The Black Witch of Mexico (16 page)

He had rehearsed it over and over in his mind, how it would be: one day he would get an email from her telling him what a terrible mistake she had made and how she had changed her mind. She would beg him to take her back.

You dumb fuck, Adam. It’s not going to happen, it’s not ever fucking going to happen. Get over it.

Move on.

Chapter 37

He and Luis ate their usual dinner of beans and hot tortillas and wiped their plates clean. When they had drunk their milky coffee they went outside and Luis sat down on the steps beside him and rolled a cigarette.

Except for an occasional lumbering flatbed truck, the street was quiet.

“What do you think of the Crow?” Adam asked him.

“The
brujo
? I’m frightened of him.”

“You believe what he tells people?”

“Of course.”

“Have you been to see him?”

Luis looked frightened.

“No, never. I’m a good Christian.”

“You won’t get into any trouble, Luis. You can tell me the truth.”

“It’s not good to go to see a witch. Father Bernard says so.”

“You must have been once in your life.”

Luis shook his head.

“I’m not going to tell the padre. I’m just curious how it works. I need someone to tell me, someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

Luis hesitated. “Well, maybe once.”

“What happened?”

“It was a long time ago. Before Father Bernard came here.”

“Did you see the Crow?”

“No, it was another witch. It was when I lived in San Cristobal. People said he was very powerful.”

“Why did you go to see him?”

“My girlfriend left me for another boy. I wanted her back.”

“What happened?”

“I got her back, like he said I would.”

“So it works?”

“If it is a powerful witch, not just anyone. You just need a photograph or a piece of hair or something that belongs to her and he will do the rest.”

“And the Crow is a powerful witch?”

“They say he is the most powerful witch in all Mexico. Everyone is scared of him.” He lowered his voice. “Almost everyone in the village has been to see him, but don’t let Father Bernard know. He will be very upset. But people still go to the church. It can be a very hard life here in Mexico, and you cannot have too much magic.”

“No,” Adam said. “I guess no one can ever have too much magic.”

* * *

The clinic was finished for the day. Bernard had gone to visit a nearby village, said he would not be back before dark. Luis had gone with him.

He sat on the steps, staring up at the hill. Everyone had taken shelter from the heat of the day; even the village dogs were asleep. Adam put his hands over his ears, trying to shut out the drone of insects.

Another week and he would be back in Boston. He had marked the days on the calendar in his journal, crossing them off like it was a tour of duty.

This might be your last chance, Adam.

He took his wallet out of his back pocket and stared it yet again.
Come back to me.

He made up his mind and set off through the village. He stopped when he reached the path up to the bluff and looked back over his shoulder, as if he was being watched.

No one need ever know.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and set off.

* * *

He walked with his head down, past the skull with the cigar and the altar with its little effigy. When he came in view of the house, there was no pick-up outside, and he was afraid the Crow was not there. But as he got closer he heard a growl and the Crow’s yellow dog leaped to its feet and started to run towards him. It only got as far as the length of its chain and was held there, straining at the leash, red-eyed, howling.

The door crashed open and the Crow stepped out in leather cowboy boots and a broad-rimmed hat. When he saw Adam he gave a wolfish grin.

“I wondered when you would come,” he said.

Chapter 38

Adam glanced around the room. There were boxes of roots and dried evil smelling herbs everywhere, dried bats, rattlesnake skins. There was a niche in the wall with a statue of
Santa Muerte
, a Madonna with a skull instead of a face. There was an inverted crucifix beside it. A fat, pale lizard sat frozen on the wall.

The Crow leaned towards him. The rattlesnake tooth on its silver chain flashed in the light of the candle.

“What is it you want?” he said. “I can give you anything, anything.
Todo que quieres
.”

Anything, anything.

Chapter 39

The waiting room at the clinic was full. Adam was examining one of the village children, trying to figure out the cause of the rash on her back and arms while she screamed and wriggled in her mother’s arms. He heard a jeep screech to a stop outside, then voices shouting in the waiting room.

“M
omentito
,” he said to the woman, and he and Luis went outside.

Two men had rolled their pick-up in the mountains. Their friends had rescued them and brought them straight to the clinic. They stood there in the waiting room, eyes wide with panic, covered in sweat and dirt and blood. Luis translated the machine gun Spanish for him; the truck had rolled down a gulley, they had to climb halfway down a mountain to get them.

He ushered the mother and child out of the examining room and the inured men were brought in on makeshift stretchers made from pine saplings and blankets. He had them lay one of them on the table, the other on the floor. He told Luis to fetch Bernard, that he would need help. He cut the blood-drenched clothes from the men’s heaving bodies.

He had to make a decision: which one of these men would live or die, because he knew he could not give his attention to both. The one on the table was choking on his own blood; he coughed up a fine, pink spray. He put a tube into his lungs to help him breathe, and when Luis came back he showed him how to work the bag-mask.

He stepped away to check his friend on the floor. He was already blue-grey; Adam could barely find a pulse. He needed a rapid infusion of plasma and they didn’t have enough.

He would have to leave him to die.

He found a scalpel and clamped off a length of tube and then went back to the table. He used alcohol swabs to wipe away the blood on the man’s chest and found himself looking into the face of Jesus. He had been tattooed onto the man’s torso. He had to cut through his crown of thorns to make his incision, felt a pop of air as he inserted the clamp, and then put his finger into the man’s chest to ensure the opening into the pleural space. He thought Luis was going to pass out.

“Don’t look,” he said to him. “Just concentrate on doing what I told you.”

He inserted the tube and kept it in place with a Z stitch and tape. The drain appeared to be working. He set up an intravenous line.

“We need an X-ray now,” Adam said, and they carried the stretcher through to the next room and laid him on the X-ray table.

It was a primitive machine but it was all they had. Adam put a lead apron on himself and Luis and ushered everyone else out of the room while he got film of the man’s chest. When Bernard arrived he left him to develop the X-rays and he and Luis carried the patient back into the treatment room.

His patient was still losing blood pressure despite the fluid he was pushing into him. In Boston he would have sent him straight up to the operating room. But the closest hospital was two hours away down a dirt road in San Cristobal. This guy wasn’t going to make it.

Bernard brought him the X-rays but he didn’t have time to look at them. The alarm went off on their ECG. The heart was fibrillating. There must be a massive internal bleed somewhere, Adam thought. He gave him three shocks with the paddles, found another vein, opened another line. He went into fibrillation a second time.

Bernard fetched his Bible and oils and read him the Last Rites. Adam stopped compressions and glanced at the ECG. The man’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

It was over. He stood back. Luis was still working the bag mask, diligent to the end. Adam told him to stop.

He looked down at his other patient, lying on the floor at his feet, expecting to see him lifeless as well. An eye blinked open and he groaned. He knelt down and checked his pulse. Incredibly, the man was still alive.

“I don’t believe it,” Adam said. “Okay, help me get him up on the table.”

Chapter 40

“Can we move him?” Bernardsaid.

“He’s stable enough. But he needs a proper hospital.” He turned to Luis. “Tell his friends they should take him down to San Cristobal now.”

“No, I’ll take him,” Bernard said. “These boys look like they’ve been through enough.”

As they were lifting him, Adam noticed the amulet around the man’s neck, secured by a leather thong. It looked familiar.

One of his friends saw him examine it and said, in Spanish: “It’s his lucky charm.”

“Well, it seems to have worked for him. Where did he get it?”

“He got it from the Crow,” the man whispered, clearly hoping Bernard would not hear.

They loaded the stretcher into the back of Bernard’s jeep and Adam watched it kick up a trail of dust as they headed down the dirt road. It was late in the afternoon; he must have been working on those men for hours, though it seemed like only a few minutes. The sudden release of adrenalin left him exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep.

He felt someone tugging at his elbow. It was the woman. She held up her child and showed him the rash. She was still waiting.

“This way,” he said. They went back into the examining room. It reeked of sweat and the coppery smell of blood. Luis was still cleaning away the bloodied bandages and sheets. The dead man lay on the floor, the tube flopping useless out of his ribs.

The woman didn’t even give him a second glance.

Adam sat her down on a chair and lifted up the child’s dress and took another look at the rash.

And life went on.

* * *

Luis helped him carry the dead man out to the pick-up. Two of his friends had stayed behind to take his body home to his family. After they put him on the tray Adam flipped back the white sheet and stared at the inked face of Jesus, livid now against the ashen skin. He shuddered and quickly covered him again.

As they watched the old truck trundle away with its sad cargo, he turned to Luis. “Tell me again, that time you went to a witch, when you wanted that girl to love you again. You remember telling me about that?”

Luis looked away.

“You remember?”

He nodded.

“What really happened?”

“Her boyfriend died.”

“He died? How?”

“In a motorcycle accident. She was injured, too.”

“Badly?”

“Very bad. She lost her leg and she got these scars, on her face, on her arm. That was why she wanted me back, no one else in my village wanted her after that.”

“What did you do?”

“I married Rosa.”

Adam found a pebble between his boots and tossed it into the darkness.

“And you think the witch did this?”

“I wanted her back…I didn’t want her to get hurt. That’s why I don’t go near witches anymore.”

Adam felt for his wallet in his shirt. He took it out and stared at the empty window flap where he had kept the picture of Elena.

He knew he had to get it back.

* * *

It was long after dark when they saw the jeep’s headlights swing up the road from the town.

“Bernard,” Luis said.

Bernard parked in front of the clinic and jumped out. He looked drained. “The boy’s still alive,” he said. “They had to remove his spleen.”

“He should be dead,” Adam said. “How long was he lying there on the floor? I didn’t even put an airway in.”

“His friends all say it was the amulet. The story will be all over the district by morning. The Crow will get all the credit.”

“Well, this time I don’t deserve any. I did everything I could for the other boy and he died anyway. I didn’t do anything for the other one and he lived.”