Each of Us a Desert

by Mark Oshiro

  And I had no idea where we were going. Just … north.

  “Did you and Julio follow a trail to Obregán?” I asked, once we were well beyond the gate.

  “For the most part,” she said. “Whenever we found a new aldea, we stopped…”

  She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to.

  “So … should we retrace your journey? How much of it do you remember?”

  Emilia gazed off to the north. “That’s not really necessary,” she said. “We just have to head in the right direction, and Solís will help with the rest.”

  I smiled at first; it was a charming answer. But then she started straying immediately from the wide road that led out of Obregán.

  “¡Oye!” I called out. “Emilia, where are you going?”

  She glanced back, then pointed to the northeast. “We need to head that direction,” she answered. “Hay una granja por ahí.”

  I approached her. “How do you know that?”

  “Solís tells me. I just know.”

  I rubbed at my eyes. “Are you being serious, Emilia?”

  “I can’t describe it,” she said. “I know it sounds odd.”

  I was Your cuentista, Solís. And yet here was someone You apparently spoke to. You had been silent my whole life, leaving me to ponder Your mysteries alone.

  There was no reason for her to lie; dying in the desert was not something she craved. So, I had to believe, despite the resentment building in me. What made her special? I wondered.

  No matter. Because if Simone could give me what I needed, then this journey would be worth it.

  So I accepted what she told me.

  “Okay, then here’s your first real lesson,” I said. “It is very easy to get lost in the desert, even if you can see your destination.”

  “But they’re montañas and—”

  I raised my hand to stop her. “Even then. Unless you truly know the way, you shouldn’t stray from trails and paths. They exist for a reason.”

  “Which is?” she asked, scrunching up her face.

  “Things can bleed into one another, start to look repetitious. Even worse, as Solís sucks the water out of you, you can … you can see things.”

  “Things?” She pulled her canteen out and took a small drink. “What kind of things?”

  “You never really know,” I answered. “The mind can imagine all sorts of images. Fresh agua. Árboles. Animales. They seem real, but they are not.”

  “How do you know what’s real, and what isn’t?”

  “Hopefully, we won’t reach that point,” I said. “But we can’t just leave the trail like that. Give me a general sense of direction, but let’s stick to the road for the most part. I don’t know what we’ll encounter otherwise.”

  “I won’t disappoint you, Xochitl,” she said. “I promise.”

  I gestured in front of me to the path that snaked to the north, and Emilia led us, moving at a steady pace. She seemed to be turning over the idea in her head, so I decided to change the subject.

  “What’s at la granja?” I asked, my voice pitching up in worry.

  “That’s where we can camp tonight. There’s a man who hosts those who travel the desert, who will let us rest so we don’t have to face the desert at night.”

  Now I was shaking my head. “What’s in the desert at night?”

  “I’ve only heard stories,” she admitted. “I was told not to roam the desert once Solís leaves the world.”

  As we set off up the road from Obregán, I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. I had skills to survive in the desert, but would I survive the things I did not know?

  I went with her anyway, Solís.

  We walked for a long while, Solís. Hours. The road from Obregán snaked mostly to the north, rising and falling in gullies formed by rare floods. We had the same ones outside Empalme, and every time we dropped into and climbed out of one, I wished for rain, for the sensation of water falling from the sky and coating us, washing away the grime and dust and fear from our bodies.

  We got no rain.

  You were near the midpoint in that vast blue sky when I finally looked behind us. Obregán was merely another speck on the horizon, so small and inconsequential that it blended in with the rest of the desert.

  Were we all like that to You?

  The hills came upon us next, a gentle rise followed by a dramatic drop down into a ravine. This calmed me, if only because I no longer felt so exposed to the rest of the desert, and it allowed me to breathe in the beauty around me. I sucked in the dry, arid air, and it warmed my lungs, and I examined the plants and rock formations as I passed them. Barrel cactus and verbena. Mesquite and indigo. Lots of flat leaves and green hides with sharp needles to keep predators at bay. I took another drink of my water, and I let You spread over me.

  We did not talk much, even if I wanted to. I was worried about exerting myself too much in those first hours, especially since I had no idea how far away la granja was. I hoped that they grew food there, that perhaps we could have something fresher than the dried fruits and meats I had purchased with Marisol’s money in El Mercado.

  Lito’s. The thought of el mercadito, of the burnt husk that remained, of his blood sinking into the sand, pushed me deeper into my loneliness.

  I wondered what Emilia was thinking—she seemed so far away. I wondered if she was feeling the same gnawing sense of doubt that I was.

  I broke that long silence as I saw Emilia swallow down more of her water. “I should teach you something else,” I told her, and she slowed to walk by my side. “In case we need it.”

  “Need what?” she asked, wiping at the sweat that poured down her face.

  “Agua. In case we run out.”

  She frowned at that. “I hoped that we’d be able to find some, or maybe run across someone who could tell us more.”

  She really did need me, I realized then. Those were pretty terrible odds. So I explained it to her, how to recognize patches of life in the desert, how to dig down into the soil deep enough. We had only limited tools with us, but even with some cloth or fabric—anything that could absorb water—we could filter out most of the dirt, enough to drink and keep us alive.

  “I hope we don’t have to do that,” she remarked when I finished. “But at least I know where to look.”

  I did not say that I agreed with her. It kept me looking as if I wasn’t afraid.

  Even though I was.

  I ignored my aching muscles and joints as they called out to me to stop moving, to give in to exhaustion. I couldn’t. I thought of the promise of Simone, of the chance that I could give up this power and these stories and choose a life of my own. It kept me moving past the patches of prickly pear, past the dry bushes I had never seen before that broke when you touched them, leaving pieces behind, past the countless holes dug into the earth where creatures burrowed to hide from Your heat.

  When we reached what would be the only incline of the day, You were beyond el mediodía, and I believed that I had not sweat so much in my entire life. Any of my skin not covered was layered in dust, thick and sticky. There was a large black stone at the bottom of the trail before us, and I waved my hand at it. “I need a rest,” I said.

  I let my pack fall to the desert floor, then leaned up against the stone. I didn’t even care how hot it had gotten in Your light; my legs were thankful for the rest.

  Emilia sat on the other side of me, but I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall into the darkness of my own mind. The two of us had not spoken in a long time, and I assumed that meant we were still on the right path. But I also wasn’t sure what to say. I felt we were in a better place than we had been the night before, but I still didn’t know much about her. Who was she? What was she like outside of what we had experienced over the past day? Should I even bother getting to know her? What if she stayed behind in Solado? How would I get back home? Was I going to return as I had promised Mamá?

  There was too much unknown, too much hanging in the
balance.

  I filled myself up with food and water, then left to go relieve myself behind a paloverde. When I returned, Emilia was ready to go.

  “I need to know something,” I said. “Before we go any farther.”

  Emilia shifted from one foot to the other. “What is it?”

  “What happens at the end?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “When we get there,” I explained. “We go to Solado, and you find Luz, and I find Simone, and then … what? Will you stay there? Am I to find my own way back?”

  She shook her head violently. “I can’t stay there. Not one more day.”

  “But what of your friends? What about Simone?”

  Emilia stayed silent, her gaze focused to the south, then said, “I don’t know if you’ll understand this.”

  I stepped closer to her. “I’ll try,” I said. “I have to try. I have to know that I’m not taking a one-way trip.”

  She focused those eyes on me. Piercing, as usual, but not cold. They were alight with a fire, an intensity, a conviction.

  “Once you’ve been free, you can’t go back to it all.” She pulled her braid in front of her shoulder, and she ran her fingers up and down the tight lines of her hair. “I need to find Luz. And then … I have to leave. I can’t stay there anymore.”

  It was like hearing my own thoughts coming out of her mouth. Hadn’t I felt just as she did, but about Empalme? Hadn’t I desired to leave for so, so long? Maybe this was meant to be a one-way trip. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to go back home.

  “Then let’s keep moving,” I said. “And if Solís is truly guiding you back to Solado, then They must want me to complete this journey, right?”

  Emilia nodded. “They drew me to you, didn’t They?”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  So we climbed.

  * * *

  We crested the hill as You were finally dropping toward the west, and I paused to take another drink of water, short and calculated so as to preserve as much of it as I could. “I know you’ve been doing it,” I said to Emilia, “but make sure that you’re taking regular sips, even if you don’t think you need it.”

  “Why?”

  I drank down deep; half my water was already gone. “Because it can sneak up on you. It’s better to keep a regular schedule than not to drink for an hour and start to suffer the ill effects of too little water.”

  She grimaced then. “I don’t really know what those are,” she said.

  “The big one to pay attention to is your temperature. You’ll feel extremely hot, you’ll sweat more than you ever have in your life, and your skin will feel like it is burning.”

  Emilia sighed. “So … what I’m feeling now?”

  “Probably,” I said, smiling. “It’s awful out, I know. But when your head starts pounding, or there is a dull pain behind your eyes, let me know. That’s the start of something worse.”

  She drank more water as I gazed behind us, first down at the trail we had ascended, and then up to el valle before me.

  Most of the hillside was bare save for a tall ironwood. It was far off the main trail, and as I stared at the lone living thing on the side of la montaña, I spotted another trail, this one jutting off toward the west. How many of them were there in the desert? How many crisscrossed with one another? Where did they lead? How many others had stood atop this same montaña and realized how very tiny they were in Your world?

  I crossed over to the other side of la montaña where Emilia stood, and I suddenly understood why we were heading to la granja.

  The land to the north was fertile.

  The next valle stretched before us east to west, and it reminded me that we were a resilient people. After La Quema, we still rebuilt our lives. I had heard of las granjas grandísimas in the north that supplied most of the south with the food that kept us alive. I never dreamed that I would see them. But there they were, so immense and huge, rows of greens, browns, and yellows tucked up against one another, lined with the irrigation ditches that caught rainwater from las montañas and delivered it down to the fields. There seemed to be no end to them in either direction.

  This was where our food came from?

  It felt holy. Hallowed.

  In spite of the punishment You gave us, we survived.

  “I remember seeing this for the first time,” said Emilia, breaking my concentration. She pointed to the north. “Only I saw it from those hills.”

  “But your people grew your food,” I said. “There are few crops in Empalme. So we rely on las granjas.”

  She nodded. “It must be a lot to take in.”

  I excused myself then and headed for an ironwood on the western edge of the clearing, hoping to relieve myself. I had squatted down over a hole I dug in the dirt when I felt it.

  The tug.

  The twine around my heart.

  The pull.

  I ignored it at first. I had to be imagining it. But the sensation flared again. I stood up and yanked my breeches back into place, then swayed there, trying to breathe through it.

  It was happening. The same feeling I had experienced that day hunting water. I carefully stepped to the west, beyond the ironwood. Another step, another tug. I gingerly moved closer, and then something brought me to my knees. I dug in the dirt immediately, without removing my pack, and my fingers plunged into the soil, dry and tough, and I could feel it caking underneath my nails, but I couldn’t stop. The edge of something hard, like leather, poked out of the hole, and I pulled on it, then dug it out further.

  Another little pouch.

  Another poema!

  I did not immediately tear open the pouch, despite that I wanted to. No. I needed to. But this was too good to be true. How had I found one of these so very far from home? Was this a trick of the mind? Had I failed to drink enough water?

  “Xochitl!”

  I spun at the sound of Emilia’s voice. She crunched through the underbrush, moving toward me much quicker than I expected. I tucked the second pouch behind my back and into the band of my breeches.

  She appeared. “You finished? It may look close, but we still have a long walk to Jorge’s.”

  “Who is that?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too out of breath.

  “He owns la granja. Well, the one we can stay at.”

  “And you’ve stayed there before?”

  “Close enough,” she said, frowning. “My father didn’t trust him, so we made our own space on the other side of the fields of maíz. But I got to talk to Jorge. Nice man. I think he’ll be pleased to see us.”

  She headed off ahead of me, and I took the chance to run my fingers along the edge of the pouch. The leather was more worn than the others, softer, inviting me to open it up.

  And it was definitely real; this was not my imagination.

  How long had it been here, buried beneath the ground? Years? Had no one ever found it? Was I meant to discover it?

  There was no time to read la poema, though, and when I relieved myself and rejoined Emilia at the head of the descending trail, I felt I was about to erupt from joy. She lowered her canteen and squinted at me, and I didn’t care how obvious my excitement was.

  She examined me, then smiled. “You as happy as I am that we’re going downhill now?”

  “Don’t let it fool you,” I said. “It is easier on the legs, but you still need to drink agua. The heat isn’t any better on the decline.”

  She nodded. “Gracias, Xochitl,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  My insides twisted up at that. So I chewed on some nopalitos as we descended. A dull ache settled behind my eyes, the first warning that I needed more water, but we were heading to a place that shimmered in greenness. I did not worry about preserving water for the next day, so I allowed myself a number of big gulps until my belly sloshed when I moved.

  I reached into the band of my breeches.

  I brushed my fingers over the edge of the leather.

  I reminde
d myself again of what I was doing.

  I was seeking freedom from this curse.

  The pain would be worth it.

  The stories that I held had been quiet for most of the day, but at the thought of purging myself of this power, they awoke, if only to find a place deeper within my body to hide.

  It would not be much longer before I was free.

  I clung to that idea. To hope. I ignored the pain—the throbbing in my head, the cramps in the lower half of my abdomen, the soreness that settled over my legs—because there was a purpose to this all.

  “Do you have a plan, Emilia?”

  She swallowed the nopales she had been chewing on. “¿Para qué?”

  “After.”

  We rounded another switchback on the trail, our soles pounding against that packed dirt. She wiped sweat away from her eyes before answering. “To see the world,” she said. “As much of it as I can.”

  “How?” I asked. “I always hear how dangerous it is in the desert. Don’t you want to settle down somewhere? Build a new home?”

  “I’ve basically been in one place my whole life until maybe a year ago,” she said. “I’m not ready for something like that. Not yet, at least.”

  I had been in a single place for sixteen years. There was a part of me that understood what she meant, but it was still a discomforting idea, something jagged that rubbed me raw the more I thought about it. Could I spend my life traveling the desert? I thought of los viajeros, who traveled from aldea to aldea, selling and trading and giving stories. That was their normal.

  Maybe it was time for me to change my perspective.

  You were far in the west by the time we made it to the bottom of la montaña, and we were shrouded in its shadow. Emilia was now more sure of where to go, and she directed me to skirt the edge of the nearest field, the ground a deep brown, green sprouts of something shooting toward the sky, reaching up to You.

  We came upon two new fields split by the road, and there were some sort of beans growing to the left, calabazas to our right. My mouth watered at the thought of a calabaza cut open, roasted over a fire until the seeds were a dark brown. Mamá would add azúcar to them as they cooled, and we would eat the flesh out of them while watching las estrellas come out.