by Young, D. L.
For a geologist like Dad the place was a paradise. Hundreds of gas fields to survey, hundreds of discoveries waiting to be made. Dad’s passion was infectious, and despite the bleak landscape and lack of neighbors, I grew to love the place. Sometimes Dad let me tag along on surveys, and I’d hunt game while he and Abner, his apprentice in those days, took field readings. They’d always hoot and applaud whenever I returned to camp with a wide grin and a bag full of rabbits.
“Look at the big game hunter!”
“Rabbit stew tonight, yes sir, thanks to our big game hunter!”
In the two years we lived there they must have surveyed a couple hundred gas fields for the Chen-Johnsons. When I didn’t go out on surveys, Abner’s wife Angeles gave me lessons on how to read people. A talented reader herself, she’d noticed early on I had the gift.
“You’re one in a thousand, just like me,” she’d say with a wink. “It’s something to be proud of, the ability to see lies. Very few have this gift, even fewer know how to use it properly.” She taught me everything she knew about using the hierba, the desert weed that enhanced the gift and allowed people like us to see the complex hidden language of facial tics, breathing rhythms, body posture, and the countless physical giveaways the conscious mind normally ignores. For anyone else the hierba was just a bitter-tasting plant, but for those of us with the gift the weed made us human lie detectors, far more accurate than any machine built for the same purpose.
I’d become pretty good at spotting lies, and Angeles told me over time the gift would eventually become something more. “In a few years you’ll be able to do more than just see a lie, you’ll be able to see the truth. Do you understand the difference?” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what she meant.
Moments before it happened, Mom smiled at me while she prepared dinner. The delicious smell of Mom’s chicken curry permeated the kitchen. Angeles was outside hanging laundry to dry.
“So tell me, my boy reader,” Mom said, “are you good enough now to see what I’m thinking?” Mom always put together a special dinner when the men came back home. Dad and Abner were due back from their three-day survey any time now.
The hierba from my morning lesson hadn’t quite worn off. I looked carefully at Mom’s face and tried to see something. “You’re happy they’re coming back,” I said.
She laughed. “Anyone could have guessed I’m missing my husband. Is that the best you can do?”
I stared harder and thought I saw a trace of something else.
“You don’t think I’m safe here,” I said, my own words surprising me.
She whirled around and looked at me crossly for a moment, then her face relaxed and she winked. “You’re getting pretty good at that, my boy. Angeles has taught you well.”
Something outside caught her eye and she turned to the window.
“My God,” she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Her metal cooking spoon fell to the floor, clanking loudly against the tile.
I looked out the window and saw Dad and Abner approaching with a dozen strangers behind them. Mom grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the back of the house.
“Mom, what’s going on? Who are those men?”
She yanked open the back door and shoved me out. A splintering crash came from the front of the house as someone kicked in the door.
“Run and hide, run and hide!” Mom shouted.
I did as I was told, running in a panic to an outcrop of rocks behind the house. The freelancers found me a few minutes later, tying my hands and feet and throwing me over one of their horses. Gunshots rang out from inside the house, and I craned my neck around to see. Two of the freelancers came out of the front door, mounted their horses, and joined us.
“We just won the lottery,” a short fat man with silver teeth announced. “The boy’s a reader.” The men cheered their good luck and fired shots into the air in celebration.
Two days later they sold me to the Guzman clan for their biggest payday ever.
***
I entered the dining tent and a shock of recognition came across Abner’s face. He went pale and turned to Guzman’s trade advisor seated next to him. “You told me Don Flaco didn’t bring a reader with him on the caravans.”
The trade advisor wiped some taco grease from his beard with a shirtsleeve and laughed. “If we told you a reader was going to be here, would you have come?”
I forced myself to walk past Abner with little more than a glance as my mind raced with a thousand questions. How could he be alive? And if Abner were still alive, what of Mom and Dad?
My head swam. I grabbed a plate of tacos and sat at the opposite end of the tent. The bitterness of the hierba I’d just chewed still filled my mouth as I chatted distractedly with the horse groom and stole glances at Abner. What had happened the day they took me away? I heard the shots, the shots that killed Mom and Dad, the shots that had ended all their lives. The shots that ended my life as well.
The hierba hit and a sudden wave of emotion crashed over me. The smell of Mom’s curry filled my nose and the gunshots rang in my ears. For a moment I lost where I was and the groom must have noticed the change on my face. “You all right, brujo? You going to be sick or something?”
I faked a coughing fit and tried to compose myself. “I’m fine.”
Angeles had once warned me the drug could sometimes do that, bring back what she called sensory-rich memories, but I never imagined the flood of sensations could be so overwhelming. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I steeled myself and turned my gaze to Abner.
He knew what was happening. He was self-conscious and jittery and it made the read more difficult, but even so it didn’t take very long. Abner had always been an easy read and that much hadn’t changed. I knew in less than a minute the Chen-Johnson offer was a lie.
Then a sudden torrent of memories rushed through my mind. I saw a long-forgotten boy hunting through the brush, so proud and excited as he walked back to camp with his catch. I saw the relief on his mother’s face as he returned home after a week-long survey. I saw the boy learning about his gift under the patient guidance of his teacher. The boy couldn’t have been happier, the only child of not just two, but of four doting parents in that cramped little house.
But there was something else underneath it all, something I could only see now, an unspoken ugliness all the grownups kept among themselves, hidden from the boy. And whatever it was, somehow I knew Abner was still hiding it from me.
I calmed my mind and looked further into him, so deeply I lost everything around me. An empty universe except for Abner’s face. And then I was inside him, deeper than I’d ever been inside anyone, further than I thought it was even possible to go. I felt the cold depths of Abner’s most secret dread as the darkest corners of his mind began to unfold.
Then I saw it, hideous and unthinkable, staring right at me. I closed my eyes and shook my head forcefully, not wanting to believe it.
Guzman appeared at the edge of the tent and everyone stood. He came over and looked me up and down. “You all right, brujo?” I nodded and shoved my hands into my pockets so he wouldn’t see them trembling.
He motioned toward Abner. “Well, what about him?”
I remembered Guzman’s words about trust and loyalty, his way of telling me not to fuck up tonight. But fuck up I would. I cleared my throat and said, “He’s clean. I guess the Chen-Johnsons really do want to sell.”
***
The guard outside Abner’s guest tent snored loudly as I crept past him. It was well past midnight.
Abner sat up in his cot when I entered. “How’d you get in here?”
I stood over him and glared, resisting the urge to wrap my hands around his neck and choke him. “No hello, no hug, no how wonderful to see you?”
Abner looked to the ground, the shame plain on his face. “Why didn’t you tell Guzman the truth?” he asked.
“I wanted to talk with you. Can’t very well do that if you’re a corpse in the desert,
can I?”
Abner nodded grimly. “Angeles said you were the best she ever taught.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Maharth.”
Maharth. It seemed like a lifetime since someone had called me by my real name.
“Mom and Dad took me out there to the middle of nowhere so Angeles could train me, right? Develop the gift without anyone knowing about it. You were all in on it, raising me like some prize bull and then selling me to those freelancers.” I already knew the truth, but I wanted to hear him admit it.
Abner lowered his head. “Yes.”
“So why fake the kidnapping? Why pretend they’d killed you?”
Abner sighed. “Your parents thought it would be better if you thought we were all dead. So you wouldn’t try to escape and come looking for us.”
I’d read it all in him earlier, so his words held no surprises, no new information. I wasn’t sure why I’d come or what I’d expected to get out of forcing his confession. Standing there in front of him I felt only an emptiness, vast and lifeless like the desert that surrounded us.
A voice behind me spoke. “Maharth. I’d almost forgotten your real name.”
I whirled around to see Guzman.
“Don Flaco,” I said, “What are you doing—”
He waved me silent, frowned, and motioned to Abner. “I knew the offer was a lie before this one even got here. My little birdie is very reliable. Your reading was just a double-check to confirm what I already knew.”
A lump formed in my throat. Shit.
Guzman said, “But you made me curious, brujo. I wondered why this Chen-Johnson cockroach would be worth you risking so much.” He called for the guard. “Take this hijo de puta out of here.”
I winced, expecting the guard to grab me, but instead he reached for Abner, yanked him off the cot, and took him away. The sounds of Abner’s pleas filled the night air as the guard walked him out into the desert. When the shot rang out a minute later, I felt neither joy nor sadness, only the numb realization that I was next.
Don Flaco and I stood alone in the tent. Where there should have been anger I saw only—what?—sadness? disappointment? pity? Without the hierba I couldn’t know what he was thinking.
Guzman shook his head and spit on the ground. He seemed to struggle for what to say. “Those freelancers told me you were an orphan, did you know that?”
I shook my head.
“Well,” Guzman said, “I guess we both know the truth now.” He called in another guard and muttered something to him. I took a shaky breath and resigned myself to a walk in the desert.
The guard grabbed my arm and said, “Hold still, this will sting a bit.” He placed a small boxlike device over my tracker scar and held it firm. My arm tingled for a few seconds, then the guard nodded and said, “Done, Don Flaco. It’s deactivated.”
Guzman sighed and said, “I think it’s time for you to go and find a different life…Maharth.”
***
For the next couple hours I sat alone in my tent, the day’s events whizzing through my mind like a movie on fast forward. I’d dreamed of my freedom for so long, the sudden shock of actually having it left me dumb and speechless. Two more days riding until we reached San Antonio, then I’d be free to do what I wanted, to choose my own direction. But what direction? I had no friends to catch up with, no family who gave a damn, no past to return to.
I left the tent and wandered around camp. The night air was quiet and peaceful. There were still a few fires going and their fading embers gave everything a warm glow. A handful of guards and workers sat around the fires, talking in low tones. As I passed by they stopped speaking and looked up at me. One of the guards, the one who’d taken care of Abner, motioned toward my arm. “Nice to have that thing out of you, yes? Where will you go now, brujo?”
I touched the tracker scar on my arm, then turned and made my way to Guzman’s tent. He was still awake and the guards let me through. I stepped through the mosquito netting and Don Guzman looked up from his papers. “Yes? What is it, br—Maharth? Have you decided where you’re going to go?”
Don Flaco looked different. Or maybe he didn’t look different, and it was just me seeing him differently. Seeing something in his face, something I didn’t need the hierba to see. Something I might have seen all along, but only noticed now.
In this world of lies, finding someone you could trust was no small thing.
“Don Flaco,” I said. “My name isn’t Maharth, it’s Brujo. And Guzman territory is my home.”
Training the Fundies
“My God, look at me.” Ford stood in front of the mirror and lifted his arms to the sides, then lowered them. The suit jacket looked five sizes too big. “This used to fit me like a glove.”
He removed the jacket and dropped it to the floor of the cramped room. “I can’t wear this to the baptism. I’ll look ridiculous.” He pondered his reflection and frowned. These days he hardly recognized this strange body as his own. The leathery, sun-abused skin, bony arms and visible ribs. It was an underfed, day laborer’s physique, so different from the pale, pudgy frame he’d known most of his life.
Esmeralda sat on the bed with the baby on her lap. “Who cares if it doesn’t fit perfectly? I love that jacket on you. It’s been years since I’ve seen you in it.”
Ford turned away from the mirror, disgusted. “Jesus, I’m emaciated.”
Esmeralda raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t we say lean and fit?” She bent down over the dozing infant and cooed. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway. We’d love Papi gordo o flaco, fat or skinny, wouldn’t we, Manuelito?” She gently placed the infant in the tiny crib wedged between their bed and the wall. She covered him with a tattered blanket, kissed the top of his head, then turned to Ford.
She took a deep breath and said, “Can we talk about it?”
Ford pulled a shirt over his head, then moved to the window, his back to Esmeralda and the baby. An ever-present film of windblown sand clung to the outside of the glass, obscuring the apartment’s sixth-floor view of the West Texas desert. Cacti and scrub brush dotted the gray-brown landscape that stretched to the horizon, domed by a cloudless, turquoise sky.
He spoke as he stared into the distance. “What’s to talk about? We can’t afford visas.”
“We don’t have to get visas.”
He turned halfway around. “Crossing over illegal? You can’t be serious. We’d be worse off than we are now. Penniless and illegal.”
“That’s how my parents did it, and it worked out okay for them.”
Sure it did, he thought. Her mom cleaned motel rooms for thirty years. Her dad cut grass in the brutal San Antonio heat. Both died before sixty. So, yes, if dying young with nothing to show for it after three decades of backbreaking work was success, then his in-laws had lived the American dream.
Ford kept these thoughts to himself. Esmeralda didn’t see it the same way he did, and there was no point in trying to convince her otherwise.
“I won’t do that,” he said firmly, turning again to the window. He felt her simmering behind him.
“Things aren’t going to get better, amor. How long has it been since either of us had a paying job?” She looked at the baby. “We can’t wait any longer,” she said, a quiver of desperation in her voice. The crib’s rusty springs squeaked as the dozing baby fidgeted.
Ford gazed out at the bleak, unending landscape. “I’ll get the money. I’ll work something out.” He heard the lack of conviction in his voice. He knew his wife heard it as well.
It was the same end to the same argument they’d had nearly every day since the baby was born. A rift between them growing wider. But with each passing day as they watched the baby grow thinner, Ford’s position felt less tenable, becoming harder to justify even to himself.
A loud knock on the door startled them. The baby jerked awake and began to cry. Esmeralda rushed to the crib, picked up Manuelito, and shot Ford a concerned look.
“Were you expecting anyone?” she whispered.
Ford shook his head and stepped lightly to the peephole. A man the size of a pro wrestler with a shotgun slung across his shoulder stood in the hallway.
“Who is it?” Esmeralda asked.
Ford’s stomach tightened as he noticed a bible verse embroidered in large black letters on the visitor’s gun belt.
He swallowed. “It’s a Fundie,” he answered.
***
The large man drove them through the crumbling remains of Fort Stockton in a natgas-converted Jeep. Ford sat in the passenger seat of the roofless, ancient vehicle. They headed west on I-10 and the sun blazed down with the merciless oven-heat of midday June. The vehicle’s shocks squeaked like old bed springs as they passed over countless cracks and gaps in the pavement. The driver braked and carefully steered around the larger fissures, their locations given away by telltale clumps of weeds and bushes growing up and out, gradually reclaiming the highway with the slow determination only desert plants knew.
The driver was Fundie security. Ford had seen him around town, escorting Fundie big shots and watching crowds like a hawk during public rallies. Back at the apartment he’d asked Ford to please come with him in a calm, businesslike tone. Ford had been too stunned to ask questions. He’d simply nodded, tried to assure Esmeralda everything was fine, and numbly followed the huge man down the stairs. Neither had spoken since.
Ford baked in the oppressive heat. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, growing more worried about what the Fundamentalist Church of Divine Wrath might want with him. His father used to say Fundies were like copperhead snakes, best avoided and dangerous if provoked. Ford had followed this advice, though lately avoiding Fundies had become nearly impossible. These days they seemed to be everywhere, these zealots who in Ford’s youth had been a mere handful of oddballs creeping around the fringes of town. Since Secession the Fundie faith had made a remarkable expansion, spreading like an unstoppable drought-fire across all of the state’s territories. The Republic’s territories, he reminded himself, not state’s. It had been ten years since Secession, but he still had a hard time thinking of Texas as its own country.
