Bless Me, Ultima: Chapter 1

The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mys­tery into my living blood.

My bare feet felt the throbbing earth and my body trembled with excitement.

The attic of our home was partitioned into two small rooms.

From the top of the stairs I had a vantage point into the heart of our home, my mother's kitchen.

Even after the big rancheros and the tejanos came and fenced the beautiful llano, he and those like him continued to work there, I guess because only in that wide expanse of land and sky could they feel the freedom their spirits needed.

I shuddered and my heart turned cold at the thought.

She could not see beauty in the llano and she could not understand the coarse men who lived half their lifetimes on horseback.

The move lowered my father in the esteem of his compadres, the other vaqueros of the llano who clung tenaciously to their way of life and freedom.

It was as if someone had died, and they turned their gaze from the spirit that walked the earth.

"She served the people all her life, and now the people are scattered, driven like tumbleweeds by the winds of war."

The war sucks everything dry," my father said solemnly, "it takes the young boys overseas"

"There isn't a family she did not help," she continued, "no road was too long for her to walk to its end to snatch some­
body from the jaws of death"

Not even the blizzards of the llano could keep her from the appointed place where a baby was to be delivered-"

Grande," my mother murmured.

And I had heard that Ultima could lift the curses laid by brujas, that she could exorcise the evil the witches planted in people to make them sick.

Mary over and over in my thoughts, I drifted into the time of dreams.

My soul wandered over the dark plain until it came to a cluster of adobe huts.

A patient hope stirred in their dark, brooding eyes.

They were an exuberant, restless people, wandering across the ocean of the plain.

We will bury it in our fields to renew their fertility and to assure that the baby will follow our ways.

It is blasphemy to scatter a man's blood on unholy ground, the farmers chanted.

I scattered some grain for the hungry chickens and watched their mad scramble as the rooster called them to peck.

During the day she would forage along the highway where the grass was thick and green, then she would return at nightfall.

I saw my mother whirl then pause and control herself.

Always on the move, like gypsies, always dragging their families around the country like vagabonds-"

"I'm afraid," I heard Theresa whimper.

Deborah stepped forward and took Ultima's withered hand.

My nostrils quivered as I felt the song of the mockingbirds and the drone of the grasshoppers mingle with the pulse of
the earth.

I felt my mother prod me.

As Ultima walked past me I smelled for the first time a trace of the sweet fragrance of herbs that always lingered in her wake.