by Pastor, Juan
“I’m surprised the cowards didn’t just shoot you in the back. But maybe you’re lucky they didn’t. These wounds look awfully clean.”
He looks over at the wolves. He smiles. His teeth are a little crooked and a little yellow. The wolves, as they pant to cool themselves, show whiter teeth.
“So they think you’re a keeper, Huh?” The voice of dust asks.
He looks over the wound in front again. And then the wound in back again.
“I see you’ve smeared some Cardόn fruit on the wounds. Smart girl. Either that or you’re a very sloppy eater. There, that’s what I like, a girl who can take a bullet, and still smile.”
“But don’t make me laugh. I think it will hurt.”
“You’ve got to come with me.” He says. “You’ve got to get out of the sun. And I’ve got medicine. But not with me.”
“You want me to trust you?” I say.
“See those wolves over there?” He asks. “They trust me. If they didn’t trust me, I’d be in worse shape now then you. If they can trust me, you can trust me.”
“I’m a little low on trust, right now.” I say.
“I hear you, little lady.” He says. “But you know what Ernest Hemingway said?”
“Who’s Ernest Hemingway?” I ask.
“The best way to know if you can trust someone is to trust him.” He says, acting as if I had just asked the stupidest of questions.
I try to get up. Everything feels numb, yet everything hurts.
“I’d pick you up and carry you”, the cowboy says, “but you’re better off moving once in a while.”
“It hurts more now than when I got shot.”
“Cause your body went into shock a little bit. Now your body wants you to fight back.” He says. “So, fight back.”
“Are you a doctor?” I ask.
“I used to be. Well, I still am, and probably a better one than I ever was. I just don’t have a paper that says so anymore, that I can hang on my wall. Which is just as well, because I don’t even have the wall.”
“Do you believe in God?” I ask the cowboy.
“Yes. And No.” He says.
“Me too.” I say, and start to laugh. But it hurts too much.
“Now climb in the jeep.” He says.
I try to lift my leg over the doorjamb, but it just will not raise up.
“Come on. You can do it.” He says.
“No I can’t.” I say. “If I could, I would.”
He comes around to my side, lifts me like I'm nothing, and sits me on the seat.
“I don’t have a top.” He says. “But we’ll be out of the sun soon. I don’t want to drive too fast. The bumps will hurt. But I don’t want you out here too much longer either.”
He climbs in his side. He starts the jeep. The rear tires spin in the sand a little, so he puts it in four wheel drive.
“You know”, He says when we were on our way, “What I said about God. I want to believe. And sometimes I do. But mostly I don’t. If people were created by God, they must be one goddamned big disappointment to Him.”
I can feel my face breaking into a smile.
“If I ever do meet Him, He’s got a lot of explaining to do.”
Who is Ernest Hemingway?” I ask. “I like the sound of the name.”
“He was a writer.”
“What did he write about?” I asked.
“People fighting bravely for lost causes, mostly.” He says.
“Does he have any other famous sayings? I ask.
“Yes.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“He had a famous quote about his profession.”
“What was it?
“There is nothing to writing, all you do is sit down at your typewriter, and bleed.”
“Vaja!” I say.
“Yes.” He says. “Wow.”
“What else did he say?” I ask.
“The world is a beautiful place, and worth fighting for.”
“Even if the fight is a lost cause?” I ask.
“Especially if the fight is a lost cause.” The cowboy says. He puts the emphasis on "Especially". "Two hundred people die every year trying to do what you are doing."
"What am I doing?" I ask.
"Crossing the border." He says.
"I haven't crossed yet." I say.
"Paciencia." He says. "Paciencia."
The cowboy pulls his bandana over his mouth and nose. It is getting pretty dusty. He hands me a clean red bandana from a vest pocket.
“Gracias.” I say. I put the red bandana on.
Cueva de la Murciélagos
The cowboy drives his jeep under a canopy of
tangled vines, and into a cave in the side of a hill. He takes off his hat, lays it upside down on his seat. He takes off the bandana and places it in the dome of the hat. I pull the red bandana down around my neck.
He comes around to my side of the jeep and helps me out. Surprisingly, it does not hurt as much as when he’d helped me in.
He leads me through a little passageway into another much larger cave. The cave has bats clinging to the ceiling. A spider, very light‐colored, scurries across one of the walls, looking as if it is moving sideways. The larger cave has many other passageways leading to it. We choose the one filled with water.
“Watch where I step very carefully.” He says. “It might
be a good idea if you took off your shoes.”
I sit down and start to unlace my boots. It is cool in the
cave but instead of being refreshed by the coolness, I feel as if I am about to faint.
“Let me help you.” The cowboy says. “Just relax.
You’re safe now. There’s no need to hurry.”
He unlaces the boot, and with some effort manages to
pull it off.
“Whew!” He says. “I haven’t smelled anything that bad
in some time.”
“I’ve been wearing them for days now.” I say. “Lo
siento.”
“No need to apologize.”
He helps me off with the other boot. Then he removes
a sock. There is another sock under it.
“Smart girl.” He says. “Most people don’t even think of
that.”
He removes both pairs of socks.
“Your feet smell awful, but they look pretty good
considering what they’ve been through.” He says. “You’ve actually got kind of pretty feet.” He helps me to my feet. The water looks very deep, but when he takes his first step, it is onto something submerged just below the surface. Then again, and again, until we are across the water. Another chamber. Another passageway. Then what looks to be his living quarters. Light filters in from a vertical chamber overhead. There is furniture, though crude. The room feels comfortable, not cold and damp, nor too stuffy. He points to another passage.
“I never asked you your name.” I say.
“El hombre sin nombre.” He says. “But you can call me
Sin.”
“Uh Huh.” I say. "You fought in the Civil War. Now
you're out to find the men that shot you and left you for dead? You squint a lot because the sun hurts your eyes, you talk little because you let your six shooter do the talking."
"Something like that." He says.
"I saw you in a movie." I say. "You were a lot
handsomer when you were younger."
He smiles his squinty smile. He points to the
passageway again. Then he disappears into another passage.
When I enter the passage he’s intended for me, there is
a large pool. The room is full of perfectly clear crystals, some looking like swords or spears, and some larger than I. Water flows from a crevasse in the wall into the pool, and a fine steamy mist arises from the pool. I look back out the passage. I undress, folding my clothes into a neat pile. I don’t know why. Out of habit? I am a maid. I step into the pool. I am deep enough to sit down in it. I rest
the back of my head against the rock ledge.
“Are you okay in there?” I hear his voice. “You’ve been in there an hour now.”
“That long?”
“Yes.” He says. “There’s a plastic bag to put your old clothes in. There are a couple of clean towels. There are some clothes for you to put on. I think they’ll fit. There is also a tin of salve that I want you to put on your wounds. But I want you to stay in the water until the wounds turn white. The water will bleach and disinfect all the dead tissue. Then dry the wounds as well as you can before you put the salve on.”
“Where did you get the medicine?” I ask.
“I made it.”
“You made it?”
“Yes. I made it. I’m a doctor, remember?”
“What did you make the medicine from?” I ask.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He says.
“Try me.”
“From snottites.” He says, I think.
“Snottites?”
“Yes. Snottites.”
“What are snottites?” I ask.
“Piles of snot I find in the caves. Aren’t you glad you asked. You know how stalactites and stalagmites form in caves? Stalactites are speleothems that form in caves, like icicles. Stalagmites are spires that form on cave floors from the drippage of stalactites. There are speleothems called draperies, flowstones and columns. But all of these are hard, like rock, because they’re made up of calcium bicarbonate turned into calcium carbonate.”
“So what are snottites?” I ask again.
“Soft drippages from the ceilings of caves. I guess you could call the soft deposits on cave floors snotmites.”
“But what are they exactly?” I ask.
“Colonies of single celled extremophilic bacteria.” He says.
“So you want me to put bacterial nasal mucous that you found in caves on my wounds?”
“I’m insisting on it.” He says.
Adipose Tissue
I come out of the room of the sauna pool all dressed. The denims are tight on my hips and butt, but so long I had to
roll them up several rolls. The shirt is much too big, especially at the shoulders, and the sleeves so long I have to roll them up also.
The cowboy… I’ve got to remember to call him Sin… laughs.
“You Latina girls sure are blessed by the creator in the booty department. But He forgot to stretch you out lengthwise a little bit, didn’t He?”
“Ha‐ha. Are these your clothes? You don’t have much of a butt at all, do you?”
“Did you put the salve on your wounds?” He asks.
“Yes.”
“Let me see.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He lifts the shirttails and examines the wounds and the application of his salve.
“Very good.” He says. “Would you like something to eat?”
“When the wounds heal, what will they look like?” I ask. “Will they be ugly?”
“I suppose that depends on who you let look at them.” He says. “They’ll either look like little belly buttons or small circular burn scars. Or they may look like nothing at all. What we have to do now is make sure they don’t get infected. Fortunately the bullet passed through skin and adipose tissue. If a bullet passes through body tissue, those are the two best tissues for it to pass through. And it looks like it was a smaller caliber bullet, probably .223, that was full metal jacketed. If it was a bigger diameter bullet, and one that expanded or disintegrated on contact, it would have done a lot more damage. The good thing about a bullet fired from a gun is that it is sterile from the heat of the burning gunpowder. Even if there were bacteria all over it from handling, all the bacteria were exterminated when it was fired.”
“What is adipose tissue?”
“Fat.” He says. “You ever wonder why Latina and black women often have bigger buttocks, thighs, and hips?”
“Because we do more work, and the muscles get bigger?”
“And why do you have bigger boobs? Because you do more work?”
“I don’t know, because we have more children?”
“It’s all adipose tissue.” He says. “There’s also mesenteric adipose tissue that cushions the organs and subcutaneous adipose tissue that houses thousands of small blood vessels. It all has to do with how living systems have evolved to handle extreme stress. Adipose tissue is kind of like the body’s way of insuring its survival during periods of stress. Some peoples’ bodies have had more training in it than others, over time.”
“I wish Rosaria was here.”
Sin remains quiet.
“She wanted to learn all this.”
“She wanted to be a doctor?” He asks.
“Yes.”
“Maybe you can become a doctor someday.” Sin says. “You already know more about trauma than most doctors will ever know.”
“Si los deseos fueran caballos (If wishes were horses).” I say.
Heartpunch Beer
We dine on foods most of which are unidentifiable
to me. One is some type of salad. He eats it with no dressing at all. I douse mine liberally.
“What is this?” I ask, holding up a piece of meat that looks a little like a chicken thigh.
“Gambel’s quail. Try it. It’s better than chicken.”
I try it. It is tastier than chicken. Tougher too.
“And what are these?” I ask.
“Why don’t you just eat, and see if you can figure out?” Sin asks.
“Well, they are beans. But, wow, they are the best beans I’ve ever had. They have kind of a nutty‐sweet taste.”
“Congratulations.” Sin says. “You’re now an honorary bean‐eater.”
“Sticks and stones may break my bones. And bullets may pass through me.” I add “But words will never hurt me.”
“God, Central Americans sure are sensitive.” Sin says. “I wasn’t implying you are a Mexican. You can call me a Gringo all you want. I couldn’t care less.”
“Okay. I’ll guess. They’re Tepary beans.”
“I’ll be damned.” Sin says. “Yes they are.”
“I’ve heard of these. Native Papago lived for over 8000 years on these, and cactus and mesquite, almost exclusively, and their systems adapted to this diet because it was actually superior in nutritional content. Now that native peoples have turned to Western foods diabetes has become a scourge.”
“Before I’m done with you, we will eat deer, bighorn sheep, rabbits, and snakes. And my favorite, nice fat Gila Monster tails. And we’ll try every form of fruit, seed, root and pulp that the Sonora has to offer.”
“Are you planning on keeping me here forever?”
“Only until you’re ready to go.” Sin says.
His answer throws me. Because I hadn’t really thought much about where I might “go” since the shooting. Would I, should I, go home to Guatemala, or still try to enter the United States? Sin notices my disoriented state of mind.
“Where you go, and when, is up to you.” He says. “But I really hate to see someone give up on a dream. Rosaria is dead by staying faithful to that dream. I think she would want you to realize it for her. Oh God, please don’t cry. Jesus, I hate it when women cry.”
“I’m sorry.” I sob. “I can’t help it.”
“I’ll tell you what. When you are healed, you decide then. If you want to go home to Guatemala, I will personally take you there. If you want to get into the US, I will take you there. And I promise I will not desert you in the desert, like the coyotes did. It makes me want to puke to call them coyotes. Coyotes have more honor than they do. They should be called vultures.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. "How did you even know I was in the desert?
“You inspire me, and vultures.” He says. “Let’s drop this for now. Would you like to try some pickled quail eggs, and some of my home‐made beer?”
“Sure. I guess.” I say, while wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.<
br />
He gets out the pepper jar with the greenish brine, unscrews the cap, and fishes out an egg with his fingers. He goes to an old refrigerator, grabs two brown bottles, holds the top of each bottle near the edge of the sink, and pops the caps off with a downward slap. When he hands me a bottle, I notice a handmade label with what looks like a valentine next to a fist.
