Moisés was making his way north across a stretch of rolling dunes. Beyond the dunes were several small hills dotted with cactus. He went up and down with the landscape, finally disappearing beyond the crest of the first hill.
“It’s probably nothing,” Javi said knowingly. “The desert can play tricks on you. It can make you believe things are there that aren’t.
“You know about a mirage, the trick of light,” he continued. “Distances, too, they trick you. Things look closer than they really are. The illusions are everywhere.”
He crawled back to Elena. They both took drinks from Javi’s water supply. My mouth was bone dry and fuzzy, so I checked my own water. Almost half of it was gone. Moisés had done a good job of rationing. I drank thirstily. The rocks cast giant shadows now. I figured we’d been out for twenty-four hours. Muy bien. We’d make it. Moisés had led us into this place, and he would lead us out.
And then, the crack! of a rifle echoed across the desert from the north. Elena’s head jerked up. Javi froze. No more shots followed the first, but fear spread through my arms and legs. I didn’t feel the heat anymore. I was colder than I’d ever been.
“It could be la migra. They could’ve fired a warning shot, perhaps,” said Javi. “But I don’t think it’s the law. It’s the other ones, the militia that Moisés said would be here.” He bent quickly to fold up the tarps and stow the remaining water.
Elena didn’t budge, except for her head. It moved side to side, like radar scanning for signs of life. “Shh!” she said. “Did you hear that? I heard something else!”
No one moved. From the north came the whine of an engine straining to mount a hill. I crawled once more to the edge of the outcropping to search for any sign of Moisés. Coming down the closest hill and across the dunes was an open four-wheel-drive vehicle. An oversized United States flag flew from the antenna.
Two men in military-type camouflage fatigues sat in front. The one in the passenger seat held his rifle ready, the sun reflecting off his wraparound sunglasses. Moisés’s long body lolled across the backseat.
They appeared to be heading straight toward us. I crouched lower. “Don’t move!” I turned to warn Javi and Elena. “Keep down! It’s the militia!”
Not more than one hundred meters from us, the driver turned the vehicle toward the west. Moisés’s head rolled to one side, his eyes closed. He held one hand to his right shoulder where blood oozed from a wound. Cradled in his other arm was his backpack.
I started to get up, but Javi pulled me back. The last thing I saw was Moisés slowly pushing his backpack out of the side of the jeep. It landed with a soft thud on the desert floor.
Javi, Elena, and I sat, unmoving, for many minutes. We waited until we could no longer hear the sound of the engine, until silence descended again on the desert. We stood together and looked to the west. There was no sign of the jeep, not even a hint of dust.
“He threw his backpack out as close as he could to us. It’s over there.” I pointed to the black blob in front of us.
We approached the pack slowly, as if it were alive, and dangerous. A dark circle of wetness spread out around it.
“Es mi agua,” Elena said, pointing at the wet sand. “He had the rest of my water.”
She knelt down, picked up the pack and turned it over easily. The bullet in Moisés’s shoulder had first ripped through both sides of the pack, leaving a hole big enough to put your finger through.
Elena pulled her hands away from the pack. They were rosy pink, a mixture of Moisés’s blood and the water he was carrying, the same colors as the sunset on the western horizon.
CHAPTER 28
It was just the three of us again. I’d started out my journey alone. Elena had made us become two, then Javi had made us become three. Moisés made four. We should have finished as four. I didn’t like the math.
Moisés was gone. Everything he knew about the desert, good and bad, was gone. His water and most of Elena’s was all gone, swallowed by the desert sand. I had less than half of my water, Javi about the same. Water couldn’t be stretched. Even with the best of luck, there was enough for two of us, not three. More math.
We were going to make it, or we weren’t. We were going to live, or we were going to die. So, right off, we broke two of the rules Moises had spelled out for us. First, we sat right on the ground. Second, we talked, more than we had to. Behind the boulders, we made a plan.
“We’ll walk again tonight, as far as we can,” Javi said. “Moisés said to head to the east of that mountain.”
He pointed at the jagged peak that loomed in the distance to the north. One kilometer away? Ten? Twenty? More?
“There, somewhere, is a town, and a highway. West for you two. East for me.”
Javi held out his thumb, as if he were hitching a ride. In Moisés’s pack we’d found some twenty-dollar bills. It seemed like enough to buy us bus tickets or a ride, but who knew?
I didn’t have much experience with dollars. Papá and Mamá could never get enough dollars together to send for us, even when they worked nonstop, day and night. Maybe one of those twenty-dollar bills was like nothing in California. Maybe people carried around dozens of them, big piles of them, just to buy a bit of goat meat or some milk or to put a little gas in the car.
Javi looked to the east. “How far do you think we can see? How far before there’s a river or a stream, any water at all?”
I shrugged. There was nothing to block our view. The sky had turned from dark blue to a blue so deep it was nearly black. There was no hint of the horizon, no clue as to where the desert, or the earth, ended.
“New York is over there, somewhere. If I just walk east, I’ll get there. I’ll see my brother. He’s waiting for me, you know. He’s expecting me, soon. All I have to do is get there.”
Javi stood up and took a few steps eastward. He seemed ready to take off into the darkness at that moment, in the wrong direction.
“Javi.” I rose to stop him.
“You take the lead,” Javi said, turning back to me. “Walk at Moisés’s pace. I’ll keep up. Don’t worry about me. You have to make it tonight … you don’t have a choice.”
“What if we don’t make it?” Elena asked quietly. “What if we get lost, or we run out of water?”
“We’re going to make it, Elena.” I said it as much for my benefit as for hers. I let the possibility of failure creep up from deep in my mind, then pushed the thought back down. Failing now meant dying. “It’s too late to give up now, isn’t it?”
“But what if one of us can’t make it?” Elena persisted. She wanted everything spelled out.
Even in the heat, goose bumps popped up on my arms. Goose bumps, not for a chupacabra or La Llorona or stolen body parts. They were a result of cold, deep fear at having to make a choice that no one should have to make. Escalofríos, no de fantasmas, sino de vida y muerte.
“It’s all of us or none of us,” Elena declared. “We won’t leave anyone behind. We won’t … I won’t. I can’t.”
“It won’t come to that. It doesn’t have to come to that. If worse comes to worst, give yourselves up to la migra.” Javi grabbed the edge of a boulder to steady himself. His breath came again in ragged puffs.
“Look,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. “It’s better to be alive to try again. You’re young. Your whole life is in front of you. If you cross enough times, you’ll make it sooner or later.”
So we set out. Before the moon rose, the night was as black as black could be. I tried to walk quickly but I had to watch every step to avoid a rock or a rut or a cactus in our way. Then, when the moon did rise, we came to terrain crisscrossed with ravines. We slid down the soft earth and sand on one side, picked our way across, and climbed clumsily up the other side.
Javi and Elena grunted behind me as we crossed through our third ravine. The bottom of it was covered with stunted mesquite and chaparral. We had to push our way through thorny branches that punctured our arms, even through our long sleeves.
Deep scratches soon covered my palms and the backs of my hands. Was this the route that Moisés intended to take? Maybe he knew a different path around this part of hell.
But we didn’t stop. After midnight, clouds began to cover the moon. I paused briefly to check our progress. The mountain was still in the right position, but it didn’t look much closer than before. I was disheartened, but I kept it to myself.
More clouds built up across the sky and, to the east, a mighty bolt of lightning cut down to the ground. Thunder followed. I sniffed the air. The smell of newly wet earth reached us. It was raining to the east.
Huge sheets of lightning showed our way briefly, followed by deafening thunder and then complete darkness. We had to stop to let our eyes adjust to the change. Each time, the lightning seemed more blinding. Each time, the darkness seemed darker. The thunder reverberated in my skull and my ribs and my shins.
Then, suddenly, it started to rain. It was a hard, pounding downpour that soaked us within seconds, before we even had a chance to pull out our jackets. We stood and let the water stream over us for several minutes. The storm passed as quickly as it came. It lasted long enough to cool the temperature by maybe thirty degrees. It didn’t last long enough for water to collect, water we needed, badly.
“Now what?” Elena asked me, her teeth chattering wildly.
“Change. We take off the wet shirts and put on our jackets. We’ll dry the shirts tomorrow.” I was making this up as I went along. It seemed like a good thing to do, or the only thing we could do.
So we changed. And we walked, and we walked, and we walked. The ground leveled to a sort of valley. I thought I found a faint trail. It was narrow, but it headed in the right direction. I lengthened my stride, hoping to make up for time we’d lost earlier in the night. I moved to avoid a branch on my left, brushing up against a cactus on the right.
“Ow!” I complained. I rubbed my hand, and the pain intensified. Hundreds of tiny spurs covered my fingers. I bent to see if I could pick them out, but the light was too dim. There were too many anyway.
“Ah, these are the chollas I heard of.” Javi took out his comb and handed it to me. “They penetrate your skin and stick in. Rake them off. It’s the only way.”
A cholla had also attacked Elena. She sniffled in pain but said nothing. We took turns with Javi’s comb many times that night. Every stop cost us precious time and energy.
What was this place trying so hard to protect? Why bother with fences or la migra or militias? The heat, the cold, the snakes, the evil cholla spurs—they all conspired to keep us out or slow us down or outright kill us.
I tried and tried, but I couldn’t seem to find a route straight toward our landmark. Whenever I headed us north, a ravine or cactus or part of a barbed-wire fence made us veer either east or west. Each time, it slowed us down. Twice we ducked down flat and hid when headlights flickered on a dirt road. We believed it was la migra out on patrol.
But I worried most about something else. We were going slowly, yet Javi continued to fall behind. He caught up when we stopped, but each time it took him longer to reach us. The rough terrain had to be hurting his ankle. At dawn, I turned to watch Javi struggle toward us yet again. He limped slightly, but it was more than that. He looked shrunken and wizened, as if the desert were sucking out his insides.
Elena came up right next to me. She squinted her eyes toward the mountain. It now appeared to be several kilometers away. “It looks closer. How much farther, do you think?”
I remembered what Javi said about illusions in the desert. I had no idea how far we had to go. I looked at her, then at me. Our condition was the opposite of illusion. Deep scratches covered our hands, arms, faces. Barbed wire had torn my shirt in front and one knee of my pants. One thorn was deeply embedded in my forearm. It would be infected soon if I didn’t get it out. Elena’s face was badly sunburned. She sat and pulled off her left boot. A blister, broken and leaking fluid, covered her heel.
But the worst part of it all was the thirst. I’d allowed us only small sips of water during the night. But what was it that Moisés said? Something about not getting too thirsty. Something about not saving the water. I couldn’t make sense of that advice. I figured we had enough left for a small amount each. Then it would be gone anyway.
It was early morning and already the sun had no mercy. I didn’t want to think about how hot it was going to get. I pulled out the water and swallowed several small drinks. Elena watched me closely and then took exactly the same amount for herself. Javi barely wet his lips.
“Drink,” Elena and I said together. He put the bottle up to his lips and rolled his head back.
“Listen, you two,” Javi said slowly, stowing his water bottle in his pack. “I have something to tell you.” His usual fast talk had slowed to a crawl. His words slurred together. Everything about him seemed to have slowed down.
“Miguel is in charge now.” He looked at Elena to make his point. “Do what he says.”
Then he seemed to summon something from deep within. He pushed himself up, groaning with each movement. “You’ll make it. I promised, remember? And I’ll be right behind you, every step of the way.”
CHAPTER 29
The sun beat down fiercely and the heat rose up from the ground in wavy, pulsating bands. Once, mid-morning, Javi stopped suddenly. He let his pack slide to the sand and began to fumble with the buttons on his long-sleeved shirt.
“It’s hot,” he mumbled to himself. “I’ll be cooler.”
“No, Javi!” I pulled his hands away from his chest. “Remember what Moisés said?”
Javi wrinkled his brow. “Moisés?” he asked. “Moisés? Oh, yes, him.” But he gave me a puzzled look as I heaved his pack up and placed the straps around his shoulders.
I forced us to go on an hour more, but it was clear we needed rest, Javi more than anyone. The best protection I could find was a scrawny stand of mesquite bushes. They gave poor shade, but it was better than nothing, maybe.
We spread our tarps the way Moisés showed us. I looked around for snakes. Elena looked farther and harder, but even she gave up after a minute or two. A snake seemed like a small thing, or just another thing. It seemed neutral, a part of this place. I didn’t have enough energy to care about a culebra.
I slept off and on. We moved to try to stay in the shade, but more than half of my body stayed out in the sun. I tried to lick my lips but I couldn’t find enough saliva to do it. A steady wind came up that seemed to suck the last bit of water out of my body.
Late in the afternoon, I watched a dusty brown scorpion climb up my shirt sleeve to my chest, just below my chin. It stopped, as if it might stay. It held its tail high, at the ready. I took in a breath, very slowly, held it, and waited.
But the scorpion suddenly scurried away, down my body, and disappeared on the other side of the mesquite. Was the scorpion another omen? I decided that once we finished the water, we’d have to give ourselves up to the first person we saw. We’d die otherwise.
The sunset was a hundred different colors, but the sun itself was a blurry blob. The wind flapped our tarps as we folded them up for the last time. It picked up the sand in miniature tornados and sent them dancing across the desert. I led us north … again … the wind now blowing at a steady pace from the west.
“Look!” Elena pointed toward the sun. It dipped low on the horizon, completely hidden by a red-brown haze.
“Why does it look so strange?” she asked. “That’s not a cloud. What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “But the weather is changing again. Can’t you feel it?”
Elena paused, took her bandanna and wrapped it around her face to cover her nose and mouth as protection against the stinging sand.
I kept myself going by telling myself that this was the last stretch. Just one more step, Miguel. Don’t stop, Miguel. No te des por vencido, Miguel. Amáchate, Miguel. If you stop, Elena and Javi will stop, too. No pares, Miguel.
We climbed up and down a
series of small hills dotted with cactus. The hot wind pushed us to the side, like a mighty hand. On the far side of the first hill, a red toothbrush poked out of the desert floor, bristles first. I bent and picked it up. It was light, almost weightless, really.
I turned the toothbrush over and over. Who dropped it here? Was this the first thing abandoned? Was it the very last thing given up?
Then I made another decision. Not only would we leave no person in the desert, but we would leave no thing in the desert. If we left even one thing, it would mean we’d given up. I saw now that it was my job to not let us give up.
Twenty or thirty steps later, Elena found a plastic water bottle like ours. The blowing sand had already covered part of it. She examined the whole surface, as if she half expected to see the name of the owner marked somewhere on the plastic.
Another bottle leaned crookedly against a cactus, its top gone. A pair of child’s sneakers, tied together by the laces, straddled the base of the plant. The soles of the shoes had melted in the heat. A torn blue work shirt hung from one of the arms of the cactus. The wind picked up the shirt and sent it flying to the east, along with the blowing sand, its arms extended ghostlike in the dusk.
On the far side of the next small hill, I spotted a shape lying next to a large, smooth rock. Even in the fading light, I could tell it was human. I stopped, waiting for Elena and Javi to come up next to me. Javi’s cheeks had hollowed. His lips were scabbed over, his eyes dull and flat. He stared ahead at the blob in front of us.
“Stay here,” I told Elena and Javi. “Let me look.”
I approached slowly. It was a woman. She lay on her side, curled up. Her long black hair fanned out from her head. The skin on her face had blistered and puckered up. I couldn’t tell how old she might be. Cradled in her arms was a small child, its face turned toward her breast.
Javi and Elena were beside me. Javi fell to the sand. He crossed himself. Then he crawled on his knees, a penitent at a shrine, three slow steps toward the bodies.
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