Sal

by Melissa Nunez

We are heading back to the car from our journey to La Sal del Rey, a salt lake and historical landmark in Edinburg, Texas. Traveling in reverse the winding trail of thornscrub familiars—retamas, mesquite, hackberries, and prickly pears. We are all tired; we trudge. It feels as if the sun slingshot over spring and straight to summer. Ready for relentless shine. My children, delighted with the salt crystals shimmering in the sand, like so much glitter scattered over this section of earth, are now disenchanted with the whole trip. Now that our shadows have disappeared underfoot, the naked flesh of our arms, legs and backs of necks drenched in beating heat. 

The salt lake was less and more than I thought. From a distance all I saw was shore, salt-crusted earth. It crunched and crackled under our feet. As we got farther out, I finally saw the shimmering silhouette of reflected sky. It looked vast in its murky expanse. I walked out into the water, stepped in ankle deep where the water remained as far out as I ventured. The water was hot, almost to the point of discomfort. The ground beneath my feet brittle. Solid at one step and cracking the next, sinking slightly under my weight. Slick and grainy in combination of salt and silt. I was surprised how clear the water was. From a distance it looked brown, but that was the silt. Each step I took disturbed the loose earth and obstructed my view. But when I stepped over the sections of pure salt, the solid white beneath my feet, I could see clear through to my skin and the bed beneath.

As we near the gate to the parking lot, we pass another family heading towards the lake. My husband and I smile, we say hello. They are only the third group of people we have sighted here today. I was surprised to see even that many as we did not pick the best time to visit, one o’clock now at our near departure. 

In the time we’d been here, an hour or two, sweat had collected on my face, the salt in the wind sticking to my skin. The salinity of my lips caught me off guard. I could tell by the grinding grit when skin met skin that it was the same on every exposed surface. I imagined what it was like to come here in search of salt. Surrounded by mesquite trees which provide pods to gather and grind. The nopales, just beginning to bloom, which would offer green pads and purple-red fruit. I imagined what it would be like to gather here with not just my family but all others who come for the same purpose: collect what is needed to survive. In the sand I saw the stuttering sprint of the piping plover, the wading long-billed curlew, the tracks of deer and javelina leading from lake to vegetation line. Skeletal remains that evinced coyote. All come to the water.

“Why did you do that?” my three-year-old asks. 

“Do what?” I respond.

“Why did you say hi to them. Those are not my people.”

He has a way of stringing words together, expressing his observations in ways that make me stop and think. 

“Any people can be our people,” I say. “When you are friendly and kind.”

Then came those that were adamant on containment of territory. Claiming land and minerals, fruit of the earth, for sole profit. I imagined what it would be like if people could still come here without the protection of the national preserve to just wonder, observe, partake what is needed and not destroy. Leaving enough behind to know you can journey back again and again, that your people, my people could claim community.