Paniagua was so named from an early Spanish settler’s misspelled contraction of pan y agua, meaning literally “bread and water”. Places were onced named for their distinguishing characteristics unlike today, and if one’s eyes were to be laid upon the solitary quality of this westerly land one would see as why a virgin to this land would so optimistically pronounce it to be the land where wheat and water could be brought up out of the ground. A small town sprung up where, years after the lonely Spaniard, Americans planted seed and began making a little money.

Dessie Hardin stood aside a crooked tin mailbox. It’s white paint faintly visible for all the years of the wind’s toying, the sun’s blinding whiteness and the quick shutting of its often vacant space by disapointed inquierers. Its lid hung sadly by one bolt like a rust colored tongue, searching for its sustenance, for its purpose. Even autumn provided enough heat to birth mirages from the ground, and Dessie was without shade. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her small hand. She had never waited for the post-man before. Eleven sent and all the while she was losing hope. Any suspicion crossed her mind. Perhaps someone was taking her letters out before the post-man got to them. Maybe the post-man just ignores this garbage mailbox in this garbage town. Always too much postage arranged neatly across fat envelopes. Eleven sent and all the while she was losing hope. Damn she whispered into the clear air. Only the hungry mailbox heard.

A daughter of the land, Dessie has that café con leche skin of her Mexican mother and straight auburn hair plucked from her father’s Irish ancestry. She had, since her birth, never known what it was to be with two loving parent’s. Her father was a drunk. Lost, it was whispered, just two towns over. If the rumors had been true, Dessie never showed the desire to find him out, but she rarely showed much interest in anything. The singularity of thought which plagues those who reserve their emotional investments carefully often borders on obsession, and Dessie had been sharpened throughout her life to be reserved and thoughtful to the point of coldness to those closest to her. Eleven sent and she’d received none in return.

Robert left in March. It seemed to her that as soon as they finally began dating, it wasn’t long before he lost his mind and did something to throw it all away. He’d undone the best thing that had ever happened to either of them, and it was his loss which bothered Dessie even more than her own. Didn’t he know what she would have done for him? Eggs Benedict and coffee before his vascular brown hands went to work breaking horses. Beautiful children with light green eyes and Mexican skin. He’d never been an idiot, but the loss that pained Dessie pushed aside her love for him and replaced it with a metallic bitterness. She saw clearly what had happened and was already preparing for the life she’d live now.

“I want to go to college” she’d told her mother.

“You need to get a scholarship, cause I sure as shit ain’t payin’ for’it”

Dessie poured boiling water out of a pot onto a glass casserole dish caked with dark, burnt remnants of something not very appetizing to begin with.

“Well,” she thought. “My grades were well enough, and if I start waiting next week, I can pay a semester at San Luis Poly.”

She remembered what he’d told her in March. He told her what a damaged place the world was. As if she hadn’t noticed. He spoke with a deep, level tone.

“I can’t just stay around and rot, seeing the same evil people day in and day out. I’ve gotta go out and learn how to be a man, I need to find what God’s put out there for me. It’s like there’s a hand dead center on my back and its pushing me forward to who-knows-what. All I know is that I have to go. I love you, though, you know.”

“I know” she said, and looked down at his boots covered with the red-clay earth of Paniagua.