Nazlini Dancers

Nazlini Dancers

By Dr. Ray Turner

Copyright, 2013

White Buffalo Press

5306 King George Drive

San Antonio, TX 78229

Smashwords Edition.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Prologue

View from the Bridge

July 11, 1964. Matamoros,

Federal Republic of Mexico

The possibilities seemed endless to Michael following thirty days of leave after crossing the Sonoran Highlands. He had traversed down onto the Coastal Plain and across to the Gateway to America at Matamoros. Michael Juan Baptismo Cordilleras joined the constant flow of people and vehicles across the International Bridge. He was technically AWOL after three days and still 800 miles away from his new assignment at Ft. Bliss near El Paso. But his vision quest and the extraordinary people he had met across Mexico had been worth the constraints of being AWOL. He had been AWOL before and probably would be again.

Through the metal grid work walkway the Rio Grande seemed less than impressive from the bridge above. An old Mexican school bus was used by the Federales to repatriate their citizens. Garnered with four armed guards on corner mounts, these guards hung on confidently during the quick southward bridge and border traverse. The courtesies extended illegal aliens as bus passengers on the American side of the International Bridge were not at all extended them when forcibly deported back to Mexico. If illegals had experienced any hostilities from the Americans these hostilities were nothing compared to their treatment by the Mexican Authorities awaiting their return.

The blue school bus exhaust roiled and subsided in the heavy Gulf Coast air. Michael assessed the bridge scenario, and then turned for a sweeping view of the westward horizon. He watched while ever more Mexican illegals were crossing the riverbed who would replace those detainees already southbound. There was always more crossing over than forcibly returned to Mexico.

It was easy for illegals to wade to America unauthorized. But they were desperate and careless to brazenly wade across at midday and in view of bridge officials from both nations. Illegals had been shot before by the Mexican Border Patrol when they routinely checked-out their automatic weapons. But U.S. Border Patrol, though well-armed, had never fired at illegals from the bridge.

Walkers among the riverbed reeds immediately attracted Michael's attention from his bridge crossing. A tiny Mestizo woman took each step more carefully entering the muddy water while the others were already slogging onto the other side. An infant was wrapped up under her serape. The lady fell suddenly face forward into the water amid empty paint cans and other river debris. Others who had already reached the American side ignored her.

Michael considered for a moment what authority to intervene a Special Forces officer assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency had under these conditions. Absolutely none--stay away and don't get involved? This woman would quickly recover from her fall. She would surely make the American side without his help. His overwhelming instinct was to intervene. This was the first direct effect on him of the powerful Curandero woman he was now watching.

Even at Michael's distance from the bridge people of all cultures could be watched and understood by observing their posture, their movements and even their facial expressions. At a much closer range they could be better understood by their sounds, even their breathing. Michael watched the woman's recovery. She lifted up her peasant woven skirt from the mud and the knee-deep waterline. Her wrap drooped into the waterline showing the infants outline. A Yaqui weave pattern told him much of her Sonoran Highland origin and her Clan membership. Michael knew the weave pattern to be of his own Clan.

Quinto moved forward again with a renewed urgency to reach the embankment to enter America. Startled into wakefulness the baby began crying. Michael heard the first sounds of his own nephew who had not yet secured a foothold with his mother into this proud nation. The concept of any infant being his own nephew or in any way being related to him was the second powerful effect of Quinto’s magical powers. His deepest instinct to protect the young and his family members had been intentionally stirred.

Quinto’s eyes scanned the shoreline ahead. The steep pathway would bring her quickly to higher and level ground. Tall grass on the other side would hide her further movements after crawling under the damaged American fence. She turned for the first time to see across to the bridge. She saw instead only the Special Forces beret and the steel-blue eyes of an American soldier. No one else on the bridge was looking her way. None seemed to care about her predicament or her actions. She knew she was having a powerful effect on someone in the direction of the bridge. Was it to be this soldier who would respond to her needs?

From the distance Michael looked directly back into Quinto’s steel-blue eyes. Terror was in her face. Terror now became reflected also in Michael's heart. He had seen the terror on many faces before. But he could always maintain a professional distance with those whom he had observed. This woman had already enveloped him in her own terror. There was no professional distancing possible now for him. Could he intervene just this one time? So many variables might override his success and increase his danger beyond acceptable limits. What were these acceptable limits anyway? Such unplanned interventions or impulsive involvements were always high-risk tactics. This was not a good day to die.

She looked again directly both at and deeply into Michael her head above the grass line on the knoll above the river. Her focus was unmistakable--not to the many others on the bridge but now only to him. For a Navajo man this direct return of eye contact was a direct visual assault to his honor and to his manhood. It was a demand for recognition for her superior Yaqui Clan status. Only his mother, as a Yaqui Curandero, could look so deeply into others and see their hidden past. She could at the same time work easily to heal with light and self-guided energy. If it was to be his sister--she would also have to be a Curandero and a Sonoran Highlander like her Mother. Her serape weave and clan markings tended to confirm his preliminary assessment. But how could this be his sister? The energy was too much from this tiny woman who now moved away through the tall grass.

It had to be his Sister! All composure was gone as he ran the remaining length of the bridge and down the tarmac. U.S. Customs border guards carelessly waved him through the turnstile. His dirty Special Forces uniform was his passport home to America. The extended bridge landing was rounded at a run calculated not to draw anyone's attention. He had often been able to move swiftly through crowds of unconscious people while stalking his victims–not drawing anyone's attention. He moved westward to the grassy knoll. The other illegals had already made the embankment and were walking a worn footpath through South Texas tall grass, partially hiding them. On that footpath and far behind the others Michael intersected Quinto.

+++++++

Meeting a uniform to anyone crossing the Rio Bravo meant failure to find asylum in America. Quinto knew that this unusually tall, dark Mestizos-featured man was unavoidable. He might force her return to Sonora after her 1,200 miles of carefully negotiated walking. The Curandero network that brought her so far now was powerless to affect her safe transport into another nation. It was their way to respect the spiritual boundaries of other time workers, other Curanderos, in other nations. There had to be another Curandero beyond the Rio Bravo for her journey to be complete and for a safe passage.

Rarely would any Curandero move without incident between the enormous rotating vortexes of energy that each nation's Curandero network made and that so profoundly divided nations. This national boundary was not just a separator between nations but also an exacting division between powerful spiritual forces. Many Curanderos described this boundary marked by a small river as the intersection of two National Angels whose robes touched at the waters midline.

Michael's face was not threatening. His smile eased her body tension. But it also heightened her expectations of treachery. She knew in America there would be a new Curandero system of White or Black Magic. Black time worker wolves often disguised themselves as dogs. Was this a wolf or a mad dog in uniform from America? The baby cried out. Michael Juan Baptismo Cordilerras leaned forward to see into her soggy wrap as an uncle might inspect his nephew for the first time.

Quinto's task was clear. Michael stood before her blocking the path. He was one who innocently though persistently was delaying her forward progress into America. Raising her right hand she walked through his standing position. He stepped in behind her and her son. Quinto was now ahead of him in the traditional Yaqui way. She spoke in broken Spanish with intermittent Yaqui phrases still warning him to give her more distance.

He quietly spoke his mother's name: Yante Sequa. The Yaqui he spoke was flawed, almost childlike, belying his natural strength. His Yaqui words were in the English form twisting their meaning. They could so much better be said in the Yaqui form. He struggled to speak with his Yaqui: Yante Sequa! Is she your cousin, a Clan sister, or your mother?

Yante Sequa is dead! she said now in Spanish. Michael was relieved for her not to mix Spanish and Yaqui as she would routinely do with others not of her Clan in their mountain home far to the southwest. Spanish was the common language of her region. Castilian Spanish was the language of officialdom. But Yaqui speech was far more sacred. It was reserved only to Clan members.

Yante Sequa is alive! retorted Michael, his Yaqui rough with disuse. She is my living mother! Michael had already lost control, composure and his time worker awareness with his first Clan words to her. He still did not know her name and would not ask. It was not the Yaqui Clan way to do so. Quinto stopped midstride. Shifting the baby to her left side she covered the little one again.

Quinto had never heard of a blood brother from her mother Yante Sequa, a Yaqui medicine woman--a powerful Curandero. The Curandero network of her People had been breached when she stepped onto American soil. She was alone with her child and now forcibly by his actions with this Yaqui-speaking stranger in America. Her mother’s truth had been shared fully only with her eldest and only son. Michael had left Yante in the Sonoran Mountains for repatriation to the Navajo Nation and a Navajo Clan system upbringing. He had then spent all of his adult life as a professional warrior. He had traveled across the globe over those years and only now had returned to his birthplace. His life had not been spent as a Yaqui healer. Michael left Yante Sequa before Quinto had been conceived. Daughter Quinto had not been fully informed. It was the Curandero way. And matriarchs, leaders of multiple Clans like Yante, could convey knowledge to whomever they chose. Knowledge was power in the Sonoran highlands amongst Yaqui time workers.

Walking in silence, they were each afraid to talk further. Perhaps too much had already been spoken between them, too much