Extranjero

I found it lying in the churned up mud of the road. It gleamed in the afternoon sun. It was a double necklace of gold, two chains each bearing a heart shaped locket. The hearts themselves were joined by a short chain with a clasp. It was clearly a set to be divided between lovers. This one had yet to be shared it seemed.

“Give that to me!”

The words were spoken in a Latino accented feminine voice. I turned to find myself the target of a woman. She was dressed as a local villager. She was armed with a pump action shotgun, an ancient weapon that nevertheless seemed well cared for. Her face was cold, her expression stern and her eyes flashed with anger.

Those eyes widened as she saw me. “Extranjero!” she breathed as if cursing. Slowly, reluctantly the shotgun was lowered. Extranjero she names me. I wonder if she truly knows what that word means. She might say wanderer, vagabond, outsider. The word meant all those and yet so much more. I would add honor, duty, failure, atonement.

What she saw were the layers of my rugged clothing, built to both protect and camouflage in the wilds, the visor and facemask of my hooded helmet and the rifle slung over my shoulder. What she heard was the distorted sound of my voice beneath my helmet. “What does this twin necklace mean to you?”

Her lip trembled slightly, her hand went to her chest and I saw for the first time this woman wore a similar necklace, but only one of a matched pair. She touched it gently as if it were precious beyond all things. “It belongs to one of my daughters. I gave all three of them such necklaces, as my Mother did me, so that when they found their mates they would have a token with which to pledge their hearts.” For that moment her eyes were far away.

When they returned the anger was with them again. “The City sent a Procurer and her soldiers and they took them. All the young girls of the village from age 12 to 18. Ten of them were taken including my three daughters.” Her face darkened. “They will be breeding chattel for the Citizens.” She spat the last word with venom and the anger in her eyes surged. “They will bear children until they are used up and then they will cast back outside the walls with nothing!” Her tone and her voice indicated the woman knew firsthand what she spoke of. Her expression hardened. “I will get them back! I will kill anyone that tries to stop me!”

I handed her the necklaces. She took them and quickly looped the chains over her head. As she did so I told her “You cannot do it.” Her eyes lashed me with fury. “Do not doubt me, Extranjero!” She laid the scorn upon the word and I smiled bitterly to myself. Nowhere will I call home. I recalled the quote from some obscure song.

I stated “I do not doubt you have the strength or the will. But you do not have the means or the capability.” My words were truth and I could see the doubt she had tried to hide from herself. Then I told her. “I have the capability. I could do it.”

Then I saw the thing that so many very reluctantly gave us. It was hope.

“You would help me?” her expression now was eager, even pleading. “My voice is strong in the village. We don’t have much but I would give you anything within my power if you helped me get them back!” I shook my head in warning. “Do not promise what you cannot deliver.” But she was past such concerns. “Help me!” she said and it was as much a plea as a command. Finally I nodded agreement. “We cannot simply follow them, their vehicles would outrun us. The road is long and we can intercept them by cutting through the wilds. But we must have what you will need from the village to survive the passage. We must move quickly and you must do exactly what I say without question, for I won’t have time to explain it. Do that and you will survive and perhaps we will find them in time.”

She nodded. “My name is Esperanza de Silva of Paco Agua. You have passed through our village before I think.” I nodded in return. She sniffed. “Do not be concerned if our village is not so friendly right now, given what has transpired there.” She turned to walk briskly back up the road and then added over her shoulder “Also it might have something to do with the five dead men hanging in the town square.”

Esperanza was right both about the lack of hospitality and the five bodies hanging in the square. None of the villagers would look at the dead men. They acted as if they didn’t exist. While that was disconcerting it didn’t interfere with our ability to find the needed supplies.

She however insisted on a blessing ceremony with the town Curandera. The ceremony was brief but surprisingly elaborate. At one point the woman Esperanza took the single locket from her neck. With tears in her eyes she kissed it and placed it inside an urn. The double locket of her daughter she gave to the Curandera, who placed a blessing upon it before replacing it back around Esperanza’s throat.

The Curandera left while Esperanza remained kneeling, in prayer or contemplation. After a moment I stepped to her side. She spoke softly. “What my daughters face, Extranjero…” she paused and then began something of a confession. “I was barely 14 years old when I was taken from home to the City.” She looked at me with bitter eyes. “The Serum the gives the Citizens their health and long life eventually makes them sterile. Seed and egg taken from the young can revitalize their fertility briefly.” Her eyes flashed. “Not that this alone contented them!” She tossed her head. “I was fourteen. By the time I was nineteen I had borne 12 children, 3 sets of twins and two of triplets before they judged I was used up. I was too unruly to be desired as a servant so they cast me outside the Walls and left me to die.”

She glanced around at the Sanctuary. “I made my way here. I found a good man and found I could still give my heart, so I did. Beyond all hope the Blessed Mother smiled on us and for a last time I was able to conceive. I bore triplet daughters.” Now the smile on her face was pure and heartfelt and for moments she looked young and fresh herself again. Her hand gravitated back to the twin locket and she clutched it close.

“Tell me of them?” I asked her and she seemed pleased to oblige.

“There is Firenza, pale of skin and with hair the color of red wine, passionate and impulsive. Sonya had golden skin and honey blonde hair at her birth. Nothing can move her. She is as calm as a Master Sailor whether the sea is smooth or stormy. Youngest is Elvira, bronzed and dark-haired like her Mother. She has my temper and my sometimes dark and broody nature, yet she is easily the most compassionate of the three.”

I waited a moment before asking “Their Father?” She looked at the Urn. “Dead ten years now.” She sighed. “I should have let him rest long ago and resolved to stay lonely or find a worthy successor. Instead I locked him into my heart and let a weak man satisfy my body.” I pondered that. “I had thought you the tavern keeper’s wife.” She growled “His woman sometimes, never his wife!”

Now she looked at me again. “We knew our men now were too weak to defy the City. We thought they would submit.” Her mouth quivered with outrage. “We never imagined they would sell our daughters! They traded for trinkets and gadgets, wines and finery and not even for medicines or anything that could be remotely justified!” Her jaw firmed. “There was only one redress for such a shameful act!”

Now I knew why the men were hanging from the town square and who had done it. I could not fault it.

“Come. Let’s go find your daughters.”

We departed quickly after. To catch the caravan we left the roads and traveled the lost wilds, descending down from the safer plateaus and ridges into the dangerous valleys. Now we were in the thick of nature gone mad. It had been driven by desperate science into overdrive to save a world from a people that were then betrayed by their protectors. We journeyed through mazes of dimly lit jungle that few now realized covered the ruins of a city larger than any presently existing, slowly twisting, crushing and burying it back into verdant oblivion.

Esperanza never faltered. Her drive was astonishing. She forced marched with me through the dimly lit jungle. She endured driving rain and heavy heat without complaint. We defended each other when we were attacked by beasts and by desperate and beastly once-people. When one of them drove me to the ground and I yelled for her to run, she ran at the creature and kicked it in the face, giving me time to draw my sidearm and shoot the thing. We reached an ancient crumbling bridge across a swamp filled with plants that spewed toxic mist into the air. We were forced to wrap completely up, our weapons, ammo and rations sealed into an airtight satchel and she had to wear the ancient but functional gas mask I had scrounged for her. It took us nearly an hour to make that crossing and not once did she show fear.

Only later did her resolve break. We had climbed back up to the friendly plateau and stopped at the shore of a lake with waters so pure they were transparent with sandy depths and schools of brilliant fish.

“The water will neutralize the swamp toxins. Before we can remove anything we must submerge ourselves for at least thirty seconds.” Suddenly she was terrified. “I cannot swim!” I tried to explain that the water wasn’t that deep but she was suddenly and inexplicably panicked. She tried to yank off her mask and I stopped her. “If you breathe even the smallest trace of toxin you will die in agony!”

She was now paralyzed with fear. I took her hands and placed them on her chest over where the heart-shaped lockets rested. “Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and think of your daughters.” As she did so I grabbed her and as she fought me I carried her into the water and plunged into it with her.

Later we sat beside a large campfire dressed only in our underclothing. Everything else needed to dry. She saw me now for whom and what I was, likely an image reminding her of her worst days. She hadn’t spoken since coming out of the lake. Finally I gently told her “You have endured too much for me to let you fail now.”

She looked at me strangely. “I am 37 years old. How old are you?” I hesitated. “I am four times that age.” I replied.

“Extranjero…” she stopped a moment. “What is your name?”

I was struck to the core by the question. So few think even to ask. “Álvaro...” I told her. “My name is Álvaro.” She repeated it softly and then asked “Have you family?” I shook my head. Esperanza nodded. “When this is over, Álvaro, we will be your family and you will be ours.”

I looked at her again and tried to convey both kindness and warning. “Esperanza, do not promise what you will be unable to give…”