Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
It took several hours for the gas station owner to fix their brakes with some used truck parts and a length of barbwire that was lying around. He was an old Anglo, a good guy a lot like Kenny. He suggested for Salvador and Lupe to hold up under the trees by his gas station and wait out the heat of the day before they continued east across the desert.
Underneath the trees was an Anglo family sitting around their old truck looking pretty beat down.
“They’re Okies,” said the gas station owner, “can’t get rid of them. They broke down, got no money, and nowhere to go. But they wouldn’t bother you. They’re good people, too.”
“What are Okies?” asked Salvador.
“People from out of Oklahoma, a state east of here out towards Texas. Thousands of them lost their ranches ’cause of a drought, then an endless dust storm. They’re coming out in droves to California, hoping to find work. Damn poor sight, but the transmission they need for their truck, I’d have to buy, and so I can’t help ’em.”
Salvador could see that these “Okies” had three little blond kids with them and an old woman who reminded Salvador a lot of his own mother.
“How much would that transmission cost?” asked Salvador.
“Even used they’re expensive,” said the station owner. “About six dollars, my price, then another two or three dollars to put it in.”
Salvador thanked the gas station owner for his offer that he and his family could stay underneath the grove of trees, but he told him that they had to go on. What Salvador didn’t tell the man, was that he was afraid that any minute the law was going to show up and question them because they’d been the ones who’d seen that truck go off the road.
“All right,” said the old desert rat, “but then you’d better take along a couple of extra water bags.”
“We got water for the baby,” said Salvador, not wanting to spend any money that he didn’t have to. Between buying this truck and giving money to his mother and Lupe’s mother, he didn’t have much left out of the $500 he’d been paid.
And they’d need money to set themselves up in Mexico. After all, his bootlegging trade would be worthless across the border. Mexico wasn’t a dry land. Liquor was legal down there.
“No, this isn’t for you or your child. This is for your truck in case it overheats. You’re going to have to be careful,” added the man, spitting a stream of chewing tobacco juice on the ground. “Very, very careful, amigo, especially in those damn sand hills. People die out there.”
Salvador paid the man for his work on the truck and the two canvas water bags. The bill came to $2 and the man had worked on their truck for well over an hour. This gas station owner had charged Salvador 20 cents an hour for his labor. Just like Kenny, this Anglo was a good, honest man.
“And here,” said Salvador, “six more dollars for that transmission for those people and two dollars for you to put it in.”
The gas station owner was stunned.
“You’ve saved that family’s life, amigo!”
“We all need a little saving now and then,” said Salvador.
And Salvador got in his truck and he and Lupe were gone.
Part Nine
REBIRTHING
20
In the Wilds beyond the Garden, Adam and Eva now found themselves bringing the Light of God to friend and foe alike—Lucifer and Papito were Working as One once again!
IT WAS HIGH NOON when Salvador and Lupe came out of the rocky, granite desert and hit the sand hills of California. Here, nothing grew, and there were no rocks whatsoever, either. These were the famous floating “death” hills of pure yellow and white sand just west of the Colorado River, which divided California from Arizona.
Salvador and Lupe hadn’t seen one single vehicle for well over an hour. Several times they’d stopped to add water to their truck’s radiator. The first time it had cost them a lot of valuable water. Because Salvador made the big mistake of turning off the motor so the radiator would cool off, but instead of cooling off, the damn radiator had gotten hotter, erupting with boiling water when Salvador had taken off the radiator cap.
Salvador could now see why that old desert rat who owned the gas station had told him that no one, but no one, moved during the heat of the day; not even the rattlesnakes or scorpions. But also Salvador figured that maybe he could be able to turn this whole situation around in their favor, if he just kept level-headed. Maybe this would then be the perfect time for Lupe and him to get across the border into Arizona without any questions being asked.
But, then, they’d no more than come off the two-lane, solid gravel road of the rocky desert and hit the first stretch of the wooden-plank road of the sand hills and Salvador realized that he’d been very naïve. He’d really miscalculated the whole thing.
These yellowish-white hills of smooth, soft sand stretched in all directions for miles and miles without one single blade of grass or a clump of brush or cactus. Here, there was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. And this tiny, toylike, single-lane road—made of wooden-planks, like the planks of the railroad laid down one next to the other—looked like a joke, like a little worm inching its way through this infinity of gullies and sand hills. The whole place had an eerie feeling of another world.
It was said that so far, no engineers had been able to figure out how to build a permanent road across these sand hills, because the sand was so fine that it never stayed long enough in one place for a road to be completed.
Every time the wind came down from the great mountains in the west or up from the gulf of the Sea of Cortez to the south, the sand would be blown from one place to another, moving an entire sand hill to another location in a matter of hours. The roads that they’d tried to build in the past had sometimes disappeared before they’d even completed them. Years ago, a dozen people and their cars had been found dead underneath tons of sand after one of these terrible sandstorms. The wooden-plank road was the best thing that the engineers had come up with so far. But the wooden-plank road definitely had problems. For one, the road was so narrow that oncoming vehicles couldn’t pass one another, so one car would have to back up to the nearest little turnout to let the other car by before it could proceed on its way.
It was high noon when Salvador and Lupe came off the good, solid, two-lane gravel road of the rocky, cactus desert and started across the single-lane, wooden-plank road. Salvador didn’t tell Lupe, but oh, how he truly wished that he had his Moon. Now that fine automobile had never once overheated on him, no matter how fast or hot he’d run it.
It was a scary feeling getting on the planks with the truck’s tires going boom, boom, boom, making noise like driving on the railroad tracks, except these planks of wood were constructed closer together and so the boom, boom, boom sounded much faster. It was said that the reason the engineers had finally decided to use wooden ties for this road was because they’d figured that the sand could blow through the wooden ties, and hence, the road wouldn’t get lost every few months, as had happened to those old gravel roads that they’d tried to lay down.
The Sun was blazing bright white hot. Lupe had her straw hat over Hortensia, protecting her little daughter from the Sun’s rays. The breeze coming in their window felt like an oven. Glancing at his wife and child, Salvador saw that they were holding up pretty well and so he figured that if they could just get past these sand hills and across the river to Arizona, they’d be all right. Once they were on the Arizona side, they could hole up for a few days and get some rest. It seemed to him like they’d been on the run ever since Kenny had been shot in front of their house in Carlsbad.
Then Salvador saw something coming toward them in the distance, but he couldn’t figure out what it was because of how it kept jumping about in the dancing heat waves. It looked to Salvador like it was a brightly colored carnival.
He rubbed his eyes. He thought that he was seeing things. But then as this mirage got closer and closer, he saw that this wasn’t a circus or a carnival of bright waving fla
Lupe and Salvador glanced at each other, and started laughing. There were two people in each vehicle and some of the cars were convertibles. Seeing Salvador and Lupe out here in the middle of nowhere, a few of the people stood up in their bright, new convertibles with colorful Sun umbrellas in hand and waved their flags at them.
It was crazy! Completely crazy-loco!
Salvador braked, put his truck in reverse and backed up so he could get off the road on one of the little turnouts and let the long line of cars and trucks pass. This had to be one of the funniest sights Salvador and Lupe had ever seen in all their lives.
The second vehicle, a bright red convertible, stopped next to Salvador and Lupe’s car, and a well-dressed, midget-size man stood up on the seat of the grand car and told them in a large, booming voice that the train had broken down back in the desert in Arizona, but that he had to get these new model cars and trucks to an auto show in Los Angeles, California, by tomorrow.
The short, little man then tipped his hat. “Sorry, for the inconvenience,” he added, “but we’d been told that we wouldn’t meet any traffic at midday. Onward,” he added with flair, and he sat back down in his shiny new convertible and his beautiful woman driver drove on.
Thirty-some vehicles passed by before Salvador and Lupe stopped counting. It wasn’t amusing anymore. Salvador had had to turn off his motor. The truck had overheated. They were hot and thirsty and felt miserable sitting on the little outlet of the wooden-plank road. Their daughter, Hortensia, was having a hard time of it. The midday Sun was blasting them with terrible heat.
Finally, the last new vehicle passed by and Salvador tried to start his truck, but the truck wouldn’t start. He took a deep breath, refusing to lose his temper. He checked their water situation, figuring if they each took a little swallow, he’d still have enough to put some in the radiator. Hopefully, the truck would then cool down enough so it would start up.
“Take a drink,” he said to Lupe. “Then give some to Hortensia.” Their daughter was being a brave, good little girl as long as her mother held her close, but, also, it was just too hot for two bodies to be touching.
“No,” said Lupe, “I’m fine, Salvador. You take a drink and I’ll just give a little to Hortensia and wet a cloth so I can keep her head cool. A child’s brain can boil if it gets too hot, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” said Salvador. “I’d never heard that one.”
“Well, we learned that one in Arizona when we were working in the cotton fields at Scottsdale. Two children’s brains were cooked to death as their mothers worked picking cotton. You drink, Salvador, you’re driving. I can just nap and keep cool,” she said, smiling.
Salvador took a deep breath. He could well see that Lupe was having trouble hanging on, too. She’d never been one to do very well in hot weather, because she had a hard time sweating, and sweat was what cooled off a body and was therefore essential for survival in hot weather. Himself, Salvador was pouring with sweat. His whole shirt was all soaked through. Never in his life had he had any difficulty sweating.
“All right,” said Salvador, lying. “I’ll drink.” But he had no intention of drinking any water. He was a man, after all, and so as the hombre of his familia, he could take it—for this was his job, to take it como un macho de los buenos for the survival of his familia.
He watched Lupe give water to their child; then he watched her wet a piece of cloth and moisten their baby’s lovely little face and neck, cooling her off. Salvador’s whole heart-corazón was filled with love. This was the child of their love, the flesh of their flesh.
Glancing up at the boiling hot Father Sun, Salvador stepped out of their truck to pour the remaining water into the truck’s radiator. But first he needed to take a leak. He unbuttoned his pants and wondered if maybe he shouldn’t save his piss, too, and put it in the radiator. Peeing, Salvador decided that his pee was probably too warm to cool off anything. And, also, it wasn’t very much pee. He hadn’t drunk any water since they’d left that gas station early this morning, and all this time he’d been sweating like a racehorse.
Rebuttoning his pants, he saw that his hands were shaking. He put his left hand to his forehead and took a deep breath. He was cold as ice and he felt lightheaded.
He took in several deep breaths, steadied himself, then poured all their cool, clear water into the truck’s radiator. This was it now. There was no turning back. If the truck didn’t start up and they didn’t get out of here pronto, they were going to be dead ducks for the buzzards, or a good find—his mother would say—for people to steal everything from their dead bodies tonight when the road would be full of people crossing the desert.
Getting back in the cab, Salvador smiled to Lupe, not wanting her to know all the things that were going on inside of his head. “Okay,” he said, “here goes!”
And saying this, he pushed down on the starter and wonder of wonders, the truck just started right up! Just like that! No problema whatsoever!
But then, as luck would have it, when he went to put the truck into first gear, his hands were shaking so much that he put the truck in reverse by mistake and off the wooden planks they went—backward!
Salvador leaped out of the truck and ran around to the back, and he saw that his right rear tire was buried in the sand. They were stuck! He put his right hand over his mouth, so he wouldn’t scream in fear. He didn’t want to frighten Lupe and Hortensia any more than they already were!
Suddenly, Salvador just knew deep inside of his being that they were going to die if they didn’t get help. He turned to see if any of that long line of new vehicles were still in sight. The last vehicle had been a water truck with a dozen barrels. And there it was, the last vehicle, disappearing into the dancing heat waves to the west.
Salvador ran up the plank road, yelling, whistling, but they were too far gone. Glancing around, he truly realized for the very first time how all alone in the whole world were he and his little familia. There was nada, nada, nothing in all directions as far as the eye could see, but glistening bright white sand, and overhead, the huge, burning orange-red Father Sun!
Taking a deep breath, Salvador pulled his shirt out of his pants. He took several more breaths, trying to gather his strength. What could he do now? How could he get that tire back on the wooden road? If only there was a way for him to lift the truck high enough so that they could get something underneath the tire, then maybe, they could drive the vehicle back on the road. But he had nothing to put under the tire except their clothes, and the tire would just spin their clothes down into the sand. Salvador decided to check and see if they had a jack.
“What are you doing?” asked Lupe. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” he lied. “I’ll have us out of here in a minute. I just got to see if we have a jack,” he added as he went through their things in the back of the truck. But then he stopped. Who was he kidding, they had no jack. And even if they did have one, how would that help them? The fine, loose sand would just swallow up the jack.
Salvador closed his eyes in concentration as he’d seen his mother do a thousand times when they’d come up face to face with an impossible situation, and little by little, as he breathed in and he breathed out, a power began to fill up his chest and stomach. Then it was traveling out to his arms and legs. His mind suddenly felt strong. All that Doubting Thomas crap stopped, and this crystal clear clarity of thought began filling up his Mind, his Heart and Soul. Now he could Visualize everything here, in the present, of what was going to happen before it happened. He was aprevenido.
His hands stopped shaking. He was good now. Instinctively, he’d just used his Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Senses. The Force of Creation was with him.
“Lupe,” he said, feeling confident once again, “we’re going to be fine. All I need is for you to get in
“All right, Salvador,” said Lupe, her own heart beating a million miles a minute. “I think that can do that. I give it the gas to go forward, but then I’ll brake and stop immediately, right?”
“Exactly,” he said. “You got it, querida.”
Lupe closed her eyes, saying a quick little prayer, then got behind the steering wheel. Hortensia was asleep, thank God. Lupe pushed down on the clutch all the way as she’d learned to do with their Moon—feeling good that she’d remembered to do this—then she tried the starter and the truck quickly started up. She smiled, feeling very proud of herself.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m ready, Salvador.”
“Good,” said he, and he rolled up his sleeves and took in several more deep breaths, remembering back to the days when he’d worked as a dynamite man in the rock quarries and he’d been one of the strongest men in all of the quarries.
He flexed his arms and his hands, then rolled back and forth his thick shoulders several times. Then this was it! He got hold of the rear bumper, got his legs under himself, set his feet in the sand, and began to use all of his power!
And yes, the one side of the truck came up, and he then tried to inch forward with it so he could get it back on the wooden planks, but he just didn’t have it in him, and so when Lupe went to give the vehicle the gas, the tire that was up in the air spun rapidly, but the tire on the solid wood didn’t move one inch to help him forward. Suddenly, Salvador remembered that this was the way trucks were built, one tire could be spinning in the mud and the other would just keep dead still. He lowered his side of the rear end of the truck back down into the sand.