The Seven Curses

"In those days I was young and we were all mortal. I sought to serve God as best I understood. Now I long for the event that may restore Humanity back to a normality that we then abhored. How fickle is the heart of Man. We want what we cannot have and when we get it we want what we had before if it is then beyond reach"

----- Original Notes United North American States, 8728 A. D.

San Antonio, Texas 2010

Legends speak of sorcery and spirits in the forest-covered mountains of Tamacuaro, a tiny ranch village found deep in the interior regions of Mexico. The skin scorching sun beams fiery waves on bald boulders eroded and etched only more by cold rains than by the feet of Indian tribes, Spanish Conquistadores, French soldiers, and generations of hacienda owners and peasant field workers throughout the centuries. The rich are rich there, and the poor are poor. There is no middle class. The poor people still tell the story about the man who tried to unlock the mystery of the seven curses and disappeared. The elders, the abuelitos, who are said to have been little boys at the time, whisper the story around campfires.

[I was that man, and I have returned. I see your world today I know what I must do. Although the others who were with me have all long ago turned to dust or experienced the resulting transformation of the seven curses, the time has come to give this chronicle to you in this your own time, which was my distant past until recently. Now this sounds strange, but I am trying to explain. I am here to edit the past, since I have in this time found a full copy of The Seven Curses, meaning that my transmission was successful. How can I explain this? I have in my hands a copy of a story that I have not yet written. But I shall have to if I am to change the outcome. If I succeed in this effort then you will be restored to your proper destiny and the world may yet be spared the actual curses. I have enough energy in the portable Timatrix I used for my return to send back a copy of the journal I am keeping now. I know I can not return in person, though, and that I will have to stay in this time until help arrives. Pray now that this story remains only a story, for if I fail, you will experience a deep sleep after reading these lines, a sleep in which your dreams will be a tunnel to that bright place where mortals should never wander without achieving the Initiation of the Seven Stars. The following lines are the beginning of the original story, and I feel chills and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as even now I relive those fateful moments.]

In the third year of my stay in Tamácuaro I attended the wake held for Pedrito the saddle maker, who had been found dead at his ranch. The old women wrapped in dark shawls stood by the tearful family, with their downcast eyes and bowed heads sharing their sorrow, for all had lost and some had buried sons or husbands in bygone years. Clay mugs of hot chocolate were quietly distributed under the lantern light by the young girls to the murmuring women inside the small adobe house and to the philosophying menfolk standing around several campfires in the rear patio. I found Juan, the mustached bartender of El Charrito tavern, explaining to the fat and usually jovial local barber, that the 697 heads of family in the village and nearby ranches had reached into their pockets to help Pedrito's widow and her three little ones.

"How did Pedrito die?" I asked Panchito, the barber, who did not raise his downcast eyes.

"They said he had his ears in his mouth and his shirt was in rags, and that bloody shreds of cloth were found in his ripped open back." Pancho's lips quivered in the firelight.

"Have some chocolate, Maestro," said Juan in his deepest voice, his hand offering me his mug. I had built the chairs and tables in Juan's tiny saloon and he had recommended me to all his customers. Any other day he would have been offering me tequila instead of chocolate.

"This is good," I had to admit, feeling the warmth in my belly. I took another swig, relishing the flavor.

"They say he was trying to open la cueva del serrito the day before he was killed," said Pancho, looking down at his fingers and staring at the callous around his thumb and forefinger, which held the scissors when he worked.

"What do you think killed him," said Juan sarcastically, making his eyes little slits and pointing them at Pancho, "already I've heard a dozen stories!"

"It was not a human who did it, and the cuts were not made by machete as the doctor put on the paper," grumbled the barber. He reached into his baggy khakis and produced a shiny nail clipper.

"Are you saying he was murdered, then?" I asked them both.

"It was the curses--"

"You are too superstitious, Pancho!" exploded Juan, "Those are stories used only for scaring naughty children!"

Pancho raised offended eyes.

"You are a reckless man, Juan," he said in a low tone, "and you cannot control your tongue--"

"No, Pancho, you are and have always been a fool about the old legends. But where is the treasure rumored to be buried in the caves? Why has nobody ever found it?"

"Has anybody ever looked," I asked, hoping to dissolve the building tension.

"No," grumbled Pancho "nobody has ever believed enough to look for anything.

"And I suppose you have," said Juan pointedly, his gaze falling on the barber's round body and heavy legs, obviously not in condition for cave exploration.

"Don Crucito knows about the buried money, and he knows about the curses of la cueva del serrito," said Pancho, pocketing his shiny clipper.

"Look, there he is, sitting by that fire in his blanket." Pancho pointed toward the fire to a hunched figure holding a mug of chocolate. The flickering orange from the fire reflected on a little blue flower glazed on the mug.

We approached the ancient one, whose scraggly beard was dark with ashes. He was poking at the fire with an iron rod, and the sparks rose like little stars. Above, the big stars pierced the clear sky tinged only by the smoke of the several campfires.

"Don Crucito," said Juan, his firelit face creasing into a wide grin, "that fire is asking for some food." He picked up a log, first moving the boy who sat on it by giving him a coin and a whispered order. He threw the log next to the old man, almost striking him. Don Crucito stroked his Fu Manchu mustache and let out a slow burp. He did not blink, though. Some people have nerves of steel.

"Buenas noches, señores" said a clear voice from the darkness. It was Marissa, the widow Constancia's daughter, whose attentions were sought by many but received by none. She took the old man's mug and and vanished just as we chanted a good evening greeting in one voice. For a moment all other thoughts were foreign.

"Ate-ah-le," said Don Crucito, his way of saying that he knew you and that you were welcome. It was like a blessing. It was odd seeing him in full authority by a mere fire instead of in his herbal garden patio. He was known for his countless remedies, but I knew him best for his mastery of barbequed meats on festive days. He rarely spoke more than a word, yet I knew that in his adobe dwelling he had a library of such universality in subject matter that any scholar would have been at home in the same. Some nights he would be up at wee hours, reading by lamplight. I saw him at his window more than once as I made early morning calls to deathbeds.

"Here's the axe, señor" said a barefoot boy, whom I recognized as the seller of the log. Juan took the ax and made firewood out of the mesquite log in quick strokes. After a moment the fire blazed bright orange and we could all see our faces more clearly.

"Sir," I said, "we were talking about the seven curses--"

An extremely vulgar curse went up from another nearby circle of men around a fire. A scorpion was stomped and teasing was heard from young girls. For a moment it was a distraction.

"Yes, the curses. Do you believe?" asked Don Crucito, his weary eyes, bleary from the smoke, focused on mine. Pancho knelt beside the old man and began to push the outer twigs and coals of the fire toward the center. Don Crucito pulled a canteen from under his blanket and offered it with a shake toward a grateful Juan. His question was making me pick sides.

"I don't know the story," I lied, my blinking eyes betraying me, "perhaps you can tell me." I was trying to play the middle road while playing for time.

"Come on, out with it," said Juan, "tell Don Crucito that Pancho thinks Pedrito was killed by a phantom. Ah hah ha!" He took a familiar swig and let out a horrific yell of wild animal authority, a Tarzan yell or a grito de jubilación in the Maguey harvest season. Don Crucito chuckled and snatched away the canteen.

"O.K., muchacho, save some of that for later," the old man told Juan. He stood and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, brushing off ash and goat hair fibers into the fire that was now roaring quite fiercely.

"Before this night is over we might all want a little." he said to us all, waving the canteen. Don Crucito turned his jagged face toward the dark hills where la cueva del serrito is located and crossed himself. Pancho's mouth hung open as he too turned toward the hills and echoed the gesture.

"Gracias, Don Crucito," said Juan, and he quietly dissolved into the crowd, emerging on the fringes holding hands with a goatherd girl I often saw him with. They vanished into the shadows of the village huts. It was still a normal night.

"Aieeee!" The sudden scream filled the air.

"What is that," I asked aloud, spinning on my boot heels to face the fire behind me. The sound of hoofs arrived suddenly and the sight of women in shawls and men in sombreros momentarily packed around a fallen body. The horses were of government soldiers who had by coincidence arrived at that very moment.

"What goes on there?" yelled a gruff voice of authority.

"Nothing, Comandante, it is but a scorpion" said the thin voice I recognized as Julio, the guitar player who was a friend of Juan and with whom I had sung many a song through the night over tequila.

"They are good fried!" said the soldier, with a mocking laugh, "and with salt! but not too much onions!" The other soldiers also laughed heartily and one threw a cigarette butt at the fire but it landed on a woman's hair. Her scream and reaction made them laugh even more. As suddenly as they arrived they rode away toward the main dirt road.

"Hijos del diablo," said Juan, who had returned with very wet hair and a washed face, "they do not respect anybody. They think they own all Méjico. They treat us like cattle!" He kicked dirt into the fire with the toe of his boot. I had never seen Juan mistreat a fire.

"Juanito, have another drink" implored Don Crucito, offering his canteen again.

"Thank you," said an instantly calmed Juan. I noticed that Juan's mustache curled like the old man's but on a smaller scale.

"Make way for Don Crucito" said many voices.

"It is too late," wailed Doña Piedad, emerging into our circle, her braids framing her square jaw and her red eyes weeping. Pancho stepped over and embraced the short heavy woman, adjusting her colorful shawl around her round shoulders. She sobbed inconsolably.

"My baby!" she kept repeating. It was her son, Lázaro, who had been bit by a scorpion. They seemed to be under every rock in the damp darkness.

"Señora, it is never too late when God is with us," said Don Crucito, "take me to the boy." The boy turned out to be a thirteen year old young man who looked about nine. He had been gathering stones to throw at another boy when he was bit. They were vying for the attention of Lolita, the storekeeper's daughter.

"May I examine him too?" I asked. My cardiopulmonary resuscitation training had come in handy twice before back in the States, and I figured I could maybe help if there was hope.

"Yes," sighed Doña Piedad, wiping her tears on the back of her roughened knuckles. I remembered her peeling corn stalks for the nistamal corn grinding just days before, singing in the morning. My heart went out to her as I remembered she was also a widow. Praying for hope against death I followed the crowd escorting Don Crucito. Some of the men had loaded the boy onto a cot and were carrying him into a small shelter into where the women could bring more oil lamps. A gray haired thin man, the boy's father, stood somberly in the lamplight.

"Buenas noches, Don Crucito, thank you for coming," he said in broken breath.

"Buenas noches, Chacho" I said for us all.

"What has he eaten?" asked Don Crucito.

"He had not eaten anything today" said the mother.

"O.k. Thank you for telling me, Doña Piedad, now can you ask everybody but Chacho and the Reverend here to step outside. You too, Señora. I'm sorry." In seconds the crowd stepped outside the adobe hut. I was anxious to test the boy's pulse at his wrist and see if he was still breathing. His face was bluish even in the pale light and he did not look very well. I feared the worst. Don Crucito looked quite calm, though, as though he too had seen the same before but with different results. Once alone, Don Crucito tossed his blanket onto a woven straw chair whose rough mesquite frame looked like the work of Chacho. Don Crucito stood up erectly like a young man and his voice became clear and resounded with the authority of his position. I remembered how the previous Christmas he had quoted me the proverb about a living dog worth more than a dead lion, and another about a wise child being worth more than an old and stupid king. I knew he valued the revelations he received and claimed were from God more than the knowledge gained over a lifetime. And now, as when in full synchronicity the world of elements harmonizes with the world of thoughts, I saw an old man transformed into a younger edition by sheer spirit. It was the same person but it was not.

"Chacho, place his head toward the north and make sure his feet are uncrossed. Reverend, pray that God is with us. It was not a scorpion that has afflicted the boy. It is the curse. I have waited and watched in the village for over sixty years now, hoping that I would never see this again. I will tell you the story later, boys, but for now let us deal with the evil spirit that mimics death."

"Sir, is it true about Pedrito?" I ventured.

"Yes"

"Is there more that can happen just because one man went into la cueva del serrito?"

"Yes, Reverend, and before the sun rises we will be called to fight the powers of darkness themselves. When this happened during my childhood I was the only survivor in the village. The first curse afflicts all firstborn men first and then all other men in the area. We have but an hour before the trouble begins. Let us work fast. Reverend, fill that pail over there with water and bless it as you fill it. You must hold the pail in your right hand and your left hand must be raised to heaven. Make sure that you are not wearing any metal while you do this. You too, Chacho, make sure you do not have your knife in your pocket."

"God help us," said Chacho in his tremolo voice, crossing himself with his bony hands and looking toward the east as though to make the sun rise sooner. He took out his trademark knife and with a flick of the wrist made it twang onto a mesquite rafter above an oil lamp. I heard the squish as the point impaled a spider that was crawling in the light. The lamp swayed slightly.

"Good shot," I said, admiring the casual marksmanship. I put my watch on a pile of clothes and checked my pockets for metal. All I had were a few coins, a pen, and the keys to my jeep. I also removed my belt because of the buckle and tossed it on top of the old man's blanket. Thinking it through, I folded his blanket neatly and put all my metal things in a pile on top of it.

"What can I do to help?" wondered Chacho aloud in my direction. Don Crucito answered.

"Go to Doña Maria and tell her to send me my bag. Also, tell Juan to saddle up Relampago with the saddle Pedrito stained with blood when he died. Go to it, man, if you want to save your son's life!" With that Chacho's thin and furrowed face went blank and his eyes widened. He sucked in a quick breath and fled out the door. I heard him mumbling rapid orders to people outside. Don Crucito was at work now.

He turned to me and asked "Are you afraid of Death?" His way of dealing with the supernatural was direct, but a bit too dramatic I thought.

"Sometimes it is life that is the greatest adventure," I offered, hoping to sound wise or philosophical. How could I ever begin to tell him of my innermost concerns about the yawning doorway that is the destiny of mortal men?

"What would you do if you were immortal, or to gain immortality?" continued Don Crucito, as though reading my mind. The smell of tamales was wafting in from the outside.

"But who can live forever, señores?" said the lovely voice of Evita, the young and beautiful widow who ran the large Hacienda de le Reina south of the village. One of her fields alone had more acreage than the townsite itself. Her grace and Coca-Cola bottle figure had all men for miles mesmerized. Her smile was catchy and the timbre in her voice was smooth as a rippling stream in the mountains above. She was said to be Christian. Her acts of kindness were known by all behind her back. Probably everyone in the village had received some kind of help, or a gift, from the lovely hands of the widow Evita. I thought of her as a country girl. Yet her silky dress was city-like even in the ashy star speckled night. At that moment a falling star in the night sky above looked like when a metal rod stirs the coals. I loved Evita. She always made me think of stars and beautiful things like forests and beaches. Someday she was going to be a good wife to somebody and it bothered me a little too much to think it might not be me. I must be single focused, I told myself. In her presence I could feel my heart beating faster.

"You should live forever, and shine as lovely always as you do now," I said, hoping to not sound too heretical to my calling. Her dark eyes glistened in the night to accent her wide glossy lipped smile. She moved with a soft smooth sound of garments and a subtle perfume pervaded the smokiness around us. I inhaled like a man in prayer and thought of civilization— and a brilliantly lit memory of a kitchen in a Florida rental returned as uninvited recollections sometimes do. Her name was Laura, a blonde nurse who used to come over for tea during one year while rooming near the university. Oh Nurse! My manners were at their worst. At the deathbed of a young man I was flirting with Evita and thinking about my old friend Laura. I was suddenly embarrassed and I think it must have shown on my face. In those moments my lips seemed to freeze in mid sentence, as I was about to try to get out of it.

"Have a good night, buenas noches" she said, speaking first, blessing us with another soft smile and then melting into the crowd. For the first time it dawned on me that there was a rather large crowd for that hour of the night in the village. Funerals and weddings, I recall, were the entertainment in a land where radio and television were still rarities and to the villagers such electronic wonders were a sort of sorcery from the crucibles of chemists in a foreign land.

"Don Crucito," I beckoned with my voice, asking the old man for his attention. When he turned in my direction I asked "Can I help you get the treasure from the mountain cave, la cueva del serrito?" It coincided with a sudden lull in the noise of the crowd, and because of my naturally loud voice I might as well have been calling through a bullhorn. The noise of the crowd resumed but booted footsteps began to slowly build up as the curious gathered to hear Don Crucito deal with the impertinent if not irreverent foreigner. If I felt put on the spot, though, I noticed that Don Crucito was drawing his breath for a long discourse in the face of the hungry crowd. Oh no, I thought, I'm in for a ghost story and I better stay and look attentive.

"Reverend, the boy is dead--"

I blinked ice cold reality at the words. My heart pounding I went into emergency cardiopulmonary rescucitation in a flash and spent what seemed an eternity trying to revive the fresh corpse. Finally, with a soft touch on my shoulder, the old man beckoned me to let him take charge of the corpse. As if we did it all the time, I immediately began the crowd control operation of reminding everybody that Don Crucito wanted to now work in quiet and in private.

"--But we will have to bring him back to life" a voice said. A murmur flashed like an echo through the crowd, which was very quiet now, very reverential toward the dead. I waved for all to leave. The crowd stirred.

"No, Reverend, let everybody stay. My people!" he called out, holding both hands up to heaven and looking like a scraggly bearded prophet, his face aglow by the raging fire at his feet. "Tonight I will reveal to you the secrets of Magic that I received from my father and that I have learnt over the years. The world is changing and the young must inherit the reins of power. Learn what I am about to teach you. This time, my people, we are going to fight the evil and we will win. Whoever does not learn quick and well what I am about to repeat only once again afterwards, may not survive the night."

I felt shivers.

"I want to live too," said a child, a thin boy, whom I recognized but I never knew his name. Everybody callled him Pepito. He saved my life later in the cave and I wish I could honor his name. But let me honor his memory. After all these years and all the happiness that the treasure has brought me, let me honor his memory. I will never forget those clear dark eyes on a skinny face. There was intelligence there. I had heard that this boy built a house without a blueprint at the age of ten, so he must have been about twelve at the time of this adventure. Yet if he had had a future it might well have been taking care of goats because there was no school for him in the village in those days and nobody seemed to care about the children’s future.

"There is a special place for everybody tonight," said Don Crucito. I looked around and at my side stood Marissa, looking entranced and wide eyed at Don Crucito. As I looked on her face I remembered another time when we had stood on the same spot, here by the chapel on the edge of the village plaza. She had teasingly told me she could imagine what a child of ours would look like. It would be my eyes and her smile if a boy, my hair and her silky skin if a girl. Or a boy like me but in what she hoped was a more refined edition. Her silver laughter had tinkled in the plaza evening as the venders hawked sandwiches. The people were getting rather noisy. They were packing tighter together in the tiny space. By the gritos occurring outside and the crowd murmurs I realized that I was looking at a united village. They were all of one mind and all ready to act as one. It was awesome and fearful. I had never seen it before but I know I will see it again.

"What can I do to help, Don Crucito?" I asked.

"Muchacho-- I mean Reverend-- your prayers are your best weapon and your best way to help us all tonight. I am old but the Lord has preserved enough juice in me to climb to la cueva del serrito. The time has come for which I have waited for years before you were born. You are a man of God, it is true, but tonight you will see evil that you have prayed does not exist. Tonight, Reverend, if we are lucky we will both survive. Or perhaps only one of us will return. But if I do not come back do not despair. My spirit has left my body every night while I sleep for the last forty years. I remember everything. I choose you to be my messenger and my hands and feet if anything happens to me. My spirit will appear to you in a dream even if you are wide awake. remember that it will be no devil or angel but just me. If my body perishes in the cave tonight you must remain absolutely calm so that I can communicate with you. Do you understand?"

"Yes" I said, feeling absolutely awed at what the horrifying thought that this was happening to me just hours from a civilization where cars and trains and airplanes drone endlessly.

"Bueno, in that case let us proceed. This boy that has died to the world is in reality only asleep. However, the life of the boy depends on us retrieving an herb known as sinsema nohaí. We just mix it along with four parts sugar, one part salt, and boil it in a potful of water from the mouth of the cave. There is a trick to this. There are seven trickles near the entrance in a crevice I know about, but only one is good for healing and the extension of life. Yes, Reverend, God has made many mysterious things not heard about in your country or in your schools. This knowledge has been handed down from father to son since time immemorial. What you are about to learn tonight if you live, is that you will never die once you conquer the great beast that dwells with its demons in the cave. Let me share a secret with you that I have never uttered but to my Lord and yours. Reverend, swear to me-- yes, swear, and set aside any fear of doing so-- that you will never repeat what I tell you, nor relate the events of this night if you should happen to survive it, until you yourself have lived the Truth and I have been on the other side for no less than forty years. God help us all should we fail and the evil in the cave takes over the world. Do not shiver, Reverend, here is a capa for you. It is black like the entrance of the cave, but its lining is as golden as the light inside the cave that the others know nothing about. Do you feel a certain tingle as you drape it over your shoulders? You would call it static electricity, but in truth it is more like bioelectricty according to the new age alchemists of your world. You will find it useful inside the cave. Only I and those who came before me know about la cueva del serrito and the horrors that move within it and seek the minds of those who sleep unprotected. I have kept watch over this village for centuries, Reverend. I do not know why, but if anything goes wrong tonight, I believe that you will help complete a work that I started so very long ago."

For one who had been silent for the most part since I had known him, the old man was now talking and engrossing me with his fantastic claims as if he had always lectured me. In his wrinkled eyes I saw a spark like one sees in the eyes of children. There was clarity in his dark eyes that spoke of an intense physical vitality, as though he could stretch his endurance beyond maybe even the strongest of our generation. Could he really be telling the truth? Centuries, he said. I tried not to laugh and restrained myself from any physical expression by biting my tongue.

"Don Crucito, you speak like a professor. Where and from whom did you say you learned all these things? They are absolutely fascinating! You make me feel Goosebumps with your stories. Maybe we could write a book someday...." I started to chat, probably looking and sounding rude. I was a bit nervous but I did not want it to show.

"Hee hee haa," he chuckled, glancing at me as if he could see through my act, "you make funny faces when you bite your tongue. Let me just tell you that the old saying is true: 'the devil knows more for being old than for being the devil'. I do not even remember learning what I know. All I really know is that I know nothing, like your philosopher Socrates said to my father."

"I would have loved to have met him," I said, thinking about his father. I would have liked to have met Socrates too.

"I've read Socrates," I added, "through a student of his who wrote about Socrates because Socrates himself, like Jesus, seems to have written nothing. You would think such important men would have written something themselves. It would be so much clearer. But I believe, as others do, that the way a man lives says more to others than a thousand sermons. It is my prayer that God give us wisdom. May whatever terrors face us tonight be done away through the Grace of the Lord. May His Holy Grace make whatever healing awaits us manifest. Amen!"

"May the Divine Providence hear you" he said quietly.

"Excuse me," said a clear female voice. It made my heart leap. It was Evita.

"Exactly what are you two doing when we have a little boy who just died and a grieving family. Please talk to them, gentlemen, because my comadres and I do not know what else to say. Reverend, would you like some coffee?"

"Si, Evita, and thank you. Maybe we could talk a little bit while Don Crucito gets ready to lead us to the cave."

"We are ready and there is no time for coffee, Reverend. Evita, tell the mother to take a hot bath and see to it that she is not left alone until we return. Tell Isidro to come here because I have something for him to do."

Evita silently spun on her heel with a swash of her fancy poncho. It was clear to me that she did not like taking orders as well as giving them. Nonetheless, I noticed that she went directly to Don Crucito's teen-aged great-grandson (how great I could no longer begin to guess) and whispered in his ear, pointing with her slim, long fingered and graceful fingers in our direction..

"Your eyes are bewitched, Reverend, and she always does that to you. There is no harm in marriage. Evita has been alone long enough and so have you. What is a religion? Are you a better man of God by not being with a woman you love, or by not having children with her? My path is that of the hermit by choice. I was once happy with one I thought could never be replaced. After she died I learned that time must go on and we need not paint it black. I have had hundreds of women and have learned to live alone. But that is not a lesson you need to learn or should learn just yet. You have your life ahead of you, Reverend, do not throw it away on nights with your books and candles. That woman likes you but you have yet to discover just how to capture her. She will come to you just like that with a little persuasion. But you do not yet know what to do. Let me tell you, after tonight, you may have saved her life and she might be noble enough to thank you. Kiss her, Reverend; do not just drink her coffee. Kiss her hand and kiss the ground beneath her feet. But let her know how beautiful she is to you."

"Let us please change the subject," I suggested in a sheepish voice.

"Are you ready for the cave?" he asked, peering deep into my eyes.

"Yes," I said, but unsure of the reality of my words. Ready for what? My quiet little village had become a Hollywood movie. There was treasure and there was mystery in the cave. There was a beautiful girl that made every famous actress look like a cardboard cutout. I knew that I was playing a role in some great adventure tonight. My heart began to glow with excitement as I felt like a child about to embark on a trip. Where would I go? What was Don Crucito going to teach me? Could he really know anything? I was ready.

"Get your army boots on" said the old man, "and I will get the others ready. Meet me at the foot of the mountain as quickly as possible. There is no time to waste."

In less time than it takes to toast homemade bread on a campfire griddle I was ready and met a group of about sixty volunteers milling around Don Crucito by a fire at the rock where we usually had barbecues on hot days. It was so strange to see the place by torchlight. I could hear coyotes in the distance. They seemed to be asking why we were up so late and why we were encroaching on their territory.

"Take those burros and load them with as much food and rifles as possible!" barked a voice in the crowd. There was more of a commotion now and even the women and children were milling about, almost everybody doing something to prepare the men for the journey to la cueva del serrito.

"Reverendo, the boys are loading up a cart with water cantaros. They want to know if you can help them" said a ragged young man who was suddenly tugging at my sleeve and pointing at his father and three brothers trying to load a cart held by a very rebellious looking mule.

"Of course, " I said. It took some huffing and puffing but soon we were done and nobody even noticed. Don Crucito was nowhere to be seen. I stood for a moment gazing at the cart and felt a thirst that called for a cold drink. I unloaded a cantarito and kept it by me as I drank from a cupped hand.

"Here is a canteen, señor," one of the brothers said to me,"We made many of these last year from the guayavas on Juan's ranch."

It always surprised me how any plant or animal was put to some use in the village. Even little children would make toy trains from any piece of dry wood they could find in their patios.

"Muchachos, it is time to go. ¡Here comes Don Crucito!" yelled Pancho's voice.

I was assigned a burro and his reins were in my hand before I even had a chance to say that I was willing to walk. Thinking better of it, though, I decided to pack a bit of electronic gear for the trip. I took a camera, a thermally rechargeable flashlight, a mini digital filming camcorder, a digital audio tape machine, and my laptop computer for notes. Something told me that I should also pack my revolver and camping knife just in case of hunger or trouble. Or both. I was preparing to travel less than a mile up the slope of the mountain known as El Cuerno, but it felt as though I was about to leave forever.

The burro was perky and a young one. He seemed more eager for the journey than I was. In a cloud of dust and amidst whoops of joy and some cursing from the more drunk of the men, we departed from the village. Only women and children were left behind.

"Ayaah Ayaah Burro!" someone yelled. There was much whistling and animal sounds. Even the village chickens had woken up to scratch at the crumbs around the fire. They now squawked and scattered before the horses and burros. The caravan was moving now. It was a trip of but about four hours and by the time we reached the unimposing clearing in front of la cueva del serrito we were all ready to eat something. I was especially hungry because the previous day I had eaten little on account of a series of visitations I had been making to different families, relatives of the late Pedrito. Usually the families who attended my tiny chapel by the village square offered me a bite to eat whenever I visited them, but on this occassion they were a poorer lot than even the others. I had not expressed my hunger.

Once we arrived at the mouth of the cave we rushed as a team to set up camp. In minutes there were fires starting and even pots for warming beans were pulled out. Apparently the others had been told to pack for a long journey. I had initially been of the impression that we would travel back down after getting the herbs from the mouth of the cave. But of course I was ready for a longer stay. I noticed that it was past four a.m. by my watch and realized that none of us had slept. Dawn would be upon the campsite soon and undoubtedly Don Crucito, who appeared to never sleep, would be verbally whipping us all into some sort of army to invade the cave. Ah well, I thought, I might as well try to sneak in a few minutes of sleep. I rolled up in a blanket by a fire, placed my study bible under my head as a pillow, and effortlessly fell asleep.

"Reverendo, wake up, I need your help," said the voice of Don Crucito. I blinked my mind into a waking state and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"Yes, Sir, I am ready. Are we going to look for the herbs?" I asked.

"The Lord be praised, Reverend, you must be a mind-reader. Yes, the time to find the elusive sinsema nohai is now."

I noticed that his overall demeanor was different. He wore a raggedly edged hat that looked gray in the moonlight. His eyes reflected the dying embers of the fire beside me. I felt a slight chill and a dampness because of sleeping in the open, but Don Crucito was protected against the same by a coat I remembered giving him last winter. It had belonged to a brother that had since transfered to South America. The white stubble on Don Crucito's chin seemed to have been growing longer overnight. His breath was quicker than usual, I noticed. My impression was that he was excited about entering the cave. My own feeling was that of nervousness. What if there were scorpions, snakes, or spiders in that cave?

"I have something here for you," he said. He dug into the leather satchel that was perpetually at his side and pulled out a shiny aluminum thermos.

"Coffee?" I wondered.

"Yes, the widow Constancia told me that you might be needing this before long," he said in a paternalistic tone. Certainly it was no secret in the village that I enjoyed a cup of coffee at any time of day, especially if I had to talk for any length of time. A surge of gratitude went out from my heart to the widow Constancia in the village below. The last time I had seen her was about two weeks prior when I had bought some goat's milk cheese from her for my breakfast taquitos and she had refused to accept payment. After a thermos capful of black coffee, surprisingly sweetened to my taste as if prepared by my own hand, I told the old man that I was ready. Indeed I was. I was wearing old jeans and my knapsack of electronic gadgetry was light enough even though my back had been slightly sore for days already.

"Well then, follow me. Do not wake the others. The spirits in the cave are sensitive to people's thoughts and if we work silently and quickly we will be successful." said Don Crucito. I followed him along a path he seemed to know even though there were no obvious markings. He walked quickly and noiselessly in almost total darkness, making me imagine him in moccasins and at one with nature, as if he had lived like that all his life. Maybe he had.

"Reverend, do you have a flashlight?" he suddenly asked, breaking my reverie.

"Yes I do," I answered. I had charged the thermal batteries by sleeping with the flashlight under my pillow the previous night. I was glad that I had bought the space age wonder back in the States. In an area where there was no electric power for miles even the regular rechargeable batteries would have been useless. A satellite telephone would have been handy just to be able to call back home on occasion, but they were not yet making them with thermally rechargeable batteries.

"Let us go, then," said Don Crucito in a grave tone. For the first time that night I sensed an almost imperceptible groan in his spirit.

A growl greeted us as we approached the mouth of the cave.

"Uchila!" yelled Don Crucito, making a quick gesture in the direction of the sound. A noise like that of a mountain lion fleeing over crackling branches ensued. I silently commended us to God. Whatever lay ahead was yet a mystery to me.

"One moment," said Don Crucito. He paused and tethered a horse. It was Relampago, his personal horse. But tonight he was wearing a bloodied saddle.

"That saddle smells horrid," I said, wrinkling my nose at the stench.

"Precisely," said Don Crucito.

The inside of the cave looked dry in the halodiamonic light. Don Crucito supplemented my flashlight, though. He made a torch by dipping a woven straw handle in a tarlike substance lining the mouth of the cave and wrapped it in a leather pouch that also carried long matches. I noticed the creamy colored old ivory handle of an old revolver sticking out of his belt buckle and that his vest was actually a long leather ammunition clip wrapped in a figure eight around his torso like a vest. It must have held about two hundred bullets. I had only seen those in the old pictures of Pancho Villa and the revolutionaries. My guess was that the old man was either very afraid of what he genuinely knew was in the cave or he was suffering from extreme paranoia. Somehow I felt it was not the latter, that indeed a great danger beyond normal human experience or comprehension laid ahead of us. I shivered visibly.

"Do not be afraid, Reverend, I have silver and gold bullets for any emergency, as well as a few good lead pieces just in case of extra trouble."

"Don Crucito-- " I started to say.

"It is time that you start calling me by my true name, Reverend, as I too must now call you by your true name. As we face the upcoming night we may have need to call to each other. Our lives could depend on a split second's response. There will be little time for fancy titles. My name is Quiroje, but you must call me 'Qui' to keep it simple." He offered his hand as though we were meeting for the first time.

"My name is Estanislado, but everyone calls me 'Stan'" I answered, gripping his hand firmly and shaking it. His thumb pressed my ring finger knuckle as though trying to tell or ask me something. I pressed his index knuckle just to make a response.

"O.k., Stan, let us continue. The sound you will hear as we stand still by this grey rock is the sound of the seven trickles." He pointed at a smooth grey rock that was round, too round to be naturally shaped that way, yet it appeared ancient and deeply embedded in the floor of the cave. I noticed that it was in a perpetually shadowy area by the entrance, around a curve, as though hidden by design by some ancient architect. My ears perked up and I strained to hear whatever sound might come from the darkness within the cave. Sure enough, there was a faint and distant sound of running water. It sounded like a fountain, the kind you see in front of office buildings in the States.

"Qui," I said, getting a feel for the new name of the old man I had always revered as Don Crucito, "I thought you said that the trickles were near the entrance as well as the herbs with which you can heal the dying boy."

"The waters are but a stone's throw from this spot, Stan, but the herbs are right over your head. Let us hurry. The boy will die only if we fail to subdue the spirits"

I looked up as two tiny flying things reacted to my probing flashlight by screeching and dropping down in a quick swoop, flapping loudly and violently against my ears with what felt like very cold and wet wings. A chill made me take a quick breath because for a moment I thought they were blackbirds or magpies. But they seemed to be nothing more than very fat bats. Their eyes were red and in an instant I caught the look of one out of the corner of my eye. It is an image that remains imprinted on my mind across the years. It was a look of terror, as if I had frightened the creature into a total panic. Yet it was a look of dark menace, of hatred, as if but for it's size the creature would have bit off my head. If only at that moment I had turned around and abandoned the journey I would not now be writing these words, and I would know what it is like to be mortal, as would you.

I screamed something incoherent and it echoed many times, finally fading deeply into the dark convoluted crevices of the cave. Qui also yelled out a curse and I heard his revolver bang out three shots. The bullets nicked stones but hit nothing else. The shots also echoed in the labyrinth ahead of us. I begin trembling uncontrollably and it lasted for a few moments.

"Stan, those are only creatures of flesh," said my guide in a consoling tone of voice, and smiling broadly as though to reassure me. I blinked very slowly at him to not show my emotions. Why could I not run? I felt like a child in a Halloween horror house, expecting a monster to come out of the shadows at any moment.

"Here, use this." He handed me his handkerchief. It was then that I felt the warm liquid was oozing down on my white collar. It had been painless but somehow the two creatures had managed to slice into both my ears.

"Let’s go, Stan," said Qui, suddenly quickening into action. He took the flashlight from my hands so I could nurse my wounds with the handkerchief.

"Hurry, man, the noise those little devils made, along with your scream, is going to limit the time we can stay in the cave. They have their own ugly little language, and to them it is not even the gunshots that matter. We are going to have to go back and get the others and their rifles. We cannot fight them all off alone."

"But they were only bats, right?" I said, wondering and hoping that it was so. Qui turned and looked at me with incredulity in his eyes.

"No," he said with gravity, "those were not bats. They are called chingaros and they drink blood like bats. But they are not bats they are more deadly. They eat meat and will attack any warm-blooded animal when hungry. They have been known to devour an entire cow in less than an hour. Their sharp little teeth will even make short work of bone. Once they taste human blood they become addicted to it. I once saw them completely devour a small child in less than five minutes. There was not a single drop of blood left on the ground." Qui crossed himself.

"But they are only creatures of flesh," I repeated in a hollow voice.

"They are the first curse, and there will be six more. In the end none of us may come out alive. Yet we must fight them and also overcome the other terrors in order to get to the Mascarones deep in the cave."

"What are Mascarones?" I asked, feeling the handkerchief getting to be a wet and warm mass in my hand.

"Stan, there is an entire civilization living under the earth. They are the Mascarones and it is said that they once lived on the surface of the earth. The pyramids in Mexico and Egypt were built by them. Many years ago in the history of the planet there was a bombardment of space rocks. The planet Vulcan that housed the mighty and strong parent race of humanity was destroyed and this entire world, which was actually a laboratory to the, become home to those who could make it here. They had kept the rotation of the planet at a natural twenty-five hour day, but the impact of the rocks ruined everything. The damage was as bad as that of atomic explosions as pieces of the planet crashed into the earth. When the earth's rotation speeded up from twenty-five hours to twenty-four hours per day it created such a disturbance in the weather and light and dark cycles that in order to survive they had to flee the natural light of day. They took their flying machines and burrowed deep underground. This cave is an ancient entrance and exit to their secret world. There are other openings around the world but this is the only one I know firsthand. Deep in the cave we will come upon a blue light if we can survive the seven curses. They were a great a noble race and direct ancestors of the human race. In fact we were created as an experiment. But they are no longer human as we surface dwellers are. Their science is beyond anything we can even conceive and their needs and plans are beyond our comprehension. All I know is that less than a hundred years ago they were disturbed by underground atomic explosions. They felt under attack and so they decided to put a stop to us as the source of the evil. Your government had no idea that it was conducting nuclear testing in underground areas that were just above some of their sensitive areas of research. Far beneath the deserts in your country they keep machines bigger than anything you can imagine, probably as big as some of the countries in the hemisphere, and they use these vast machines to actually alter the earth’s magnetic fields and even the weather patterns. What they are doing is trying to prolong the life of the earth by making the sun shoot out a certain energy every eleven years or so"

My jaw must have been open because I suddenly felt an insect enter it. I tried to spit it out but ended up swallowing it instead.

"What in the world are we going to do?" I wondered aloud.

"Tonight we will look death in the eye and maybe death will blink," said Qui. Later I remembered that he had said that about Death. I felt like I was in a movie or a book and my breath was quickened with suspense about what the next moment might bring. I didn't have to wait long. A trembling of the ground felt as though an earthquake or a volcanic eruption might be coming.

"Those are the others, Stan, they are coming for us. We need to run. RUN, MAN! FLY!" Even as he spoke I dropped everything I was carrying except the flashlight. In heartbeats we were at the mouth of the cave.

"O.k., Muchachos, now!" yelled Qui. A net of chicken wire was spread like a fishnet over the mouth of the cave. Is this what they had been preparing while I slept earlier? I spun on my heel to stare at the contraption and the buzzing of what seemed like a million mosquitos came closer to the cave mouth.

"Tie that post down!" Yelled a voice. Five men instantly huddled to try to beat the creatures and tie the post. I saw that there were eight secured points around the cave holding the wire net. The net was shiny at points in the firelight and appeared to be thinner than normal wire, as though filed by hand. Then it happened. They were almost done when the impact of the chingaros tore an opening in the net. A splattering of blood and screams filled the air.

"You don't have to look," said a solemn Qui. The screams of the unfortunate three were drowned out by the cries of the chingaros as they crashed in a bloody mass into the metal net. After but a moment the creatures inside the net stopped and the humming noise settled. A mass of thrashing wounded and dead bleeding chingaros and pieces of the same had momentarily blocked the exit back into the cave for those that had survived.

"Cover that hole!" yelled voices. In unison about ten or twelve men were at the net, tearing off pieces of chingaro flesh from the sharpened wire. The remains of the men were the larger body bones and even those were picked clean. I was looking at bone that had been a living person just moments before.

"There is too much blood and the flies will be bad in the morning," said a man, "we will have to set fire to the cave."

"Everybody be quiet," said the sternest voice of Juan, "Don Crucito is about to tell us something!"

"Don't worry about the blood... " Qui-- that is, Don Cucito, started to say. His voice was drown out by a sudden flurry of sqeaking and crunching inside the net. The chingaros were eating their dead comrades. After about four minutes they finished and their wings fluttered like bats as they placidly flew deeper into the cave.

"We will have to destroy them, for they are the first curse," said Qui. He was talking to me. I could not imagine finding all those creatures again. I didn't want to.

"How many are there?" I asked.

"There are seven. You have heard of Moses and the Egyptians. Well those were primitive spirits. They are much more experienced and evil now than they could ever be back then. Reverend, in the company of those around us I must ask you to pray for this expedition. You, Severo, off with that hat. You've been wearing it night and day so much that it looks like you were born with that hat." A grumbling Severo, who was known to pointedly avoid any church or home service, whether by me or anybody else, grudgingly complied. I noticed a certain relief in his eyes, though, as though the fearful event he had just witnessed had caused enough awe in him to think about God. Or A god.

I was wondering how many chingaros might live in the depths of the cave. If Qui was right then the chambers ran for miles below the earth. Was this only the first curse? I prayed silently for a moment.

"Let us pray for the souls of the departed" I quietly ordered. There was a moment of silence and I felt everyone eyes on me. In the sweaty silence I could hear the crackle of campfire increasing every moment. The camp was up and I noticed that every animal seemed to already be packed.

"Lord, we are humbled by your eternal grace. You have given your son Jesus so that all who believe in Him might have eternal life. We commend the souls of Refugio Carmona, Eliseo Mares, and Celestino Goya to your loving hands. They gave their lives trying to save their brethren from a horrible death. Lord, they suffered that death for us and saved only you know how many. As is written, 'greater love hath no man that he give his life for his brethren'. Lord, we bury their bodies now hoping that in your resurrection we shall all meet again. Amen." I crossed myself in deference to their custom, almost without thinking. In unison they echoed my words and gestures.

"O.k., let's go," said Qui. There was a cold and vengeful glint now in the eyes of the men that I had never seen before.

"Reverend, are you a firstborn?" Asked Qui.

"Why no, there's my brother Jacques--" I started to say, suddenly remembering his comment about the first curse affecting all the firstborn first.

"O.k., then follow me. Everybody who is not a firstborn follow me. I need thirty three men who are not firstborns!" announced Qui in his Don Crucito manner of an old man. I no longer saw him that way. He was a strong man about my age disguised as an old man.

We entered the caravan by opening the criss-crossed wire at two openings and crawling through like soldiers in a hurry, just as quickly sealing the wire behind us.

"We will overcome or we will perish. The wire is but a delay mechanism. If we fail tonight then these creatures will emerge all around the earth and invade the cities of the earth within twenty four hours. There is no turning back. Our only chance lies in our temporay immunity because we are not firstborn. However, should a chingaro taste blood of one of us then we might all become vulnerable unless that person dies within ten seconds of being bit, and the chingaro must be instantly killed and its body kept from being eaten by the others. Remember this, everyone, for our very survival might depend on it. "

We ventured deeper in single file, with Qui and I at the head of the line. I recovered the things I had dropped earlier. Amazingly they were not splattered with blood as I had expected.

"Try to not dirty up the caverns with human smelling things if you can avoid it." said Qui. There was a tense laughter all around for a moment.

"Maestro, I am hungry," said a female voice.

We all turned in shock. It was Evita. She had sneaked in disguised as a man.

"Eppa!" yelled one of the men, who was doing something by a rock he did not want a woman to see him do. He tried to hide behind the rock as a few chuckles sounded in the cave.

She came out of the shadows toward us, her sombrero pushed back off her head and held to her back by the chin strap. Her long fair flowed and her soft profile was a sharp contrast to the surroundings.

"Why are you here?" asked Qui in his sternest Don Crucito voice.

"You are going to need me," said Evita.

"Evita, you should not have come!" I yelled. The thought of the danger she was in was making me feel a rare anger toward her. She flashed a fiery glance at me in return.

"You are going to need me because I know the cave she said."

"When were you ever here?" queried Qui, "Maybe the time has come for you to tell us whatever you need to tell us".

"Many years ago my brother and I were hunting with my uncle in this area. We were on two horses and had stopped near here to make a fire. A certain deep sound, like a rumbling, interrupted us and it seemed to us that the mountain was trembling. We managed to find the source of the sound was this cave. My uncle did not believe the cave was dangerous and would not listen to us tell him it was forbidden to enter it. My uncle told us to wait and he went inside. He was gone for a long time. When he returned he was laughing and carrying a small rectangular chest. It appeared to be very old. Inside was a map and gold coins, some diamonds, and other gems. My uncle made us promise to never say what we had found. He then went to the United States and returned a wealthy man. He died not long after that, and I and my brother inherited his fortune. I also kept the map." With that she reached into her backpack and pulled out what looked like a large scroll.

"Is that the paper with the mark of the circled X?" asked Qui. Evita looked startled.

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It was in a box that came from the Orient. It is the only map ever made of the cave’s inner passageways. Even so it is incomplete. But if your uncle found the box he must have also found the golden and silver keys that came with the map."

"Yes, that’s true too, Don Crucito", said Evita.

"Where are those keys now?"

"They were made into a necklace for my Aunt Sofia, but after she died I inherited it too. It so happens I felt they might be important and have brought them along too."

"Good," said Qui. You have saved us some time. You can come along if you want to, but you must remain at the back with Silverio and the others who will flank the rear. For your protection, you will need a rifle." A commotion started among the men to search for a rifle.

"No, I will NOT stay at the back... " she inhaled deeply and I could tell she was refraining from being rude. "After all, it IS my map and it IS my life. I am as brave and as strong as any of you." Qui peered into her eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded as a smile gradually turned into a grin on his face.

"Reverend!"

"Yes, Sir"

"Since you and I are at the front of this expedition, I hope it will not bother you that this brave young woman will be right beside you."

"Why no, it will not," I said. I told myself that it would not distract me either.

"And I will not need a rifle either," said Evita. We all turned quiet for a moment.

"Don Crucito, there is more to the story than what I just told you. I have been coming to this cave for years and have never faced any greater danger than the mountain lions and coyotes. I knew that I should not let anybody know I was here even in the face of danger. I did not want to ever risk firing a shot that would betray the cave had a visitor, so I have been bringing bows and arrows here to stash for my own use. Buried under those leaves are four bows and at least a dozen arrows imported from the United States." She pointed at a crevice near the entrance that was covered with dried branches and leaves, as if by the wind.

"I have become a fair shot with the bow and arrow and will arm myself with one of these," she said. After a few moments of digging the men had retrieved the entire arsenal of bows and arrows. There were four bows and twenty arrows. Evita took the smallest bow, a silver handled one that appeared to be quite old, and twanged the string.

"They are all in good condition. I restrung them just recently," she said

"Please carry the rest, and let me have 3 arrows now," she said to the men.

"Ok, enough delay, we must continue now!" exclaimed Qui.

"Silverio, please bring a lantern here so we can review this map" he breathlessly ordered in a calm voice.

"Qui, I have a good light here," I offered. Sure enough, my flashlight was brighter than all the lanterns put together. The thermally rechargeable batteries were at peak power since they had been exposed to my body heat for many hours already. The nice thing about the Model XD300 Flashlight is that it allows the batteries to charge up without removal as long as there is an external heat source.

----- to be continued

Write to the author: vicentereyes@yahoo.com

Internet source: http://www.thepoetsdiary.com/

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