Stranger (10 page)

T
HEY
crossed the Rio Grande at night just north of Piedras Negras. Marcos did not go with them. He pointed across the river and said, Por ahí. On the other side there were lights and vehicles and men, and all around them in the water there were other people, and the most amazing part was the silence, for no one spoke. Just the splashing and the breathing and the occasional gasp, and then more silence, save for the hum of truck engines on the other side. Gabriel held her pack and clung to her as she lay across a rubber tube and kicked with her feet. His little arms around her neck. Their group formed a V in the water, with Benito at the head of the V. A body floated past her, face down, long dark hair spread out. She pushed the body away and kept kicking. She took water into her mouth. Swallowed it. Gasped and sputtered. Gabriel said her name. She told him to be quiet. And then beneath
her bare feet she felt mud and the bank and she was clambering up from the water to the land. She took Gabriel's hand and plucked him upwards, trailing Benito's broad back. He was bent over and following the bank of river. And then a light came on and the world was brightly lit and a voice called out.

They ran. There were shouts and lights and people running and she took Gabriel into her arms and she ran towards the darkness but the darkness moved farther away and so she ran back and then forwards and back again until finally she was once again in the darkness and she ran in that darkness like the fastest runner and when she had finished running she was still holding Gabriel and it was still dark. Far behind her she saw the lights and she saw men and she saw the men corralling other men and boys and girls, and then she turned and ran with the darkness.

I
N
the cold of the morning she saw the pink light in the sky and she saw the cacti take shape and she saw the wide sky and a bird circling high above. She had covered Gabriel with a sweater from her pack and she had put on his runners and she had cleaned her own feet of thorns and scrapes and put on her own shoes, and so she sat, watching the sunrise, waiting for the boy to wake.

She stood and turned a full circle, looking out into that space where the land and the sky met. She walked one hundred steps in one direction and then returned. One hundred steps in the opposite direction and returned. The river was gone. The people were gone. She looked for footprints that might indicate where they had
come from. Nothing. The land was hard and dry. They had two small bottles of water. No food. One hat. An extra sweater. Shoes. When the boy woke she let him drink. He drank and drank and in drinking so much he spilled water onto the ground. She took the bottle and screwed on the lid and said, Enough.

Are we lost? the boy asked.

She shook her head.

Will we go to my mother now?

She looked at him. His small head. Small hands. She said, Yes, we'll go.

She stood and took a T-shirt from her pack and tied it around his head. Little gangster, she said.

He laughed.

It was still early morning, and with the sun on her right she began to walk. The boy was distracted by lizards and flowers and bugs. This made him happy and so she let him be and in this way their progress was slow. She drank from her water, a small taste. It was already warm and sour. She told the boy that they would get one drink every hour.

He asked how she would know an hour without a watch to tell time.

The time, it's in my head, she said, and she touched her forehead.

What time is it now? he asked.

Nine o'clock.

I'm hungry, he said.

We'll eat when we arrive.

When will we arrive?

Soon.

At what time? He reached up and touched her forehead.

Very soon.

When?

She did not answer.

When the sun was at its highest they sat behind a cactus, seeking shade. Her shoulders were exposed but her head was shaded and the boy sat before her using her body as shade. They drank. And then drank some more. She took the empty bottle and threw it out onto the floor of the desert. It lay there.

That night she heard animals calling and talking and she heard something small moving across the nearby ground. She sat up and waited and watched. The moon was thin and the night was dark. There were stars and the stars were the same ones she knew from her home, but she didn't know their names or how they worked. A plane passed high overhead, lights blinking. Just before the sun rose it was very cold and she was shivering and her fingers were numb and her feet were numb. She blew breath onto her hands and she beat her hands against her legs. She rubbed her legs until her palms and legs were warm again, and she fell asleep sitting up. She woke to discover the boy drinking the last of the water.

She took the bottle and held it up to discover its emptiness, and then she threw the bottle out into the desert and she turned to the boy and hit him across the head.

He began to cry.

Stupid, she said. Where do you think we'll get more water? Where? From a lake? From a river? Or the tienda over there? She pointed out into the desert and the boy looked, as if expecting a little store to pop up.

She stood and went to the bottle and picked it up and put it in her pack. She began to walk. When she looked back the boy was sitting as she had left him. She waited, and finally the boy stood and followed her.

They walked until the boy sat down. He said that he was thirsty and that his legs wouldn't move. She stood over him. His mouth was open and she saw his tongue and it was black. She squatted and told him to climb onto her back. He did so and put his arms around her neck and she rose and though the weight of the boy was not much at all she stumbled slightly and then found her balance and began to walk. Her arms reached behind her in order to hold the boy. Her arms grew tired and her legs were failing but still she walked. The boy was quiet. She said his name. He did not answer. She asked if he was sleeping. Nothing. Still, she talked to him. She told him that there was a mountain in the distance and there would be trees at the base of the mountain, and when they reached the trees there would be shade and there would be a stream or even a river. She said, We'll drink the water from the river and we'll swim. We'll splash in the water and put our heads under the water. The boy did not answer and she stopped talking because it made her thirsty.

When the sun was at its highest she laid the boy down beside a cactus and she crouched over him to protect him. He'd lost the
T-shirt she'd put on his head. He looked up at her and smiled and then closed his eyes. She closed her own eyes and when she opened them she saw before her an iguana. The iguana was the colour of the ground and at first she imagined she was dreaming but then its tail moved and she knew she was not alone. She took her knife from her pocket and stood. The iguana moved sideways. Its tongue darted. She took a step forwards and the iguana moved backwards. She held the knife over her head and threw it. The knife bounced off the ground and skidded away. The iguana blinked and skittered off beneath some low-lying plants. She chased the iguana through the desert and finally killed it with a small rock that was thrown from a distance. A lucky throw, one she could never repeat. She carried the iguana back to where the boy lay and she found her knife and she slit the yellow belly of the iguana and she bent to lick at the blood and the liquid that spilled out. There was little meat and it was tough and raw, but it produced in her mouth a liquid of sorts, and she discovered that if she sucked slowly at the meat, her mouth produced saliva and she swallowed the saliva. She held a piece of the iguana before the boy's mouth, rubbing his lips, and his black tongue came out briefly but he didn't eat or chew or take anything into his mouth. She finished off the iguana, leaving only the tail and the shell of it on the desert floor. Then she picked up the boy and once again began to walk.

Evening found them no closer to the mountain—it seemed instead that the mountain was moving away from them. They slept curled into each other and she felt the boy's chest move in and out
and she lay awake for a long time, wondering if he would die, and then she fell asleep.

In the morning when she woke she knew that he was dead. She said his name and she touched him and then she drew away and said his name again and when he did not respond she stood and looked down at him.

She looked out over the landscape and she looked down at the boy and then she picked him up and put him on her back and she started to walk. He was heavier now and she had a hard time holding him up, and finally she lowered him to the ground and said, I cannot.

She waited and watched and then she rose and walked the area and found a low-lying spot, where she fell to her knees and hollowed out space for his body. The ground was softer here and as she dug lower she discovered that her hands were damp. She dug deeper. The ground was wet and if she waited the smallest amount of moisture rose to the surface. She lowered her head into the depression and put her tongue to the sand. Felt the dampness. Her face experienced the coolness of the sand and her mouth was relieved. She went back to where the boy lay and she removed his T-shirt. She pulled it off his body carefully, lifting him from behind and scrolling the shirt up his back and then over his head. And finally off his arms. She lowered the boy back onto the sand and took the T-shirt and went over to the depression she had dug. There was a quarter inch of water in the hole. She soaked up the water with the boy's shirt and then raised it to her mouth and sucked on the shirt. It was water. There was sand as well, but it was
water. Over the next several hours she repeated this many times, and each time as she waited for the water to appear she took the damp shirt and tied it around her head and she sucked on a corner of the T-shirt and moved her tongue around inside her mouth. When she had had her fill of water she began to twist the T-shirt over the opening of the water bottle, and in this manner she managed to put an inch of water into the bottle. She screwed on the lid. Put the bottle inside her pack.

She went back to the boy and picked him up under his arms and dragged him towards the depression. She rolled his body down into the hole and when she looked down at him he was very small. She kneeled there and dug in his pockets and found the slip of paper with his mother's name and address on it. She put this into her own pocket. She removed one of his runners and set it aside. Then she scraped at the sand with her fingers and hands and began to cover him. She covered his face at the very last. She touched his face and his eyes and his mouth and she talked to him. She said she was sorry for hitting him, and she was sorry for not being kinder, and she was sorry that she had not saved him. She thought she might be crying but there were no tears and she realized that she had very little moisture left in her own body. This frightened and alarmed her. She took the damp T-shirt and laid it over his face and then she pushed the sand towards where his head was and when she was done he was no longer visible. She stood and found a small rock and placed it on top of the grave. Then she picked up his shoe, put it into her pack, and began to walk.

I
SABELLA
and Jack Farago owned a small ranch thirty miles east of Marfa, Texas. Isabella was Mexican, Jack American, and they'd lived together going on almost twelve years now after meeting at the Sandhills Rodeo. Isabella was driving back from her sister's place in Piedras Negras when she saw a boy kneeling beside the road. She slowed and stopped and got out and stood by her door and called out. The boy didn't raise his head or say anything. He was holding a shoe in his hand and he lifted it now and held it up for Isabella to see, and then a noise came from his mouth and she realized that this was a girl kneeling before her.

In the pickup, she gave the girl water but she couldn't drink properly, and so Isabella held the bottle for her and dribbled a little water onto her mouth and lips. The girl's tongue came out and it was thick and swollen and black and Isabella said, Jesus.

Here, she said, and she took a bandana from her pocket and soaked it with water and pressed the bandana against the girl's mouth and face. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut. The shoe she had held up was still clutched in one hand. It was a sneaker, too small for the girl's feet. The girl sucked on the rag and then sucked some more. Then she drank straight from the bottle and immediately bent forward and retched. A thin line of bile trickled between her feet.

Slow down, Isabella said. She touched the girl's back. Started the pickup and pulled out on the highway.

At the house she walked her into the bathroom and she ran a cool bath and told the girl to remove her clothes. The girl seemed embarrassed and so Isabella showed her how to turn the water off.
She showed her how to wet the washcloth and suck at it slowly, so as not to make herself sick. She went into her own bedroom and found jeans and a T-shirt from when she was younger and thinner. She found a pair of underwear. She opened the bathroom door a crack and called out, Is it good? There was no answer, but she heard the water splash. She laid the clothes inside the bathroom door and told the girl to use them.

She made the girl a fruit shake and she fried some rice and beans and she set the table and then sat down and waited. When the girl appeared Isabella told her to sit, and to eat. And drink. The girl looked about and asked, Where is the shoe?

Isabella pointed at the doorway. Beside your bag, she said. It's safe.

The girl looked in order to verify this, and then sat down and studied the food. She didn't touch anything for the longest time. She just stared. Then she picked up the glass and drank a little of the fruit shake and put the glass down. She picked up the fork and took a small amount of beans. She had a hard time chewing. She swallowed and put the fork down. It's very good, she said.

Take your time, Isabella said.

The girl ate some more. The girl drank a little. There was a glass of ice water, and the girl drank from this as well.

Isabella watched. She said, finally, What's your name?