The Only Road Read online

  “We were lucky. The train kept stopping to load and unload cargo, or sometimes for security checkpoints. A lot of people would jump off when the train slowed down, not knowing what kind of danger was up ahead. Then after we passed the town or the checkpoint, new people would get on.”

  “But you didn’t get off. Were people scared and jumping off for no reason?” Ángela asked.

  Xavi took a while to answer. Jaime put down his sketchbook to stare at the older boy.

  “No, there was a reason,” he said to the concrete road above his head. “Gangs run the tracks. Migra officers sometimes work with them. It was dark and we were either still in Chiapas or just into Oaxaca when twenty gang members got on board. They demanded money and threatened anyone who didn’t pay up. One boy about Jaime’s age insulted them. They caught him, threw him off the train, and shot him in the air like a pigeon. I don’t even think they killed him. I imagine him lying helpless by the tracks, bleeding to death.”

  Ángela removed the hand that had been petting Joaquín’s hair to place it on Xavi’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have done anything for him.”

  “I know, but he wasn’t the only one. Another boy tried to get on board, slipped, and was gobbled up by the train in an instant. Didn’t even derail the car.” Xavi turned away from the underside of the bridge to roll over on his side, one hand holding up his head as the other took Ángela’s hand. “I’m glad you weren’t there. The gang was horrible to one girl. We kept hearing her screams. If we had tried to help her, they would have done the same to us. Joaquín didn’t stop shaking for hours afterward. I don’t think he’s slept in days.”

  The young boy didn’t even shift at the sound of his name. His breathing remained deep and steady as if he were on a feather mattress in a grand hotel instead of under a concrete bridge with a leg for a pillow.

  “How did you three avoid the gangs?” Jaime asked softly, not sure if he wanted to know. He couldn’t think of any explanation that didn’t involve bribery or agreeing to join the gang themselves.

  Again Xavi took a few seconds to respond, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to relive what happened. “I helped out César. Remember him from the fútbol games? He tripped trying to board the train, but somehow I caught him and got him on safely. He’d been on the trains six times already, but kept getting deported back to the Guatemalan border once he got farther north. One of those times he must have gotten friendly with the train gang; I didn’t notice until we were riding with him that he had their tattoo of a bleeding heart on the underside of his wrist. The gang left him alone and because we were next to him, they left us alone too. With la migra, he pointed out where immigrants were hiding and gave them other information in exchange for our safety. I almost wish we had jumped off at each stop along with the rest of the people.”

  Ángela lifted Xavi’s hand and shook it to show him she wasn’t letting go. “But then we wouldn’t have seen you again.”

  Xavi tried to smile but then shook his head no. He didn’t release Ángela’s hand either. “Back home I never would have associated with a bottom-feeder like that. Here I hate feeling so helpless, like I have no choice. Is it worth going against your morals just to stay alive? I don’t know.”

  While Ángela consoled Xavi, Jaime opened up his sketchbook and glanced through the pages. There were drawings of Miguel’s funeral and the people on the bus. Of Ángela and Xavi dancing in front of the bonfire, and the blind sketches he’d done in the dark train car, slightly distorted and creepy with elongated skulls and askew mouths half on the face, half floating in the air beside the person. He went back to the beginning and found the drawings of his family—Papá, Mamá, Abuela, Miguel, Tíos Daniel and Rosario, Rosita with her baby, Quico. He missed them. Maybe he should have let the Alphas recruit him, just to see his family every day.

  But then they would have made him someone he wasn’t. And what would have happened if the Alphas had made him hurt someone he loved? Ángela, or another cousin. He wouldn’t have been able to do it. Like Xavi, he could only hope that this whole journey would be worth it. He owed his family that much.

  • • •

  Whether it was the low growl from Vida or the click of a gun being cocked, the five woke up with a start from their puppy-pile sleeping arrangements.

  Dawn wasn’t too far off and the streetlight that shone into their bridge cave was still on. Jaime didn’t need to blink for his eyes to register a teen with a shaved head holding a pistol at them.

  “Good morning.” He grinned as if he were holding out a cup of café instead of a pistol. He glared at them with red eyes that didn’t seem to focus. “Which of you wants to do us a favor?”

  No one said anything. Jaime held his breath, unable to move. It was like he was a clay model, waiting for a sculptor to mold him into shape. Even Miguel wouldn’t know what to do.

  The bald teen laughed and pointed the gun directly at Joaquín’s head. “What about you, little boy. Don’t you want to reach El Norte? We’ll help you, if you help us.”

  Joaquín cowered but kept his wide eyes on the gun. Everyone did. The word “help” stabbed Jaime like a bad memory.

  “What kind of favor are we talking about?” Rafa asked slowly. The gun shifted to him in an instant.

  Jaime cringed. Couldn’t Rafa for once just keep his mouth shut?

  “Ah, a volunteer,” the guy said with a cackle like an evil witch.

  Rafa paled slightly but pretended to keep his cool. “No, just want more information.”

  The pistol waved up and down in Rafa’s direction as if to remind him of what it could do. “Information is costly.”

  “Yeah, but if you kill me, who’s going to do your favor?” Rafa crossed his arms over his chest.

  Santa María, Madre de Dios. The prayer ran through Jaime’s head. He wished he had the courage to cross himself before Rafa got them all killed.

  Either the thug thought Rafa had made a valid point or he figured by holding the gun he had nothing to lose, but he went ahead and answered the question. “We have something we want you to carry over the border. You do that, and we get you across.”

  Rafa stroked the few hairs he had growing out of his chin as if he were mocking the gangster by pondering the proposal. “Bueno, I can be your mule.”

  “¡Rafa, no!” Ángela exclaimed through closed mouth. The gun shifted to her.

  Jaime kept reciting Hail Mary in his head even though he was sure his heart had stopped. Not Ángela, please not Ángela. He hated to pick someone, but if he had to, better Rafa than any of the others. He was the one who had gotten them into this anyway. Or rather, he was the one who had volunteered to get them out of it.

  “It’ll be fun,” Rafa said as he stood up. But behind his forced overconfidence, Jaime saw a scared boy who had left home because his mamá preferred to get drunk rather than feed her children.

  “Yeah, fun.” The thug smirked. He grabbed Rafa’s arm with one hand while still pointing the gun with the other. “Anyone else want to have some fun?”

  They said nothing, and he shrugged. He pulled Rafa down the bridge, where they were met with another armed boy who had recruited a few other “volunteers.”

  Jaime sent another prayer, this one to San Francisco and Miguel. Please take care of this crazy boy.

  “Send me a message on Facebook when you get there.” Rafa waved his ball cap with one last attempt of his carefree tone. No one answered aloud, but said their good-byes and well wishes through thoughts and prayers.

  Within seconds he was gone, and Jaime got the feeling they would never see or hear from him again. Instead he left behind a great act of chivalry and two packs of cigarettes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It took the whole day to walk to Huehuetoca. They left Lechería behind and followed the train tracks littered with plastic bags and scraps of clothes through boroughs and empty grasslands, then villages and a couple farms.

  What started out as a nice warm day turned to light rain in th
e afternoon. Still they kept walking. Tired, Jaime dragged his feet, not paying attention to where he was going except that it was north. Always north. A few times a plastic bottle lined the tracks and he or Joaquín would kick it out of the way for something to break up the endless walking. A single tennis shoe lay on its side near the steel rail. Jaime swung his leg and gave the shoe a forceful punt.

  The shoe was a lot heavier than he expected, and not just because it was waterlogged. It only traveled over the rail before rolling down the slope. When it stopped, it exposed a brown-and-red mass with a pale rod protruding from inside the shoe.

  Jaime’s stomach wrenched and Xavi’s arm flew out to stop the others from getting closer. Too late. Everyone saw the mangled foot inside the shoe.

  Vida crept forward to give it a sniff before Xavi uttered a reprimanding hiss and she returned to his side.

  Not far from where the shoe had landed, two police officers with their backs toward them huddled around something in the tall grass near the tracks.

  Xavi motioned them off the tracks, skirting through the undergrowth and mud to avoid attention. The officers’ voices carried.

  “Dead. El tren se lo comió.”

  Jaime’s stomach lurched some more. They were talking as if the train were alive, gobbling people up . . .

  “Do you want me to look for the rest of the pieces?”

  . . . and spitting them back out.

  “No need. Stray dogs or birds will take care of him. But take a picture of the head to put up at the station, in case anyone comes looking for him. They never do, though.”

  Ángela seized Jaime and Joaquín’s arms and hauled them away before any of them caught sight of something else they didn’t want to see. Xavi paused to make the sign of the cross before catching up with them.

  Jaime forced himself to take deep breaths.

  Ever since the news of Miguel, Jaime had thought death was the worst thing that could happen to a person, whether it was being beaten to death by people who had once been friends or suffocating in a soulless train. Jaime hated remembering how Miguel had looked in his coffin, his face distorted and grotesque. At least Jaime had been there, had known his cousin’s fate. But this unidentified person chopped to bits by the train, that was worse. He’d died by himself, in a strange country, and his family would never know.

  • • •

  As the day progressed, others joined them: a young couple, then a man whose face looked like it had been burned. A sign on a rundown building said they were in the small town of Huehuetoca, but rumor had it that the ideal place to get on the train was a few kilometers farther north.

  “Right here the tracks form a straight line and the train just zips by,” said the man with the burned face. “Once clear of the town, the tracks curve and that’s where it slows down.”

  Too tired to care, Jaime dragged his feet behind the others and let them figure things out. At least it had stopped raining. The “waiting spot” was obvious: there were a few others scattered around the tall grasses and shrubs where the tracks bent. Ten, maybe twelve, people in total. Jaime nodded and greeted each traveler politely, but didn’t feel like making conversation. Not when he knew how easy it was for any of them to die. Not after having said good-bye to Rafa. Soon he would have to do the same with Joaquín. And maybe Xavi. The older boy still hadn’t mentioned where he was going.

  They slept in some bushes near the tracks and woke up early. The legless man had said the train heading to Mexicalli would go through in the morning but hadn’t said when, not that anyone had a wristwatch. They had left the populated city behind during their long trek the day before and were now in grasslands with scattered trees and occasional buildings.

  Jaime joined Xavi to use the bathroom in the bushes, but Joaquín, like always, chose to go alone. After ten minutes the young boy hadn’t returned. Ángela sent the other two to go look for him while she stayed with Vida for protection.

  Joaquín wasn’t far away, crouched under a shrub and hugging his knees to his chest. By his feet was some scuffed-up dirt as if he’d buried his business.

  “Are you okay?” Jaime bent down next to him while Xavi, a few meters away, tried to identify edible plants.

  Joaquín didn’t answer, just stared into the bushes, half-shocked, half-scared.

  “Is it your stomach?” Jaime wondered if the boy had soiled his pants. It wasn’t unreasonable, and it’d explain the embarrassment. Parasites were hard to avoid, especially when they were eating and drinking whatever they could find.

  Joaquín shook his head no.

  “Do you want me to get Ángela?”

  With this, Joaquín nodded vigorously.

  “¡Ángela!” Jaime called out.

  Ángela was there in a second with Vida at her heels. She dropped to her knees and put a hand on Joaquín’s shoulder. “What is it, papi?”

  Joaquín stared at Jaime and then at Xavi, who had stopped his gathering to glance at the boy. Jaime got the hint, though he wasn’t happy about it. He walked away with Xavi, leaving the other two to a private moment. He thought he and Joaquín were friends, even though the younger boy still didn’t talk much. They laughed together, rolled their eyes when Xavi and Ángela gave each other sappy looks, had bubblegum-blowing contests. It wasn’t fair that he trusted Ángela more than him.

  Ángela came back a few minutes later with the most deliberately blank expression she could muster.

  “What’s up with him?” Jaime asked quickly. If Joaquín was sick, would it be worth taking him to a hospital? Would they even treat him if he couldn’t pay? Jaime had imagined all the worst things that could happen on the trip, but had never once thought about what to do if someone got sick.

  She set down her backpack at her feet and shook her head, still pretending like it wasn’t a big deal. “I can’t say.”

  “But I’m your cousin, you can tell me anything.”

  This time her expression did change as she glared at him like he was a misbehaving little kid. “Except someone else’s secret.”

  Fine. He kicked a bit of dirt under his shoe. He supposed he would have to respect that. “But is he at least okay?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said, but didn’t meet his eyes.

  Joaquín emerged from the bushes a few minutes later, not looking at anyone. In his hands were some long grasses he was weaving together with extreme concentration. In other words, he didn’t want to be bothered. Jaime sighed and told himself at least Joaquín didn’t look any different.

  They breakfasted in silence on the cracked raw eggs they’d gotten from the mercado, a few leaves Xavi promised weren’t poisonous, and an overripe papaya that they divided. Their food stores had dwindled to a couple of fruits and a few broken bits of tortilla they’d slathered with lard. In his backpack Jaime saved the water bottle and turrón he’d bought.

  “Why don’t you come to Ciudad Juárez with us?” Ángela suggested to Joaquín as they waited for his train. The look of motherly concern etched across her face made her look older than fifteen. “Then you can travel through El Norte to get to your aunt in San Diego. That has to be safer than going by yourself on the train. Por fa.”

  Joaquín stared at his shoes. The sole of the right one curled as if it were opening its mouth. It took him forever to speak. “This is the way I know. The way I promised to go. To keep going.”

  “Claro.” Ángela understood. “But staying together will make it easier to keep going.”

  “You can trust us. We’ll help you no matter what.” Xavi looked at the boy in concern. He didn’t seem to know Joaquín’s secret either.

  Joaquín started crying. “Yes, but that way there’s a river and I can’t swim! Besides, I understand things here, I speak the language. I don’t know the national anthem in El Norte.” Joaquín looked around the bushes, where litter had been thrown, and then at the train tracks. “I know how to survive here.”

  Ángela took him into her arms and rocked him until he stopp
ed crying. “You’ll learn to survive there, too. Don’t you worry, cariño.” She used her term of endearment before kissing him on top of the head.

  Xavi came over and put a hand on the boy. “Why don’t I go with you, Joaquín. One place is the same for me as the next.”

  “Where’s your family?” Jaime asked. Xavi was the only one of them who hadn’t shared any of his plans. His decisions had always been more for the moment than the future.

  Xavi pointed up toward Heaven. Then, as if making a joke, pointed down to Hell as well. No one laughed.

  “My parents”—Xavi didn’t look at them as he watched Vida, who was tracking an insect that buzzed around her head—“were taken by government officials five years ago. Most likely they were executed for political disagreement. That’s when I went to live with my abuela. But even her brujería wasn’t enough to keep me safe.”

  Ángela reached out to touch him, but Xavi turned away with his head still hung low.

  “When my aunt, two uncles, and cousins were killed, I only just got away.” Xavi sniffed. “My abuela in El Salvador is the only family I have left. One day I’d like to send for her, but I have no idea when or where that will be.”

  Jaime shook his head in disbelief. He had a great big family back home who loved him.. He had his brother, his own flesh and blood, waiting for him in Nuevo México. Most of all, he had his cousin at his side all the time. Xavi did not have any of that.

  “Pues, you should go with them. They can be your family,” Joaquín said in his soft voice, looking up from Ángela’s arms with red but determined eyes. “Someone needs to take care of Ángela.”

  “Hey!” Jaime exclaimed. He might not have been big and muscular like Xavi, but he could take care of his cousin. Except maybe not. Not if they were attacked by gangs. Not if some thugs forced her to be their girlfriend. Maybe Joaquín was right—he couldn’t take care of her, just like he couldn’t take care of Miguel. But at least he’d die trying. “I think you need Xavi yourself. You shouldn’t be alone.”