Then I would have forgotten.
And Eliazar would never know how wrong he’d gotten it, how his grief was preventing him from seeing the truth.
Emilia rubbed my back with an open palm. “Take as much time as you need,” she said.
I drank more water, and the group looked at me expectantly.
No—not expectant.
There was another look in the eyes of Rosalinda, Felipe, y Eliazar.
Reverence.
Because to them, I was once again a cuentista.
Nothing more.
“I’ll go slowly,” I said, “but if you’re all ready, we should start walking.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Warm faces. I gazed at Eliazar again, and he seemed lighter, stood up taller, and I knew that I had done something good for him. But that was only temporary; he was walking the land to find a cure that did not matter. His Gracia was dead. There was nothing left to cure.
Each of us a desert, solitary and vast.
No. Not just that, but:
Solo quiero ser vista.
I only want to be seen.
Maybe that’s all these people wanted. To be seen.
Slowly, we reached las bajadas de las montañas. There were more árboles and bushes here, more flowers in bloom, more signs of life than Emilia and I had seen the last time we crossed over unas montañas. A large lizard, green with black specks, stood off the side of the trail. Its tongue darted out and snatched a large black beetle, and then it scampered off.
We rested in the shade of the mesquites, and I couldn’t resist. I craned my head back.
La montaña towered above.
Standing there, looking up at that giant before me, terror was born anew. I couldn’t imagine something bigger than this.
“I need a break,” I said, my voice too loud, pitched too high, then added, “To relieve myself.”
“Take all the time you need,” Emilia said. “We’ll be ready to go when you are.”
I made for a dense clump of ironwoods, and once I felt I was safely hidden, I pulled out las poemas. I had put them all into a single leather pouch so they would be easier to carry, and then stuffed the empty pouches at the bottom of my pack. There were four poemas now, and even though I knew each one by heart, I needed to remind myself why I had left home.
I held the pouch containing them all tightly, clutched it to my body. I couldn’t show these to anyone. Not yet. Maybe someday. But they were too intimate to share with people I had just met.
I crouched, spread them out on the ground next to one another, touched each of them and looked up—
The skull was enormous. It had been picked clean and bleached by the sun, but even then, I recognized the shape. Its snout was long and came to a point, and its jaw was lined with teeth, sharp and pointed in the front, flat near the back. Two horns jutted out from the top sides, curving up toward the sky. And those vacant eye sockets seemed to be staring at me. Directly at me.
Un sabueso.
Out here? How? Had someone defeated a sabueso tracking them like I had? Or had it suffered a different fate?
I examined it, but not for long, as I couldn’t shake the feeling that soon, one of estas bestias would be chasing me. So I picked up las poemas, hid them in my pack, and strode away from that monstrosity. I said nothing to the group as I joined them again, only smiled as if I’d taken care of what I needed to, and they were satisfied. Another lie. Another story they bought.
Except Emilia. One of her eyebrows went up.
She suspected something, but she said nothing.
I took another drink of water, hoping it would soothe my jittery nerves.
It did not.
Emilia led us out of las bajadas, said that she knew our camp for the night was on the other side, and I hoped she was right. She hadn’t been wrong yet, but I still did not understand who or what guided her.
We followed.
We climbed.
And climbed.
And climbed.
It was not a gradual incline, not like the one I had conquered before reaching Obregán. The packed dirt trail pitched up sharply at first, so much so that I nearly got down on hands and knees to crawl. I pushed myself up, breathing deeply with each step, and then looked back to make sure those behind me weren’t faltering as much as I wanted to.
Eliazar surprised me. He had his hands behind his head and a smile on his face. He patted me on the back as he passed me and took the lead. Emilia was next, and she smiled again at me as she passed, but there was an edge to it. She knew I had lied to her about what happened, didn’t she? But I merely returned the smile and she continued on.
Rosalinda and Felipe were last, and Rosalinda stood at my side as her son struggled up the steepest section.
Sweat stained the front of Felipe’s camisa, and he panted loudly. An awful image filled my head: el sabueso panting in Chavela’s refuge, staring me and Emilia down.
“Felipe?” I held out my hand and pulled him up the last bit. “How are you feeling?”
“It’s so hot,” he said, his voice tiny and weak. “Has it ever been this hot before?”
I wiped at my forehead, and my hand dripped with sweat. “It doesn’t feel like it,” I said. “When was the last time you had agua?”
He shook his head. “At the bottom.”
“Drink more.” I thrust my water bag at him. “Not a lot, just enough to wet your throat.”
“Lo siento, mijo,” said Rosalinda as he drank. “That we have to do this.”
He smiled at her despite his clear exhaustion. “We had to.” He coughed, then spat into the dirt. “Come on, Mami. You’re so slow.”
Had to? I pondered that. What drove people to leave their home and venture out
