And the Lord said unto Moses … Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shall smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.
Exodus 17:5–6
That year, I cleared the gully for planting. Often, Moisés would watch me. He is strong and wiry, but it’s not worth asking him to help; he just gets distracted and wanders off. After I finished sowing—on the third of May—I climbed to the ridge-top. Moisés was already sitting in the shade of the old quebracho, half-leaning on his walking-stick. He handed me a gourd with water, and I drank deeply. I gave him a tortilla and a piece of Elvira’s cheese. For a while, we gazed southwards, where the blue of the Gulf of Fonseca and the volcanoes of Nicaragua were just visible.
Moisés pointed behind me, to El Toro, the mountain above our village.
‘Water,’ he said.
‘You think it’s true, Moche, that El Toro is full of water?’
People believe that the inside of the mountain is just a vast water-filled cavern.
‘Water,’ he said, now pointing skywards.
Moisés is twenty-five. No one knows why he is how he is. He speaks little, except to Anselma, his grandmother, who raised him. He likes animals and children, and they like him. He climbs trees and rocks. He makes predictions, and many come true. Sometimes he has convulsions and sometimes he is morose, like he’s sad about his problems.
The rain started at around 8 pm. It rained gently all night.
It didn’t rain the next day, or the Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. On the Thursday, my seeds were germinating, bright green in the dry soil. A week later, the sky was still cloudless, and people were hauling buckets from the river to their crops.
✦
‘This fucking wind … it’s pure February,’ Pepe said.
Late afternoon of the fifteenth; a group of us were sitting around an open fire under the ceiba near the house. The dry, hot wind moved the leafless branches above us. As we talked, Moisés arrived. He sat against a buttress. He listened, his serious dark eyes always on whoever was speaking.
‘It was never like this before,’ said Chente. ‘It started raining the same time every year, like clockwork.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Pepe. ‘People always say things were better before. Like they say El Toro is full of water.’
‘My great-grandfather knew a man who’d been inside it,’ Chente said.
‘And mine used to dance at midnight with the devil,’ Pepe said.
‘Santísima Trinidad,’ said Ofelia, Elvira’s mother, crossing herself. ‘Lord, forgive this sinner and answer our prayers as you did for the Israelites of old.’
‘Amen,’ said most of us.
‘What we need,’ said Elvira, ‘is a Moisés to smite the rock.’
Later, Elvira told me that at the time she hadn’t been thinking of Moche. Odd—we call our children Jesús, María, José, Moisés, but then they become Chuta, Maruca, Joche, Moche, like we’re afraid to offend their namesakes.
While the fire burned low, the sky grew dark, and Venus rose in the west, Chente told the story of his great-grandfather’s friend’s adventure inside El Toro. It wasn’t until he’d finished that I noticed that Moisés had left.
The wind was still blowing hot and dry.
✦
House-shaking explosions in the sky woke me in the early hours. The deluge came instantaneously; it seemed the roof might collapse under its force. When I stepped outside at dawn, it was still raining. I rubbed my arms, feeling cold. The river was rumbling and groaning. As I stood in the doorway, a figure appeared by the ceiba, pausing after the climb from the river. Anselma. She told me Moisés was missing.
I sent Pedrito to the comandancia, but I knew he’d be pressed even to wake them. Anyway, I thought I knew where to find Moisés. I woke Pepe, and we left for El Toro.
An hour later, we reached the foot of the mountain, where the path levels and skirts the sheer rock. After a while, we rounded a rocky shoulder, and our search was over. We were facing a deep ravine. At its head was a brilliant white waterfall. Moisés sat near its base, gazing upwards, walking-stick in hand, trousers torn, and shins bloody. I touched his shoulder. He looked around and then pointed up towards the top of the waterfall. It looked as if as if the water was pouring straight out of the mountain.
We started back, taking turns to support him. The rain stopped. At the house, we found Anselma and Ofelia talking and drinking coffee. Anselma embraced Moisés briefly and said to us, ‘may God bless you.’
Pepe had tremendous fun telling everyone that the rock had smitten Moisés instead of Moisés smiting the rock. But Anselma, after talking with Moche, told Ofelia what really happened up there on El Toro. Ofelia told Elvira, and Elvira told me. But that’s a story for another day.
© Tropical Writers Inc 2025