Inherit the Earth

Again, Martinez' prose is exquisite and light in words, but heavy in thought and meaning. She says, simply, "those who perish as they make their brutal pilgrimage", leaving it to the reader to decipher the horror these people go through. She doesn't abandon the reader to his own musings, though. She mentions brutality, yes, but also illustrates, or, makes suggestions, to the reader, guiding his thought in the right direction... "Fourteen men who died in triple-digit heat... abandoned..." Like the other piece we read, she takes you only so far, but makes sure you get the picture. It's a little round-about, a little naive in her hesitancy to say what it is she's thinking, what it is that really happened. It can be annoying, also. Then again, her pieces are not about the physical suffering of a people, but the hope and drive behind their risking their lives, and the forces that drive them to do it in the first place, and the Spartan resoluteness to acheive a better life.