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  Separately, they wandered aimlessly, not knowing what they were looking for, hungry and frightened, living on tender roots and seeds, until hunger prodded them to hunt mice and birds with bows and arrows they fashioned from branches. When it grew too dark to continue, each built a fire and lay down to sleep, shivering with cold, surrounded by spirits and wild animals. And each awoke stiff from the frost and aching in every bone, with the startling clairvoyance that tends to come with extreme fatigue.

  A few hours into his march, Bernardo realized that he was being followed, but when he turned and glanced over his shoulder, he saw nothing but trees watching over him like quiet giants. In this forest he was embraced by ferns with shining leaves, surrounded by twisted oaks and fragrant firs and quiet, green space lighted with splashes of light that filtered through the leaves. It was a sacred place. It would be most of the day before the shy creature accompanying him would show itself. It was an orphaned foal, still so young that its legs, black as night, were wobbly. Despite its newborn delicacy and its orphan’s sense of solitude, Bernardo could see what a magnificent horse it would grow into. Horses travel in herds, and always in open country; what was it doing alone in the woods? He called it with the finest sounds of his flute, but it would stop some distance away, eyes suspicious, nostrils flaring, legs trembling, too skittish to come closer. The boy plucked a handful of moist grass, sat down on a rock, put it in his mouth and chewed it, spit it into the palm of his hand, then offered it to the beautiful little creature. Time passed before the foal decided to take a few hesitant steps forward, observing Bernardo through clear chestnut eyes, weighing his intentions and reckoning its retreat in case of danger. It must have liked what it saw, because soon its velvety muzzle touched the extended hand to taste the strange food. “It isn’t the same as your mother’s milk, but it will do,” Bernardo murmured. Those were the first words he had spoken in three years. He felt each one take shape in the pit of his stomach, rise like a cottony ball up his throat, roll around a bit in his mouth, and then, well chewed, be spit out like the mash for the foal.

  Something broke inside his chest, something thick and heavy, and all his rage and guilt and his oaths of terrible revenge poured out in an uncontainable torrent. He fell to his knees on the ground, crying and vomiting a bitter green mud, shaken by the memory of that fateful morning when he had lost his mother, and with her, his childhood. His retching turned his stomach inside out and left him empty and clean.

  The foal retreated, frightened, but did not go away, and when finally Bernardo grew calm, able to get to his feet and look for water to wash in, the foal followed close behind. They were together for the next three days. Bernardo taught it to use its hooves to paw down to the tender est grass, he held it until its legs were steady and it could trot, he slept with his arms around it at night to keep it warm, and he entertained it with his flute. “You will be called Tornado that is, if you like that name so you will run like the wind,” he proposed with his flute, because after that one sentence he had again retreated into silence. He intended to tame the foal and give it to Diego; he could not think of a more appropriate fate for such a noble creature, but when he woke on the fourth day, the foal was gone.

  The mist had burned off and the sun was painting the hills with the white light of dawn. Bernardo looked for Tornado in vain, calling it in a voice hoarse from lack of use, until he understood that the animal had not come to him in search of an owner, but to show him the path he should follow in life. He knew then that his spirit guide was the horse, and that he should develop the horse’s virtues: loyalty, strength, and endurance. He decided that his planet would be the sun, and his element the hills, where at that moment Tornado was surely trotting back to the herd.

  Diego’s sense of direction was not as good as Bernardo’s, and he was quickly lost. He also had less skill in hunting, and all he could catch was a tiny mouse, which after it was skinned was reduced to a handful of pathetic bones. He ended up devouring ants, worms, and lizards. He was so weak from hunger and the demands of the previous eight days that he did not have the strength to foresee what dangers lay in store, but he was determined not to give in to the temptation to go back. White Owl had impressed upon him that the purpose of that long test was to leave childhood behind and become a man, and he did not mean to fail his grandmother halfway through; nonetheless, the urge to break into tears was growing stronger than his determination. He had never known solitude. He had grown up beside Bernardo, surrounded with friends and people who cherished him, and his mother was never far away. For the first time, he was alone, and it had to happen just when he was deep in the wilderness. He was afraid that he would never find the way back to White Owl’s small campsite, and it occurred to him that he could spend the next four days sitting under the same tree, but his natural impatience pushed him forward. Soon he was completely lost in the vastness of the hills. He came upon a stream, and seized the opportunity to drink and bathe; then he ate some unfamiliar fruit he picked from trees. Three crows, birds venerated by his mother’s tribe, circled a few times low over his head. He took that as a sign, and it gave him spirit to go on. At nightfall he found a hollow protected by two rocks; he lit a fire, wrapped himself in his blanket, and was instantly asleep, praying that his lucky star would not fail him Bernardo said it would always light his way because it would not be at all funny to have come so far only to die in the claws of a mountain lion. He was wakened in the middle of the night by the regurgitated acid of the fruit he had eaten and the howls of nearby coyotes. Only timid coals remained of the fire, but he fed it with a few sticks, speculating that such a ridiculous little fire would not do much to keep away wild beasts. He remembered that earlier they had seen several kinds of animals that had roamed nearby but hadn’t attacked, and he sent up a prayer that they wouldn’t know that he was alone. But at that exact moment, in the light of the flames, he saw a pair of red eyes watching him with ghostly intensity. He clutched his knife, thinking that it must be a particularly bold wolf, but when he sat up and could see it better, he recognized it as a fox. So what are you doing here, zorro} he wondered. It seemed strange that it didn’t move but just sat there like a cat warming itself by the embers of the fire.

  He called, but it did not come, and when he tried to approach it, the fox retreated with caution, always maintaining the same distance between them. Diego tended the fire for a while, until weariness overcame him and he dropped back to sleep despite the faraway howling of coyotes. Each time Diego snapped awake, not knowing where he was, he would see the strange fox in the same place, like a watchful spirit.

  The night seemed eternal, but finally the first rays of the sun backlighted the profile of the mountains. The fox was gone.

  In the next three days nothing happened that Diego could interpret as a vision, except the presence of the fox, which arrived at nightfall and remained with him until dawn, always quiet and watchful. On the third day, bored and faint with hunger, Diego tried to find his way back but could not locate the site. He decided that it would be impossible to find White Owl, but that if he headed downhill, sooner or later he would come to the sea, and there find the Camino Real. So he started walking, thinking how frustrated his grandmother and his mother would be when they learned that all their preparations for those rites had not provided a vision, only dejection, and he wondered whether Bernardo had been luckier than he had been. He did not get very far because as he stepped over a fallen tree trunk he stepped on a snake. He felt a stab on his ankle, and in a couple of seconds heard the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake and was fully aware of what had happened. No room for doubt: the serpent had a slim neck and triangular head. Fear struck him in the stomach like the unforgettable kick from the pirate.

  He jumped back a few steps, away from the viper, at the same time reviewing a few vague facts about rattlesnakes. He knew that the venom is not always lethal, that it depends on the amount of poison released from the fangs, but he was in a weakened state and far from any kind of he
lp. Death seemed probable, if not from the poison, from starvation and weakness. He had seen a vaquero dispatched to the other world by one of those reptiles; the man lay down in a haystack to sleep, and never woke up. According to Padre Mendoza, God had called him to his blessed bosom where, incidentally, he would never again beat his wife through the perfect combination of poison and alcohol. Diego also remembered the drastic treatments for such cases: cutting the puncture wounds with a knife or burning them with a live coal. He could see that his leg was turning purple, he felt his mouth filling with saliva, his face and hands prickled, and he was shaking with cold. He realized that he was panicked, and that he had to do something soon, before his thoughts clouded over completely. If he moved, the venom would circulate more rapidly through his body, and if he didn’t, he would die right there. He chose to keep going, even though his knees were rubbery and his eyelids were so swollen he couldn’t see. He began stumbling downhill, calling his grandmother in a sleepwalker’s voice as his last strength drained away.

  Diego fell facedown. Slowly, painfully, he rolled over and lay beneath the bright morning sun with his face to the sky. He was panting and tormented by a sudden thirst; he was sweating quicklime and at the same time shivering with the chill of the tomb. He damned the Christian God for abandoning him, and the Great Spirit who instead of offering him a vision, as promised, was mocking him. Diego lost touch with reality, but also with fear. He was floating on a hot wind, as if miraculous air currents were lifting him, spiraling him toward the light. Suddenly elated at the possibility of dying, he relaxed into a perfect peace.

  The blistering whirlwind kept rising toward the heavens, then suddenly the wind veered, hurling him like a rock to the depths of an abyss. In a flash of consciousness, before he sank into total delirium, he saw the red eyes of the zorro, looking at him from the other side of death.

  For the next few hours, Diego floundered around in the tar pit of his nightmares, and when finally he struggled free and rose to the surface, he remembered only his consuming thirst and the unblinking eyes of the fox. He woke wrapped in a blanket, lighted by the flames of a campfire, and accompanied by Bernardo and White Owl. He was slow to come back to his body, to take inventory of his pains and reach a conclusion.

  “The rattlesnake killed me,” he said as soon as he had his voice back.

  “You are not dead, son, but you nearly were.” White Owl smiled.

  “I did not pass the test, grandmother,” the boy said.

  “But you did, Diego,” she informed him. “You passed.”

  Bernardo had found Diego and carried him back to the camp. He was on his way to meet White Owl when a fox appeared before him. He had no doubt that it was a signal; it was most unusual for such a nocturnal animal to run between his legs, especially in broad daylight. Instead of obeying his first instinct to hunt it, he stopped and observed it.

  The fox did not flee but sat down a short distance away and looked back at Bernardo, ears pricked and snout trembling. Under different circumstances, Bernardo would simply have noted the animal’s strange behavior, but he was in a visionary state, with his senses fever-hot and his heart open to signs. Unhesitatingly, he followed where the fox wanted to lead, and only a short distance farther he came upon Diego’s inert body. He saw his brother’s monstrously swollen leg and knew immediately what had happened. He did not have an instant to waste; he threw Diego over his shoulder like a sack of flour and hurried straight to White Owl, who applied herbs to her grandson’s leg that made him sweat out the poison. Finally he opened his eyes.

  “The fox saved you. That zorro is your totemic animal, your spiritual guide,” she explained. “You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence. Your mother is the moon, and your home, the cave. Like the fox, you will discover what cannot be seen in the dark, you will disguise yourself, and you will hide by day and act by night.”

  “To do what?” asked Diego, confused.

  “One day you will know you cannot rush the Great Spirit. In the meantime, prepare, so you will be ready when that day comes,” his Indian grandmother instructed him.

  Out of prudence, the boys kept the rites White Owl had conducted secret. The colony considered the traditions of the Indians to be absurd, if not savage, acts of ignorance. Diego did not want any whispers to reach his father. He confessed his strange experience with the fox to Regina, without going into detail. No one asked Bernardo anything, since his muteness made him invisible, an unexpectedly advantageous situation. People talked and behaved in front of him as if he did not exist, giving him the opportunity to observe and learn about the duplicity of human beings. He began to practice his skill at reading people’s actions, and in that way discovered that words do not always correspond to intentions. He realized that bullies generally are easy to cow, that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious.

  Through systematic and quiet observation, he learned to read character, and he applied that knowledge to protecting Diego, who was trusting by nature: he could not imagine in others defects he himself did not have.

  The boys did not see the black foal or the fox again. Bernardo thought that he sometimes caught a glimpse of Tornado galloping in the middle of a herd of wild horses, and once in the woods Diego came upon a cave with a clutch of newborn fox kits. They could not, however, relate either of these encounters to the visions attributed to the Great Spirit.

  In any case, White Owl’s ritual marked a milestone. Both of the boys had the impression that they had crossed a threshold and left childhood behind. They did not as yet feel they were men, but they knew that they were taking the first steps along the hard road of manhood.

  Together they awakened to the urgent demands of carnal desire, much less tolerable than the vague, sweet affection Bernardo had felt for Lightin-the-Night since he was ten years old. It never occurred to them to satisfy their yearnings among the willing Indian girls in White Owl’s tribe, where the rules the missionaries imposed on the neophytes were unknown. Diego held back because of his great respect for his grandmother, and Bernardo was reined in by his puppy love for Lightin-the-Night. Bernardo had no hope that his love would be returned; he realized that the one he loved had grown into a woman, and was courted by half a dozen braves who traveled from distant tribes to bring her gifts, while he was a clumsy adolescent with nothing to offer, besides being mute as a hare. Neither did the boys call on the beautiful mulatta or the more ordinary girls in the house of pleasure in Pueblo de los Angeles. They feared them more than a runaway bull; with their crimson-painted mouths and their dead jasmine scent, they were creatures from an unknown land. Like all the other boys of their age except Carlos Alcazar, who boasted about having passed the test they looked at those women from afar, with veneration and fear. Diego went with the other boys from “good” families to the Plaza de Armas at the hour of the paseo. With every circuit of the plaza he passed girls of his social class and his age strolling in the opposite direction; they cast sidelong glances, their faces half hidden by a fan or a mantilla, while the boys sweated out their impossible love in their Sunday suits. They didn’t talk back and forth, but some, the most daring, asked the alcalde for permission to serenade beneath the girls’ balconies, an idea that made Diego cringe with embarrassment partly because the alcalde was his own father. He could imagine, however, that he might want to try that method in the future, so every day he practiced romantic ballads on his mandolin.

  Alejandro de la Vega took enormous satisfaction from the fact that his son, whom he had thought to be hopelessly irresponsible, was finally turning into the heir he had dreamed of from the day the boy was born.

  He renewed his plans to educate him to be a gentleman, plans that had been postponed during the whirlwind of restoring the hacienda. He had considered sending his son to a Catholic school in Mexico City, since the situation in Europe was still unstable now thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte but Regina stirred up such a fuss at th
e idea of being separated from Diego that Alejandro did not bring the subject up again for two years. In the meantime he involved his son in running the hacienda, and found that he was much cleverer than his performance in school would suggest. Not only did he untangle the jumble of notes and numbers in the account books, he increased the family income by perfecting his father’s formula for soap and the recipe for smoking meat that he had produced only after countless attempts. Diego cut back on the lye in the soap and added milk, and suggested that they give samples to the ladies of the colony, who acquired such luxuries from the American sailors, violating the ban on commerce that Spain had imposed on her colonies. It didn’t matter that the soap was smuggled, everyone looked the other way; the inconvenience came from having to wait so long for the boats. The milk soaps were a great success, and the same was true of the smoked meat once Diego was able to dilute the odor of mule sweat. Alejandro de la Vega began to treat his son with respect, and to consult him on certain matters.

  During that period, Bernardo told Diego in their private sign language, and with notes on the slate, that one of the ranchers, Juan Alcazar, Carlos’s father, had expanded his boundaries beyond what was shown on paper. The Spaniard had herded his cattle into the mountains where one of the many tribes displaced by the colonists had taken refuge. Diego rode out there with his brother, and they got there in time to see the trail bosses, backed by a detachment of soldiers, burn the Indians’ huts. Nothing was left of the village but ashes. Despite their terror at having witnessed such a scene, Diego and Bernardo ran to intervene.

  Without consulting one another, as if of one will, they placed themselves between the horses of the aggressors and their Indian victims. They would have been trampled unmercifully had one of the riders not recognized the son of Alejandro de la Vega. Even so, they drove them out of their way with their whips. From a short distance, the two boys watched, horrified, as the few Indians who stood firm were beaten down. The chief, an old man, was hanged from a tree as a warning to the others. The attackers rounded up the men capable of working in the fields or serving in the army and led them away, roped together like animals. The elders, the women, and the children were driven off to wander through the forests, hungry and desperate. Nothing of this was new; it happened more and more frequently, and no one dared intervene except Padre Mendoza, but his charges fell on the deaf ears of the creaking and remote bureaucracy in Spain. Documents that took years by sea were lost on the dusty desks of judges who had never set foot in America and were entangled in the flimflam of petty lawyers, and in the end, even if the magistrates ruled in favor of the Indians, there was no one on the other side of the ocean to carry out justice.