The Only Road (11 page)

“Water.” Xavi took a deep breath. “And some limes to disinfect the wounds.”

Without a word, Joaquín sprinted off through the thick undergrowth to get the supplies. When he returned, Xavi sat on a rock near the fire pit with the dog in his lap and began gently dowsing it with water. The lump twitched but didn't, or couldn't, try to escape. Xavi's white uniform shirt soon became soaked through and pink with blood.

Jaime could see it was a miracle the dog was still alive. One ear had been completely ripped off. Bite marks oozed blood all over the body. But the worst was the gaping wound on its side.

How could Rafa have thought that dogfights were fun? For a second Jaime thought about Miguel and how he'd been beaten to death, how the Alphas may have even thought that was fun. Sometimes Jaime really didn't understand humans.

“
Mira
, Jaime, can you hold her? I want to look her over better.”

Jaime reached over to accept the bundle, but Ángela stopped him.

“Wait, take off your shirt first.”

Good thinking—he only had one other as a spare. He handed Ángela the T-shirt, which she promptly folded, and took the wet, white-and-brown, bloody mess from Xavi. The dog was about the length of his forearm and weighed next to nothing. Not only had her previous owners subjected her to being ripped open, but they had barely fed her.

The dog shivered but didn't move beyond that. Against his chest Jaime could feel her intense body heat, as if she were running a fever. But that was good, right? Didn't that mean she was still fighting?

Their two heartbeats raced a thousand kilometers a minute to the point that Jaime couldn't tell whose was whose.

Xavi gently poked and prodded the dog all over. When he touched the skin around the open wound, she let out a loud whimper.

“Can you save her?” Joaquín asked, his voice high-pitched and matching the dog's whimper. “Please?”

Xavi looked up at Ángela, who was still standing at a distance from them as if her job was only to keep guard. “Any chance you have a needle and thread?” he asked.

Ángela put her hands on her hips. “What, you think
just because I'm a woman I go around carrying a sewing kit?” But then she dug around the front pocket of her backpack. Of course she would, Jaime thought. Tía was a seamstress, after all, and had taught the whole family, including the men, how to sew. Jaime wished he'd thought of bringing something as practical as a sewing kit. Or that his mamá had.

“I don't know what I'm doing,” Xavi said, half to himself, holding the swath of cardboard with three needles of various sizes, a spool of blue thread, and a miniature pair of folding scissors. “People didn't often come to my grandmother for stitches and I don't know how to sew. I've butchered pigs, but this is the opposite, isn't it?”

“I can sew,” Jaime said.

“
Yo también
,” Joaquín whispered.

Xavi nodded and handed Joaquín the needles and thread. It took three attempts for him to thread the largest needle. He crouched beside Jaime, Xavi, and the dog. Jaime held the dog secure against his chest while Xavi pushed together the pieces of open skin. The dog whimpered again. Joaquín's hand shook as he approached the flesh with the needle. He had barely poked the skin when the dog yelped, causing Joaquín to jump away.

“I can't do it,” he cried. “I don't want to hurt her.”

Jaime bit his lip. He agreed with Joaquín. He wouldn't want to hurt her either. But they couldn't leave her like
this—they
had
to save her. Or at least try.

Xavi opened his mouth to say something—that the dog would die if they didn't or maybe to suggest that Jaime try instead—but Ángela beat him to it.

“Give the needle here.” She bit into a lime to break the peel and squeezed a few drops of juice onto the needle before crouching down. “Whatever you do, don't let it bite me, or I swear I'm drowning it in the river.”

Jaime shifted his arm so that the snout was clamped between his bicep and ribs but still able to breathe. He held her still with his other arm before giving his cousin a nod.

The dog wiggled and whined as soon as Ángela made the first stitch. Jaime held her tighter against his bare chest and Xavi, with his hands holding her belly together, helped stabilize her. A prayer to San Francisco, patron saint of animals and children, came from Joaquín.

Ángela didn't bat an eye. She pulled the needle in and out as if she were mending socks. Jaime was sure if he had tried sewing up the dog, he would have panicked like Joaquín. Ángela secured each neat stitch individually with a knot until the dog's side was nothing more than wet fur with a ten-centimeter line of blue thread.

With a gentleness that surprised him—it was a dog, after all—Ángela dabbed the wound with a wet rag before squeezing the lime juice onto the blue seam to prevent infection. The dog squirmed, but Jaime kept her
tight in his arms, telling her it would be all right, and wishing he could believe it as he said it. What Ángela had done was truly a miracle. The other boys saw it too.

“Thank you,” Xavi said softly. “You saved her. You saved her life.”

“It's fine.” Ángela shrugged away the praise. She stood up, wiping her hands with the rag and more lime juice. She shifted from one foot to the other as if she didn't know what to do with herself. “Have they served breakfast already? I'm starving.”

She took two steps and then stopped when she noticed the boys were still huddled around the dog.

“What are we going to call her?” Jaime eased his tight hold but kept the dog against his chest as he got back on his feet. She no longer whimpered from the citrus sting, but her breathing remained heavy. Her white-and-brown–patched fur would look pretty once she dried. “How about Pinta?”

The worry lines on Xavi's forehead lifted as he took deep breaths of relief. “I was thinking of calling her Vida.”

“
Sí
,” Joaquín said before Xavi had finished the words. “Vida.”

Against Jaime's bare chest the canine's heart thumped with life-giving approval. A smile crossed Jaime's face as he gave her a gentle cuddle. Ángela looked down, her face twisting with sadness and maybe regret. Jaime knew she
was thinking about Miguel; he was. Then she blinked in agreement too. The other two seemed to be lost in the world of deceased loved ones as well; little Joaquín looked ready to burst into tears. But then he, too, relaxed when he looked at the recovered dog with promise and hope. Vida, life. That was a good name.

Jaime stood next to Ángela as Xavi and Joaquín gathered the rags and bucket. Before Jaime could stop the patient, a pink tongue escaped the lips of the wounded mutt as she gave her seamstress a kiss of thanks on the palm.

Ángela's hand snapped back. For a second Jaime was sure she was going to swat the dog on the nose. Instead Ángela smoothed down the brown-and-white fur sticking up in the spot between the dog's one ear and where the other should have been.

On Jaime and Ángela's second
day at Padre Kevin's refuge, just as the sun was losing its battle with nighttime, a white Mercedes with black-tinted windows roared down the street and braked in front of the church with a huge cloud of dust.

The
fútbol
players abandoned their game quickly to avoid getting hit. Jaime hugged his bag tight to his chest; the other kids who had possessions did the same. Ángela grabbed Joaquín's hand, or maybe it was the other way around. Xavi scooped up Vida, who had been snoozing away her injuries while they played in the street. Rafa, who not only lost all his money at the dogfight but was also beaten up for trying to win it back, pulled his cap low over his face. Still, everyone, including Vida, watched the doors of the Mercedes open.

From the driver's seat, huge hands pressed against the open door and the roof to extract a body too large for the sleek sports car, like an oozing snail escaping a confining shell. The stench of expensive cologne wafted from the large man, reminding Jaime of rotten eggs preserved in alcohol. He almost didn't notice a second man slip out of the passenger side inconspicuously.

The giant slug was completely bald but made up for it with such a thick black mustache, it looked like an animal had stuck itself to his lip. He wore a white linen shirt and slacks with a polished black belt and shoes. The day's remaining sunshine reflected off his clothes and shiny head.

El Gordo had arrived.

“Kevin!” he yelled, even though the padre had exited the church as soon as he heard the engine's roar.

Padre Kevin walked toward the giant. The men were similar, both large and bald, but the contrast between them was stark. Today the padre donned rainbow-striped shorts and a lime-green shirt that in six pictures showed the evolution from ape to saint. On closer inspection, El Gordo did look a bit like the first, Neanderthal-type image on the padre's shirt.

Padre Kevin nodded to the men as if to imply that
he
at least hadn't forgotten courtesy. “
Don
Gordo.”

El Gordo surveyed the crowd that had leaked out of the church and come from the growth along the river at the
sound of his arrival. While yesterday there had been a hundred refugees sheltering at the church and some had already left, like the girl with the baby, now there were closer to a hundred and fifty, and most of them were present.

“They breed like rabbits and infest us like parasites, don't they?” El Gordo said to Padre Kevin, and laughed. Padre Kevin didn't find the joke funny, nor did any of the people watching and listening.

“So.” He clapped his hands. It was hard to tell with his mustache covering most of his mouth, but Jaime was pretty sure El Gordo was giving the crowd his widest grin as if he were about to devour them. “Which of you little pissants is getting on the train early tomorrow morning?”

Jaime and Ángela looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Neither wanted to draw attention to themselves, let alone speak with this man. Maybe there was some way to get on the train without having to deal with El Gordo.

Everyone else seemed to feel the same way. No one said a word, even after a minute of being stared down. Padre Kevin did nothing to encourage anyone to speak up. He kept his eyes averted from El Gordo as he muttered words that might have been prayers but could have been insults.

Jaime shivered as El Gordo laughed again and surveyed the crowd. “I'm kidding! I love you guys. Twelve of you
have already paid to ride the train. If you don't tell me who you are, there are no refunds.”

One man in a blue bandanna lifted his arm slowly, followed by a woman with two children, a girl about five years old and a boy about seven. A few others hesitated before raising their hands. Jaime had to force his arm up. Worse was when they had to give their names to confirm against the list that El Gordo kept somewhere in his thick skull. Jaime was sure something would go wrong. It did, but for someone else.

El Gordo nodded as if he were bored when Jaime and Ángela told him who they were. It was the next man who wasn't so lucky.

“I don't have a Gonzales,” the smuggler said. He tried to cross his arms over his chest. Except his arms were too large to complete the crossed X.

The man bobbed his head uncontrollably. “
Sí,
Octavio Gonzales Peña.”

“No Gonzales, no Peña.” El Gordo scratched his mustache. Jaime imagined fleas colonizing his monstrous mustache and knew how he'd draw El Gordo later.

The man kept bobbing his head, an action that made him sweat profusely. “But my wife paid. We sold everything we own. Paid a man named Chuy, who was going to give it to you.”

El Gordo shrugged. “I don't know this Chuy and I didn't
get it. Maybe you need to get yourself a new wife.” He winked at Padre Kevin, but the padre made no response.

“She did pay, she did!” The man's face crumbled and he flung himself to the ground, crying on El Gordo's shiny shoes. Huge mistake. El Gordo swung his leg and caught the man right on the ear.

“I need four thousand pesos before I get you safe passage.” El Gordo turned away from the hysterical man and addressed everyone else. “That's right, only four thousand pesos. That's not very much for a guaranteed safe ride on the train, let me tell you. If you don't go through me, half of you won't make the train ride in one piece. Not with the immigration checkpoints, or the gangs that control the rail lines, ready to beat you up or throw you off the moving train.”

A man with buzzed hair swallowed and limped forward. Two men who looked like brothers with matching round bellies kept their eyes down as they shuffled toward El Gordo as well. They extracted money from their pockets, socks, and underwear. El Gordo snapped his fingers at his minion. Until that moment, Jaime had forgotten about the second man, who now counted the crumbled and dirty notes before nodding to his boss that the right amount was there.