It was so long ago for me, in the times when I still remembered the names of the places I once knew and the faces I once loved. My face did not bear these wrinkles then. My body was not so heavy, and my spirit was not so full as I feel it now.

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In those days, I breathed the dusty heat as long as I could stand, and in those nights, I laid upon the earth and listened to the wind blow across the grassy plains. I was a wanderer too, and perhaps that is why I came to know him.

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They used to say he was born to a father who knew nothing of love and everything of rage. His mother was long gone, merely one of so many listless souls here for a moment, and bound only to her suffering. As he grew, he learned the meanings of fear, and loss, and hunger, but never of love. His father gave him anger, and his neighbors shut their eyes to his tears while he laid with the dogs in the gutters of the filthy streets. He was called Camellito back then, though whether that was the name he was given at birth, I do not know. ‘The little camel,’ they whispered, ‘because he is always moving. You can never get him to stay in the same place twice, and you can kick him as much as you like, for he won’t do a thing but groan and move along, forever down the lonely road.’

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He passed through the orchards at the edge of town, the summer’s crop already picked and nothing but rotting citrus laying in piles in the dry and dusty rows. Sometimes, he would pull back his leg and send out a half-hearted kick in the direction of a caved-in lemon, and watch it tumble clumsily forward a few inches until stopping again to rest. When the trees came to an end, there was nothing he could see for miles but flat and barren land. He puffed out a lifeless breath towards the setting sun, cast his eyes back down to the arid earth and turned with no particular determination back the way he had come.

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His father’s house lay in the shadiest alley that branched crookedly from the main part of town. You did not have to know his father or the evil he nurtured to want to avoid that house; the mere geography was already enough to deter all but the most fiendish and conniving themselves. He had walked every street and every road in the region so many times by now that he knew where he was without having to open his eyes. As he stood in the cool darkness of that alley, his young body began to sag under its own weight. He could smell the dankness of the hovel from there, and he could almost see it reeking. It was the stench of depravity that could never be washed out; that is what the viejitas murmured to each other above their steaming basins on Saturday afternoons.

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Tonight, the door was ajar, and the darkness that reached out from inside was absolute. Neither of those things were unusual, for indeed his father often left the house abandoned and unguarded, for he knew, and often boasted to his devilish cohorts, that no one from the town would ever have the stones to enter. However, as dusk descended, Camellito felt a creeping unease that took a moment for him to name. He was not afraid of many things in this world, and surely had come to know the darkness and uncertainty that petrifies other men to their cores as friends and companions in his itinerant existence. But what he did fear was silence. And silence was all that could be heard from the groping and ravenous blackness that lay behind the door that evening, and he felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. The skin on his neck and the hairs in his ears were tingling, scanning, screaming for any sound they could find. But they were met with an evil nothing in return. A muscle in his neck twitched, and suddenly he heard the sound of a glass shattering on the floor from beyond the door that was hanging open in the stale evening air. His lungs released, and he sucked desperate breaths into his aching chest while his heart began to beat with an unpleasant urgency. As he wandered the fields and rolling hills at night in his youth, learning to brush away the lonely fear that often threatened to overtake him, he had taught himself to whistle songs without words as a comfort. And there, in the gloom of the alley, he brought his lips together and began to blow. It was a sequence of notes he had repeated many times, without melody, and one that he often returned unconsciously to when his mind was otherwise occupied. As the sound stretched out in front of him, he noticed in an unfocused way that it sounded miles away, even though it was coming from his own mouth. He began to move towards the door, continuing to whistle the same notes slowly, over and over. He reached out his hand to push it open, and a streak of matted brown fur darted past him and almost made him cry out. He watched the stray cat bolt back down the alley in the opposite direction from the way he had come, still standing in the doorway. The deafening silence, meanwhile, had resumed, and he could only hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He pushed the door open a little wider, and it moaned, low and angry. The disintegrating floorboards creaked and cracked under his feet as he entered the blackness of the putrid room. In the parlor, murky though it was, he saw no one, and moved with breathless trepidation further into the house. He thought to whistle again, but glimpsed his father’s merciless, raging face as he rained down blows on him in one of the foggy memories of his tender childhood years, and grimly closed his mouth.

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He moved slowly down the hallway, crouching and tensed in every muscle. The door to his father’s bedroom stood directly ahead of him. The two doors on the other sides of the hallway stood open, and as he crept past them, he shot wary glances into their depths. In each he saw nothing but the dilapidated and discarded remains of the once-grand furniture that was always there in a state of frozen and violent disarray. Step by step, he inched toward the final door, preparing himself to reach out and turn the knob that would shatter the silence that had begun to entomb him there in the house of evil. His hand stretched out, and the moment before his fingers closed around the handle lasted the length of eternity. His lungs screeched and his muscles ached, his heart felt sluggish and heavy in his chest. Finally, he twisted his wrist, and the crack rang out like a gunshot in the night. It took all the strength his inundated mind could muster not to wail in pain. He breathed for the first time in forever, desperately though quietly as he could, his hand releasing the curve of the doorknob and pushing on the wooden panel of the door that now began to open. At first, when his eyes met the room, he saw only the chaos he expected to see. Every inch of his father’s house was always covered in some manner of filth and disorder, and he had not predicted his bedroom to be any different. This time, however, it was not the sight that stunned him; it was the smell. The stench hit him in the face like a punch and before he could identify what it was, he was doubled over with sickness, heaving onto the disgusting floor. His stomach lurched without mercy for several minutes, and his throat burned from the acid, forcing hot, stinging tears down from his eyes. When at last he was able to catch his breath again, he brought his linen collar up over his nose and mouth, wiped away the tears, and steeled his nerve to try again.

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He turned back into the room, and his gaze landed on the bed his father shared with his most recent stepmother. She was another one of his belongings, a trophy to lord over his fellow reprobates. Camellito had learned long ago not to bond too much with these women of his father’s, as they tended to come and go like the summer breezes. His father had been married six times already, and this latest stepmother made his seventh in unholy matrimony.

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He saw her there on the bed, her limbs motionless and twisted in unnatural contortions. Even through the protective cover of his collar, he could smell the blood that covered her in gruesome splatters all over her body. As he looked closer, he saw gashes down to the bone in some places, and bruises on top of bruises on her broken face. There were places on her head where hair and skin were missing, and it occurred to him then that she had been dragged by her hair with such ferocity that pieces of her scalp had been torn off. It was a vicious beating, the sheer depravity of which I shall expend no more words to detail here. This way, at least I can spare you from the horrors my dear friend was not so fortunate to avoid.

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Camellito reached out his arms to slide them underneath the mangled corpse, lifting her and carrying what remained of her in his arms. His collar no longer protected his nose, as his hands were now occupied, and his body threatened to revolt again. A feverish sweat beaded on his forehead and his eyes felt about to burst out of his skull. He broke into a run, dodging the pools of blood and his own vomit on the floor as he bolted outside in search of the first free air he could reach. Bursting out of the door with his stepmother in his arms, he careened back up the alley towards the orchards and out of town, not daring to look back even for an instant. He heard a powerful crashing break the deadly silence, and he thought it sounded like the roof caving in, though in his haste he could not be so sure. He did not dare look back. He ran as fast and as far as his legs would carry him, panicked and faded, thinking nothing except the word go. When finally his body would move no more, he paused and turned his chin languidly downwards. She still lay there in his arms, and as he looked at her, he saw his own tears drip down onto her face, though he had not felt them form. He realized then that he had forgotten, or perhaps he had never even known, her name. The tears fell in fat droplets onto her cheeks, and the caked blood there began to soften. Heaven only knows how long they sat like that, his eyes crying wordless tears that splashed and mingled with the agony etched on her breathless face.

When he arose again, the sun was rising with him, and he made a ginger attempt to wipe the blood away with his sleeve. He carried her to the tiny parish, speaking to no one along the way. He felt nothing.

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By the light of the dawn, he and the father dug her a grave in the quiet cemetery behind the church. He wrapped her in a simple shroud, and laid her to rest within the earth. When the blessings were said, and the hole was again filled, he knelt beside the ground unmarked by all but a plain wooden cross. The heat of the day had begun to take shape, and the sun beat down on him from high in the sky as he pressed his calloused and blood-stained hand to the dirt. His eyes were closed when he whispered two words, perhaps to her, or perhaps to the world.

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“I’m sorry.”

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I did not hear the next words from him, not even once over all the nights we shared together. It was only after he had passed from my world that I found the events that followed her burial.

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Those who were there say he rose from her grave like the undead, an unnatural fire burning in his eyes. He began to whistle, a far-away sound that carried across the plains and wound its way through the streets. He found his father in one of his usual haunts of sin, jeering and covered in her blood, surrounded by villains who had no reason to care. Eight men had entered that den in the light of the day, but in the fading glow of dusk, only two made their exit. He carried a sack on his shoulder, dripping with dark liquid and utterly still. The sun settled over the horizon, the flatness of the fields extending on and forever on.

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There are some that have called him a murderer, a fiend with a thirst for blood and an unshakeable willingness to kill any unlucky soul he came upon. There are legends about him now, the musings of people filled with fear of the ghost of a man who whistles as he walks, and who carries a mysterious sack upon his weary back. They say his tune is a warning; when it sounds close, you have nothing to fear, for he is far, far away from you. But when it sounds distant, they say, you are not much longer for this world.

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Some say he is an avenger, a creature that bears down heavenly judgement on those who deserve it; namely men who beat their wives, gamble away their fortunes, or lie drunk and stinking in the streets. Others say he kills without cause; anyone who strays too far from town at night is fodder enough for him, and it does not matter what crimes they have committed.

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As for me? I only knew him as my friend.

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Those years have bled together in my memory now, but I do remember the first time I saw him. I had awoken from a restless sleep among the grass, just off the side of the narrow gravel road that stretched out from a town where my beggar’s hands and I had worn out our welcome a few days before.

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The sun was shining, though it was weak behind the streaking clouds that brushed the late afternoon sky. I sat up on my elbows, and scanned across the grassland in both directions, first right and then left in the direction of the town. Suddenly I spotted a lonely figure shuffling down the line towards me. I could see it was a man, though he wore a wide-brimmed and tattered straw hat that obscured his face, and he slouched with the weight of the sack on his shoulder. He whistled as he went, that same melody-less song that I would grow to know very well in the coming days. I stood, brushing myself off lightly and cupped my hands over my brow as I watched him come. His far-away whistle mingled with the winds that blew across the plains, and I let out a sigh. Soon, he was close to me, and he lifted his head to look me in the face as he walked. When he was right in front of me, he paused, and I smiled at him. In his eyes there was nothing but a resigned sorrow, and the line of his mouth was straight, bearing neither expression of joy nor sadness. I brought my fingertips to the brim of my own shabby cap, and in return, he exhaled softly through his nose and nodded. He began to walk again, and I took up stride alongside him. We walked in silence for a long time before he began to whistle again, and I found myself much at ease with him. At times I would try to join in, my own clumsy whistle ringing out beside his well-worn one, and he would shoot me a glance out of the corner of his eye without a word. I learned that this for him meant stop, and so I would close my mouth again, not wanting to offend my new companion. When at last we came to a fork in the road, he looked down both ways for a while, seeming not to know which route to choose. I spoke then, breaking the unofficial law of silence that bound us.

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“How about to the left? I never was one much for the right.”

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He looked at me with widened eyes, but quickly frowned and shook his head, his brow furrowed.

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“No,” he said, and started down the trail to the right, not waiting for me to come with him.

I shrugged to myself and hurried along behind him.

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“Whatever you say, Señor Silbón,” I chuckled when I reached his side. He turned his head ever so slightly in my direction, and I could see a small smile play across his lips before he turned his face back forward.

“Señor Silbón…” he whispered, and I grinned back at him.

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In the days that followed, I would break the silence that lived between us a hundred more times, asking him questions, and telling him stories of my life. It was always me who spoke first, though that never bothered me. Gradually, he began to answer some of my questions, but I could tell from his arrhythmic speech and his shaky voice that he had not been accustomed to talking for a very long time. In the mornings, when the first waves of clear sunlight breached the darkness of the night, he was quietest, preferring to whistle as we ambled side by side down the winding roads. I used the time to reflect and observe, not only my curious companion but the natural beauty that surrounded us at every moment. By late afternoon, he was usually amenable to some conversation, and I gladly supplied him with all manner of questions and monologues of my own. Under the lights of the moon and the blanket of stars, nestled in among the flowing grain, he wove me the story of his solitary life. We settled into a kind of routine this way, our mornings quiet as the dawn, our afternoons carried by the sound of my hushed and unhurried voice, and our nights under the constellations navigated stoically by my whistling friend.

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Little by little, we began to understand each other, and I have even heard some tales where I appear alongside my fearsome associate as henchman or co-conspirator in his insidious deeds. To tell you the truth as I know it now, I never saw him harm a single living thing as long as I walked there by his side. He whistled and he roamed, he carried the trappings of his past on his back and he never even spoke unless it was in reply to me. Perhaps it was because he thought he had no place in this world, and so he felt, like I did then, that he should wander through the hills and plateaus of time forever until he returned to the dust that we are all destined to become. Perhaps it was because he was running from the consequences of what he had done, fearing that one day the law, either of men or of a higher power, would catch up to him. If you ask my opinion, I think it was because he was looking for something. He would journey until he found it, and then he would go no further.

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After many nights spent listening to the tale of his life as he knew it, I began to suspect that we were nearing the end of our time together. His nightly yarns grew clipped, and I realized this was his way of extending the deadline we both knew we were facing. As I lay there gazing up at the stars after he had fallen silent, I imagined the two of us on the prow of a ship, standing with our eyes on the horizon, as the water that rushed around us on all sides began to pick up speed. The waterfall was coming; we had only moments before we were doomed to a freefall that would divide us evermore. We stood unshakeable on that precipice, by now we two too wise to be governed by our fear. It was with that image behind my eyes that I at last drifted into slumber, enfolded by the night and comforted by his presence nearby.

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The next morning when I awoke, he was already standing, his bag uncharacteristically absent from his shoulder, resting on the patchy ground beside him. His eyes were closed, and his arms were folded, his palms pressed against each other in supplication, fingertips pointed to the heavens. On his face there was a tranquility I had not seen, except when he was asleep, and his lips moved without speaking in humble petition. I watched him pray for a moment, and then I stood as well. The sound I made in rising shocked him out of his trance. He met my eyes, then blinked and bent down to lift the bag to its usual place upon his back.

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As we walked that day, him whistling his same sliding song, and me alone with my thoughts, I had a growing sense that this was to be our last day together. For a brief moment, I felt a profound grief sweep over me, knocking me breathless, and when I inhaled again, I felt two tears fall from my eyes and land on my chest. If he noticed, he didn’t show it, and as I took another breath, I felt the sorrow drain away, in its place that solemn courage I had felt standing on the ship in my imagination. By dusk we had reached another little hamlet, its particulars just the same as every other we had passed along the way. I learned from the weathered sign on the outskirts on our way in that its name was Soledad, which made me laugh without joy to read it. It could not have been more appropriate if it tried. The streets were mostly empty; the few people I saw were children trying to extract the last bit of fun from the waning light while they could, and old women who swept the dusty stones as their husbands sat in ancient wooden chairs and rocked, back and forth, and back and forth.

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When the sun finally set, the winds began to blow, and the moon hid behind swift-moving clouds. The plains stretched on as they ever did, and for the first time in months, my bones began to ache with exhaustion. I had walked with him for ages, it seemed, and now that our time was coming to an end, the spell that bound me to him was breaking, giving way around my shoulders. As we passed the last building of the town of Soledad, our steps began to falter and slowly came to a unified halt. He turned to me, and the look he gave me I can only assume was reflected on my own face.

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He held his hand out to me, palm to the stars. I took it in mine, and as I did, he smiled softly and said, “Ya. Enough.”

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“Enough,” I whispered back, and released his hand, my arm returning to its place at my side.

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He turned away from me then, and I watched his silhouette until I could see him no longer. The winds grew stronger, and I thought he might be overtaken by them, but where I had to crouch to avoid their blows, he was solid as the ground upon which he trod. I turned back to face Soledad, and I heard the wind rushing through the buildings, twisting, picking up speed and wrapping the town in its might. Perhaps my ears were tricking me, daring me to grieve over my departed friend, but it sounded like the wind began to whistle. In its symphony I heard the same sequence of notes I had heard at his side all those days, and it made me smile in the darkness. I shivered from the cold, and let his memory take its leave of me for now, setting out from the breath I exhaled into the tumultuous air.

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From that night, as well you know, I took up residence in Soledad, and made my peace within its walls. No longer do I wander, for this is my home.

As for the whistler, I know not where he is now. Perhaps he has finally died, come at long last to rest in the same earth that he buried her in all those years ago. Perhaps he still walks these plains, whistling and carrying his father’s bones on his beleaguered back.

Wherever he is, I know I am glad to have shared some days with him under the sun, two wanderers that we were, telling our stories to each other and the world.

Even now, as my earthly body begins to fail and come to a certain rest, I can hear his voice in my ears as clear as the night he said those words to me.

“Ya. Enough.”

The End

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