The Only Road Page 10

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Jaime picked up other details. Or, more specifically, other people. Figures darted from behind one car to another. Stealth shadows flickered over the top of some of the cargo cars. Jaime gulped. The cars were much taller than he imagined, and the train could go faster than an automobile. Falling from the cars would not be a small bump like the plastic men endured when he and Miguel used to play with trains. New worry filled his head. With every shadow he saw, he wondered if it was Xavi, Joaquín, or even Rafa. Would Jaime ever see them again?

  He pulled the straps of his backpack tighter around his shoulders. The edge of his sketchbook dug into his spine as if to reassure him it was still there. He rotated his banged ankle. It still felt tender but not enough to keep him from walking—or running if he had to.

  From the corner of his eye he caught Ángela taking a deep breath. Then she nodded, as if trying to reassure him that everything was fine. He knew her better than that. She was just as scared as he was, but pretended otherwise for his sake. In turn, he pretended he believed that everything was fine.

  An insect made a soft chirp and with that, the man pointed to Jaime,  Ángela, and two others, waved his tattooed arm, and took off close to the ground like a coyote. The chosen four ran after him to the shadow of an abandoned hopper car. From there, their tattooed guide motioned for the second four to scurry over. Jaime squeezed Ángela’s hand and they dashed to the open-topped hopper, keeping close to the ground with their heads scrunched between their shoulders like turtles.

  Between the train wheels they saw the legs of a uniformed man pass in front of the hopper. His boots shuffled on the ground as if he were bored and looking forward to the end of his shift. Any second he would check behind and underneath the train car and see them all.

  Ángela linked her elbow through Jaime’s and kept him tight to her side. If Miguel had been there, he would have thought of some way to distract the guard because Miguel always knew what to do, how to solve problems.

  The sound of a match being lit hit their ears, followed by the unmistakable smell of a cigarette. The armed man seemed to forget he hadn’t surveyed the shadows in the hopper behind him as he should have. Jaime couldn’t help but wonder if Miguel was somehow responsible for the distraction. Just thinking of his cousin made him feel braver. Querido Miguel, he prayed like he had on the bus. Please help us stay safe.

  Their leader wasted no time and had them sprinting across an open stretch to the next shadow-concealing car. With Jaime still linked to his cousin, this run was awkward, like they were newborn calves. Jaime kept his eyes on the ground and repeated inside his head, If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. Miguel, the scientist, would have teased Jaime for his superstitious belief. Another warming thought.

  Men shouted and a gun fired. Jaime and Ángela sprinted with all their might, their steps falling in sync. It wasn’t until they were once again crouched in the shadows of a train car, shaking like a bowl of gelatina, that Jaime realized the gunshot had been fired somewhere else in the train yard.

  “Adentro.” Their guide ordered them inside a boxcar attached to many other cargo cars.

  The opening was only about half a meter wide—a couple of men had to turn sideways to get in. Ángela pushed Jaime forward to go before her. The separation from his cousin almost made him cry out for her. Adrenaline from the gunshot still made his heart beat faster than ever. What if they took her away, didn’t let her get on the train? He looked around the train car. In the darkness he couldn’t see anything. He didn’t know what kind of train ride he expected, but it hadn’t been this. He choked down another cry.

  Jaime crawled on his hands and knees until he felt another person and the corner of the metal enclosure. With his backpack against the metal wall, he hugged his knees as he stared at the opening. A figure that looked more like shadow came next. That couldn’t be Ángela. Unless the shadow had already devoured her. Where was she? A high-pitched whine escaped his body. It had happened. What he feared more than dying. He was all alone and would never see his cousin again.

  “Jaime,” came a whisper.

  “Aquí,” he replied. A second later the monstrous shadow crashed into him. He grabbed the hand, bringing it to his face. A faint smell of mangos and dog came from it. “Is that you?”

  “Claro,” said the voice he’d recognize anywhere. He expected her to tease him for freaking out and not being able to be alone for fifteen seconds, but she wrapped him in her arms and kissed the top of his head.

  Outside, the streetlights had been scarce. Inside, the car was almost pitch-black except for the opening, which let in minimal light. People kept entering, more than the others who had been in the van with them. Sometimes seconds apart, other times at several-minute intervals. No one said anything other than the occasional hushed “¡ay!” when stepped on.

  A couple of people began to snore. As tired as he was, Jaime kept his eyes on the opening. If one of the armed men poked his gun through, there’d be no hope for anyone.

  With an eerie metallic shriek the door thundered closed. The clanging sound of a bar sliding across metal jerked the sleepers awake. Panic and adrenaline rose in Jaime. Some people screamed. He clung tighter to Ángela. They were locked in a pitch-black train car with no way of getting out, prisoners in their escape for freedom.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The train lurched and rattled as it pulled out of the rail yard. There were no seats to fall off, but everyone still bumped into one another as the train was set in motion.

  “Help, help!”

  “Get us out of here!”

  Two people screamed and banged on the locked sliding door. The children who had been in the van with their mamá started crying again.

  “Shut up, fools. Do you want to get us all deported?” warned a voice low and deep in the car. Jaime recognized the voice as the man with the bandanna. The children and one of the other voices quieted down.

  The other man continued his hysteria. “I don’t care. Anything is better than dying here.”

  The sound of a body being knocked into the metal wall shook the whole car. There was a whimper, and the deep bandanna voice once again cautioned,“The more you scream, the more oxygen you’re using, and the quicker we all die. Everyone shut up.”

  No one said anything, but a murmur passed through the car. This was it. This would be how they ended their journey. So much for the first-class cabin with comfy seats and AC. They were no better off than cattle going off to be slaughtered. Except maybe cattle cars had more ventilation. Jaime wondered how long they had, how much oxygen was left in the car. If only Miguel were here. He was the one good at math and science. He would know how much time they had left.

  Not that it mattered, Jaime supposed, as he shifted his backpack to a more comfortable position and leaned into Ángela. The lurching of the train was surprisingly soothing. If they had ten minutes, or ten hours, dead was dead.

  • • •

  Jaime woke up slowly. Information entered his brain in incoherent bursts. Math. His sketchbook. The smell of dog. Gunshots. A rocking motion. Dead.

  For a few moments he wondered if this was what it was like to find himself in Heaven. He tried to look around but couldn’t see anything. Then he opened his eyes.

  The freight car was dark, but it wasn’t pitch-black anymore. He could just make out shapes and mounds of people, but nothing that would identify one from the other. He knew Ángela was still next to him only because he would have felt her move if she had. A few pinpricked holes where rust had eaten away the metal sprinkled the car with sunlight like a disco ball. A thin gap between the floor and the sliding metal door also provided faint light from under the train. The ventilation these holes provided was minimal, and with all the people crammed inside, it was stuffy. The rising heat in the car didn’t help.

  Jaime shifted and rotated his stiff neck. Just above his head was one of the pinprick ventilation holes. H
e raised himself to kneeling to peer out. Between the tiny hole and the speed of the train, he could see nothing but rushing shades of green with an occasional bit of gray. Squinting through such a tiny hole gave him a headache, and he raised his nose to the opening instead. A tiny stream of fresh air tickled him, and he had to turn away to keep from sneezing. Next to him the bundle that was Ángela moved her head from one side to the other but didn’t wake up.

  His stomach grumbled, but he ignored it. Better wait until Ángela awoke and they could eat together. Thank goodness they still had a couple tamales and mangos that Abuela had packed for them.

  He settled back down against the metal frame and pulled out his sketchbook and one of his remaining good pencils. He opened the book toward the back, where he knew there were blank pages. He couldn’t see the paper, much less the lead lines, but it was an experiment, a new stretch of his artistic abilities. Besides, there was nothing else to do aboard the train.

  In his mind he imagined what each gesture of the pencil created on the page and a couple times turned the pencil over to erase what he’d drawn, or thought he’d drawn. He could only go by feel and sense, and more than anything, guess. Still, he enjoyed the challenge of this new drawing style. It made him pay attention to his sketch in new ways. If he ever saw sunlight again, he’d be interested to see how it all turned out, how abstract it would be: the drawing of people huddled and trapped in a dark train car with nothing but minuscule disco lights to ventilate and show the way.

  He was just adding texture to what he hoped were the ridges of the metal walls above the huddled bundles when someone made the first comment of the morning.

  “Mamá, I need to go pee-pee,” said one of the children, the girl.

  Everyone began shuffling, waking those who were asleep. People stood and ran their hands along the walls as if searching for some compartment no one had found yet. Of course, there was nothing. Padre Kevin had said there were no toilets, had insisted, several times, that they use the bathroom before boarding the train. Other than the strip where the door didn’t quite reach the floor, there were no holes by their feet.

  “Can you hold it?” the mamá said.

  “No.”

  “Then go along that crack by the door. We could be here for a while.”

  People shifted again, and those who had been strategically placed near the opening grumbled at having to give up their prime airy real estate.

  “Great, now any fresh air we get will reek of urine,” vibrated the deep bandanna voice from last night.

  It didn’t. At least not right away. Jaime and Ángela got through a shared tamale and mango, eating the peel and sucking the juice from the large center stone, which kept the stuffy air pleasant instead of foul. Someone on the train ate an orange, another some kind of cured meat like chorizo.

  “Excuse me, señor.” The little girl tapped Jaime on the leg. “Can we have the mango once you’re done?”

  It felt like a stone the size of the mango’s center lodged in Jaime’s throat. There was no juice left on their mango. He and Miguel used to compete to see who could leave a mango stone drier; Jaime usually won. Except now. This niñita obviously needed that extra juice more than he did.

  “This banana leaf has some masa stuck to it. You can have that, mamita.” Ángela offered their tamale wrapper and then, as an afterthought, one of Abuela’s tortillas.

  “You might as well take the rest of this orange, too,” grumbled the bandanna man. “It’s too sour for my taste.”

  A few other people offered to share what little food they had with the children. Their mamá kept thanking and blessing everyone. It was hard to tell with the minimal light, but Jaime was pretty sure she didn’t take any food for herself.

  “Oye.” Jaime spoke in a more optimistic, cheery voice than he felt as an attempt to distract them from their hunger. “Do you know this tongue twister? I bet you can’t say it really fast, un tigre, dos tigres, tres tigres. Try it.”

  The two children, and then soon the whole train, joined in with the tongue twisters. The little girl, Eva, was particularly good while her older brother, Ivan, kept laughing trying to say, Pancha plancha con cuatro planchas.

  The tongue twisters lightened the mood until the train abrubtly stopped. Everyone turned to stare at the door, waiting to see if it would open. It didn’t, and after a while the train lunged back into motion, making its way north and west. Everyone in their car let out a massive sigh, of disappointment the door hadn’t opened, of relief that they hadn’t been caught. This happened again the next time the train stopped, and again, and again, until Jaime lost count of how many stops they’d made.

  A couple times Jaime thought of Xavi, Rafa, and Joaquín, as well as some of the other boys who’d played fútbol with them, wondering where they were and if they were okay. Back in the train yard he’d prayed for Miguel’s protection. He didn’t know if he was allowed to ask Miguel to look out for their friends as well. It couldn’t hurt.

  “Do you remember the time Mamá was cooling a hot iron on the bed?” The tongue twister of Pancha plancha beat like a mantra in Jaime’s already pounding head. The train car seemed to be getting hotter by the second. “She warned us to be careful.”

  Ángela let out a breath that might have been a giggle. “But Miguel jumped on the bed a second later, and landed smack on the hot iron.”

  “He said later that the bed looked so soft, he forgot all about the warning and didn’t see the iron.” Jaime smiled at the thought of his cousin. Oh, Miguel.

  “He had the burn mark for months,” Ángela remembered.

  “But he still kept jumping on the bed whenever he came over.” Jaime struggled to take a few deep breaths. The train car was getting stuffier. “I really miss him.”

  “Me too.” Ángela sighed before wrapping an arm around Jaime’s shoulders and planting a kiss on the back of his head, not knowing where his face was in the dark.

  The smell really got bad when one of the older men followed the little girl’s example and used the space between the floor and door as a bathroom as well. It didn’t help that the temperature was getting hotter, and soon everyone was sweating.

  The side walls became too hot to lean against, and everyone was forced to huddle in the middle of the car, touching the people next to them, which in turn created more body heat. The man next to Jaime smelled particularly ripe. Jaime drank some water, aware that the more he drank, the less he’d have for later and the more likely he’d need to use the designated pee spot. Still, he drained half the bottle without realizing it. He’d never been so hot. He took off his shirt and wanted to remove his jeans, which stuck to his legs, but he didn’t dare. Not when there was so much money sewed into them, not in such a dark car where he’d never be able to find them again.

  “Keep your shoes on as well,” Ángela whispered in his ear so softly, the people next to him wouldn’t have heard.

  “¿Por qué?”

  Ángela hesitated, as if she were looking around to see if anyone was watching and listening. Impossible to tell in the speckled darkness. “It’s something César said at the church. If anything happens, and you need to run, it’s the people without shoes who are more likely to get caught.”

  Others on the train hadn’t heard César’s advice; foot stench added to the bouquet of odors. Not that Jaime wanted to add to the bad smell, but it sure would feel nice to air out his feet. “We don’t need to worry about that in here. No one’s going anywhere.”

  “Still doesn’t mean we can trust them. We don’t even know what most of them look like.”

  Jaime glanced at the closed door. If . . . when someone finally opened it, there’d be no place to run, no way to escape. But he supposed Ángela had a point. It would take a few seconds to put his shoes back on and a few seconds could make all the difference. He couldn’t risk losing his shoes anymore than he could risk losing his jeans.

  He wished he could trust these people. They were all on the same journey—they should h
elp each other, especially seeing as they were locked in the train car together. Sure, there was a moment of bonding with the tongue twisters and giving the kids scraps of food. But when it came down to it, they were only going to look after themselves. And anything that could help them get ahead could be used. Even shoes.

  He used his shirt to mop the sweat from his face and then flapped it in front of him to shift the air. It didn’t do any good. The temperature in the car kept rising.

  “It’s like an oven in here. We’re being cooked alive!” The same voice that had complained last night started yelling and banging on the door. Once again the train had made a stop, but there was no telling where they were.

  Rattles and clanks came from outside. The boxcar shifted and bumped, making the screaming people yell louder. Jaime wondered whether anyone outside could even hear them.

  Others joined in the banging, desperate to get anyone’s attention. A few even put their mouths near the gap under the door that had become the urinal to shout. This time, the deep-voiced man didn’t try to stop them. Jaime thought about joining the shouting party—more voices would make it louder—but he didn’t have the energy to get up, and forget about shouting. Much easier to stay in the center of the car with his shirt pressed against his face. There was still the faintest smell of home from the soap his mamá used.

  I wonder, Jaime thought, though even that required more concentration than normal, if we’re in Medias Aguas. That would explain the clangs and shrieks of metal against metal if their car was being detached and reattached. Or it could be monsters, he supposed. Monsters taking over the train. I wonder what they look like . . .