Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest by Alfred Ávila

time. They would each capture a crawfish and wade out of the water to the top of the riverbank. There they would release them to see which one would move faster toward the water. They had fun watching and laughing as the crawfish moved, stopped, quickly crawled again toward the water’s edge, and then darted into the watercress, tailfirst! The boys continued their game for some time. Then they tired and headed out of the water.
    Something suddenly grabbed Chino by the leg, and the startled boy tried to shake it lose. He struggled and struggled with no success, managing only to fall into the pond.
    â€œHelp me, Chava!” Chino cried out to his cousin, so scared that he started to cry. “Something has grabbed my leg and won’t let me go!”
    Excited and scared, Chava leaped into the pond, and took hold of Chino’s arms. But hard as Chava pulled, he could not break Chino loose from whatever was dragging him away.
    â€œHelp! Help!” Chava called out in vain for someone to come help him rescue Chino. In response, the killdeer birds filled the air with excited cries as if sensing the desperate struggle that was taking place, the daily struggle between life and death that is part of life.
    Chino continued twisting and kicking with his one free leg as he tried to free himself. In the meantime, Chava kept pulling and screaming for help. But Chava was, after all, just a small boy, andhe was weakening. Finally, he lost his grip and broke away from Chino.
    Now Chino flailed, his arms grabbing handfuls of watercress and his screams piercing the air. The force was slowly dragging him to where the water was deeper, to the deepest part of the pond. Chava, with water up to his chest, could no longer reach out to his cousin. All he could do was stand there helplessly and watch.
    Suddenly, Chino’s body was jerked viciously downward. His screams were silenced as he was pulled violently into the water. The watercress and water swirled angrily over the spot where he disappeared. Bubbles of air came bursting onto the surface. Then there was only silence. The ripples died out as the last bubbles burst on the surface of the water. The watercress was broken all the way to the spot where Chino had disappeared.
    Chava stood there in the watercress with tears streaming down his cheeks. His body shuddered as his sobbing came bursting out from his chest. He moved out of the water, pushing the watercress from him as he made his way to the bank. He walked up onto the riverbank, sat down sobbing, and stared through his tearful eyes at the hole in the watercress, the spot in the pond where Chino was last seen. Then he picked himself up and headed home.
    Later, the men from the barrio came with torches to search the pond. They tore down the sandbank to empty the water of the pond into the river. But they could not find Chino’s body. Inexplicably, no trace of the boy was ever found.
    Only the old witch understood what had taken place in that watercress-covered pond by the SanGabriel River. These ignorant people, the old woman thought. They don’t realize that along with their ancestors, they are to blame for what happened to the little boy. These mestizos accepted the god of the Spaniards, she said to herself, neglecting the gods of their ancestral Indian fathers, neglecting to offer them the sacrifices they demanded and received in the old days. For centuries, the gods who had looked after the people waited in vain for a sacrifice while the sons and daughters of the old Indians burned candles and sweet incense to their new god, prayed to him in a strange tongue and sang foreign melodies.
    The forgotten gods decided to exact their revenge. They sent the Mother of the Earth and the Waters—Coatlicue—the goddess from which all things were born, to demand the forgotten tribute of sacrifice from the mestizos. She came with a vengeance to grab the sacrificial victim herself.
    The gods had waited centuries for a