In order to take this long trip through the desert, Jack got a bigger car. It was a young beast eager to run that put to shame the old dying animals at home. I had a great time on the beach, although we were, once again, banned from approaching the ocean. We were content with running along the side walks, among the noisy people smelling of alcohol and salt. Then, for unfathomable reasons, we headed into the desert. It was amusing at first, my head sticking through the window and softly combed by the wind. Some time later I grew concerned and even Jack looked somber and tired. Elena seemed to feel at home in that barren land and my mother, as philosophical as always, just slept through the whole thing. We left behind towns and gas stations, the grass and the birds. Silence took over, blowing on us like the breath of a beast. The sun retired and in the menacing shadows, I saw the distant glitter of a building bleeding colors from every pore. That anomaly was soon replaced by many more until we entered a whole town covered with those cold artificial fires humans love. It was madness all around. Crowds of people of every age and shape roamed without direction among cars on the street. On the sides, piles of garbage, empty bottles and fliers trying to attract them inside the buildings, obstructed the way. The sky was hidden by the multitude of lights. Fountains of dancing water jumped into the air following a music which origin I couldn't find. Laughs and cries came from every door and stumbling drunks grabbed the light posts as if they were their mother's arms. My awe and fear of humans was born that night, realizing how much wonder and excess they can build from nothing.That detour lasted just one day. Next morning, we packed under a dusty wind and crossed into the emptiness again. Jack was getting sick and angry. He had some kind of infection in a finger, I could smell it and felt unsafe. We arrived to a small town in the evening. It was so different, my previous night was filed in my memory as hallucination. After crossing a narrow street with boring flat houses at the side, we entered a non descriptive hotel (it was becoming a routine for me). My mother relieved herself in the bathroom and created a brief panic. Humans are allowed in the bathroom but we are not..
The next day was spent gazing at a giant cut in the surface of the earth. People go to the rim of the cliff and look below. It seems that below, the red earth looks just the same. I don't see the point of it. Then, Jack's finger got worse and he went with Elena to see a Vet, or whatever is called for human people. There, he was cut and pocked just like they do to us, and after a night of fever, he recovered.
Those days had been stressful enough for my young, inexperienced soul, but they didn't give up. They kept going deeper into the rocky land only interrupted by small posts where we stopped for food and water. At one of those places I had a chat with an old dog. He was chained to a pipe in a gas station, apparently waiting for his guardian. He uncovered for the first time our location.
" This is Indian country, boy", he said. " A very old land with old people."
And when I asked for more, he dismissed us all as newcomers. He assured his tribe has been there for so long, nobody could trace their origins. Many generations of dogs were raised and perished on that red soil, under the care of the ancient people, and everybody else, he said, were no different from my mother and Elena, like leaves on the ground without roots.
If I found that fellow, arrogant, I couldn't stop listening; so many were the stories he knew and is a secret well kept, that dogs like to listen to stories, particularly at night or when they are bored.
" The Indians didn't let the dogs be idle", the old folk remarked staring at me with his blurry eyes,
" They didn't have other beasts of burden. We played that role and moved around with the rest of the tribe carrying the food and the tents where they lived. We helped in big hunts and were given the bones. The animals they killed were as big as a pack of dogs, all covered in curly dark hair. Through their noses came spurts of fire and every time they ran through the prairie the whole earth trembled. But nothing stopped the brave Indians and their dogs from getting the game. Those were good times. Now we have to live around these lazy white bumps and their spoiled pets. In the old times, nobody would have dared to call us pets. We were hunters. And also had better manners. If a dog was a big mouth and barked without good reason, he or she was barbecued at the next meal"
At this, the hairs in my back stood up and I looked at my mother with badly disguised shame.
I suddenly imagined that perhaps this trip was designed to give us up to a tribe and with a weak voice I asked if they were still around.
" The Indians? They may be defeated but not conquered, you'll smell them very soon."
Then he turned his back to me, scratching his neck until the fleas ran down his legs.
When we jumped back into the car I started moving around nervously and even planned to jump and go back home on foot.
" what are you trying to do, boy?" My mother complained "The old guy was nuts".
The night surprised us at an even poorer hotel in the middle of nowhere. There was dust all around and I could smell the Indians indeed. They manned the place, serving the food, cleaning the rooms and selling toys for tourists. They ate only a few things, lots of fried bread, corn and beans. Meat was scarce enough for the humans to get it all but here, and this was just the first nice surprise of the trip, nobody cared if the dogs were of leash.
Next morning I was taken to the rim of another hole in the earth. From outside there were the same old rocks, but looking below, I found a different new world.
Streams of water poured in multitude of channels around a small village. People were busy around their tiny houses, trees loaded with fruit circling them as the only fence allowed. Cattle, horse and yes, dogs, roamed free. The perfume of the flowers and the mud and the moss growing over the wet rocks, reached me as a song.
"I think", I confessed to Eloisa, "I would be happy living here".
" Ask them", she answered " where they sleep and how much they eat". Where are all those big bulls with curly hair? They were all taken, as all the things that run wild"
