When Antonio Márez is
almost seven years old, the old healer Ultima comes to stay with
him and his family in their small house in Guadalupe, New Mexico.
The family has taken in Ultima out of a respect for her healing
powers, her knowledge of plant lore, and her long use of folk magic
in service of the community. Though they have great respect for
Ultima’s spirituality, the family, especially Antonio’s mother,
is devoutly Catholic. Antonio’s father, Gabriel, is a former vaquero,
or cowboy, who wandered the llano, the great plains of New Mexico.
Antonio’s mother, María, is the daughter of farmers. Antonio’s parents
now argue about their young son’s future; Gabriel hopes he will
become a vaquero on the llano, and María hopes he will become a
priest. When he was born, Ultima served as his midwife and buried
his afterbirth. As a result, it is now thought that she alone knows
what lies in Antonio’s future.
Antonio spends a happy time with Ultima, learning about
plants and trees and helping her gather herbs on the llano. One
night, his innocence is threatened when he witnesses the death of
Lupito, a soldier who recently returned from World War II. Lupito
is shot to death by a mob after he kills the sheriff in a moment
of post-traumatic delirium. After seeing Lupito’s death, Antonio
begins to wonder about sin, death, and hell. Antonio walks to church
with Ultima the next morning, and she tells him that each person
must make his or her own moral choices, must choose a set of values
to use to understand the world.
That fall, after helping his mother’s brothers, the Lunas,
with their harvest, Antonio begins school. María presses Ultima
to reveal Antonio’s destiny, and she replies sadly that he will
be a man of learning. The war ends, and Antonio’s brothers return
home. Gabriel is overjoyed because he hopes the return of his older
sons means that the family will at last be able to move to California,
as he has longed to do. But the brothers are surly, restless,
and traumatized by the war. Before long, they each leave home to
pursue independent lives. Antonio struggles to understand the conflict
between his father and his brothers, but like so many of the moral
questions that trouble him, it is too complicated for him to grasp.
His mother tells him that he will understand when he begins to take
Communion, and he begins to look forward anxiously to the day he
will be old enough to do so.
Antonio’s friend Samuel takes him fishing and tells him
the story of the golden carp, a river god who looks out for mankind.
Antonio is moved by the story, but he does not know how to reconcile
it with his Catholic beliefs. His beliefs are challenged again when
his uncle Lucas is cursed by the satanic Trementina sisters. The
priest is unable to cure him, but Ultima, with Antonio’s help, is
able to banish the curse. Antonio realizes that there is no way
to explain Ultima’s powers within the worldview of the Catholic
church.
Antonio goes to visit the garden of Narciso, the town
drunk. Afterward, they go to see the golden carp. Antonio’s friend
Cico tells him that only true believers can see the carp. Cico says
that if the people cannot stop sinning, the carp will flood the
land to rid it of humanity’s evil. Antonio wishes sadly that there
were a god of forgiveness. He idolizes the Virgin Mary because of
the ideal of forgiveness that she represents.
One afternoon, Antonio witnesses an altercation between
Narciso and Tenorio, the father of the wicked sisters who cursed
Lucas. In a raging blizzard, Tenorio, who blames Ultima for the
death of one of his daughters, goes out to kill the old woman. Narciso
tries to stop him, and in front of Antonio, Tenorio shoots
and kills Narciso. Antonio comes down with a high fever and has
frightening and symbolic dreams.
At last, the time comes for Antonio to begin preparing
for his Communion. But he seems to be surrounded by dissenting voices—that
of his father, who seems to worship the earth more than he does the
Christian God, and that of his friend Florence, who incisively points
out the failings in Catholic thought. When Antonio finally takes
Communion on Easter Sunday, he feels no different than he felt before.
He still does not understand how there could be evil in the world
or what kind of forgiveness is possible in a world of sin.
Ultima continues to teach Antonio lessons about moral
independence and goodness. He goes with her to dispel the ghosts
in a haunted house, and they discover that Tenorio has caused the haunting
in order to take revenge on the man who owns the house. Ultima drives
away the ghosts, but when the second of Tenorio’s daughters falls
ill, he begins to regard Ultima with even more hatred. Not long
after that, Florence drowns while swimming in the river. Ultima
sends Antonio to stay with his uncles to recover from the shock,
and he spends a happy summer with them, learning how to tend a farm.
On the journey there, Antonio and Gabriel talk about some of the
questions that have been bothering Antonio, and Gabriel tells him
that he will end the conflict between the Márezes and the Lunas
and let Antonio choose his own destiny.
As Antonio makes his way from his uncles’ fields to his
grandfather’s house one day toward the end of the summer, a murderous Tenorio
chases after him. Antonio escapes, but Tenorio shoots Ultima’s owl.
When the owl dies, Ultima is doomed to die as well because the owl
is her spiritual familiar, or guardian. Antonio sits with
her at her bedside and buries the owl as she requests after she
dies.
