In my youth, I lived for a time in a place called Langtry. Back when I worked on the railroad that cut its course over that barren scene.
On my rare days off I’d go down to the river that snaked past town. A thin sliver of water that ran through a shallow wash thick with brush. You could throw a rock clear across that stretch into Mexico.
On the American side of the river you could find the names of visitors scratched into the rocks along the banks and up into the border of town. Luis. Jose. Felipe. Wether they stayed or went back to their side I could never tell. But they’d left their mark.
I’d head down to that river with a cane and line on the high water days and fish. Maybe boil up a handful of coffee grounds in a tin can and fill my mouth with the dirty stuff. Just me on my own down there. Taking in the view and coating my teeth in that rich dirt. Taking in the view and not much else. Never caught any fish you see.
In high summer I’d still head down, though all that’d be left of that river was a trail of cracked earth with trash scattered here and there. Cast offs from one life or another. An old pot. Maybe a wrench. A can or two. Seems plenty of people went down or across that way though I never saw them. Maybe the river’d carried those relics from somewhere else in a flash flood. I never knew nor found out.
Only time I ever saw another person down there was the time I found the body in the brush.
The lawmen raised hell trying to determine whose jurisdiction a brown-skinned fellow down by the border river belonged to. They didn’t seem too concerned about a dead Mexican. Just the paperwork and keeping their boots clean.
Remember them standing in a circle away from the body, one or two turning to spit their dip in its direction from time to time. Didn’t seem they wanted to get that thick juice on the ground near them. But over by the body was fine for them.
Remember staying up late that night at my shack. Used to be a whole family of stray cats that lived under the beams where it was sometimes cool. Stayed up late on the porch stroking their smooth fur and watching a waning crescent cross the sky. That’s got something to do with wisdom or some such thing. Figured now I maybe got some of that.
I can still remember the cold air of the desert. The smooth fur of the cats beneath my palms like liquid. The distant fires burning across the river. A feeling of deep shame.
Sometimes I still wake at night dreaming of the flies that covered the body. In those moments it’s like I can still smell it. On those nights my wife Camila comforts me and I try to forget that day. I think of all the good things that came after. I think of Camila.
Time has not been kind to Langtry. Perhaps that’s for the best.