teeth  click as  his jaws closed  tight, missing my heels by a few
inches. The car began to roll back and I made another dash  for the house. I
stopped before I had reached the door.
     Dona Soledad was standing there. She had tied her  hair up  again.  She
had thrown a shawl over  her  shoulders.  She  stared at me for a moment and
then  began to laugh, very softly at first  as if her wounds  hurt her,  and
then  loudly.  She pointed  a  finger at  me  and  held  her stomach as  she
convulsed with laughter. She bent over and stretched, seemingly to catch her
breath. She was naked above the waist. I could see her breasts, shaking with
the convulsions of her laughter.
     I felt that all was  lost. I looked back toward the car. It had come to
a  stop after rolling four or five feet; the door had  closed again, sealing
the dog inside.  I could see and  hear the enormous beast biting the back of
the front seat and pawing the windows.
     A most peculiar  decision faced me at  that moment. I  did not know who
scared  me the most,  dona Soledad or the  dog.  After a moment's thought  I
decided that the dog was just a stupid beast.

     I ran back to the car and climbed up on the roof. The noise enraged the
dog. I heard him ripping the upholstery. Lying on the roof I managed to open
the driver's door.  My idea was to open both  doors  and then slide from the
roof into the car, through one of them, after the dog had gone out the other
one. I  leaned  over to  open the right door.  I had forgotten  that it  was
locked.  At that moment the dog's head came out through the opened  door.  I
had  an attack of blind panic at the idea that the dog was going to jump out
of the car and onto the roof.
     In less than a  second  I  had leaped  to  the ground and found  myself
standing at the door of the house.
     Dona  Soledad was bracing herself in  the doorway. Laughter came out of
her in spurts that seemed almost painful.
     The  dog  had  remained  inside  the car,  still  frothing  with  rage.
Apparently he was too  large and could not  squeeze his bulky frame over the
front seat.  I went to the car and gently closed the  door again. I began to
look for  a stick long  enough to release the safety lock  on the right-hand
door.
     I searched in  the area  in front of the house. There was  not a single
piece of wood lying around. Dona Soledad, in the meantime,  had gone inside.
I assessed my  situation. I had  no  other alternative  but to ask her help.
With  great trepidation, I crossed the threshold, looking in every direction
in case she might have been hiding behind the door, waiting for me.
     "Dona Soledad!" I yelled out.
     "What the hell do you want?" she yelled back from her room.
     "Would you please go out and get your dog out of my car?" I said.
     "Are  you kidding?"  she  replied.  "That's not my  dog. I've told  you
already, he belongs to my girls."
     "Where are your girls?" I asked.
     "They are in the mountains," she replied.
     She came out of her room and faced me.
     "Do you want to see what  that goddamned dog did to me?" she asked in a
dry tone. "Look!"
     She unwrapped her shawl and showed me her naked back.
     I found no visible tooth marks on her back; there were only a few long,
superficial  scratches  she might have gotten by  rubbing  against the  hard
ground.  For all  that  matter, she  could have  scratched herself  when she
attacked me.
     "You have nothing there," I said.
     "Come and look in the light," she said and went over by the door.
     She insisted that I look carefully for the gashes of the dog's teeth. I
felt  stupid. I had a heavy sensation around my eyes, especially on my brow.
I went outside instead. The dog had not moved and began to bark as soon as I
came out the door.
     I cursed  myself. There was  no one to blame but me. I had  walked into
that trap like a fool. I resolved right then to walk to town. But my wallet,
my papers, everything I had  was  in my briefcase on  the floor of  the car,
right under  the dog's feet.  I had an attack of  despair. It was useless to
walk to town. I did not have enough money in my pockets even to buy a cup of
coffee. Besides, I did  not know a soul  in town. I had no other alternative
but to get the dog out of the car.
     "What kind of food does that dog eat?" I yelled from the door.
     "Why don't you try your leg?" dona  Soledad  yelled back from her room,
and cackled.
     I  looked for some cooked food in the house. The pots were empty. There
was nothing  else for me  to  do but to confront her  again. My despair  had
turned into rage. I stormed  into her room ready for a fight  to  the death.
She was lying on her bed, covered with her shawl.
     "Please forgive  me for having done all those  things to you," she said
bluntly, looking at the ceiling.

     Her boldness stopped my rage.
     "You must understand  my position," she  went on.  "I  couldn't let you
go."
     She laughed softly, and in  a clear, calm  and very pleasing voice said
that she was  guilty  of  being  greedy and  clumsy,  that  she  had  nearly
succeeded  in scaring me  away with  her antics, but that  the situation had
suddenly changed. She  paused  and sat up in  her bed,  covering her breasts
with her shawl, then added that a strange  confidence had descended into her
body. She looked up at the ceiling and moved her arms in a weird, rhythmical
flow, like a windmill.
     "There is no way for you to leave now," she said.
     She scrutinized me  without laughing. My internal rage had subsided but
my  despair was  more acute than ever. I  honestly knew  that in  matters of
sheer strength I was no match for her or the dog.
     She said  that our  appointment  had been set up  years in advance, and
that neither of us had enough power to hurry it, or break it.
     "Don't  knock  yourself  out trying  to leave,"  she said.  "That's  as
useless  as my  trying to  keep  you here.  Something besides your will will
release you from here, and something besides my will will keep you here."
     Somehow  her confidence had not only  mellowed her, but had given her a
great command over  words. Her statements were compelling and crystal clear.
Don  Juan had always said that I was a trusting soul when it came  to words.
As she talked I found myself thinking that she was not really as threatening
as  I thought.  She no longer projected the feeling of having a chip  on her
shoulder.  My reason was almost at ease but another part of me was not.  All
the  muscles of my  body  were  like tense wires,  and yet I had to admit to
myself  that  although she scared  me  out  of  my  wits  I  found her  most
appealing. She watched me.
     "I'll  show you how useless it is  to try to  leave," she said, jumping
out of bed. "I'm going to help you. What do you need?"
     She observed me with a gleam in  her eyes. Her small  white  teeth gave
her smile a devilish touch. Her chubby face was  strangely smooth and fairly
free of wrinkles. Two  deep lines running from the sides of her nose to  the
corners of her mouth gave her face the appearance of maturity, but not  age.
In  standing up  from the bed she casually let her shawl fall straight down,
uncovering her full breasts.  She did  not bother to  cover herself. Instead
she swelled up her chest and lifted her breasts.
     "Oh, you've noticed, eh?"  she  said, and rocked her  body from side to
side as if pleased with herself. "I always keep my hair tied behind my head.
The Nagual told me to do so. The pull makes my face younger."
     I had been sure that she was going to talk about her breasts. Her shift
was a surprise to me.
     "I  don't mean  that  the  pull on  my hair  is  going to  make me look
younger,"  she went on with a charming smile. "The  pull on my hair makes me
younger."
     "How is that possible?" I asked.
     She answered me with a question. She wanted to know if  I had correctly
understood don Juan when he said  that anything was possible if one wants it
with unbending intent. I was  after a more precise explanation. I  wanted to
know  what else she did besides tying her  hair, in order to look so  young.
She said that she lay  in her  bed and emptied  herself of any thoughts  and
feelings and  then  let the  lines of her floor  pull  her wrinkles  away. I
pressed her for more details: any feelings, sensations, perceptions that she
had experienced while lying on her bed. She  insisted that she felt nothing,
that she did not know how the lines in  her floor  worked, and that she only
knew not to let her thoughts interfere.
     She placed her hands on my  chest  and shoved me very gently. It seemed
to  be a  gesture to show that she had had enough of my questions. We walked
outside, through the back door. I  told her that I needed a long  stick. She
went  directly to a pile of firewood, but there were no long sticks. I asked
her  if she could get  me a couple of nails in  order  to  join together two
pieces of  firewood. We looked unsuccessfully all over the house  for nails.
As a final resort I had to dislodge the  longest stick I  could find  in the
chicken coop that Pablito had built in the back. The stick, although it  was
a bit flimsy, seemed suited for my purpose.
     Dona Soledad  had  not smiled or joked during our search. She seemed to
be utterly absorbed  in  her  task of helping me.  Her  concentration was so
intense that I had the feeling she was wishing me to succeed.
     I walked to my car, armed with  the  long stick and a  shorter one from
the pile of firewood. Dona Soledad stood by the front door.
     I began to tease the dog  with  the short stick in my right hand and at
the same time  I tried to  release the safety lock  with the long  one in my
other hand. The  dog nearly bit my  right  hand and  made me drop  the short
stick. The  rage  and power of  the enormous beast were  so immense  that  I
nearly lost the long  one too. The dog was about to bite it in two when dona
Soledad  came to  my  aid;  pounding  on the back window she drew the  dog's
attention and he let go of it.
     Encouraged  by her distracting  maneuver  I  dove, headfirst,  and slid
across the length of the front seat and managed to release the safety  lock.
I tried to pull back immediately, but the dog charged toward me with all his
might  and  actually thrust his massive shoulders  and front  paws over  the
front seat, before I had time to back out. I felt his paws on my shoulder. I
cringed. I knew that he was going to maul me. The dog lowered his head to go
in  for the kill, but instead of biting  me he hit  the  steering  wheel.  I
scurried out and in one move climbed over the hood and onto the roof.  I had
goose bumps all over my body.
     I opened the  right-hand door. I asked dona Soledad to hand me the long
stick  and  with it I  pushed the  lever to  release the  backrest from  its
straight  position. I conceived  that if I  teased the  dog  he would ram it
forward,  allowing himself room to get out of the car.  But he did not move.
He bit furiously on the stick instead.
     At that  moment dona Soledad  jumped onto  the roof and lay next to me.
She  wanted to help me tease the dog. I told her that she could not  stay on
the roof because when the dog came out I was  going  to get in  the car  and
drive away. I  thanked her for her help  and said that she should go back in
the  house. She shrugged her shoulders,  jumped  down and  went  back to the
door.  I pushed down the release again  and with my cap I teased  the dog. I
snapped it  around  his eyes,  in front of  his muzzle. The  dog's  fury was
beyond  anything  I had  seen but  he would not leave  the seat. Finally his
massive  jaws jerked the stick out of my grip. I climbed down to retrieve it
from underneath the car. Suddenly I heard dona Soledad screaming.
     "Watch out! He's getting out! "
     I  glanced up at the car.  The dog was squeezing himself over the seat.
He had gotten his hind  paws caught in  the steering wheel; except for that,
he was almost out.
     I dashed to the house  and got inside just in time  to avoid  being run
down by that animal. His momentum was so powerful that he rammed against the
door.
     As  she secured the door with its  iron  bar  dona  Soledad said  in  a
cackling voice, "I told you it was useless."
     She cleared her throat and turned to look at me.
     "Can you tie the dog with a rope?" I asked.
     I  was sure  that she  would  give me  a meaningless answer, but to  my
amazement she said  that we should try everything, even luring the dog  into
the house and trapping him there.
     Her idea appealed to me. I carefully opened the front door. The dog was
no longer  there. I ventured out a bit more. There was  no sight of him.  My
hope was that the  dog had  gone back to his  corral.  I  was going to  wait
another instant before I made  a dash for my car, when I  heard a deep growl
and saw the  massive  head of the beast  inside my car.  He had crawled back
onto the front seat.
     Dona  Soledad  was  right; it was useless to try.  A  wave  of  sadness
enveloped me. Somehow I knew my end was near. In a fit of sheer  desperation
I told dona Soledad that  I was  going to get a knife  from  the kitchen and
kill the  dog, or  be killed by  him, and I would  have done that had it not
been that there was not a single metal object in the entire house.
     "Didn't the Nagual teach you to accept  your fate?" dona Soledad  asked
as she trailed behind me.  "That one out there is no ordinary dog. That  dog
has power. He is a warrior. He will do what he has to do. Even kill you."
     I had a  moment of uncontrollable  frustration and  grabbed her  by the
shoulders  and growled. She did not  seem surprised or affected by my sudden
outburst. She turned her back to me and dropped her shawl to the floor.  Her
back was very strong and beautiful. I had  an irrepressible urge to hit her,
but  I ran my hand  across  her  shoulders  instead.  Her skin was  soft and
smooth. Her arms  and  shoulders were muscular without being big. She seemed
to have  a minimal layer of fat  that rounded  off her muscles  and gave her
upper body the appearance of  smoothness, and yet when I  pushed on any part
of it  with  the  tips  of my  fingers I could  feel the hardness  of unseen
muscles below the smooth surface. I did not want to look at her breasts.
     She walked to a roofed, open area in back of the house that served as a
kitchen. I followed her. She sat down  on a bench and calmly washed her feet
in  a  pail.  While she  was  putting  on her  sandals,  I went  with  great
trepidation into a new outhouse  that had been built  in  the back. She  was
standing by the door when I came out.
     "You like to talk," she said casually, leading me into her room. "There
is no hurry. Now we can talk forever."
     She picked up  my writing pad  from the  top  of her  chest of drawers,
where she must have placed it herself, and handed it to me with  exaggerated
care.  Then she  pulled up her bedspread and folded it neatly and put  it on
top  of the same chest of drawers.  I noticed then that the  two chests were
the color of  the walls, yellowish white, and the bed without the spread was
pinkish red,  more or less  the  color of the floor. The bedspread,  on  the
other hand, was dark brown, like the wood of the ceiling and the wood panels
of the windows.
     "Let's talk," she said, sitting comfortably on the bed after taking off
her sandals.
     She placed her knees against her naked breasts. She looked like a young
girl. Her aggressive and commandeering manner had subdued  and  changed into
charm. At that moment she was the antithesis of what she had been earlier. I
had to laugh at the way she was urging me to write. She  reminded me  of don
Juan.
     "Now we have time," she said.  "The wind has changed. Didn't you notice
it?"
     I had.  She  said that  the  new direction  of  the wind  was  her  own
beneficial direction and thus the wind had turned into her helper.
     "What do you know about the wind, dona Soledad?" I asked  as  I  calmly
sat down on the foot of her bed.
     "Only what the Nagual taught me," she said. "Each one of us, women that
is, has a peculiar direction, a  particular  wind. Men don't. I am the north
wind; when  it blows I am different. The  Nagual said that a warrior can use
her  particular wind  for  whatever she wants. I used it to trim my body and
remake it. Look at me! I am the north wind. Feel me when I come through  the
window."
     There  was  a  strong  wind  blowing  through  the  window,  which  was
strategically placed to face the north.

     "Why do you think men don't have a wind?" I asked.
     She thought for a moment  and then  replied that  the Nagual  had never
mentioned why.
     "You  wanted  to  know who made this  floor,"  she  said, wrapping  her
blanket around  her shoulders. "I  made it myself. It took me  four years to
put it down. Now this floor is like myself."
     As  she  spoke  I noticed that  the converging lines in the  floor were
oriented to originate from the north. The room,  however, was not  perfectly
aligned with the cardinal points; thus  her bed was  at odd angles  with the
walls and so were the lines in the clay slabs.
     "Why did you make the floor red, dona Soledad?"
     "That's my color.  I am red,  like red dirt. I  got the red clay in the
mountains around here. The Nagual told me where to look  and he also  helped
me carry it, and so did everyone else. They all helped me."
     "How did you fire the clay?"
     "The Nagual made me  dig  a  pit.  We  filled it with firewood and then
stacked up the clay slabs with flat pieces of rock in between them. I closed
the pit  with a lid of dirt and wire and set the wood on fire. It burned for
days."
     "How did you keep the slabs from warping?"
     "I  didn't. The wind did that, the  north wind that blew while the fire
was on. The  Nagual showed me how to dig  the pit so it would face the north
and  the north  wind. He also made me leave four holes for the north wind to
blow into  the pit. Then he made me leave one hole in  the center of the lid
to  let the smoke out. The  wind made the wood burn  for days; after the pit
was cold again I opened it and  began to  polish and  even out the slabs. It
took me over a year to make enough slabs to finish my floor."
     "How did you figure out the design?"
     "The  wind taught me that. When I made  my floor the Nagual had already
taught me not to resist the wind. He had showed me how to give in to my wind
and let it guide me. It took him a long time to do that, years and years.  I
was a very difficult,  silly old woman at first; he told me that himself and
he was right. But I learned very fast. Perhaps because I'm old and no longer
have  anything  to lose. In the beginning, what  made it even more difficult
for me was the fear I  had. The mere presence of the Nagual  made me stutter
and faint.  The Nagual had the same effect on everyone else. It was his fate
to be so fearsome."
     She stopped talking and stared at me.
     "The Nagual is not human," she said.
     "What makes you say that?"
     "The Nagual is a devil from who knows what time."
     Her statements  chilled me. I  felt my heart  pounding.  She  certainly
could not have found a better audience. I was intrigued  to no end. I begged
her to explain what she meant by that.
     "His touch  changed people," she said. "You know that. He changed  your
body. In your case, you didn't even know that he was doing that. But  he got
into your old body. He put something in it. He did the same with me. He left
something in me and that something took over. Only a devil can do  that. Now
I am the north wind and I fear nothing, and no one. But before he changed me
I  was a  weak, ugly old  woman who  would faint  at the mere mention of his
name. Pablito,  of course, was  no help  to  me because he feared the Nagual
more than death itself.
     "One day the Nagual and Genaro came  to the  house  when I was alone. I
heard them by the door, like prowling jaguars. I crossed  myself; to me they
were  two demons, but I came out to see what I could do for them. They  were
hungry and I gladly fixed food for them. I had some thick bowls  made out of
gourd  and I  gave  each  man  a  bowl  of soup.  The Nagual  didn't seem to
appreciate the  food; he  didn't  want to  eat  food prepared by such a weak
woman and pretended to be  clumsy and knocked the bowl  off the table with a
sweep  of his arm. But the bowl,  instead of  turning over and  spilling all
over the  floor, slid  with  the  force of the Nagual's blow and fell  on my
foot,  without  spilling a  drop. The bowl  actually landed  on my  foot and
stayed there until I bent over and picked it up. I set it up on the table in
front of him and told him that even though I was a weak woman and had always
feared him, my food had good feelings.
     "From  that very moment the Nagual changed toward me. The fact that the
bowl of soup fell on my foot and  didn't spill proved to him that power  had
pointed me out to him. I didn't know that at the time  and I thought that he
changed  toward  me  because  he  felt ashamed  of having refused my food. I
thought nothing of his change. I  still was petrified and couldn't even look
him in  the  eye. But he began to take more and more notice of  me. He  even
brought me gifts:  a shawl, a dress, a comb  and other things. That made  me
feel terrible. I was ashamed because I thought that he was a man looking for
a  woman. The Nagual had young girls, what would  he want with an  old woman
like me? At  first I didn't want to  wear or  even consider  looking  at his
gifts, but Pablito prevailed on me and I began to wear them. I also began to
be even more afraid of him and didn't want to be alone with him. I knew that
he was a devilish man. I knew what he had done to his woman."
     I felt compelled to interrupt her. I told her that I had never known of
a woman in don Juan's life.
     "You know who I mean," she said.
     "Believe me, dona Soledad, I don't."
     "Don't give me that. You know that I'm talking about la Gorda."
     The  only "la Gorda" I knew  of was Pablito's sister, an enormously fat
girl  nicknamed  Gorda, Fatso. I had had the feeling,  although no  one ever
talked about  it, that she was not really dona Soledad's daughter. I did not
want to press her for  any  more information. I suddenly remembered that the
fat girl had disappeared from the house and nobody could or dared to tell me
what had happened to her.
     "One day I was alone in the front of the house," dona Soledad went  on.
"I was combing my hair in the sun with  the comb  that the Nagual  had given
me;  I didn't realize that he had arrived and was standing behind me. All of
a  sudden  I felt his  hands grabbing me by the  chin.  I heard him say very
softly that I shouldn't move because my neck might break. He twisted my head
to the left.  Not all  the  way  but  a  bit. I  became very  frightened and
screamed and tried to wriggle out of his  grip, but he held  my head  firmly
for a long, long time.
     "When he let go of my chin, I fainted.  I don't remember what  happened
then. When I woke up I was lying on the ground, right here where I'm sitting
now. The Nagual was gone. I was so ashamed that I didn't want to see anyone,
especially la  Gorda. For a  long time I  even  thought that the Nagual  had
never twisted my neck and I had had a nightmare."
     She stopped. I  waited for  an explanation  of  what had happened.  She
seemed distracted, pensive perhaps.
     "What exactly happened, dona Soledad?" I asked, incapable of containing
myself. "Did he do something to you?"
     "Yes. He twisted my neck in  order to change the direction of my eyes,"
she said and laughed loudly at my look of surprise.
     "I mean, did he. . . ?"
     "Yes. He  changed my  direction," she went on,  oblivious to my probes.
"He did that to you and to all the others."
     "That's true. He did that to me. But why do you think he did that?"
     "He had to. That is the most important thing to do."
     She was referring to a peculiar act that don Juan had deemed absolutely
necessary. I had never talked about it with anyone.  In fact,  I  had almost
forgotten about it. At the beginning of my apprenticeship, he once built two
small  fires in the mountains  of northern Mexico. They were perhaps  twenty
feet apart. He made me stand another twenty feet away from  them, holding my
body, especially my head, in  a most relaxed  and  natural position. He then
made me face one fire, and coming from behind me, he twisted  my neck to the
left,  and aligned my  eyes, but not my shoulders, with  the other fire.  He
held my head  in that position for  hours, until  the fire was extinguished.
The new direction  was the southeast,  or  rather he had aligned the  second
fire in a  southeasterly direction. I had understood the whole affair as one
of don Juan's inscrutable peculiarities, one of his nonsensical rites.
     "The  Nagual said  that  all  of  us throughout  our lives  develop one
direction to look," she went on. "That becomes the direction of  the eyes of
the spirit. Through the years that direction becomes overused,  and weak and
unpleasant, and since  we are  bound to that particular direction we  become
weak and unpleasant ourselves. The day the  Nagual twisted my neck and  held
it until I fainted out of fear, he gave me a new direction."
     "What direction did he give you?"
     "Why do you ask that?" she  said with unnecessary  force. "Do you think
that perhaps the Nagual gave me a different direction?"
     "I can tell you the direction that he gave me," I said.
     "Never mind," she snapped. "He told me that himself."
     She seemed agitated.  She changed position and lay on  her stomach.  My
back hurt from writing. I asked  her if I could sit on her floor and use the
bed as a table. She stood up and handed me the folded bedspread to use as  a
cushion.
     "What else did the Nagual do to you?" I asked.
     "After  changing  my direction the Nagual really began  to  talk  to me
about power," she said, lying down again.  "He mentioned things  in a casual
way at first, because he  didn't know exactly what to do with me. One day he
took me for a short walking trip in the sierras. Then another day he took me
on a bus to his homeland in the desert. Little by little I became accustomed
to going away with him."
     "Did he ever give you power plants?"
     "He gave me Mescalito, once when we were in the desert. But since I was
an empty woman Mescalito  refused me. I had  a horrid encounter with him. It
was  then  that  the Nagual knew that he ought to acquaint me with the  wind
instead. That was,  of course, after he  got an omen. He had  said, over and
over that day, that although he was a  sorcerer that had learned to see,  if
he didn't get an  omen he had no  way  of knowing  which  way  to go. He had
already waited for days for a certain indication about me. But power  didn't
want to give it.  In  desperation, I suppose, he introduced me to his guaje,
and I saw Mescalito."
     I interrupted her. Her use of the word "guaje," gourd, was confusing to
me. Examined  in the  context  of what she was  telling me, the word had  no
meaning. I  thought that  perhaps  she was speaking  metaphorically, or that
gourd was a euphemism.
     "What is a guaje, dona Soledad?"
     There was a look of surprise in her eyes. She paused before answering.
     "Mescalito is the Nagual's guaje," she finally said.
     Her answer  was even more confusing. I felt mortified by the  fact that
she  really seemed concerned with making sense to  me.  When  I asked her to
explain further,  she insisted that  I knew everything myself. That  was don
Juan's favorite stratagem to foil my probes. I said to her that don Juan had
told  me  that  Mescalito was a  deity,  or force  contained in  the  peyote
buttons. To say that Mescalito was his gourd made absolutely no sense.
     "The Nagual can acquaint you with anything through his gourd," she said
after  a  pause. "That is the key to his power. Anyone can give you  peyote,
but only a sorcerer, through his gourd, can acquaint you with Mescalito."
     She stopped talking and fixed her eyes on me. Her look was ferocious.
     "Why do you have to make me repeat what you already know?" she asked in
an angry tone.
     I was  completely taken aback by her sudden  shift. A moment before she
had been almost sweet.
     "Never mind my  changes of  mood,"  she  said,  smiling again. "I'm the
north wind. I'm  very impatient. All my life I never dared to speak my mind.
Now  I fear no  one.  I  say what  I feel. To meet  with me you  have  to be
strong."
     She slid closer to me on her stomach.
     "Well, the Nagual acquainted me with the Mescalito that came out of his
gourd," she  went  on. "But he  couldn't guess  what would  happen to me. He
expected something like your own meeting or Eligio's meeting with Mescalito.
In both cases he  was at a loss and let his gourd decide what to do next. In
both cases his gourd helped him. With me  it  was  different; Mescalito told
him never to bring me  around. The Nagual  and I left that  place in a great
hurry.  We  went  north  instead of  coming home.  We took  a bus  to go  to
Mexicali, but we got out in the middle of the desert. It  was very late. The
sun was  setting behind the mountains. The  Nagual  wanted to cross the road
and go south on foot. We were  waiting for some speeding cars to go by, when
suddenly he tapped my shoulder and pointed toward the  road  ahead of us.  I
saw a spiral of dust. A  gust of  wind was raising dust on  the  side of the
road. We watched  it move toward us. The  Nagual ran across the road and the
wind  enveloped  me.  It actually  made me  spin very  gently  and  then  it
vanished. That was the omen the Nagual was waiting for. From then on we went
to the mountains or the desert for the purpose of seeking the wind. The wind
didn't like me at first, because I was my old self. So the Nagual endeavored
to change me. He first made me  build this room and this floor. Then he made
me wear new clothes and  sleep on a mattress instead of a straw mat. He made
me wear  shoes, and  have  drawers  full of  clothes. He forced  me to  walk
hundreds of miles  and taught  me to be quiet. I learned very fast.  He also
made me do strange things for no reason at all.
     "One day, while we were in the mountains of his homeland, I listened to
the wind for the first time. It came directly to my womb. I was lying on top
of a flat rock and the wind twirled  around me.  I had already seen it  that
day whirling around the bushes,  but this  time it came over me and stopped.
It felt  like a bird  that had  landed on my stomach. The Nagual had made me
take off  all my clothes; I was stark  naked but I was not cold  because the
wind was warming me up."
     "Were you afraid, dona Soledad?"
     "Afraid? I was petrified. The wind was alive; it licked me from my head
to my  toes. And then it got inside my whole body. I was like a balloon, and
the  wind came out of my ears and my mouth and other parts I  don't want  to
mention.  I thought I was going to  die,  and I would've run away had it not
been that the  Nagual held me  to the rock. He  spoke to me in  my  ear  and
calmed  me down. I lay quietly and let the wind do  whatever it  wanted with
me. It was then that it told me what to do."
     "What to do with what?"
     "With my life,  my things, my room,  my feelings. It was not  clear  at
first. I thought it was me thinking. The Nagual said that all of us do that.
When we are  quiet, though,  we realize that it is something else telling us
things."
     "Did you hear a voice?"
     "No. The wind moves inside the  body of a woman. The  Nagual says  that
that is  so  because women  have wombs. Once  it's inside the  womb the wind
simply picks you up and tells you to do things.  The  more quiet and relaxed
the  woman is the better the  results. You may say that all of a  sudden the
woman finds herself doing things that she had no idea how to do.
     "From that day on the  wind came to me  all the time. It spoke to me in
my womb and  told  me everything I wanted to know. The  Nagual saw from  the
beginning that  I  was the north  wind. Other winds  never spoke  to me like
that, although I had learned to distinguish them."
     "How many kinds of winds are there?"
     "There  are  four winds,  like there  are four directions.  That's,  of
course, for sorcerers and for whatever sorcerers do.  Four is a power number
for them.  The first  wind is the  breeze, the  morning. It brings hope  and
brightness; it is  the herald of  the  day. It comes  and goes and gets into
everything. Sometimes it is mild and unnoticeable; other times it is nagging
and bothersome.
     "Another  wind is the hard wind, either hot  or cold or both.  A midday
wind. Blasting  full of energy but also full of blindness. It breaks through
doors and  brings  down walls. A sorcerer  must be terribly strong to tackle
the hard wind.
     "Then there is the cold wind of  the afternoon. Sad and trying.  A wind
that would never leave you in peace. It will chill you and make you cry. The
Nagual said that  there is such depth to it, though, that it  is  more  than
worthwhile to seek it.
     "And at last there is the  hot wind. It warms and protects and envelops
everything. It  is a  night wind for sorcerers. Its power goes together with
the darkness.
     "Those  are the four winds. They are  also  associated  with  the  four
directions. The breeze is  the  east. The cold wind is the west. The hot one
is the south. The hard wind is the north.
     "The four winds also  have personalities. The  breeze is gay  and sleek
and  shifty. The cold wind is moody and melancholy and always  pensive.  The
hot wind is happy and  abandoned and bouncy. The hard wind  is energetic and
commandeering and impatient.
     "The Nagual told me  that the  four winds are women. That is why female
warriors seek them. Winds and women  are alike. That is also  the reason why
women are better than men. I would say that women learn faster if they cling
to their specific wind."
     "How can a woman know what her specific wind is?"
     "If the woman quiets  down and is not talking to herself, her wind will
pick her up, just like that."
     She made a gesture of grabbing.
     "Does she have to lie naked?"
     "That helps.  Especially  if she is  shy. I was  a fat old woman. I had
never taken  off my clothes in my  life. I slept in  them  and when I took a
bath I always had  my slip on.  For me  to show my fat  body to the wind was
like dying. The Nagual knew that and played it for all it was worth. He knew
of the friendship of  women  and the wind, but he introduced me to Mescalito
because he was baffled by me.
     "After  turning my  head  that first  terrible  day,  the Nagual  found
himself with me on his hands. He told me that he had no idea what to do with
me.  But one thing was for sure, he  didn't want  a fat  old  woman snooping
around his  world. The  Nagual said  that he felt  about  me the way he felt
about  you. Baffled. Both of us shouldn't be here.  You're not an Indian and
I'm an old cow. We are both useless if you come  right down  to it. And look
at us. Something must have happened.
     "A woman, of  course,  is  much more supple than a man. A woman changes
very easily  with the power of  a sorcerer. Especially  with the power of  a
sorcerer like the  Nagual.  A male apprentice, according to  the Nagual,  is
extremely difficult. For example, you yourself haven't changed as much as la
Gorda, and she  started her  apprenticeship way after you  did.  A  woman is
softer and more gentle, and above all a woman is like a gourd; she receives.
But  somehow a man commands  more power.  The Nagual never agreed with that,
though. He  believed that women are unequaled, tops. He also believed that I
felt men were better only  because I am  an empty woman. He must be right. I
have been empty for so long that I can't remember  what it feels like  to be
complete. The  Nagual said that  if  I ever become complete I will change my
feelings about it. But if  he was right his Gorda would have done as well as
Eligio, and as you know, she hasn't."
     I could  not follow the flow  of her narrative because of  her unstated
assumption that I knew what she was referring to. In this case I had no idea
what Eligio or la Gorda had done.
     "In what way was la Gorda different from Eligio?" I asked.
     She looked at me for a moment as if measuring something in me. Then she
sat up with her knees against her chest.
     "The  Nagual told me everything," she said briskly. "The Nagual had  no
secrets from me. Eligio was the best; that's why he is not in the world now.
He didn't return. In fact he  was so good that he didn't have to jump from a
precipice when  his  apprenticeship was over.  He  was  like Genaro; one day
while he was working in the field  something came  to him and took him away.
He knew how to let go."
     I  felt  like  asking her if  I had really  jumped  into  the  abyss. I
deliberated  for a moment  before going ahead with my question. After  all I
had come to  see Pablito and Nestor to clarify that point. Any information I
could get on the topic from anyone involved in don Juan's world was indeed a
bonus tome.
     She laughed at my question, as I had anticipated.
     "You mean you don't know what you yourself did?" she asked.
     "It's too farfetched to be real," I said.
     "That is the Nagual's  world for sure.  Not a thing in it  is  real. He
himself told me not to believe anything. But still the male apprentices have
to jump. Unless they are truly magnificent, like Eligio.
     "The Nagual took us, me and la Gorda, to that mountain and made us look
down to the bottom  of it.  There he showed us the kind  of flying Nagual he
was. But only la Gorda could  follow him.  She  also wanted to jump into the
abyss.  The Nagual  told her that that was useless.  He said female warriors
have to do things more painful and more difficult than that. He also told us
that the jump was only  for the four of  you. And that is what happened, the
four of you jumped."
     She had said that the four of us had jumped, but I only knew of Pablito
and myself having  done that.  In light of her statements I figured that don
Juan and don Genaro must have followed us. That  did not seem odd to  me; it
was rather pleasing and touching.
     "What are you talking about?" she asked after I had voiced my thoughts.
"I meant you and the three  apprentices of Genaro.  You, Pablito and  Nestor
jumped on the same day."
     "Who  is the other  apprentice of don Genaro? I know  only  Pablito and
Nestor?"
     "You mean that you didn't know that Benigno was Genaro's apprentice?"
     "No, I didn't."
     "He  was  Genaro's  oldest apprentice. He jumped before  you did and he
jumped by himself."
     Benigno was one of five Indian youths I had once found while roaming in
the Sonoran Desert with don Juan. They were in search of power objects.  Don
Juan told  me  that all  of them were apprentices of sorcery.  I struck up a
peculiar friendship with Benigno in the few times  I had seen him after that
day. He was from southern Mexico. I  liked him  very much.  For some unknown
reason he seemed to delight himself by creating  a tantalizing mystery about
his personal life. I could never find out who he was or  what  he did. Every
time  I talked to him he baffled me with the  disarming candor with which he
evaded my probes.  Once  don Juan volunteered some information about Benigno
and  said that  he  was very  fortunate in  having  found  a  teacher  and a
benefactor.  I took don  Juan's  statements as  a  casual  remark that meant
nothing. Dona Soledad had clarified a ten-year-old mystery for me.
     "Why do you think don Juan never told me anything about Benigno?"
     "Who  knows?  He  must've  had a reason. The Nagual never  did anything
thoughtlessly."
     I had to prop my aching back against her bed before resuming writing.
     "Whatever happened to Benigno?"
     "He's doing  fine. He's perhaps better off than anyone else. You'll see
him. He's with Pablito and Nestor.  Right now  they're inseparable. Genaro's
brand is  on them. The same thing happened to the girls; they're inseparable
because the Nagual's brand is on them."
     I had to  interrupt her again and ask her to explain what girls she was
talking about.
     "My girls," she said.
     "Your daughters? I mean Pablito's sisters?"
     "They are not Pablito's sisters. They are the Nagual's apprentices."
     Her disclosure shocked me. Ever since I had met Pablito,  years befo