Each Sunday thereafter, Antonio attends mass, hoping to hear God, but each Sunday, he leaves unsatisfied, and soon school is out and it is time for him to travel to El Puerto, where he will spend the summer learning about farming from his uncles. He wonders about his destiny and tells Miss Violet, his teacher, that a man's destiny is like a flower unfolding itself to the sun, the earth, and water.
Antonio perceives the plains and the hills to be filled with life, yet he senses a dark shadow over all their lives. He is worried about tracks near the juniper tree, where Narciso was killed, and about the news that old Tenorio's second daughter is dying. He is also disturbed when the rancher Téllez asks for Ultima's help in purging his house of what seems to be evil spirits who break dishes, cause a coffee pot to jump around and spill coffee, and rain stones down from the sky onto the roof of the house. A priest blessed the house, but the blessing was ineffectual; it changed nothing. Now, only Ultima can intervene and banish the evil.
Ultima explains that three lingering ghostly Comanche souls from long ago were improperly buried and now have been manipulated by the witch-like Trementina sisters to torment the Téllez family. She says that she can help Téllez, but she reminds the rancher that he must accept the consequences of her interference with destiny.
Antonio accompanies his father and Ultima across the plains and listens to them speak of their plains heritage and the inherent values that come from living on the plains. It is a conversation that is filled with hope and beauty, startling contrasts to what he experiences inside the Téllez house, as he listens to the rain of melon-sized stones on the roof. Calmly, Ultima tells the men to build a platform, upon which she will place three bundles, symbolic of the three Comanche men who were improperly buried. After setting fire to the platform, as was the Comanche tradition, Antonio hears Ultima's owl hoot. Her work is done. Téllez tells her that supernatural things began happening to him after Tenorio denounced her and he defended her honor about a month ago, in a saloon in El Puerto.
That night, Antonio dreams of his brothers, calling to him from the depths of the river, asking for release from their sea-blood. Tony tells them that he has no power and then baits his hook with their livers. They cry out in such pain that he removes the livers and throws them deep into the muddy waters of the River of the Carp.
