CHAPTER 16
Santiago’s lips stuck to his teeth when he woke up. His skin, exposed to the beating sun above him, stung from sunburn. Just moving his head shot pain through the rest of his body.
He took a swig of water before realizing that it was the last of it. The fuzz in his brain slowed his reaction. Bad, very bad. Up above him, three or four birds circled. Vultures. Something had died nearby.
Or was dying.
Santiago turned to María Dolores and Alegría lying next to him. It took a few minutes to reassure himself that both chests were rising and falling. The wall they’d used for shelter early this morning no longer protected them from the sun. Using the backpacks, he tried to build a wall to cast a shadow over the sleeping figures. It barely made a difference, but it was something while he looked for water.
He forced himself to stand, dragging his feet behind him. Keep moving, keep looking. Find something. Except only the walls of a few structures made from thick adobe bricks surrounded the area; most of their wooden roofs had long since rotted away. No trash, no footprints, no sign that anyone had been there for years, maybe decades. This wasn’t Valle Cobre, but some kind of settlement, abandoned and forgotten.
He closed his eyes, willing himself to hear the faintest sound of vehicles or, better yet, a stream. Nothing.
“Santiago, where are you?” María Dolores’s voice crackled like she had a cold.
“Ya vengo.” He shuffled his way back. Both of the girls were awake, and they grabbed him in a hug when he appeared around the wall.
“I thought you’d left us,” María Dolores whispered in his ear. “I thought you’d…” That he’d left her with all the remaining supplies, in hope they’d somehow make it without him. He knew, because he’d thought of doing just that.
Instead he delivered the bad news. Nothing among these abandoned structures would help them survive.
“I don’t know where we are,” he said, kicking up dust on the faint trail that led to these ruins. “Don’t know where the road to Valle Cobre is.”
“I’m thirsty,” Alegría said.
María Dolores reached out for her daughter, looking like she was about to cry for not being able to help her. “Our water is gone, mamita. My phone’s dead. Don’t know if my sister got the text or not.”
The focus in Santiago’s mind sharpened just a bit. He had to take care of them. Had to.
“We can’t do anything now,” Santiago said. Once again the sun blazed hot and bright. A few more hours and they’d be nothing more than human jerky for the vultures. “When it gets dark, we’ll walk down the path we came up yesterday.”
María Dolores swallowed and agreed. “Where do you think the path goes?”
“To a bigger road.” He fought to keep the uncertainty out of his voice. “It’ll lead us to a town. A real town with people and resources.” That made enough sense to be true. “But first, let’s rest in the shade.”
He led them to an abandoned three-sided building that still had a partial metal roof. The dehydrated dung indicated it had once been a stable. Santiago moved a rotted piece of wood out of the way only to drop it again. He yelped as he and María Dolores jumped. Only Alegría crouched over to peer at the scurrying hairy legs of a tarantula the size of her hand.
“¡Qué linda!”
Once Santiago’s heartbeat returned to normal (and Alegría moved the wood again, disappointed not to find any additional arachnid cousins), they opened the small can of sardines to share. They told Alegría to close her eyes and eat two when she refused, and then they shared the oil the fish had been swimming in. The grease soothed their raw throats and gave them the illusion of having drunk something.
At first Alegría didn’t want to rest. She and Santiago colored in her book and told stories about the characters. Santiago could feel his mind begin to drift.
“Have you ever played Quiet Mouse, Still Mouse?” He remembered the game he used with his toddler cousins to help them nap.
Alegría shook her head, widening her eyes.
“So, we both lie down, and we have to be as quiet and still as possible.” He lay on his side, using the crook of his elbow as a pillow. His other arm went around Alegría as she cuddled against his chest. “If one of us wiggles or talks, the other person wins. If we both stay quiet and still, then we both win. But I have to warn you, I’m very good at this game.”
“Princesa and me are both really good too,” Alegría said.
“I’m glad, because I could use a challenge. But you know, if Princesa starts moving and loses, we still have to see who gets second place.”
Alegría nodded. “When are we starting?”
“Right now.”
The little girl shifted to a more comfortable position and then didn’t move again. Within a few minutes she was softly snoring.
The moon shone bright and almost full by the time they walked down the dirt track that would, they hoped, lead to a main road.
Only a few peanuts and raisins that had fallen to the bottom of a backpack and the three caramelos Santiago had bought for himself remained of their food supplies.
But no water.
They had packed food for a couple of days and were at their fourth or fifth day? Santiago had lost track. They finished off the last of their supplies—three peanuts and two raisins each. Except Santiago gave his raisins to Alegría. They completed their final meal by each savoring a square caramelo, which only reminded them of their thirst.
In a ditch next to the path something caught the light of the moon. Santiago held on to Alegría as he reached through the debris and pulled up a white plastic water jug.
“Is that water?” María Dolores gasped.
Santiago shook his head, simultaneously shaking the bottle. Two perfectly round holes in the plastic explained the lack of water: Someone had deliberately shot the jug to drain the water it held.
They kept going, their feet on autopilot, despite being tired of walking, tired of feeling their throats dry and sore, tired of traveling with no end in sight.
“You can eat cactus, right?” María Dolores stopped in front of a plant not much smaller than her.
Santiago grabbed her hand as she reached out toward the spiny arms as if hypnotized. “Not these ones. These don’t have flesh or fruit. Just spines and wood-like bones inside. The eating ones are flat.”
“Is it dinner time?” Alegría asked faintly from Santiago’s neck.
The sound of her daughter perked up María Dolores. “Are you sure you can’t eat these?”
Still holding María Dolores’s hand, Santiago continued down the path. “Very sure. When I find a cactus we can eat, I’ll give it to ustedes.”
“Promise?”
“Of course.”
The more they walked, the more his mind wandered. Where had all the cactus gone? Other people must have eaten them. He hated other people. He needed a stick to harvest the cactus. Or a fork to grab the pad. And a knife. He had a knife. That would help remove the spines. Or was it fire that removed the spines? He could make a fire. Now the moon brought a chill, but the sun had burned like fire. Maybe the sun already burned off the spines. What spines?
After countless hours, the faded path ended at a road that stretched out to the left and right in the moonlight. Still a dirt road, but one wide enough for two cars to pass each other, evident by the tire tracks.
Here at the junction, instinct told Santiago to turn left. Left felt correct, left was farther away from the mountains they had crossed.
Behind him, María Dolores followed more slowly, her eyes on the road. When he remembered, he stopped and waited for her, shifting Alegría higher up on his hip.
So tired, too tired to think straight, and the empty backpack became too heavy to carry. He left that behind. But not Alegría. She stayed, now on his back, arms over his shoulders, legs crossed around his waist.
In the dark they didn’t come across any cars. As the sun came up, vehicles started driving by. They couldn’t risk being seen; la migra would just send them back. Santiago led them off the dirt road to walk in the brush instead, while keeping the road in sight as a guide. When a car came, they flattened themselves against the ground and hoped no one saw them. The third time they did this, Santiago didn’t get up. The weight of Alegría on his back kept him pinned to the ground; he didn’t have the strength to ask her to roll off. He turned his head. He could just make out María Dolores some distance behind him. She didn’t move either.
A break. They could all use a break. Yes, just a little break.