“Que importa?” said the gray haired governor, shrugging his shoulders, as he leaned on his staff of office and looked closely. “In Isleta there are two thousand burros, and their paths are everywhere.”
“But see!” persisted the trailer. “Are they like this? For this brute was lame in all the legs, so that his feet fell over to the inside a little, instead of coming flatly down. It will be the Enchanted Burro!”
“Ahu!” cried Lelo, who stood by. “And this morning when I passed the burro of Don ’Colás in the bushes, I saw that it was laming along as if its legs were stiff.”
By now no one doubted that there was witchcraft afoot, and the officials whose place it is were taking active measures to preserve the pueblo. The cacique sat in his closed house fasting and praying, with ashes upon his head. The Cum-pa-huit-la-wen were running here and there with their sacred bows and arrows, prying into every corner, if haply they might find a witch. In the house of mourning the Shamans were blinding the eyes of the ghosts, that none might follow the trail of the dead captain and do him harm before he should reach the safe other world. And in the medicine house the Father of All Medicine was blowing the slow smoke across the sacred bowl, to read in that magic mirror the secrets of the whole world.
But in spite of everything, a curse seemed to have fallen upon the peaceful town. Lucero, the third assistant war captain, did not return with his flock, and when searchers went to the llano, they found him lying by a chapparo bush dead, and his sheep gone. But worst of all, he was scalped, and all the wisdom of that cunning head had been carried away to enrich the mysterious foe—for the soul and talents of an Indian go with his hair, according to Indian belief. And in a day or two came running Antonio Peralta to the pueblo, gray as the dead and without his blanket. Herding his father’s horses back of the Accursed Hill, he sat upon a block of lava to watch them. As they grazed, a lame burro came around the hill grazing toward them. And when it was among them, they suddenly raised their heads in fear and snorted and turned to run; but the burro, rising like a mountain lion, sprang upon one of them and fastened on its neck, and all the herd stampeded to the west, the accursed burro still perched upon its victim and tearing it. Ay! a gray burro, jovero,[8] and with a white foot behind. Antonio had his musket, but he dared not fire after this witch beast. And here were twelve more good horses gone of what the Cumanche robbers had left.
By now the whole pueblo was wrought to the highest tension. That frightful doubt which seizes a people oppressed by supernatural fears brooded everywhere. No man but was sure that the man he hated was mixed up in the witchcraft; no man who was disliked by any one but felt the finger of suspicion pointing at him. People grew dumb and moody, and looked at each other from the corner of the eye as they passed without even a kindly “Hina-kú-p’wiu, neighbor.” As for work, that was almost forgotten, though the fields cried out for care. No one dared take a flock to the llano, and few went even to their gardens. There were medicine makings every night to exorcise the evil spirits, and the Shamans worked wonders, and the medicine guards prowled high and low for witches. The cacique sat always in his house, seeing no one, nor eating, but torturing his flesh for the safety of his people.
And still there was no salvation. Not a night went by but some new outrage befell. Now it was a swooping away of herds, now some man of the wisest and bravest was slain and scalped in his bed. And always there were no more tracks than those of a burro, stiff-kneed, whose hoofs did not strike squarely upon the ground. Many, also, caught glimpses of the Enchanted Burro as they peered at midnight from their dark windows. Sometimes he plodded mournfully along the uncertain streets, as burros do; but some vowed that he came down suddenly from the sky, as alighting from a long flight. Without a doubt, old Melo had seen the brute walk up the ladder of Ambrósio’s house the very night Ambrósio was found dead in the little lookout room upon his own roof. And a burro which could climb a ladder could certainly fly.
On the fourth day Lelo could stand it no longer. “I am going to the field,” he said, “before the wheat dies. For it is as well to be eaten by the witches now as that we should starve to death next winter, when there will be nothing to eat.”
“What folly is this?” cried the neighbors. “Does Lelo think he is stronger than the ghosts? Let him stay behind those who are more men.”
But Lelo had another trait, quite as marked as his slowness and good nature. When his deliberate mind was made up there was no turning him; and, though he was as terrified as anyone by the awful happenings of the week, he had decided to attend to his field. So he only answered the taunts with a stolid, respectful: “No, I do not put myself against the ghosts. But perhaps they will let me alone, knowing that my mother has now no one else to feed her.”