LECHUGUILLA
by Rani Birchfield
W
hen The Change was full
upon the world, and the seas
grew, the lakes and rivers
and underground caches faded; when
the droughts fed the deserts, growing
them to immense sizes, the heat
cooked the world; and when the
famines came bringing their diseases
with them, the great, as well as the tiny,
migrations began.
José watched the trucks and heavy
equipment pull out single-file and head
north up the cracked two-lane high-
way through his binoculars. The old
man remained behind – José had no
trouble spotting him in the crushed,
monochrome landscape. The old man
looked ridiculous in his pink hat and
mirrored sunglasses, flashing the peace
sign to every single vehicle in the con-
voy from his spot in the sink-hole José
thought.
However, the Border Cartel’s
departure boded well for José – he
couldn’t stay in this makeshift foxhole
much longer. He ran out of food three
days ago and hydro yesterday. He fig-
ured he stood a better chance of sur-
vival with a loco loner than a whole
platoon of BC. He had made it this far,
avoiding BC and raiders for weeks in
his trek from Chihuahua into old
Texas – he wasn’t about to let anyone
get in his way. But he needed supplies.
When José was sure the BC weren’t
coming back, he roamed the burned-
out town. He spotted the old man
sprawled out under a flimsy lean-to, his
hat over his face.
“One step closer and I’ll give you a
free sex change,” the old man said, not
moving.
“Ahh, muy bien señor, but if you were
on top of your game, I wouldn’t be
standing over you.”
“My feelings about continuing in
this hell-hole are ambivalent so, on one
hand, I know you’re here, and my
sorry human nature wants to preserve
16
Cenizo
“Agave lechuguilla" by Stan Shebs. Licensed
under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
my life. But on the other hand, why do
I care? Do what you will and be done
with it.”
“I haven’t seen anyone worth talk-
ing to in weeks, so I’ll squeeze every
drop of information out of you before I
assassinate you,” José smiled. He liked
that word. And why not? He was good
at it.
“Assassinate, huh? I like that. It
makes me feel important. When will
you assassinate me, señor? I should
like to start planning my last meal. It
may take a little longer to rustle up
something fitting than it used to. Wait
– actually, I have just the thing.”
The old man sat up, straightened
his hat, and assessed José through his
scarred sunglasses. José wore old-
school fatigues, no hat, and a dirty
bandage covered one of his grayish-
blue eyes.
José laughed. It felt foreign to him.
Dios mio, I am delirious, he thought. “No
one dies today, old man. First I want to
know how you are here, and what you
were doing with the BC. Maybe you’re
ex-military? That’s usually the only type
they let in their gang.”
Fourth Quarter 2015
“Well, I’m not in their ‘gang’,
but yes, I come and go as I
please, a latent benefit of time
spent in Special Forces decades
ago in Bush’s Iraq Wars.” The
old man stood up and dusted
himself off. He pulled out a
beat-up flask and handed it to
José.
“Name’s Thomas.”
Desperate for hydration,
José took a long pull.
“Chingao!” he said, his one eye
tearing up. “What’s that?”
“A gift from my associates. Not
great, but does the job.” The old
man put the flask back in his pocket
without drinking. “What about you?”
he continued. “Cartel, by the looks of
your ink. I thought most of your kind
joined up with the BC.”
“My name is José,” José bowed as if
in ceremony. “Si to both. Ex-cartel.
AND ex-Border Cartel. Now just
another migrant headed north.”
“Defector, huh? I bet that’s a story.
For another time, though.” The old
man pointed south. The sky boiled
over the hill, angry and red, coming
fast. José, distracted by the rare con-
versation, failed to hear the growing
rumble. Thomas led them west and
stopped at the edge of one of the
trenches dug by the BC.
“Get in,’ Thomas said. When José
hesitated, Thomas pushed him into the
deep trench, and José, off balance from
hunger, dehydration, and the contents
of the flask, tumbled in.
“What are you doing?” José bel-
lowed.
“El Chapo. Stay down!”
As José struggled to climb out of the
trench, Thomas ran to a dilapidated
barn off to the side and disappeared
inside. José crested the trench’s edge in
time to see Thomas running towards
him, masks in hand, a breath ahead of
the roaring haboob. As he dropped
into the trench, Thomas tossed a WWI
looking mask to José along with a large
black bag.
“Cover up, soldier!”
A blast of fiery dust and debris
roiled over the hole, offering horrible
respite from the beating sun for an
interminable hour.
When quiet
descended and they felt the sun again,
the two men dug out from the under
the dust covered bags.
“I love a dirt nap,” Thomas said.
“So refreshing.”
“What did you call it, ese? El Chapo?”
“Yeah. Short and deadly. Starts
somewhere around the Sierra Madres.
Fitting, don’t you think?” Thomas
said. “One of the unpredictable phe-
nomena that developed after The
Change. Can travel hundreds of miles
past the desert and up into the
Drylands. Why? What do you call it
where you’re from?”
José laughed for the second time
that day, surprising himself. “Bueno. I
will call the red monster El Chapo.”
Thomas offered the flask again.
“Keep it. Vamanos. I have food.”
José nursed the moonshine as they
went, blissfully dulling his mind’s razor
edge from the last weeks of hiding and
traveling and suffering and being suf-
fered upon.
They climbed partway up a hill
shaded by the late afternoon sun where
someone long-gone carved out a flat-
tish spot.
“Nice digs, ese! How long you been
here? Gonna set up shop?” José asked
the old man, looking around at the
rusty camp chairs, small fire pit, and
various guns encased in plastic, along
with a small box containing a variety of
flasks and jars.
“Naw, just working my way south.”
“South?” José was incredulous.
“Why do you want to go south?
There’s nothing left there, man, noth-
ing. The desert stretches all the way to