It was said that in the deep woods of Lagunas county, there
lived an old wolf who remembered a time long ago, before the arrival of the
first European settlers. It was not as old as the sycamore trees, but it was
old enough, and more cunning than any other animal or man, and had managed to
live in seclusion with its own group of wolves who had managed to survive the
bounty hunters who had roamed relentlessly over the plains and mountains,
intent and killing as many wolves as they could.
The wolf, it was said, was blind, but it cunning knew no
end, and it was said that this wolf, along among all the others of its kind,
was able to speak the language of humans. Legends told of a great big wolf,
completely white, who had followed bands of humans when they trekked across the
land, and who knew best how to avoid isolate stragglers, and who knew the
danger of firearms. It was said that this wolf would call out to people, in a low-pitched
and slightly breathless voice, as if its breath was quickly consumed in the
exercise, and would say, “Cristiano, ven
acá, necesito tu ayuda”, or would taunt the unfortunate soul, and would say
“Mira que tu alma, no hay escape”, and would frighten the men so much that they
would invariably panic and pounce on their horses wishing to escape the sound
of that unearthly voice, only to be led into a trap that had been carefully
planned.
How the men knew of these encounters was difficult to
explain, for it was said that no one survived these encounters. But people
swore nonetheless that there was a shadowy wolf that roamed deep in the woods,
and from time to time ventured towards the edge to capture unwary men who
happened to ride by, and would devour both them and their horses, and bury
their belongings deep inside the woods. For much was made of the account of the
old arriero Felipe San Ramón, who in 1764 had been trailing behind his
companions who were pushing ahead, because he was laden with supplies and the men were cold and wished to race
towards the woods to cut down a few branches and start a fire, and Felipe had
been a mile away as the light was fading, and had seen the men bolt into the
brush, only to hear a few horrendous cries and see one of the horses bolt out
again, only this time pursued by a pack of wolves that brought it down, then
dragged it slowly back into the woods.
This was the account that had been left by Felipe San Ramón,
to his captain at the station he had left behind, after having ridden
desperately back in the direction he had come, abandoning everything but his
guns, and showing more courage than had ever been attributed to him before. Why
he insisted on the story of the wolves was never understood, for the men had
been hardy hunters who it was thought would have had nothing to fear from
wolves, and were more likely to have been set upon by Indians. But Felipe insisted
that the men had bolted into the forest, and that there had been not a single
shot fired, and that the terrified Pinto horse that had tried to escape had
been wounded, but also, that the wolves had acted with an uncanny discipline
that suggested cunning beyond that which had ever been possible in wolves, at
least in the experience of Felipe. And what caught his attention, in that
instant before he dropped everything and bolted in the opposite direction, was
the image of a massive white wolf that had stepped out of the woods and had
turned to look at him briefly, as if it could see him clearly, and had appeared
to shake its head.
Now, Felipe had never been more than a lowly arriero, adept
at loading his animals and leading them on the endless trails, and he was known
to be more than a little fond of wine, and had an appetite that earned him the
scorn of his companions, but he was otherwise known to be truthful, if a little
prone to exaggeration and to the addition of colorful details. It was thus
thought that he must have seen some form of attack, and that he might have been
maybe more than a little sleep on that late November evening, and that the
Indians that undoubtedly had attacked his companions had been wearing some
animals skins, and that this must have been the case with the white wolf that
must undoubtedly have been the leader of this pack. But what they could not
understand is why, if this was an attack by Indians, he had not been chased
down himself, and they had no doubt that Felipe would not have been difficult
to catch, for he was not the best jinete in his group, nor was his mare the
fastest. But somehow he managed to make it back to the colonia in a breathless
state, and his story spawned the legend of the old “Viejo” on the edge of the
forest, the wolf that evolved to haunt the imagination of many a settler who
couldn’t help but view that forest with foreboding, something which only
increased when the few local Indians with whom they came into contact also told
tales of the wolf people who claimed the forest, and who had defended their
terrain from time immemorial.
The Indians added details that peaked the imagination of the
early settlers. They told of the wolf king, who was completely white, and who
it was said were inordinately long-lived, for there had only been one
throughout the centuries. In the past it had scoured the surrounding land, and
had claimed its bounty of bison for its group, and had resisted the arrival of
the Indians, but with time, had come to an accommodation, whereby it was left
to its own domain, but with the condition that its people were to be left
along, unhunted, when they ventured out of the forest on their mysterious
delegations to other groups. For this was a society with many groups, and this
wolf, it was said, was not a rustic and lonely romantic on the fringes, but was
a cultured creature that hewed to a mysterious warrior ethic, and they were
known to mark their boundaries by rubbing their teeth to form grooves that
marked their territory, but that, it was said, also was a system of writing,
for the grooves were intricate, and extended around the widest trees.
From time to time groups would cut around the edges of the
forest, and try to traverse it to find a way of controlling the space and
making it more suitable to human exploitation, but these projects never
continued for very long. For one thing, the settlers and foresters reported a
deep feeling of unease, as if they were being followed by many pairs of
invisible eyes, and they encountered as well an uncanny silence that permeated
the trees, and that was evident furthermore in the absence of wildlife, the
absence of badgers, of rabbits, and of birds that were otherwise to plentiful
in other forests. Sooner or later it was deemed easier to move on, especially
after people and horses were found to disappear mysteriously, and trackers were
unable to determine what had happened. For there were disappearances, men and
women and children, one by one, and there were tales of whispers heard late at
night, and no priest was ever able to exorcise an entire forest, so it was best
to move on to more hospitable terrain.
The legend of the wolf extended to surrounding areas, and
indeed, it would have been just as easy to name the county “Nido del Lobo”
(lair of the wolf) or “La encantada” (the enchanted one), or more ominously,
“Los desaparecidos” (the disappeared ones) or “El temido” (the feared one), but
the settlers were ever conscious of the effect of nomenclature on the drawing
of new settlers, and instead they took the name of the lakes that boarded the
region, and named it “Condado de Lagunas” (the county of lakes). But in the
back of their mind, everyone knew of the reputation of the forest, and of the
presence of the watchful one that so few had actually seen, but that was felt
as an invisible presence lurking deep within.
One of the stories that was told was of the little girl
Sara, who had accompanied a settler family that had been passing by the forest
in the years after the Indians had been pacified once again after revolting
against the control of the Europeans. After years of painful struggle, in which
much infrastructure had been destroyed and in which the Indian tribes had shown
a determined willingness to forget the lessons of the early friars and wipe
away the ranchos and the nauseating livestock that they had brought with them,
there passed by the forest a group of families that had been encouraged to
settle in the area. The Restrepo de Juárez family had several small children,
among which was a girl by the name of Sara, who had bright red hair. She was
only seven, and the smallest of her family, and it was said, the one who showed
the qualities that made her most unladylike, because she was so independent.
She was also the only girl with red hair among that group, and according to
traditional lore this in and of itself was a bad sign. Despite this, her
parents were indulgent with he, for she was the youngest, and also, gave signs
of a piercing intelligence.
The girl, it was said, had been riding along in the wagon,
and as she usually did, when the wagon stopped would jump out without first
waiting for the permission of her parents. This was a bad sign, for who knew if
it was safe to leave the wagon, and whether or not it was safe to reveal
oneself? But she would jump out and run to see what the men were doing, getting
in their way and filled with questions and an eagerness to help. What she
should have been doing, it was said, was waiting until her mother had given her
permission to step down, and then assisted her mother in pouring out a measure
of water in tin cups to be distributed to the older ones, then staying with her
older sister Rosa and preparing the materials for the upcoming meal, for a stop
was usually occasioned by a need to prepare the next meal, and there was much
to do. One needed to measure out cornmeal, and heat water, and take a measure
of dried meat to be warmed, and milk one of the cows as well as prepared a
small fire and set out the utensils as well as stay tend to the goats and other
livestock that accompanied them, for the animals needed water and food as well.
But Sara was not of a mind to follow a routine, and she was always bounding
away to see what the older men were doing, especially her father, Rodrigo, who
always tried to make sure they stopped near a source of water, and who would
unseat the pack animals and adjust their burden, and who would scan the horizon
and make sure they were safe before judging his prospects for finding local
game, a rabbit or snake or opossum that would provide them with much-needed
fresh meat.
Sara loved the fact that the men had free scope of movement,
while the women and children huddled together in a central area, always close
to the wagons, always within sight of one or two men with rifles at the ready, who
stood attentive. She envied their freedom of movement, and the fact that the
men would wander off in pairs in different directions, to explore the local
area, which was never chosen to be too exposed, but was typically a spot that
was reasonably close to a river or stream, and was furthermore close to trees
that provided shade in the sun and wood for their fires, and also, cover should
there be any unpleasant surprises. The men would not venture too far away, but
they were nonetheless wary in the way of all such men who were traversing a
difficult terrain, and especially during the time when the memory of the Indian
revolt was so recent.
Her father, after settling his horse and making the rounds
to talk to the other men, had decided that they might follow the stream that
led into the forest, at least for a short while, to see if they might catch
game. They knew that other animals were drawn to water as well, and that this
was their best hope for supplementing their modest supply of food, and it was
thought furthermore that they should ask Diego and Gaspar to bring along a net
to see if they might be able to trap some fish, by laying the net along a
narrow stretch of the river then wading in behind it, so see if they could
direct the fish into the net. It little mattered that this was the famed forest
of the White Wolf, for during and after a period of rebellion, in which
desperate measure are taken, and in which the chief source of information
regarding the danger of the forest is provided by a community that has been
discredited and whose motives for telling the truth might be doubted. Who knows what agenda they might have, for
might it not be that the Indians spread the legend of the dangerous and haunted
forest in order to carve out for themselves a place where they wouldn’t be
disturbed?
Such was the general opinion among the hardy men, who had
recently served in the campaign to “pacify” and bring back their wayward Indian
subjects to the way of Christianity, and it was to be credited to them that
their religion and god had protected them from the attacks of these rebels, and
therefore, their religion and god would protect them from the satanic lore of
these groups, even if the legends had been crafted by some of their own
settlers, such as the humble arriero Felipe San Ramón.
So, the father ventured confidently into the forest, even as
one of the other men mumbled about the legend of “El lobo blanco”, and Sara
followed along, even though she knew that this was ill-viewed by the rest of
the men. Her father was an indulgent man, however, and had come to view his
daughters intrepid nature as an endearing feature, and although she was only 7
years old, and although he had been away for two years fighting the last of the
Indian campaigns, was entranced by this daughter, who by all rights should have
been a son like the one he had lost recently to fever, and he allowed her to
follow him, after calling out to his wife with his clear whistle call to let
her know he was stepping away. Gaspar and Diego followed with their net, as
well as another two men, while the rest stayed at the temporary camp, and
settled into watchful repose.
It was early afternoon, and they had been traveling for five
hours. The heat was a heavy burden, but it was also, in a way, pleasant, the men
relished the taste of the water, and the chance to splash some on their faces
and necks, as well as to soak a few old clothes that they would then use to
scrub their arms and chest and liberate them from the dust and burrs of their
journey. Little Sara ran around the men and, after taking a few sips of water,
splashed her feet before grabbing a stick that she would use to poke underneath
the biggest rocks that lined the river, knowing that a stick would help her
dislodge any rocks and would usually send a small wave of water-dwelling
creatures scurrying away, among which she might find little camarones
(crayfish) that she might pluck from the water.
What neither she nor any of the men noticed was that they
were being watched by several sets of eyes from the edge of the forest.
OGRomero © 2013
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