I felt a shiver run through my body. I thought I was going to faint. I knew that I was definitely overreacting and wanted to say something about it, but don Juan kept on talking in a hoarse whisper. He said that Ge-naro, since he was dreaming, had enough control over his assemblage point to move it until he could reach the specific emanations that would wake up whatever was around that rock. He recommended that I try to move my assemblage point, and follow Genaro’s. He said that I could do it, first by setting up my unbending intent to move it, and second by letting the context of the situation dictate where it should move.
After a moment’s thought he whispered in my ear not to worry about procedures, because most of the really unusual things that happen to seers, or to the average man for that matter, happen by themselves, with only the intervention of intent.
He was silent for a moment and then added that the danger for me was going to be the buried seers’ inevitable attempt to scare me to death. He exhorted me to keep myself calm and not to succumb to fear, but follow Genaro’s movements.
I fought desperately not to be sick. Don Juan patted me on the back and said that I was an old pro at playing an innocent bystander. He assured me that I was not consciously refusing to let my assemblage point move, but that every human being does it automatically.
“Something is going to scare the living daylights out of you,” he whispered. “Don’t give up, because if you do, you’ll die and the old vultures around here are going to feast on your energy.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I pleaded. “I really don’t give a damn about getting an example of the old seers’ grotesqueness.”
“It’s too late,” Genaro said, fully awake now, standing by my side. “Even if we try to get away, the two seers and their allies on the other spot will cut you down. They have already made a circle around us. There are as many as sixteen awarenesses focused on you right now.”
“Who are they?” I whispered in Genaro’s ear.
“The four seers and their court,” he replied. “They’ve been aware of us since we got here.”
I wanted to turn tail and run for dear life, but don Juan held my arm and pointed to the sky. I noticed that a remarkable change in visibility had taken place. Instead of the pitch-black darkness that had prevailed, there was a pleasant dawn twilight. I made a quick assessment of the cardinal points. The sky was definitely lighter toward the east.
I felt a strange pressure around my head. My ears were buzzing. I felt cold and feverish at the same time. I was scared as I had never been before, but what bothered me was a nagging sensation of defeat, of being a coward. I felt nauseated and miserable.
Don Juan whispered in my ear. He said that I had to be on the alert, that the onslaught of the old seers would be felt by all three of us at any moment.
“You can grab on to me if you want to,” Genaro said in a fast whisper as if something were prodding him.
I hesitated for an instant. I did not want don Juan to believe that I was so scared I needed to hold on to Genaro.
“Here they come!” Genaro said in a loud whisper.
The world turned upside down instantaneously for me when something gripped me by my left ankle. I felt the coldness of death on my entire body. I knew I had stepped on an iron clamp, maybe a bear trap. That all flashed through my mind before I let out a piercing scream, as intense as my fright.
Don Juan and Genaro laughed out loud. They were flanking me no more than three feet away, but I was so terrified I did not even notice them.
“Sing! Sing for dear life!” I heard don Juan ordering me under his breath.
I tried to pull my foot loose. I felt then a sting, as if needles were piercing my skin. Don Juan insisted over and over that I sing. He and Genaro started to sing a popular song. Genaro spoke the lyrics as he looked at me from hardly two inches away. They sang off-key in raspy voices, getting so completely out of breath and so high out of the range of their voices that I ended up laughing.
“Sing, or you’re going to perish,” don Juan said to me.
“Let’s make a trio,” Genaro said, “We’ll sing a bolero.”
I joined them in an off-key trio. We sang for quite a while at the top of our voices, like drunkards. I felt that the iron grip on my leg was gradually letting go of me. I had not dared to look down at my ankle. At one moment I did and I realized then that there was no trap clutching me. A dark, headlike shape was biting me!
Only a supreme effort kept me from fainting. I felt I was getting sick and automatically tried to bend over, but somebody with superhuman strength grabbed me painlessly by the elbows and the nape of my neck and did not let me move. I got sick all over my clothes.
My revulsion was so complete that I began to fall in a faint. Don Juan sprinkled my face with some water from the small gourd he always carried when we went into the mountains. The water slid under my collar. The coldness restored my physical balance, but it did not affect the force that was holding me by my elbows and neck.
“I think you are going too far with your fright,” don Juan said loudly and in such a matter-of-fact tone that he created an immediate feeling of order.
“Let’s sing again,” he added. “Let’s sing a song with substance?I don’t want any more boleros.”
I silently thanked him for his sobriety and for his grand style. I was so moved as I heard them singing “La Valentina” that I began to weep.
“Because of my passion, they say that ill fortune is on my way. It doesn’t matter that it might be the devil himself. I do know how to die
Valentina, Valentina. I throw my self in your way. If I am going to die tomorrow, why not, once and for all, today?”
All of my being staggered under the impact of that inconceivable juxtaposition of values. Never had a song meant so much to me. As I heard them sing those lyrics, which I ordinarily considered reeking with cheap sentimentalism, I thought I understood the ethos of the warrior. Don Juan had drilled into me that warriors live with death at their side, and from the knowledge that death is with them they draw the courage to face anything. Don Juan had said that the worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.
I walked to don Juan and Genaro and embraced them to express my boundless gratitude and admiration for them.
Then I realized that nothing was holding me any longer. Without a word don Juan took my arm and guided me to sit on the flat rock.
“The show is just about to begin now,” Genaro said in a jovial tone as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit. “You’ve just paid your admission ticket. It’s all over your chest.”
He looked at me, and both of them began to laugh.
“Don’t sit too close to me,” Genaro said. “I don’t appreciate pukers. But don’t go too far, either. The old seers are not yet through with their tricks.”
I moved as close to them as politeness permitted. I was concerned about my slate for an instant, and then all my qualms became nonsense, for I noticed that some people were coming toward us. I could not make out their shapes clearly but I distinguished a mass of human figures moving in the semidarkness. They did not carry lanterns or flashlights with them, which at that hour they would still have needed. Somehow that detail worried me. I did not want to focus on it and I deliberately began to think rationally. I figured that we must have attracted attention with our loud singing and they were coming to investigate. Don Juan tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed with a movement of his chin to the men in front of the group of others.
“Those four are the old seers,” he said. “The rest are their allies.”
Before I could remark that they were just local peasants, I heard a swishing sound right behind me. I quickly turned around in a state of total alarm. My movement was so sudden that don Juan’s warning came too late.