by C. J. Shane
She looked like what she was, a dirt-poor, uneducated, inexperienced, innocent peasant girl from some isolated village come north looking for a minimum wage job cleaning toilets. Instead she was led like a little chicken into the desert by a greedy people-smuggler. Now she's lying here dying a slow miserable death. Eduardo calculated that only one more day like this, and she'd be beyond his help.
She was lucky that he'd even seen her. Eduardo usually didn't come this way. It was rocky, and there were often snakes down close to the wash under the trees. He didn't want his horse getting spooked by the rattlers. But he was in a hurry today. He meant to leave his grandmother's house earlier in the day, but she asked him to help her with chopping some mesquite for her cook stove. He ended up staying for lunch, then lying down for a little siesta. He didn't leave his grandmother’s place until the late afternoon.
Wanting to make it to his uncle's before dark, he took the shortcut across the wash. Just as he and his horse entered the wash, a wild coyote appeared suddenly on the bank, stared brazenly at Eduardo, then disappeared. That’s when Eduardo saw a flutter of red. A little breeze had come up and caught the migrant girl’s red rebozo. He saw the fluttering movement out of the corner of his eye, looked that way, and there was a young woman's body crumpled beneath a palo verde tree.
Looking at her lying there, Eduardo suddenly felt very sad for all the poor people in the world who died here just trying to find a way to make a better life for themselves and their families. He felt sad for this one here at his feet who was flirting so dangerously with death. A sudden firm determination came over him.
"Don't give up hope yet, chica. I'm not going to let you die," Eduardo said gently.
He bent forward and pulled the girl to a sitting position. She didn't regain consciousness so Eduardo leaned her back against the palo verde tree trunk. He pulled a red cotton bandana from his pocket and poured some water on it, then put the wet cloth to her throat and face.
For a brief moment, the girl's eyes opened, and then she fainted again. He continued pressing the wet cloth to her dry skin.
As he tried to revive the young woman, Eduardo contemplated the meaning of what was happening here. He was attempting to save a life, and he would save hers, God willing, or I'itoi willing, or whatever god or cosmic awareness might be listening to his wordless prayer as he worked to save the girl’s life.
The movements of his hands and the intentions of his heart were deeply felt. It meant something to save a dying life, even if his own life had been so confused and without direction as of late. Eduardo didn't seem to fit in anywhere, not at school when he was younger and not at a job now. He didn't like studying, and he was profoundly relieved when he finally graduated from high school. He had no job that meant much to him. He worked just when he needed to at odd jobs or helping out on the reservation's ranches. Working with horses was enjoyable. They talked to him with their big eyes. Sometimes he went into Tucson and stayed at his big sister Letty’s house for a few days to find temporary construction jobs. He didn’t like the city, but the pay was better. Those jobs meant he could take back home a little money to his grandmother or to give a little to his aunt and uncle. He did the best he could.
All Eduardo really wanted to do was wander around on horseback on the vast Tohono O'odham reservation, nearly three million acres stretching across southern Arizona. Watching Hawk and Owl and Rabbit and Coyote, watching the rain clouds come over Baboquivari Peak, watching the thick white petals appear on the saguaro blossoms, watching the sun come and go in the sky, watching the changing of the seasons, remembering the old stories, and talking to the elders about the old ways – this was the center of his life. He didn't give a damn about television and driving into Tucson to see a movie or go to the mall. Sometimes he felt like he was born five centuries too late. He felt like an Indian only comfortable in an Indian world – a world that didn't exist anymore. He was lonely most of the time.
Eduardo wasn't like Elena, his twin sister. The stories that people told about the closeness of twins were true of Elena and Eduardo. They were inseparable growing up. Sometimes they could feel each other's feelings, and they seemed to be in psychic connection with each other, even at a distance.
Yet they were so different. Elena was daring in a way that Eduardo would never be. She put herself forward and sought out adventure. She fit into the Milga:n world without losing her O'odham self. She loved school and was very good at it. She won a scholarship and went off to the university. She was headed to a career and success. She found a young man who adored her. Eduardo was happy for Elena. He could feel her joy. At the same time, he missed her. And he wished again that he, too, could find something that worked for him.
Maybe Eduardo could do as well as his Uncle Armando who patched together a living from the land. Uncle Mando ran some cattle, had a small orchard of pecan trees for a cash crop, did odd jobs like Eduardo, patched up other people's old cars and refrigerators and swamp coolers and kept those machines working. It was whatever came Mando's way. Aunt Valerina helped out, too. Mando did a good job of surviving in the Milga:n world, and still he maintained his indigenous identity. Maybe Eduardo would figure out how to do as well someday.
As Eduardo swabbed the young woman's cheeks and forehead with the cool, wet cloth, he wondered if maybe this was what his life was all about. He might not fit into the Milga:n world like Elena, but he could find a dying person in the desert and save a life. Or, at least, he could save this life, this one here and now.
Eduardo had to re-wet the bandana frequently because it dried so fast in the arid air. The girl's eyelids flickered. He continued for several minutes to wipe her throat, her face, her neck, and her arms. He felt a little tension in her arms and hands. That meant she was coming around. He worked patiently. Eventually the girl's dark eyes opened and focused. She looked into Eduardo's eyes.
"Angelito," the girl said weakly. She gazed into his face as he continued to gently bathe her throat and arms.
"Ya viene por mi, Angelito? Va portarme al cielo?" She spoke in Spanish, a heavily-accented, rural peasant Indian Spanish.
Eduardo grinned. "Well...you might say I've come for you. But I'm not taking you to heaven. I'll take you to my Uncle Mando's house instead. He and Valerina can help you…..And I'm no angel." The thought that she imagined him to be angel was very amusing. If she were here, his twin sister Elena would be laughing out loud.
He reached again for the water bottle and offered it to her. She was so weak that she couldn't take it from him so he put one arm around her neck and held her head as he used the other hand to hold the bottle to her lips. She drank greedily. Drops of water spilled down her chin as she gulped.
"Whoa, slow down, chica." He pulled the bottle away and then tilted it so that she could only sip a little at a time. "You'll make yourself sick if you drink too fast."
She began to drink in little sips only because he wouldn't let her do otherwise.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The girl looked up at him blankly. Her eyes were very big and dark brown, the lashes thick.
"Uh...como te llamas?" Eduardo asked again. He understood her when she spoke, but he realized that he had been speaking to her in English.
As a child, Eduardo had spoken Spanish often, especially when he went south across the border to visit Gonzolo who was a distant relative on his dad's side of the family. The old man spoke only Spanish and the O'odham language which the Milga:n used to call Papago. The relative was already an old man when Eduardo visited him. Gonzolo let Eduardo ride his horses. That was where Eduardo learned to love horses.
Besides riding the horses, the best part of visiting Gonzolo was hearing the stories that the old man told. The two of them sat in handmade rocking chairs in front of the old adobe house in the evenings and watched the sun set. Gonzolo told Eduardo about I'itoi and how he killed the old witch Ho'ok and about how Ban the Coyote got tricked by Rabbit and lots of other really good stories. Eduardo liked those
old stories a lot. The old man told the stories in the O'odham language, but the rest of the time, he spoke to Eduardo in Spanish. Eduardo had been pretty good at understanding and speaking it. But when the old man died, Eduardo quit going down south, and his Spanish got rusty. Now he only spoke English and sometimes a little of his own O'odham tongue with the old timers and tribal elders and with his grandmother.
"Como te llamas?" Eduardo asked again with more confidence.
A little color was back in the girl's cheeks.
Maybe if he could get her somewhere safe so he could get more liquids in her, she would be okay. The muscles in his shoulders began to relax a little in relief.
"Esperanza Morales," she said shyly.
"Esperanza Morales," Eduardo repeated. "Esperanza? Hope? That's your name? I guess that's about all you have left is hope." He grinned at her and the girl smiled back weakly. She had dimples in her brown cheeks. Very pretty, Eduardo thought.
"Welcome to America, Hope," he said.
Eduardo rose to his feet, bringing her up with him. He carefully held her against him, and he half-guided, half-carried her to his mare. Mounting easily, Eduardo reached down to pull her up to sit behind him. He pulled Esperanza's slender arms around his waist and felt her muscles respond. She was holding on. As Eduardo guided his horse away from the wash and toward the northeast, he could feel Esperanza lean forward until her head rested against his shoulders.
"Angelito," he heard her murmur, and Eduardo laughed. He liked it a lot that she thought he was an angel.
Chapter 2
Something was wrong.
Jade Lopez opened her eyes, closed them, then opened them again. She forced herself to keep them open as she fought against the grogginess caused by her nap.
Something had awakened her, but she wasn’t sure what it was.
It was a late afternoon in December not long before sunset. Jade was on the roof of her adobe house in midtown Tucson lying on a mat under the overhanging branches of an old and very large mesquite tree. The roof was her haven, her secret place where she went to relax and to think about things. An old ladder handmade of thick mesquite branches was propped up against the back of her house. The ladder was the entry to her sanctum. She went there nearly every afternoon after work when the weather was cool. Later in the year the days would be so hot that the roof would ripple with heat despite the shade from the overhanging branches. Winter afternoons were perfect though. From the flat roof, Jade could watch the setting sun casting late-afternoon light on the Santa Catalina Mountains to the north, turning their ridges and canyons into shimmering colors of copper and red and deep purple. The colors changed as the sun lowered in the December sky, and her appreciative eyes enjoyed every nuance of the changing light on the mountains and in the clear desert sky above her – gold, magenta, pink, silver, mauve. Jade loved the desert winter sky.
Earlier that afternoon, Jade said goodbye to her fellow teachers and a few straggling students at Moreno Elementary School.
"Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!" she called out to them cheerfully. Tying her long unruly red hair back with a scarf, she put on her helmet and climbed onto her bike. She headed home happy but exhausted.
The children had been so excited all day that they spent most of their time jumping around and giggling. The prospect of two weeks of vacation, the fact that Christmas was coming. It was all too much for most of them. The sugar in all those Christmas cookies and candy at the school party didn't help. Jade tried her best to keep her third graders more or less under control without being too hard on them. Finally, after exchanging presents, singing Christmas carols in English and Spanish, and after an appearance by a Santa Claus that looked suspiciously like the school janitor Freddie Gonzalez wearing a fake white beard and a red Santa suit, the fall semester was over.
The children's excitement was infectious. Jade liked the excitement of Christmas, but it wasn't really her favorite holiday. She liked Halloween best because she loved dressing up in a costume. She was happy for the children to have their Christmas vacation but even happier for herself. She needed the time off and looked forward to a couple of weeks of quiet. She planned to spend most of her Christmas vacation listening to music, reading, riding her bicycle, and playing with clay.
Her friend Seri had asked Jade to accompany her on a trip to New York over the Christmas holiday, but Jade had said no. There had been a time that she was profoundly grateful to go with Seri on those wonderful trips. Jade couldn’t bear being alone then. For a long time after Carlos disappeared, Jade found their home too silent and lonely. The idea of being there for a holiday vacation or worse, the long summer, was just unbearable. Seri was lifesaver then. But things were getting better now. Jade could breathe again, and the house was beginning to seem like home even though her husband would never be there again – probably would never be there again, she said to herself. That was the problem with disappeared people. There was no way to know if they would return tomorrow or never return at all.
Half an hour after leaving the school grounds, Jade pulled her bicycle into the driveway on the side of her adobe house. She opened the wrought iron gate set into the adobe wall surrounding her property and entered the backyard. It was quiet and cool and shady there. The orange tree put out its wonderful fragrance as she brushed past it. She could hear the music of the small fountain she had installed when she landscaped the backyard, but she could not see the water for the wild tangle of trees and cacti and flowers planted in her garden.
Jade parked her bike, unlocked the backdoor, dumped her backpack in the living room, and changed quickly from her school dress into jeans and an old, loose long-sleeved t-shirt that had become thin from too many washings. She grabbed a cold bottle of Mexican cerveza from the fridge, went out the back door, and headed up the ladder to the roof. It was very warm on the roof in spite of the season. There, she found the one spot on the flat roof that had been shaded all afternoon on the west side of the house. She rolled out the mat that she kept there, sat down to drink her beer and watch the sun behind her cast its long rays on the Catalina Mountains to the north.
Jade thought about what else she would do on her vacation. Definitely she’d make some pottery in her garage studio. Yes. Pots. Playing with clay had been Jade’s favorite pastime for as long as she could remember. The love of clay started in elementary school, and pottery had become a serious hobby into adulthood. After Jade and Carlos married, he remodeled the old garage behind their house into a studio for Jade. She had a wheel for throwing pots. The remodeling job had only been finished a few weeks when Carlos disappeared. For months after, Jade couldn’t touch the clay at all. But now, a year later, she thought maybe she was ready to go back to it. She thought about the pots she planned to work on over the holiday. It would be fun to create some new glazes in new colors.
Jade knew she wouldn’t be seeing her parents. They were off on yet another trip. But naturally Jade would go to visit Carlos’s family and pass out gifts to all his nephews and nieces.
After she was on the roof for a few minutes, she was joined by her cat Zorro. The old cat seemed to enjoy climbing the ladder despite his age. He liked sitting on the roof with her and watching the sun set or whatever it is that cats do.
"Where's your friend?" Jade asked the big white cat with the black mask as she rubbed his ears. Jade’s second cat, a big black fur ball named Don Diego, wasn't as enthusiastic about ladder climbing as Zorro. He preferred to sit near the fountain and snooze. If he became too hot in the sun, as black cats and black dogs quickly do, he would move to the shade. Then back to the sun. Today he was nowhere in sight.
Jade finished her beer, stretched out on the mat, and closed her eyes.
Yes, the roof had always been a place of serenity for her, and she felt the calm of the late afternoon come over her. She dozed off quickly with pleasant holiday thoughts on her mind.
Then Jade suddenly awakened. There was a sound. Yes, something was wrong.
Her eyes opene
d, fully awake now, Jade listened carefully. For a moment, she could hear nothing unusual – only the familiar soft whir of hummingbirds at their feeder, a car passing in the street out front; a neighbor’s door closing, a dog barking half-heartedly at a passing bicyclist. Perhaps she had dreamed the sound, and the dream woke her up. Perhaps there had been no sound at all.
Jade stretched and sat up. She yawned and looked at her watch. Only 20 minutes before sundown. She told herself she’d better get off the roof while there was still light, and before the winter night’s chill set in. Winter days might be warm on the desert, but the nights were cold. She thought about what to fix herself for dinner. Maybe thaw out some of that soup she’d made and frozen last week? Nah, too much trouble. She would settle for a sandwich….again. It wasn’t much fun cooking for just one person. Eating alone was…well…eating alone.
Jade started to pull herself to her feet, then froze. There it was again…a strange sound coming from below her. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t her imagination. There was someone moving around inside her house! She could hear bumping sounds, footsteps, the opening and closing of drawers in the kitchen. Whoever it was made no attempt to be quiet.
Fully alarmed now, Jade crept on her hands and knees to the edge of the roof. She flattened herself against the roof, and waited, barely breathing. Her heart pounded in her chest. She had never, ever had anyone break into her house. Yet she was sure someone was below her moving around – an uninvited someone – a potentially-dangerous someone. For a brief second, she tried to reassure herself that maybe the intruder was a friend, but she knew immediately that could not be. A friend would have called out to her.
Jade raised her head just enough to view the ceramic tile patio below her and the garden rich with citrus trees, bougainvillea, nopal cactus, and a profusion of flowers. In the dusky light, she could barely make out the adobe wall at the far end of the garden that enclosed her home, her studio, and the garden.