When this ceremony had been completed, they set off. Though all of them knew the way, none dared take a step that was not led by the ilol. Their watchful gestures, rapidly obedient, anxiously solicitous, showed that these women looked to her as a superior. Not because of her husband’s position, since they were all the wives of officials and some were married to men whose prestige was greater than Winiktón’s, but because of the reputation that transfigured Catalina in the eyes of those whose souls were fearful and unfortunate, those who were avid to ingratiate themselves with the supernatural.

Catalina accepted their respect with the calm assurance of one receiving her due. The other women’s submissiveness neither annoyed her nor made her proud. Her conduct was moderate and sensible, in keeping with the tribute she was accorded. Her gift to them was an approving smile, a glance of complicity, a well-timed word of advice, an opportune reminder. And in her left hand she held threats, the possibility of doing harm. Though she kept careful watch on her power. She had seen too many left hands chopped off by vengeful machetes.

Catalina led the procession of Tzotzil women, all uniformly wrapped in thick, dark serapes. All bent beneath the weight they carried (the goods they brought to sell, the small child sleeping against its mother). All going toward Ciudad Real.

The path, made by years of walking feet, coils around the hills. The earth is yellow and loose, easily blown away by the wind. The vegetation is hostile: weeds, curving thorns. Here and there are young bushes or peach trees in their festive garb, peach trees blushing pink from sweetness, from smiling, blushing pink from happiness.

The distance between San Juan Chamula and Ciudad Real (or Jobel, as it is called in Tzotzil) is long. But these women crossed it, untiring and wordless, their attention fixed on the careful placement of their feet and the work spread between their hands, the coils of pichulej that their busy fingers made longer and longer as they walked.

The mass of mountains flowed into a wide valley. Here and there, as if fallen by chance from the sky, were houses. Shingled shacks, inhabited by Ladinos who looked after fields or miserable flocks, precarious shelter against bad weather. Now and then a stately home rose up in all the insolence of its isolation, solidly built but with the sinister look of a fortress or a jail rather than a place meant to lodge the refined softness of the wealthy.

The outskirts; the banks of the river. From here the domes of the churches could be seen reverberating in the humid light.