A Mother Cries at Midnight

Philip Nutman

He stared at me sadly over his steaming cup of coffee and I saw then how the terrible weight of his responsibility had crushed his spirit. Instead of fathering hope and life, instead of saving lives, he had given birth to the most destructive force known to mankind. There had been no irony when, as Fat Man exploded, he had said, "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." For eight years he had had to deal with that terrible knowledge.

"How are things at the Bureau?" my friend J. Robert Oppenheimer asked, pulling his pipe from his pocket. "How's Trevor?"

"Quite well. He asked me to send his best," I replied, watching him pack the pipe bowl with a pungent tumble-weed of Balkan Sobrane tobacco.

The waitress suspiciously eyed the back booth in which we sat. Not because of the cloud of thick, sweet smoke now pluming above Robert's head, but I sensed it was my presence that made her uncomfortable. Even though we were only a few miles outside of Roswell, New Mexico, and since 1947, shortly after I moved away, the locals had grown used to strange sights, and even stranger goings-on, having a large, red creature seated in your diner was certainly unusual. Beneath my duster, I tightened my curled tail lest it slip below the hem. Some women, I had discovered, frequently found the tail to be more than they could handle.

"They've taken away my clearance. I'm persona non grata," he said into his cup. "But I can't be a party to it anymore. They're not going to stop. It's all about bigger and better bombs. And they don't want me as a conscience. My opinions are uncalled for."

His angular features were pinched. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to see he was in pain.

"But that's not why I asked you to come ... I'm acting as middle man. Do you remember Jamie MacDougal?"

I nodded.

I remembered him well. A spry Scottish-American research scientist, MacDougal and Trevor Bruttenholm had spent many an evening playing chess during the year we lived at Roswell. As I had come to look upon Bruttenholm as my father, at that time Jamie MacDougal had been like an uncle.

"He's here, stationed at Los Alamos. Very hush-hush. Now I'm considered a liability, I can't have any contact with him. But somehow he managed to get a note to me, requesting I contact you to see if you'd come." Robert puffed slowly, savoring the rich aroma.

"I'm here. So what's the problem?"

"His son's disappeared."

A half-crescent moon rode high in the sky like a severed quarter as I walked the arroyo running parallel to the road where young Malcolm MacDougal had last been spotted. I was five lonely miles outside of Los Alamos, heading southwest into the foot hills of the Jemez Mountains. I was searching for a stream, for there I hoped to find a woman who would lead me to the boy.

"They believe he's dead," Jamie MacDougal had said earlier that evening. "He's been gone a week. They called off the search on Monday — said it was a waste of manpower — that he must have perished because no seven year old could survive the night temperatures.

"But I know," he said, pouring himself a generous glass of single malt. "I'm his father, and I know in my bones he's still alive."

I hadn't seen Jamie in nearly eight years, and the river of human time had eroded his once-full head of red hair, and reshaped his features like a rain-washed statue. He looked closer to sixty than his fast-approaching forty-seven. It was his birthday next week. I had remembered en route to Los Alamos from Roswell. Robert had stopped the car outside Santo Domingo Pueblo so I could buy a gift. The Anasazi pot sat on Jamie's dining table, ground zero between the two of us.

"Go slow, old friend," I said. "Start at the beginning."

Jamie took a hearty swig of his malt, and sighed.

"Lucy — his mother — died a year ago. Car crash. Almost a month to the day," he added, wistfully staring into his drink. "So the base provided us with a housekeeper, a nanny of sorts who could take care of him. Dona's her name. Local woman of Zuni extraction. But of course he took it hard. We both did. And a seven year old wants his mother, not a stranger."

He was right. All boys need a mother. Even a Hellboy. I, however, had no recollection of a mother, or a father. Or of anything before I appeared in the ruins of an old church in East Bromwich, England nearly ten years ago.

"Yes," I said, "go on."

"Dona's a good sort. Takes excellent care of him — or did until she let him wander off.

"The last couple of months have been very hard, what with the anniversary coming up, and I've been working long, long hours in the lab.

"I should have been there for him," he suddenly exclaimed, slamming a hand on the table top, almost spilling his drink and knocking over my pot.

It took a while, and another drink, to calm him.

Malcolm, I learned, had taken to wandering away from the base over the last few months. There was nothing unusual in that. Boys will be boys, and with so many ruins to explore, the summer-kissed landscape surrounding the cold, uninviting barracks-style housing could be a place of endless wonders to the over-active imagination of a seven year old. Summer was gone now though, swept aside by an early, harsh fall, and the nights came cold and hard at this elevation. But Los Alamos was a safe town, perhaps the safest in the United States due to the secret nature of its inhabitants' work, and Dona had thought nothing wrong in letting the boy play outside after sunset. But that all changed when he met the woman.

There was a good reason why New Mexico was called The Land of Enchantment, for there are arcane energies here, powers present which defy rational explanation. Was it a coincidence Los Alamos became the Secret City, birthplace of the atom bomb, of that Fat Man's explosion happened at Trinity Site? Why not Nevada, or some other desert state with even more wide-open spaces? Why did a supposed extraterrestrial craft crash at Roswell? Trevor Bruttenholm believes this state forms a nexus of paranormal energies, and when the US military insisted on relocating me from England so I could be studied at Roswell, he was only too happy to accompany me. During the time we lived here, he immersed himself in the myths and legends of New Mexico and took me along on frequent investigatory trips.

One of my first memories was of our visit to the Santuario de Chimayo which was nestled in a secluded valley in the Sangre de Christo foothills. Like the pilgrims who had trekked there over the centuries, predominantly the sick and enfeebled, we went to experience the mysterious healing powers of its magical soil. Bruttenholm was convinced it cured his arthritis. All it did to me was make me itch.

I had so many other stories and experiences during that early period in my life perhaps it was no surprise I decided to follow my adoptive father's line of work. We spent nights in the ancient mission of Isleta Pueblo, hoping to see the restless corpse of Father Padilla and his cottonwood coffin rise from beneath the altar, as he had done so on numerous occasions over the past two hundred years (he didn't). We spent days camping on low mountain slopes, sitting up through the night in case a fireball-riding bruja passed by overhead (we never saw a witch, but I saw my first shooting star).

New Mexico was like the Navajo rug Bruttenholm bought as a gift for me before we left Roswell for the East coast and the BPRD headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was a simple rug, just two rows of white, rectangular clouds outlined in black against a light blue background. But the rug had a deliberate line woven through its lower border, a 'spirit line' worked into the weave in case a soul became trapped during the weaving and needed a way out. New Mexico itself seemed like a spirit line, a gateway between realms, and some of what sought freedom here was of a malevolent stripe. Then there are those forces which are a reflection of the soul of the beholder, neither good nor evil, merely a mirror to our needs. She was one of them. The one known as La Llorona, The Weeping Woman.

A particular manifestation of New Mexico and its Hispanic heritage, La Llorona's story had many variations concerning her origins and nature, but I knew she was more than a myth. I knew because I met her.

Back in early '47, a few months before the Roswell crash and our departure for the lush New England green of Connecticut, Bruttenholm had taken me to Santa Fe where he was visiting Fray Angelico Chavez, the renowned historian and restorer of ancient churches. Fray Angelico had been researching the recorded appearances of Fray Padilla, and he invited Trevor to read the first draft of the paper he was preparing. Although I had only been on the earthly plane for a couple of years, I had already reached adolescence and was suffering the restlessness of youth. So, as the day waned and the magical spring twilight bathed the Sangre de Christo range ruby red, and as Bruttenholm and Fray Chavez continued their impassioned discussion, I walked out into the streets of Santa Fe.

Since I was still wary of the reactions of others to my unusual appearance, I walked away from the bustling plazas, sticking to narrow side streets lined with sleepy adobe homes squatting behind hand-carved wooden gates, half-hidden by gnarled cottonwoods or softly hued hollyhocks, and made my way down to the banks of the Santa Fe River. It was peaceful there and calmed my troubled thoughts as I followed the water eastwards.

Maybe it was the onset of adolescence and the need to understand who and what I was. Or perhaps it was the natural questioning of an orphan concerning his parentage, but for weeks I had lain awake at night tossing and turning, wondering and wanting answers to an enigma. The enigma of myself. Seeing the other children who lived on the Roswell base play ball with their fathers, go shopping with their mothers, made my heart heavy. Trevor Bruttenholm was a kind, compassionate, and thoughtful mentor, as fine a father figure as a Hellboy could have. Yet when sleep would not come, I would lie in my room wondering what it must feel like to lose one's self in a mother's embrace or rage at my inability to remember where I came from before a magical rite summoned me to this world.

Did I have a mother? Did she mourn for the loss of her son?

These thoughts vexed me daily, but that evening as I walked the river bank the preternatural calm of Santa Fe soothed my soul and my mind turned towards more intellectual ideas. Albert Einstein had visited Roswell with Oppenheimer the week before and spent hours with me explaining his theory of relativity. Trevor was intent on providing me with the best educational opportunities, and who better to help explain physics than Einstein? I savored the time we spent together, even though the deluge of knowledge he unleashed threatened to sweep me away. So it was with a head full of equations and formulae, I wandered into the dark, barely aware of the distance I had traveled or the fact that night had almost completely descended in its diamond-studded velvet glory.

At first I thought the sound was that of an animal. But as I listened more carefully I realized it was a human sound, a sorrow-filled lament. Then, maybe two hundred yards ahead, I saw a figure standing on the bank where the river curved. It was a woman clad in a long gray dress, her head and shoulders cocooned in a black woolen shawl.

The wail ripped from her lips with a terrible strength, a power born of great emotional pain, and I realized she was about to fling herself into the water.

Again she cried out: "Ayyyy, mis hijoooosss!!"

I didn't understand what she was screaming, but her intentions were clear.

I started to run as she threw herself into the river, shedding my long coat like a second skin as I dove after her. The chilly waters made me gasp, shocking me like an unexpected slap to the face, but I doubled my efforts as I saw her head disappear beneath the surface. It was instinct, pure and simple. I had no time to think, only moments to act. The undercurrent was surprisingly strong considering the seemingly slow momentum of the surface, and at the bend I saw sudden turbulence as the now speeding water rushed over jagged rocks. If I couldn't reach her in time, she'd surely be smashed to a pulp against their sharp peaks.

An Air Force sergeant at Roswell had taught me how to swim, and I put every ounce of strength into a fast crawl which would have made him proud. And not a moment too soon: I grabbed her hand as she went under a third time, trying to halt my forward momentum in the midst of frothy whitecaps a dozen feet or so from the bend. Somehow I managed to pull her now-limp body towards mine, but I couldn't fight the flow. Turning, cradling her against my chest, I managed to spin around so my broad back hit the first partially submerged boulder. The impact felt like a mule kick. And then we were moving again, leaves in a hurricane, tossed from one boulder to the next.

I don't remember seeing the low-lying branch or grabbing it. Suddenly we were in stasis, surrounded, pummelled by the river's wild waters, but not moving, not at its mercy. Not completely, at least. The fact the branch didn't break, and, amazingly, that I was able to pull us out and up the bank one-handed — well, I guess those Charles Atlas exercises Trevor encouraged me to do on a daily basis paid off. I saved us through dynamic tension.

Chest heaving, lungs aching, I lay on my back on the muddy bank beneath our benefactor, the tree. She lay beside me, conscious now, sobbing softly. In English this time.

"My children. My children ... "

Placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, I stood, swaying slightly with adrenaline-driven vertigo, my equilibrium still spinning like a gyroscope after the dervish dance of the rushing waters.

"It's okay," I mumbled. "It's going to be all right.

"I'll get my coat. Need to keep you warm."

Stumbling through the scrub, my mind still a tilt-a-whirl, I don't remember hearing the sudden silence as her sobbing stopped. Scooping up my full-length tan duster, I turned towards her and —

— She was gone.

Vanished.

Into thin air.

Later, seated around a roaring open fire in the rectory of Loretto Chapel, Fray Angelico explained I had been blessed by encountering La Llorona, and that my selfless act would bring good fortune.

"La Llorona is ancient; her true origins go back, way back before the time we have recorded. She was a part of this landscape long before the Spanish came. She even predates the indigenous Anasazi peoples."

"I've heard tell — "

Fray Angelico waved a hand to silence Trevor. "Listen. And learn. If not for your own sake, then for Hellboy's — for this special child has been blessed.

"She is not always so forgiving. Nor is she so vulnerable to the eyes of others. One might hear her sorrow. One might see her struggle with her pain. But to see her in such naked despair ... That is highly unusual."

Felicia, Fray Angelico's housekeeper, brought me a mug of steaming hot chocolate. Its warmth revived my shivering senses, and I listened intently to the legend of La Llorona.

"There once was a girl," the priest began, "who was said to be very beautiful. Because of her looks, people didn't treat her like others. And the more beautiful she became as she blossomed into womanhood, the more people shunned her. Even her own family felt ashamed for not being able to provide for such a beauty.

"One day a stranger came to the pueblo. He was well dressed, obviously a man of wealth. Generous, too. And his largess made him very popular with the locals.

"The stranger soon grew tired of the pueblo and was preparing to move on when he laid eyes on the beautiful woman, and he was entranced. How did such a woman come to be here in a poor pueblo surrounded by nothing more than cacti and dust? He had never seen such fine elegance and decided to stay, to court this ravishing woman. When he proposed marriage, her family encouraged her to say yes, for this fine man could provide for her, give her the future they believed their beautiful daughter deserved.

"They wed, and the match seemed Heaven-made. The stranger was given the respect of a mayor, and the beauty found happiness beyond her imagining. Soon they had a child. The beauty's joy was such she could barely believe it. But as time passed the stranger grew tired of the sleepy village. Even his devoted wife bored him, and the child had eyes only for its mother. It was not what he had expected. His money was running low and he thirsted for adventure, for the temptations of the big city. And so one day he left without saying a word.

"His beautiful wife waited. Each night, after she had put the child to bed, she would light a candle by the door. Each morning she would awaken the child with a kiss then blow out the candle. Days turned into weeks. Even though her husband's disappearance worried her, she never gave up hope. Weeks became months. No one came to visit. Not even her family. They were sure she had somehow chased the stranger away with her formidable beauty. She started to go crazy not knowing what she had done to turn everyone against her."

Fray Angelico paused, as much to savor his snifter of Benedictine brandy as for effect.

"The weather changed with the seasons, and the monsoons began building. The heavy air exacerbated her already fevered imagination. At night, the winds picked up and mesquite thorns rubbed against the windows. The heavens opened up. It was as if the sky was crying a torrent of tears, soaking their adobe home. Mud seeped into the house, bringing with it the smell of the grave. The beauty could stand it no longer. She grabbed her sleeping baby and raced out the door into the storm.

"Driven mad by the desertion of her husband, her family, she raced to the river. She had lost all reason. And there, standing beside the overflowing river bank, she threw her child into the raging waters. And in that terrible instant, she regained clarity of mind — albeit for a painful second — and let out the most agonizing cry. Unable to accept the horror of her obscene sin, she threw herself into the storm-swollen waters.

"It was the worst deluge anyone in the village could remember. Few people could sleep that night, for cries too terrifying to describe were heard all over the valley.

"To this day, when rivers fill and flow fast, some say they see a beautiful woman walking the banks. Should you get too close you may hear an eerie cry, and some say an elegant hand may even touch your shoulder."

Fray Angelico set down his glass. He looked me deep in the eye. "You, dear boy, did a very noble act. You touched her. I am certain the beauty will not forget."

"But there are other variations of the legend, aren't there?" Bruttenholm interjected.

"Yes," Fray Angelico nodded.

"Often times she is seen by the side of a road. Those who stop to offer her a ride either find she disappears as they approach, or she scares them away."

"How?" I asked.

"Instead of being a beauty she is either a hideous hag or has the face of a skull." He chuckled a dry laugh. "Those who see her this way are often adulterous lovers returning from or going to an illicit rendezvous. It seems she does not appreciate unfaithfulness."

"But I've also heard she protects children," Bruttenholm added.

"Indeed. Those foolish enough to play by rivers after dark are known to encounter her."

This, apparently was what had happened to Malcolm MacDougal, I learned from Dona. But instead of scaring the boy, La Llorona had entranced him.

Dona was working in the kitchen, preparing a late dinner for Jamie. She was so absorbed by her task she lost track of time. Then, when she realized it was past nine and the boy hadn't returned home, she started to panic. She had gone but a few yards from the house when she found him wandering, dreamy and distracted. He told her he had been to the river, and there he had met a beautiful woman who told him his mother loved him and that she was well, waiting for the day they would be reunited. At this, Dona scolded Malcolm and told him to never, ever go to the river at night. Sometimes, of course, forbidding a child from doing something was the worst advice an adult can give, as the young are naturally curious about things they should not do.

The next night, Dona insisted Malcolm stay home. Surprisingly, the boy agreed and read in his room. Relieved that he calmly accepted her request, she went about her household chores not thinking anything was amiss. But when she went to call Malcolm for his supper, she discovered the bedroom empty, the window wide open.

Jamie was beside himself when he heard the news, so distraught the base commander refused to allow him to join the search party. Besides, it seemed straightforward. A technician driving in from Jemez Springs reported seeing what he thought was a young boy by the side of the main road. He had stopped to investigate, but the figure disappeared into the woods a mile from the river. However, a night-long search proved a failure. Malcolm MacDougal had vanished into thin air. There was no stopping Jamie the next morning.

Every stream and tributary was searched, and the section of river where Malcolm had told Dona he had seen La Llorona was dredged. A week later, with the hunt for the boy dissolved, I was Jamie's last hope.

Coming out of the arroyo, I headed in the direction of a lush sloping pasture and the forest beyond. Half an hour later, I located a stream and sat down to wait, hoping my instincts were right.

At midnight, my suspicions were confirmed, my patience rewarded. The sound started low, mournful at first, then rose steadily in pitch. To the unsuspecting, it could have been a coyote call, but I had heard that soul-wrenching cry before. It was impossible to forget. For a moment, the years slipped away, pulling me back to the banks of the Santa Fe river. Then, suddenly, it stopped. The silence following felt eerie, almost suffocating in its intensity.

I waited, my eyes trying to penetrate the jet-black shadows cast by the trees. Nothing moved.

When the hand touched my shoulder, I nearly leapt out of my red skin.

I turned. There, beside me, stood the Weeping Woman. My first encounter had been hectic, fraught with frantic actions; I had never got a clear look at her. Now, I saw her beauty was remarkable, almost too painful to gaze upon. To try to describe this ethereal creature would be foolish. Besides, the deep, dark olive of her haunted eyes drew me in, made me a fellow prisoner of her sorrow.

"The boy," I said softly, barely a whisper. "Please, take me to the child."

La Llorona took me by the hand, leading me away from the stream and into the stygian secrets of the forest. She remained silent. I didn't know what to say. What could I say to this spirit?

We reached a clearing. Although Old Man Moon's light was largely obscured by the towering oaks, spruce, and Douglas firs, I could make out a rocky hill ahead. She led me around it and, on the opposite side, stopped before a thick tangle of bushes. Those sad eyes stared at me a moment before she stepped forward. Since she touched me she had appeared solid. Now, she dissolved through the bushes, letting go of my hand, freeing my arms to fight through the undergrowth. Behind them was a small cave mouth, and I stooped to enter.

Instead of pitch blackness, the cave was softly illuminated, and it took me a moment to realize she was the light source. La Llorona glowed from within. The cave floor sloped down, and she took my hand to steady me as we descended. The natural rock walls narrowed, the ceiling lowering, forcing me to bend. The tunnel curved before opening into a subterranean chamber.

Malcolm MacDougal lay on a bed of leaves beside an underground pool the size of a goldfish pond. His eyes were glazed, feverishly delirious. His left leg was broken and lay at a painful angle. How had he come to be here? Had she carried him?

"Mother," he said. "Don't leave me. Stay with me. I don't feel well."

She said nothing, but a strange smile crept across his dirt-smeared features. He had his father's mouth, his mother's eyes. I sensed something pass between them.

"I'm here to take you home," I said.

The smile faded.

"Yes, Mother said it's time to go now," he mumbled.

I scooped him up as carefully as possible, and, as La Llorona led, we made our way back.

His head felt hot, his body thin and fragile. The water had kept him alive, but the boy was famished and the fever had drained him. As I navigated my way through the trees, I sensed she was no longer with us. Turning, I saw she had faded into the night like breath on a cold day. She had done her part, and now I had to finish mine. I hoped my luck would continue; perhaps we'd run across a passing motorist who wouldn't crash at the sight of a large red creature carrying the body of a small boy.

Malcolm murmured in his delirium.

"Mother ... don't leave ... me ... "

His condition was worse than I first thought.

I wanted to run. I needed to get him to the Los Alamos hospital. Every step seemed to rattle his bones. Sudden movement was out of the question. I hoped for a car or truck. Otherwise, all I could do was take it one step at a time. His breath came in a short dry wheeze.

One step became another. Keeping my eyes on the ground, my mind wandered. Halfway across the meadow, I realized I had left the forest behind.

And realized Malcolm was dead.

Tears of frustration spilled from my eyes. I lowered myself to the grass, cradling the small corpse. Too late. I had failed.

"We're cursed," Oppenheimer had said as we drove to Los Alamos. "I believe those of us who made the bomb, or continue to work on the program, will never be forgiven for what we've done. Whatever your faith, whichever God you believe in ... it doesn't matter. We're cursed. We committed the greatest sin against life. Men create to destroy. Women create. They create life. We only destroy it."

Those words echoing in my mind, I looked down on Malcolm's urchin-like face. In death, his features more resembled those of his father. Poor Jamie. What could I say to him? In helping to father weapons of destruction he had lost sight of the life he had helped create, unintentionally pushing the boy towards the arms of a delusion.

A tear fell from my face and ran across Malcolm's cheek, wiping away a smudge of dirt. It looked like he, too, was crying. A tear of joy, for I hoped he was with his mother now.

And I wondered, in that unguarded moment, who would mourn for me?

From deep in the woods, I heard La Llorona let loose her painful lament.