Each of Us a Desert

by Mark Oshiro

  “Where did they go?” Eduardo asked. “What is this place?”

  “Solado,” Danilo told him. “Es mejor en el otro lado.”

  “What’s on the other side?”

  Danilo grinned. “You don’t need to know.”

  Then he handed over a cut of the money.

  It was more than Eduardo had ever seen in his whole life.

  He promised himself he would guide people to Solado only until he had enough money to escape, to pay off the debt his papá owed, and then he would go south, far away from Obregán and los coyotes. To be himself, alone, instead of something forced on him. He met a woman in El Mercado de Obregán, a cuentista, who told him of a place in the south that she had come to love, and he made it his mission. He would work as a coyote until he did not have to.

  Then he would be free.

  So he took people north, over las montañas, through los valles, and he kept them alive as best as he could. He lost someone on his second trip; a man made the mistake of believing the illusion of water that you, Solís, so often gave those who crossed your deserts. They were near the end when one of the travelers became convinced that he had found El Mar, and he ran off the trail, deeper into the desert to the east, and by the time Eduardo chased him down, he was shoveling handfuls of dirt into his mouth, swallowing it, and then he pitched forward, and he was dead.

  Four people turned back at that point.

  Then, when he reached La Reina, he tried to go around the western side of la ciudad. He did not want to torment those who had seen one of their compañeros die. Danilo had explained that cutting through La Reina saved nearly half a day, but Eduardo was positive he could make up that time and spare everyone from what La Reina showed them.

  But there, at the western boundary of La Reina, Eduardo met a line of the dead.

  They forced the group of travelers into la ciudad.

  And once again, his entire party gave up.

  Eduardo’s contact at Solado was so disappointed, so enraged when Eduardo arrived alone that he threatened to kill him on the spot. Eduardo wanted him to do it, but then he broke down, begged the man to let him keep working and pay off his debt.

  He was given a warning: if he did not bring at least five healthy adults or teenagers every time he made the journey north, he would be slain. Simple as that.

  Eduardo then believed he had no choice.

  But he wanted to try something different. On his third trip, in the shadows of el maíz that belonged to Jorge, he offered the travelers the truth. He told everyone what was beyond Las Montañas de Solís, he told them the price they had to pay, and he said that he’d rather they know then so that they could make a better decision. He believed that his honesty would keep them trusting and believing in him, willing to follow his lead.

  They did not see it that way. Eduardo tried to chase after the people who had decided to head back. He got lost in those fields that night, and returned to Obregán the next morning, dejected.

  But determined.

  He found seven people by himself for his next trip, and he handed them over to the men in white at Solado two and a half days later.

  Seven bodies.

  All the more closer to paying off his debt.

  So Eduardo got better. Quicker. He found it easy to portray himself as tender, as being deeply interested in the reasons why so many people were leaving their homes and aldeas and heading north. He began to tell more and more people in Obregán of the promises of Solado. “No one ever comes back,” he would say. “That’s how wealthy they are becoming.”

  Then he would take more of them across the desert, through La Reina, and those who survived—and nearly all of them did—paid their price. They vanished before Eduardo’s eyes. He was given his cut of the fee.

  And he went back home to do it all over again.

  The money kept growing. The people kept coming, too, and within a year, coyotes were in higher demand in Obregán. Most went to las aldeas to the east and west, but the news of Solado—its jobs, its promise of a bright future, its appeal that seemed to keep anyone from returning—spread far within Obregán.

  And no one distrusted Eduardo. The deeper he fell into this role, the more he felt as though he had discovered what he was always meant to do. He convinced himself that en el otro lado, life was better. He had never seen Solado, had never made the crossing himself, but he believed the price was worth it.

  Two years in, the families started coming, asking for passage to the land of opportunity. Eduardo finally delivered a family of eight to the men in white, but they accepted only seven of them. Solado had started restricting who could enter, and a boy named Carlito was denied passage.

  “Find us only those who can work,” the man said, his voice muffled by his horrible mask, his accent sloppy and rough. “No familias. No niños.”

  Carlito had screamed as his parents were taken away, and Eduardo did not know what to do with a child. Could he take Carlito back to Obregán? Eduardo only had enough food for himself. He knew the old wall that protected La Reina still stood, knew that there was a stream underground that he had used for water on his journeys. So he convinced Carlito to hide there until he could bring him more supplies, and then he would do his best to reunite him with his family.

  But Eduardo learned that people fled their homes for so many reasons: Conflicts. Abuse. Terror. Hunger. A lack of jobs. They fled because they believed that things were better elsewhere, that you, Solís, would bless their desire to take things into their own hands. They kept bringing their children, hoping they could all have a better life.

  And Eduardo … well, he needed the money.

  So he took the children, left them at the wall, and two became six, became ten, became twenty, became …

  He didn’t truly give it too much thought. He would fix this, he told himself.

  After he paid his debt.

  They first came to him months ago, before Carlito disappeared, before Eduardo began to question what he was told. It was within a dream first: a large black gato, bigger than anything Eduardo had ever seen. He was somehow back in his home in Obregán; his parents were nowhere in sight, but he sensed they were just outside the door, whispering about him.

  Eduardo, the guardian said. We have come to you for help.

  He asked them to take him far away from this place, far from parents who did not seem to care about him.

  Focus, joven. You have been taking people to Solado. We need you to stop.

  He refused. He was so close. So close to being free.

  They are taking us. They are stealing guardians and corrupting them.

  He didn’t care. He had never seen a guardian before; they had never spoken to him.

  The guardian stepped closer, and he could smell the blood on their breath.

  You are sending them all to their death, Eduardo.

  He tried to turn away, but could not. His body was stone. “That can’t be true,” said Eduardo. “They go to work there, to find a better life.”

  Solado is not what you think it is, the guardian warned. Their bodies, their minds, their spirits … they all go there to die.

  And then the guardian lifted their paw.

  Placed it delicately on his chest.

  And he suddenly knew.

  He knew everything.

  He saw the people he had delivered to Solado; saw how los sabuesos were used to torment them, to hold their lives in a delicate balance; watched los pálidos reap the benefits from the hard work of a people who were frightened, terrified, who did not realize what price they paid when they journeyed to paradise.

  Los pálidos stole what was not theirs, the guardian explained. They could not survive in the world that Solís left behind, so they deceived. They manipulated. They demanded. And now, they thrive from the exploitation of others.

  And they want more and more and more and more.

  Guilt spread in Eduardo, like rainwater rushing over the dry creek beds. “But they chose to go,” he
said, and even as the words left his mouth, he did not believe them.

  You do not tell them the truth.

  But did Eduardo even know the truth? This was un sueño, nothing more. What was really on the other side? Did anyone actually know?

  And yet, you keep taking them there, lying to them and to yourself. If you do not stop, we will be unable to protect the children of La Reina Nueva.

  “How is that possible?” Eduardo cried.

  They have stolen Solado. They have corrupted what is sacred. And soon, los pálidos will unleash it upon the world. You have to stop them.

  “But how?”

  The guardian lunged.

  And Eduardo awoke, awash in sweat, his mind and body racing with terror.

  He did not do as he was asked. He discounted it all as nothing but a manifestation of his fears and his anxieties, and he set out from Obregán that day with a new group. Six people, four of them without children, and the fifth was a mother with a seventeen-year-old son, old enough to work. They made the difficult crossing to Solado in two and a half days without incident. At la frontera de Solado, they each paid their fee.

  They held out their arm.

  A vial flashed in the sunlight.

  The masked men took their blood.

  And then they took a step forward and disappeared into their new home.

  The mother and son were all that was left. The boy offered up his arm for payment, and upon taking his blood, the man in the white cloak began to shake his head. “No, no, no,” he muttered, and he rounded on Eduardo, grabbed him by the camisa with a gloved hand. “I told you, they have to be older. He is too young.”

  “He’s seventeen!” Eduardo shouted, trying to free himself. He’d never been this close to one of the men who ran Solado, and now, he could see this person’s eyes: bright green, surrounded by impossibly pale skin. Was this man sick? Cursed?

  Something worse?

  “No, he’s not!” the man sputtered. “Too young.”

  He threw Eduardo to the ground, then shoved the boy aside. He grabbed the mother’s arm, withdrew her blood, and tried to yank her forward.

  She realized what was happening immediately.

  “No, no, he comes with me!” she screamed, and suddenly, her son had her other arm.

  “He is still a child! He is not old enough to work here!”

  Eduardo stared at her in alarm. “Did you lie to me?” he cried out.

  “He has to come with me,” she begged, tugging her son closer. “He’s fourteen. But he is a good worker and—”

  The second masked man ripped the two of them apart.

  The son screeched loudly.

  And plowed into the man who had separated them.

  He began to pummel him with his balled fists, and the man struggled to get the boy off him, and Eduardo stood there, unsure what to do and—

  The boy ripped off the mask.

  Eduardo heard the gasping first, but then couldn’t believe what he watched unfold.

  The man’s skin was pale, paler than any human he’d ever seen, but only for a moment, as it began to turn red, a deep, terrible color, and the stranger clawed at his face, and the boy rolled off him, horrified.

  The man tried to find his mask.

  He tried to put it on.

  His skin blistered over his cheeks, and the most awful shriek erupted from his pink lips as the skin split and bled and then he collapsed, and the three of them stood there, unmoving, silent, as the other masked man whimpered next to them.

  The guardian had not lied to Eduardo. Los pálidos could not survive in the world.

  They simply appeared. Two of them in full suits and frightening masks, and they raised blades, curved like those Eduardo had seen on Jorge’s granja, and they cut down mother and son, their bodies crumpling, severed, and neither made any sound. Eduardo heard their life leaking out of them, heard the desert gulping up the blood.

  One of them got in his face, their eyes flaring in anger.

  “No children,” he said. “Don’t screw this up this time.”

  The other handed Eduardo his payment, short the money from the two bodies he did not deliver, and then they grabbed the corpse of the burned one and dragged it across the barrier.

  Eduardo had believed this was one of his last trips. But now … he was under his goal. He did the sums in his head: five. Five more bodies … and he would be free.

  But now he could not deny what he had been told and what he had seen. What else was true? What if all of it was?

  He made his journey home, more confused than ever before.

  The guardians then came to him outside of a dream.

  He was just north of the gates to Obregán, having spent two days in a fever state of exhaustion and terror, unable to get the images out of his mind. The blistering body. The family, cut down so savagely. The same gato slunk out of the shadows and stood in his path. Eduardo believed he was delirious from the heat, but then he heard the guardian inside his head.

  Eduardo, the time has arrived, they said. We can help you if you help us.

  “You’re real?” he asked.

  The guardian growled, and Eduardo sensed that there were many eyes on him. He looked up and into the faces of countless other guardians, their pupils glowing.

  Yes, we are real, they said. Get another group. Take them north to Solado. Send them through. And when you have received your payment, step into the barrier and stay between it.

  “Between it?” He swallowed, hard. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  Your body, they said. Use your body for something good, to stop una pesadilla monstruosa. We will begin the cleansing. You know where the barrier begins and ends?

  He nodded. He knew the exact spot.

  Three days, the guardian said. You will see us again in three days.

  They ran off into the desert and into the shadows.

  Eduardo had made so many choices up until that point because of his papá. Because of his mamá. Because of circumstances he had never asked to be a part of. Because life seemed to force him into one disaster after another. Who cared what he wanted?

  Something was wrong with Solado.

  It was rotten.

  Maybe he knew the whole time. Maybe that first instance, when he saw how frightened the people were to give up their blood, he had known. The guilt sank in him. He had known this was wrong, hadn’t he?

  And he had kept delivering them to their death, to a life of unending servitude.

  His resolve was swollen with bitterness. He was tired of doing as the senior coyotes asked of him. He was tired of walking across the desert, of handing most of his earnings to men who believed Eduardo owed them something, of letting his whole life have meaning to other people.

  He was going to end this. He had to.

  He gathered the five worst people he could find in Obregán that night. He reasoned that if he was going to give them over to Solado willingly, he wanted to do so with the least amount of guilt left in his spirit. And it wasn’t hard to locate them: Un ladrón. A cuentista who sold his power for an absurd rate. Two brothers, both of whom loved to cheat their workers out of money. A woman whose cures and potions were all watered down or fake. All of them refused to pay Eduardo’s full rate, each for various reasons: He was too expensive. They didn’t have enough money. So-and-so’s brother in Solado would pay the other half. That one made Eduardo laugh. No one ever came out of Solado.

  And yet, that was all he could think of when he went to sleep that night. Where did all those people go?

  He knew now.

  They set out the next morning, and Eduardo spoke only when he had to. He gave directions. He warned them when they drifted off course, or when they hadn’t drunk enough water.

  He stewed in his building terror, but allowed the reminder to flood his heart:

  He was choosing this for himself.

  Sure, he might be helping others, but he was tired of being pushed around, of being collateral damage,
of existing only to be the forgotten one.

  This was it.

  This had to be the end.

  He delivered them all to the masked men in Solado.

  They each paid the price.

  They all vanished.

  And when the last of the men walked through, when the money was in Eduardo’s hand, he took a deep breath, and he stepped forward.

  Once.

  Twice.

  And then he felt it.

  His skin prickled, all over, from head to toe, and then it pressed down on him.

  One of the masked men managed to get out only a few words. “What are you do—?”

  The roar came from behind Eduardo, and then the body to his right hit the ground.

  He watched as a guardian—its coat yellow and brown and black—tore at the masked man’s throat, ripping it out, the blood spraying all over the arid soil, and the voice rang out in his head.

  DO NOT MOVE, EDUARDO. HOLD YOUR POSITION.

  The pressure on his head was immense, like stones were being balanced on top of him, each one heavier than the last. He nearly shut his eyes, but another body flopped onto the ground in pieces.

  The two masked men were dead.

  And the guardians streamed by.

  He’d lost count of them while trying to focus on staying still. Tears stung his eyes, and his skull was going to crush under the weight. “Hurry!” he called out. “I can’t hold it much longer!”

  You have done well, Eduardo, the guardian said. Do not bring anyone here again.

  But Eduardo screamed, the barrier crushing down on him, and he fell forward in pain. The guardian rushed over to him, licked his hair over and over again. Get up, they said. You are on the wrong side.

  Eduardo panted, his head throbbing. “The wrong side of what?”

  The guardian nuzzled Eduardo, purring loudly. The barrier has closed behind you.

  Eduardo bolted upright and thrust his hand out and—

  He hit something solid.

  He could not see it.

  But it was there.

  He watched as they descended into a gigantic, dark hole in the earth, one that had not been there moments before. “No, wait!” he cried out, and he followed them, down, down, into the darkness, where the air was cooler, and he stumbled, his head still pounding something fierce, and the noise rushed toward him, a terrible din of screams and growls and shrieks, and one of them stumbled out of a passage to his right. Their hands were up in a defensive posture, and then a guardian pinned them to the wall, ripped off their arm, and Eduardo had never seen so much blood, never heard so much violence and pain. The redness stained the white cloak the person wore.