Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest by Alfred Ávila Read Free Book Online

its bony arm and pointed toward Mocos. A strong command came from the dark, draped figure, “The dog must go! It is but an animal that happened to follow you into this cavern. It does not know any better!
    â€œGo back to the entrance!” it told the dog. Mocos understood. The dog got up and walked away toward the entrance of the cave, then stopped and looked back at his master.
    â€œAnd, you, sir! It was your fate that you entered the Cave of Death and now you cannot leave!”
    â€œWhy? Why?” Polito sobbed loudly, holding his head in his hands. He was a wretched-looking figure on the cave floor.
    The phantom spoke on. “You entered the Cave of Death. It is here in this cave that the souls of the dead come to await their judgment. This entrance is but one of several in the world. This cavern, deep in the entrails of the earth, is where all the departed souls gather to be judged according to their deeds in life. The angels are the witnesses, and in the Hall of Judgment, one’s fate is determined—either Paradise or the Deep Pit of Evil. So you see I cannot let you go. You must be executed.”
    Polito screamed as Death placed its bone on Polito’s shoulder. Polito sensed his physical body drop as his soul floated away. He could see the moaning souls of the dead drifting into the recesses of the cave. He saw Death standing over his lifeless body and Mocos running away. Polito let out a long mournful moan as he joined the stream of soulsmoving deeper into the cave.
    Mocos the dog was found with Polito’s mule wandering out in the desert. The Indians and mestizos from the villages wondered about Polito’s disappearance. They never found him. The people fed Mocos, who would look at them with deep dark eyes. Only the dog knew what had happened to the old prospector, and he would bark and bark at the people. But he could not tell them about The Caves of Death.

THE ACORN TREE GROVE

THE ACORN TREE GROVE
    T he river water gleamed and flashed as the young boy waded across with his dog Sapo. The boy hesitated on a small sandbank in the middle of the river. He patted Sapo’s head and rubbed it with his hand. The dog wagged his tail acknowledging his master’s touch.
    The boy looked at the opposite bank, at a large grove of acorn trees. “That’s a good place to go into the grove,” he mused. He started again to cross the river toward the acorn grove.
    Once he reached the riverbank, the boy took hold of a small branch and pulled himself out of the stream onto dry land, where Sapo was already shaking the excess water off his body.
    As the boy and the dog wandered into the grove, they heard a sad, mournful sound from the tree-tops: “Coo, coo, coo!” The sound kept repeating itself as they walked deeper and deeper into the trees. It was the call of a mourning dove.
    Beneath Mundo’s (that was the boy’s name) and Sapo’s feet there was a blanket of leaves that made a crushing sound when the boy and the dog walked on it. Near the hillside, Mundo noticed that the trees were larger and the grove was thicker in thearea, so that very little sunlight could filter through the branches.
    â€œWhat a gloomy, dark place,” Mundo said. In the meantime, while a cricket in the shadows made a chirping sound, Sapo was sticking his nose into piles of leaves sniffing and sniffing.
    After awhile Mundo realized that he had lost track of time. It was very silent in the grove with no other sound except for the sad call of the mourning dove. Standing in the shadows of the grove, Mundo began to remember the many stories of the river that the old men from the barrio told when they gathered to gossip and exchange tales. He also began to regret that he had not listened to his mother when she warned him to stay away from the Río Hondo because of the strange things that had happened there.
    Now it was completely silent. The mourning dove had quit its cooing. Mundo sensed that