right I saw an enormous phosphorescent coyote. Behind us,
almost touching la Gorda’s back, was the dark rectangular
shape.
The man turned his back to us and began to move on the
trail. I also began to walk. La Gorda kept on shrieking and
whining. The rectangular shape was almost grabbing her back.
I heard it moving with crushing thumps. The sound of its
steps reverberated on the hills around us. I could feel its cold
breath on my neck. I knew that la Gorda was about to go
mad. And so was 1. The feline and the coyote were almost
rubbing my legs. I could hear their hissing and growling in-
creasing in volume. I had, at that moment, the irrational urge
to make a certain sound don Juan had taught me. The allies
answered me. I kept on frantically making the sound and they
answered me back. The tension diminished by degrees, and
before we reached the road I was part of a most extravagant
scene. La Gorda was riding piggyback, happily bouncing her
dress over her head as if nothing had ever happened, keeping
the bounces in rhythm with the sound I was making, while
four creatures of another world answered me back as they
moved at my pace, flanking us on all four sides.
We got to the road in that fashion. But I did not want to
leave. There seemed to be something missing. I stayed motion-
less with la Gorda on my back and made a very special tapping
sound don Juan had taught me. He had said that it was the
call of moths. In order to produce it one had to use the inside
edge of the left hand and the lips.
As soon as I made it everything seemed to come to rest
peacefully. The four entities answered me, and as they did I
knew which were the ones that would go with me.
I then walked to the car and eased la Gorda off my back
onto the driver’s seat and pushed her over to her side. We
drove away in absolute silence. Something had touched me
somewhere and my thoughts had been turned off.
La Gorda suggested that we go to don Genaro’s place in-
stead of driving to her house. She said that Benigno, Nestor
ami Pablito lived there but they were out of town. Her sug-
gestion appealed to me.
Once we were in the house la Gorda lit a lantern. The place
looked just as it had the last time I had visited don Genaro. We
sat on the floor. I pulled up a bench and put my writing pad
on it. I was not tired and I wanted to write but I could not do
it. I could not write at all.
What did the Nagual tell you about the allies? I asked.
My question seemed to catch her off guard. She did not
know how to answer.
I can’t think, she finally said.
It was as though she had never experienced that state before.
She paced back and forth in front of me. Tiny beads of perspi-
ration had formed on the tip of her nose and on her upper lip.
She suddenly grabbed me by the hand and practically pulled
me out of the house. She led me to a nearby ravine and there
she got sick.
My stomach felt queasy. She said that the pull of the allies
had been too great and that I should force myself to throw up.
I stared at her, waiting for a further explanation. She took my
head in her hands and stuck her finger down my throat, with
the certainty of a nurse dealing with a child, and actually
made me vomit. She explained that human beings had a very
delicate glow around the stomach and that that glow was al-
ways being pulled by everything around. At times when the
pull was too great, as in the case of contact with the allies, or
even in the case of contact with strong people, the glow
would become agitated, change color or even fade altogether.
In such instances the only thing one could do was simply to
throw up.
I felt better but not quite myself yet. I had a sense of tired-
ness, of heaviness around my eyes. We walked back to the
house. As we reached the door la Gorda sniffed the air like
a dog and said that she knew which allies were mine. Her
statement, which ordinarily would have had no other signifi-
cance than the one she alluded to, or the one I myself read
into it, had the special quality of a cathartic device. It made
me explode into thoughts. All at once, my usual intellectual
deliberations came into being. I felt myself leaping in the air,
as if thoughts had an energy of their own.
The first thought that came to my mind was that the allies
were actual entities, as I had suspected without ever daring
to admit it, even to myself. I had seen them and felt them and
communicated with them. I was euphoric. I embraced la
Gorda and began to explain to her the crux of my intellectual
dilemma. I had seen the allies without the aid of don Juan or
don Genaro and that act made all the difference in the world
to me. I told la Gorda that once when I had reported to don
Juan that I had seen one of the allies he had laughed and urged
me not to take myself so seriously and to disregard what I had
seen.
I had never wanted to believe I was having hallucinations,
but I did not want to accept that there were allies, either. My
rational background was unbending. I could not bridge the
gap. This time, however, everything was different, and the
thought that there were actually beings on this earth that were
from another world without being aliens to the earth was
more than I could bear. I said to la Gorda, half in jest, that
secretly I would have given anything to be crazy. That would
have absolved some part of me from the crushing responsibil-
ity of revamping my understanding of the world. The irony
of it was that I could not have been more willing to revamp
my understanding of the world, on an intellectual level, that
is. But that was not enough. That had never been enough.
And that had been my insurmountable obstacle all along, my
deadly flaw. I had been willing to dally in don Juan’s world
in a semiconvinced fashion; therefore, I had been a quasi-
sorcerer. All my efforts had been no more than my inane
eagerness to fence with the intellect, as if I were in academia
where one can do that very thing from 8: 00 a. m. to 5: 00 p. m.,
at which time, duly tired, one goes home. Don Juan used to
say as a joke that, after arranging the world in a most beauti-
ful and enlightened manner, the scholar goes home at five
o’clock in order to forget his beautiful arrangement.
While la Gorda made us some food I worked feverishly on
my notes. I felt much more relaxed after eating. La Gorda
was in the best of spirits. She clowned, the way don Genaro
used to, imitating the gestures I made while I wrote.
What do you know about the allies, Gorda? I asked.
Only what the Nagual told me, she replied. He said that
the allies were forces that a sorcerer learns to control. He had
two inside his gourd and so did Genaro.
How did they keep them inside their gourds?
No one knows that. All the Nagual knew was that a tiny,
perfect gourd with a neck must be found before one could
harness the allies.
Where can one find that kind of gourd?
Anywhere. The Nagual left word with me, in case we
survived the attack of the allies, that we should start looking
for the perfect gourd, which must be the size of the thumb
of the left hand. That was the size of the Nagual’s gourd.
Have you seen his gourd?
No. Never. The Nagual said that a gourd of that kind is
not in the world of men. It’s like a little bundle that one can
distinguish hanging from their belts. But if you deliberately
look at it you will see nothing.
The gourd, once it is found, must be groomed with great
care. Usually sorcerers find gourds like that on vines in the
woods. They pick them and dry them and then they hollow
them out. And then they smooth them and polish them. Once
the sorcerer has his gourd he must offer it to the allies and
entice them to live there. If the allies consent, the gourd dis-
appears from the world of men and the allies become an aid
to the sorcerer. The Nagual and Genaro could make their