The Mirror Signal

Mauricio had planned a two-day walk across the high plateau of the Cuchumatanes. He was going alone, with a tent, a map, and the old compass his grandfather had given him. It was the kind that folds open. Inside the lid there was a little mirror, so you could read the needle and the map at the same time. "It also helps you to check if your face is clean," his grandfather used to joke.

On the first afternoon, he was crossing a slope of loose stones when the ground moved under his boots. He slid about ten meters into a narrow ravine and landed badly on his left foot. Within an hour, his ankle had swelled up like a balloon. Down there, his phone had no signal at all.

He wasn't completely unprepared, though. Before leaving, he had told his sister which route he was going to take and when he expected to be back. So he decided to stay where he was, to drink his water slowly, and to wait. By the third day, the bottle was almost empty.

Around noon on the third day, the sun was beating down on the rocks when he heard it: the deep, steady sound of a helicopter. Someone was looking for him. It was flying far to the east. Mauricio stood on his good foot and waved his red jacket over his head. The helicopter kept flying in a straight line. From up there, he was just another tiny spot among thousands of gray stones.

Then he remembered the compass. With clumsy fingers, he opened the lid and turned the mirror until it caught the sun. A bright spot of light appeared on the rock in front of him. He stretched out his other arm toward the helicopter and made a V with two fingers. Then he moved the light until it sat between them. Carefully, he began to tilt the mirror, again and again, to send flash after flash at the helicopter.

For a few long seconds, nothing happened. Then the helicopter slowed down, turned in a wide circle, and came back toward the ravine, lower this time.

That evening, Mauricio was lying in a hospital bed with ice on his ankle. The pilot, a woman with a gray braid, came in to see how he was doing. "We were about to turn back to refuel," she said. "Then we saw a star in the middle of the day."