Santiago's Road Home

by Alexandra Diaz

  Tonight’s home.

  CHAPTER 14

  Alegría barely shifted when Santiago eased her off his back onto the dirt. Only her head rolled to the side as she gave a little snore.

  “Next time remind me how stupid it is to go hiking in new shoes,” María Dolores said while beating her sneakers against the ground to soften the stiff backs. “How are your feet?”

  He rocked back and forth in his new shoes as if he’d just put them on. “They’re fine.”

  A couple of flicks from the lighter confirmed they were alone. Luis from the car hadn’t found the cave.

  “Should I light a fire?” Santiago asked after the lighter almost burned his fingers for the fourth time. A fire, he hoped, would also mask the smell of his offending feet when he removed his shoes. It worked when his gassy tío lit a match after leaving the bathroom.

  “Do you know how?”

  “Sure.” Someone, Domínguez maybe—if this really was his designated cave—had stocked the cave with twigs and a couple of larger branches. “La mal— I mean, a relative’s stove needed to be lit every day to cook. Some mornings I had to be up three or fours hours before sunup so the cooking could be done before it got too hot.”

  “Is she the one who hit you?”

  He tugged his shirt even though the cave remained dark, and turned his back to her voice. He lifted his arm to search for a draft. There, a hole in the rocks and the slight oily residue of soot on the sandstone indicated a natural chimney. By feel, he reached for the small twigs he’d noticed during the last flick from the lighter. He then shaped them into a peak, adding tufts of dry grass and bark. “She did not always hit me. As I got older, she preferred throwing things—bricks, knives, boiling water. Or if I got too close, use me as an ashtray.”

  He broke a fat branch into thirds against his thigh and added the pieces to his pile of twigs and debris.

  “But I didn’t always have to live with her. Sometimes she could convince a different relative to let me stay with them, instead. I lived with an uncle who was great. Drunk all the time, but a happy drunk. Instead of getting angry, Tío Bernardo just sang. Then one night he turned on the stove when he got back from the bar and set the house on fire. Neither of us got hurt, but we had to return to her house. He doesn’t sing anymore.”

  Santiago lit the bits of dried grass at the bottom of his mound. They caught and began to burn the twigs and thin branches. The heat began to rise, and the flames grew stronger.

  “When the last relative didn’t want me anymore, I decided I wasn’t going back.” He fed the fire a few more sticks.

  “What happened to your parents?” María Dolores placed a hand on his shoulder. He ignored her touch and watched the shadows from the flames dance against the cave wall.

  “I never knew my dad. Relatives say he was a no-good chulo malcriado. Mami never mentioned him, and she died when I was five.”

  With the fire going strong and bright, he took inventory of the cave. Narrow in the front, it opened up to a larger space big enough for six or eight grownups to sleep side by side. In some places it was as tall as two men standing. Alegría continued to sleep, grunting occasionally, and María Dolores kept her eyes on Santiago. As if she really cared what he had to say.

  “What do you remember of your mother?”

  He leaned back on his heels, enjoying the comfort of the fire and the heat it brought despite their long hot day. He’d never talked to anyone about any of this. “Little things. She didn’t care what people thought about her. Sometimes we’d walk through town singing off-key at the top of our lungs. Other times, we’d stop in the middle of the road to save a beetle. She was always in a good mood and liked to point things out. Birds, interesting clouds, the color of the dirt.”

  “She sounds like she lived freely. I wish I could have met her. What was her name?”

  He smiled and let the name roll off his tongue. “Sofinda. I’ve always thought it’s a pretty name.”

  “It is.”

  “Sofinda Reyes de la Luz,” he said.

  A half breath, half sigh escaped him as he sat on the ground and finally turned to look at María Dolores. “Why did you decide to leave?”

  This time María Dolores turned away. “I was with a man who didn’t treat me well. Alegría never liked him. I should have listened to her.”

  María Dolores lifted a pant leg to reveal scars on her shin.

  “The first time I let myself think it was an accident. The second time I knew we had to leave. He went into a horrible rage and told the police I’d stolen from him. The engagement ring was mine to sell; he broke his promise to care for us when he hit me. That’s how I’ve been able to afford everything. A friend got us out of town and we traveled east instead of north so he couldn’t find us.”

  That explained the scenic route to Capaz. It hadn’t been to save money, but to evade detection.

  “María Eugenia, my sister, kept telling me to come live with her. She married a nice man, and they run a restaurant. She makes the best enchiladas suizas. I swear, I’d give anything for a plate right now.” She handed Santiago a bit of chocolate, which he gladly accepted.

  “I’d be happy with just arroz con pollo,” Santiago said with a sigh. “No matter how bad you cook, that’s one thing that’s hard to mess up.”

  María Dolores let out what sounded like a laugh, but sad and bitter. “Trust me, it’s possible. I have mastered the art of burning raw rice. And I’m talking completely raw, not the chunks of sticky burned rice at the bottom of the pot that I used to demand when I was younger.”

  “Pegado,” Santiago said. At least that’s what la malvada called it. As if giving it a name made it appetizing. He didn’t realize other kids requested sticky burned rice.

  “Yeah, love it, can’t make it. My ex used to say I was useless because I couldn’t cook.”

  “Was that Alegría’s father?”

  “No.” María Dolores gave another of her part-laugh, part-snort sounds. “That was the ex I told you about. My mamá and I fought a lot about Alegría’s papá, so I got kicked out of the house.”

  Santiago wanted to say he felt sorry for her—she’d gone through so much—but the words seemed empty. No one had ever shared things with him before, and he wasn’t sure about the correct protocol. “Alegría is lucky to have you. You’re the best mom for her.”

  “I’d like to think so.” María Dolores smiled, pulling him close. This time he didn’t flinch or resist. “Did I tell you she was the one who pointed you out when you walked over to the food truck? She liked you from the start. Recognized you as a good egg.”

  She gave him a teasing nudge. He slid a bit until his head rested against her shoulder. She hugged him closer and kissed him on the top of his head before whispering, “You’ll take care of her, right? If something happens to me?”

  He straightened up, breaking away from the embrace to look her in the eye. “You’re dying?”

  “Oh, no. But just in case, ’cause you never know. That’s the problem of being a madre soltera. I want to know she’ll be taken care of. That I’m not the only one she has.”

  He stood up to feed the fire another branch. A few insects fluttered around the flames, debating how close they could get before getting burned.

  “I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise,” he said, returning to his spot, but not close enough for her to touch him again. “But I don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”

  “So you’ll stay and live with us?”

  Stay? With these two and the older sister in el otro lado? In a real home? “Claro que sí.”

  “You won’t leave?”

  “Not unless you want me to.”

  “That will never happen.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The sun shone hot and bright when Santiago woke up the next morning. His vision blurred as he looked up and down the narrow canyon walls, scoping out the landscape. Domínguez had mentioned it would be challenging but worth it to reac
h the old mining town of Valle Cobre on the other side of the mountain range. Except the SUV changed their plans before Domínguez had indicated how to get there.

  Santiago followed the slot canyon to the end, staring at the ground for traces of footprints. He found nothing and soon he realized why. Not too far from the cave, the walls narrowed until he couldn’t go any farther. The vertical rock walls reached for the sliver of blue sky without offering a single path or sufficient protruding rocks to climb.

  Exiting the way they’d entered the night before, Santiago scouted the base of the mountain for footpaths over the range. Nothing stood out; nothing indicated the best way over. Large rocks dominated near the top, but he couldn’t tell from the bottom how to get past the boulders. The range went on for a while in both directions; going around wasn’t possible. On the plus side, not having any visible pathways meant la migra wouldn’t know where to follow them.

  All through the scouting, Santiago gathered branches and skeletons of dead cholla cacti to replenish the firewood in the cave. María Dolores met him at the cave entrance with two slices of bread with Spam and ketchup from a packet she had found in the bottom of her bag. After eating only peanuts, raisins, and chocolate last night, this felt like a gourmet meal.

  “We don’t have as much food as I thought. It might be a few days until we get to civilization. But we need to eat or we won’t get anywhere,” María Dolores said as she fixed a Spam sandwich for Alegría.

  “How are we with water?” Even with all his scouting, he had seen no evidence of water anywhere. Just an arid, barren landscape as far as the eye could see, and a sun that would fry a lizard if it stood still long enough.

  María Dolores showed him the remaining three bottles and sighed. “We went through more than a bottle yesterday. We need to make the rest last.”

  He told her what he’d seen outside the canyon. Or rather what he hadn’t seen: trails.

  “Princesa will help,” Alegría said as she pranced around the cave with her imaginary friend. Santiago would have given anything to depend on a unicorn.

  “Domínguez didn’t mention offhand any other landmark?” María Dolores asked.

  Santiago searched his brain for a few minutes. “Only the old mining village with a phone on the other side of the mountains, but it’s hard to get to.”

  María Dolores made a sound in the back of her throat, part sigh, part growl. “I think that’s our best bet. Keep heading north. Sooner or later, we’ll have to come across something. A road or town.”

  He nodded, knowing they were both hoping for sooner rather than later.

  “It’s too hot right now, but I don’t know if we can find our way over the mountain in the dark.” He touched the back of his neck. Even now, in the cave, he could still feel the sun’s heat against his skin.

  “Let’s wait a few hours and see how far we can get. We can stop once it gets too dark and start again first thing in the morning before the heat settles in.” María Dolores stood up and took inventory of their things in the cave. “Help me pick up our trash.”

  She also made Santiago put on sunscreen.

  “But I’m brown—I don’t burn. And I’m wearing a hat,” he protested.

  “Doesn’t matter. At least the back of your neck and tops of your ears. And your arms. It’ll prevent heatstroke.”

  It sounded like an old wives’ tale to him, but it wasn’t worth resisting if it made María Dolores happy.

  They started climbing the mountain in the late afternoon, zigzagging across, which was easier than going straight up. Alegría trotted from one direction to the next, chasing lizards and crouching to look at interesting flowers that flourished despite the desert heat.

  The first hour or so proved the hardest. Santiago could feel the heat rising from the scorching ground through the soles of his new shoes. Had he still been wearing his old mouth shoes, he doubted his feet would have survived. Yet María Dolores insisted that they keep going. They passed the point of tired and uncomfortable and went on autopilot, keeping the same steady pace, often with Alegría holding Santiago’s hand as Princesa guided the way.

  The journey grew steadily rockier as they got higher; their steps caused small rocks to give way and create landslides. Twice Santiago slipped and landed on his knees. It happened many more times to María Dolores. He looked for a walking stick for her, something that would stabilize her footing. But no trees grew up here, and every stick he found snapped at the slightest pressure.

  As the sun set, their way became blocked by boulders. Santiago lifted Alegría up and over the massive rocks, climbed over himself, and then offered a hand to María Dolores.

  At the summit of the mountain, they finally paused. Half the night had passed, and the autumn breeze felt refreshing once Santiago removed his backpack. More mountains scattered the northern horizon, more empty land, more signs of desert, but no signs of water. No lights from a nearby town.

  They settled among the north sides of boulders that felt cool to the touch, unlike the south sides, and blocked the wind. María Dolores emptied a backpack and placed it over Alegría like a blanket. A few hardy plants grew in the rock crevices, but none were sufficient to start a fire with. Back against a boulder, María Dolores placed a hand on her daughter and held her other arm out for Santiago. Too tired to resist, he curled up next to her.

  * * *

  The lightening sky woke Santiago up. His bones ached from the night’s chill and sleeping on rocks, but still he scrambled back up to the top boulders. It took a few minutes, but there, finally, he noticed something. A faint line of a road running behind a hill.

  Wherever it led, it gave them a more precise destination than just “north.”

  He memorized the shape of the hill the road went behind—a completely flat mesa top with symmetrically sloping sides. He returned to their camp to find María Dolores awake and holding out her phone as she turned in a slow circle. “I’ve texted my sister, but I can’t get a signal to send the message.”

  She handed him a piece of dry bread. He ate it slowly to trick his stomach into thinking he was eating more.

  “I found a road,” he said, licking his chapped lips. “I hope it leads us to Valle Cobre, where Domínguez said there’s a phone and shelter until someone can pick us up.”

  Santiago reached into his bag for some water. Another bottle was completely empty, the third half-empty. Only a little more than one full bottle remained when yesterday they had almost three. He and Alegría had been so careful, taking the smallest sips. How could they have gone through so much without knowing it? He stashed the water back in the bag without drinking. María Dolores, still circling with her phone, noticed nothing.

  “Let’s walk before it gets too hot.” He put on the backpack and lifted the sleeping Alegría into his arms. The wind tugged at her pigtails, ready to lift her up and carry her away. A sudden panic pulled in Santiago’s heart at the thought of her being swept away like the townspeople from his favorite childhood story. He placed a protective hand on her back. Safe. He had to keep her safe.

  María Dolores took two deep breaths and refilled Alegría’s backpack. At some point in their migration, Santiago had become the person in command, the person who knew where they were going. Or pretended he did.

  They set off down the ridge and over the foothills. The chilly night gave way to another scorching day. They stopped before midday next to a low bush that provided the illusion of shelter but no actual shade.

  Santiago slowly scanned the horizon. His vision blurred in the sunlight. It took several blinks to confirm that no trees grew out here; nothing but the hats and the clothes they wore protected them from the intense sun. Was it better to keep walking in this heat, or let the sun dehydrate them more as they did nothing? He couldn’t decide, so they stayed put. Just for a little bit. The girls didn’t complain either.

  * * *

  The crying yips of coyotes jerked Santiago awake. His throat burned with thirst, but he only allowed him
self one swallow of water. They had to keep going. About an hour of sunlight remained, and they had to get to the road. All roads led somewhere.

  “Wake up, time to go.” His voice came out in a croak.

  “I don’t want to,” Alegría whined.

  “Can’t we rest a little bit more?” María Dolores begged.

  “No, we’re not safe here,” Santiago insisted, and they finally relented.

  The second the sun disappeared, the air chilled, bringing goose bumps. In his arms, he could feel Alegría shivering. He rubbed a hand up and down her thin back and forced his stride to lengthen. Their destination had to be getting closer. Had to.

  He led them blindly through the night. Several times he pinched himself to focus, only sometimes his brain reacted. Water, shelter, freedom. Alegría, María Dolores. They were what mattered. They were the ones he had to keep alive. Keep going.

  The sun began to rise when they finally stumbled upon a faint trail. Turning his back to the sun, he followed the path into the hills. Maybe it was a mirage, a hallucination brought on by his extreme fatigue or cold, but something like a building loomed ahead.

  “Veo una casa,” María Dolores said, the first time anyone had spoken in hours.

  It wasn’t a house, at least not anymore, but a wall, made from mud-red adobe bricks. Santiago eased Alegría down before crashing onto the ground right next to her. Another rustle indicated María Dolores had done the same.

  CHAPTER 16

  Santiago’s lips stuck to his teeth when he woke up. His skin, exposed to the beating sun above him, stung from sunburn. Just moving his head shot pain through the rest of his body.

  He took a swig of water before realizing that it was the last of it. The fuzz in his brain slowed his reaction. Bad, very bad. Up above him, three or four birds circled. Vultures. Something had died nearby.