The Burning Woman

August 1760  

Pouring out of the south with righteous attitude, Comanche raiders swept over the Ranches of Taos.                        

They took fifty-six women and children, a considerable percentage of the Ranchos' population, leaving behind the dead and broken, their homes razed, and their livestock slaughtered. Their sisters and daughters...poof!  

Some of these ranches survived.                                                                      

250 Years Later 

Things might have happened in what are now your sun rooms and gardens.         

That old room you're going to fix up someday? That might have been Maria Valdez's room. A raider, covered in her father's blood, found her shivering on the straw bed with her cat.                                                                           

He killed the cat, torched the bed, and took Maria away.                                                             

And that bone you found while remodeling your old bathroom could very well be Francisco Montaño's arm, removed from his torso with a Comanche ax.                                                           

You live in one of those ranches. It's where you met the Burning Woman.    

You've analyzed the event a thousand times, and it always comes out the same.  Five seconds. That's all.  

'But how can that be? It seemed like forever.'   

So, you analyze again.   

1...the door opens   

2...she appears  

3...she approaches you 

4...it screams at you 

5...you turn and run.                                                                                             

Five seconds.  

A reminder of the instability of linear time. 

When you look out at your beautiful yard, you're probably grateful. And proud. You pulled it off. You live in Taos. You even own your own home. Not an easy thing.  You might do a bit of stretching, some deep breathing, a cup of tea, and eventually, a visual scan of the yard, making a mental to-do list for the day.   

Typical yard stuff. A broken limb from your old Elder. A dead coy in the pond. That nasty thing your dog puked up.   

You can be ready with pooper scoopers and doggie bags for that sort of thing. Logical anomalies.  

But you can't prepare for the impossible.                               

And even if you could, you just overdosed on a lethal amount of adrenaline. You're too stoned to move. Too befuddled to be afraid. 

Another perfect high desert twilight. The air, so thin and clear you can see the sharp edges. A slight chill hints at the coming of fall.                  

The Alpha stars are showing themselves, the fading sunset, a million shades of teal and tangerine.  

You are out front, admiring your latest yard work. Bowser is sniffing at your feet.  

You look up from Bowser's excavation to a different world. A world that's gone flat. Depth perception has drained away, like gazing into a puddle's reflection.   

A full second of confusion as the landscape roils like bed sheets in the wind.   

Not hallucination. You're sure of that.                                      

Perhaps a massive stroke. But no, this...whatever it is, is happening 'out there.'   

The scenery folds open like a tee pee flap, just enough to let something through.   

The mythical 'Portal Between Worlds' has opened in your face, hardly ten feet away.                    

TIME ELAPSED: 1.5 seconds.  

Green smoke leaks through the opening, The sweet smell of Pinon. The acrid taste of scorched blood.  

Weird glowing flickers behind the haze.                             

Human shapes, vague and defused. Agitated.                                                  

And there she is, staggering through the doorway, already fixated... on you.   

Her shocking emergence stuns you into momentary unconsciousness, resulting in a half-second of uncertainty.                                                            

You might have whispered, "Who are you?" Praying she isn't a phantom.   

You lose your balance. Dizzy. Like spinning in circles on the grass, until this mad vision's drum-pounding scream jolts you back to a lucid state.  

ViewMasterVision.   

You would later compare it to the perception of a small cat confronted by a large hawk.  

As she stumbles through the opening, your lizard brain ponders its options.   

Freeze... ? 'I'm doing that.'                                                  

Fight... ? ‘Yeah... I’ll kick the vapour out of it!’ 

Fawn... ? ‘Nice ghost.’          

That leaves...                                                                                         

No fear... yet.   

TIME ELAPSED: 2 seconds.  

She's five feet tall. A filthy plaid kilt tied to her waist hangs over her spindle legs and bare feet.                                    

A once-white nightshirt falls from her crooked shoulders.  

Her long hair, the color of Aspen ash, flies in all directions.   

Her dead branch arms reach out for you, her swollen fingers twitching like broken twigs. She is nothing but skin draping bone.   

She appears to be burning.   

Yes, she is definitely on fire.   

TIME ELAPSED; 2.4 seconds.  

But these are just minor details noticed peripherally. Because what has your attention are its eyes, staring deep into yours, past the rods and cones into the dark grey matter.  

Eye to eye with a ghost.                                                                     

This is when fear penetrates your heart like a shard of glass. Thick terror floods your spine. Black as ink.                     

The incensed phantom screams at you, turning your blood to cheese. Hollow. Her desperate jaw locked in the shrieking position. Loud. 

'Spanish...Wait! No! Not Spanish. Almost Spanish, but different. It bothers me.'                                                               

TIME ELAPSED: 2.9 seconds.  

She's coming fast, intent on grabbing you. Six feet away... five... four. She'll make contact in 1.5 seconds.   

Her terror-stricken face. Her broken screams. Three feet.  

She's running from something, pleading for help.   

It's the back of her nightshirt and kilt that's burning. Not flames, but rather hungry, smoldering embers.                                                     

She was pushed into a fire pit. She wasn't supposed to get out.   

Just a feeling.   

TIME ELAPSED: 3.5 seconds  

So many decisions to make in the next [1.4] [1.3] 1.2 seconds.   

'Is she really a ghost? I’m not sure. She isn't transparent. And I swear it's kicking up dust as she shuffles toward me.   

But my dog, a dis-liker of strangers, especially burning ones, doesn't see her, isn't hearing her, can't smell it. 

That's Impossible. 

It's a ghost.'  

TIME ELAPSED: 4 seconds  

Its face is two feet in front of your own. Its bulging eyes like jumbo marbles. She'll be grabbing you in a half-second.   

'What happens when a ghost touches you?                 

Heart attack? Insanity? The Rapture?                                 

Should I stand here and find out?                                      

No, you idiot. RUN!'  

You turn your back to it, expecting her hand on your shoulder.  

"C'mon, Bowser," you whisper, speed-walking through the back door.         

'Don't look back. Don't fucking turn around.    

She might be right up your ass.                                                          

She might start screaming again.                                                     

Please, don't scream anymore.’                                     

You lock the irrational door.  

'C'mon man! It's a ghost! It can walk through stuff!'  

Turn off the irrelevant lights.  

'Good idea! Maybe it's afraid of the dark.'  

And, with heart racing, stare out the window.                                                                              

'Did she die in the courtyard? Did the door close behind her? Is she trapped in the 21st century? If we touched, would her intangibility nullify the Exclusionary Principle?  

It was an imprint left behind at the moment of her horrific death. No. Because we saw each other, recognizing our shared humanness. We communicated, aware of each other's existence.'

When you look out at your beautiful yard, you're probably wondering. And afraid.