The Man in the Mesquite

The summer I turned eight, my father loaded our rusted Buick with three squirming kids, a suitcase of worn clothes, and a cooler of warm soda, then drove us eleven hours south to the scorched border town of San Roque. My grandfather, Abuelo Tomás, lived in a cramped cement house with a flat roof and a single window that stared out at a dirt street. The housekeeper, Señora Elena, was a thin woman with a face like crumpled paper, who spoke in a whisper and smelled of tortillas and dust.

The days were a fever dream of chasing chickens, poking at scorpions with sticks, and listening to the old men play cards in the shade of a mesquite tree. My older brother, Diego, who was fifteen and knew everything, spent his time with our cousin, Rafa, a lanky boy with a nervous laugh. They’d disappear around the corner to smoke cigarettes and talk about girls, and I’d trail behind them until Diego would shoo me away with a swat and a sharp, ‘Not now, little man.’

But the nights were a different country. The house had no electricity, so after sunset, the only lights were flickering candles and the moon, which turned the cement walls the color of bone. I’d lie on a cot in the corner, listening to the wind scrape a dead branch against the tin roof. The darkness was so heavy I could feel it press against my eyelids.

One night, I woke with a start. The candle in the hall had burned out, and the silence was so thick I could hear my own heart thumping in my ears. I needed to find Diego. I had the sudden, stupid idea that if I could just hang out with him and Rafa, I’d finally be cool. I slipped off the cot, my bare feet slapping the cold floor, and padded through the narrow hallway to the front door.

The door was a slab of wood with a loose latch. I pushed it open, and the night air hit me, smelling of dust and something else, something like burnt metal. I stepped onto the sidewalk, which was cracked and uneven. The road ran left to right, and the corner where Diego always hung out was to the left, under a streetlamp that was usually humming with moths.

But the light was dead. The corner was empty. The whole street was deserted. No sounds of laughter, no distant radio, no dogs barking. Just the quiet, like the town had been swallowed by something.

I stood there, afraid to move, but I didn’t want to go back inside. The house felt too small. So I walked a few steps, my eyes adjusting to the dim moonlight. Then I saw it.

A figure stood by the mesquite tree at the bend of the road, about thirty yards away. It was tall and thin, and it was not moving. It was just standing there, facing me, though I couldn’t see its face. It was just a silhouette against the moonlit dust. I thought it might be Diego, but it was too tall. And then I saw that it was not standing on the ground. It was standing in the tree, its feet on a low branch, its arms hanging at its sides.

My stomach turned ice. I wanted to run, but my legs felt like stone. The figure started to move. It didn’t climb down; it seemed to flow downward, like liquid, until it was standing on the road. It began to walk toward me, not fast, but with a deliberate, mechanical step. Each footfall made no sound.

I tried to scream, but my throat was closed. I tried to run, but my feet were glued to the cement. As it got closer, I saw details that made no sense. It was wearing a dusty, dark suit that might have been blue once, and its hands were too long, with fingers that scraped the air. And its face – it had no face. Where a face should have been, there was just a smooth, pale surface, like an egg, reflecting the moon.

It stopped about ten feet from me. I could smell it then, a scent of old soil and something rotting. It tilted its head, and a voice came from it, but it didn’t come from a mouth. It came from inside my own head, a dry, rasping voice that said, ‘You were not invited.’

I felt a cold pressure in my chest, as if a hand had reached inside and grabbed my breath. The figure raised one of its long arms and pointed a finger at me. The finger was black, like a burnt stick. It said, ‘Leave this place.’

Then the pressure released, and I stumbled backward. My legs finally worked. I turned and ran, not to the house, but to the corner, because I saw a break in the darkness, a flicker of light that might be Diego’s of his friend. I ran, and I didn’t look back until I reached the corner. There was no one there. The light was just some glow from a window in a house further down.

I stood there, gasping, and when I finally turned around, the figure was gone. The tree stood empty. The street was still and silent. I don’t remember going back inside, but I woke up the next morning on my cot, my mouth dry, a strange taste of copper on my tongue.

I told Diego, but he laughed and said I’d had a nightmare. When I looked at the mesquite tree that afternoon, there was nothing unusual about it. But that night, and for the rest of that week, I did not leave the house after dark. I watched from the window sometimes, and I saw the figure once more, far down the road, standing still under the dead streetlamp, gazing toward the house.

On our last day, as we were packing the Buick, I asked Señora Elena if anyone had ever died near that tree. She dropped a spoon and crossed herself. She said, ‘A man was hanged there many years ago, a thief. They left his body to the crows. It is not good to look at that tree after dark.’

We drove away that afternoon, and I never saw the figure again. But sometimes, in the dead of night, when the wind scrapes a branch against my window, I think I can hear that voice inside my head, dry as the dust of San Roque, asking, ‘Why did you come here?’ And I have no answer.