by Pastor, Juan
appears. He has been using a handmade imitation of a particular nymph that is abundant this time of year in the Rio Colorado. Since he has never found any of this fly made to his satisfaction, he ties his own. The fly rod he uses is one he constructed for himself when he was in his twenties, when he first became a fanatic to all things flyfishing, and this rod is still in service. He uses an Orvis reel. He likes floating fly lines that are slightly larger, and therefore more weighted, on each end. When one end shows sign of wear, he reverses it on the reel. He likes long, light, tapered leaders. He doesn’t like using split shot for weight on the leader, but tends to like to add the weight, if he wants to add weight, to his flies as he ties them, by using thin copper wire.
The wolf, brightly white in the sun, approaches Bo warily. Bo wears his handgun, and he is sure the lobo bitch is aware of it. But the wolf seems determined to get to him in spite of its awareness of the deadly weapon.
“Eh, la belleza.” Bo greets the wolf. “What are ya doin’ here? Lookin’ for a handout? Lookin’ for a fish?” Bo knows this old wolf bitch would not approach someone wearing a weapon just to get a handout. It could easily catch a trout on its own if it really wanted to, and there would be no risk involved in its doing so. This loba has grown old and wise by making very careful decisions ‐ always.
Flashes of yet to be formed thoughts fire in the synapses of Bo’s mind. He recalls Pequeña’s stories about a white wolf that saved her. He watches the wolf watch his face and eyes as he tries to construct some cognition of truth from all the impulses stimulating his mind. Bo feels the eerie sensation that this old wolf bitch is reading his mind. And the wolf knows what he feels.
Desperados And Silverados
The white wolf looks over at Bo’s truck, and back at
Bo, with nose down and eyes up.
“What are you trying to tell me, old girl?” Bo asks.
She takes off, sprints toward the truck, and takes a
leap that lands her cleanly in the bed of the truck. Bo always leaves the tailgate down unless he’s worried about something he’s carrying possibly sliding out of the back. He insists he gets a higher mpg than if the “wind baffle” is up. Bo notes that the old wolf would have probably cleared the gate if it were up anyway. Pretty good for an old bitch.
The wolf prances around in desperate circles in the bed. Bo still doesn’t come. The wolf eases her body through the open rear sliding window of the cab. She sits upright on the passenger seat, sticks her head out the open door window, and looks back at Bo.
“I’ll be damned.” Bo says. “Where did you learn that?”
Bo reels in his line, hooks the nymph on the hook guide
near the cork handle of the rod. He “breaks” the rod in half at the ferrule, slides each half of the rod into the line guides of the other half, and takes a rubber band out of his pocket to hold the two halves of the rod in place. It’s not really a rubber band but one of those fabric coated stretchy bands that women use in their hair to secure ponytails. He uses these because they last longer. He reels the rest of the line slack into the reel. He takes a small sack, wets it in the river, puts the small Cutt he has kept for dinner in it, and rolls it up. He heads toward the truck.
He is in no hurry as he approaches his truck, nor as far as he knows, is there reason to be. And since it will take him a few minutes to get there, now is as good a time as any to describe his truck. And, as anyone knows who knows anything, the truck a man drives says volumes about the man driving it. Bo’s truck is a five year old Chevy Silverado regular cab 4x4 with a 6‐cylinder engine. Most “real” men like the bigger V‐8 engines, because nothing makes a man look manlier than stopping often at the gas station and emptying his wallet there. The truck does not have remote power locks and it does not have power windows. It does not have heated power leather seats. It does not have decals on the rear fenders that say “4X4” or “OFF‐ROAD” or “Z‐71”. It does not have these decals because Bo doesn’t think it is worth paying a few thousand dollars more for some auto dealer’s drunken uncle to install them. The truck has OnStar, but it has never been activated because Bo doesn’t think it is anyone’s business where he or the best fishing holes are except him and the truck, and they already know because they’ve been there before. He could have Sirius satellite radio, but he’s never subscribed. He either listens to NPR or that Mega‐ station in Mexicali where the DJ plays whatever he wants, including Flamenco and classical Spanish guitar. This truck has as little chrome as possible, because men don’t need chrome, and the chrome on modern trucks isn’t chromium anyway, but plastic made to look like chrome, which it successfully does for only about two years, then it starts getting cloudy or blackish, and that’s how you know it is time to get a new truck. It does have the nameplate “Silverado” and this makes Bo smile every time he reads it because it doesn’t really mean anything unless it means a man desperately looking for silver. It is not a real word like “desperado”, and it’s not even Espanol, because if it was it would be “Argentado”, and who’s going to buy a truck called an Argentado?
Bo lays the wrapped fish near the front of the bed. He puts his disassembled rod behind the seats along with his vest and fly boxes. Bo looks at the old wolf bitch. She looks so stately and regal sitting there in the passenger seat looking out the windshield as if she is royalty waiting for her chauffeur to take her to the ball.
“You may be an old bitch.” He says to her. “But you sure are a beautiful old bitch! You know that?”
The wolf looks over at him with a “let’s get the show on the road” kind of look.
“I’ve got to think of a name for you.”
Her gaze returns to the desert, through the windshield.
“Queen? Duchess? Baroness?” Bo says. “What do you prefer?”
The wolf continues staring out the windshield.
“Marquesa?” Bo says. “What about Marquesa?”
Bo retrieves the key from its hiding place under the dash. He inserts it in the ignition, and turns. The engine comes to life. The wolf seems momentarily fascinated by all the lights that temporarily flash on the dashboard display panel. The wolf puts its nose in the air, and sniffs. Then it puts its nose to one of the AC outlets and breathes the cool air in as if drinking it with her nose.
“Which way, Marquesa?” Bo asks, with a certain haughty faked inflection in his voice, as if in the presence of royalty.
The wolf raises her nose slightly, and her eyes return to the windshield.
“Straight ahead it is, your highness.” Bo says.
Dia De Muertos
Realization sinks in as Bo drives east. It is
November 1st. Bo feels a pang of nostalgia. He remembers that this is the important holiday, the Day Of The Dead, or what most Catholics the world over call All Saint’s Day. He had broken up with his first true love on this day once, when she showed up in a cute short little red riding hood costume, and wanted him to dress as a wolf, and he told her it wasn’t an appropriate thing for her to wear for that day, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to dress as a wolf. Bo has learned to not say so much of what he thinks anymore. He thinks it and never turns it into sound. This used to be the day when you remembered friends and family members who have passed away, and try to commune with their spirits. The day before is October 31st, All Saint’s Eve, or Hallowed Eve, or Hallowed Evening, or Halloween. The Dia de Muertos ceremonies in Mexico last from October 31st to November 2nd. And Novemember 2nd is kind of a day of atonement, when others are forgiven for their sins and trespasses, and each person vows to be a better person, out of love and respect for honored loved ones who have passed on. In Mexico, Novemember 1st is the Dia de Muertos, everyone used to dress as ghosts, or ghouls, or goblins, or the imagined spirits of lost loved ones. You didn’t dress as a Goddam sexpot little red riding hood or a lecherous wolf. But Bo has had many years to think this over, and there have been many Halloweens when he has wished that that girl who once loved him would show up at his
door dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.
We change. Things change. The emphasis is shifting to Halloween, and the promotion and merchandising of Halloween. Bo can’t blame the American influence, but the American culture is pervasive, and it is hard to resist its seductive effect. Whereas Dia de Muertos was meant to be a sacred ceremony, Halloween has become one more reason to party among dozens of other reasons to party. The girls wear their sexy costumes and the boys dress as superheroes and other girls dress as sexy superheroines and other boys dress as macabre antiheroes, and alcohol lowers the inhibitions and makes it seem like fun until the alcohol wears off and you look at the pictures and you wonder what it was that you thought was fun about it. And then you make your plans with others to do it again next year.
Bo had once loved this holiday but, like many things, its fascination, for him, was waning. When he saw little children running around the narrow cobblestoned village streets, laughing and giggling in their costumes, and begging for candy or pastries, and threatening joyously to trick people who refused to ante up something good, Bo feels a strange longing. The longing startles him. He wants to have little children of his own. He wants to find a beautiful, kind, shy woman who wants to have a whole houseful of children with him. He always thought it would be a Latina woman. But Bo knows now nothing can love you as fiercely as a Latina woman, or crush your heart as thoroughly as a Latina woman. Still… With children maybe the holidays will mean something again. As things are now, the holidays are cruel farces…
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The apparition startles him. He has just turned the
headlights on. The truck has auto headlights, another of the annoyances the designers thought would be a good idea. If the headlights of a vehicle were on even during the day, it would be more noticeable, and therefore safer, wouldn’t it? Yes, until that vehicle blended in with the other hundreds of vehicles that had their headlights on during the day. Bo always just twisted the knob to turn the lights off during the day. In Bo’s mind there is something just plain wrong with a truck, or anything, that does all your thinking for you and decides what is best for you.
The apparition standing on the shoulder of the road is ghostly white in the headlight beams, with white hair teased by the evening breeze. Bo pulls off on the shoulder and slows to a stop within twenty feet of the spectre who stands there and shields her eyes from the light. Bo kills the headlights, but leaves the light knob turned to parking lights. He opens the door, goes to the front of the truck, and studies the ghostly naked woman illuminated now by a softer yellow light.
“Skyler.” He says.
“Bo.” The woman says. “Is that you?”
Shepherd Of The Flock
Skyler is reluctant to enter the cab. She is amazed
that a wild wolf is in the truck. The wolf will not budge. It has no intention of giving up its seat. Skyler shivers in the night air. She has goosebumps. Bo doesn’t have much to offer her in the way of clothing, except for an old Carhardt hooded jacket stuffed behind his seat. Skyler puts it on.
“What’s that smell?” Skyler asks.
“It’s either me, the wolf, or the dead fish in back.” Bo
says.
“Smells like fish, tastes like fish.” Skyler says, but it
sounds kind of stupid as she says it.
“What?” Bo asks.
“Nothing.” Skyler says. “I can ride in the back with the
fish, if you want.”
“No.” Bo says. “You’ll get hypothermia from windchill.
You’ll ride in front.”
Bo opens the driver side door. He reaches in and raises
the center console to seat position. Everything that was in the little storage pocket, loose change, keys, fishing paraphernalia, a few tools, spills to the floor behind the seat.
The truck is high, but Skyler puts one leg in, and swings herself into the seat. She looks over at the wolf, and the wolf retracts its lips and bares its fangs. Skyler mimics the wolf’s threat. Amazingly, the wolf backs down. Skyler slides over into the middle of the seat.
Bo sits himself effortlessly in his seat. This is one of the reasons Bo likes pickup trucks. He actually fits in this one, with an inch to spare over his head, if he takes his hat off. He starts the engine.
“Which way?” Bo asks Skyler.
“East.” She says. “They’re a little scattered near a
patch of Saguaro that Pequeña found. But where are you going to put them when we round up the rest of the flock? In the back of the truck?”
“That’s always been one of my fantasies.”
“What?” Skyler asks.
“To load up my truck with a bunch of crazy naked
Latina women, and bring them home with me. How many are there, all together?”
“Well.” Says Skyler, “When we set out there was me, Tejana, Pequeña, a seamstress friend of Pequeña’s named Celia, and two other strange women who I don’t really know, but who Pequeña seems to have known for some time. They were the ones at the cantina. Pequeña calls the older one the Virgen Maria. Then there’s Rosaria, the one you guys were calling Rosie.”
“So six women then?” Bo asks.
“Yes.” Skyler says.
“You wouldn’t have a cell phone with you, would you?” Bo asks.
“Yes.” Skyler says. “It’s here in my purse. Oh, damn. I left my purse out in the desert with my dress.”
Skyler watches Bo push the little blue button on a console at the base of the rearview mirror. The button lights up, and a voice says, “OnStar”.
“I’d like to activate.” Bo says, with not a trace of sincerity in his voice.
“Would you like the 3‐months‐on‐us trial?” The voice asks.
“Yes.” “Alright.” The voice says. “I’ll need some information.”
Bo gives the voice the information.
“And what can we do for you at this time?” The voice asks.
“I am searching for five women lost in the Sonoran desert.” Bo says. They have been out there since early today. They have probably had nothing to eat and nothing to drink all day. Right about now, they are most likely suffering from exhaustion, exposure, and since the night is getting kind of chilly – hypothermia.
“Are they dressed for the desert?” The voice asks.
“They aren’t dressed at all.” Bo says.
“Is this some kind of joke?” The voice asks.
“I assure you, it’s not.” Bo says. “I’ve got one of them with me, and she doesn’t have a stitch on except for the jacket I gave her.”
“Uh‐huh.” The voice says. “Lucky you.”
“I promise you I’m not pulling your leg.” Bo says. “I think they must have all suffered heatstroke to some degree.” Bo says. “The one with me at least didn’t succumb to strange behavior, hallucinations, and disorientation. When I found her, I think she was attempting to find me. Can you notify the authorities, have a ‘copter start looking at the coordinates you’re getting for my truck? If my truck stops moving, I’ve found them.”
“I don’t know if a chopper will be available.” The voice says. “It’s been a wild Dia de Muertos.”
“Look.” Says Bo. “I’m a personal bodyguard for the Mexican El Presidente. I’ve got the 1st Lady of the U.S. with me in my truck. The 1st Lady of Mexico is still out in the desert somewhere. The woman who runs the Sonoran Clinic is with her, and so are three others, to my knowledge. If a ‘copter isn’t available, make one available.”
“Are you sure this isn’t a joke?” The voice asks.
“Do you really want to find out the hard way?” Bo asks.
The wolf begins to whine and scratch at the door of the truck. Bo leans across Skyler’s legs and lifts the handle of the passenger door. The wolf launches itself from the truck. Bo turns to the southeast to follow Marquesa and does his best to keep up with her.
So Safe That I Can Dream
I huddle with the other women near the semicircular
rock outcropping in the Saguaro stand. I can’t explain it, but the joy I feel as the wolf licks my face with its wet raspy tongue seems the greatest joy I have ever known. When the wolf is sure I’m okay, she disappears into the night.
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In a cloud of brightly floodlit nighttime Sonoran dust,
the helicopter lifts off and takes us to the Clinic Rosaria, and a team of doctors and nurses is there to greet us as we land on the large red cross on the roof of the Clinic.
Bo carries Skyler, who has fallen asleep, into a room
reserved for the “President” and his 1st Lady. Sin sits in the chair all night and watches her sleep. The Sin I and Tejana knew, is gone, and we two women know it. Sin is in love, and it isn’t with either of us.
El Presidente and Tejana are making the effort to repair their marriage. There are occasional fireworks, but Tejana will tell you that fireworks are better than boredom. And when the fireworks fizzle out here again, she will look for them elsewhere. And she won’t look long.