Through the Valley of Volcanoes to the lake of shimmering light

The train pulled to a stop with a lot of shuddering at the mainland seaport of San Carlos near the top of the Sea of Cortez. They got off. The journey from the border was too much. The train felt as though it had no springs and every little bump registered on their backsides. They were told that the connecting train to Mexico City was more comfortable and had sleeping compartments. If it were true then that would be great. For the moment they wanted a bed in a non-moving hotel and they found one, called the Mar Vista that had not only a view of the sea from French doors and a balcony but a beautifully soft king size bed.

The next day they found out about the other San Carlos from the desk clerk. They ended up in a rented piece of junk taxi that made it over a rise to let them know that this was San Carlos… only it was not the real San Carlos, but a town that had been used as a movie set and kept the name of the nearest town, which happened to be the sea port. From the rise the lines of facade bar fronts fell away from the view above to crudely attached shanty town shacks. They drove down the slight incline into a scattering of buildings on one main street and from the ground level it looked like a dusty old Western town. The taxi driver left them standing at the edge of the other San Carlos after they paid him. The desert fading paints on the Western facades completed itself with horse rail hitches and several horses down-headed in the sun.

In the late day shadows ladies sat and stood like statues. It was a Summer’s eight o’clock of dramatic oranges in the sky and a surround of sandy hillsides of clumps of grey shrub. A blast of guns going off pulled their attention to the middle of the street and a man falling backward. Another man standing on the side of street in the shade continued to shoot at the fallen man and then up in the air. Three or four men walked over to the victor and patted him on the back. An unseen crowd came out of the shade going over to both men to look and talk, then started moving back into bars. Sugar and Cynthia looked at the other, then at the dust left by the taxi.

The man laying in the street did not get up. The very feint breeze blew some of the taxi dust onto his clothes. They started to walk toward the man but Sugar said it might be a better idea to not get too close. What if he were really dead?

Twilight was quickly darkening as they made their way to a bar where they spotted tables with men eating. The room, as they entered filled their appetites with the bouquet of corn tortillas, with a bit of the funk of horse-shit cigars. It was a strange place, built with corrugated tin but with a lot of driftwood beams and a high ceiling. The walls had sometime in the distant past had a coat or two of white paint. Newspapers and old calendars with high breasted women holding rifles in the sky were the decoration stuck where the peeled paint wasn’t. There was no music. No music in a Mexican bar was noted by Sugar and he told that wonder to Cynthia. She smiled and thought it strange but maybe they didn’t have a juke box in this place.

Sugar asked her if she had remember any music anywhere in the little town when they were outside. Cynthia shook her head. No. He said, I think we should leave as soon as possible. We’ll eat then get a taxi. A waitress came, wearing a low cut blouse that stopped at the brown tease of her areolas. She bent over to exhibit the width of her breasts and take our orders. Sugar and Cynthia smiled at each other.

As they sat quietly drinking their cold beers and eating their hot food Sugar felt the silence getting deeper. Nobody was talking. As though in response to his thoughts a couple of men in wide cone topped sombreros played guitars and sang soft, slow, crying songs.

Both Cynthia and Sugar wanted to leave but neither moved, not wanting to insult the singers. A stinky little guy, who sweated at his armpits and had a brown handled revolver holstered at hip level, stood in front of their table and offered to buy them a round of beers. Sugar felt that if he said no it could be an insult. But accepting after this guy there would be the welcome to town beers and others would feel they had to offer more beers, then tequilas, then a drunken brawl. The problem would come in the wee hours when one of the group had decided that he owns them as his own personal friends. He would find a fight and Sugar would have to come to his side and they would be left naked, raped and broke.

Sugar told Cynthia what he thought and she looked about anxiously. There was a slender woman with a bleached pixie hair cut smiling at her and Cynthia figured a way out of this mess. She motioned with a nodding expression to the chair next to her and the woman instantly responded, almost running over and seating herself. She spoke no English. Sugar only spoke a few words of Spanish. Cynthia put a light finger on Sugar’s groin, then took the finger to touch on her own. The pixie smiled a very big smile.

The pixie, Rosa, pointed the armpit, Pablo, to sit and he called out for beers, greedily looking Rosa and Cynthia up and down. Another guy came over to welcome Sugar and Cynthia to the town with more beers and others felt they had to offer more beers, then tequilas, then a drunken brawl happened twice. The only problem came in the wee hours when one of the group had decided that he owned them as his own personal friends and challenged anybody to counter it. The armpit lay in a corner mumbling. Rosa was completely sober and pushed the man into a chair that fell over backward and he went to sleep. She then gave her hand to Cynthia.

The next morning Rosa wanted to show them the volcanoes. They went out into the desert on horseback and rode through scrub brush that stood as proud as the black tipped cones. The sky was Wedgwood blue and broadened the line between volcanic cones and heaven. Sugar rode a pinto that liked to make breaks of speed. Rosa pointed to a low spot between two small volcanic cones that shimmered and turned out to be a small lake. They swam naked in the warm dark water. The sun moved across the sky. Some prairie dogs made appearances, drank and scampered away. It was quiet. Moving through the water was noiseless. Coming out of the water the drips made no sound.

Rosa made love to Sugar in the packed sand surrounding the lake. Sugar lay back and drifted off, dreaming of an old friend who had run away from a fight that he had started and left Sugar alone to fight the two big guys. He thought that odd to think or remember that but he guessed it had never really left his consciousness even after twenty some odd years. He stretched and sat up. He looked around without seeing either Rosa nor Cynthia. He lay back down, thinking they were playing hide and seek but he didn’t feel like playing hide and seek. He closed his eyes and thought that he hadn’t noticed the horses being where they had left them. He sat up again and checked but no horses. It was quiet.

Sugar turned and looked around in the silence of the place. He looked out at distant volcanic cones and lavender coloured sand with hardly a clump of any type of vegetation. No cactus in the desert. No vultures or hawks. The sky was deep blue with no clouds. The horizon seemed more rounded than he remembered. It was too quiet. Something wet touched his shoulder.