Карлос Кастанеда. Второе кольцо силы (engl)

        Carlos Castaneda. The Second Ring of Power



     SIMON AND SCHUSTER New York

     COPYRIGHT  M-) 1977  BY CARLOS CASTANEDA ALL RIGHTS  RESERVED INCLUDING
THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM PUBLISHED BY SIMON
AND  SCHUSTER  A  DIVISION  OF GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION  SIMON &  SCHUSTER
BUILDING  ROCKEFELLER CENTER 1230 AVENUE OF  THE AMERICAS NEW YORK, NEW YORK
10020
     DESIGNED BY EVE METZ MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
     LIBRARY  OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA  CASTANEDA, CARLOS.
THE SECOND  RING OF  POWER. 1. YAQUI  INDIANSM-^WRELIGION  AND MYTHOLOGY. 2.
CASTANEDA, CARLOS  3.  HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS  AND  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE.  4.
INDIANS OF MEXICOM-^WRELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. 1. TITLE.


     Carlos Castaneda's extraordinary journey into the world of sorcery  has
captivated millions of Americans. In his eagerly awaited new book, he  takes
the  reader  into  a sorceric  experience so intense, so  terrifying, and so
profoundly  disturbing that it can only  be described as a brilliant assault
on the  reason,  the dramatic  and frightening attack on  every preconceived
notion of life that is don Juan's remarkable legacy to his apprentice.
     At the center of the book is a new and formidable figure, dona Soledad,
a woman whose powers are turned against Castaneda in a  struggle that almost
consumes him. Dona Soledad has been  taught by don Juan,  transformed by his
teachings  from  a  bent  and gray-haired old  woman into a sensual,  lithe,
deeply sexual figure of  awesome  and  mysterious  power, a sorceress  whose
mission is to  test Castaneda by  a  series of  terrifying  tricks. In  dona
Soledad, Carlos  Castaneda has  recorded  for  the reader a  personality  as
instantly recognizable as don Juan himself and has illuminated the strengths
and  the  feelings of  a remarkable  woman who,  despite her sorceric gifts,
expresses  some  of  the  deepest  and  most  basic  feminine  concerns  and
ambitions. For  dona  Soledad, drawn out of the  shadows of  a  defeated and
meaningless life by don Juan, has herself become a  warrior, a hunter and "a
stalker of power." Castaneda's combat with her, his gradual realization that
she not only derives her power from don Juan but is fulfilling his plans, is
all a prelude  to  an  astonishing discovery. For Castaneda unfolds  for the
reader a sorcerer's family, in which dona Soledad, her "girls," Lidia, Elena
("la Gorda"),  Josefina and  Rosa, themselves changed and transformed by don
Juan, are part of a small closed society in which the teachings of don  Juan
have  become  a  way of life, touching  and  explaining every  aspect of the
world, altering the relationships between  them so that  they are no  longer
mother  and children,  man  and  wife,  sisters  and  brothers,  friends and
enemies, but disciples, witnesses, accomplices in don Juan's grand design.
     Extraordinary  as  all Castaneda's books  have been. The Second Ring of
Power goes far beyond  anything  he has written  before: it is a vision of a
more somber, frightening and compelling world than that of Castaneda's years
of apprenticeshipM-^Wthe world of a full-fledged sorcerer, in which  dangers
lie in wait  on  the journey to impeccability and freedom, and in which  the
message of don Juan must be transformed into real life.

     Jacket Painting and Design by Robert Giusti (C) 1977 Simon and Schuster
     Contents

     PREFACE

        1 The Transformation of Dona Soledad

        2 The Little Sisters

        3 La Gorda

        4 The Genaros

        5 The Art of Dreaming

        6 The Second Attention

     Preface
     A flat, barren mountaintop on the western slopes of the Sierra Madre in
central Mexico was  the setting for my final meeting  with don Juan and  don
Genaro and their other two  apprentices,  Pablito and Nestor. The  solemnity
and the  scope of what  took place there  left no doubt in my mind that  our
apprenticeships had come  to  their concluding moment, and that I was indeed
seeing don Juan and don Genaro for the last time. Toward the end we all said
good-bye to one another, and then Pablito and I jumped together from the top
of the mountain into an abyss.
     Prior to that jump  don  Juan had presented a fundamental principle for
all that was going to happen to me. According to  him, upon jumping into the
abyss I was going to become pure perception and move  back and forth between
the two inherent realms of all creation, the tonal and the nagual.
     In my jump my perception went through seventeen elastic bounces between
the tonal and the nagual. In my  moves into  the  nagual I perceived my body
disintegrating.  I could not think or feel  in  the coherent, unifying sense
that  I ordinarily do, but I somehow thought and felt. In my  moves into the
tonal I burst  into  unity.  I was whole. My perception had coherence. I had
visions of  order. Their compelling force was so intense, their vividness so
real and their complexity so vast that I have not been capable of explaining
them to my satisfaction. To say that they were visions, vivid dreams or even
hallucinations does not say anything to clarify their nature.
     After  having  examined and analyzed  in  a  most thorough and  careful
manner  my feelings, perceptions  and  interpretations of that jump into the
abyss, I had come to the  point where I could not rationally believe that it
had actually happened. And yet  another part of me  held on steadfast to the
feeling that it did happen, that I did jump.
     Don Juan and don Genaro are no  longer  available and their absence has
created in me a most pressing need, the need to make headway in the midst of
apparently insoluble contradictions.
     I went back to Mexico to see Pablito and Nestor to  seek their help  in
resolving  my  conflicts.  But  what  I encountered on  my  trip  cannot  be
described  in any  other  way  except  as  a final assault on  my  reason, a
concentrated attack designed by don Juan himself. His apprentices, under his
absentee direction, in a most methodical and precise fashion demolished in a
few days  the last  bastion of my reason. In those few days they revealed to
me one of the two  practical aspects  of their sorcery, the art of dreaming,
which is the core of the present work.
     The art  of stalking, the other  practical aspect of their  sorcery and
also  the crowning  stone of don Juan's  and  don  Genaro's  teachings,  was
presented to  me  during subsequent visits and was  by far the  most complex
facet of their being in the world as sorcerers.


        1
     The Transformation of Dona Soledad

     I  had a sudden  premonition that  Pablito and Nestor were not home. My
certainty was so profound that I  stopped my car.  I  was at the place where
the asphalt came to an abrupt end, and I wanted to reconsider whether or not
to  continue that  day  the  long and difficult drive on the  steep,  coarse
gravel road to their hometown in the mountains of central Mexico.
     I rolled down the window of my car. It was rather windy and cold. I got
out to  stretch my legs.  The tension of driving for hours had  stiffened my
back and  neck. I  walked to the edge  of the paved road. The ground was wet
from  an  early shower. Rain was still  falling heavily on the slopes of the
mountains  to the south, a short distance from where  I  was. But  right  in
front of me,  toward the east and also  toward the north, the sky was clear.
At certain points  on the winding  road I had been able  to  see the  bluish
peaks of the sierras shining in the sunlight a great distance away.
     After a moment's deliberation I decided to turn back and go to the city
because I had had a most peculiar feeling that I was going to find  don Juan
in the  market.  After all, I had always done just  that, found  him in  the
marketplace, since the beginning of my association with him. As a rule, if I
did not find him in Sonora  I  would drive to central Mexico and  go to  the
market of that  particular city, and sooner or later don Juan would show up.
The longest I had  ever waited for him was two days.  I was so habituated to
meeting him in that manner  that  I had the  most absolute  certainty that I
would find him again, as always.
     I waited in the  market all afternoon. I walked  up and down the aisles
pretending to be  looking  for something  to buy. Then  I  waited around the
park. At dusk I knew  that he was not coming. I had then the clear sensation
that he had been there but had left. I sat down on a park bench where I used
to sit with him and tried to analyze my feelings. Upon  arriving in the city
I was elated with the sure knowledge that don Juan was there in the streets.
What  I felt  was more than the  memory of having found him there  countless
times before; my body knew that he was looking for me. But then, as I sat on
the  bench  I had another kind  of strange certainty. I knew that he was not
there anymore. He had left and I had missed him.
     After  a  while I  discarded  my speculations.  I  thought that  I  was
beginning to be  affected by the  place.  I  was starting to get irrational;
that had always happened to me in the past after a few days in that area.
     I went to my  hotel room to  rest for  a few  hours and then I went out
again to roam  the  streets. I did not have the same expectation of  finding
don Juan that I had had in the afternoon. I gave up. I went back to my hotel
in order to get a good night's sleep.
     Before  I headed for the mountains  in the morning, I drove up and down
the main streets in my car, but somehow I  knew that I was wasting  my time.
Don Juan was not there.
     It took me  all morning to  drive to the little town where  Pablito and
Nestor lived. I arrived around noon.  Don Juan had taught  me never to drive
directly into the town so as not to arouse the curiosity of onlookers. Every
time I had been there I had always driven off the road, just before reaching
the town, onto a flat field where youngsters usually played soccer. The dirt
was well  packed all  the way to a walking trail which was wide enough for a
car and which passed by Pablito's and Nestor's houses in the foothills south
of town. As soon as I got to the edge of the field I found that  the walking
trail had been turned into a gravel road.
     I deliberated whether to go to Nestor's house or Pablito's. The feeling
that  they  were  not there  still persisted.  I opted to go to Pablito's; I
reasoned  that Nestor lived alone, while  Pablito  lived with his mother and
his four sisters. If he was not there the women could help me find him. As I
got closer to his house I noticed that  the path leading from the road up to
the  house had been widened. It looked as if the ground was hard, and  since
there  was enough space  for my car, I drove almost to the front door. A new
porch with a tile roof had been added to the adobe house. There were no dogs
barking but  I saw an enormous  one sitting  calmly behind  a  fenced  area,
alertly observing me. A flock of chickens that had been feeding in  front of
the house  scattered around,  cackling. I turned the motor off and stretched
my arms over my head. My body was stiff.
     The house  seemed deserted.  The  thought crossed my mind  that perhaps
Pablito  and his  family  had moved away and someone else was living  there.
Suddenly the front door opened with  a bang and Pablito's mother stepped out
as  if  someone  had pushed her. She  stared  at  me absentmindedly  for  an
instant.  As I  got  out  of my car  she  seemed to recognize me. A graceful
shiver ran through her body and she ran toward me.  I thought that she  must
have been napping and that the  noise of the car had woken her, and when she
came out to see  what was going on she  did not know at first who I was. The
incongruous sight of the old woman running toward me made me smile. When she
got closer I had a moment of doubt. Somehow she moved so nimbly that she did
not seem like Pablito's mother at all.
     "My goodness what a surprise!" she exclaimed.
     "Dona Soledad?" I asked, incredulously.
     "Don't you recognize me?" she replied, laughing.
     I made some stupid comments about her surprising agility.
     "Why do you always see me as a helpless old woman?"  she asked, looking
at me with an air of mock challenge.
     She  bluntly accused me  of  having  nicknamed  her "Mrs.  Pyramid."  I
remembered that I had  once said to Nestor  that  her shape reminded me of a
pyramid. She had a very broad and massive  behind  and a small pointed head.
The long dresses that she usually wore added to the effect.
     "Look at me," she said. "Do I still look like a pyramid?"
     She was smiling but her eyes made me feel uncomfortable. I attempted to
defend myself by making a  joke  but she cut  me off  and coaxed me to admit
that I  was  responsible for the  nickname. I assured her  that I had  never
intended it as such and that anyway, at that moment she was so lean that her
shape was the furthest thing from a pyramid.
     "What's happened to you, dona Soledad?" I asked. "You're transformed."
     "You said it," she replied briskly. "I've been transformed! "
     I  meant it figuratively.  However, upon  closer examination I  had  to
admit that there was no room for a metaphor. She was truly a changed person.
I suddenly had a dry, metallic taste in my mouth. I was afraid.
     She  placed  her  fists  on her hips and stood with  her  legs slightly
apart,  facing me. She  was  wearing  a light green,  gathered  skirt and  a
whitish blouse. Her  skirt was shorter than those she used to wear. I  could
not see her hair; she had it tied with a thick band, a turban-like piece  of
cloth.  She  was barefoot and  she rhythmically  tapped her big feet  on the
ground  as she  smiled  with  the candor  of  a young girl. I had never seen
anyone exude as  much strength as she did. I noticed a strange  gleam in her
eyes, a disturbing gleam but not a frightening one. I thought that perhaps I
had never really examined  her appearance  carefully. Among  other things  I
felt guilty  for  having glossed  over many people during my  years with don
Juan. The  force of  his  personality had  rendered everyone  else pale  and
unimportant.
     I  told  her  that  I  had never  imagined  that she could  have such a
stupendous  vitality,  that  my  carelessness was to  blame for  not  really
knowing her,  and that no doubt  I would have to meet everyone else all over
again.
     She came closer to me. She smiled and put her right hand on the back of
my left arm, grabbing it gently.
     "That's for sure," she whispered in my ear.
     Her smile froze and her eyes became glazed. She was so close to me that
I felt her breasts rubbing my  left  shoulder. My discomfort  increased as I
tried to  convince myself that there was no reason  for alarm. I repeated to
myself over and  over that I  really  had  never known Pablito's mother, and
that  in spite of her odd  behavior  she was probably being her normal self.
But  some  frightened part of me knew that those were  only bracing thoughts
with no substance at all, because no matter how much I may have glossed over
her person, not only did I remember  her very well  but I had known her very
well. She represented to me the archetype of a  mother; I thought  her to be
in her  late fifties or even older. Her weak muscles moved  her bulky weight
with extreme difficulty. Her  hair had a  lot of gray in  it.  She was, as I
remembered  her,  a  sad,  somber  woman  with  kind,  handsome  features, a
dedicated,  suffering  mother,  always in the kitchen, always  tired. I also
remembered her to  be  a very  gentle  and unselfish woman, and a very timid
one, timid  to  the  point  of  being thoroughly  subservient to anyone  who
happened  to  be  around.  That  was  the picture I  had of her,  reinforced
throughout  years  of  casual  contact.  That  day  something  was  terribly
different. The woman I was confronting did not at all fit the image I had of
Pablito's mother, and yet  she  was  the same  person,  leaner and stronger,
looking twenty years younger, than  the last time I  had seen her. I felt  a
shiver in my body.
     She moved a couple of steps in front of me and faced me.
     "Let  me  look at  you,"  she said. "The  Nagual told  us that you're a
devil."
     I remembered  then that all  of them, Pablito, his  mother, his sisters
and  Nestor, had always seemed unwilling to voice don Juan's name and called
him "the Nagual," a usage which I myself adopted when talking with them.
     She  daringly put her hands on my shoulders, something  she  had  never
done before. My body tensed. I really did not know what to  say. There was a
long  pause that allowed  me to  take stock  of myself.  Her appearance  and
behavior had frightened me  to the point  that I had forgotten to ask  about
Pablito and Nestor.
     "Tell  me, where  is Pablito?"  I  asked  her with  a  sudden  wave  of
apprehension.
     "Oh, he's gone  to the mountains," she responded in a noncommittal tone
and moved away from me.
     "And where is Nestor?"
     She rolled her eyes as if to show her indifference.
     "They are together in the mountains," she said in the same tone.
     I  felt genuinely  relieved and  told her that I had known  without the
shadow of a doubt that they were all right.
     She glanced at me and smiled.  A wave of happiness  and ebullience came
upon me  and  I embraced her.  She boldly returned  the embrace and held me;
that act was so outlandish that it took  my breath away. Her body was rigid.
I sensed an extraordinary strength in her. My heart began to pound. I gently
tried to push her away as I asked her if  Nestor was still seeing don Genaro
and don Juan. During our farewell meeting don Juan had expressed doubts that
Nestor was ready to finish his apprenticeship.
     "Genaro has left forever," she said letting go of me.
     She fretted nervously with the edge of her blouse.
     "How about don Juan?"
     "The Nagual is gone too," she said, puckering her lips.
     "Where did they go?"
     "You mean you don't know?"
     I told her that both of them  had said good-bye to me two years before,
and  that  all  I knew  was that they were leaving at that  time.  I had not
really  dared to speculate where they had gone. They had never told me their
whereabouts in the past,  and I  had come to accept  the  fact  that if they
wanted to disappear from my life all they had to do was to refuse to see me.
     "They're not  around, that's  for sure," she said,  frowning, "And they
won't be coming back, that's also for sure."
     Her  voice was extremely unemotional. I began to feel annoyed with her.
I wanted to leave.
     "But you're here," she said, changing her frown into a smile. "You must
wait for Pablito and Nestor. They've been dying to see you."
     She held my  arm firmly and pulled me away from my car. Compared to the
way she had been in the past, her boldness was astounding.
     "But first, let me show you my friend," she said and forcibly led me to
the side of the house.
     There  was  a fenced area,  like  a  small corral.  A huge male dog was
there.  The  first  thing  that  attracted  my attention  was  his  healthy,
lustrous, yellowish-brown fur.  He did not seem to be a mean dog. He was not
chained  and the fence  was not high enough  to  hold him. The dog  remained
impassive as  we got closer to him, not even  wagging his tail. Dona Soledad
pointed to a good-sized cage in the back. A coyote was curled up inside.
     "That's my friend," she said. "The dog is not. He belongs to my girls."
     The  dog looked  at me  and yawned. I liked  him.  I had a  nonsensical
feeling of kinship with him.
     "Come, let's go into the house," she said, pulling me by the arm.
     I hesitated. Some part of me was utterly alarmed and wanted to  get out
of there quickly, and  yet another part  of  me  would not have left for the
world.
     "You're not afraid of me, are you?" she asked in an accusing tone.
     "I most certainly am!" I exclaimed.
     She  giggled, and in a most comforting tone she declared that she was a
clumsy, primitive woman who was very awkward with words, and that she hardly
knew how to treat people. She looked straight into my eyes and said that don
Juan had commissioned her to help me, because he worried about me.
     "He told  us that you're  not serious and go  around  causing a lot  of
trouble to innocent people," she said.
     Up to that point  her assertions had been coherent to me,  but I  could
not conceive don Juan saying those things about me.
     We went  inside  the house.  I  wanted to  sit down on the bench, where
Pablito and I usually sat. She stopped me.
     "This  is not the  place for  you and me,"  she said. "Let's  go  to my
room."
     "I'd  rather  sit here,"  I said firmly. "I know this  spot and  I feel
comfortable on it."
     She clicked  her  lips in  disapproval. She  acted like  a disappointed
child. She contracted  her upper lip until it looked like the flat beak of a
duck.

     "There is  something terribly wrong here," I said.  "I think I am going
to leave if you don't tell me what's going on."
     She  became very flustered and argued that her  trouble was not knowing
how to talk to me. I confronted her with her unmistakable transformation and
demanded that she tell me what had happened. I had to know how such a change
had come about.
     "If I tell you, will you stay?" she asked in a child's voice.
     "I'll have to."
     "In that case I'll tell you everything. But it has to be in my room."
     I had a moment of panic. I made a supreme effort to calm  myself and we
walked into her  room. She  lived  in the back,  where  Pablito  had built a
bedroom  for her. I had once  been in the  room while it was being built and
also  after it  was  finished, just before she moved in. The  room looked as
empty as  I had seen  it before,  except that there was  a bed  in the  very
center  of  it  and two  unobtrusive  chests  of  drawers  by the  door. The
whitewash of the walls had faded  into  a very soothing yellowish white. The
wood of the ceiling had also weathered. Looking at the smooth, clean walls I
had the impression they were scrubbed  daily with a sponge. The room  looked
more like  a monastic cell, very frugal and ascetic. There were no ornaments
of any sort. The windows had thick, removable wood panels reinforced with an
iron bar. There were no chairs or anything to sit on.
     Dona Soledad took my writing pad away from me, held it to her bosom and
then sat down on her bed, which  was made up of two thick mattresses with no
box springs. She indicated that I should sit down next to her.
     "You and I are the same," she said as she handed me my notebook.
     "I beg your pardon?"
     "You and I are the same," she repeated without looking at me.

     I  could not figure out what she meant. She stared at me, as if waiting
for a response.
     "Just what is that supposed to mean, dona Soledad?" I asked.
     My  question seemed  to  baffle her. Obviously  she expected me to know
what she meant. She laughed at  first, but then, when I  insisted that I did
not understand, she got angry. She sat  up straight  and accused me of being
dishonest  with  her. Her eyes flared with  rage; her mouth  contracted in a
very ugly gesture of wrath that made her look extremely old.
     I honestly was at a  loss and felt that no matter what I said it  would
be wrong. She also seemed to be in the same predicament. Her  mouth moved to
say something but her lips only quivered.  At last she muttered that  it was
not impeccable to act the way I did at such a serious moment. She turned her
back to me.
     "Look at me, dona Soledad!" I said forcefully. "I'm  not mystifying you
in any sense. You must know something that I know nothing about."
     "You talk too much," she snapped  angrily. "The Nagual told me never to
let you talk. You twist everything."
     She jumped to her feet  and stomped on the floor, like a spoiled child.
I became aware  at  that moment  that  the  room had  a different  floor.  I
remembered it to be  a dirt floor, made from  the dark soil of the area. The
new floor  was reddish  pink. I momentarily put off a confrontation with her
and walked  around the room. I  could not  imagine  how I could have  missed
noticing the  floor when  I first  entered. It  was  magnificent. At first I
thought  that it was red clay that had been laid  like cement,  when  it was
soft and moist, but then  I saw that  there were no cracks in it. Clay would
have dried, curled up, cracked,  and clumps  would have formed.  I bent down
and gently ran my  fingers over it. It was as hard  as bricks. The clay  had
been fired. I became  aware then that the floor was  made of very large flat
slabs of clay put together over a bed of soft clay that served as a  matrix.
The  slabs made a most intricate and  fascinating design,  but a  thoroughly
unobtrusive one, unless one  paid deliberate attention to it. The skill with
which  the slabs  had  been placed  in  position  indicated  to  me  a  very
well-conceived plan. I wanted to know how  such  big  slabs  had  been fired
without being  warped.  I  turned  around to  ask  dona Soledad.  I  quickly
desisted. She  would not have  known what I  was talking about. I paced over
the floor again. The clay was a bit rough,  almost like sandstone. It made a
perfect slide-proof surface.
     "Did Pablito put down this floor?" I asked.
     She did not answer.
     "It's  a superb  piece of work," I said. "You should be  very proud  of
him."
     I had no doubt that Pablito had done it. No one else could have had the
imagination and the  capacity to conceive of it. I figured that he must have
made it during the time  I had been away. But on second thought  I  realized
that I had never entered dona Soledad's room since it had been built, six or
seven years before.
     "Pablito! Pablito! Bah!" she exclaimed  in an angry, raspy voice. "What
makes you think he's the only one who can make things?"
     We exchanged a long, sustained look, and all of a sudden I knew that it
was she who had made the floor, and that don Juan had put her up to it.
     We stood quietly, looking  at each other for some time. I felt it would
have been thoroughly superfluous to ask if I was correct.
     "I made it myself," she finally said in a dry tone. "The Nagual told me
how."
     Her statements made me feel euphoric. I practically lifted her up in an
embrace. I twirled her around. All I could  think  to do was  to bombard her
with  questions.  I wanted  to  know  how she  had made the slabs, what  the
designs represented,  where she  got  the  clay.  But  she did not share  my
exhilaration.  She remained quiet and  impassive, looking at me askance from
time to time.
     I  paced  on the floor  again.  The  bed had been placed  at  the  very
epicenter of some converging lines.  The clay  slabs had  been cut in  sharp
angles to create converging motifs that seemed to radiate out from under the
bed.
     "I have no words to tell you how impressed I am," I said.
     "Words! Who needs words?" she said cuttingly.
     I had a flash  of  insight. My reason had been betraying me. There  was
only one possible way of explaining her magnificent metamorphosis;  don Juan
must  have made her his apprentice.  How else could  an old woman like  dona
Soledad  turn into  such  a weird,  powerful  being?  That  should have been
obvious to me from the moment I laid eyes on her, but my set of expectations
about her had not included that possibility.
     I deduced that whatever don Juan  had done to her must have taken place
during the two years I had not seen  her, although  two  years seemed hardly
any time at all for such a superb alteration.
     "I  think  I know now what  happened to you," I  said in a  casual  and
cheerful tone. "Something has cleared up in my mind right now."
     "Oh, is that so?" she said, thoroughly uninterested.
     "The Nagual is teaching you to be a sorceress, isn't that true?"
     She  glared at me defiantly. I felt that I had said  the worst possible
thing.  There was  an expression of  true  contempt on her face. She was not
going to tell me anything.
     "What a bastard you are!" she exclaimed suddenly, shaking with rage.
     I thought that her anger was unjustified. I sat down on one end  of the
bed while she nervously tapped on the floor with her heel. Then she sat down
on the other end, without looking at me.
     "What exactly do you want me to do?" I asked in a firm and intimidating
tone.
     "I told you already! " she said in a yell. "You and I are the same."
     I  asked her to  explain  her meaning and not to assume for one instant
that I knew anything. Those statements angered her  even more.  She stood up
abruptly and dropped her skirt to the ground.
     "This is what I mean!" she yelled, caressing her pubic area.
     My mouth opened involuntarily. I became aware that I was staring at her
like an idiot.
     "You and I are one here!" she said.
     I was dumbfounded. Dona Soledad,  the  old  Indian  woman, mother of my
friend Pablito, was actually half-naked a few feet away  from me, showing me
her genitals. I  stared at  her,  incapable of formulating any thoughts. The
only thing I  knew was that her body was  not the body of an old woman.  She
had beautifully  muscular thighs, dark and hairless. The  bone structure  of
her hips was broad, but there was no fat on them.
     She must have noticed my scrutiny and flung herself on the bed.
     "You know  what to do,"  she said, pointing to her pubis.  "We  are one
here."
     She uncovered her robust breasts.
     "Dona Soledad, I  implore  you!" I  exclaimed.  "What's  come over you?
You're Pablito's mother."
     "No, I'm not! " she snapped. "I'm no one's mother."
     She sat up and looked at me with fierce eyes.
     "I am just like you, a piece of the  Nagual," she said. "We're  made to
mix."
     She opened her legs and I jumped away.

     "Wait a minute, dona Soledad," I said. "Let's talk for i while."
     I had a moment of wild fear, and a sudden crazy thought occurred to me.
Would  it be possible, I asked  myself, that  don Juan was hiding  somewhere
around there laughing his head off?
     "Don Juan!" I bellowed.
     My yell was so loud  and  profound that dona Soledad jumped off her bed
and covered herself hurriedly with her skirt.  I saw her putting it on as  I
bellowed again.
     "Don Juan!"
     I ran through  the house  bellowing don Juan's name until my throat was
sore.  Dona Soledad,  in the  meantime,  had run outside  the house and  was
standing by my car, looking puzzled at me.
     I walked over  to her and asked her if don Juan had told her to  do all
that. She nodded affirmatively. I asked if he was around. She said no.
     "Tell me everything," I said.
     She  told me that she was merely  following don  Juan's orders. He  had
commanded her to change her being into a warrior's in order to  help me. She
declared that she had been waiting for years to fulfill that promise.
     "I'm very strong now," she said softly. "Just for you. But you disliked
me in my room, didn't you?"
     I found myself explaining that I did not dislike her, that what counted
were my feelings for  Pablito;  then  I realized that  I  did  not  have the
vaguest idea of what I was saying.
     Dona Soledad seemed  to understand my  embarrassing position  and  said
that our mishap had to be forgotten.
     "You must  be famished,"  she  said vivaciously.  "I'll  make  you some
food."
     "There's a lot  that  you  haven't  explained to me," I said.  "I'll be
frank with you, I wouldn't stay here for anything in the world. You frighten
me."
     "You are obligated to accept my hospitality, if it is only for a cup of
coffee," she said unruffled. "Come, let's forget what happened."
     She made  a gesture  of going into the house.  At that moment I heard a
deep  growl. The  dog was standing,  looking at us, as if he understood what
was being said.
     Dona Soledad  fixed a most frightening gaze on me. Then she softened it
and smiled.
     "Don't let my eyes bother you," she  said. "The truth is that I am old.
Lately I've been getting dizzy. I think I need glasses."
     She  broke into a laugh and clowned, looking through cupped  fingers as
if they were glasses.
     "An old  Indian  woman with glasses!  That'll be  a  laugh,"  she  said
giggling.
     I  made up my mind then to be  rude and  get out of  there, without any
explanation.  But  before  I  drove  away I wanted to  leave some things for
Pablito and his sisters.  I opened the trunk of the car to  get  the gifts I
had  brought  for  them.  I leaned way into it to reach  first  for the  two
packages  that were lodged  against the wall  of the  back seat,  behind the
spare tire. I got hold  of one and was about to grab the other when I felt a
soft, furry hand on the nape of my neck. I shrieked involuntarily and hit my
head on the open lid.  I  turned to look. The pressure of the furry hand did
not let me turn completely, but I was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of  a
silvery arm or  paw  hovering  over my neck. I wriggled  in panic and pushed
myself away from the trunk and fell down on my  seat with  the package still
in  my hand. My  whole body shook,  the muscles of my legs contracted  and I
found myself leaping up and running away.
     "I didn't mean to frighten you," dona Soledad said apologetically, as I
watched her from ten feet away.
     She showed me the palms of her hands in  a gesture of surrender, as  if
assuring me that what I had felt was not her hand.
     "What did you do to me?" I asked, trying to sound calm and detached.

     She seemed to be either thoroughly embarrassed or baffled. She muttered
something and shook her head as though she could not say it, or did not know
what I was talking about.
     "Come on, dona  Soledad,"  I  said,  coming closer to  her, "don't play
tricks on me."
     She seemed about to weep. I wanted to comfort  her, but some part of me
resisted. After a moment's pause I told her what I had felt and seen.
     "That's just terrible!" She said in a shrieking voice.
     In  a  very  childlike gesture she  covered  her  face  with her  right
forearm. I thought  she was  crying.  I came over to her and tried to put my
arm around her shoulders. I could not bring myself to do it.
     "Come  now, dona Soledad,"  I said,  "let's forget all this and let  me
give you these packages before I leave."
     I stepped in front of her to face  her. I could  see her black, shining
eyes  and  part of  her face  behind  her arm.  She was not  crying. She was
smiling.
     I jumped back. Her smile terrified me. Both of us stood  motionless for
a long time. She kept her face covered but I could see her eyes watching me.
     As  I stood there almost paralyzed with fear I felt utterly despondent.
I had fallen into a bottomless pit. Dona Soledad was a witch. My  body  knew
it, and yet I could not really believe it. What I wanted to believe was that
dona Soledad  had gone mad  and  was being kept  in the  house instead of an
asylum.
     I did not dare move or take my eyes away from her. We must  have stayed
in that  position  for five or six minutes. She had kept her arm  raised and
yet motionless.  She  was standing  at  the rear of the car,  almost leaning
against the  left fender. The lid  of the trunk was still open. I thought of
making a dash for the right door. The keys were in the ignition.
     I  relaxed a bit in order to gain the momentum  to  run.  She seemed to
notice my change of position immediately. Her arm moved down,  revealing her
whole  face. Her  teeth were clenched. Her  eyes  were  fixed on  mine. They
looked  hard  and mean. Suddenly she lurched toward me. She stomped with her
right foot, like a  fencer, and reached out with clawed  hands to grab me by
my waist as she let out the most chilling shriek.
     My  body  jumped back  out of her  reach. I ran  for the car, but  with
inconceivable agility she rolled to  my feet  and  made me trip  over her. I
fell  facedown and she grabbed me by  the left foot.  I contracted my  right
leg, and I would have kicked  her in the face with the  sole of my  shoe had
she not let go of me and rolled back. I jumped to  my feet and tried to open
the door of the car. It was locked.  I threw myself  over the  hood to reach
the other side but  somehow dona Soledad  got there before I did. I tried to
roll back over the hood,  but midway I  felt a sharp pain in  my right calf.
She had grabbed me by  the leg.  I could not kick her with my left foot; she
had  pinned  down both of my legs against the hood. She pulled me toward her
and I fell on top  of  her.  We  wrestled on the  ground.  Her  strength was
magnificent and her  shrieks were terrifying. I could hardly move  under the
gigantic  pressure of her body.  It  was not  a matter of weight  but rather
tension,  and she had it. Suddenly I  heard  a growl  and  the  enormous dog
jumped on her back and shoved her away from me. I stood  up. I wanted to get
into the car, but  the woman and the dog were fighting by the door. The only
retreat was to  go inside the house. I made it in  one or two seconds. I did
not turn to  look at  them but rushed  inside and closed the door behind me,
securing  it with the iron bar that was behind it. I ran to the back and did
the same with the other door.
     From  inside I  could hear  the  furious growling of  the dog  and  the
woman's inhuman shrieks. Then suddenly the dog's barking and growling turned
into whining  and howling as  if  he were in pain, or as  if  something were
frightening  him. I felt a jolt in the pit of  my stomach. My  ears began to
buzz. I realized that I was trapped inside  the house. I had a fit  of sheer
terror.  I  was  revolted at  my  stupidity in running  into the house.  The
woman's attack had confused me so intensely that  I  had  lost all  sense of
strategy and had behaved as if I were running away from an ordinary opponent
who could be shut  out by simply closing a door. I heard someone come to the
door and lean against it, trying  to force it  open.  Then there  were  loud
knocks and banging on it.
     "Open the door," dona Soledad said in a hard voice. "That goddamned dog
has mauled me."
     I  deliberated whether or not to  let her in. What came  to my mind was
the  memory of a confrontation I had had years  before with a sorceress, who
had, according  to don Juan, adopted  his  shape  in  order  to  fool me and
deliver a deadly blow.  Obviously dona Soledad was not as I had  known  her,
but I had reasons to doubt that she was a sorceress. The time element played
a  decisive role in my conviction. Pablito, Nestor and  I had been  involved
with don Juan and don Genaro for years and we were not sorcerers at all; how
could dona Soledad be one? No matter how much  she had changed she could not
improvise something that would take a lifetime to accomplish.
     "Why did you attack me?" I asked,  speaking  loudly  so  as to be heard
through the thick door.
     She answered that the Nagual had told her not to let me go. I asked her
why.
     She did  not answer; instead she  banged  on the door  furiously and  I
banged  back even harder. We went on hitting the door for a few minutes. She
stopped and started begging me to open it. I had a surge of nervous  energy.
I knew that  if I opened the door I might have a chance to flee. I moved the
iron bar from the door. She staggered in. Her blouse was torn. The band that
held her hair had fallen off and her long hair was all over her face.
     "Look what  that  son of a bitch  dog  did to  me!" she  yelled. "Look!
Look!"
     I took a deep breath. She seemed to be somewhat dazed. She  sat down on
a bench and began to take off  her tattered blouse.  I seized that moment to
run out of the house and make a dash for the car. With a speed that was born
only  out of fear, I got inside, shut the door, automatically turned on  the
motor and put the car in reverse. I stepped on the gas and turned my head to
look back through the rear window. As I  turned I  felt a  hot breath  on my
face; I  heard a horrendous  growl and saw in a flash the demoniacal eyes of
the dog.  He was standing on the back seat. I saw  his horrible teeth almost
in my eyes. I ducked my  head. His teeth grabbed my hair. I must have curled
my whole body on the seat, and in doing so I let my foot off the clutch. The
jerk  of  the  car made the beast lose  his balance. I opened  the  door and
scrambled out. The head  of the dog jutted out through the door. I heard his
enormous