A Season of Reckoning

“Our success will be based on surprise, stealth and quick, decisive action. My Daddy es puro Mexicano and my Mama is White, but tonight and until this thing is done, I too, am Puro Mexicano! And we are all brothers and warriors together tonight!”

A huge shout went up from the crowd, and high-pitched squeals and what amounted to war whoops echoed through the valley. Tita heard the shouts and shivered at the sound. She turned the lights off and sat in the dark.

Doña Lupita hurried into the house from her casita. She told Tita “The men are getting ready to fight. Come with me! It’s okay - the boys are falling asleep in front of the TV. Eddie’s still awake and promised they’d stay put. Now, let’s go. Vámonos, mija!”

Doña Lupita led the way. As she neared the river, she began to wail in a high-pitched voice. She was answered by several other women across the river, and they wailed together and Tita joined in. A high moan drifted down the valley and others wailed. It was an eerie sound that made the men shiver.

Around the fire, an old grandfather spoke “Our women are telling us to go fight, and they wail for the dead that may stand among us tonight.”

The men went into frenzied states; men yelled, squealed, hollered and whooped some more. And more women wailed into the mystical night. The night itself seemed to have a mysterious, yet magical quality to it.

Sam could see he didn’t need to do any more pumping up for the group tonight. He briefly told them the general plan, and that they would be getting together in a day or two to introduce his people – the rest of the team – to them. He named Juan and Al as his main men and asked everyone to co-operate with them. He told them that he wanted their ideas, because the input was valuable in fleshing the details of the plan. Sam let them know he intended to talk to the Padre and the Curandera tomorrow.

The men wanted to shout and whoop some more, and hear their women wail. Some teenage boys came to join their Elders at the fire. Several dogs came and walked among the warriors, with their bristles up. Sam thought it was quite a sight to see: men getting ready to place themselves on the altar as a living sacrifice. It was a quid pro quo in every sense - blood for blood, an eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth. Sam shivered and let out a war whoop of his own. He could’ve sworn he heard Tita wail, with all the wails that shimmered down river. They became entwined with the wails of a pack of prairie wolves down the river.

The sound of the prairie wolves, also known as coyotes, made the senior men stand silent. They looked into each other’s eyes and pondered this powerful moment that had gotten everyone’s attention. The baying of the wolves set off the dogs in the area, as they howled back. Teenagers and younger boys imitated the dogs in their howling, which precipitated more howls from both the lupines and canines in the area.

After the whooping, hollering and wailing calmed down a little, a somber mood or sobriety came over the scene. Tension had been released, and grown men brushed tears from their cheeks and hugged each other. Juan and Al received many promises to serve wherever they might be needed. There were handshakes all around and vows of commitment to their precious community.

Sam stood in the background and drank two beers real quick and thought about what he had just seen: old grandfathers shedding tears, hugging their sons, and carrying their grandsons. People didn’t want to leave. They milled around and felt harmony with one another. Sam figured if they’d had a drummer, they would be dancing and wailing yet - and he might have been in there among them.

Al brought Sam another beer and sat down with him. He said “Damn, hombre! It’s almost like being a little loaded. There is a Spirit here – I feel it - and it’s still here, and I ain’t leaving ‘til it does!”

“This is some heavy stuff here. No doubt about it! It’s good medicine. A good sign! I ain’t ever seen anything like it before,” Sam said, leaning back on a truck bumper, looking up at the stars.

“My wife is always talking about good medicine or bad medicine. And then there are signs, good and bad. I’m gonna start paying more attention to her. Madre de Dios. I’m going back to Mass on a regular basis, too,” Al said and made the sign of the cross.

Slowly, folks started to drift away. Juan brought Sam and Al another beer and sat down with them. He gave Sam a perplexed look.

“Well, I ain’t got no answer for you,” Sam said to Juan’s questioning look. “A psychiatrist might probably explain it to us. We might even be foolish enough to believe what he’d say. But I’ll bet you won’t feel like you did tonight when he tells you about it.”

“It’s good medicine, no doubt about it,” Al agreed.

Sam shifted back to the plan. “I would like to determine as close as we can their timing. If anybody has marked the dates they’ve been here, this would be a great starting point for us. We need to know the number of days between visits, when they came last time, when did they leave. What time of day do they come and go, how many bosses, how many mules, how many vehicles each time. Every scrap of information you can collect, outstanding features, any deviation in activities – all these things will help us know when we might expect them back. It’s the first thing we need to know, to the extent that we can.”