El Cadejo

Near Jucuarán, El Salvador

The bag struck her leg at every step. He kept moving aside for it, then coming back. She was too close to the ditch. Earth broke under her shoes, and each time it did he pressed nearer, wanting her on the firm part of the road.

Usually she spoke to him before the first bend. Sometimes she held her hand low and let the backs of her fingers brush his head. Tonight that hand gripped the bag. Her other hand pressed something cold against her mouth.

At the bend she stopped. He lifted his nose toward her knee. Blood was drying on the hem of her blouse, among the smells of soap and the house she had left.

Through the trees, a light showed beneath a kitchen door. A chair dragged across the floor inside.

“Come on,” she whispered.

He knew that call. He went.

Beyond the house the road widened. She moved into the middle, where the dust still held the day’s warmth. He took the ditch side. Grass brushed his flank, and small things fled through it ahead of him. Usually he would have followed them a little way. Tonight he watched her feet.

He had walked beside her when she carried pupusas wrapped in a cloth that smelled of warm maize and cheese. On the return journey she sometimes sat on the low wall beside the road. He would settle against her shoes while she emptied the dust from her bag. Once she had fallen asleep there with her hand resting between his ears. He had stayed awake until she stirred.

Now she passed the wall without looking down.

At the fork he turned toward the low house where she sometimes waited with other women. She went the other way. He came back across the road and followed her uphill.

A door slammed behind them.

Her stride shortened. She drew the bag against her stomach with both hands. For several steps her breath came through her nose in small, hard bursts. He looked back.

The house was hidden, but sound traveled along the road. A loose gate rattled. Then the man’s boots struck the ground beyond it.

He knew the man. Darío’s scent lived on her clothes and on the latch she lifted to go inside. He had heard her laugh when those boots approached. At other times she had taken her hand from his head and hurried through the gate before Darío reached them. He had begun to listen for Darío’s boots even when she was speaking to him.

“Beatriz!” Darío called.

She walked faster.

He dropped behind her. The man’s footsteps quickened, then settled into a pace that gained on hers. A night insect rasped from the bank. Beatriz stumbled, caught herself, and looked back at him.

“Go home,” Beatriz said.

She pushed her hand toward him. He stopped. He wanted her to lower it, to make the little movement that brought him beside her again. Instead she went on.

He followed before the space between them grew too wide.

The man appeared at the bend in a shirt open at the throat. Something long hung from the man’s right hand, its tip swinging near the boot.

“I said wait!” Darío said.

Beatriz stopped abruptly, making the dust rise over her shoes.

He passed her and stood across the narrow strip of road between the steep bank and the wire fence. The man would have to come close to him to reach her.

“Where are you going?” Darío asked.

“Marta’s.”

“With all that?”

She shifted the bag behind her leg. The man’s eyes followed it.

“I’ll bring the rest another day.”

He faced the approaching man and lifted his lip, feeling the cool air against his teeth. The man glanced down and stopped short. He wanted the man to come closer. He wanted the man to turn and go back. The two wants pulled at him until his forelegs shook.

“Get that dog out of the way,” Darío said.

Beatriz’s breath caught.

“He isn’t mine.”

The man held out his left hand, palm up, and spoke more softly.

“Give me the bag. We’ll talk at home,” Darío said.

She made a sound in her throat and swallowed it. For a moment she leaned toward the man. Beside her legs, he turned his ears back to her. Her feet had not moved, but he knew the small shift of weight that came before walking.

He crowded against her legs. She could not go to the man without stepping over him.

“No, Darío,” Beatriz said.

She stepped backward instead.

He stayed between them until she turned and began to climb. Then he followed sideways, watching the man’s hands.

Darío let her gain several paces.

“You think she’ll keep you there?” Darío said.

Beatriz’s shoe scraped a stone. She did not answer.

Darío followed.

Above the fence the road ran between maize stalks, their dry leaves rattling together. Beatriz picked her way among stones exposed by old rain. She changed the bag from hand to hand. Whenever he moved to give her room, Darío came closer.

He could hear the man breathing. The long blade touched a stalk and cut it with a faint, wet click.

“Put that away.”

“Then stop making me chase you.”

She continued uphill. He backed after her until the road curved and he had to turn to keep her in sight.

At the crest, roofs showed beyond a shallow dip. There was light in one window. The smell of tortillas browning on the clay comal reached him from its kitchen. He had waited outside that house before. Other voices would come when the door opened.

Beatriz made a broken sound and started down. He ran beside her, keeping clear of the bag.

Behind them, the boots began to run.

He turned as Darío reached her.

Darío caught the bag strap and jerked it backward. Her arm pulled straight. She let go. Darío dropped the bag and caught her hair with the free hand, drawing her backward. The dull back of the machete pressed across her shoulder.

He sprang for Darío’s wrist.

The boot caught him under the jaw. His teeth struck together and he landed in the ditch. The bank filled his vision. He tried to stand and slipped. Above him, Beatriz’s heels scraped the road.

“Walk.”

In the ditch, he was afraid of the boot. His body remembered it before he could move, and he crouched with his jaw pressed against his chest. Then she tried to call out. Her breath caught halfway through the sound.

He climbed out.

Darío had bent her backward by the hair. She pulled at the fist in her hair with both hands.

He went for the hand in her hair.

Darío released her to swing the machete.

The edge entered behind his shoulder. It caught between his ribs, and the blow drove him against the bank. He tried to breathe. Something wet moved in his chest. Darío kept hold of the handle and planted a boot against his wounded side to pull the blade free.

He closed his mouth around the boot.

Leather split against his gums. He bit until he felt the foot inside it. Darío cried out and tried to wrench it away. The pull lifted his forefeet from the road.

Beatriz was beyond the man. He could smell the blood on her blouse. He could not get to her.

There was not enough of him to hold the man.

The breath he could not draw kept forcing its way into him.

His ribs spread, turning the blade between them. He tried to curl around it, but his back was lengthening against the bank.

Darío let go of the handle. As the ribs spread wider, the machete slipped free and fell.

His forelegs reached the ground. The joints buckled, then straightened farther from his chest than they had been. Claws drove into the road.

Beneath his muzzle the white hair darkened from its roots. Black spread to the ends and rose in a coarse ridge along his legs. Heat ran up his neck. He could smell his own coat, hot and bitter, although nothing was burning near them.

His teeth shifted and thrust deeper into the boot. He tried to loosen his grip. His jaw opened farther than he meant it to, until the air touched flesh that had never been outside before.

Darío pulled his foot free of the boot. The torn leather stayed between his teeth.

He was looking straight into Darío’s face now. A dull red light lay across Darío’s cheek and raised hand. When he turned his head, the light moved across the fingers.

He could hear a quick, heavy beating inside the man. It crowded out the rustling maize. His mouth filled, and he swallowed the leather without meaning to.

“Beatriz,” Darío said. “It was white.”

Darío’s voice rose, hurting his ears. He flattened them against his head. He no longer wanted the man to turn away. He wanted the man’s throat where he could close his teeth around it.

Darío stumbled sideways past him and fell against the bank.

Beatriz cried out.

He turned. She was against the fence, one hand caught around the wire. Blood ran from a barb in her palm. She pulled at it and could not let go. He took a step toward her.

“Don’t.”

Her hand came free.

He stopped, with one foot still lifted. She was looking straight at him.

Behind him, Darío reached for the machete.

He caught Darío’s forearm before the fingers reached the handle. Darío struck him on the head, then pushed at his muzzle. Nails scraped beneath his eye. The red light shook across Darío’s face as he planted his forefeet and pulled at the arm.

He felt the bone break.

The man made a noise that hurt his ears. He shook the man once, and blood struck the back of his mouth. The fingers loosened against his face. The arm lay slack between his jaws.

“Stop.”

Beatriz’s voice was close.

The man was still moving. He could feel it through his teeth. He wanted the movement to end, and when she bent toward them he drew back his lips.

She stopped beyond his reach. Below them the lit doorway stood clear at the foot of the road. She went several paces toward it. He shifted after her, but the arm between his teeth pulled taut, and Darío cried out. Beatriz looked back.

“Marta!” she called toward the light. “Come out!”

Then she came back up the road. Her injured hand hung open at her side; the other pointed toward the blade.

“Let me take it.” She told him.

Her eyes went to the machete. Slowly, she reached down with her unhurt hand. He watched her fingers close around the handle. She threw the blade over the fence, where it struck among the stalks.

“Leave him. Come on.”

He knew where he should be.

She backed down the road.

He opened his jaws. It took an effort. His teeth caught in Darío’s sleeve, and he had to lower his head to work them loose. Darío drew the broken arm close.

He stood over Darío until she called again. Then he followed her.

She left the bag where it had fallen.

* * *

At the lit house she beat on the door.

“Marta. Open it.”

He waited below the step. Blood clung to the long hair beneath his jaw. His teeth would not fit together. He held his head low while they settled, grinding through the bones of his face.

A bolt moved inside.

The door opened a hand’s width. Beatriz pushed against it, saying the other woman’s name again. Light widened across the yard.

He withdrew beside the wall and licked the wound behind his shoulder as it closed beneath his tongue.

Marta caught Beatriz by both arms. They stood pressed together in the doorway, talking over one another. Beatriz kept looking toward the road. Marta drew her inside, then stepped out again with a cloth.

“Where is he?” Marta asked.

Beatriz pointed uphill.

Marta’s gaze passed over the place where he stood. She went in and shut the door.

He could hear Beatriz through it. Her voice broke into short sounds with long silences between. Another voice answered from farther inside, a man’s voice, heavy with sleep. A chair moved. Water splashed into a pan.

He lay beside the step. His chest no longer hurt. He could smell Darío’s blood along the road, and beneath the voices in the house he heard the scrape of a body dragging through the dirt.

The dragging stopped.

Darío called once. Beside the step, he raised his head. It was her name, but the end of it came out wet and faint.

He listened. The man’s breath scraped in, paused, and scraped in again. He waited with his forelegs stretched before him. A long time passed between one breath and the next. Then longer.

Inside the house, Beatriz grew quiet.

He kept listening for the next breath. It did not come.

Later the door opened. She stood alone in the narrow gap with a cloth wrapped around her hand. He rose too quickly and struck his shoulder against the doorpost. She drew back.

He lowered his head. That had brought her hand to him before.

Her fingers moved from the door. He went toward them, remembering the weight of her palm between his ears. She pulled her hand against her chest.

He stopped.

She stayed in the doorway, looking at the black fur where her fingers used to rest. He waited for her to finish looking. He could have stood there until morning.

Then she reached out again.

Her fingertips touched him first. He held still as they moved through the coarse hair. When her palm settled between his ears, he closed his eyes.

She took her hand away before he was ready.

He watched her go inside. The door closed carefully, and he heard the bolt slide home.

After a while he lay down with his head on his forelegs, leaving the step clear and facing the road she had come along.