“Was it gangrene?”
“You know your first aid. Lupe said it was the start of something called wet gangrene. But we caught it before it took hold.”
The man grabs his arm and pulls him up. Emiliano hops on his right foot. When he walks out of the bathroom, the man is no longer there. There’s a wooden crutch leaning against the wall. Emiliano hobbles back to the room where he’s been lying and looks out a small window. Gustaf stands in what looks like a corral. He’s got a straw hat on and is trying to get a rope around the neck of a skinny horse. Emiliano can’t help but laugh when he sees the horse wait for the man to get close before skittering out of the way. Then the man and the horse and the corral start spinning and Emiliano stumbles back to the bed.
When he wakes up again, it is dark outside. At the foot of his bed, he finds an undershirt, another pair of boxer shorts, a long-sleeved cowboy shirt with pearl buttons that snap on, a pair of denim pants, and white cotton socks. Beside the clothes is a towel, a bar of soap, and a toothbrush still inside a plastic package. A pair of flip-flops lie next to the bed. The message seems to be that he should take a shower, brush his teeth, and get dressed. He sits up and then stands carefully. He can walk without the crutch if he doesn’t put too much pressure on his left foot.
After the shower, he finds Gustaf in what looks like a living room, sitting in a reclining chair, watching television. He has a TV tray in front of him and is eating something with a spoon out of a plastic bowl. Next to the bowl there’s a glass of water and a bottle of hot sauce. Gustaf barely looks at Emiliano when he comes in. “Help yourself to some stew,” he says with a movement of his head toward the kitchen.
Emiliano walks to the kitchen and ladles stew into a bowl next to the stove. He opens a cabinet and finds a glass, which he fills with water from the faucet in the kitchen sink. He finds a spoon and puts it in the stew, and then he stands still, not knowing where to go. There’s a small round table with four chairs in the kitchen, and he begins to walk toward it when Gustaf shouts: “Over here.”
In the living room, Gustaf motions to the TV tray by the sofa and Emiliano sits down. The old man doesn’t say much, but it’s not as if he’s rude or unwelcoming. The TV is ancient—a tiny round screen encased in a huge wooden cabinet. Emiliano studies the scene on the TV. A big bulldozer is pushing earth around. Then the face of a man who looks a lot like Gustaf appears, shouting, “No guts, no glory!”
“Damn fools!” Gustaf says. “They out in Alaska. More than one hundred thousand dollars they spent already getting themselves there and renting equipment and what have you, and all they got is a few nuggets of gold.”
Emiliano finishes his stew and then, during a commercial, he asks, “How you find me?”
Gustaf digs in his chair until he finds a remote. He turns down the volume. “There’s this one horse who I swear is out to end my days. I got him four summers ago at an auction over in Marfa. Cost me all of two hundred dollars. Every year he finds a hole in the fence and heads for those canyons. This year I was ready to let him be, let him get eaten by the coyotes, serves him right. Ornery creature. Never been able to put a saddle on him. I was chasing him again like an idiot when I saw the buzzards circling the way they circle when they see a good meal. Figured the damn horse finally got what’s coming to him. So I went to where the buzzards was to make sure. Instead I found you. The horse climbed down the canyon and was just standing there, a few yards from you, didn’t even flinch when I lassoed him. I put you on his back and brought you here. Called Lupe, she’s a nurse over in Sanderson, and she brought you back to life.”
Emiliano waits a few moments. The gold-digging show comes back on but Gustaf doesn’t turn the volume back up. “I came from Mexico,” Emiliano says.
“You don’t say.”
The old man’s mischievous grin makes Emiliano smile too. Gustaf turns up the volume and they watch in silence. When the show is over, Gustaf pushes the TV tray to one side and stands up. He tosses the remote on the sofa next to Emiliano. “Guess I’m going to turn in. Turn off the lights when you’re done.” Gustaf stops at the entrance of the hall that leads to the bedrooms, turns around, and walks back toward Emiliano. He sits on the edge of the reclining chair and folds his hands. “I went through your pockets. Hope you don’t mind. I thought maybe I’d find an address or something. Found a funny-looking bag with a cell phone. It’s in the desk drawer in your room. There was a map of the park in your back pocket with Sandy Morgan’s name. I know Wes Morgan, Sandy’s father, so I called him.”
“My sister gave me the map.”
“That must be Sara. Sandy picked her up?” Emiliano nods. “Wes is representing her asylum case. He’s got her going to the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca where he thinks she has a better shot. Wes is a fine lawyer. Your sister’s in good hands.”
Emiliano sits up, feels his heart knock against his chest.
“One other thing. Lupe called this morning. She says a man showed up at the clinic asking if they knew of any undocumented Mexicans that mighta been found out in the desert. Lupe didn’t tell him nothing. He gave her his name anyway just in case she heard something. Bob Zapata. Been in Sanderson for a few days, I guess.” Gustaf waits for a response from Emiliano. When he doesn’t get one, he continues, “You know him?”
Emiliano waits. Then, softly: “My father.”
“I know a little bit about a father not knowing where his son is, so I can tell you. That man’s worried about you. He’s hurting to see you.”
Silence.
“Well, he’s staying at the Desert Air Motel. There’s a phone book in the drawer next to the forks and knives. If you want to call him, you can call him. If you want to stay, you can stay. I could use the help around here. Good old hard, honest work. Or go back to Mexico. It’s up to you.“
The old man stands up and limps slowly away.
“Do you know where I can send an e-mail?” Emiliano asks before he leaves the room.
Gustaf turns and nods. “I got a computer in my office. It don’t move around, so if you need to use it, you gotta do it in there. Don’t be looking at any naked people.”
After he leaves, Emiliano stands, picks up his bowl, spoon, and glass, and cleans them in the kitchen sink. Then he goes to Gustaf’s office. Gustaf’s computer is even older looking than his television. Tomorrow he’ll send an e-mail to Yoya and ask for an address where he can mail the cell phone. He examines the pictures on Gustaf’s desk. In one of them, a much younger Gustaf and a boy about Javier’s age are on top of a black horse. The boy’s tan hat is too big for him so most of his face is covered. All you can see is that he’s laughing. That reminds Emiliano, he promised to call Lester’s wife. What was Lester’s boy’s name? Jimmy.
Emiliano makes his way outside through the kitchen door. He walks away from the house in the direction of the corral he saw out the window of his room. The dome of the universe is black and has more stars than Emiliano has ever seen before. There are so many stars up there that it looks as if someone carrying a tray tripped and spilled a few million. If Sara or Mami looked up at the sky now, they would see the same stars. Tomorrow, after he calls Lester’s wife, he’ll take care of the other promise he made to Sara. He’ll call his father and tell him about Sara’s asylum petition so he can vouch for her. Then what? Good old hard, honest work. Or go back to Mexico. Gustaf’s words. That’s the choice he needs to make.