by Laura Resau
“I hope they’re okay,” Wendell says, twirling his camera strap around his fingers. “Especially that giant one. She’s my favorite. Like some big, wise, old grandmother, you know?”
“Muy chida,” I agree. Another variation of “really cool.” “At the rate she was going, I bet she’s still flopping back to the surf.”
“She does have two tons of body weight to haul around.” He pauses, probably sifting through facts from all the books he’s read in preparation for his internship. “She must be decades old, to be that big. It’s amazing she survived through the time hunting turtles was legal.”
I make a face. “Why would you hunt a turtle?”
“People eat turtle meat.” He scowls. “And some people believe the eggs make men more virile.”
“Ick.”
The closer we get, the more animated Wendell becomes, his gestures excited, his pace quickening. “This’ll be bien padre. The lighting’s perfect for abstract sand patterns. I’ll get some great shots of the flipper marks.” He spreads his arms. “These leatherbacks dig three-foot-deep holes for their eggs. Then they cover them back up with their flippers. I’ve seen some incredible videos online.” Grabbing my hand, he cries, “Hey, look, there she is, Z!”
Ahead is the giant, dark form of a turtle heading back to sea. I have to admire her. I imagine the hours it took her last night to drag her body inch by inch up the beach, to look for the perfect spot to lay her precious eggs. Now she’s on her return journey, clumsily flopping her flippers, scooting back to the surf.
In the daylight, I can admire her color—deep gray, mottled with white. Parallel ridges line her rubbery shell, and marring the surface are several deep scars. They look old; the wounds must have healed years ago, maybe decades ago. They form a distinct pattern—a rough diamond shape. I wish I could interview this turtle for my notebook, find out what stories lie behind those scars.
“This is her, right, Wendell? Your grandma turtle?”
Wendell nods, adjusting his camera settings as we move closer and station ourselves a few meters away. Then he scans the beach, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”
I follow his gaze. Dotting the beach are gaping holes. “Why aren’t the holes covered?” I ask tentatively, sensing that something is wrong. Very wrong.
“I don’t know,” Wendell murmurs, looking distressed. He hands me his camera, then runs up the beach, away from the water, following the grandma turtle’s tracks. When I catch up with him, he’s kneeling, staring at an enormous hole. Empty. He leans over, reaching toward the bottom, sifting through the sand. “Nothing,” he says, his voice barely audible. “There should be fifty or a hundred eggs. Big ones, the size of golf balls. Impossible to miss.”
“What happened?” I ask, glancing around. “You think some animal dug them up and ate them?” I can’t help thinking of whatever made that noise in the jungle.
Wendell doesn’t seem to hear. He’s studying other tracks in the sand—human footprints leading from the hole up to the jungle’s edge. He follows the footprints about fifty meters to a small dirt clearing that leads to the road. As I jog after him, he puts his hands on his hips and kicks the ground. When I reach him, I see what he sees: tire tracks in the dried mud, along with a few cigarette butts.
“You think …?”
He frowns. “Poachers. They must have followed the turtle tracks to the nests, then dug them up. Stolen the eggs.”
I feel a pang of guilt that I prevented Wendell from checking out the noise on the beach last night. Maybe we could have stopped this.
In a hoarse voice, he says, “Let’s see how much damage they did.”
We run through the sand, scanning the beach. No other turtles in sight. Probably the rest completed their journey back to the sea before sunrise. But we see their tracks in the sand, parallel flipper markings, each one leading from the sea to an empty hole, then back again to the sea. And another set of prints—human ones—leading from one raided nest to another.
Racing from hole to hole, we absorb the awful truth: All the holes are empty. All the nests have been dug up and ransacked. There are no nests intact, covered in sand. No eggs left safely buried. Not a single egg remaining in any of the holes. No baby turtles will hatch.
Wendell closes his eyes, rubs his face, says nothing. He stays quiet for a long time.
Finally, I take his arm. “Hey, come on. Let’s make sure Grandma Turtle makes it back. Then we’ll figure out what’s going on, okay?”
He gives a slight nod. There’s deep sadness in his expression, but also a fierce protectiveness.
We head back to the lone turtle and watch her lumber back to the sea. She treks along, her pace so slow and patient. We’re watching something ancient, I realize, a link in a chain that started millions of years ago. The next link—the eggs that should grow to be turtles—is gone. Now she doesn’t seem clumsy, but tragic. Her mission has failed.
Just then, she pauses, maybe to rest. She turns her head, which is the size of a watermelon, and stares at us with her disproportionately small, half-closed eyes. And as if she’s spoken to him in some silent language, Wendell responds, “We’ll find whoever did this. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
I could swear the turtle gives the tiniest nod before moving forward once again. We watch her until she’s back in the sea, engulfed by waves, swimming gracefully away. I stand up, reaching toward Wendell.
“Let’s call the police,” he says, taking my hand.
I squeeze his hand. “I wonder how long the poaching’s been going on.”
He shakes his head. “I thought volunteers guarded the beach during nesting season.”
Wendell is quiet for the rest of the walk back to the cabanas. I sneak a few glances at his face, notice he’s struggling to hold back tears. I lean against him, kiss his cheek. “We’ll figure this out, Wendell.”
There is no room for poachers in our paradise.
A few hours later, I’m lying in the sunshine, an orange glow behind my eyelids, the hammock rocking me. Beneath my cheek, Wendell’s chest is rising and falling with his breathing. We’ve just gone for a swim, and the waves linger inside me, lifting me up and down, up and down. I open an eyelid and see a droplet glistening on Wendell’s skin.
“Hi,” I murmur.
“Hi.” Wendell’s voice is a gravelly whisper, his breath hot on my neck.
I push the sand with my toe, swinging the hammock. He’s been subdued all morning. “Hey, Wendell,” I ask hesitantly, “are you still upset about the poaching?”
He breathes out. “Nothing more we can do about it now. The cops said they’d deal with it. And I emailed my boss at the Turtle Center.” He hesitates, then says, “I don’t know how to explain it, Z.” He struggles to find words. “It’s like it hurt me—physically hurt me—to see all those nests raided.”
I brush a strand of hair from his face. “I should’ve let you go last night. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, Z.”
I kiss his cheek. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. These turtles will be back in a week or so to lay more eggs, right?”
He gives a slight nod.
“We’ll protect them next time,” I assure him.
He makes an effort to smile, changes the subject. “So, Z, what else do you have planned for us in that notebook of yours?”
“Well,” I reply, trying to sound playful, “since you asked … I was thinking we could start looking for a certain J.C.”
He doesn’t look too surprised, not after our conversation last night. “You finally feel ready?”
I take a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Wendell grazes my cheek with his fingertips. “Hey, remember the muddy speck of hope.” Kissing me, he gives the hammock another push. “Let’s start looking today. It’ll get my mind off those turtles. At least until we hear what the cops find.”
I curl against him, my arm draped over his bare waist. Our skin has darkened to nut-brown, alm
ost indistinguishable from each other’s. Strands of our long hair intermingle, mine marked by reddish highlights.
The past few weeks, inseparable from Wendell, I haven’t felt the disorientation I usually get during my first month in a new country. All this time together has made life feel like a hammock, cradling me.
I try not to think about his internship, which will start next Monday. It’ll be strange to have him gone every afternoon. Of course, that’s nothing, considering we’ll be spending the next year and a half together, going to college together, spending our whole lives together. Yet there’s a small, scared-little-kid part of me that worries about Wendell venturing out on his own. He could make his own turtle-loving friends, then drift out of my life, like nearly everyone else I’ve ever cared about.
Suddenly, a distant look comes over Wendell’s face, as though he’s staring at something invisible.
My muscles tense. I know this look. All I can do is wait for it to end. I focus on his breathing, my breathing, on the sound of the surf rushing out and in, the caws of seagulls.
After a torturously long minute, his face returns to normal. He sits up, his brows furrowed.
I touch his bare shoulder. “A vision?”
After a moment of hesitation, he nods.
“About?”
He rubs his face, squints at the sea. “You know the rules, Z.”
I close my eyes, attempt to stay calm. I’m one of the only people who knows that he can catch glimpses of the future. For years, he felt helpless, frustrated, at the mercy of his visions. Then, two summers ago, in Ecuador—where Layla and I were living and where Wendell was searching for his birth family—he found someone who helped him manage his powers. The visions no longer take over his life. He’s learned to let things happen without interfering. And he’ll only share his visions if someone else is in danger.
“It’s not—” I sputter. “I mean, you’re safe, right? You’d tell me if you weren’t?”
He presses his fists to his forehead, then glances at me, his eyes tired. “I don’t know, Z.”
I swallow hard, and despite myself, I ask, “Is it about my father?” I dig my fingernails into my palms. “You’d make an exception, right? If it was about him?”
He gives me a pained look. “Z, please. We agreed.” Holding his head, he stares again at the sea.
He knows he’s everything to me. He knows he needs to stay safe, above all else. Safe and with me. And he knows how much I need to find my father. He’s been there himself.
“All right,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. “I trust you.”
Later, Wendell and I trek through the jungle, immersed in green shadows and leaves and rich, dark soil and splashes of bright petals, reds and oranges, explosions of stamens and pistils. Lizards skitter here and there, and every so often an iguana shakes the leaves, crawls up a tree trunk. The humid air presses on us, dense with insect chirps and the intense smell of flowers.
We’ve officially embarked on the search for my father, heading toward our first destination—downtown Mazunte. To get there, you can either take the dirt road for a kilometer or hike the shorter path through the jungle. We’ve opted for the jungle route, which is cooler and prettier and allows for more kissing along the way.
As we approach the Forbidden Territory, none of the usual jokes come to mind. When we pass the sign reading TRESPASSERS WILL BE CURSED I squeeze Wendell’s hand, and he squeezes back.
“Want to trespass?” I whisper.
“Really? You’re not a little freaked out?”
I shrug, regarding the sign. After the bone-chilling noise, it doesn’t seem so much joke-worthy as irritating. And the curious part of me is tempted to forge straight into the dense vegetation, find whatever’s hidden there, reclaim my paradise. “First things first,” I say finally, moving past the sign. “Finding J.C.”
Soon we step out of the forest onto the bright Mazunte beach. A few dozen people are scattered across the blinding sand, most sunbathing or sipping Coronas or wading in the turquoise water. Farther out, people are swimming and surfing. Older local men and women zigzag the stretch of beach, carrying their wares on their backs, chanting in nasal voices, “Hammocks!” “Necklaces!” “Skirts!”
This is the popular beach in the area, where locals and tourists alike gather. Although there are clusters of people here and there, it’s far from crowded; you can easily find solitary little stretches of beach. No one seems to venture away from here to Playa Mermejita, where the leatherbacks nest. It’s less than a twenty-minute walk from here, yet people appear content where the bikinis and beer are.
“You think the locals have any idea about the poaching?” I ask.
Wendell considers this. “How would they? That beach is deserted.” He steps over a giant wad of seaweed. “It’s a good thing too. There’s no development there, no electric lights to confuse the turtles.”
“Confuse them?”
“The baby turtles always head toward light. For millions of years, the only light came from the sea—the moonlight and starlight on the water. If there were electric lights on the beach, the hatchlings would head in the wrong direction. They’d never make it to the ocean.”
I grab his hand, swing it in mine. “And here I thought the no-electricity thing was just Layla’s excuse to go crazy with candlelight. Now I know she’s just a turtle lover at heart.”
“Yup. Your dad would be proud.”
“Proud?” I watch a flock of gulls that flies up as we approach and settles a safe distance ahead.
“He loves turtles, right? I mean, that’s his nickname. Tortue. Turtle. He’d be proud of all the pro-turtle changes since he left.”
I try to imagine how my father would feel, returning after so many years away. Would he feel the same sense of homecoming that I do? Would people welcome him? He left Mazunte to escape something. And he supposedly returned to become the person he wanted to be. What problems did he want to resolve, exactly? What made him leave this paradise?
We turn away from the water and head down a path between buildings to downtown Mazunte. I take a deep breath and brace myself to find the answers.
Downtown Mazunte consists of a single paved street, with a few dirt roads branching off toward the beach. Wendell and I are planning to combine the father search with grocery shopping. Casually questioning market vendors seems easier than approaching strangers cold. And it will give us a chance to get to know the locals better. So far, in our whirlwind of gathering supplies and equipping the cabanas—not to mention lounging in hammocks—we haven’t taken the time to talk to people, introduce ourselves as new members of the community.
“Tortillas,” I say, looking at the scrap of paper holding my grocery list.
Wendell points to the tortillería, what must be the source of the delicious toasted-corn smell. Breathing in deep, we buy fresh tortillas from an elderly lady whose white braid is woven with a long silver ribbon. Her face is a friendly mass of wrinkles, her eyes clouded behind cataracts. Despite the oppressive heat, she wears a cardigan and a black shawl. A little radio on the table plays sad, romantic songs, all about love and loss, kisses and graves.
Suddenly, it dawns on me: I might find my father today. Within the next few hours. I have his name. It might be as simple as asking directions to his house. Am I ready for this?
Wendell must notice how nervous I look. “You sure you’re okay, Z? We can wait—”
I shake off his question. “I’m tired of waiting, Wendell. I have to do this.”
I peer toward the back of the little shop, where a younger woman collects the steaming tortillas coming out of a machine, quickly piling them on a metal stand. Meanwhile, the older woman sits behind a little wooden table covered in a flowered plastic cloth, tending to customers. She weighs a stack of tortillas on her scale, adds a few extra with a wink, and wraps them in rough pink paper. There’s no one else in line, so we introduce ourselves.
She shakes our hands warmly, introduces hersel
f as Elisa.
After some small talk about the weather, I feel more relaxed, braver. I take a deep breath and whip out my notebook. “Doña Elisa, do you happen to know a José Cruz from this area?”
She barks a laugh. “José Cruz? Pues, I know lots of them.” She tilts her head and hands me the pink package of tortillas. “A mountain of them!” she adds with another laugh.
My stomach sinks. “Well, this José Cruz is probably around forty years old. He left for many years and only recently came back.”
Doña Elisa shoots me a smile. “Now, that narrows the possibilities down to about twenty! Many men leave to work in the United States or Mexico City and then return to invest their money. Is that why your José Cruz left?”
I shrug, searching my memory for something useful. “He ended up in Europe at some point,” I offer.
She nods, considering this. “Well, I suppose some do. I’ve never been farther away than Mexico City, so America or Europe—it’s all the same to me. Could be the moon!”
As I jot down notes, Doña Elisa asks Wendell if we’re here on vacation.
“No,” he says. “We’re living at the Cabañas Magia del Mar near Punta Cometa.”
A sudden shadow passes over her face. She presses her lips together, says nothing.
“How much do we owe you, señora?” I ask, filling the awkward silence.
“Eleven pesos,” she answers, her voice tense. She adjusts the shawl around her shoulders, pulls it tight, as if protecting herself from a chill.
As she makes change from my twenty-peso bill, Wendell gives me a confused look.
Before we leave, Doña Elisa leans toward us and says, “Pues, good luck to you.” She leans in farther, wraps her shawl more tightly at her neck. “And be careful up there, you two. Tengan cuidado.”
