and had them packed and ready to go in less than an hour. It was a long and silent trip back to Peralta.”

Don muttered to himself. “I just asked for a simple explanation. You’re driving me sober with these stories. Where are they coming from? How can this be coming out of my own fevered brain? It’s almost enough to make me quit drinking!”

forty six

The bat hung upside down silently for a while. “Good, so that’s been explained. Now I can get back to the story at hand.” He paused again, trying to remember where he’d left off.

“
All right. Work on the Tower of Il Serrohe continued at a feverish pace. Of course, Teresa had returned abruptly to her valley the morning following her inspired idea. Pia and Pita began receiving reports from the bats before dawn the following morning.

“
Within four days the Tower had risen to nearly five stories high with no effort to cap it off with a small roof. The sight of a tower that seemed to grow as one watched spurred more feverish activity among the Valle people.

“
Following a suggestion Teresa made to Pita and Pia, it was decided in a council made up of representatives from the various clan villages of Valle Abajo they would use the arroyos coming off the west mesa as conduits to move supplies, barricade materials, and eventually move ‘warriors.’

“
The plan was to set up a point operation as close as possible to the bottom of the narrow trail down from the mesa. That would allow a swift attack on Soreyes as they emerged on the valley floor before they could spread out and begin picking off the villages one at a time.

“
As for the Valle ‘warriors,’ any robust male or female young and strong enough to wield a spear, shield, and club was enlisted for training near Il Mote, safely out of the Tower’s sight.

The Nohmin had the most knowledge of fighting since their close position to the Il Serrohe mesa made them a more frequent target of raids during the generations since the Soreyes had come to the Valle.

“
However, the Nohmin simply were no match for the strength or ability of the weakest Soreye—except in pure stubbornness and agility. The larger people in clans, such as the
Càhbahmin,
Ursimin, and Taurimin had to rely more on strength and making good use of their weapons while the Pirallts would provide support, keeping available the fresh weapons made by the
Kastmin
craftspeople (who weren’t warriors) along with food, water, and medical services.

“
The
Loopohmin and Linksmin, although physically and mentally suited to fighting, didn’t feel the threat and refused to cooperate in an attack on the Soreyes. They have since come to regret that decision though they’re still not interested in cooperation.

“
Of course, the
Crotalmin only want to clean up the dead bodies in the aftermath, to fill their stomachs.”

Don raised his hand. “Do you mind all the name dropping? I have no idea who all these people, uh clans, are. So just skip it for now.”

“
Fine. You’ll be learning more about them soon enough if you return to the Valle.”

“
Big fat
‘if.’”

“
Anyway, the arroyos allowed the Valle people to move everything, including themselves, without being seen by the Soreyes even if they were on the Tower. Perhaps if the Tower had been ten stories high they could have seen the movement of people and supplies over most of the meanderings of the arroyos.

“
That possibility kept the Valle people busy day and night, getting set up before their operation was exposed. Once everything was in place, it (including warriors) could be covered or camouflaged giving the Soreyes a false sense of security.

“
This operation and the planning ahead it required was not only exhausting but dizzying for all the clans. At night, bats offered to help by flying around the area to make sure Soreye spies weren’t watching. Other than that, we preferred to avoid much involvement with them.

“
The tower was soon up to seven stories, leaving only two more days before the operation had to be completed.

“
Within minutes of the bats’ return to Lookgosee in the Dream River bosque on the seventh morning after Teresa had left the Valley Abajo, the entire Soreye army moved swiftly down their trail and swarmed over the point of the barricaded arroyos, slaughtering all the unarmed workers on the site. There were no Valle warriors to serve as guards since they were still in training back in the forested area surrounding Il Mote.

Hearing this, Don became upset. “My God,” he whispered.

“
They hardly knew what hit them. Running at breakneck speed down the arroyo which eventually branched out three ways, the Soreyes, in groups, swept up more workers blindly trudging up from ‘hidden’ entry points near their villages. The Soreyes had even cleverly removed their bells to allow a silent attack. Bodies of the clanspeople including some Nohmin littered the arroyos all the way to the edge of the bosque.

“
The Pirallts near the entry points of the arroyos had only a moment’s warning by the screams of victims and the hissing hoots of the Soreyes. Most of them escaped but twenty were cut down like wheat in the wake of a scythe.