A lone figure emerges from a shimmering mirage, a silhouette distorted by heat waves rising from the sun-blasted desert. He walks by slow steps, his feet raising clouds of dust so that he appears to float on a puff of smoke. Hours pass, and the sun hangs mercilessly in the sky. The man tows a battered lifetime in his wake. The dragging weight slows him to the speed of a tortoise, yet he was once known as the fastest man in the land.

In tales still told at firesides, he is El Antílope. Others name him the Flying One. Whichever tale or title, El Antílope is fleeter afoot than any mounted outlaw. In years past, many bandits and evil men learned this truth the hard way. El Antílope ran them down and sealed their doom. He is still out there somewhere, or so they say.

Old men say that even now, El Antílope will appear from nowhere, swift and silent, dealing out justice in this harsh land. He is bound to the code, as are the villains. Good and evil, both beholden to the rules, white and black pieces facing each other across the checkered board. This is as it must be, although the old ones cannot say why.

The passing years are not kind to storytellers, and less so to heroes. The tick-tock of time spares no one. There comes a day when the old must give way to those who are younger and stronger.

El Antílope finds no respite in the villages. The villagers are grateful, yes, but only until the bandits are defeated or the monster killed. When the deed is done, the villagers do not need a hero. They cork the mescal, hide their women, and pray that the hero will leave them in peace. The hero must vanish into the sunset. The rules of the tale remain unbreakable.

This will be his last journey. El Antílope does not know the place he searches for. He follows hints and whispers carried on the arid wind, the voices of those who have gone before him, searching for a place where fast or slow does not matter.

The soles of his moccasins leave only the faintest trace of his passage. As he nears a rock outcropping, he senses a faint presence, no more than the shadow of a ghost. His eyes read the ground. Yes, there, the husks of sunflower seeds scattered amongst the sand and rocks. Someone paused in the shade of this rock. Hungry, they cracked sunflower seeds between their teeth, savored the salty kernel, then spit out the husks.

El Antílope closes his eyes, feels the searing heat, listens to the wind. Once, a long time ago maybe, there were voices here. Only a trace remains; a hiss, a whisper brushing sun-bleached parchment. He wills his mind to hear the words.

I am telling you, Paco, the hills ahead don’t get any closer, and the mountains behind us don’t get any further away. This goddamn desert goes on forever.

He opens his eyes. Looking behind, he sees the rough scarp of mountains. Far ahead, a faint outline of dusky green hills dances in the heat. This place feels familiar yet unreal, like something glimpsed in a dream and then forgotten. He will follow the ghost voices. Perhaps this is the correct path. Where it leads is a mystery. The only certainty is that he must walk on.

El Antílope lifts his straw hat, wipes a stained sleeve across his forehead, then pulls the hat low over his eyes. His hands are brown and weathered. A coiled leather whip crosses his chest like a bandolier. The stock of a repeating rifle protrudes from a scabbard he wears across his back. A wiry man built for tireless speed, he is a hero by profession rather than stature. Unmarked graves hold many larger men who misjudged the difference.

Heroes do not spring fully formed from their mother’s womb. Some are chosen and others cursed. In the forgotten ages long ago, El Antílope may have been Juan Carlos, a common name for a barefoot boy in a dusty village. He cannot remember the name but knows there was once a child who could disappear in the blink of an eye. A fleet-footed village boy, always first in any game of running or chasing.

The old men watch as the children whirl past.

There, you see? That chico runs like the devil. I swear to you, the boy has wings. He flies while other niños only run. Nothing can catch him.

Time passes, and the quick boy grows into a swift young man. Then comes a day that changes everything. The early dawn stillness is broken by the wails of a frantic mother discovering an empty bed. Someone or something has stolen a young girl, spiriting the poor thing into the night.

The distraught mother’s panic kindles the flames of fear. The villagers run about like chickens. Someone screams the name El Coco, and others take up the cry. Yes, it must be El Coco, the monster who kidnaps children and devours them. Poor girl, it is too late. The older women encircle the grieving young mother, a protective ring of black dresses.

The swift young man does not believe in El Coco. While the villagers run in circles, he slips away into the gray dawn. At the edge of the village, he finds fresh tracks.

One man wearing moccasins, the footprints heading south on the main path. The young man sprints down the pathway. Not far from the village, the footprints disappear, replaced by the hoof prints of two horses. This was not the work of El Coco, but evil men, child stealers who will sell the girl to slavers. He runs after the horses, faster than he has ever run before.

He finds the kidnappers in the mountains south of the village. They have camped not far off the path, not even bothering to hide. The barefoot young man circles through the brush surrounding the camp, silent as smoke.

Two dirty men sit beside the smoldering fire, arguing over a jug of mescal. Two lean horses are hobbled nearby. Just past the horses, he sees the girl. She lies beneath a gnarled pine tree, her hands and feet tied with cords. He hears her whimpers through the knotted cloth bound tightly over her mouth.

He slips behind the tree, leans from the shadows, whispers to the girl. She cranes her head, eyes filled with terror. He holds a finger to his lips and waits. She nods, then casts a fearful look toward the dirty men. He pulls a knife from his belt and creeps forward. The sharp blade slices the cords. He lifts the trembling girl and carries her into the shadows. He whispers into her ear, then slips back to the camp.

The kidnappers are still busy with their jug. The young man cups his hands to his mouth.

Shoot them, Pedro, shoot! What are you waiting for?

The bandits lurch to their feet, spilling the mescal. They claw for their pistols while the young man sprints away behind the horses. He shouts again, feigning a different voice.

Juan, get their horses! Pedro, kill these hombres!

Pistol shots erupt as the bandits blast away at everything and nothing. While they shoot at ghosts, the swift young man dashes to the other side of the camp.

Now you die, you bastardos!

Hammers click on empty chambers. Drunk on panic and mescal, the bandits stagger to their horses. They claw at the hobbles, frightening the horses. Finally, the two heave themselves into the saddles and spur their rawboned mounts into a ragged gallop.

From his hiding place, the young man listens to the fading hoofbeats. He stands and walks across the empty camp. A coiled leather whip lies in the dust beside the forgotten jug. He picks up the whip and drapes it across his chest. Then he leads the weeping girl back to the village and delivers her to her family.

The memories swirl and fade. El Antílope touches the plaited whip where it rubs against his sweating chest. His eyes search the desert horizon to the line of hills far ahead.

Yes, hombre, and what was your reward for rescuing the girl? You left that little village behind, forgot your name, and became ‘El Antílope’. A hero’s life, full of bandits and monsters and trouble, an endless string of trouble. No, not a string, a chain. Each heroic deed forged a new link that bound you to the next task. But no more, do you hear? You are no longer bound. ¡Vamos!

He is on his feet and moving. The dragging weight of the past seems to grow lighter. Some of his former quickness returns. Now, he strides across the desert. The green hills appear to draw near.

The desert comes to an end, as all things must, but many travelers meet their mortal end before they reach the edge of the wasteland. Those that survive find a narrow band of scrubland. Passing through stunted acacia and mesquite trees, the way begins to climb.

The first slopes are covered with rough grass. A faint path appears, dips out of sight, then reappears on the next hill. Piñon pines rise in an abrupt edge across the bald hilltop, like the shaved tonsure of a fat friar. On the far side of the hill, a small lake nestles beneath the pines. Nearby sits a snug log cabin.

Smoke rises from a campfire. A rotund man leans into the woodsmoke, poking at a cast-iron skillet. He fans away smoke with a battered black hat and reaches for the skillet. With a fat man’s agility, he spins away from the stinging smoke. Rough laughter spills from his black beard.

“Lunch is ready, jefe. Lovely fried trout for El Sombrero and his faithful companion El Burro.”

The bearded man flourishes the skillet. A second man sits near the fire. He is as lean as his companion is fat.

True to his former nom de guerre, El Sombrero Blanco wears a huge white hat. The sombrero shades a hawkish face, an aquiline nose, and drooping black mustaches.

He shakes a warning finger at the fat man.

“Enough of that crap. We agreed, remember? I’m Raul, and you’re Paco. No more stupid titles.”

Still chuckling, Paco, once known as El Burro, sits beside his lifelong friend. He slides one fried fish onto a tin plate and hands it to Raul Garcia, then serves himself. Raul bends over his plate. Paco chews a mouthful while gazing out over the desert. He shields his eyes and stares into the glare. Paco lowers his eyes to the food. In a brief pause between forkfuls, he questions his old compadre.

“Hey, jefe, I’m trying to count in my head, but I’m not smart like you. How long we been retired?”

El Sombrero Blanco looks up into the noon sky. He turns to Paco and shrugs.

“Time seems strange here. Every day is the same. We hunt, we fish. The sun goes down, and we watch the stars. I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s peaceful. No one bothers us, nobody needs rescuing. But how long? I think six months, maybe more.”

For a time, the two men eat in silence.

Paco slips his empty plate to the ground and reaches inside his dusty black jacket. He pulls out a muslin bag, opens it, and pours roasted seeds onto his palm. Then he offers the bag to Raul.

“Sunflower seeds, jefe?”

“No, thank you, Paco. The trout was enough, perfect as always.”

Paco smiles, lifts a seed to his teeth, cracks it, and spits the hull into the fire. He gazes out to where the heat shimmers off the distant desert, smiles to himself, and cracks another seed.

“Tell me the truth, Raul. Do you miss the life?”

Raul snorts and shakes his head.

“You mean never having a home of our own? Sleeping on the hard ground almost every night of our lives? Riding back and forth across that goddamn desert chasing bandits or monsters? No, Paco, I don’t miss any of that.”

Paco grins huge and spits another hull. He throws his arms wide and bellows like a bull.

“Look, on the horizon! It’s the White Hat. The pistolero of the people. And his faithful companion rides with him. Viva El Burro! Viva El Sombrero Blanco!”

Dropping his arms to his side, he grins at his old companion-in-arms. Raul chuckles at the performance but waves it away.

“No, I don’t miss that either. The villagers stopped cheering the minute we chased off the bad guys. They were afraid of us, afraid we might steal their women or drink all the mescal. In their eyes, we were only one notch above the bandits. Bah!”

In the silence that follows, Raul watches Paco eat his sunflower seeds. A look of puzzlement crosses his lean face.

“Paco, why do you never run out of seeds?”

Paco dangles the bag by its drawstring. The sack bulges like a chipmunk’s cheeks.

“All these years together, jefe, and you just now notice?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You see any sunflowers around here, boss? Look all you want. Not a one, right?”

Paco slips the bag into his jacket and spits another hull.

“It’s not just the seeds either. All those years sleeping on the ground, you and me living off what we carried in our saddlebags. But every morning we had coffee. Every night there was a bottle of mescal.”

Raul looks dumbfounded. He scratches his chin, then waves a finger in the air.

“Yes, but the villagers gave us food, if only to get rid of us.”

“Sure they did. They loaded us up with bad bacon and old beans. But if you think about it, you’ll remember that we were forever running out of food. And yet we always had coffee, mescal, seeds, and just enough ammunition to finish the job.”

Raul props his chin in his hand. He stares into the fire. Paco spits sunflower hulls and glances again at the edge of the desert. The silence is broken when Raul slaps his thigh.

“The three bullets. Dios mío, I remember now. It happened every time we got pinned down by scruffy bandits. Everyone shooting at each other, gunsmoke in our eyes, and then you ask, ‘How many bullets you got left, jefe?’ I’d crack open my trusty revolver to check. ‘Only three shots left, Paco.’ And somehow, those three bullets were always enough to finish off the bad guys. How is that possible?”

Paco shrugs and grins.

“It’s not possible, but that’s what happened. Maybe it’s a benefit of the profession, you know? The heroes gotta have coffee, they gotta have three bullets at the end. So, the bullets and the coffee just appear, you know?”

“What, you mean like magic?”

“Don’t know, jefe. We ain’t heroes no more, so I don’t care. I tell you, I’ve been thinking on this. I need a new profession. I decided I’m going to take up prophecy.”

 Raul laughs long and hard.

“At least you’ve got the beard for it, my old friend.”

“Laugh all you want, but here’s my first prediction. We’re going to have a visitor real soon.”

Raul does not laugh. Before a heartbeat passes, a huge revolver appears in his hand. He flips the cylinder, checks the loads, then snaps it closed. The pistol disappears back into its holster.

“Where?”

Paco grunts and points a fat finger. Raul squints at the rough hills and the scrubland below. He curses under his breath. Paco always had sharper eyes, and the passing years have not helped.

“My old eyes aren’t as good as yours, Paco. How many riders?”

“You don’t see them because there ain’t no riders, just one walker, and he’s on the small side.”

Raul stares where Paco points. If he holds his eyes just right, he sees a small blob bobbing through the scrub.

“That makes no sense. No one can cross that desert on foot. It would be suicide.”

“Si, I thought the same. But then I remembered some old stories about an hombre they called the Flying One. That ring any bells?”

Raul sinks into the stream of memory. El Sombrero, El Burro, so many years, names, and faces. Too many unmarked graves. Then a thought clicks like a firing pin against an empty casing.

“¡Claro está! You mean El Antílope, supposed to be faster on foot than an outlaw on horseback. But it can’t be him. El Antílope worked the northwest mountains. What would he be doing down here?”

“I got no idea, boss, but in less than an hour, you can ask him yourself.”

El Antílope follows a faint trail through the scrubland, happy to have the desert at his back. Prairie chickens scuttle through the dry grass. He crouches for a handful of round stones. By the time he reaches the hilltop, three fat birds dangle from his belt. Fresh meat will improve his welcome if any welcome is offered.

Cresting the hill, El Antílope spots the camp as he crests the hill. Two men on a log beside a fire and a rough cabin on the far side of an earthen clearing. He stomps to make his presence obvious. Never surprise a man in his camp, although they surely spotted him leaving the desert.

He stops just outside pistol range and raises a hand in greeting. Then he holds up the prairie hens. One of the men, the lean one with the white sombrero, waves him in. El Antílope closes the distance at a steady pace, no sudden movements, hands in plain sight. He stops at the edge of the earthen clearing.

“Buenas tardes, señores.”

The white sombrero answers. The dark-bearded one is smiling.

“Buenas tardes, señor. You have walked a long way.”

“Si, very long.”

“Come and sit. We have water. You are welcome here.”

El Antílope smiles and nods. They have made it past the formalities without gunplay. The hard part is already over. He steps into the clearing and walks to the two men, halting his footsteps at a respectful distance.

“They call me El Antílope.”

The two are standing now.

“Welcome to our camp, El Antílope. I am Raul Garcia, and this is my compadre Paco Valdez.”

“Am I right to assume that you are also El Sombrero Blanco and El Burro?”

“Yes, that was true once, but no longer. Here we use our old names.”

“Then I apologize for my nom de guerre, but I do not remember my birth name.”

“No need for apologies, my friend. Perhaps you will remember given time. We carried those silly names just as we were saddled with the hero nonsense. And why? Because peons with no cojones needed some sort of symbol. Aieee! But where are my manners? Come, sit down. You are tired from your long walk. Paco, some water for our guest.”

By the time the sun sinks to the western rim of the desert, the three men are talking and laughing like old friends. The spit-roasted prairie hens sizzle over the rekindled cookfire. Paco turns the spits while reeling out another tale from the old days.

“I’m telling you that feathered serpent was a real monster, and one tough bastard. The village headman told us this serpent captured virgins and ate them. Waste of a good virgin, if you ask me.”

Raul laughs and waves his hands.

“How could it be a waste? That old man lied through his teeth. There were no virgins to begin with.”

Then El Antílope chimes in.

 “Lack of virgins was a widespread problem.”

The three laugh long and hard. As the laughter fades, El Antílope is the first to speak.

“Ah, it is good to laugh. You know, one of those feather snakes almost got me as well. The sneaky bastard caught me having a piss. I waited all day outside its cave. Finally, I couldn’t hold it no more. I’m in the middle of a glorious piss when the serpent pops out from behind a rock. Like an idiot, I didn’t have my rifle. So, I drop my pito and unwind my whip. Meanwhile, I’m pissing on my boots. Maybe the sight of my little wet pito confused the feather snake. Anyway, the monster hesitated, and I cracked my whip right in its eye.”

“¡No me digas! Then what happened, hombre?”

“That snake screamed like an eagle and ran for the hills. I buttoned up, dragged the alleged virgin from the cave, and ran like hell. Pure luck, muchachos, nothing more.”

Raul passes the bottomless mescal bottle and slaps El Antílope on the shoulder.

“If not for luck, we’d have been vulture shit long ago, right Paco?”

“Si, jefe, luck saved us many times.”

The three men swap tales as the fire burns low and the stars shine overhead. They talk of embarrassing mistakes and lucky escapes. The mescal bottle passes from hand to hand.

El Antílope rolls a cigarette, lights it with an ember from the fire, and blows a cloud of smoke at the stars. Then he begins to speak in almost a whisper.

“Let me tell you about the worst and best thing I ever did. I have never spoken of this to anyone.”

Raul and Paco lean in to hear his words.

“Years ago, I met La Llorona.”

“Dios mío, you met The Weeping Woman?”

“The very same, Raul. It came about because of a missing child, a little boy. You know the story of La Llorona. In life, she was a poor woman named Maria. Her husband ran off with a whore. In a fit of rage, she drowned her two children in the river. She regained her senses, but it was too late. Her children were dead. She was damned forever. Maria drowned herself and became a ghost haunting the riverbanks, searching for her dead children.”

Paco waves the bottle in the dark.

“Si, I remember La Llorona, the river ghost. She never found her dead kids, so she snatched living children from the riverbank. A sad story.”

“But not just a story, my friend. The villagers sent for me, like always. I tracked the missing boy to where his footprints disappeared beside the river. You would think the boy had drowned, of course. But there was another trail, faint and strange, like cloth dragged across the ground. This trail led to a cave. Always a damn cave. And there I found the boy and La Llorona.”

“Did you fight her?”

“No, my friends, and this is my best and the worst deed. She was very beautiful, dressed in a tattered gown. The child lay at her feet, whimpering in fear, but I was not afraid. I sat beside her. The night grew old as she told me her tale. Never in my life have I felt such grief. At dawn, she allowed me to take the boy, and in turn, I left her alone. I am sure she took other children later, but I could not bear to harm her.”

Paco passes him the bottle and sighs.

“Do not regret mercy, my friend. Is that not right, Raul?”

“Paco speaks the truth. All our lives we have chased evil up and down the mountains, across that damned desert, and back again. But no matter how many evil things we defeated, the world did not change. Now we find ourselves here, three old men around a dying fire. I suppose this is the retirement ranch for old heroes.”

Paco laughs aloud.

“What’s so funny, Paco?”

“You’re right, jefe, but we need a better name. Meanwhile, you two heroes gotta promise you won’t start bragging about who was the best and the fastest. You’ll end up shooting each other, and then I’d be a sidekick with no boss.”

El Antílope raises his hand in a solemn oath.

“I swear it will be so. You have welcomed me, and for that I am grateful.”

“Si, and I, Raul Garcia, swear the same.”

“Well done, my friends. Now, here under the shining stars, I name this place the Camp of Old Heroes.”

He waves the bottle at the night sky.

“Look how the stars shine. We are nothing to them. Maybe we will see a shooting star and it will bring us luck.”

As if his words bear prophecy, a fiery trail shoots across the heavens. El Antílope gasps. The others turn to him, see his starlit face staring open-mouthed at the firmament.

“What is it, hombre? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

El Antílope shakes his head, still staring at the stars.

“I remember! Dios mio, I remember!”

“What do you remember?”

“My name, the name I was born with. My mother called me Miguel. Yes, that’s my name, Miguel.”

Miguel drops his eyes from the stars. He wipes tears from his cheeks and smiles at his new compadres. Paco passes him the bottle.

“Welcome back, Miguel.”

Raul reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.“Si, amigo, welcome home.”