The Night Mexico's Dumbest Shopkeeper Went Grave Robbing

There I was, sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of tea in hand, listening to my father as he spun a tale from another age, one filled with the kind of local legends and chills that stay with you long after the story ends. The story took place just one block down from our house, on the corner of Ignacio Zaragoza Street. Forty-five years ago, my father, then a young lad with a gleam of curiosity in his eye, heard it all from his uncle Tomás, a man who owned a little grocery store on Lic. Raúl López Sánchez Street. And it wasn’t just any grocery store, mind you. It was the heart of the neighborhood, where every resident of Guerrero gathered for their daily essentials—and, of course, for the latest bit of gossip or ghost story.

Uncle Tomás’s store was a fortress of sorts: a big stone building with windows so small you’d swear they’d been designed to keep out intruders—or maybe something less tangible. Those windows still exist today, watching over the street as they have for decades, but back then, they did far more than just look out over the road. According to my father, they offered a glimpse into something darker, something from another realm.

You see, my father, Isabel del Río Cervera, used to hear about a certain “visitor” who made occasional appearances through those windows. My great-grandmother, Epigmenia, would tell Uncle Tomás that she’d seen a man, a stranger, peering through them. She’d shiver and tell him, “Tomás, there’s a man at the window.” And every time, without fail, Uncle Tomás would dutifully investigate, only to find nothing. “You’re imagining things, Mother,” he’d say. But my great-grandmother was stubborn as an old mule and would insist she wasn’t mistaken. To her, that man was as real as any other soul who visited that store.

But it was a rainy night that would finally cement the tale in local legend.

It was around 1950 or ‘51, according to my father. He was just a teenager then, fifteen or sixteen, and the store had become a gathering place for him and his mates. A typical night involved sitting around the counter, swapping stories, and sharing a drink or two. But this particular night, the rain had turned the dirt roads into sloppy muck, and there was a quiet sort of heaviness in the air, as if the storm had summoned something long forgotten.

That was when Javier del Río burst into the store, his face flushed with excitement. He was shouting as he burst in, words tumbling out of his mouth faster than his mind could string them together. “Tomás, there’s a jar buried under the bridge by the irrigation ditch! Do you have any money? We should go get it!”

I can only imagine Uncle Tomás, standing there, his face half in shadow as he considered the suggestion. He looked at the boys, and with a gleam in his eye that probably matched theirs, he said, “Well, go on then—dig it up!”

And so, off they went, a ragtag crew of hopeful treasure hunters, scrambling around for shovels and picks, visions of glittering gold coins dancing in their heads. After all, a buried jar had to mean treasure, didn’t it? Surely this was the stuff of a fairy tale, a golden prize left behind by some mysterious benefactor—or so they thought.

But the ground held darker secrets than any of them could have imagined.

As they dug, mud splattering around them, one boy’s shovel hit something hard, something that wasn’t a jar at all. They unearthed…a human skull. A bloody skull, mind you, staring back at them like a horrible, hollow-eyed relic of some gruesome past.

Here’s where any sane person would’ve stopped. They’d have dropped the shovel and run for the hills. But Uncle Tomás, being the ever-determined man he was, simply nodded and said, “Keep digging. There might be more.”

And so they dug, each shovelful revealing more bones, the fragments of a skeleton scattered across the muddy earth. And, of course, as they dug, that thrill of adventure quickly turned to a shiver of dread, the feeling that they’d stumbled upon something ancient and unholy.

Uncle Tomás, always practical, told the boys to gather the bones and place them in a little wooden box. He ordered them to march it over to the cemetery, a mission they took up with as much courage as they could muster. And just as they were about to bury the remains in a small, hastily dug grave, who should appear but the local policeman.

Now, this policeman was no stranger to the weird goings-on in Guerrero, but even he was shocked by the sight of a gang of muddy teenagers clutching a box of bones. He demanded to know where on Earth they’d gotten it, and as my father told it, there was a lot of hemming and hawing before anyone managed to explain. The policeman marched them straight to the authorities, and even Uncle Tomás got an earful for his trouble. A fine was slapped on him—officialdom at its finest. But what’s money compared to having nearly buried a relic from Guerrero’s murky past?

My father always said that after they buried those bones, my great-grandmother never saw her ghostly visitor at the window again. The man who had peered through the glass, the figure that haunted her, vanished as if he’d finally been put to rest. And that old bridge, the one over the irrigation ditch? It’s still there, worn down by time, its purpose long gone, yet it stands as a silent testament to that stormy night and the unearthed secrets it revealed.

These days, the water from the spring that once flowed through the town has dried up, and so too have the old legends. But every now and again, when the night grows still and the air is thick with memories, I can’t help but feel that there are stories buried beneath our feet, waiting for the next curious soul to uncover them. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that every town has its secrets. And sometimes, just sometimes, they’re best left undisturbed.

In-text Citation: (Alicia del Río Herrera, 2021, pp. 38-40)