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“Ooooooohh,” he said after a few seconds. A look of rejection crossed<br />
his face, and before I could tell him how much I’d grown to care for him he<br />
climbed to his feet. He towered over me and grew into a colossal figure<br />
against the blinding midday sun. Light seemed to emanate from him and<br />
dance on the golden cornstalks. I had never seen Panti look so powerful. Or<br />
so tall. <strong>My</strong> heart began to pound.<br />
He said in a clipped, reproachful voice, “Just what is it that you want to<br />
know, my daughter?”<br />
Without hedging, I said, “Don Elijio, if you will accept me as an<br />
apprentice, I promise to work hard and learn well.”<br />
Startling me, he pointed his finger and nearly shouted, “Do you have<br />
patience? Do you promise to take care of my people after I am gone?”<br />
In rapid succession, he asked me about my plans for the rest of my life.<br />
Throngs of questions washed across my mind as if a mental dam had<br />
suddenly cracked open. Could I tend to the legions of sick people that<br />
crawled, limped, and stumbled to his door? Would his patients accept me as<br />
his apprentice? Could I now, right here, <strong>with</strong>out even asking my husband<br />
for his opinion, agree to take Don Elijio’s place?<br />
The maelstrom of doubts and worries swirling about my brain were<br />
silenced by my convictions and commitment to healing. I heard my voice<br />
answer firmly, “Yes!” to all his questions.<br />
“Yes, papasito, I promise.”<br />
Unconvinced, he continued hammering away at me, warning of the<br />
hazards of a medicine man’s life. He outlined a picture of daylong hunts in<br />
search of a vital but elusive plant. Then picking, hauling, chopping, drying,<br />
and grinding the precious healing flora. “This is a lonely road, my child. Do<br />
not agree too hastily. Curanderos are often not even trusted by the very<br />
people they heal. They fear us, envy us, and some hate us. The gossip never<br />
ends. When we heal people that couldn’t find help elsewhere, they call us<br />
witches. Then at night when you drop your weary body in the hammock,<br />
you hear, ‘knock, knock,’ and there is the person who called you a witch<br />
holding an infant on the doorstep of death. There is no rest by day or by<br />
night.”<br />
I told him I understood what his life was like. I’d witnessed his<br />
obligations and burdens for months on end. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. “I<br />
want to learn, Don Elijio. I ache to know the names of the plants and how to<br />
use them to heal. Everywhere I go there are plants calling to me, but I know