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Dan Frio is a contributor at Edmunds.

Visitors who once passed through on their way to the Frio River now slow down to view crosses set up at the entrance to the small town; the “Uvalde Strong” written in chipped paint on storefronts; and the abandoned Robb Elementary School building, which remains shuttered and guarded daily by state troopers.

“Aramés, aramás, todavía nada más, ven aquí, ven acá, aire frío, aire mío, aramés, aramás,” the nagual continued, even as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his long ears perked up and flapped loudly.

“Aramés, aramás, todavía nada más, ven aquí, ven acá, aire frío, aire mío, hazlas mías, cinco hermanitas, cinco estrellitas serán mías, aramés, aramás…” The nagual kept chanting different verses of the same spell, and before we knew it we were all on the ground, weakly looking at the donkey as he shifted from animal back to his human form and stood—a dark-clad figure looming tall and menacing above us.

It is a togetherness, they say, born of innumerable ties of kinship and preserved through the easy rituals of rural life: baptisms and deer seasons, long lunches of carne guisada and summer evenings on the Frio River.