So I would walk. Usually, I didn’t pick a direction, but I needed shade right then; the sun was still searing the exposed skin on my arms and my face. I kept my breathing even, wiped sweat off my forehead, took my steps carefully so as not to trip on the uneven ground. Without water, I couldn’t last long outdoors. This was the closest spot, and it was where I’d found the first of the two poemas, the words etched onto paper with coal.
I had been hunting for water weeks earlier, and I thought that You were guiding me to a new source. I rarely went to the east, but as I walked in that direction, it was as if something had looped twine around my heart and kept tugging me. Closer, closer, it said, and I obeyed. I always obeyed, always did what I was told. I was the dutiful daughter, wasn’t I? The one who honored her parents, the one who kept herself available to all in case las pesadillas were close.
But this was different. I was good at hunting water, at picking up the signs Papá had taught me, but the earth shouted at me, guided me farther east, until I was in the shade of a thick patch of mesquites. The sensation was so similar to my ritual as a cuentista, and I let the power take me to the dirt, and I dug down until my fingers hit leather. The force ripped through my body, knocking me back, and the ground bit into my elbows. But the pain was nothing compared with that spark, that rush. My heart raced as I pushed myself forward, and I tenderly reached out, ran the tips of my fingers over the little pouch again, and my whole body shook.
I unearthed it.
I consumed it.
That first time I read la poema, I couldn’t make sense of the words. They were too real, too close, and I dropped the scrap of paper back to the earth, stood up, and walked away from it. But it sang to me, called me back, and I returned, devoured it over and over.
I found another the next week, just to the north of Empalme, buried next to a saguaro that was missing an arm. Aside from Manolito’s stories, they were all I had of the world outside Empalme, the only glimpse of a life that wasn’t constrained and controlled.
And so I visited the place I found the first one as often as possible. The earthy scent of mesquite rose up to me, and I lowered myself to the ground in the shadows of los árboles. I pulled the pouch from my waistband and removed one of las poemas. I delicately placed it on the ground. The corners were wrinkled and folded from being stuffed under my bedroll, tucked into the band of my breeches or under the loose stone in the floor of our dwelling, and the coal ink had smeared near the bottom. But it was still there, each letter ending abruptly, as if the person who had written this was in a rush.
I placed two small stones on either side of the paper, weighted it down so it would not blow away, and I traced the letters, my fingers just barely above it, and I read it again. And again. And again.
cuando estoy solo
existo para mí
cada paso
para mí
cada aliento
para mí
cada latido de mi corazón
para mí
cuando estoy solo
estoy vivo
when I am alone
I exist for myself
each step
for me
each breath
for me
each beat of my heart
for me
when I am alone
I am alive
They called out to me, each of the words a sharp and piercing glimpse into myself. How had they done this? How had they known what I felt out here, all alone? I read it again, allowed it to fill me up, to know me, to see me.
There were prickles on the back of my neck, a dull ache settling in behind my eyes. I lost track of the time, but my body was reminding me that I could not be outside for much longer. Night would fall soon, and I had duties around the house before the meal began and You disappeared. I folded the paper gently, returned it to its hiding place, and then got to my feet, the sweat pouring down my back.
Doro was long gone; Ana y Quique had departed recently, too. All my friends, except Manolito, had left me behind. I hadn’t felt this alone in a long time. But as I made the journey back home, back to my family, I was alive in that solitude. I was full, satiated by the knowledge that someone out in the world understood me.
It never lasted long enough.
I made it back home right as the sun was in the middle of the sky. Your warmth, Solís, spread over the land, filling in los valles, shadows stretching long and deep. I stopped by the home of la señora Sanchez first to drop off el mensaje; she gave me some dried manzanas she had made as a thanks. I was chewing on one of them as I approached our home.
Rogelio was thankfully nowhere in sight.
Raúl greeted me on the other side of the burlap curtain, nearly crashing into me before running off again. “I’m almost ready!” he cried out. “I just need my hat.”
Papá was standing near la estufa, using his hands to ball up some leftover arroz from the night before. “Anything for us?”
I handed him el mensaje from Mamá’s friend, and he examined it briefly before setting it aside. “Some of los viajeros from the south are scheduled to get in tonight,” he said. “Your mother is out back already.”
A pang of disappointment struck. I knew I’d be too exhausted after Lito to join Mamá, but los viajeros were a spectacle. They journeyed all over the endless desert, making camp in various aldeas y pueblos, bringing with them items they’d collected from other places, food that we had not tried before, and …
Stories. They brought stories. So many of them, more colorful and strange than anything Paolo or the other mensajeros had. Maybe I could do both. Maybe I could take Lito’s story, visit Mamá, and then perform the ritual.…
It felt like too much. So when Raúl came back, his wide-brim straw sombrero sitting atop his head, I tried to focus instead on our hunt, to keep my mind off the anxiety pulsing in my veins.
“You two be safe,” Papá said, kissing us each on top of our heads.
“We will,” I said. “Be back in a couple of hours.”
He blew me another kiss, and I stuck my cheek out, pretending to catch it there. Raúl tugged me out the door, though, his excitement overflowing. He then grabbed the two buckets and the water-hunting tools set out for us. “Come on, Xochitl!” he called out, dragging me by the hand.
After Julio and his men took over the well and started charging la comunidad to withdraw water, some of us devised our own means of surviving. It was extra work, but it also meant that sometimes our family could go days without seeing Julio.
Raúl and I settled into our walk after I glanced briefly at the stone pit and waved at Mamá as she pulled warm tortillas off the grill. I fought to keep up with Raúl, who was not nearly so tired as I was.
I shrugged it off. We fell silent, and the heat filled the desert. There were others in Empalme who swore that the sun rose without a sound, but I still think they are wrong. The sound of sunlight is the gentle scurrying of lizards and mice, desperate to find shade and comfort. It’s the earth, groaning and creaking as it wakes up, as the moisture within it is pulled away, cracking and breaking the soil. It is the scratching echo of our feet pressing into the sand and dirt, of sweat dripping off us into the dust.
I fought the urge that came suddenly upon my body. I wanted to start running, toward las montañas to the north, to find las bestias. The mysteries. The land of thoughts come to life. My body was full of desire and longing, Solís. What was I supposed to do? Continue ignoring it? Every time I ventured into the desert to return a story, to hunt water, or for food, it haunted me. Every. Time.