Sombrerón

The morning had haze spilling from the sun and onto the slowly rising crops. The wood of the houses, the hanging metal pans and the malice in the air all drenched in fog. A horse carefully stampedes through the unseen thickness, trotting through the hanging green of the earth. On the horses back rides a young woman, Isela, with her hair sharply painted onto her face and a drip of water prepared to dribble off her forge sharpened chin. Even in the fog her eyes carried a light green reflection that blended with the life around her. Her long brown hair draping behind her, exposed to subtle gravity and clung to her to put up a fight. Isela is tired and grasping for a bit of air, hoping the fog would quench her dehydration. The water only lived in her hair and clothing. Ahead of her lies a riverbed, almost dry, with a dampness meant for the scorpions to feed on. She heard the quiet pull of a bucket somewhere in the thickness of the gray and urged the horse to follow it. She is entranced by the homes, with soft strands of hay bellowing over the top, water dripping into buckets, steel buckets and cats running away under the houses or into the thicket that surrounds them. The slow drift of a wind pouring from over the straw houses and bases of mud and adobe was not enough to clear the fog but it was enough to allow full breaths to be taken, which was not the case for the majority of her journey here, to Santa Esperanza.

Isela approaches a home with blue and red linen hanging over the arms of the porch, with windows so draped in the weight of moisture they cant be seen through or out of, yet she sees movement from the inside. Many unseen faces peek through the window and scramble away to allow others a glance. When she looked at the rest of the houses they were all doing the same thing. Her voice cracks through the dryness of her throat.

“I am only looking for some water, if you could please help. Me and my horse. We are very thirsty and I will be back on my way.” Isela steers her horse, hoping deeply for a response. The faces in the windows have now all disappeared yet the weight of eyes on her being have not ceased as if they were right above her, or below.

The silence stings with every extra second of thirst clearing her senses. The forest around her sings with a hollow drift yet the wind is too mellow for that, but she hears the voice of it, whispering through the soil and she begins to stare at the trees too long with an encroaching darkness in the haze of the fog. A woman, no more than half the height of the standing horse. Her elderly face, not gently but reaffirming, a finger up to her lips to grace silence followed by a hesitant gesture to follow.

“Thank you.” Isela nods. The woman turns around with a sharpness to her glance, a reminder to remain silent. Under the woman's hat, Isela could see just barely that she had no hair.  She is lead down a long path with plants that seldom see the sun and over fed by the conditions and fish hanging from sharp pins that hang from other tools like rope and thin metal wiring. The mud getting thicker with the horse readjusting as he slips a bit between his steps. A horse much more used to dryer land and readily available water, same as Isela. This reminded her nothing of her fathers ranch growing up, no more than a 4 day trip west, where she had come from. The memory of warmth and freshly made mole and pozole and tamales instilled nothing but regret in this current moment. Her face shows it with every foul stench picked up from the rotting fish and vegetables and perhaps the women hadn’t bathed in quite some time, yet she hid her judgement with a stern stare forward, just follow the woman.

They approach a house that is half burnt, a well behind it and two girls that rinse their faces just beside it, trails of black dirt running down their faces and shoulders. These girls also had no hair, maybe an inch a top but that was it. Isela wanted to now hide hers but felt that might be a rude gesture. Best to pay no attention to it but a strange occurrence nonetheless. Her mother spent hours sometimes, combing, brushing and braiding her hair. The memory to her as a child was a tender tug but she grew accustomed to wanting her mother to do it and her mother only, even today. The two girls watch her closely as she steps by dragging her horse along with her through the mud and spotty gravel.

Isela quickly picked up that love had not a name here unless it was etched on a fading gravestone below the earth. One of the girls is slow to offer water to her, glancing between Isela and the elderly woman, with the elderly woman carefully approaching behind her. Isela reaches down with the bucket, her long hair becoming a nuisance drifting in and out of her vision. The woman gently grabs her hair and holds it behind her, with Isela's shoulders dropping just a bit.

“Where are you headed girl?” The woman whispers. Isela pulls the bucket out and drinks a handful of it and then refills it for the horse, giving him a moment of rest and he drinks like hell has been burning inside of him.

“I am heading north eas-” The woman quickly silences her.

“Please whisper, dear, not everyone here needs to know where you are heading just I.”

“Yes, I am sorry. Northeast, to Pueblo Milagro. I am heading there to tend to my husband's wounds from battle.”

“You tend to a man.”

“Yes.”

“A violent man.”

“Not by nature.”

“Is nature not the action you take and not the thought otherwise?”

Isela ignores this question and pulls another bucket of water from the well for the horse and herself and this time the woman does not hold her hair back. The two girls have run off into hiding at this point. The only ears around are theirs.

“What is this place?” Isela asks quietly still.

“The only place where stillness is appreciated, and silence is a reward.”

“I mean no offense but without the riddles perhaps?”

“It is called Santa Esperanza and we generally do not like visitors.”

Isela knew her time here had gone on too long, and she should be leaving. “Truly, I meant not to be an inconvenience. I thank you for the momentary hospitality.”

“We do not like visitors... but I strongly advise you sleep here for the night. Evening draws near, supper will serve soon. It is up to you. Follow my path back or follow the riverbed out that way. The trees will be too thick to see so i hope that horse has better sense than you.” She follows her own path back to the other girls and women. Isela was not even sure how she got here really or who these women are and she wasn’t even sure Santa Esperanza was a real place but here it was. With its rotten mossy green and gray and the stars never showing through despite a wide view of the sky and the sun arrives here to rot with everything else and become another sunken gravestone in the memory of nature only.

Isela slowly approaches the house with a dying scent following her through the small village. The horse is belly full of water and is tied to a wooden stake just to the left of the house. She steps onto the porch as she can hear many footsteps creaking about inside and she knocks politely. All the noises cease followed by covered whispers and reminders of silence. She did not understand yet why silence was such a vow here, it did not bring comfort, in fact it brought the opposite. She felt like she had to perform silence as an act in order to gain the momentary trust of these girls and women. Just as she had assumed, not a man in sight and what shocked her further, not a single girl with a strand of hair longer than an inch, most completely shaved down to the skin. The room was dimly lit with candles and a fire in the chimney that roasted something that smelled delicious and unfamiliar with flickering shadows that caused the walls to look like they were dancing with the night.

The two young girls from the well looked at Isela and whispered to each other then they offered her a seat next to them. The elderly woman sat across from a table of mothers, maybe her daughters but she could not tell. The last thing Isela wanted was to open up wounds so she remained as not curious as she could pretend.

“My name is Nayeli, this is my sister Xio.” Xio waves from behind her, kindly. “Truly I would be happy to discuss more with you, but we are not allowed to say much or ask much of anyone. I just hope you have a wonderful meal with us.”

“I am sorry that is your reality. It is not this way out in the rest of the world.”

“I would love to see the rest of the world.” Xio exclaims under her breath, Nayeli pinching her under the table and whispering something inaudible. The elderly woman continues to stare at Isela's hair from her own dark corner of the house with her eye's unseen in the shadow of her hat but Isela knew her eyes were locked with her own. Nayeli gets up to serve herself a bowl and takes Xios bowl with her.

“I will get you some as well.” Nayeli hides a warm smile underneath her offer and looks at the elderly woman. Xio scoots in.

“I have to know, is the sun over the open land as handsome as described in literature?” Xio asks quickly. “Yes or no?”

Isela nods carefully, allowing herself a step away before getting drawn into something she knows is larger than just a silent village with silent and hairless women. She can see through the curtains that the fog still lay a heavy thicket of mist on the window but at least she was spared the odor from the outside and sat in the warmth of what smelled like something spicy. Xio scoots back with a subtle smile and pulls out a piece of paper with a thin slice of charcoal and draws a half black circle over a hill with her imagination of a bird soaring through it. “Like this?” Xio sticks the drawing in her face.

“Ah yes, but golden.”

Xio looks back down at her drawing “Golden, like a lively dandelion.” She whispers.

The elderly woman approached behind them quickly and looks at the drawing. “Keep your imagination in balance.” She whispers to Xio. “You drift too far and you will not find your way back.” Quiet enough to remain an intimate piece of advice, loud enough to get Isela to stop spilling her rumors of a better life beyond. Truly, Isela had to wonder if that was even that case. She then turns to Isela. “Please keep your fables to yourself if you are to stay here.” Isela nods with a bit of embarrassment. She had not meant to intrude this way. The room had gone quiet now. Everyone chewed and appreciated their meal, getting up to wash their dishes one by one as they finish. Isela quietly waited for everyone else to finish before she attempted to get up but the elderly woman sat her down and grabbed her bowl from her as if her very presence were an issue now. Isela opted to remain silent with a brick with nails resting in her chest. She wanted to leave but knows it is too late in the thick of this fog and the thick of the trees and the dryness of the riverbed being the only thing that led her out. All the girls and women pulled out thin fabric and thin pieces of charcoal and began writing into them. Vows of gratitude. “I am grateful for this silence.” “I can feel the vison of God approaching us.” “I express gratitude for my dreams.” These were the silent prayers of these women. Isela had remembered. She had something she wanted to ask much earlier and she whispered it to the silent group. “Does anyone have a guitar? I heard one just up ahead of me before I saw this place. It’s the sound that led me here.”