by JJ Flowers
He brushed aside the colorful collection of shawls and wraps.
The photo album was gone. Thankfully, he had all the pictures of his mother and abuela on his iPad, plus a hundred pictures of him and Rocio as children.
Why would they take someone’s old pictures?
A lone picture had fallen out, one he’d never seen before. It was as if his abuela had left it for him. In the familiar space of the meadow, his beautiful mother stood alongside a tall American-looking man.
Juan Pablo studied the stranger in the photo. Why had he never seen this photo before? Was it his father? If so, he didn’t look Mexican at all. The man was tall and thin, wearing Levi’s and a work shirt. Sunglasses covered his eyes. He had an oval face, dark hair, and a huge smile, but there was nothing familiar in his features.
A butterfly floated in from the outside. The winged creature flew straight out the door, not really fluttering. More like a warning.
The second warning . . .
His gaze shot to the front door. Footsteps approached. In the next instant, he grabbed the water bottles and raced outside. He ducked into the small garbage enclosure alongside the house and knelt down. Holding perfectly still, he forgot to breathe.
A man entered the house.
There were no sounds at first, as if the man stood there studying the mess made of their home. Cigar smoke wafted outside from the house. Glass crunched beneath boots with each slow and deliberate step. Silence followed, so complete that Juan Pablo imagined he could hear the smoke moving through the stilled air.
What was the man looking at?
The man stepped outside. He couldn’t see the man, but he imagined the man stared at the view of the mountain and forest behind the house. The pungent scent of his cigar swirled away in the breeze.
Could this be the man they called the Hunter?
“Juan Pablo Venesa.”
Juan Pablo almost toppled upon hearing his name. He didn’t move, and for several tense moments he was afraid he had been found out, but no. Nothing happened. The man remained staring out.
The man knew his name.
How did they know it was him? He tried to reason, to think how this happened. He couldn’t imagine, until—
The vague memory of the video shot on the patio popped into his mind. They would know where the poison had come from after the search of the houses. They needed only to have asked any one of El Rosario’s families to get his name. As if to answer his mounting terror, a low chuckle sounded.
“It is only a matter of time, mi amigo . . .”
Juan Pablo’s hands flew to his mouth to stop his gasp. Kneeling there, terrified, he fully expected to be discovered.
The man finally returned inside. Glass smashed beneath the unhurried steps, which spoke of an unnatural confidence, as if he had all the time in the world. The front door opened and closed again.
The boots disappeared down the street.
Juan Pablo guessed what color they were.
He ducked past the back door and darted into the forest. Moving cautiously, in case any eyes were upon the mountain trail, he made his way from one tree to the next until he finally reached the tepee.
“JP, what took so long?”
He started to tell Rocio, but something cautioned him. They had been through so much. They didn’t need to worry about the strange man looking through his house, did they? Just another bandito searching for them.
“My house,” he shook his head. “They went through everything, all of Abuela’s things. It is a mess.”
Within minutes, they stood outside the tepee and weighted with their packs, they took their first steps on the long journey to freedom. As always, the air was thick with the sweet scent of the surrounding forest. Butterflies circled overhead. They first kept to the trees, moving furtively as they circumvented the meadow to reach the trail.
The tall oyamel fir trees rose on either side of the trodden path and provided welcome shade from the warm afternoon sun. The trail rose up for about a kilometer. Juan Pablo and Rocio both knew this part; they had been up to the top three or four times with friends. They walked in silence, practically tiptoeing, but still moving as fast as they could, looking back every few steps, as if at any moment they would be spotted.
Two anxious gazes darting this way and that.
The trail finally began to flatten. Trees shot straight up in search of the sun. The butterflies began to thin out. Their breathing eased, but they still moved quickly.
In this way, they made steady progress.
Occasionally clearings interrupted the shade and the long arms of the sun reached down to them. Fewer butterflies collected in these clearings. Their numbers seemed to diminish with each step.
“We are going fast, don’t you think?”
“If you can keep up with me, we will reach the road in no time.”
“Me?” Juan Pablo asked, hiding the burst of joy brought by Rocio’s comment. He too would pretend to be normal. “Keep up with you? I am going so slow, to help you keep up.”
“But I’m going slow for you.”
“I have always been faster than you.”
“In your dreams. I am much faster.”
They laughed at this lie. Juan Pablo adjusted his pack and violin in front and offered to carry her. Rocio leapt onto his back, as she always had, and he happily carried her for the next kilometer.
“What was that?” Rocio asked in a whisper.
Juan Pablo set her on her feet. “What?”
She pointed up ahead. “I think I heard something.”
Juan Pablo took her hand and moving stealthily, they hid behind a grouping of trees. With the sinking sun to their right, the shadows darkened and stretched. The still air amplified the quiet as they waited and listened. He heard his own heartbeat, but also Rocio’s coupled with the sound of her short, frightened breaths. They waited maybe five minutes, but nothing happened.
“I think it is clear,” Juan Pablo finally whispered.
She nodded slowly. Now spooked, they made their way back onto the trail and continued walking. As the light faded, their heightened senses imagined boots closing in from in front and behind. Rocio suddenly grabbed him and she stopped.
“Rocio, there is no one coming.”
She waited a moment before realizing they were safe. “JP, can we stop? I need to rest.”
Juan Pablo searched their surroundings for a safe place. He made out a large boulder and some oak brush beneath the trees some fifty meters from the path. He pointed. “Over there.”
They made their way to the spot. On the other side of the boulder, they shrugged out of their packs and collapsed to the ground. He and Rocio removed one of their bottles of water.
“We should only have half. For now,” Rocio instructed.
“Suit yourself,” Juan Pablo replied. “I’m having the whole thing.”
“You’ll be sorry,” Rocio told him.
The warm water slid down Juan Pablo’s throat. He tried to stop halfway, but it seemed to only tease his great thirst. He took another big gulp. Rocio watched and suddenly smiled. She took a big gulp too.
“You drank more than half already,” Juan Pablo pointed out.
“Maybe I changed my mind,” Rocio said, without admitting she was wrong. “I’m starving, too,” she said.
Juan Pablo only realized how hungry he was after he drank the whole bottle. He nodded. “Me, too.”
Rocio, who seemed to be in charge of the food for some reason, carefully withdrew the tortillas and the peanut butter and using only her finger, she spread the golden paste over two tortillas. This was torn in half. She handed him half.
Juan Pablo never tasted anything so delicious. He could eat ten of them. They ate two more.
Rocio’s gaze swept the surrounding forest. “This looks like a good place to stay the night?”
Juan Pablo shook his head. “I think we can hike another two or three kilometers before complete darkness. Then find a place to sleep. We just
might make it out by nightfall tomorrow. Besides, my abuela always said night vision was the first thing you lose as you get older. They will need flashlights now, and we don’t. We can spot them coming a mile away in the dark.”
To Juan Pablo’s surprise, Rocio agreed. “That makes sense.”
Juan Pablo placed the water back in his pack and stood up, brushing the dirt from his jeans. They hiked another two kilometers, more slowly now in the pending dark. When at last even Juan Pablo couldn’t walk any further, they used the phone’s light to find a place to sleep. Not far from the trail, they settled on a spot hidden behind a thick cluster of trees. Rocio made him use the light to make certain there were no spiders.
This was the only useful thing the phone could do. They both had realized they could not call anyone. If Rocio’s mother knew what was happening, she’d fly in to Mexico City and knowing Rocio’s headstrong mom, she would singlehandedly take on the whole lot of banditos. Neither of them saw a happy ending if Rocio’s mom learned of the unfolding danger. Even if they all somehow survived, because of the restrictions placed on Mexicans wanting to emmigrate, she would not be allowed back into America. There would be no tuition for medical school and Leonardo would lose his place there.
Still, as soon as they were safe at Rocio’s uncle’s house, Rocio would call her mother and tell her what had happened to them, that Elena and her father had died.
Rocio went from hopeful to frightened because of the darkness . . .
After eating the last of the cereal and drinking another bottle of water, they laid down.
Aching muscles, fatigue, and more tired than they ever had been—all of which made for a good thing. They were so tired it didn’t matter how uncomfortable they were or that the ground poked them every which way. They lay down side by side, staring up through the trees. Distant stars laced the velvet sky, the panorama interrupted only by the canopy of treetops. Unseen animals scurried into the bushes. An owl hooted nearby. Juan Pablo started to close his eyes on the stars and the soft sound of Rocio’s breathing.
“Juan Pablo,” Rocio whispered.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for saving me. You were so brave. I’ll never forget it.”
The rare compliment from Rocio made his heart sing, but he wondered if it was true. Was he brave? He certainly did not feel brave. Ever since the banditos, he felt mostly scared. He’d like to think he was brave, but he had only done what he had to do to save the people he loved.
Maybe that’s what bravery was.
“I don’t know what would have happened if you—”
“No, don’t think of it,” Juan Pablo stopped her, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “It’s over. I would go mad if I thought about what might have happened to you, but we don’t have to think of this ever again. We’re going to get out of here. We’ll soon be safe at your uncle’s house.”
They fell silent for a long moment, before he thought of Sophia, Rocio’s mother in Arizona. “Your mom will be so worried.”
She nodded. “And sad. She loved my abuelo and Elena very much.”
A rising half-moon spread light over the forest.
Holding Rocio’s hand as they drifted off to sleep, Juan Pablo studied the darkened shadows cast in the moonlight. He remembered the first time he became aware of the haunting stillness of the forest, the imperfect quiet here.
Juan Pablo, do you hear the music? his abuela had asked.
He had listened with his eyes on the sea of green. An evocative vibration sang into the stilled air. What is it, Abuela?
The music of the forest. It is a magnificent giant creature, the forest, humming with life.
What do you mean, creature? He didn’t understand the use of the English word.
People tend to see individual trees, but they are not individuals. They are connected at their roots; they are one great being, singing with life.
He listened to the music now.
People are like that, too, only very few grasp the connection to each other. This is why what you do to one, you do to all . . .
CHAPTER SIX
Juan Pablo watched the butterflies begin disappearing until only a barren sky remained. Darkness fell and the sky turned into a murky blackness. From far away, his abuela called out a warning as he and Rocio walked through the darkness. Someone was following them. They started running . . .
The man with the red boots was gaining . . .
Juan Pablo woke with a start and opened his eyes to dawn’s light.
Reality played in a nightmare. The trouble was the nightmare was real.
He looked over at Rocio still sleeping soundly.
A fairly large spider, one the size of his thumb, gently walked through Rocio’s hair and he reached over and let it crawl onto his hand, lifting it safely away from his sleeping friend.
Understandings of their difficulties piled up as they finally made their way back to the trail and began walking. First, they discovered sore muscles and tired legs. They also needed a shower. But they discovered what all frightened people discover; fear produces an almost supernatural energy. They ignored their aches, hunger, and fatigue to push ahead.
Rocio had combed her hair down the middle and tied the two pigtails with three bands each. She had started to braid her hair, but he had protested. He could never look at braids the same way again. They would forever remind him of an unknown young girl’s terrible fate.
As they headed out, making good, steady progress, the landscape gradually changed. The trail took downward turns, interrupted by less-steep inclines. They finally passed the tree line. Boulders and scrub brush began littering the hilly landscape—that was all. Eventually all the trees vanished.
The day warmed with each step. Warm turned to hot and sometime after noon, with maybe ten kilometers still to go, the sun began to beat unrelentingly upon them. He and Rocio tied their shirts over their heads for shade. Juan Pablo felt the sun hit his black jeans like a fire on coals. Perspiration trickled over his bare chest and down his neck.
“All I can think about is how thirsty I am,” Rocio mumbled.
Juan Pablo would have added their favorite English word, ditto, but even saying it seemed like too much effort.
They each had one bottle left. They had to make it last.
They marched on in the sun.
Mountains rose behind them. While vertical cliffs shot up to the sky on one side, the trail became a flat plane surrounded by hills on the other. With each step Juan Pablo could do nothing to escape thoughts of water. Normally, the weight of his violin did not register, as if indeed it had become a part of him, but he felt it now. Sweat fell in tiny rivulets from his face.
He tried to think of something besides water . . .
Music. He forced his thoughts to music. He began imagining playing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, a most difficult piece, one he had mastered only in his mind, but fell far short of even adequate in reality. For a millimeter maybe two, the pounding torture of the sun disappeared beneath a symphony of music. He had just reached the second movement when a butterfly floated dreamily across their path.
He stopped, watching the delicate creature dance leisurely across the trail toward the cliffs.
Follow the butterflies . . .
Dragging her feet, Rocio stared zombie-like at the ground as she stumbled on.
The orange and black creature disappeared behind the towering cliff.
He lifted his shirt to shield the sun from the view. If he squinted against the light just so, he could see the narrowest of paths reaching around the cliff. Probably an old Indian path. Indians used to live here hundreds of years ago, after the Aztecs and before the Spaniards.
“Rocio,” he called out. “Look.”
Stopping, Rocio cupped her hand over her eyes, studying where he pointed. “What?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to look.”
“Wait. No. We can’t be wasting energy exploring—”
Too late. Ju
an Pablo climbed up the incline. Not a real path, but more a slight opening in the scrub brush. It disappeared behind the cliff.
Rocio scrambled to catch him.
Juan Pablo stopped as the path rounded the side of the cliff. The sudden shade felt like a cool cloth to his hot head. About fifty kilometers down, a cluster of tall reeds crowded in a circle the size of a house. What struck him where he stood was the color. Green. The color of life—or in this case, water.
Rocio came up behind him.
“I bet there’s water there.” He turned to the cliff. “Look. You can see where there used to be a waterfall.”
“It’s dry now,” Rocio said, eyeing the climb down with weariness.
“I’m going to look.”
He removed his violin and pack, and set these against the cliff’s shaded wall. He half slid, half hopped down the steep incline. From above, Rocio watched him disappear in the green reeds.
The next sounds were shot straight from heaven.
A bark of triumphant laughter followed by a splash.
Rocio laughed, too, as she dropped her pack.
The girl was already sliding down the side of the cliff. She pushed away the reeds and confronted a glorious sight.
Juan Pablo swimming in a dark and deep pool of water the size of the plaza. The cliff and reeds completely shaded it. They needed no invitation.
“A gift from the butterflies,” Juan Pablo said before diving down into the cool, dark depths.
With laughter, Rocio joined him.
It was probably not wise to drink this water, but their great thirst had squeezed out any semblance of wisdom. Clothes were soaked and then left to dry over the tops of the rocks. Time disappeared as they indulged in the heaven-sent gift. It was hard not to make much noise as they dove and swam to the depths, holding their breath for long minutes, but if smiles made sounds, the noise would be a roar.
