Each of Us a Desert

by Mark Oshiro

  She wanted Luz back, Solís. She didn’t care if Julio left them both to do whatever he wanted. She just wanted to see Luz’s soft face and her brown eyes.

  She wanted to see her mami, too, but she knew that was impossible.

  They traveled all day, and Emilia experienced the true intensity of Your burning. There were no shadows, no caverns to duck back into when You became too hot. It drained her, and her skin was tender and red the next morning. But still they pressed on, and by mediodía on the next day, they arrived en la aldea of La Palmita, and that was the first time Emilia saw death. Julio led them to the center of La Palmita and slaughtered a woman who was stretching out hides to dry in the sun. She watched as Julio’s saber was lifted in the air, the way it swiftly dropped down, the spray of red, the scream cut short as the act repeated. When the woman’s son tried to stop Emilia’s father, one of Julio’s men stuck him with a long blade, then laughed as he squirmed and shook on the ground.

  La Palmita was theirs now.

  But this display was not enough. Emilia watched in horror as Papi called out to the man curled up over the bodies of the woman and the boy that he had killed. He ordered the man, whose long, scraggly hair was coated in the sweat of terror, to kneel before him. Then Julio placed his hand on his head, and with no hesitation, the man was telling the truth: admitting his crimes. His misdeeds. His betrayals.

  And then he told Julio where he could find the food stores for La Palmita.

  “I am now your cuentista,” Julio announced. “And you will not defy me.”

  Emilia couldn’t remember how long they stayed there, how many people Julio and his men killed in that first aldea. Time passed without any meaning or sense, and the days bled together like the pile of corpses left in the plaza of La Palmita.

  You said and did nothing, Solís. So they continued.

  As soon as they got bored, after they had stolen everything they could, after la gente de La Palmita resorted to hiding in their homes to avoid any contact with Julio and his men, the terror finally ended. Julio gathered what he could—all the more richer, all the more certain that he was on a divine path—and led his men to their next conquest.

  Emilia went with them. She could not see any other options.

  They would travel again, farther and farther each time, and then they would descend on a new aldea like a swarm, using their violence and Julio’s power to take everything. Emilia became numb to death, and she prayed to You to give her a way out of this. She wondered whether she had done something wrong, if she had kept some horrible secret from You, and this was how You forced her to pay the price. Her pesadilla had manifested as Julio, her immorality born as this journey of violence.

  You did not answer her.

  She moved from aldea to aldea, drifted from one display of horror to another, and she had no means of stopping the monster her papi had become. She soon lost track of how long it had been since she left Solado. A month? Two? They never traveled long before they found a new aldea, a new comunidad to terrorize.

  And then she came to Empalme.

  Julio did not tire of death, but she realized that he was spending longer and longer in each aldea, treating them as if they were a game to be played. She watched as they quietly moved into Empalme; she watched Julio plan what to take control of; she watched him slice off the arm of that poor woman; and then she watched him wait. He said he had a new idea, something that news from the north had convinced him was possible.

  So they stayed. This was uncommon, as Julio rarely lasted more than a few days in any single place. But in Empalme, with the well firmly in his control, the friction did not dwindle.

  Emilia was consumed by an immense pity for los aldeanos de Empalme. She had seen so much suffering before, but these people … they did not fight back like other aldeas. They believed that Solís would protect them, would save them, and they hid in their homes, avoiding Julio and his men, as if he would fade away if they ignored it all. It filled her with a terrible sadness.

  She refused to show it, though, because she knew that if Papi saw even a shred of sympathy on her face, he would lash out at her as he had back in Solada. So her face became as a mask, a cold, terrible thing, and she buried her feelings deep inside her so that they were a tiny stone, one she could ignore, could pretend wasn’t even there.

  And then Julio struck back.

  Oh, Lito. Emilia had watched it happen, knowing that, once again, there was nothing she could do to stop it. Should she have defied Julio? What other choice was there? She had never seen un sabueso up close; they had existed in the shadows for so long. Yet here one was, and its power was so much more terrifying than she could have ever expected. When it returned with Lito’s arm, she refused to look at it.

  Julio had not touched her since they left Solado. Not one embrace, not one graze of the fingertips, nothing. But now his hand whipped out, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and he forced her to watch the carnage.

  Emilia decided, right then, to leave. She had no idea how to survive on her own, how to subsist on the land, how to thrive under Your gaze, but she couldn’t stay anymore. She couldn’t be a part of this, and she knew that as terrible and frightening as it was, she did have a choice.

  That night, she wore her lightest clothing to bed, hoping it would keep the heat off her body. She waited to sneak out until after Julio, drunk off tesgüino, ordered his men to gather their supplies and begin packing for the next aldea. Somewhere to the south, he had said. There was more to conquer.

  He had never smiled wider at her.

  She did not escape that night, however. She wanted to make sure Papi was long gone, that he would not come after her, so she found an abandoned home and buried herself in old clothing and rags. She waited there, the stench of rot and decay unbearable, until Empalme became quiet again.

  When You appeared in the east the next morning, and she was confident she could finally leave, she bolted from that shack, desperately hoping that Julio was not looking for her, and headed for the north gate, and—

  She found me trying to escape as well. She was terrified, too, Solís, and in her mind, I was going to reveal her to Julio, a final act of spite so that I could depart unscathed. But she watched me run off, let me get ahead of her, and then she began to follow once it was safe. She took it as a sign and obeyed the feeling that gripped her, that compelled her toward me.

  She lost sight of me a few times, unable to see my fleeing body as I crossed over hills and down into ravines. She knew this sudden plan made no sense, that there was no real reason to follow me. But she saw a girl fleeing for her life, and it felt like a sign, as though You were telling her that she was not alone. Here was someone else, shunned by those around her, alone in a crowd, and she believed that, at the very least, I would understand.

  She always found me, no matter how long she went without a glimpse of my long hair, my dusty clothing. She thought she had lost me for good when I climbed las bajadas, but then she whispered another prayer to You.

  That was her, wasn’t it, Solís? It wasn’t Lito hiding behind a saguaro. It was her.

  But her journey was even more fraught than mine. Emilia had a visitor, too: la mujer de La Palmita, who stretched her hides in the sun, who spilled her blood on them as Julio sliced her down. She walked behind Emilia as she climbed la montaña, and she wouldn’t speak. She tried to keep her eyes ahead of her, and then she looked back again—

  She shouldn’t have looked back, Solís.

  La mujer, nameless and bloody, opened her mouth wide, wider, until her jaw cracked, and a hand reached out of that gaping hole, and then an arm, and the hand grabbed at anything, hooked its fingers on the woman’s ear. He pulled himself out of her, covered in the remains of his own mother, and her body collapsed in a heap and poured into the cracks of the trail. He stood up, and there was the long blade, still stuck in his stomach, and he looked down at it.

  Then at Emilia.

  Then he pulled it out.

  T
hen he showered her with blood, so much of it that it filled her mouth, hot and bitter, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, and she fell to the road and clawed at her arms and her throat, and then

  then

  It was all gone.

  The woman,

  her son,

  the blood.

  Except for her arms, where Emilia had clawed at herself, and as she bled, she blamed herself. She blamed herself for what someone else had done.

  And then she found me.

  Forgive her, Solís. She didn’t know. But she is here now, and she wants You to protect her from Julio, after all those years when You didn’t.

  How could You let this happen to her? How could You allow such horrible things in Your world? If You were powerful enough to destroy us all in one blow, one burst of fire and fury, then why could You not take care of one person? One situation? One impossible problem?

  Did You ever care about her? Or did You think she had to suffer in order to become worthy of Your attention?

  She gave me her story.

  And I listened.

  When she finished, the breath wheezed out of Emilia’s throat. My arms pulsed with anger, with terror, with resentment, with longing, with all the emotions Emilia had given me, and they were a terrific chaos inside. Her story was a living thing, and it felt Lito’s, Marisol’s, it knew the same horror of los sabuesos, of feeling trapped and alone; it clung to the bitterness of Ofelia, to Omar’s guilt. I sat there on the ground, closed my eyes, ingested this story, let this new truth that felt so at home with its companions make a place within my body.

  Solado. That was where Marisol was from. It was the land that was stolen from her people.

  As Emilia’s fear and regret clamored for space inside even as they attached themselves deep in my belly, I knew I would have to keep this story, too, and not just because I had kept all the others. Emilia’s anger was too familiar. Her desire for freedom was too close to my own. I was so wrong about her.

  And I now had information I needed. Simone. Simone could give my power to someone else.

  “I’m sorry,” Emilia said, and her voice faltered. She swallowed. “I had to tell someone. I had to tell you.”

  I nodded at her, but I kept my distance. I had misunderstood her. I had seen Emilia’s coldness as something to avoid, to despise.

  I had been so, so wrong.

  I wanted to reach out to her.

  To comfort her.

  Was this catharsis? Validation? Were the stories pushing me to do this?

  But I did nothing. I couldn’t let myself get near her at all, not in the way that I wanted. How was I worthy of that?

  She could not trust me. I was a liar.

  I couldn’t trust myself either. Her story was so familiar to me: Her life had been a lie. She had been trapped. But she had escaped. A selfish desire to keep the story, to examine it, to understand it, swept over me. How could she possibly appreciate that?

  Emilia was overflowing with shame; I saw it in how she clung to herself, in how she made her body smaller, how she shrank in the hope of becoming invisible.

  “Have some more water,” I told her, passing her the goatskin bag.

  She nodded.

  Emilia looked at me with such earnestness, Solís, and I hated it. I was seeing her as a means to an end, to gaining my own freedom. And I shouldn’t have done that.

  I did it anyway. It was so easy.

  I scooted back a bit, then stood and walked to the west toward the farthest edge of the vista. From where I was, Obregán glowed to my right, but the montañas stretched as far as I could see that night. I lowered myself to the ground, coughed a few times, and the stories roiled in me, ready for their journey back to the earth.

  No, I told them.

  As soon as the ritual began, it was over. I held them there with my willpower, urging them to reach into my body and hold tight. I had done as much for days now, and it was so much easier now than it had been that night after Lito’s ritual, when I had made my fateful decision. I just needed to make sure the stories would stay where they were: within me.

  A deer, its coat the color of the desert at night, soft blues and grays, appeared to my left. It raised its head, and its antlers twisted in every direction, small thorns jutting off the sides of them, a tangled mess, and its eyes glowed green.

  We both were still, and then it turned and slowly trod away.

  I gulped, wiping at the sweat now forming along my hairline. I watched the deer fold into the shadows, then shook off a creeping sensation along my skin before heading back to Emilia.

  She looked up at me as I returned and handed me the goatskin bag. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. “A little drained,” I said, and I drank.

  “You were so fast,” she said.

  I drank again. “What?”

  “It’s like you were made to be out here. I could barely keep up with you while you were climbing la montaña.”

  I shrugged. “Papá taught me well, I suppose.”

  “I have a proposition, then.”

  I passed her the goatskin bag, but she did not drink from it. Those eyes—which I had regarded as cold before—bore into me, dark and mysterious. She was trying to see into my heart, wasn’t she? To see if she was safe to suggest what she was about to say.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I have something you need,” she continued. “Simone. I can take you to Simone.”

  I frowned. “… but?”

  “I want to go with you.”

  I shook my head. “Mira, no te conozco, Emilia. I’m sorry for what has happened to you. But until a few moments ago, I thought you were one of the worst people I’d ever met.”

  “I know how to get to Solado. Do you?”

  I grimaced, well aware that she had a point. “No, I don’t.”

  “Then you need me, too.”

  “Wait, why do you need me?”

  “I don’t know how to survive out here on my own,” she replied, gesturing around her in the darkness, her brown skin illuminated in the starlight. “If you help me, I’ll help you.”

  I lowered myself to sit across from her. “Tell me, then,” I said. “Why do you want to go back to Solado if the place is so awful?”

  “Luz.”

  There was no hesitation on her part as she uttered the name. I gazed into her face, saw the tracks of her tears over her cheekbones.

  She was serious.

  “You’re going to go back for her?”

  “They took my guardian from me,” she said. “And I just know it—I feel it in my heart—Luz is still alive.”

  She went silent, and her shoulders drooped. “They took my best friend from me.”

  “And you’d go to Solado to get her back? And introduce me to Simone?”

  “Without question,” she said, gazing back up at me. “You help me, and I will do the same for you.”

  Una vida sin el poder de una cuentista. I couldn’t imagine it. No more stories. No more responsibilities I did not ask for. No more exhaustion. My freedom from Empalme … what if that could last forever?

  It was too irresistible.

  So I did not resist it.

  I put my hand over my eyes, then over my heart. “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Gracias—” Emilia began, her eyes lighting up with relief.

  “But we go to Obregán first.”

  She squirmed. “Shouldn’t we keep going?”

  I scoffed at her. “First, we are not going anywhere right now. I’m exhausted and I need to sleep.”

  “No, I meant—”

  I raised a hand to stop her. “I know what you meant. But I need to get supplies in Obregán, and there are some people I need to see.” When she frowned, I continued. “We do it my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

  “Bueno,” she said. “I brought some things, but I don’t think it’s enough.”

  She paused.

  Hand over the eyes, then over t
he heart.

  The sign.

  See the truth; believe the truth.

  It meant that she was telling the truth.

  The pact was sealed.

  “And you’re sure you know the way to Solado?”

  She hesitated. “Sí,” she said. “Not precisely the same way we came here, but I know how.”

  I let my suspicion pass. She had a solid motivation to get to Solado, and Julio had not sprung himself on us. She was most likely telling the truth. And it wouldn’t make sense for her to guide me to the middle of nowhere, because … well, she would die, too.

  “We’ll get there. Together.”

  “Together,” I repeated.

  A warmth flooded my chest, pushed the stories further down.

  “We leave in the morning,” I said, trying to ignore the sensation. “You have any agua left?”

  She nodded. “Not much.”

  “Let’s use yours to clean you off. Shouldn’t be too far tomorrow to get more.”

  Emilia was still shaking as she sat there, so I dropped myself down beside her, took her canteen, and poured a tiny amount into my left hand. “May I?” I asked her, and she held out her right arm to me, nodding, and I used the water to wipe the blood and dirt off as best as I could.

  I poured more water into my hand, then took her left hand in mine. I ran water over it and gazed up at her. Her eyes were locked with my own. They were dark. Soft. Vulnerable.

  If she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be here.

  I ran my hand up her left arm, toward her elbow, and then she jerked away, tucking her arm close to her body, and wouldn’t look at me.

  Why is she afraid of me? I thought.

  And the darkest part of me—my terrible doubt, those terrible stories—answered back:

  Because you deserve it.

  “I’ll do that,” she announced, and she took the canteen back. Just like that, we returned to coldness. To what we had been a day earlier.

  To being strangers.

  “Fine,” I said, and I walked to my sleeping roll and lowered myself to it, eager to get some sleep before that night got any stranger. A few minutes later, I heard Emilia’s footsteps near me.