T. Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain

When he waded back in, clinging to the Tough canyon wall for support, the _huaraches__ were strung around his neck and the rucksack propped up on the crown of his head. The water reached his knees, his crotch, his waist, and finally it came right up to his armpits, which meant that America would have to swim. He thought of that as his toes felt their way through the muck, of America swimming, the hair spread wet on her shoulders, her dress balled up in one slim pretty hand and held high above her, and he began to feel horny, a sure sign that he was healing.

He found what he was looking for at the rear of the pool, just behind the wreckage of the car. There was a spit of sand there, a private beach just wide enough for a blanket and some sort of shelter-a lean-to, maybe-and then the canyon closed up like a fist. A sheer wall of stone, thirty feet or more in height, rose up out of a shallow pool to a cleft from which the stream splayed out into the air in a perpetual shower. The light was soft, filtered through the vegetation above, and what Cándido saw wasn't stone and leaf and grain of sand, but a sitting room with a big shaded lamp dangling from the ceiling, with sofas and chairs and a polished wooden floor that gleamed beneath a burden of wax. It was a revelation. A vision. The sort of thihen' sort of ng that might have inspired a pilgrim to build a shrine.

Cándido set down his rucksack and rested in the warm sand till his clothes dried to a uniform dampness. Then he got up and began constructing a rude hearth, one rock at a time, one beside the other, and in his excitement, in the heat of the moment, he forgot his pain. When it was done, when the circle was complete and the battered refrigerator grill laid neatly atop it, he found he still had the strength to gather firewood-anything to keep moving-and he began to think about what America might bring home with her. If she'd found work, that is. And of course he'd have to wait at the old spot for her and they'd have to wade across with the groceries… but maybe she'd have some _tortillas__ or a piece of meat and something to cook down into a stew, some vegetables and rice or a couple of potatoes…

There'd been no breakfast, nothing, not a twig to suck, and he was as hungry as he'd ever been in his life, but the hunger spurred him on and as the pile of water-bleached sticks began to grow an idea took hold of him: he would surprise her, that's what he would do. With a real camp. Something solid and substantial, a place they could call home-at least till he got back on his feet and found work and they could have their own apartment in a nice neighborhood with trees and sidewalks and a space for the car he was going to buy her, and he could see the outline of that space already, fresh blacktop, all neatly laid out and marked with crisp yellow paint…

He found some twine-or was it fishing line? — in a pile of water-run brush, and two black plastic bags that he was able to work into the thatch of the roof. His hip hurt him still, and his knee, and his ribs when he stretched, but he was a slave to the idea, and by the time the sun had passed over the lip of the canyon and left him in an artificial twilight, a sturdy lean-to of interlaced branches stood on the spit behind the rusted hulk of the car, work he could be proud of.

He dozed, exhausted from his efforts, and when he woke a weak patina of sunlight painted the eastern rim of the ledge above him. He looked up drowsily, full of a false sense of well-being, and then it hit him: _América. Where was she?__ She wasn't here… but then, how could she be? This wasn't their old camp, this wasn't a place she knew. He got to his feet, the pain digging claws into his hip, and cursed himself. It must have been four, five o'clock. She'd be back there, downstream, looking for him, and how could she doubt that he'd run out on her for good?

Cursing still, cursing nonstop, he plunged into the pool and slashed through the murky water, heart hammering, and never mind his clothes. He hurried along the streambed as fast as his hip would allow, frantic now, in a panic-and then he rounded the bend that gave onto their old camp and she wasn't there. The leaves hung limp, the stream stood still. There was no trace of her, no note, no pile of stones or scribble in the sand. This was _muy gacho,__ bad news. And fuck his stinking _pinche__ life. Fuck it.

Then it was up the hill, each step a crucifixion, and what choice did he have? — up the hill for the first time since the accident. He hadn't gone a hundred feet before he had to stop and catch his breath. The clothes hung sodden from his frame-and he'd lost weight, he had, lying there in the stinking sand with nothing but scraps and vegetables to eat for the last nine days like some wasted old sack of bones in a nursing home. He spat in the dirt, gritted his teeth, and went on.

The sun was hot still, though it must have been six o'clock at least, higher and hotter than down below. Despite his wet clothes he began to sweat, and he had to use his hands-or his one good hand-ru'e good hato help him over the rough places. When he was halfway up, at a spot where the trail jogged to the right and dodged round a big reddish chipped tooth of a boulder, he had a surprise. A nasty surprise. Turning the corner and throwing a quick glance up the trail ahead, he saw that he wasn't alone. A man was coming down from above, a stranger, long strides caught up in the mechanics of a walk that threw his hips out as if they belonged to somebody else. Cándido's first reaction was to duck into the bushes, but it was too late: the man was on top of him already, leaning back against the pitch of the slope like an insect climbing down a blade of grass.

_“Hey, 'mano,”__ the man said, his voice as high and harsh as a hawk's call. _“¿Qué onda?__ What's happening?” He'd stopped there in the middle of the trail that was no more than two feet wide, a tall pale man made taller by the slope, speaking the border Spanish of the back alleys and _cantinas__ of Tijuana. He was wearing a baseball cap turned backwards on his head and his eyes were a color Cándido couldn't identify, somewhere between yellow and red, like twin bruises set in his skull. He was one of the _vagos__ from the labor exchange, that's what he was. And he'd have a knife in his pocket or tucked into the back of his belt.

_“Buenas,”__ Cándido murmured, keeping an eye on him, though God knew he had nothing worth stealing but the clothes on his back-and they'd been washed and mended so many times they wouldn't fetch more than a few _centavos__ at a rag shop. But you could never tell: sometimes they'd steal your shirt just for pure meanness.

“What's it like down there, brother?” the man asked, indicating the ravine with a flick of his eyes. The sun glanced off his face. His skin was the color of a dirty bar of soap-not white, but not brown either. “Comfortable? Quiet? There's water, right?”

When the stranger swiveled his shoulders to scan the ravine, Cándido saw that he had a bedroll wound up tight and slung across his back with a length of twine. Cándido didn't want to give him any encouragement-if word got out, the whole labor exchange would be down there. “Not much,” he said.

This was funny. The man let out a little bark of a laugh and grinned to show off a cheap set of fake teeth. “Judging from the look of you, _carnal,__ there's enough to go swimming in, eh?”

Cándido held the man's eyes. He shrugged. “It's an unlucky place. I had a camp down there but they raided it three days ago. _Gabachos.__ They painted things on the rocks with their spray cans. You won't catch me down there again.”

Birds flitted from bush to bush. The sun stood still. The man was taking his time. “That what happened to your face? And that arm?”

“Yeah. Or no-not then.” Cándido shrugged again, conscious of the tattered sling that cradled his left arm. The arm was better, a whole lot better, but that still gave him an arm and a half to the stranger's two-if it came to that. “It's a long story,” he said.