"M" = Don Martín, "H" = Bryant "Eduardo" Holman

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(Don Martín begins by telling about how he himself was bewitched)

M- This happened about a year ago.

I was here [at home] on a Sunday, May the third. I was, well, waiting for people who were coming to be cured. For this purpose there arrived don Faustino García who said, "Listen, Martín, look. I brought this bottle of liquor to share toasts - you and me - because, take note, nobody, but nobody - and I have been to a lot of curanderos. I went to all of them in Aldama, I went around Chihuahua City, I went around Delicias and Meoqui and not one curandero could cure me."

When I began to cure this man it gave me a bad cough. I took almost three hours to cure him.

So it happened that he said, "Look, so that you don't think there's anything wrong with this bottle of booze, I'm going to uncork it and we'll both drink it, you and I.

I said, Sir, I don't drink.

So. it happened that about seven that night I told him, Now no one else is going to come. Let's see, give me a sip. But now there only remained about, about two fingers in the bottle, since he had drunk it all. So I made the attempt to drink it, but I only drank a tiny bit - not much, anyway. So then he left, or maybe he stayed a little and we talked, and then - Listen! Let's see! Give me another sip.

Suddenly - Wham! What happened? - Walk with me a ways - with him I went walking about nine o'clock that night. But they had sentenced me that they were going to disappear me.

Okay. Well, after walking with him as far as the Franco tortilla factory, there in front of the highway, I walked back as far as the corner of the Ignacion Rojas Dominguez school.

"Martín, stop right there. Martín, stop right there. Martín, stop right there!"

I stopped on a dime. And according to me, I took off, or they took off my shoes.

No! How could you think?

"Well you will take them off", as if they had hypnotized me in this instant.

H- And you only heard the voices and felt someone's presence, but you didn't see them?

M- I didn't see, it was like a ghost. Then...

H- A man and a woman?

M- A man and a woman. These, these persons after having made me very docile, they took off my tennis shoes, because they were tennis shoes.

One of them said, "Now take your pants off."

No! How could you think?

"Take your pants off! We're going to take them off you."

No! You won't be able to!

Well, it happened that they took my pants off. My shirt they didn't take off because I have a cross of God which is my protection - the shirt they didn't take off.

So, there we went walking. The woman had me by the left hand and the man by the right hand they fastened onto me very strong. Barefoot and in my underwear I went walking. I went nearby the zone of tolerance and from there the directed me to the station. From there from the station they took me to Puliques.

Well, we walked all night from Puliques. I came back, I got away from them in a struggle, and here I went, and then I arrived at the railroad bridge.

Well, right there - what the heck!

"Go across to the other side!"

I can't swim, I told them.

"Go across to the other side!"

I can't swim!

There put me in and went through half the river under the water.

"Look, you son of a so-and-so! So you can't swim?" they told me.

Well then after crossing I didn't even see if they touched the water. Nothing.

But just as we got across they grabbed me by the left wrist and the right and they took me. We arrived at, a place very far from here. Very far. Then I turned around and had a feeling that someone was watching me from the northeast.

I said, My gosh, how far away I am!

"And now, climb the big hill. Hurry up, climb it!"

I was about halfway up the hill when I heard the voice of my mother - may she rest in peace!

"My son, Martín! My son, pray something, my son, because when you start down the hill they will disappear you."

So I told them, You know what? This is as far as I'm going with you!

I crossed my arms and my hands like a cross, and my feet - God the father, God the son, God the Holy Spirit for ever and ever Holy Amen, Jesus.

When I repeated four times the same words, I felt like I was me again.

By the ninth time [I had repeated this] now I felt that I was completely myself again - because they had me hypnotized.

And so I said [to myself] - Martín, now look out for the Border Patrol. And since you are barefoot and in your shorts they're to say that you're doing something bad - up to one of those dirty things that are prohibited.

My God of my life! What things are possible, well there I went looking all around, and I arrived at the river. But, instead of going on across to the Mexican side, well there I went along the American side, all along the edge of the river to where the rivers join together. I crossed right there. Then I followed up, up, arriving near San Pancho.

So there I sat in a spot of shade, and I took fifty five cactus thorns out of my feet.

H- My gosh!

M-Okay. I glanced around there and I cooled off a bit and there I went. I arrived about 3:30 in the afternoon at home. In this, look, I was walking all crooked.

I could hardly walk. All pierced by thorns in the feet. No, sir! - admiration from the people, the crying here. Every one was mobilized - Don Luis Rodrigues - this Isidro Cordero had just arrived right there where you car is.

Then right behind the police arrived - right behind them arrived the police. They asked me questions about where I had been. I told them the whole "number" - as they say.

"Well, good, it's over. Well, good, thanks to God that you are back."

Well listen, I had my doubts.

"Why did they do this mischief to you?"

I said - Listen, it seems to me that I have more enemies than yourselves do. Because I cure and undo the evils which other do. I undo them and for this reason I have many opponents.

My gosh! No, the next day we went to the investigator's office. I told them what happened. And there at that office they told me that it was, like, a ghost that had taken power of my spirit, which by Saturday had come out in the newspaper. But they didn't say what I had said at the investigator's office, that they hadn't found me drunk in the same place where they found my clothes and my shirt. And there they said they were shoes and not tennis shoes.

So, they had found me quite drunk in the same vacant lot, and this wasn't true. I had walked all the night long and part of the day. At 3:330 I arrived here, walking and almost nothing else. I rested only when I took the cactus thorns out.

H- And what newspaper was it?

M- Well I don't know, but...

H- Was it the Contacto?

M- I believe it was the Contacto. Yes, I think so. Well, since there weren't any reporters to interview me, or anything, well I didn't say anything like that, they came out with that version. Don Luis wanted us to go and protest that it wasn't possible that I arrive a three in the afternoon, and that elements of the state police had found me in the mentioned place quite drunk, as I had hardly drunk anything.

No, the things are terrible, you hear? - and this was my tragedy, you understand.

H- My gosh!

M- This was my tragedy and I give thanks to God now. Now I don't go out in the night.

H- It's better [that you don't].