Both Sides

by Gabino Iglesias

  He lost too much daylight arguing with Josef and Joaquin, which may have been part of their plan all along. He hoped to call their bluff by striking out on his own, but they simply watched him climb higher.

  He can’t believe they’ve left him out here.

  But it was his anger, his ego alone, that goaded him into this, and he’s going to get seriously hurt if he doesn’t turn back.

  He clings to a small stone lip, using his Surefire to sweep for more handholds, any sort of safe path, up or down. Flecks of mica reflect silver and gold in the bright beam, and it’s no wonder Coronado once imagined the Seven Cities of Cibola were here.

  The mystical Quivira.

  Nico hopes the mountain doesn’t swallow him whole.

  He doesn’t know if the Wolves are still somewhere behind him, but he has an audience of a thousand stars now. They’re rising in the east, a vast, breathtaking sweep of them, and it’s beautiful in a way he can’t describe. Between the storms and the stars and the vast desert below, it’s easy to imagine you have the whole world to yourself. It’s easy to imagine getting lost here. But Kitt Peak National Observatory isn’t that far off, and he wonders if there’s some astronomer, staring at all these same stars right now through one of their giant telescopes.

  Nico doesn’t need a telescope. High up on Waw Kiwulik, the stars flicker close enough to touch, to grab and hold onto.

  Maybe they’ll keep him from falling.

  But even as he looks on, they suddenly, eerily, start to disappear, flickering out for good, one after another.

  It’s like the sky, rather than the mountain, is swallowing them. And when a bright, actinic spark erupts on the horizon, illuminating the rolling clouds from earlier, he knows why.

  The monsoon hits him with its full force only a few minutes later.

  The wind nearly lifts him off Waw Kiwulik and cold water runs like tears down the mountain’s face.

  Battered, Nico more or less simply lets go and slides down through scrub and shale as lightning, closer now, shreds the night again and again.

  The sky is a series of black and white snapshots, one incredible photograph after another that no one will ever see.

  Nico scramble to his feet but then stumbles and falls, slipping into a darkened crevasse, a spider hole, that closes over him and holds him tight like a fist.

  He struggles to get loose, to pry himself free, but the AR-15 on his back and his heavy pack and other useless gear act like a wedge, jamming him tight in place.

  His boots can’t even touch the bottom and he’s suspended above an infinite hole.

  Tortoise got wedged.

  He doesn’t want to panic but can’t stop himself. Rainwater runs into his mouth and he remembers, for no reason at all, that he never wanted to be in this place and didn’t always want to be a cop, or an agent, either.

  He thought about teaching history, once upon a time.

  A lifetime ago.

  Now more lightning, nearly blinding, until a massive figure looms over him, blocking out the torrential storm, standing high above Waw Kiwulik.

  Impossible, mythical.

  I’itoi.

  But no…not I’itoi. Not Elder Brother.

  Just Josef. And at his side…

  A girl.

  A young O’odham girl, soaked to the bone, with braids in her hair.

  Rabbit.

  She’s led the Wolves here to him, probably saved his life, but by the time Joaquin and Navarro and Josef pull Nico out of the hole, she’s gone.

  Maybe she was never there at all.

  Two days later Nico and Joaquin sit in Nico’s Durango, AC blasting.

  It does little to beat back the stifling heat outside, the bright sun flare on the windshield.

  It does nothing to make the clustered buildings here in Sells look any better; a stark contrast of both the beauty and barrenness of the reservation.

  No one lives here untouched, unscathed, and every family has its own stories.

  And Nico knows most of the story now.

  Joaquin’s told him all about the girl, Alena, Josef’s fifteen-year-old niece; daughter of his sister, married to a Mexican narco sitting in a cell in Florence, Arizona.

  Those old smuggling ties in Josef’s family still run deep, as deep as his sister’s addictions, who’s struggled with meth and pills for years. Despite all of Josef’s efforts and support, Alena took it upon herself to keep her family afloat with the money she could make out in the desert; the eyes and ears for the Mexican cartels.

  She learned tracking early from Josef himself and she was damn good at it.

  And if things had been different, different choices made, she might have been Wolf herself, and not a rabbit at all.

  Nico hopes she still can be.

  He’s not sure she ever truly was.

  Nico’s going back to Charlotte for a while.

  Maybe a long while, he doesn’t know yet.

  The team is Quino’s now, even if doesn’t want it.

  Joaquin says, “I’ve got something for you. Actually, it’s from Josef. Something he wanted you to have.”

  From a folded bandana, Joaquin pulls out a piece shale and painted on it is the maze of life.

  “The rock is from Waw Kiwulik, right where we found you.”

  Nico takes it and weighs it in his hand. It’s heavy, solid.

  “Tell him thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “I will.” Joaquin watches a kid on a bike race through the dust. He rolls down the window, letting in the full force of the sun and heat. He shouts something after the kid in both Spanish and O’odham and the boy waves him off with a hand.

  Nico thinks he even flipped Joaquin the finger, but Quino only laughs, and rolls the window back up again.

  “What’d you to say him?”

  “I told him to slow down, to be careful.”

  “You too,” Nico says. “Be careful.”

  Joaquin smiles. “I will.”

  But Nico knows there’s only so careful Quino can be. It’s dangerous being a tribal cop, breaking up drunken fights, getting caught up in domestic disturbances, dealing with the narcos.

  Nico knows there’s every chance in the world Quino will die young because of the badge he’s wearing.

  But Quino chose this.

  Or maybe, like Nico up on Waw Kiwulik, he just didn’t think he had a choice at all.

  Joaquin, who left the reservation to study literature but ultimately couldn’t leave his people, has understood the truth all along.

  Life really is like a maze…and sometimes every choice, every turn, brings you right back to the start.

  “Josef will want to know if you found what you were looking for up there.”

  “I don’t know,” Nico admits. “I don’t know. Tell him I’m still looking.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Joaquin says, as he shrugs and slips on his own pair of new Oakleys, a gift of the U.S. government.

  “We all are, amigo.”

  EL SOMBRERÓN

  David Bowles

  The late afternoon sun silhouetted the teen as she walked into the shelter at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Pulling her eyes from the distressing news about the 2016 presidential campaign that scrolled across her phone, Sister Ana Lozano smiled and stood. The other nuns, volunteers, and Jesuit priests joined her, applauding and welcoming the new arrival. But the young woman barely registered the cheerful reception, and when Sister Ana drew close, she held out her temporary papers from Customs and Border Protection without a word, staring into space with hollow eyes.

  “Okay…Luisa,” the nun said kindly, referring to the wrinkled sheets to glean the girl’s name. “Let’s get you a quick shower and some dinner. You can rest for a while, too. Then we’ll talk about what comes next.”

  Most of the refugees emerged refreshed and renewed after a few minutes beneath the warm spray of water, dressed in gently-used clothes. However, Luis
a Orellana still appeared numb to the world, glancing about with harrowed expectation as she sipped some broth and bit reflexively into a slice of bread.

  After she had eaten, Sister Ana guided her to a cot, where she sat listlessly for a while, refusing to lie back, until startled, not by any of the loud bustling of others, but by the soft instrumental guitar music that drifted from some volunteer’s phone.

  “Could you,” she whispered hoarsely, “turn that off?”

  Accustomed to the unusual requests of people at their wits’ end, Sister Ana complied with a smile, apologizing to the owner.

  Picking up a brush, she returned to her charge. “Do you mind if I help you with your hair, Luisa? We can chat a bit, discuss your plans and options.”

  Luisa nodded, though she winced when the nun’s fingers touched her long, beautiful hair.

  “So,” Ana began, slowly pulling the brush down that cascade of black, “you’re from Guatemala, aren’t you? Do you have relatives in the US?”

  “Yes. My aunt. She lives in Chicago.”

  “Are you going to wait for other family members before heading that way?” This was often the case with the refugees. They arrived singly or in pairs, joining up in McAllen for the final leg of their trek.

  “No. I’m alone. No one else is coming.”

  Sister Ana drew a sharp breath despite herself. She had heard so many horror stories about the military and the maras that she simply assumed the worst. But Luisa’s head twisted slightly beneath her palms.

  “They’re not dead if that’s what you’re thinking. When I left, everyone was fine. We live in a highland village, close to Lake Atitlán. We’re farmers, and life is pretty peaceful there. Sometimes the guerrillas—or a hurricane—comes smashing into the mountains, but mostly we are left alone with the jungle, the sky and the xocomil winds that sweep off the lake to purify our sins.”

  She fell silent for a time. Ana knew better than to press. The teen would tell what she needed to tell when she was ready to tell it. No use asking too many questions.

  After a few more strokes of the brush, Luisa continued her tale.

  “It was about a year ago when we found the first burro with its mane carefully plaited in small, smooth braids. Everyone knew what this meant. Word spread throughout the entire village, and every unmarried girl or woman age ten or older was given a curfew by the council of elders.”

  Luisa turned her face a bit to look askance into the nun’s eyes.

  “It was el Sombrerón. He had come out of the jungle, looking for a bride.”

  Unbidden, a shiver uncoiled itself along Ana’s spine. She had heard whispers of the ancient goblin from other Central Americans who had passed through Sacred Heart. Short, barefoot, face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, the creature at times ventured from his shadowy home, a guitar slung across his back. Some evenings, legends said, he would lead a pack of mules through a town, hoping to encounter a girl to enchant with his song. If he succeeded, he would ask to braid her hair.

  Once his fingers snarled their way through those tresses, the girl would be his forever.

  Forcing her hands to stop trembling, Sister Ana continued the grooming, chiding herself for being foolish enough to let the folklore of a distant land affect her so. As the sun began to set, she kissed her crucifix and said a silent prayer of thanks for her own blessings.

  “I was always too independent, my mother used to tell me,” Luisa mused wistfully. “Reluctant to obey tradition or accept the guidance of adults. So one night I decided to slip out and sit beneath my favorite tree, staring at the stars and imagining some different destiny.

  “Then I heard the music. The plucked and strummed strings of an old guitar, shimmering and bright like the moonlight. And a voice so pure and lovely that I at first thought some angel had descended from heaven to visit me. When he stepped out of the shadows, though, I saw how wrong I was. It was el Sombrerón, wearing his patchwork clothes and smiling wickedly beneath the brim of a hat that made him seem even smaller and more impish. I wanted to run, but I was frozen in place by the music. He crooned to me sweetly, promising so many things—long life and beauty and adventure. All I had to do was let him braid my hair. ‘A single plait,’ he sang, ‘so delicate and smooth that your parents will never see it.’

  “I heard my mother, then, screaming my name in desperation. The spell was broken. I stood and ran back to my house, weeping. I told my parents everything, and they swore to protect me.”

  Luisa’s eyes welled with tears. “We knew what was at stake. That single braid marks a woman as his, and though he appears to leave, he, in truth, lingers to feed on her despair. He sprinkles her meals with dirt and pebbles till she refuses to eat, wasting away from lack of food and a longing for his lovely voice, his deft little hands. Some survive his torture, but they age much too fast and spend the remainder of their days old and alone, untouched by any love beyond the memory of his songs.”

  The girl’s hair had now dried and hung in a dark, luxurious sheet down her bent back.

  “I tried to hide. But he returned again and again, and his song was harder and harder to resist. Finally, I left without a word, crossing into Mexico and riding la Bestia, that horrible old train, across thousands of kilometers—beaten and mistreated by some, protected and helped by others—just to escape the goblin’s grasp.”

  There was bleak silence for a moment as the implications of her flight curdled in the nun’s ears, almost making her shudder.

  She shrugs off physical abuse as if it’s nothing compared to the darkness she fears. Is it trauma? Is this how she copes, creating a monster to explain away the nightmare she’s faced?

  Sister Ana finally spoke, keeping her doubts about the story to herself. “Well, now you’re here, my dear. Now you’re safe.”

  Notes quavered in the air. Luisa stiffened, but Ana patted the crown of her head.

  “It’s just that volunteer again. I’ll ask him to choose some other sort of music.”

  She didn’t get a chance to stand, however. The notes resolved into a melody, strange and ancient, beautiful beyond description. Then came the voice, soothing and seductive, intoning words in a language Ana could not hope to understand. As she listened, though, she understood, as if the music had sent waves of images and emotions into her very soul.

  He sang of a long-forgotten time, before mankind had lifted lofty temples to the gods, unfurling cities around them. A time when the Little Folk had ruled the world, their magic untrammeled and unrivaled, faithful servants of the Feathered Serpent. Then he sang of their fall, the rise of Man, and the further descent of one rebellious band, damned and disfigured, goblins scheming in the darkness until they had forged an emissary, a seducer, an angel of death.

  El Sombrerón stepped out from behind the dividing curtain, his hands caressing his guitar bewitchingly as he weaved his way through the gloaming toward them. Luisa yanked herself away from the nun, a cry choking in her throat as she stumbled away.

  Sister Ana, however, was transfixed.

  Let me braid your hair, the goblin whispered. A single plait. No one need ever know. I see your yearning, your long and bitter wait for a magic that will strip this empty world away. It can be yours now, Ana. Just let me touch your hair.

  She neither moved nor spoke as he slid his guitar to his back and clambered onto the cot behind her. Part of her was drawn to his seduction. Part of her was struck dumb and immobile by existential fear. But more than anything, she wanted to give Luisa a fighting chance.

  Run, she urged with all her soul. Take that ticket, get on the bus to Chicago. Don’t look back. I’ll give myself to him instead. He’ll have to stay to feed on me. You’ll be safe.

  Humming his ancient melody, el Sombrerón unpinned her grey-streaked hair, which fell loosely to her shoulders.

  Then he took up three strands and began to braid.

  TROUBLE

  Sandra Jackson-Opoku

  1

>   I ain’t never been one for tequila. Back when I was still getting shit-faced, rojo was my thing. I been tussing since I was a shorty, and I’m still short. But thank God and the Department of Corrections, I’m not a syrup head no more. Until two days ago, I hadn’t touched anything stronger than Pepsi in all these years.

  So why is there a monkey mouth in the bunk below me singing “Drunk on a Plane” when it should have been “Locked Up”? And why am I having a blinding hangover with puke at the back of my throat? Y por qué, finalmente, am I locked up again not even a year on the outside?

  It’s because trouble always finds me, no matter where I hide. Trouble in this case, being that gringa La Cindy, smothered to death in her own filthy bed.

  And the trouble that led me there were these red-hot twins whose name is Trouble, even though you don’t spell it that way.

  2

  Credit where credit is due, okay? You can’t say the Robles girls aren’t muy guapa. But don’t even try it with that mulata shit, because ain’t no mules in the family. Black mixed with brown isn’t what people mean by “mulatto”, anyway. The twins call themselves Afro-Latino. I call them superfine.

  Now, I’m not trying to say biracial is better. If you think so, it’s because you got some mixed-race babies at home, you’re a self-hating homey that likes what looks the least like you, or you’re biracial yourself. I ain’t hating on you, tato. If that’s how you roll, then you do you.

  You just need to know it’s “a fairly outmoded and frankly racist notion that has never held water.” I read that in a magazine. Oh, you thought with all these prison tats and Spanglish, I couldn’t spit a word like “outmoded.” Don’t judge a book by the outside, ese. I got my BA when I was in the joint, so I be knowing what I’m talking about.

  They’ve even done studies on it. The theory that biracial people look better don’t got an ant’s dick worth of science. Plus, I seen this online gallery of seriously hideous mixed-race people. I’m talking Julia Patrana, horse-face zombie, la llorona type of ugly. No, I ain’t naming no URLs. What do I look like, Google? If you want to find that shit, look it up for yourself.