9

He washed his bruised and tender face, put on a clean sweatshirt and his warm leather jacket, poured himself a cup of cold coffee, and drove across Ranchitos Road to Río Grande Boulevard.

When she answered his call, he had stifled the impulse to ask her how in the hell she knew it was him calling at that ungodly hour. That was her style, to put one on the defensive, to keep one guessing.

He had said, “Raven’s back,” and listened to her soft laughter. “But of course, darling. We knew he would return, didn’t we? Chief Garcia called me about Veronica. It was a tragic accident. But all is forgiven.”

Forgiven? Sonny thought. She’s forgiving people! She was free, the DA had no case, so maybe she was in the mood for forgiving.

“Sonny. Please come. It would be so good to see you. I cannot sleep. The tragic news has upset me. I must see you.”

He had last seen Tamara early in the morning of June 22, when he went to tell her Raven had been swept away in the arroyo.

Now Tamara is once again a free woman, Sonny thought as he drove up the driveway to park in front of the huge, rambling mansion set against the river bosque, away from the street.

The place was spooky. There were a few old Art Deco buildings in the city, but most of the North Valley residents preferred the ranch homes or the new adobes. But Tamara had inherited a real mansion, and Sonny thought it qualified as gothic—especially in the October night with a cold breeze whispering through the huge elms and cottonwoods that surrounded the place.

An owl called from the bosque, and the yelp of a coyote followed, mixing with the autumn rustle of the wind in the trees.

Yup, Sonny thought, it’s definitely the season of la Llorona.

Sonny rang and Tamara opened the door.

“Sonny, I’m delighted to see you. Come in.” She took his hand and drew him into the large foyer. Old Navajo blankets hung on the walls; a large Chimayó rug gave warmth to the brick floor. She closed the door and looked at Sonny. Her green eyes sparkled, a smile played on her lips.

She hadn’t changed. She wore the same purple polish on her long nails, the same hint of lilac fragrance on her body. She was dressed in a gold satin gown that clung to the curves of her lithe body.

Holding both his hands, she allowed him to kiss both cheeks, a European protocol everyone followed with Tamara.

“I am happy to see you,” she whispered. “I just today returned from Santa Fe, and I was sitting here thinking you would call. What a pleasant coincidence.”

She led him into the large living area. A fire danced brightly in the huge fireplace, candles glowed around the room, no lights.

“Please sit.” She pointed at the large divan. “Make yourself comfortable. There is so much to talk about. I was having wine. Join me.”

She poured and offered him the goblet and lightly touched her drink to his.

“To us.” She smiled, then sat next to him.

“You knew I’d call.”

“Of course. You are a wayfarer cast into the night, and I am your Llorona. You are the man I seek.”

Sonny put his glass aside. “They say la Llorona kills the boys she finds in the night.”

“Darling, don’t believe those bad things that men say about the crying woman. Men will tell you they’ve seen her, and she chases them. It is their guilt that forces them to see la Llorona on a dark night.”

“Guilt?”

“Of course. Our lovely wailing woman is not interested in guilt-ridden men. She is a goddess of love, and she is interested in young men, young souls.”

“I haven’t heard this version,” Sonny said.

“Well, doesn’t everyone have a version of this woman of the night, woman of the river? I think she takes the boys she finds home with her. To her lair in the dark bosque.”

Sonny raised an eyebrow.

“Of course. All goddesses need acolytes, votaries who become the priests of their religion.”

“And what is her religion?”

“The goddess has but one religion, and that is one of procreation. But before the messy job of giving birth to men, there is the pleasure of sex. La Llorona takes boys to her grotto to initiate them into the art of love. You see, when it comes to the art of love, men are brutes. Oh, not men like you.” She reached to touch his hand. “Most men. You are one of the few la Llorona would choose to initiate.”

“Why?” Sonny asked, playing along.

“You are special,” she replied. “You are the kind of man la Llorona takes to her love bower. You enjoy the pleasure of sex, you enjoy women. Most important, you respect the power in women. And what is that power? It’s the energy of passion, the lust that is the energy of creation. To enter the woman is to know this.”

Sonny smiled. He thought of Rita, the woman he loved and the immense satisfaction he received from her love. He thought of the power and secrets of Lorenza, the curandera who had guided him into the world of spirits. Of his mother, who after his father died had become strong and raised him and his brother. Women warriors.

“Yes, you admire and understand women,” Tamara continued. “You know we are the mystery, the key to the universe. You seek that in women, and they respond. They are willing to share their secrets with you. I am willing to share my secrets.”

She sipped her wine and looked at Sonny, her green eyes glittering with the soft light of the fireplace.

She had offered herself once before. Got him as far as the bedroom door. In the middle of the room sat the large round bed covered with silk sheets. A white-veiled canopy over it. It was the tent of a desert princess, a woman who knew the art of seduction. Soft sheepskins rich with lanolin and the furry skins of white goats lay on the floor, sensual and soft to the touch of bare feet.

A kiva fireplace decorated one corner. Tonight that fireplace probably had a fire in it, cedar logs burning, popping, emitting their sweet fragrance.

From the round bed radiated the four lines of gold tiles. The Zia sun symbol. One path led to the fireplace; the opposite tiles led to the altar, a dry piñon tree with polished branches reaching up to the high ceiling supported by old, weathered pine vigas. The branches of the piñon were decorated with small Ojos de Dios, simple adornments of colored wool in diamond shapes.

Next to the piñon lay thin cottonwood branches for making the Ojos.

“A good way to enter visions,” Tamara had explained. “These decorations the natives call the eye of God are really the eye of Ra, the sun god. As I weave, I chant and enter the eye of Ra. I enter the realm of the sun, and the visions come. You, too, can journey into the ancient realms of the sun king. Let me take you on a journey.”

Sonny had hesitated. The journey meant going to bed with Tamara.

The eye of God saw everything, or so he had been taught by his mother. His mother had tried to make a good Catholic out of him. The diagonal design of the ojo was a mandala, a labyrinth that led to the center, the eye of God. For Tamara the sun god was the Egyptian Ra.

“I take pleasure in you, and you in me, and in those moments of ecstasy, we enter the past lives of our youth.”

She promised him a vision of eternity, eternal youth wrapped up in the orgasms of her flesh. That’s why she sought a view into her past lives. Did the desire for illumination, like the hombre dorado’s desire for eternal youth, lead one into a Faustian deal, selling one’s soul in order to live forever?

The third line from Tamara’s bed of love radiated to a stained-glass window on the south wall. During the winter solstice when the southern sun was low in the horizon, the window would be alive with color. The thick, stained pieces of glass created another mandala, another variation of the Ojo de Dios, or the Zia sun. In the center of the four-leafed design nestled the round, golden sun.

The fourth line led through an open door to the large sunken tub where, Sonny guessed, the preparations for the lovemaking began.

She drew closer to Sonny. “Why so deep in thought?”

“I was thinking of your interpretation of la Llorona.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” He had to agree that it did. Why couldn’t la Llorona be a facet of the Earth Goddess, and her need be one of procreation? For that she needed the males she sought along dark alleys, along country acequias, under bridges spanning arroyos and muddy streams.

“Raven came to see me,” he said.

“I should have warned you,” she said, and reached out and touched the bruise on his forehead. “But you must have known he would return.”

“To get me?”

“You must understand that the Raven who has returned is not the Raven we knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s hurt. Not just physically, but his soul is not well. He is mad with revenge.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“Raven cannot harm you. As long as you wear the Zia medallion, he cannot harm you.” She drew closer and kissed him softly. The warmth and pressure of her body aroused him. He pulled back.

“I told you many times, you are one of us. You are an old soul who has lived many lives,” she whispered, touching his cheek, her fingers like fire. “You have as much power as Raven, if only you could see within.”

Sonny took the medallion from around his neck and handed it to her. “I don’t need it to take care of Raven.”

“Oh, but you do,” she said tersely, pushing the offered medallion away from her. “Don’t you understand? You stand in Raven’s way.”

“What do you mean?” Sonny asked. “The cops are looking for him, I’m not.”

“He’s not afraid of the police. They can’t stop him—” She stopped short and wrung her hands. “Raven is extremely dangerous. When you interrupted his plot on the summer solstice, you ruined a cycle of time. He recognized you as an old enemy.”

“Old enemy?” Sonny asked.

“Oh, Sonny, if you could only see, only believe that we are old souls, struggling through the cycles of time, caught in an eternal battle from which there is no rest. If you understood this, you would understand my love. I will do anything for you.”

Her voice rang with emotion, and with what, Sonny understood, was a true expression of her love.

“I love you,” she said. “I really do. And I will do anything in my power to keep you safe. But I cannot enter Raven’s world.”

“The world of spirits,” Sonny said.

She nodded. “But you will. In the meantime the medallion is your only protection.”

She took the medal and placed it around his neck. Sonny knew something had gone wrong between her and Raven. He was out to get her, too.

“He threatened you?”

“He called. You see, I, too, stand in his way.”

Sonny didn’t know whether to believe her or not. This summer they had been cohorts, now Raven was a threatening madman.

“If you know where he is, tell me.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. He moves around, calls from different places. Sometimes he mocks me. I am afraid of him.”

Sonny raised an eyebrow. The Zia queen afraid of Raven?

“You find it hard to believe, I know. I’m supposed to be the psychic, the strange woman who reads the past and the future, and you think I had something to do with Gloria’s death. Ah, well, what matters now is that I want to help you.”

She leaned to kiss him.

“I want you,” she whispered in his ear, her voice soft, compelling, her aroma sweet.

The energy he had felt from Lorenza’s cure was gone. His head throbbed. Raven had nearly killed him, and Raven would strike again. He could cure his illness by stepping into the bath for the tired warrior, by letting Tamara minister to his lethargy. He could return to the arms of la Llorona, that childhood creature that often haunted his path when he ran home late at night. He could be the new Raven.

Why not? he thought. Perhaps Tamara was the answer, a way to get his juices flowing again, to find the energy that had left him the day he saw Gloria’s dead body stretched on the bed.

“It would be so easy,” he said.

“Yes.” Tamara nodded, fingering the medallion on his chest. “I understand the man you are and what you need.”

Sonny pulled himself away.

“Why?” she questioned.

“Maybe I’m old-fashioned.” He shrugged.

“Or afraid,” she suggested, rising.

He smiled. She really knew what he was thinking. Yes, he had admitted to himself, perhaps he was afraid. If he entered the tent of the desert love goddess, he might not want to leave. Tamara was a siren, a lovely woman who no doubt knew how to please men. He would become an acolyte of la Llorona, answering her cry for love whenever she called.

“Do the boys la Llorona takes to her home by the river ever return home?” he asked.

She smiled. “Once you give your soul to the goddess of love there is no need to return. The men she calls to her are completely satisfied. You would be satisfied here. I promise you that. I truly care for you.”

“And I have some people I have to take care of,” Sonny said. “Thanks for the wine.”

“This is the second time you’ve said no, Sonny. If I doubted myself, I would wonder what I’m doing wrong. But I know you too well. The time isn’t right for us. So I will wait.” She smiled her enigmatic smile, took his arm, and walked him to the door.

“Remember, wear the medallion. It protects you from Raven. He is extremely dangerous.”

“I know that,” Sonny replied. “But I don’t think he’s got much of a chance. Sooner or later the cops will find him. Where can he hide?”

Tamara shook her head sadly. “He is not of this world,” she whispered, and Sonny wondered if he had heard her correctly as the night breeze whirled through the trees, and the leaves moaned to the caress.

“Buenas noches,” she said. “Return when you’re ready. My door is always open to you.”

Sonny walked to his truck. In the east Sunbringer shone. Venus. The star of love, the planet of the ancient goddess. Tamara sat up late at night and sipped wine, and her meditation on Venus had called Sonny to her.

He thought he heard someone call his name. A rustle in the wind. La Llorona. His grandmother had told him it was la Llorona’s husband who had murdered the children, to drive her mad.

For Tamara, la Llorona was a love goddess, a Circe calling wanderers to her island.

He could have stayed, explored the possibilities, surely found some release from the weight of Gloria’s ghost. But no, he had things to do. Promises to keep. And he had Rita.

Sonny, I’m proud of you, he said to himself, smiling, as he got into his truck and drove home.