The Border

by Steve Schafer

  “Okay,” she says, as though she’s already feeling what I’m about to do.

  I feel for the bullet hole. She squeals under her breath. I want to yell for her. I wrap my shirt around her leg and tie it down as hard as I can.

  “That’s not wrapping it, that’s a tourniquet!” Marcos says.

  “We have to stop the bleeding,” I say.

  “She’s going to lose her leg!”

  “She’s going to lose more than that if she doesn’t stop bleeding.” Immediately, I wish I hadn’t said this.

  “He’s right, Marcos,” Gladys says. “It’s okay.” There’s strength in her voice, but I can tell that’s not really what she wants to say.

  “We need to get farther away without her losing more blood. We can clean it and rewrap it later,” I say.

  But it’s a lie. We don’t have any water to wash out her wound. We don’t have anything remotely clean to press against it. And I have no clue what I’m doing. I only know we have to stop the bleeding.

  I hoist her onto my back.

  “No, I’ll do it,” Marcos says.

  “We’ll take turns,” I answer.

  She wraps her arms around my shoulders and I bend forward. Her tears roll down my neck, and her heavy breaths slap against my ear.

  Each step is a small lunge. My legs burn with the fury of the midday sun. When I think it’s too much, I focus on her breathing. I sync mine to hers. I think of what she would do for me.

  She whispers this love to me from time to time. “Te quiero, Pato. Te quiero.”

  I’ll fall before I stop.

  Grunt by grunt, we make our escape, stumbling away from a quick death and out toward a slow one.

  • • •

  “I think it’s time to stop,” she whispers in my ear. “We’re far enough away.”

  We’ve only been walking for fifteen minutes, but they’ve been crippling. My thighs ache like never before. I’ve carried Gladys the whole way. Arbo simply couldn’t do it, and I didn’t want to give Marcos the satisfaction of helping. He created this mess. But it’s not like he could have helped anyway—he’s a sniveling wreck.

  I put my hand on her lower leg. It’s soaked. Fresh blood still drips down.

  I want to burst into tears.

  “Gladys wants to stop,” I say. “We need to get out of this gully in case they’re following us.”

  I don’t wait for a response. I turn to the side and climb up the shallow embankment.

  The others follow.

  Twenty meters of agonizing shuffles later, I crumble. I’ve hit my wall. Gladys rolls off me toward her good leg, while Marcos and Arbo help guide her down. We elevate her leg on a pack. Marcos cradles her head. It’s a familiar scene, rearranged in all the wrong ways.

  “What are we going to do now?” Marcos asks. It’s not directed to anybody. It’s rhetorical, and hopeless.

  I don’t have an answer.

  I shine the watch light on her leg. The shirt is drenched.

  “Should we wash off her leg?” Marcos asks.

  “We don’t have any water,” I say.

  “You didn’t get the water?”

  “No. I got a little distracted, okay?”

  This was my role in the plan. In the commotion, I forgot about it. That I could forget about water after all we’ve been through out here is unthinkable, but then, so is this. And I don’t think that water will solve her biggest problem right now.

  “Give me your shirt, Marcos,” I say.

  “Please don’t touch it again,” Gladys pleads.

  “We have to stop the bleeding, or else…” I can’t finish the sentence.

  “Pato, I don’t think…” she says, unable to finish hers too.

  “Don’t let her die, Pato,” Marcos says, handing me his shirt.

  “Nobody’s going to die, okay?” I say. “I’m just going to put more pressure on it. Not much.”

  I turn off the light, leaving us once again under the faint glow of the stars. I push lightly into her leg and she inhales a painful breath.

  Marcos leans over in the darkness and grumbles in my ear. “You have to save her. If we get out, you’ve got my blessing. You got that?”

  I don’t answer.

  I don’t know why this is on me. I don’t want this responsibility. If anything, it should be on him.

  “Look at the stars,” Gladys says. “They’re amazing.”

  “You told me not to do it,” Marcos says. “You said revenge wasn’t as important as getting away. You knew. And I did it anyway! What the hell was I thinking? Could I be a bigger pendejo?”

  “It’s not your fault,” Gladys says. Her voice strains to get to a whisper.

  Of course it is! Now that we’re “safely” away, I want to reach out through the darkness and strangle him. But it’s not worth it. For Gladys. For us. Blame won’t change what happened. It won’t get us out of the desert. It won’t make anything better.

  “Of course it is!” Marcos says. “All we had to do was escape. Quietly. That’s it. And I couldn’t do it. I could have let him run by, but I had to show him what I thought of him.” The wet words slobber out of his mouth. “I’m such a pinche pendejo! I’m supposed to look out for you. And now you’re…you’re…”

  “It’s going to be okay,” she insists. “I love you. No matter what happens.”

  There is peacefulness to her voice. Like she’s happy. This is what she wanted. She’s traded places with Marcos. And I’d trade places with her, if I could.

  I’d like to say this revelation makes me feel better. It doesn’t.

  “We need to get help,” Marcos says.

  Nobody answers. There is no help. We are all we have.

  “Did you hear me?” he asks.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” he says.

  I reach for Gladys’s hand. She squeezes it like she never wants to let go. I squeeze back. All I want is a moment alone with her. Leave it to my best friend to understand this.

  “Let’s take a look around, Marcos,” Arbo says.

  “For what?”

  “For anything. We’re looking for a miracle at this point. Maybe we can at least find a rock to climb on to see if there is anything around here.”

  There is a pause while Marcos thinks it over.

  “Or, we could sit here and do nothing,” Arbo adds.

  Marcos kisses Gladys’s forehead.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he says.

  The blue light fades out into the night. I ball up my pack and put it under her head.

  “P-P-Pato,” Gladys says.

  I lay my head on her shoulder. “I don’t know what to say. I feel like I should have the perfect words, but all I want to do is cry.”

  “Don’t. I found it again. Beauty. Art. This place. Look at where we are.”

  “I need to put pressure on your leg again.”

  “You just did,” she says. “It can wait a few minutes. Let’s look at the stars for a while.”

  I feel her arm gesture upward, and I track it with my eyes.

  “They’re amazing. I could stare at them forever,” she says.

  “I could too.”

  “Show me a constellation.”

  “I don’t really know the official ones. I only know the ones that we made up.”

  “So show me one of those.”

  The first one I spot is directly overhead. I smile. I hope she can sense it.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Why?”

  “Right above us is the Wrestler.”

  She lets out a soft, airy laugh.

  “Where? How?”

  I press my cheek to hers, raise her arm into the air, and point with her finger.

  “You see thos
e four stars that look like a box?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s his head. Then, go down to the left and to the right. You see the brighter stars there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You make a triangle from his head to those lines and that’s his cape.”

  “Where is his body?”

  “He doesn’t have one. He’s a head and a cape. That’s it.”

  “What about that star down there? That could be his leg.”

  “Then he only has one leg.”

  “I hope you don’t have a problem with that,” she says, pinching at my neck.

  Ugh.

  “I’d take you with no legs.”

  “Like your wrestler. Are there others?”

  “Yeah. They’re mostly Revo stuff though.”

  “We should make our own,” she says.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Let’s do it now.”

  “Okay. You’re the artist. What should we make?”

  “I don’t make it. It’s already there. I’m just open to seeing it. But I don’t think it should be something random. It should be something meaningful to us.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “We’ll know when we see it.”

  “It’s a big sky. Where do you want to look?”

  “North.”

  I roll fully onto my back and lay my head in the crook between her chest and shoulder. My head rises and falls with each breath she takes. We stare together into the endless possibilities.

  “I’ve got it,” she says. “It’s perfect.”

  “Where?”

  She guides my hand and points. “Do you see it?”

  I stare at the jumbled mess above and fail to connect any meaning from the shape.

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

  “Look from the North Star, up and to the right. You see that other bright star?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, use the stars on top of it and the ones below it… You can make an arc.”

  “Yeah, I see it. It kind of looks like a C.”

  “Except it’s not a C.”

  “What is it then?”

  She takes my hand back down and places it onto her chest. My palm wraps around her breast.

  “Do you need another hint?”

  “It’s a boob?”

  “Just one.”

  “I love it.”

  “Thanks. It’s ours now. Forever.”

  “I have an idea,” I say.

  “Okay…”

  “You see that reddish star way below the boob?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think that’s her leg.”

  “Her one leg?”

  “Yeah. Her one leg.”

  “I love you, Pato.”

  “Me too. Yo te amo también. So much.”

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “For making the worst week of my life one of the best.”

  We kiss. Salty tears roll into our mouths and moisten our lips.

  “I need you to make it,” she says.

  “Don’t say that. You’re going to make it with me.”

  “Pato…”

  “Stop!” I whisper.

  “It’s okay. You’ve made it okay. You’ve made it great.”

  “You promised me. Remember?”

  “I’m going to be with you. In here.” She touches my chest. “In here.” She touches my head. “And out there.” She points to the stars.

  “Don’t do this. Please. I can’t make it without you.”

  “You can. And I need you to. You have to help Marcos.”

  “This is all his fault,” I say.

  “Don’t take this out on him. Please. I need you to help him. We all did our best. It’s not any of our faults. We were just caught in the middle.”

  She presses her palm to my cheek. I nod. I’m sobbing over her. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to accept this.

  I feel her hand begin to slip. Softly, I press my forehead to hers.

  “Thank you too,” I whisper to her.

  She tries to whisper back, but the words slur, sliding out in a slow, draining breath. Her last.

  Footsteps approach along with the soft, blue glow of the watch.

  “How is she?” Marcos asks.

  I pull away and stand.

  Marcos moves closer to her.

  I walk away.

  “Gladys?”

  I walk.

  “Gladys?”

  I stop. There’s nowhere else to go. I have to face it.

  “Gladys! No! No!” His voice booms. If anyone is nearby, they surely hear it. And I don’t care.

  “What did you do to her?” he screams.

  “I couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.”

  “No! Save her. Now!”

  “She’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “No! She can’t be!”

  “Marcos…”

  “Don’t give me that. You were supposed to save her. We were gone for five minutes. What did you do?”

  “Nothing!”

  He reaches for his shirt on the ground and hurls it at me.

  “You didn’t wrap her leg?”

  “She was dying, Marcos.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t have if you had done what you were supposed to do. ¡Cabrón!”

  “I didn’t want to put her in more pain.”

  “Well, congratulations. I’m glad it was easier on you. And now she’s dead because of it!”

  “Stop yelling at him!” Arbo says. “He didn’t kill her.”

  “Stay out of this,” Marcos says.

  Arbo tries to answer, but I cut him off. “You’re blaming me?”

  “You were the one who was with her. And what about water? Why didn’t you grab the water?”

  “She didn’t die from thirst. You know why she’s dead? Because of you! You got her killed!”

  “Don’t say that! He shot her. Not me.”

  “No! You said it yourself—all you had to do was walk away. And you couldn’t. And now she’s dead!”

  “Stop!”

  “No! You need to know it. You need to live with it.” Even as the words come out, I can’t believe I’m saying them. It’s the last thing she’d want—it was even her dying wish that I help him—but I can’t stop myself. The wound is too deep. “I hate you! You’ve been an hijo de puta cabrón this whole trip. And now you’ve killed her. It should be you! I wish it were you!”

  He shoves me so hard my feet leave the ground. I land flat on my back, breathless. I pick up my head, unable to charge back but still trying.

  Arbo whimpers. He’s on the fringe, in tears.

  It’s ripping us all apart.

  I stare at the shadowy outline of Marcos with the same fury I bore into Rafa in the backyard. And I’m back to wishing it had all ended there, so I wouldn’t have to be where I am right now.

  Vultures

  Denial prevents all conversation. To talk about her death is to acknowledge it. To talk about anything else would be…absurd.

  It’s as if we’ve all been thrust outside the backyard again, only this time there’s no urgent reason to leave—no danger to run from and no safety to run toward. So we sit, immobile, slowly moving toward wherever Gladys is now.

  La Frontera has won. The desert has won. At this moment, I think of them as one—a boundless, gripping, unforgiving, armed force that will not cease until we’re all dead.

  I don’t see a way out, but I’m not looking hard either. I don’t have it in me. If I look anywhere, it’s to the newest constellation in the sky, but I can’t stare at it for long. It’s a reminder of a future I no longer ha
ve. If I have one at all.

  • • •

  “Do you hear that?” Arbo whispers.

  Low voices come from the direction of the creek bed.

  “Yeah,” I answer back.

  “Do you think that’s them looking for us?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  I reach in my pack for the gun and wrap my hand around the cool metal. I’d never held a gun before in my life, and in the past few hours, I’ve done it twice. I slide it out of the pack and turn softly toward the noise. I see several quick pulses of a flashlight. I wonder if they tracked the blood. I soften my breathing. We fall silent and listen.

  The sounds fade into the distance.

  Whether they’re people like us passing through or people hunting us down, it’s impossible to say. I don’t think we have it in us to move anywhere tonight, but if anyone had been considering it, this puts a hard stop to those thoughts. We’re better off remaining still.

  Dawn is many hours away. I keep the gun outside the pack, reaching for it every time the desert rustles. It’s a long night.

  • • •

  Fiery streams of reds and yellows spill in from the east, warning of what’s to come. The morning shadows stretch over us. The mountains have moved slightly farther away, and the bushes are a bit sparser, leaving open gaps of nothing. Everything else looks the same as yesterday. The same as every day.

  Arbo lies near me, on his side. He looks less like he’s sleeping and more like he’s passed out in the same surrendered pose we found Sr. Ortíz in when we first walked into his house.

  Marcos is awake, holding Gladys’s head off the ground and cradling it, just as he has all night. He rocks back and forth, looking down into her lifeless eyes.

  I don’t think either of us slept.

  I look at her body in the soft light, and all I want to do is hold it like he is. I want to walk over and touch her once more. But I can’t. It’s not even worth trying.

  I think a million things as I stare at her. I think about our plan. I blame Marcos. I blame myself. I question whether she’s really gone. I want to try ridiculous things, like giving her water that we don’t have. Maybe Marcos was right, and that’s all she needs… A few sips and she’ll be okay. I talk myself out of the absurd. I think of what she’d do right now. She wouldn’t be festering in this misery. I try to imagine what she would tell me at this moment, but I’m no good at it. All it makes me do is wish she were here to tell me herself.