Free Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest by Alfred Ávila

sailor who can help us understand the demon and her tongue.”
    That night, two more travelers were killed on the road by the cactus patch. The danger was still in the area. The demon cat had killed more viciously, tearing up the bodies brutally after the killing.
    The villagers waited and waited for their scout to return from Acapulco. It would take at least a week for the trip. They prayed and prayed for the evil to disappear, but the demon’s hatred was growing.
    The village scout searched the cantinas in Acapulco for someone who could help them. After enduring a few beatings along the way for bothering an occasional unfriendly drunkard, hefinally found the person for whom he had been searching in a smoke-filled cantina near the docks. It was a grizzle-bearded sea dog, well tempered by the trials of the sea and very knowledgeable in the ways of the Orient. He had been to Japan, been imprisoned in Korea after a shipwreck, and had made many a port on the Chinese mainland. Sipping his
pulque
, the sailor listened to the stories the villager told.
    â€œSo, her tormented soul turns into a cat that kills people? The demon must be from Japan, for only there do they tell stories of demon cats. Most of their cats are bobtailed. They believe that a long-tailed cat is evil and has magical powers, and that a cat with four tails is a Cat of Death. The word for four in Japanese,
shi
, also means death,” the sailor explained.
    â€œI will go with you and try to help you rid the area of this demonic cat,” the sailor finally said.
    The villager and the sailor traveled for three and a half days. It was a slow journey because the old sailor was not used to these land trips. It had been a very long time since he had been a land crab, as he enjoyed calling landlubbers. At last they arrived at a small village some distance from the cactus patch, a village that had lost its share of victims to the demon. There, the sailor rested.
    The following day, the
curandera
took the sailor to the cactus patch where the strange things were occurring. The sailor stood there on the road and looked at the patch. It was a large area filled with huge cactus trees. Some were flowering; some were filled with prickly pears. He could hear a few birds warbling their lovely songs in the morning sunlight. For the old sailor, this was a beautiful place,something rare after so many years at sea. However, although he sensed no danger, he could smell the stench of death in the air. Even in the daytime this gave him an uneasy feeling.
    That night, after talking with the
curandera
, he went to the cactus patch with a large wooden torch and stood across from the patch waiting. He could hear the crickets chirping in the darkness. The air was warm and dry. A slight breeze was blowing.
    Suddenly, he felt a cold shiver. As he turned around and raised his torch, a fireball rushed past him above his head. The fireball went across the dirt road and lingered over the patch as if it were studying him. It was flying and moving in slow erratic motions.
    â€œWho are you?” he asked. But the fireball disappeared with a snapping sound. The sailor remembered that in Japan this fireball is called a will-o’-the-wisp. It is the soul of a deceased person as it wanders the earth. Now, in the area where the will-o’-the-wisp had disappeared, stood a giant cat with four tails; its eyes glistened in the light from the sailor’s torch. Out of its mouth came hate-filled words.
    â€œFor whom are you waiting?” yowled the cat.
    â€œI’m waiting for you!” the sailor shouted back in Japanese. “I have been waiting for you, demon cat.”
    The cat stood there a long time looking at him. “Who are you?” asked the cat with its four tails nervously swishing.
    â€œI’m a sailor … from the sea. Why did you come to this land to spread death and terror?”
    â€œI hate these people! I hate this land! I miss my homeland very