did not know why he hated me.
“Leave him alone, Horse,” Red said.
“Stay out of it, Red,” Ernie shouted, “you’re a Protestant. You don’t know about the brujas!”
“They turn to owls and fly at night,” Abel shouted.
“You have to kill them with a bullet marked with a cross,” Lloyd added. “It’s the law.”
“Do magic,” Horse grunted in my ear. His half-nelson was tight now. My stomach felt sick.
“Voodoo!” Ernie spun the ball in my face.
“Okay!” I cried. It must have scared Horse because he let loose and jumped back. They were all still, watching me.
The heat and what I had heard made me sick. I bent over, wretched and vomited. The yellow froth and juice of the carrots splattered at their feet.
“Jesuschriss!” “¡Chingada!” “¡Puta!” “¡A la madre!”
“Come on,” Cico said. We took advantage of their surprise and ran. We were over the hill, past the last few houses, and at Blue Lake before they recovered from the astonishment I saw in their faces. We stopped to rest and laugh.
“That was great, Tony,” Cico gasped, “that really put Ernie in his place—”
“Yeah,” I nodded. I felt better after vomiting and running. I felt better about taking the carrots, but I did not feel good about what they had said about Ultima.
“Why are they like that?” I asked Cico. We skirted Blue Lake and worked our way through the tall, golden grass to the creek.
“I don’t know,” Cico answered, “except that people, grown-ups and kids, seem to want to hurt each other—and it’s worse when they’re in a group.”
We walked on in silence. I had never been this far before so the land interested me. I knew that the waters of El Rito flowed from springs in the dark hills. I knew that those hills cradled the mysterious Hidden Lakes, but I had never been there. The creek flowed around the town, crossed beneath the bridge to El Puerto, then turned towards the river. There was a small reservoir there, and where the water emptied into the river the watercress grew thick and green. Ultima and I had visited the place in search of roots and herbs.
The water of El Rito was clear and clean. It was not muddy like the water of the river. We followed the footpath along the creek until we came to a thicket of brush and trees. The trail skirted around the bosque.
Cico paused and looked around. He pretended to be removing a splinter from his foot, but he was cautiously scanning the trail and the grass around us. I was sure we were alone; the last people we had seen were the swimmers at the Blue Lake a few miles back. Cico pointed to the path.
“The fishermen follow the trail around the brush,” he whispered, “they hit the creek again just below the pond that’s hidden in here.” He squirmed into the thicket on hands and knees, and I followed. After a while we could stand up again and follow the creek to a place where an old beaver dam made a large pond.
It was a beautiful spot. The pond was dark and clear, and the water trickled and gurgled over the top of the dam. There was plenty of grass along the bank, and on all sides the tall brush and trees rose to shut off the world.
Cico pointed. “The golden carp will come through there.” The cool waters of the creek came out of a dark, shadowy grotto of overhanging thicket, then flowed about thirty feet before they entered the large pond. Cico reached into a clump of grass and brought out a long, thin salt cedar branch with a spear at the end. The razor-sharp steel glistened in the sun. The other end of the spear had a nylon cord attached to it for retrieving.
“I fish for the black bass of the pond,” Cico said. He took a position on a high clump of grass at the edge of the bank and motioned for me to sit by the bank, but away from him.
“How can you see him?” I asked. The waters of the pool were clear and pure, but dark from their depth and shadows of the surrounding brush. The sun was crystaline white in the clear, blue sky, but still there was the darkness of shadows in this sacred spot.
“The golden carp will scare him up,” Cico whispered. “The black bass thinks he can be king of the fish, but all he wants is to eat them. The black bass is a