“Hey! Don’t go anywhere!” the blonde man yelled to the figure on the top of the mesa.

For his part, the man looked down at the man struggling up the trail in flip flops and a tank top then turned back to staring out over Albuquerque far below.

“Man, we’re up here, aren’t we!” The blonde man said, panting for breath. Then realizing he didn’t have to pant because he wasn’t actually breathing, he gathered himself and said “I knew you were, you know…” he gestured between himself and the stranger “a ghost, like me. Apparently.”

The stranger with a face weathered like cracked stone of the mesa regarded the blonde man again, then scratched his long, scraggly black beard, and again turned back to the view.

“Jake,” the blonde man said. “I’m Jake. Jake is me, I mean… Bro!” he jumped up and down in excitement. Then, getting a hold of himself, “Sorry, man, sorry. It’s just been, you know, so long since I’ve seen another, you know… like us…” he finished with a whisper, “ghost.”

The bearded stranger raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, man. I didn’t know if using the ‘G’ word was, you know, like some kind of like slur of the afterlife or something. I mean, do you prefer, like, non-living? Or formerly alive? Wandering spirit…”

“Francisco Rodríguez,” the stranger spoke a voice that sounded like stones grinding together.

Jake shook his head in surprise and staggered back against a juniper tree.

“Whoa, whoa… Francisco? That’s you, yeah? You’re Francisco? You speak English?” He added in exaggerated Spanish, “Hablo Ingles?”

Francisco regarded the blonde man with a look that suggested he might have regretted speaking at all. He nodded once. “I speak. We are both energy and you understand what I say. It is not a language of words.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” Jake said, unsure what to follow that up with. The sun shone down on the sagebrush. Jake knew it must be well over a hundred degrees, but he didn’t feel the heat at all. A breeze blew up through the canyons below and swept past them, causing the branches of the juniper to sway lazily.

“So,” Jake broke the silence, “We’re both, you know, dead. I’ll start… I died like… dude… a week ago? I rolled my jeep right over….” He stepped next to Francisco and pointed further down the canyon, “…there. Tyler was already hammered, so he couldn’t drive. I was pretty bad, too, but, you know, someone had to get us back to camp.” He was quiet for a moment. “Guess that probably shouldn’t have been me!” he broke out laughing. After a moment when he noticed Francisco not laughing he stopped. “What’s your story, man? I mean, you’ve clearly been here for a while. You know, I just got here – I mean, you know, the whole ghost, dead thing. What can you tell me, bro? What’s up?”

Francisco settled his dark gaze on Jake for long moments without saying anything. When he spoke Jake had that same sense that the ghost’s voice resonated like a rock slide. “I came with Coronado,” he began. He pointed to the southwest, “We came up from Mexico. 1540 I think. We wintered there,” he pointed due west, “Tiwa Pueblo village. We drove them out, took it for ourselves.” He stayed quiet for a long time. “They killed some of our horses. We massacred them. Burned the last survivors at the stake.”

“That’s some heavy shit, bro,” Jake nodded sagely.

“I was one of the few Spanish casualties. I watched the burning. Coronado leading the men back south to Mexico. The few Tiwa left alive returned. The town below,” he gestured towards Albuquerque, “I saw it founded and watched it grow. Watched the white men take over, build roads, resorts…” He sighed deeply. “I see the desolation.” His eyes bored into Jake “I see the very rock crumble and watch everything blossom and die and rot.”

“Bro,” Jake said quietly but seriously, “You are a serious buzzkill.”

Francisco did something that truly terrified Jake – he smiled. And then he laughed. The sound made Jake take an involuntary step backwards, tripping over the juniper tree. “Jake,” he said, the word sounding decidedly foreign. “You are barely a ghost. You are younger than the flowers on this sagebrush,” he said looking down at the tiny pale yellow flowers.

“Yeah, well, that’s true enough…”

“I pray like this flower you blossom and fade.”

“Fade?”

Francisco looked up at Jake and caught his gaze. “Find your peace, Jake. Find why you are still here. Move on.”

“But, I kind of like hanging out…”

“No,” Francisco said with the decisiveness of a thunderclap. “We are meant to live and die and fade. No one should exist for nearly six hundred years. I have long since cried my regrets to the wind. She is deaf to me. I am fated to remain a part of this wilderness. But not you, Jake. Find your reason. Find your peace.”

Jake regarded Francisco as the ancient ghost stood as stock still as the stone itself. They both stood and watched the sun begin to sink towards the horizon and the shadows lengthening. At last Jake said “Thank you, Francisco. I will take your advice. I will move on. I will find my peace.”

“Good,” Francisco said.

“But first I’m going to go over that ridge and scare the shit out of the campers over there,” he said and took off at an awkward run in his flipflops.

Francisco watched him go, rolled his eyes and said, “Kids…”