Hechicero
The Legend Begins
By Frank Solis Copyright 2021
PREVIEW: CHAPTER ONE OUT OF TWELVE
Chapter One
The wind howled viciously over the small town of Presidio, Texas, as clouds of dust went flying by threatening to punish the face of anyone who dared venture outdoors. Two young men were about to face off over the love of a young woman. Raven and Angel, two more different personalities could not be found anywhere. Raven had dark brooding eyes which seemed to look right through you; he also had a penchant for mischief and was prone to violence. It was rumored that his tía Dona Márquez was a bruja, a witch who practiced black magic. It was also rumored that she was the reason for the drought in the area in which so many cattle and sheep had perished. On the other hand, Angel was a young man who many of the townspeople liked, as he was kind to everyone, and always took care of his grandmother Doña María.
It was three in the afternoon, and the sun was almost totally obscured by the horrible dust storm. The devils wind “El viento del diablo,” the townspeople called it, swept down off the nearby mountains when the spring rain came. Elizabeth, Angel’s girlfriend tried in vain to shield her eyes from the sand that seemed to be everywhere. She had hoped to speak with Angel on her way home from school, but he was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, on the edge of Presidio, Raven waited. His lips forming a scowl as he toyed with the switchblade in his pocket. Angel believed, that if he confronted Raven, that he would come to realize that Elizabeth was his girlfriend. “So, you came, coward?” Raven’s eyes narrowed like those of a snake and they burned with hate as he walked toward Angel. “Why don’t you just leave us alone? You know that I’m the one she loves!” replied Angel. “Oh, I don’t care about love altar boy; I just want to be naked in bed with her!” With that, fury rose up in Angel’s heart, like the rising dust storm wind, which was now blinding his eyes. Anger clouded his mind, as Raven lunged at him, and they engaged in a furious fistfight until Angel got the better of Raven, knocking him down hard upon the windswept ground. Raven, looked up at Angel with bloodied lips, and stammered, “Okay, okay, I give up ese!”
“Then let that be the end of it,” replied Angel, as he turned to walk away. Angel had only taken a few steps, when he felt the burning pain in his back, as Raven stabbed him over and over with his switchblade. The parched ground greedily drank up Angel’s blood as it flowed from his wounds. In the howling wind, Raven’s laughter arose mocking Angel, as he gloated over his tainted victory. He then walked away and left Angel behind to die in the Texas heat. Several hours later a sheep herder who was passing by, found Angel and took him home. His grandmother tended to him as best she could until the town doctor arrived. “I think the boy will be alright Doña María, luckily the knife’s blade did not hit any vital organs. I have bandaged his wounds and am leaving him some medication in case of infection. What he needs now, is plenty of rest.”
“Gracias Doctor López, muchas gracias.” His grandmother seemed relieved by the news that Angel would be okay.
Later that evening, loud pounding on the door echoed throughout the small wood frame house. Doña María went to open it. “Doña María , I’m Sheriff Delgado. Someone reported that Angel was in a fight and I came out to investigate, Como esta Ángel?”
“The doctor says he will be okay, Sheriff Delgado, but for now we just have to wait and see.” After the sheriff spoke with Angel and finished asking him questions, he went to search for Raven. Doña María lit a candle to the Virgin of Guadalupe, praying that everything would come out alright. Later that night, Raven was arrested and charged with attempted murder due to the fact that Angel’s wounds were all located in his back. Six months later, Raven was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Several years had passed since Raven’s trial, and memories of the fight were long obscured in Angel’s mind by the death of his beloved grandmother, Doña María. Angel was now working for a rich rancher who owned a great deal of property at the foot of the nearby mountains. Occasionally, he had to go in search of stray cattle or sheep. Then one day, as Angel was searching for strays, he took shelter in a cave from an approaching thunderstorm. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he slowly made out the outline of a rusty metal box which lay half buried in a pool of mud. Due to water flooding into the cave from the spring rain, the box had become unearthed. After the thunderstorm passed, he took the box home with him where he placed it under his bed and forgot about it. Work was hard in the Texas sun, and he often felt weary from the long twelve-hour days of working on the ranch. One night he dreamed his grandmother was holding the metal box in her hands while speaking to him, “This is your destiny Angel, your people need you, humanity needs you.” But it wasn’t until he had dreamed the same dream three times, that he realized that the time had come to open the mysterious box.
A Mysterious Box
It had been almost three and a half years since the fight with Raven, and Angel had heard that he would soon be released on parole. Angel’s abuelita had passed away during this time and he missed her dearly. It was so quiet in the little house without her. He knew in his heart that Raven would seek revenge once he got out of prison. One night, while he was lying quietly in bed, he finally decided to open the box. Upon prying open the rusty metal lid he noticed an inscription written on the inside. He struggled in the light of the kerosene lamp to read it. The writing was indecipherable and the strange symbols surrounding the writing, posed a mystery all in itself, which he felt could not resolve on his own. Within the box, there was an obsidian amulet upon a golden chain which glowed with an eerie light that seemed to come alive and pulse with an unearthly power each time he handled it. From then on it seemed like each time he desired something to happen it would begin to manifest and make his thoughts reality. He wondered what the ancient symbols meant, and he decided to consult the only person who might be able to help him, the curandero.
The trail up into the mountains was steep and belonged only to sheep and goats not humans, but he knew he had to make the journey in order to discover the secret behind the amulet. So, he went on until he’d reached the small valley between the mountains where Don Pedro the old curandero who had been a friend of his abuela lived. “Quien va hay?” The old man was nearly blind, but his hearing was still as sharp as an owl. “Soy Ángel, Don Pedro, el nieto de Doña María.”
“Pásale Ángel, ya se por qué vienes.”
“How did you know I was coming Don Pedro?”
“Mijo, there are other ways of seeing than with the eyes of the human body.” Upon a campfire of glowing stones and burning embers was a pot, from which Don Pedro took a cup of a magical drink whose ingredients were known only to him. “What you enquire about is not from this world, but from the stars, and the writing can only be read through the eyes of the soul, not the mind. The symbols say that it can only be worn by one with a pure and noble heart, as its only purpose in the world is to destroy evil.”
“How can this be, Don Pedro, if I have held it in my hands?”
“If you have touched the amulet Ángel, and were not destroyed by its power, then you are the chosen one.”
Angel left the old curandero’s home more confused than ever and wondered just what Don Pedro meant when he said that things would soon become clear to him. Through the teachings of the church, Angel had learned that good and evil exist in the world but up until now, the only brush with evil he had experienced was the fight with Raven. He could still recall how Raven’s eyes had shown a darkness which he had never seen before in any man. Within a month’s time Angel began having vivid dreams of him fighting a dark force, only he was not alone as there were two others by his side, but he could never see their faces. The amulet played a prominent role in his dreams as its ever-glowing light protected him from the darkness which threatened to destroy him completely. In the dreams a powerful energy shot forth from the amulet and he used it to actively engage evil in the world. Little did Angel know that this was only the beginning of a journey which would one day bring him face to face, with the very source of evil itself.
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