El Coyote by Micheal Sarabia

First runner-up in the 2020 Los Angeles Review Literary Awards, in the category of flash fiction.
Final Judge: Ellen Meeropol

Coyote appears.

“We leave tomorrow. Please be ready.”

“And the storm? This river may be too difficult.”

“What may be difficult for us will be impossible for ICE. There is no better time.”

Coyote is right. Rain covers movement, mutes odor, erases sound. Rain is money. All Coyotes pray for rain.

I shut my door, dangerous no doubt, but I want a semblance of dignity even at the mercy of this saint-predator everybody calls Coyote. A new breeze came and he disappeared.

Storms threaten the day. The red hills will soon shift, will melt into one. Then the old and the children will wash apart, will form new tributaries to the greater rivers. Bones will salt the waters, flesh will color the stones. The fortunate will die first.

I hate the Colonias. Everyone lives in tarred paper shacks and the dirt floors, which will soon turn to mud, attract hoards of rats that quarrel over the right to consume the weak. I want to leave. I want American sunsets. My country, like all fathers, professes love through fear, is suffocating and frightening when drunk. It was a lie, this existence, is a lie. In the North, dreams live. In the North children never cry.

Coyote appears the next morning. I follow in silence. We come to a car. Its interior, crushed red velvet and phony gold, smells of coyote heaven; money, liquor, and flesh. The engine heats and we leave slowly, smoke following.

The landscape grows worse. The road shifts to one constructed of brick, then wood, finally mud. The car stops close to a river. Coyote leads me away.

“Follow this trail to a small house. Try to sleep. I’ll be back.”

Detecting my fear, Coyote manages a smile.

“Soon you’ll be American and this will only be remembered when the nightmares come.”

Three hours later Coyote returns. I enter the dark. Across the river, a city in blue awakens from a powerful sleep. On the other side rain, wind, and fever are of no consequence. The city in blue will never fail nor dim for its magic is much too special, its heartless angels always nearer to God.

We enter a clearing at the foot of the water. A family crouches by the river. They lock their children into tight, fragile circles. They tell the children lies. They won’t let them cry. A barefoot daughter guards four gaunt sons. The sons shelter a sleeping baby. The baby dreams of water.

Coyote steps forward.

“I’ll go first. Follow close and stay quiet. God may grant your prayers, but ICE will steal your dreams.”

I enter the water. The river is warm, chemical, and bitter to the touch. Minutes later I step onto solid ground. Coyote, wet to the knees, is waiting on a frozen mound of primeval lava. As his silhouette presses into the turquoise of an immeasurable and untouched northern sky, Coyote nods.

“Hurry señora, we’ve many hours yet to travel, many nights before we can sleep.”

Following service in the U.S. Marines, Michael Sarabia attained degrees in Political Science and
Education from Cal State Los Angeles. Michael also holds a Masters Degree in Professional
Writing from USC, and taught English and History at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.
Currently retired, he and his wife live in Guadalupe, California.