Disappeared

by Francisco X. Stork

  “I’m not going to make it … am I?” Lester whimpers. He is pale and weak and has started to shiver. Sara covers him with a thermal blanket.

  “Can you make a tourniquet to stop the blood?” Sara asks Emiliano.

  “The bullet didn’t hit an artery, otherwise the blood would be gushing. Tourniquets are for arteries.”

  “But the blood is coming out nonstop,” Sara says. “The bleeding is worse at the back of the knee.”

  Emiliano kneels down and says to Lester, “You think you can lie on your stomach with your leg up on a rock?”

  Emiliano and Sara take Lester’s jacket off and then turn him on his stomach and prop up the leg. They put the part of the leg where the knee used to be on a flat rock and his lower leg on a higher rock. Emiliano takes out his knife and makes a long tear in Lester’s pants. He motions for Sara to give him her bandanna and then sits next to Lester and presses down on the wound with the rolled-up cloth.

  “Ohhh,” Lester groans.

  “I’m going to put pressure on the wound for a few minutes to see if the bleeding slows down.”

  “It’s the bone. The flesh … don’t hurt as much as the bone.”

  Sara sits on the gully wall opposite Lester’s face. “Your friend will get help and come back, won’t he?”

  “No. He’s gone for good. Oh, God.”

  “I wish you’d stop using God’s name. You have no right to invoke his name after what you were thinking of doing,” Sara tells him.

  Emiliano smiles. Again, Sara sounds just like Mami.

  Lester starts shaking.

  “The blood is coming out harder. Get ahold of yourself or you’ll die faster.” Emiliano pauses. “On second thought, go ahead and move as much as you can.”

  “Emiliano!”

  Lester takes a series of shallow breaths. It reminds Sara of a woman in labor trying to fight through the pain. “I … can’t believe … you helping … me.”

  “Me neither,” Emiliano says, staring at Sara.

  “It’s not possible that your friend won’t come back with help, or call someone and tell them you’re hurt. I can’t believe he’d just leave you here.” It suddenly occurs to Sara that Joe or whatever his name was probably doesn’t know that Lester has been shot. She and Emiliano didn’t know right away either. “What kind of a friend is that?”

  “He’s a … rookie. Scared. Shouldn’t have … brought him.”

  “You’re a very sick person, you know that?” Sara says. “And I’m not talking about the bullet wound. Your friend is sick too. You don’t leave a friend behind, no matter what.”

  “I know it. I know I am.”

  Emiliano removes the bandanna from the wound. They both watch the small opening on the leg. The blood has stopped flowing. Then a moment later it begins to ooze out again. Emiliano shakes his head, stands up, and motions for Sara to follow him.

  Emiliano moves far enough away that Lester won’t hear them. He looks at the sun, well above the rim of the mountains. Today will be hotter than yesterday, he can tell already. “We should be going.”

  Sara glances at Lester. “How bad is it?”

  “He’s going to bleed out in a couple of hours. With pressure on the wound, maybe he’ll last an hour or two longer.”

  “We can’t leave him.”

  Emiliano shakes his head. “Our trip is over, then. If you want to save him, the only way to do that is for one of us to go get help while the other one tries to stem the bleeding. The main road is about four miles west of here. You can flag a car, call for help.”

  “Me?”

  “Sara, listen to me. If we want to save that man’s life, you won’t make it to Chicago. Do you still have the thumb drive with all your asylum documents?”

  Sara pats the pocket of her leg. “Yes.” Emiliano never ceases to amaze her. It was so smart of him to have her keep the thumb drive in her pocket rather than her backpack.

  “Get help and then turn yourself over to the Border Patrol. Tell them you’re seeking asylum.”

  “And you?” The idea of leaving Emiliano scares her more than anything that’s happened that morning.

  “I’ll wait with the guy, putting pressure on his wound. I’ll be able to tell when a car is coming before it gets here. When I see the dust, I’ll run and hide behind those rocks on that hill over there. Then after everyone is gone, I’ll head back down that road, the way we came.”

  “Ahhh!”

  They both turn in the direction of Lester’s cry.

  “We should leave him for the buzzards,” Emiliano says. “That man is no different than the people who shot up our house or the man who owns that cell phone back there. He works for them.”

  Sara notices pain flashing across Emiliano’s face. “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing. I stepped on a cactus. I’ll be all right.” The pain in his foot is nothing, nothing, compared to the pain in his heart. There’s no more denying the truth. Perla Rubi is the reason they were found. His sister was almost raped and killed because of Perla Rubi or her father, or both.

  Strength ebbs from his legs. He lowers himself to the ground. Sara kneels and then sits next to him.

  “You told Perla Rubi where we were crossing, didn’t you?”

  Emiliano nods. He closes his eyes and speaks. “She probably mentioned it to her father. Her father …”

  “Knows Hinojosa.”

  He opens his eyes and looks straight ahead. “Or knows people that know him. It’s like a spiderweb. Every thread is connected.”

  Sara holds her head in her hands. It will take a long time for her to figure it all out, but she understands enough. She sees clearly what has been tearing Emiliano apart and the life that awaits him.

  “Emiliano, do you really want to go back?”

  You’re protected. That’s one of the benefits of our friendship … When you come back, you’ll be okay.

  The men were taking Sara. They were going to leave him behind, knowing that he would free himself in a short time. They were letting him go because he is protected. The thought that it was Sara they were after and not him sickens him.

  And yet even now, despite all he knows, he still wants to return to Perla Rubi. Even after her father told Hinojosa where they were going to cross, he still wants to be a part of her world. He doesn’t understand how this can be. It doesn’t make sense. Yet there it is. All he knows is that he feels a powerful pull toward Perla Rubi and Armando and Mr. and Mrs. Esmeralda and even Alfredo Reyes. Those people accepted him, welcomed him, treasured him even. They never abandoned him or broke any promises to him. And if they are dirty, well, so is he.

  His silence is the answer to Sara’s question.

  She stares at him until the unrelenting sorrow in her eyes makes him stand. She stands as well. “All right. I’ll go because I don’t want that man to die. I still have a conscience.” She pauses long enough for him to understand the implied accusation. What the hell has happened to her brother? Emiliano, whose compass always pointed toward goodness. When he looks up, she says, her voice quivering, “If you want to return and be part of that spiderweb, as you call it, then go ahead. But first you’re going to take Hinojosa’s cell phone to Sanderson. When you get there, you’re going to e-mail Yoya—her e-mail’s in the pouch—and then you’re going to send the phone wherever she tells you. I put all of our lives in danger for that cell phone. I gave up my home, my job, my mami, to save some poor girls. I sacrificed everything. Mami sacrificed being with the two people she loves the most. I don’t want my sacrifice and Mami’s to be for nothing.

  “And when you get to Sanderson, you’re going to tell Papá that I asked for asylum, and you’re going to make sure he finds out where I’m being detained so he can vouch for me. You’re going to do all that, Emiliano, because otherwise this is all for nothing, and if it’s for nothing, it’s because of you. Because of you. Do you understand? And you can’t let all I’ve done be lost.”

  Emiliano watches the tears make
wet tracks on Sara’s dusty face. He doesn’t know what to say. He wants to tell her how sorry he is, but he’s no longer sure that any words coming out of his mouth will be true. Whatever comes out has a good chance of being a lie and he doesn’t want to lie to her.

  “I’ll go to Sanderson. I’ll take care of the cell phone. I’ll tell our father where you are before I return to Mexico.”

  He can give her that.

  Emiliano watches Sara return to the place where they slept, pick her hat up from the ground, climb out of the gully, and walk away. He waits and waits, hoping that she will turn around and say good-bye, and when she doesn’t, something wants to break in him.

  When she is small in the distance, he looks around. There are rocky hills about three hundred yards to the east where he will run when he sees a car coming. It will take Sara an hour or so to reach the main highway, so there’s no need to worry about a vehicle just yet. If only they had spent the night up in those craggy hills. How did the men find them?

  He looks down and sees the footprints made by Sara’s shoes. The men must have stopped their car at the end of the dirt road and simply followed his and Sara’s footprints. How stupid on his part not to anticipate that. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, as Brother Patricio liked to say.

  The wounded man is making little whiny sounds like a baby who’s tired himself out from bawling. Emiliano takes a deep breath. An agave cactus with red flowers blooms nearby. He kneels next to it and carefully cuts one of the pads from the joint. He grabs the pad with his thumb and index finger, taking care not to touch any of the protruding thorns.

  When he gets back to Lester, Emiliano digs his knife from his pocket and opens the blade. He uses the knife to tear away the man’s pants up to his thigh. The leg is now uncovered from the upper thigh to the edge of his cowboy boots. Emiliano considers taking the boots off the man but decides to leave them on. The tight boot with its skinny point is probably slowing down the flow of blood.

  Emiliano cuts the cactus pad in half and shaves off the edge so that the pulp of the plant begins to ooze. Then he rubs the viscous pulp on the wound. The gooey substance will ease the pain and slow the bleeding. He rubs gently around the edges first and finally presses the edge of the cactus hard into the bullet hole.

  There’s a long, muffled scream from Lester.

  Emiliano can feel small pieces of shattered bone under the skin. The patella—he remembers the name from his first aid books—is mush. He folds Lester’s jacket and places it on top of the rock supporting the middle of the leg. There is white spittle coming out of the man’s mouth, snot from his nose, and tears from his eyes. Emiliano takes his knife and makes a hole in the sleeve of the man’s denim shirt. From that hole, he rips out a large swath of the shirt and uses it as a bandage to press on the wound. The blood is flowing slower now, but still flowing. The man’s got maybe one hour before he goes into shock and then a coma. Two hours, if Emiliano keeps pressing on the wound. Emiliano sits on the ground and pushes down on the bandage.

  Lester opens his eyes, looks at Emiliano’s legs stretched out next to him, and says weakly, “Your sister …”

  Lester’s words, his face, everything about the man reminds Emiliano of his own ugliness. He has no intention of speaking, but the words come out of him. “Went for help.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted you to live.”

  Lester sticks out his tongue to moisten his lips. Emiliano reaches for the bottle of water and pours a few drops into the man’s mouth.

  “Guy I work for. He said … get the cell phone. Finish the girl. Let the boy go.”

  “Someone hired you.”

  “No. A favor to … some big shot in Juárez. I follow orders. He said to take his nephew … Joe. That guy. Back there. Ran away. He’s a coward.”

  “And you are?”

  “No. Not a coward. Worse. Your sister … she’s so pretty.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m sorry. Couldn’t kill her. So pretty. That … saved her. When you think about it.”

  Emiliano watches Lester. It’s confusing. It’s like seeing evil and some kind of goodness and innocence all rolled into one, inseparable. Lester opens his mouth to take in more oxygen. Any moment now Emiliano expects him to stop breathing. Instead, he sees the man swallow hard. He’s trying to speak.

  “Don’t talk,” Emiliano says to him.

  “Wall … wallet.”

  Emiliano reaches in the man’s back pocket and takes out a bulging brown leather wallet. He shows it to the man. The man is dying. Emiliano is keeping him alive and he’s worried about his money.

  “Open.”

  Emiliano opens the wallet and shows him the bills. “All still there,” he says bitterly.

  Lester shakes his head. “Yours. Take it.”

  Emiliano closes the wallet and puts it next to the man’s shoulder. “No want your money,” he says with the best Mexican accent he can come up with.

  “Please,” Lester says. He speaks clearly for the first time. “Thousand dollars. For you. To get away. Please.”

  “No.”

  Emiliano lifts his hand and removes the wet bandage from the wound. He waits a few moments. There’s no blood flowing. Then out it comes again, with more force. Emiliano rips another piece of cloth from Lester’s shirt. He balls it and presses down again.

  “I’m gonna die.”

  “Probably. Sooner if you talk.”

  “Just before I came. I went and got … these copper-tip bullets.” Lester tries to laugh, coughs a few times. “My wallet. Please.” Lester takes the wallet with one hand and opens it. He gestures for Emiliano to hold it while he lifts a picture out of one of the wallet’s compartments. “My son.”

  The boy in the picture is about seven. The smile has a gap where a tooth is missing and the face is full of freckles. Lester struggles to speak. “Lives with his mom. Over in Odessa. His mom and me divorced … when he was four. She doesn’t let me see him. Can’t say I blame her.” He shuts his eyes and then opens them. “I don’t mind … dying. Hell, I been killing myself. I only mind for … him. Jimmy.” Lester closes his hand around the picture. Then he closes the wallet and gives it to Emiliano. “If there was a way for you … to tell him. His daddy loves him. There’s a paper in there … with his momma’s phone.” He grabs Emiliano’s hand. There’s a desperate, wild look on his face. “I know I have … no right to ask. In my wallet, his mother’s phone. Can you call her? Tell her Les wanted you to give a … a message for Jimmy. Tell him his daddy loves him.”

  Emiliano can feel in Lester’s grip all the force remaining in the man. The grip is as insistent as his eyes. He notices the scars on the inside of the man’s arm. Five or six old needle marks run along the contours of the veins. He thinks about Javier’s piñatas.

  “Please. Will you call him?”

  Emiliano nods. Lester lets go of Emiliano’s hand. Then he asks softly, “You still got your father?”

  Emiliano shakes his head. The man will keep on talking until his last breath. “Yeah,” Emiliano says, pressing hard on the wound.

  Lester winces. “It wasn’t supposed … to turn out like this. I wanted to be a real father to my Jimmy again. He needs to know … how much I love him. I don’t want to die with him not knowing … You tell him. You promise. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  Lester thanks Emiliano silently and then closes his eyes. Emiliano stares at him. This dying man’s last wish is for his son to know that he was loved by his father. He remembers the letter he read in his bedroom the night after the party. You don’t know how much it hurts me that you may think I don’t love you, his father wrote. He didn’t believe his father’s hurt was real when he read the letter, but maybe he was wrong.

  Emiliano checks Lester’s wrist and waits until he feels the almost imperceptible pulse. In one of the wallet’s compartments, he finds a piece of paper with a telephone number. He takes it and puts in his pocket. He pours a small amou
nt of water on the last piece of torn shirt and touches Lester’s lips and forehead with it. He is about to cut another piece of cloth from Lester’s other sleeve when he hears a sound. He stands.

  Far away there is a white cloud on the east-west road.

  Quickly, he bends down and wraps the wound as tightly as he can with the wet bandanna. Then he grabs his hat, the water bottle, and Hinojosa’s cell phone and climbs out of the gully.

  Emiliano kneels behind the rust-colored boulders and watches the white truck park on the side of the road. Sara gets out from the passenger side, and then the driver steps out—a woman, blond hair in a ponytail, olive-green uniform, not much older than Sara. Sara leads the way toward the gully, her eyes searching the rocks where he’s hiding.

  Emiliano sinks to the ground, relieved. Of all the people whom Sara could have flagged down, a park ranger is not bad.

  A few minutes later the park ranger climbs out of the gully and runs to the white truck. She opens a tin box in the bed of the truck and takes out a green canvas bag. Emiliano watches her run back to Lester. Now and then the top of her head bobs above the gully edge as she ministers to Lester. Then he hears a hollow, throbbing sound, and when he looks up, he sees a helicopter approaching from the west. Emiliano climbs up a few yards and crawls under a rock overhang.

  There, lying on his stomach, he watches the red-and-white helicopter touch down in a swirl of pink dust. The woman with the ponytail waves at the three men in the helicopter. Before the blades have stopped turning, two men carrying a stretcher with an aluminum suitcase on top jump out of the helicopter and run toward Sara and the park ranger.

  How long does it take to lift a man onto a stretcher? Hours go by, or so it seems, before Emiliano sees the group make their way to the shallow end of the gully. Lester is covered with a gray blanket, a clear plastic mask on his face and an IV bag on his chest. He must still be alive. They walk, slowly, deliberately, in single file: the men carrying the stretcher, the park ranger, and finally Sara. Just before they emerge from the gully, he sees Sara take something from her back pocket and place it quickly under a rock.