I began to tell Nestor that although I had come to see the two of them for the specific purpose of having them confirm that I had jumped, I had changed my mind and I really did not want to talk about it anymore. Both of them started talking at once, and at that point we fell into a three-way argument. Pablito maintained that he had not been aware, Nestor shouted that Pablito was indulging and I said that I didn’t want to hear anything more about the jump.
It was blatantly obvious to me for the first time that none of us had calmness and self-control. None of us Was willing to give the other person our undivided attention, the way don Juan and don Genaro did. Since I was incapable of maintaining any order in our exchange of opinions, I immersed myself in my own deliberations. I had always thought that the only flaw that had prevented me from entering fully into don Juan’s world was my insistence on rationalizing everything, but the presence of Pablito and Nestor had given me a new insight into myself. Another flaw of mine was my timidity. Once I strayed outside the safe railings of common sense, I could not trust myself and became intimidated by the awesomeness of what unfolded in front of me. Thus, I found it was impossible to believe that I had jumped into an abyss.
Don Juan had insisted that the whole issue of sorcery was perception, and truthful to that, he and don Genaro staged, for our last meeting, an immense, cathartic drama on the flat mountaintop. After they made me voice my thanks in loud clear words to everyone who had ever helped me, I became transfixed with elation. At that point they had caught all my attention and led my body to perceive the only possible act within their frame of references: the jump into the abyss. That jump was the practical accomplishment of my perception, not as an average man but as a sorcerer.
I had been so absorbed in writing down my thoughts I had not noticed that Nestor and Pablito had stopped talking and all three of them were looking at me. I explained to them that there was no way for me to understand what had taken place with that jump.
“There’s nothing to understand,” Nestor said. “Things just happen and no one can tell how. Ask Benigno if he wants to understand.”
“Do you want to understand?” I asked Benigno as a joke.
“You bet I do!” he exclaimed in a deep bass voice, making everyone laugh.
“You indulge in saying that you want to understand,” Nestor went on. “Just like Pablito indulges in saying that he doesn’t remember anything.”
He looked at Pablito and winked at me. Pablito lowered his head.
Nestor asked me if I had noticed something about Pablito’s mood when we were about to take our plunge. I had to admit that I had been in no position to notice anything so subtle as Pablito’s mood.
“A warrior must notice everything,” he said. “That’s his trick, and as the Nagual said, there lies his advantage.”
He smiled and made a deliberate gesture of embarrassment, hiding his face with his hat.
“What was it that I missed about Pablito’s mood?” I asked him.
“Pablito had already jumped before he went over,” he said. “He didn’t have to do anything. He may as well have sat down on the edge instead of jumping.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Pablito was already disintegrating,” he replied. “That’s why he thinks he passed out. Pablito lies. He’s hiding something.”
Pablito began to speak to me. He muttered some unintelligible words, then gave up and slumped back in his chair. Nestor also started to say something. I made him stop. I was not sure I had understood him correctly.
“Was Pablito’s body distegrating?” I asked.
He peered at me for a long time without saying a word. He was sitting to my right. He moved quietly to the bench opposite me.
“You must take what I say seriously,” he said. “There is no way to turn back the wheel of time to what we were before that jump. The Nagual said that it is an honor and a pleasure to be a warrior, and that it is the warrior’s fortune to do what he has to do. I have to tell you impeccably what I have witnessed. Pablito was disintegrating. As you two ran toward the edge only you were solid. Pablito was like a cloud. He thinks that he was about to fall on his face, and you think that you held him by the arm to help him make it to the edge. Neither of you is correct, and I wouldn’t doubt that it would have been better for both of you if you hadn’t picked Pablito up.”
I felt more confused than ever. I truly believed that he was sincere in reporting what he had perceived, but I remembered that I had only held Pablito’s arm.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t interfered?” I asked.
“I can’t answer that,” Nestor replied. “But I know that you affected each other’s luminosity. At the moment you put your arm around him, Pablito became more solid, but you wasted your precious power for nothing.”
“What did you do after we jumped?” I asked Nestor after a long silence.
“Right after you two had disappeared,” he said, “my nerves were so shattered that I couldn’t breathe and I too passed out, I don’t know for how long. I thought it was only for a moment. When I came to my senses again, I looked around for Genaro and Nagual; they were gone. I ran back and forth on the top of that mountain, calling them until my voice was hoarse. Then I knew I was alone. I walked to the edge of the cliff and tried to look for the sign that the earth gives when a warrior is not going to return, but I had already missed it. I knew then that Genaro and the Nagual were gone forever. I had not realized until then that they had turned to me after they had said good-bye to you two, and as you were running to the edge they waved their hands and said good-bye to me.
“Finding myself alone at that time of day, on that deserted spot, was more than I could bear. In one sweep I had lost all the friends I had in the world. I sat down and wept. And as I got more and more scared I began to scream as loud as I could. I called Genaro’s name at the top of my voice. By then it was pitch-black. I could no longer distinguish any landmarks. I knew that as a warrior I had no business indulging in my grief. In order to calm myself down I began to howl like a coyote, the way the Nagual had taught me. After howling for a while I felt so much better that I forgot my sadness. I forgot that the world existed. The more I howled the easier it was to feel the warmth and protection of the earth.
“Hours must have passed. Suddenly I felt a blow inside of me, behind my throat, and the sound of a bell in my cars. I remembered what the Nagual had told Eligio and Benigno before they jumped. He said that the feeling in the throat came just before one was ready to change speed, and that the sound of the bell was the vehicle that one could use to accomplish anything that one needed. I wanted to be a coyote then. I looked at my arms, which were on the ground in front of me. They had changed shape and looked like a coyote’s. I saw the coyote’s fur on my arms and chest. I was a coyote! That made me so happy that I cried like a coyote must cry. I felt my coyote teeth and my long and pointed muzzle and tongue. Somehow, I knew that I had died, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me to have turned into a coyote, or to be dead, or to be alive. I walked like a coyote, on four legs, to the edge of the precipice and leaped into it. There was nothing else for me to do.
“I felt that I was falling down and my coyote body turned in the air. Then I was myself again twirling in midair. But before I hit the bottom I became so light that I didn’t fall anymore but floated. The air went through me. I was so light! I believed that my death was finally coming inside me. Something stirred my insides and I disintegrated like dry sand. It was peaceful and perfect where I was. I somehow knew that I was there and yet I wasn’t. I was nothing. That’s all I can say about it. Then, quite suddenly, the same thing that had made me like dry sand put me together again. I came back to life and I found myself sitting in the hut of an old Mazatec sorcerer. He told me his name was Porfirio. He said that he was glad to see me and began to teach me certain things about plants that Genaro hadn’t taught me. He took me with him to where the plants were being made and showed me the mold of plants, especially the marks on the molds. He said that if I watched for those marks in the plants I could easily tell what they’re good for, even if I had never seen those plants before. Then when he knew that I had learned the marks he said good-bye but invited me to come see him again. At that moment I felt a strong pull and I disintegrated, like before. I became a million pieces.