Desert Passage Read online

  desert

  passage

  desert

  passage

  a novel

  by

  P.S. Carrillo

  Desert Passage is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and by the Exemplar Program, a program of Americans for the Arts in collaboration with the LarsonAllen Public Services Group, funded by the Ford Foundation.

  Piñata Books are full of surprises!

  Piñata Books

  An imprint of

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  452 Cullen Performance Hall

  Houston, Texas 77204-2004

  Cover art by Giovanni Mora

  Cover design by Mora Des!gn

  Carrillo, P. S.

  Desert Passage / by P. S. Carrillo.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Two cousins go on an impromptu journey from northern Arizona to Santa Fe, New Mexico when their grandmother gets sick, and their experiences along the way give them invaluable insights about life, family, and themselves.

  ISBN: 978-1-55885-517-5 (alk. paper)

  [1. Coming of age—Fiction. 2. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 3. Cousins—Fiction. 4. Deserts—Fiction. 5. Southwest, New—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C23457De 2008

  [Fic]—dc22

  2008017161

  CPI

  The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  © 2008 by P. S. Carrillo

  Printed in the United States of America

  8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  For every young man

  who has dared to dream

  of a road leading to somewhere.

  * * *

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 1

  Miguel and Ramón stood staring at the stacks of boxes and luggage that covered the concrete driveway.

  “Dad said to load the boxes first, then the luggage,” reminded Miguel, picking up one of the lighter boxes.

  “Yeah, but do the boxes all go to one side, then the luggage?” asked Ramón.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Miguel answered his cousin. “Let’s just put the stuff in, it’s getting hot out here, man.”

  One by one they lifted the heavy boxes and loaded the over-packed luggage into the back of the truck. The garage door was open and they could see Rodrigo going in and out of the house bringing out more boxes to pack.

  “How much more is there?” Miguel complained.

  “I’ll go get it,” sighed Ramón. He walked slowly over to the newly stacked boxes and picked one up. In the corner of the garage a pile of stuff caught his eye. A large assortment of camping and fishing equipment was gathering spiderwebs and dust.

  “Hey, remember when we used to go on trips with Grandpa?” Ramón said, walking back to the truck.

  “Yeah,” Miguel replied mournfully, “I wish we were going on a trip now.”

  After the back of the SUV was packed, Rodrigo came out with two more boxes. He walked over to the truck and opened the back door to inspect the loaded cargo with a critical eye.

  “This truck wasn’t packed right! Boys, get over here and unload this thing right now!” he ordered.

  “See? I told you the luggage was supposed to go in first,” Ramón reprimanded his cousin.

  “We are leaving in fifteen minutes, and I want this truck loaded correctly!” Rodrigo said sternly.

  “I don‘t think all this stuff is going to fit,” said Miguel.

  “Make it work!” snapped his father and walked back into the house.

  The two boys clumsily unloaded the truck and stood staring at the boxes and luggage piled on the concrete. It didn’t seem fair to either of them that they had to do the hard work of loading the truck. They weren’t included in the family’s vacation plans. Once they arrived at their grandmother’s house, they would be left behind while Miguel’s parents and little sister drove to Santa Fe for a big family reunion. It was their punishment.

  “How long did Dad say we were going to stay at Grandma’s?” Miguel asked picking up a heavy piece of luggage.

  “One whole month, remember?” Ramón answered.

  The boys both shook their heads in disbelief that they had to spend half of their summer vacation in a remote town in northern Arizona. Neither one could imagine what they had done to deserve such a terrible fate. Miguel had to cancel a two-week soccer camp for advanced players and Ramón had to cancel his plans to spend the first part of his summer vacation with a favorite cousin in Los Angeles. When they got back home, they were not going to be allowed time with friends. Their summer was ruined.

  “Let’s get going!” Rodrigo yelled, closing the garage door.

  Miguel’s mother and little sister climbed into the SUV. The two boys followed.

  “I want to sit up front!” insisted Marisol. “Miguel always pulls my braids!”

  “Now, Marisol, you have to sit in a seat with a seatbelt. Get into the second seat behind me. Miguel, sit on the opposite end,” ordered his mother.

  “I don’t want any funny business back there. We have a four-hour trip, and I have no intention of stopping for anything, but I will if I have to straighten either one of you out!” shouted Rodrigo to the boys.

  Miguel and Ramón remained silent and adjusted their iPod earbuds in their ears. Four hours was a long time in the family car with nothing to do.

  Marisol climbed into the back and organized her dolls and pink backpack on the spacious bench seat. As soon as she was situated she felt a tug on her braids.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “Mom, he’s pulling on my hair!”

  “Miguel, please don’t start that now, your father needs to concentrate on his driving!” reacted the mother.

  “Keep it up, boys, and you’ll be walking to your grandmother’s house!” yelled the father.

  “Rodrigo, please,” said the mother.

  “Connie, let me handle this,” Rodrigo replied. After thinking to himself for a moment he added, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

  “What do you mean?” Connie asked, adjusting her handbag on the floorboard of the truck.

  “I should have thought of it before. I should have had both boys walk to my mother’s house. They could have made it in a few days,” he said, half joking.

  “He’s just kidding, just leave your sister alone,” said Connie to the boys.

  “They would never make it anyway, only real men take on the impossible,” Rodrigo chided.

  Miguel and
Ramón turned up the volume on their iPods. The thought of being abandoned in Arizona was bad enough but to have to listen to their father’s belittling remarks on the way to their desert internment was excruciating.

  Chapter 2

  “The boys will be just fine, don’t you worry. I’ll take good care of them,” reassured Abuelita Rosa.

  “Mamá, I know you will, but I want them to do all the work on this list,” insisted Rodrigo, handing a piece of paper to his mother. “Everything on this list must be completed by the time we get back.”

  “Ay, mijo, there’s so much to do,” Abuelita Rosa said, reading the list with her tired eyes. “Maybe if they did half …. ”

  “No, Mamá. I want all of it done, no excuses!”

  Abuelita Rosa didn’t argue with her headstrong son. She went back to the kitchen and checked on the food cooking on the stove. When her family had arrived, they had been greeted by the warm, familiar scents of her house. A fresh pot of rice and spicy tamales were warming in the oven and the mole sauce needed just one more stir. She picked up the large spoon from the tiled countertop and asked her family to sit at her table.

  “Boys, come and eat,” said Connie.

  The television was blaring in the small living room. Sounds of gunfire and explosions vibrated through the house.

  “Turn that thing off and get over here!” yelled Rodrigo. “I should have never allowed you to bring a video game system. What was I thinking?”

  “But it gives the boys something to do when they visit. I don’t want them to be bored,” Abuelita Rosa answered.

  Rodrigo glared at the expensive video equipment and the stack of games lying scattered on the floor. The intrusive noise of the television had been turned off but the irritating sounds still echoed in his head.

  “I don’t want you two just playing video games while we’re gone. You have a lot of work to do,” Rodrigo warned, sitting down at the head of the kitchen table.

  “They should have some fun, too. It’s their summer vacation,” suggested Abuelita Rosa.

  “Why do they give kids vacations in the summer?” Rodrigo replied. “No one gives me a vacation and I work hard to support my family. I have to make my own vacations!”

  “Let’s have a nice dinner. Tomorrow we’ll be leaving and the boys will have plenty of time to think about why they are here,” said Connie.

  “You’re too hard on them, mijo. They’re just boys,” added Abuelita Rosa.

  “Things are different now, Mamá. It’s not like when Enrique and I were growing up.”

  Rodrigo looked at his brother’s picture placed on the wood sideboard next to the kitchen table. The youthful face of his brother stood staring out at the family from the gold metal frame. Rodrigo’s chest tightened with the sudden remembrance of grief, and he paused before continuing his thoughts aloud.

  “These kids nowadays don’t respect authority. They don’t know what it takes to be real men in today’s world,” he lectured. “We didn’t grow up with all the advantages that kids have today. I remember working every summer. We had to work for what we had.”

  “Mijo, don’t you remember the special trips you made with your father and Enrique?” Abuelita Rosa asked patiently.

  “If we did go on trips it’s because we earned it!” Rodrigo replied without thinking.

  Abuelita Rosa listened to her son with love. When the last plate of food was served on the table she said softly to Rodrigo, “Things are not so different, mijo. Boys still need guidance and love to grow up strong.”

  Rodrigo heard his mother’s words and didn’t contradict her, out of respect. He quietly sopped up the mole sauce with a warm tortilla and whispered to himself, “I know what’s best for my sons.”

  Chapter 3

  The morning sun came streaming through the bedroom window and slowly awakened the slumbering boys. They stirred in their warm beds and slowly opened their eyes to the sunlight, still in the comfort of boyhood dreams.

  “What do you mean they’re still in bed! Do you know what time it is?!” Rodrigo’s voice shouted in anger as it penetrated the walls of the bedroom. Rodrigo was already in a turbulent mood and the thought of two healthy boys sleeping through the morning hours irritated him even more.

  “Marisol, go knock on the door and see if Miguel and Ramón are awake yet,” Connie ordered. She was nervously packing the ice chest with contents from the refrigerator, trying not to forget anything.

  Marisol finished her bowl of chocolate-flavored cereal and slowly slid off the kitchen chair. “I was up early so I could help,” she reminded her father who had just sat down with a road map and a cup of coffee.

  “I know, mi preciosa. You’re my angel,” he smiled in response to the little girl. He took a drink from the mug and unfolded the map to view their destination.

  Marisol casually walked through the long hallway of her grandmother’s house and knocked on the boys’ bedroom door: “Miguel, Ramón, you better get up, or else!”

  She walked back to the kitchen and grabbed a doughnut from the counter. She took a bite and gave the rest to her father.

  Abuelita Rosa was busy making flour tortillas. The rolling pin glided smoothly under her rough, small hands. She lightly floured the wood board and flipped the dough in place.

  “I’ll make some extra for the trip,” she said, partly to herself, as the steaming, cooked tortillas piled high on a kitchen towel.

  “If we travel down the interstate after passing through Flagstaff, we’ll make better time,” Rodrigo said to his wife, who was unpacking the ice chest to rearrange it.

  “We should reach Santa Fe in three days, that’s if we stop to rest and see the sights along the way. Would you like that, Marisol?” he asked.

  Marisol smiled, with white-powdered sugar on her face, and nodded her head while tipping the cereal bowl to drink the chocolate-flavored milk.

  “There is so much to do, Rodrigo. I hope we can leave within the hour.”

  Connie remembered all her husband’s past warnings to his family about starting trips early in the day. After trying to reorganize the ice chest, she conceded that it wasn’t large enough for the contents. The water bottles were left out along with Marisol’s snack bars.

  “The boys need to help us repack the car, it’s the least they can do,” Rodrigo said focusing his attention on the map. From the corner of his eye, he saw two figures appear in the kitchen doorway.

  “Oh, thank you for blessing us with your presence, young princes,” Rodrigo said in a sardonic tone.

  Miguel and Ramón didn’t respond to the teasing. They pulled out chairs from the kitchen table and sat down, both staring into nowhere.

  “Hijos, what can I get you to eat? ¿Qué quieren comer?” Abuelita Rosa asked the boys tenderly, and set a pile of fresh tortillas in the middle of the table. She also placed a plate with doughnuts and two glasses of orange juice. Rodrigo looked up from his map with a disapproving look but kept quiet.

  “I don’t know,” answered Miguel, as he grabbed a doughnut and slid a glass of orange juice to himself. The grandmother filled two plates with eggs, beans, and chorizo and started to assemble a larger plate for her son.

  “Mamá, just make me a burrito with a lot of chorizo,” Rodrigo ordered from his seat.

  “Sí, mijo.”

  Abuelita Rosa quickly assembled the burrito and placed the plate in front of her son.

  Taking the burrito in his hands, he took a large bite and chewed in satisfaction. With his mouth half full he said, “We have to go over the rules before we leave.”

  His eyes focused on his son first, then on his nephew. “See that box over there?” He pointed to an empty cardboard box sitting on the floor. “I want all of your video games, iPods, cell phones, todas sus cosas. You’re not keeping anything here!”

  The boys ate their eggs with a fork and scooped up their beans and chorizo with the flour tortillas. They heard the command and glanced at each other between bites.

  “Can’t
we at least keep the video game player?” begged Miguel.

  “That machine is a big waste of time, I’ve already unplugged it and it’s getting loaded into the truck! You’ll have plenty of work to keep you busy!” Rodrigo said.

  After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence at the kitchen table, Ramón had the courage to speak up first. “Tío, what if there’s an emergency, shouldn’t we have our cell phones, at least?” The question seemed reasonable to him and he held his gaze on his uncle waiting for a rational reply.

  “I don’t care about your emergencies. What kind of emergencies could the two of you have?!” Rodrigo’s voice rose in anger as he put down the map. “I’m facing having a son and a nephew who don’t care about their futures. Who am I going to call with my emergency?” He grinned to himself, pleased at his artful response.

  “Maybe Ramón is right,” Connie said from behind the kitchen counter. “Something could happen and they may need to reach us.”

  “Connie, I’ve made a decision and they are going to follow the rules. That’s it!” Rodrigo rose from the table and grabbed the box from the floor and roared, “I want all your junk in here now!”

  The boys got up and went to the bedroom to retrieve the items demanded. They mournfully put their iPods, cell phones, and video games in the box, then sank back into the kitchen chairs.

  “Let them finish eating, mijo,” Abuelita Rosa requested, feeling bad for her grandsons.

  “That’s all they’re good for, sleeping and eating. Neither one would know what to do if they were on their own. They can’t even take care of themselves!” Rodrigo threw his hands up in the air and walked outside to pack the SUV.

  Connie sat down at the table with the boys and drank a cup of coffee as they finished their breakfast. She looked at their young faces and remembered them as they were as young children only a few years ago. Miguel was her son. He had always been taller and rougher than the other kids but she knew he had a tender heart. Ramón was her nephew, her husband’s brother’s son. His dad, Enrique, had died when Ramón was only three years old. She looked at Ramón lovingly. The family had agreed to allow Rodrigo and Connie to raise Ramón after the accident. Ramón’s mother had been too depressed to care for her child. Miguel and Ramón had been raised as brothers.