The Jaguar's Children (3 page)

We drove like this, slow, in a low gear, for another hour—maybe more, it is difficult to say. Something happens to your sense of time in the dark. Then we stopped like we hit a wall. I heard heads and bodies hitting the front of the tank. There was crying and cursing and some little pieces of prayers, even though we were supposed to be quiet. The truck was leaning to one side and I knew something had happened to the front wheel—maybe it was flat or in a hole. But the motor was still running and we were still hoping that this was the border and that soon we would be moving again because to imagine something else was intolerable. Es demasiado.

Someone whispered, “¿La frontera?” Another said, “¡Gracias a Dios!” Then César said a prayer to la Virgen María de Juquila who is not only César's protector but a great help to travelers, especially Zapotecos. Of course we have many virgins in Mexico and most of them are guëras—white, like you maybe, but Juquila es una morena, dark like us. Like me. We look into her small face and see someone we know and many people, including César, believe she really understands. For her my family has made the pilgrimage. Our Juquila is the smallest virgin of them all—the size of a Barbie with long black hair, and I was thinking then, Yes, Juquilita is the right virgin for this situation. She is small enough to fit in here. After the truck stopped everything was still, everyone holding their breath and listening, except for César who prayed for all of us quiet and quick—

 

Dear Mother, Virgin of Juquila, Virgin of our life,

   
please intercede in all misfortunes that may befall us.

If, in this world of injustice, of misery and sin,

   
you see that our lives are turbulent, don't abandon us.

Dear Mother, protect the travelers and pilgrims.

Guide the poor who have nothing and those whose bread has been

   
taken from them.

Accompany us throughout our journey, liberate us from sin,

   
and please—deliver us home.

 

There was whispering and soft words as some others followed along, and at the end in many voices, “Amén.”

There were small sounds in the dark then as some people crossed themselves, kissed a crucifix, a medallion, their crossed fingers, counted off their rosaries. I had nothing but the little clay head my abuelo gave me and I held this tight in my fist. I will tell you, it is not the head of a saint or a virgin, it is the head of a jaguar made a long time ago when men and jaguars lived much closer together. My grandfather knew this animal well. Never was this an easy thing to do, now it is harder.

 

After César's prayer, we did like Lupo told us—we stayed silent as water in a tank. For an hour we waited like this with the motor running. Outside, there was no other sound, no voices or birds, no other cars or trucks. I wondered to myself if this was a special crossing point in the desert. Maybe we were waiting for someone to come and read the words on the truck—the secret coyote code. César was sitting next to me and I felt him moving in the dark. “Where are we?” he whispered. “What the fuck are they doing out there?”

Right after that I felt him stand up. I don't know why he did this, maybe he was impatient, but in that same moment the engine roared and the truck jumped forward and then stopped dead—the motor and everything. It was a surprise for everyone and it threw us all backward. I hit my head hard on the back wall and I felt César falling over me. There was so much shouting and cursing it took a moment to understand what was happening, but soon I knew there was a problem with César. He wasn't moving, he was only lying on me, very heavy. I said his name, but there was no answer. I was feeling for his face, and when I found him his forehead was wet and I knew it wasn't water. Right there near his head is a place on the back wall where the pipes come in—only a few centimeters, but the edges are sharp and it was enough to hurt César. I rolled him off me and put my ear to his face. He was breathing, but not in the normal way.

I was telling the people around me that a man is hurt, but a woman in front started banging on the tank and screaming. Others were telling her to stop. “¡Chis, cállate!” they hissed. “You will give us away!” There was some kind of fighting then, it moved through the tank in a wave and I was kicked in the face. That was the third time I wished I never left Oaxaca. I heard the door of the truck and someone outside hit the tank hard with a pipe or a stone, shouting, “Shut the fuck up or you will all be discovered and shot!”

This is what they say can happen on the border now—maybe your Minutemen, maybe agents from la Migra take you in the green truck, and no one ever sees you again. So we were quiet then because no one wants to die or disappear, and César, my only friend in here, lying next to me just breathing and breathing like a broken machine.

Thu Apr 5—11:56

 

It is hard to say this, AnniMac, because I am ashamed to be in such a situation. But what reason to hide it now? Who knows, maybe you would do the same in my place. I must tell you so that somebody knows what happened to César and all of us. Maybe you can find the people who did this.

Luego, it happens like this—

The truck is stopped, we don't know where, and César is lying beside me somewhere between death and sleeping. Outside, I can hear the coyotes talking to themselves. They are coyotes so of course they are hard to understand, but it sounds like they are looking at the truck, trying to figure out what to do. I whisper once more that someone is hurt but no one notices because they are trying to hear the coyotes. So I feel César's face again and his forehead, and there is the cut, right on the line where the hair is growing and it is pushed in a little bit, the skin and bone together. I open my water bottle and pour some drops on his forehead to wash the blood away, but it keeps coming so with my phone I look around for something to stop it and that's when I see the little cotton dress sticking out of his jacket pocket, the one he bought for the Virgin Juquila when we were still in Oaxaca. The blood is coming fast and there isn't time to think so I put the dress on there and push on it.

This is when I hear one of the coyotes climbing on the hood, on top of the cab. There is a scraping noise at the front of the tank, near the top, and then comes a blade of light so sharp we all cry out and cover our eyes. We are mostly grown men and women in there but the way we hide and cover ourselves is like when your father comes at you with the belt. A moment comes and goes like this and then carefully I look through my fingers. The light is still there blinding, screaming in over our heads—como la Anunciación—and I understand it is a flashlight coming through a small hole. Then a shadow comes across it and I see only teeth.

“¡Amigos! ¿Qué tal?” says the shadow with its teeth. “Tenemos un pequeño problema aquí. It is the front wheel—this is broken. Everything else is OK but we must bring our mechanic to fix it. We tried many times to call but he will not answer so now we must go to find him. We are close—only ten kilometers so it won't take long. We will bring back some water too because maybe you are getting thirsty.”

“¿Cuando?” asks a man in the front.

“Not until the night. Because of la Migra.”

“How long is that?”

There is a moment, another blade of light is stabbing us and then the shadow again. “Not long—a few hours.”

This of course cannot be true because we left only a few hours ago and a man in front with a Zapotec accent says, “What are you talking about? It's six in the morning! We can't wait here all day!”

“¡Cabrón!” says the coyote. “Be quiet or you will make big problems for us and for you. La pinche Migra has powerful sensors all over the desert and they can hear everything you say. Oye, we want to help you, but we are going to need some money to do it.”

“We already paid our money,” says the Zapotec man.

“Yes, but that is different money, only for Don Serafín. It is untouchable. We are just the guides, amigo, and now we have this little problem so we must work together to fix it, no?”

“How much?” asks another man. He sounds old and tired and I wonder if he has done this before.

“To buy the parts and pay the mechanic to come here—five hundred,” says the coyote. “Five-fifty with the water.”

“Five hundred and fifty pesos,” says the Zapotec man.

The coyote makes a disgusting noise and spits. “¡No más pesitos! You're in America now, bro—”

“Then let us out!” shouts the baker from Michoacán.

“Tranquilo,” says the coyote. “It isn't safe here. And we have no torch.” There is a silence in the truck. “The mechanic has one, but he won't take pesos. Solamente dólares gringos.”

“Who has five hundred and fifty dollars?” says the Zapotec man.

“If you want to get delivered,” says the coyote, “you do.”

“A man is badly hurt,” I say. “We need some help in here.”

Outside, away from the truck, I hear the other coyote saying, “¡Fla
co!
A la chingada. Let's get out of here.”

There is another silence because we are turning a corner now and the Zapotec man whispers, “Does anyone have dollars?”

No one will answer, but the truth is most of us have some. But this is our only money for getting where we need to go on the other side. Without it we are trapped. The older man says, “How do we know you won't just take the money and leave us here?”

Then, very quiet, like he is sharing with us a special secret, the coyote says, “You hear my compa—what he says? He is ready to leave right now. I want to help you, amigos, but I don't have all day. We need to hurry if we're going to find the mechanic and get you out of here.”

The people talk between themselves. “What do you think? Do we pay? Can we trust him?”

But what choice do we have?

The older man is old enough to be the coyote's father and he says to him, “Son, we paid so much already. Call Don Serafín and explain the situation.”

This was a mistake.

“Listen to my words, Señor Oa
xaca
. I am not your fucking son and Don Serafín doesn't give a fuck about you or me or this truck. My compa is walking away now and all he is thinking about is cold beer and la conchita. If you want we can keep chatting until the Minutemen find us and burn the truck, or if Migra finds you first they'll kick your country asses right back over the border. Either way you lose your money. I'm offering you a chance to make it. You have one minute.”

How can we know what is true and what is not? So now people are taking their clothes off to get their secret money. I can hear seams ripping and the sound of Velcro and because we are getting used to the light it is embarrassing for the women. I have forty dollars my father sent me through the Western Union. It is in my sneaker and to get it I must move my hands from César's head. I take off my sneaker and pass the money up to the front. After this I pull out the shoelace and tie Juquila's dress to César's head. I try to make the knot over the cut to make more pressure because the blood is still coming and there is a smell of metal more than all the rust in here. My hands are slippery with it and I wipe them on his jacket.

The men in front are taking the money and pushing it through the slot. I can hear the coyote counting and then shouting, “No more fucking pesos!” But he doesn't give them back. He stops counting at three hundred and fifty-five. “Doscientos más,” he says. “¡Pronto, pronto!”

We are moving fast and we are afraid and no one knows exactly how much money we have given already. When it's done the men in front look back at us to see if there is more. I hold up my empty hands and I am surprised how red they are. We look at each other then and the Zapotec man says, “That's all we have.”

“It's not enough,” says the coyote.

The older man claps his hands. “For the love of God, we're not donating to the church here. Give it if you have it!”

This is difficult because no one wants to confess that they are holding back. The baby-face man looks over at César. He is about twenty-five with a goatee and lots of gel in his hair. “What about him?” he says.

“What about him?” I say.

“His money. We need it now.”

“You're going to rob him?”

“We're not robbing him, we're helping him.”

Everyone is watching and I don't know what to do, but I can't let them touch him. “I'll look for it,” I say.

And I do this, go through César's pockets, but there is nothing there, only some pesos and his bus ticket.

“He's got money, look at his shoes,” says the baby-face man. They are new ones, Pumas, and he pulls one off.

“Don't touch him!” I shout, and I kick his hands away, but he still has the shoe, shaking it and peeling out the inside. “Keep your hands off him!”

He throws the shoe back.

“Maybe he took it already,” says the baby-face man's friend, looking at me, “when it was dark.”

“Fuck off,” I say.

“Maybe it's in his chones,” says the baby-face man.

“Look at him!” I say, and I put my phone screen by César's face which is still wet with the blood. “He has enough trouble already. Leave him alone.”

In that moment, the coyote hits the tank again with the metal thing and it rings like a broken church bell making everybody jump. “¡Ahora!” he shouts.

Sitting near me is a young Maya from Chiapas and she reaches into her skirt then and pulls out a little pouch. She is crying as she passes it up to the older man. All of us are feeling this. He opens it, takes out the bills and pushes them through.