La Sierra Mixe, part V

We descended out of the Sierra Mixe into the void of the Oaxacan night, far outside the city. Juan Carlos pushed the car until it shuddered at speeds it wasn’t designed to sustain. 

In the backseat @antimodel said, “Maybe he can slow down a bit. There’s no seat belt back here, and I’ll be the first to die.”

Juan Carlos turned to me. “Do you want to stop at La Cueva del Diablo?”

“Um, no, I think we’re good. It’s late. We’ve had a long day. You must be tired,” I said. 

“You scared?” he asked me. 

I looked back to Brandise. “Do you want to stop at the Devil’s Cave?” I hoped she’d say no. 

“Yeah! Do you?”

I swallowed. 

“We can stop, Juan Carlos. Brandise wants to see the cave.”

He reversed up the highway a couple hundred meters and pulled off to the side. 

“I see eyes glowing in there,” Brandise whispered. 

“Those are candles, aren’t they?”

“No. They’re eyes.”

I swallowed again and got out to meet the devil. 

The engine clicked as it cooled, and a dog in the woods near the cave barked, growled and thrashed without pause. 

We lit our flashlights and edged down a spillway to the cave. A pickup truck skidded into the lot, blocking our car. The devil awaited us in his cave, and the truck driver shut off his lights. The dog barked with more insane fury and I heard Juan Carlos talking. The young couple in the truck wanted to know how long we’d be in the cave to give us privacy. 

Things we couldn’t see scuttled in the dark. Thousands of burned-out candles piled atop beer bottles. A white chicken with a fatal wound was on the ground. I almost stepped on a dead creature that looked half-bat, half-bird. Candles burned deep in the cave. A gasoline can and marigolds offered confusion. 

We took some pictures and breathed the cold air. Back in the car we sat quietly as we sped back to the city, the cab shuddering while Juan Carlos struggled to stay awake. He dropped us near the Zocalo, and we said farewell. 

Walking back, Brandise said, “We should have done something with the chicken.”