A Saint in the Desert
Genre - Literary non-fiction
Written By - Mike Vos
He was a fourteen year old boy that lived on the edge of a road in the middle of the Baja peninsula.
When I fell to the ground of his house it was his mother that showed no hesitation in calling
him to my aid. Even the trucker, strong and confident, trusted the boy to take me to the doctor.
He spoke almost no English and my Spanish, in my frail state, was failing me.
To him, I must have seemed a strange man; white, unshaven, and unkempt.
My car, after three weeks camping and two days sick, was a mess.
I did not speak his language. My face was pale, and I was rocking back and forth, holding my belly and groaning.
I remember one stop clearly, the boy leaving the car to call for an ambulance. I rolled from the passenger seat onto
the ground, looking up at the sky and writhing in pain, holding my twisting stomach. I remember turning and seeing
the legs of a man coming towards me. “Get up,” he implored. “You have to go.”
I remember the sight of the doctor, clad in white, and the glowing faces of the two Mexican nurses.
I remember the pain of the steel needle injected into my arm. I spent eight hours in that
hospital bed, drifting in and out of sleep, before finally coming to my senses and leaving in the afternoon.
A wrong turn had taken me two hours off course on my return journey from the tip of Baja California.
To go back to the spot of the fork in the road where I made the wrong turn would have added another
four hours to an already lengthy twenty-two hour drive. There was a way, via a dirt road strewn with
river-rock, that would spare me the backtracking. I was driving a car that hung very low to the ground.
I decided to risk it and try to cross through the mountainous pass.
Nine miles into the drive my engine stopped dead. I had not seen another car pass, and looking around, there was nothing in sight but vast empty spaces and mountains. I had a quarter gallon of water and no food. I left a note on my windshield, hid my expensive camera equipment and computer in a bush, said a prayer, and began to walk back towards the town of La Purisma.
I hadn’t ventured a quarter mile when I saw a rancher and a young boy approaching in a truck.
The rancher agreed to take me back to the town, where I could find a mechanic. I offered him $20 and he accepted.
We traveled through the high desert hills and into the small town. It was too late to get help, so I checked in
to a small motel and settled on trying to find a mechanic in the morning.
I hadn’t been in the motel room more than a few minutes when I heard a knock at the door.
I opened it. A Mexican man, motorcycle helmet in hand, stood, white light shining from his pupils.
“I am here to help you,” he said. “Is this yours?”
He handed me the crumpled piece of paper which I had placed under the wiper blades.
Car broke down.
5PM. Walking to La Purisma.
Please help.
“Yes,” I replied. “That is mine. Are you a mechanic?”
“I am good with electronics,” he said. “What happened to your car?”
“I don’t know. It just stopped. It wouldn’t start up again.”
“The problem is electric. I can fix it.”
“Can you come back in the morning?”
“8:00?”
“Ok.”
A knock came on my door at 8AM. I got onto the back of the man’s motorcycle,
and we began the journey through the hills towards my broken down car.
“Your President,” he began. “He is a bad man.”
“I know.”
“Our President, too. It is greed.”
“Old as time.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing out here in the desert?”
“I am working for God.”
We made it to the car. It was just as I had left it. He began to work, and I went to the bushes to find my hidden gear.
I heard the engine start up.
“What was it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. He then pointed to the sky and laughed.
I got into my car and headed back, following close behind this man on his motorcycle
I arrived at the hotel. The owner motioned to a spot on the ground.
“Your car is leaking.”
I looked under the car. A fresh puddle of oil was accumulating in the dirt. I called for my friend.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can fix it.”
He went to buy glue and borrow some tools.
“We will have to drain out all the oil from the pan first,” he informed me.
We sat there on the ground, waiting for the black liquid to empty into a container.
“You know,” he began. “You are not just your skin.”
A small whirlwind appeared next to me, twisting the dust in
circles and spinning off. I felt a change internally. I felt lighter.
“Be gone, Satan,” he said.
He looked at me a moment.
“There you are, Michael,” he exclaimed, calling me by my full name.
“Why are you here?’ I asked him.
“I left the United States two years ago,” he replied. I found out my wife had a child with another man.
We had three children together. I bought this motorcycle and came to Mexico.”
“Where do you stay?” I asked. “How do you make a living?”
“I go from town to town fixing things, I make enough money to get by. I sleep in the desert.”
The oil had completely drained and he patched the now dry crack in the oil pan. I thanked him.
“So where are you off to now?”
“Wherever God asks me to go,” he replied. I wait for signs.”
I left the town of La Purisma and headed back towards the spot where I had made the wrong turn.
About twenty minutes into the trip, my stomach began to ache.
As I got closer to my destination of Loreto, the stomach pains increased in intensity.
I recalled that I had eaten a hot dog from a cart in La Purisma the night before.
Checking into a hotel in Loreto, my body began to purge itself.
I spent the night moving in between the bed and the toilet.
I made sure to drink a lot of water, but, as evidenced by my experience the next day, it was not enough.
Packing up my belongings and handing off the key to the concierge, I began to make my way 15 hours north back
to my home in California. I did not get far before my stomach began to act up again. My vision began to skew,
the image of the asphalt in front of me was bending before my eyes. I pulled off to the side of the road.
There was a small restaurant across the way.
With great pain, I made my way across the street and in through the door.
Once inside, I collapsed onto the floor.
“I need help,” I said, the words just a whisper.
The woman behind the counter called in Spanish to someone in the back. A young boy appeared. He spoke some English.
“What is wrong?’ he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I am sick. I need to get to a hospital.”
“Can we take your car?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “The keys are in the ignition.”
He helped me get across the street. The world was spinning. My equilibrium was shot.
The boy started my car as I sat in the passenger seat, moaning.
We began a drive to the nearest hospital, which was in a town called Mulege.
“How old are you?” I asked the boy.
“Fourteen” he replied.
“How long will it take us to get to Mulege?” I asked, barely able to get the words out.
“About one hour,” he said. “My mother called an ambulance. Maybe it will meet us on the way.”
After about thirty minutes, for reasons unknown to me, the boy pulled off into a camping spot.
I opened the passengers side door and fell to the ground, holding my stomach and writhing in the dirt.
In my peripheral vision, I saw a pair of boots. I looked up and saw a cowboy hat atop the face
of a mustached man.
The boy began to speak to him in Spanish. I was too sick to follow the conversation.
“Get up and get back in the car,” said the man, authoritatively.
“You are going to be fine.”
I got back into the car and we continued our drive to Muleje.
My sense of time was distorted.
Each passing moment seemed an eternity. In the distance,
I saw an ambulance approaching, but it passed us by.
“Was that for me?” I asked the boy.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Finally, we arrived at a doctor’s office. The boy parked the car and I got out.
I could hardly walk. A woman, seeing me in despair, offered her shoulder to help me get to the entrance.
I laid down on a gurney and and a nurse asked me what was going on.
I did my best to tell her that I thought I was suffering from dehydration.
Soon after, a doctor entered. He had the nurse administer saline
solution
through an I V and into my vein. I was fading in and out of consciousness.
I spent somewhere between four and five hours in that hospital.
At one point, I fell asleep. When I awoke, the nurse informed
me that they had pumped four bags of the liquid into my body.
I got up feeling much better, although still a little queasy. I was nervous about the bill,
as I did not have much money. To my surprise, it was only $30.
I left feeling very hungry. I found a local restaurant and ordered fish. Finding a table, I sat down. I was still trembling.
There were three older gringos sitting at a table across the way from me. One of them spoke up.
“Not feeling well?’ he asked.
“I got the turistas,” I replied. “I just got out of the hospital.”
“That’s no fun,” he said. “You will be fine.”
I got up to go to the bathroom. In my semi-delirious state, I could not find it.
“It is over there, to the left,” said one of the gringos.
I came back to my table and ate what I could of my meal.
I decided to stay in Muleje for the night. I found a cheap motel and went to sleep.
I awoke in the morning, my sheets covered with excrement. I felt a little better.
I decided that I was well enough to make the journey back home.
I crossed the border that night with only a few pennies and just enough gas to get back to my home in San Diego.
* Author’s note: “La Purisma” means “The Purity”
Word Count - 1,843 words
