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was to fend off the force of his death, it would
be necessary for him to remain in deep heightened awareness until death had
been repelled. The man's advanced physical deterioration meant he could not be
moved from the spot or he would instantly die. The nagual did the only thing
possible under the circumstances: he built a shack around the body. There, for
three months he nursed the totally immobilized man.
    My rational
thoughts took over, and instead of just listening, I wanted to know how the
nagual Elias could build a shack on someone else's land. I was aware of the
rural peoples' passion about land ownership and its accompanying feelings of
territoriality.
    Don Juan
admitted that he had asked the same question himself. And the nagual Elias had
said that the spirit itself had made it possible. This was the case with
everything a nagual undertook, providing he followed the spirit's
manifestations.
    The first
thing the nagual Elias did, when the actor was breathing again, was to run
after the young woman. She was an important part of the spirit's manifestation.
He caught up with her not too far from the spot where the actor lay barely
alive. Rather than talking to her about the man's plight and trying to convince
her to help him, he again assumed total responsibility for his actions and
jumped on her like a lion, striking her assemblage point a mighty blow. Both
she and the actor were capable of sustaining life or death blows. Her
assemblage point moved, but began to shift erratically once it was loose.
    The nagual
carried the young woman to where the actor lay. Then he spent the entire day
trying to keep her from losing her mind and the man from losing his life. When
he was fairly certain he had a degree of control he went to the woman's father
and told him that lightning must have struck his daughter and made her
temporarily mad. He took the father to where she lay and said that the young
man, whoever he was, had taken the whole charge of the lightning with his body,
thus saving the girl from certain death, but injuring himself to the point that
he could not be moved.
    The
grateful father helped the nagual build the shack for the man who had saved his
daughter. And in three months the nagual accomplished the impossible. He healed
the young man.
    When the
time came for the nagual to leave, his sense of responsibility and his duty
required him both to warn the young woman about her excess energy and the
injurious consequences it would have on her life and well being, and to ask her
to join the sorcerers' world, as that would be the only defense against her
self-destructive strength.
    The woman
did not respond. And the nagual Elias was obliged to tell her what every nagual
has said to a prospective apprentice throughout the ages: that sorcerers speak
of sorcery as a magical, mysterious bird which has paused in its flight for a
moment in order to give man hope and purpose; that sorcerers live under the
wing of that bird, which they call the bird of wisdom, the bird of freedom;
that they nourish it with their dedication and impeccability. He told her that
sorcerers knew the flight of the bird of freedom was always a straight line,
since it had no way of making a loop, no way of circling back and returning;
and that the bird of freedom could do only two things, take sorcerers along, or
leave them behind.
    The nagual
Elias could not talk to the young actor, who was still mortally ill, in the
same way. The young man did not have much of a choice. Still, the nagual told
him that if he wanted to be cured, he would have to follow the nagual
unconditionally. The actor accepted the terms instantly.
    The day the
nagual Elias and the actor started back home, the young woman was waiting
silently at the edge of town. She carried no suitcases, not even a basket. She
seemed to have come merely to see them off. The nagual kept walking without
looking at her, but the actor, being carried on a stretcher, strained to say
goodbye to her. She