The Only Road (20 page)

The tracks were slightly raised and the ladder started just above his head. He half jumped, half lunged for the lowest rung. The momentum jerked his shoulders' muscles, but he clung tightly, his legs dangling dangerously close to the wheels.

I. Have. To. Get. Up
, he thought. He swung his legs and managed to get his inside heel on the same rung as his hands. Now he dangled from two arms and a leg. Getting the rest of his body up seemed impossible. But so did hanging on that way for more than a few seconds.

With a heaving grunt he pushed against the heel of his shoe and raised his bottom up. One arm clutching the ladder rung against his breastbone for dear life, he reached for the next rung up. Now he was able to put both feet on the bottom rung. His hands shifted up again to grab the next rung and then the next. He kept climbing until he reached the top and there was nothing left to climb. Or hold.

A boy leaned over to help him, but by that time, Jaime had made it on his own. He lay flat on top of the boxcar, his arms spread out as if he were hugging it. His head lifted and behind two boys standing near him, he saw Ángela
doing the same thing on the other end of the car. On the next boxcar over, Xavi stood with Vida at his feet as if being on top of a moving train were no different from being on the ground.

They had boarded the train.

The train went through villages
and farms, open plains and mountains. At the sight of the mountains, Jaime remembered what Pancho had said: “There'll be other mountains, other volcanoes. But if you think of each different one as Tacaná, you'll never be far from home.”

Home. How long ago since he'd been home? One week? Two? Jaime couldn't remember—too much had happened. For now, whether he liked it or not, the top of the train was his home.

Two boys, Lalo and Victor, also co-inhabited the top of their boxcar. They said they were brothers from Guatemala. Lalo, squat with straight hair, looked nothing like Victor, who was tall with tightly curled hair. Like Rafa, they liked to talk. Lalo of
fútbol
—he seemed to know every professional
player in Latín América—while Victor's interest remained on Vida and how she was found.

“Does she bite? Will she attack anyone? Does she protect
usted
?” Victor asked, his head cradled in his arms as he looked up from his lying-down position and winked at Ángela, who returned his advance with a seething one of her own.

“She hasn't bitten anyone yet,” Xavi said.

“But she was used in dogfights, so she knows how to take care of herself,” Ángela insisted while keeping a hand on Vida. The dog took that moment to roll over on her back and expose her stitches in favor of a belly rub. Ángela leaned over on the pretense of checking her wound, but Jaime noted the way her eyes narrowed and the harsh tone of her voice when she spoke to them. These weren't boys she would try to mother.

“Speaking of biters.” Jaime licked his finger and smudged out a line of the graffiti he was drawing on top of the boxcar with a chunk of chalk rock he'd found along the tracks. “What do you guys think of Luis Suárez?”

The conversation shifted from Vida and Ángela to the Uruguayan
fútbol
player known for using his teeth in games. When they exhausted that topic, any reference to Vida or Ángela had been forgotten.

That night they shared some of their limited food with Lalo and Victor, who only had a bag of stale potato chips
and a flask of something to share in return. Victor laughed when the other three refused a swig. Its smell, like paint thinner, was enough to bring Jaime close to motion sickness. When the other boys fell asleep with loud snores, Jaime, Ángela, and Xavi took turns keeping watch from their spot atop the flat boxcar. Xavi kept reminding them about the “rules” of riding the trains: never let down your guard, never trust anyone, never look down while jumping from one car to the other, never pee into the wind, and like Ángela had mentioned while they were inside the boxcar being cooked alive, never ever take off your shoes.

Jaime insisted on taking the cold predawn watch while Ángela and Xavi slept facing each other with Vida cuddling between them like a chaperone. Lalo and Victor snored away, too drunk, it seemed, to notice anything. An hour before sunrise and the sky was just beginning to change colors. The night chill remained, giving the air a crisp fresh smell with none of the train fumes that had lingered before. A perfect, peaceful time. If Miguel could see the same color display from Heaven, Jaime knew he'd be impressed too.

Jaime rolled onto his stomach and tuned out the rumble of the train as he focused on the cows grazing with calves at their sides. One little fellow couldn't have been more than a few hours old by the way his long legs went off in different directions as he tried to scramble away from the giant iron worm.

The train passed the calf in seconds, but Jaime kept the memory in his mind. In his sketchbook he drew the calf with awkward legs as he loped back to his mamá. So quiet—this was definitely the best time to sketch. Plus, the train moved slowly enough at the moment that the wind wasn't whipping the pages from his numb hands. He'd never seen so much open space, never properly seen the sunrise. If only he had his paints. If only he could freeze this moment forever.

A huge yawn escaped his mouth. He stayed stretched out on his stomach over the boxcar with his nose close to the pages. The calf's eyes were tricky—Jaime hadn't seen them from his viewpoint above the pasture. He closed his own eyes for a second to think about it. He wanted curiosity and fear in the eyes but couldn't remember the correct shape. Did cows have big circular-type eyes or were they more like sideways eggs? What if cows laid eggs? Wouldn't it be fun to search the vast ranchland for freshly laid cow eggs . . .

•  •  •

“Goddamn it, Jaime, how could you?”

Jaime sat up with a jerk. The sun was fully up, and so were Ángela and Xavi. He glanced at his drawing, where his cheek had smudged the calf so it now looked like a blob with spaghetti legs.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You fell asleep, genius.” Ángela looked like she was about to hit him. “And now Lalo and Victor are gone. With our backpacks.”

Jaime got to his feet. The train was rocking back and forth, but he'd gotten used to the motion and could keep his balance. He looked up and down as if expecting the backpacks to have shifted to the side, but there was nothing on their boxcar except the three of them, a dog, and his sketchbook pillow. The rest of the train stretched in both directions. Other people perched on many of the other cars, and some balanced on the hinges between the cars, ready for a quick getaway. It'd be near impossible to catch Lalo and Victor. If they were even still on the train.

“I—I didn't mean to.” Jaime patted his pants pocket as if the backpacks had mysteriously shrunk or were somehow sticking on him. “It was cold. I just closed my eyes for a second.” He searched the boxcar again; sometimes things had a way of being invisible even when they were right in front of your eyes. His pencil had rolled over to the lip of the boxcar—but no bags. He pocketed the pencil before he lost that, too.

“How could you be so stupid?” Ángela continued in a low, angry voice. “The whole point of having someone keep watch was so this wouldn't happen. Pancho warned us to be careful trusting people. What if they had attacked us?”

“Vida would have bitten them,” he said in a soft,
unconvincing voice. Last he remembered, the dog was lying sound asleep between Xavi and Ángela. But she had also spent half a day with those boys. Assumed, like he did, that they were trustworthy.

“I knew they couldn't be trusted, soon as I figured out they lied about being Guatemalan,” Ángela said.

“How did you know?”

Ángela shook her head in anger. “They kept calling us ‘usted' instead of ‘vos.' What a pain in the . . .” She crossed her arms over her chest and swore. She stood near the edge of the car with her back to him. Twice Jaime caught the movement of her shoulders jerking.

“What did you have in the bags besides food?” Xavi asked in a voice that barely carried in the train's continual rumble.

Ángela swore some more and turned to confront them as she used her fingers to count off their last remaining possessions. “A clean shirt, a pair of socks, and underwear. Toothbrush. The cigarettes. A few pesos, for emergency. And a picture of my brother.”

Xavi put his arm around Ángela; they'd told him about Miguel.

Jaime's bag had contained the same things except no pesos, and he had also had his pencil case with lead and colored pencils, a pencil sharpener, and a spare eraser. He had carried a family photo too, one taken before Tomás
moved away—the only thing he had of
his
brother. At least the rest of his family were safely drawn in his sketchbook.

“And your sewing kit.” Jaime slapped his forehead as he cursed himself. Why had he fallen asleep? He had wanted that early morning shift to see those predawn colors, and all he'd done was outline a stupid calf. Now when they had to use some of the money sewed into their jeans, how were they supposed to repair them so no one would steal the rest?

Ángela got a funny look on her face and then dug into her front pocket. From there she pulled out a piece of cardboard with needles, thread, and a pair of tiny scissors—all that fit in her palm. “I cut one of  Vida's stitches yesterday but thought they needed to stay in a bit longer. I put this in my pocket instead of back in my bag.”

“You're lucky,” Xavi said. “They can come in use. It could have been worse.”

“Oh, yes, needles and thread will definitely keep us alive.” Ángela gave Jaime a look of annoyance and turned so her back faced him.

Jaime returned to sulking with his knees to his chest and picked the dry grass from his shoelaces. He couldn't even feel happy that at least they still had their shoes. “I'm so sorry,” he mumbled.

Vida wagged her tail with her head hung low as if she were sorry too for not noticing the boys taking off with
their bags. She gave Jaime a little kiss on his palm. It almost made him smile.

Xavi put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. “Don't beat yourself up about it. It could have happened to anyone. I fell asleep for a few minutes during my shift too.”

“Yeah, but no one stole from us then. What are we going to eat now?” Ángela gestured at the arid vegetation. Gone were the lush greenery and tropical fruit trees of home and southern México. Now they were in open ranchlands where there wasn't even a cow in sight, just endless patches of dry grass and scattered bushes.

There hadn't been much food left in the backpacks: a half-squashed guava and avocado, some tortilla scraps, the
turrón
and water bottle Jaime had been saving. Hardly enough for one meal for one person. Still, it had been something. His stomach rumbled.

“We'll see what we can find next time we get off the train,” Xavi reassured them. “We'll be fine. God will take care of us.”

“I'm sorry,” Jaime said again, but Ángela turned away, not ready to forgive him.

Nothing Jaime could do changed her mood. She spent the rest of the day snapping at him and making him feel like he was in the way. When they changed trains in Torreón, she wanted him to go off with Vida and leave her and Xavi alone for a while. Xavi, however, said
absolutely not. Torreón and northern México were run by a drug cartel called los Fuegos. More than ever, Xavi said, they had to stick together. Jaime mentally thanked Xavi for sticking up for him. On the other hand, if Xavi weren't there, his cousin wouldn't be treating him like a pesky fruit fly.

Back home when Ángela had gone off with her friends, she had never made him feel like a little kid. They had always been equal, even when she mothered and ordered him around. He'd never seen her like this. It was as if Lalo and Victor had taken Ángela away too and replaced her with this alien.

In Torreón they kept a lookout for los Fuegos. They took turns guzzling water at a fountain in the park and found a half-eaten sandwich in the trash. There was so much
chile
on it, Jaime thought a hole would burn through his tongue. They snuck behind a grocery store and in the dumpster found a few rotten tomatoes and a loaf of sliced white bread with a hole in the plastic where mice had gnawed it. A few times Vida's hackles raised along her spine and she cocked her head to unknown sounds, but no one confronted them.

When they jumped on the train again, Ángela seemed to be in a better mood. At least she wasn't giving Jaime dirty looks. But she did ignore him as she and Xavi talked in low whispers, interrupted by giggles, as the train rolled
out of Torreón. Would she abandon him? The possibility made him almost ill with fear.

He stared at the sun setting behind a mountain. The way the red melted into yellows, greens, and purples and seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth did nothing for him. What was the point of this sunset? Or any sunset? And that mountain all ugly and bare, it looked nothing like Volcán Tacaná back home. He only had one pencil left, but he didn't want to remember this moment. Nor this desolate place, where few things grew except prickly cactus and scraggly grass, where Ángela could leave him at any moment. His skin burned hot and dry from spending all day in the scorching sun.