The Only Road (23 page)

A slender woman appeared at the front door a second before they plunged their hands into the water. She carried a long hunting rifle.

“Excuse us,
jefa
.” Jaime used the term of respect he knew Mexicans liked. “Could we please have some of your cows' water? We've been walking for hours and have nothing to drink.”

“We'll leave in a second and not bother you again,” Ángela added as she hopped in place to keep her balance.

From inside the house a baby started crying. The woman groaned at the sound and lowered the rifle. “Come here, and I'll get you some clean water. That water there is not even fit for the cows. I've been telling my husband to clean that trough for months.”

They hobbled toward her wooden porch, straining to climb the two steps and too tired and thirsty to be cautious.

They sat on the covered porch, not wanting to intrude in her home. The crying came from not one but two babies who'd just woken up. The woman seemed torn between letting go her rifle and seeing to the twins. Still, she set down a large jug filled with water and cups followed by a plate of vanilla-cream cookies and painkillers for Ángela
before returning to the fussing babies. They drained the jug and devoured the cookies in seconds. A stitch in Jaime's stomach told him he probably shouldn't have ingested so much so fast.

We should leave
, Jaime thought. But it felt nice sitting on the folding chair, massaging his stomach, out of the hot sun. If only he'd dare take off his shoes, he'd be perfectly happy.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he called into the house as Ángela swallowed the painkillers. “Is there any way we can repay you?”

“Yes,” Ángela agreed. She didn't seem willing to leave either. “I can change the babies or play with them if you'd like.”

The woman reappeared, bouncing the crying twins on her hips. She stared at Jaime and Ángela as if they were trying to trick her in some way until she finally nodded. “How are you, boy, with a hammer?”

Jaime straightened up, trying to look important and trustworthy. Any fatigue he was feeling he hid in his enthusiasm. “I helped my papá fix the roof last year.”

She used her chin to point to the cow pasture in front of the house. “That gate is falling off and my husband hasn't had the time to fix it.”

“Do you have some tools?” he asked.

The woman handed him a hammer and a paper bag of nails before rounding on Ángela. “You, go clean yourself up
before handling my babies. There's plenty of soap in the bathroom. You can do the same, boy, once you're done outside.”

He wasn't a carpenter or an engineer, and it took him double the length of time it would have taken someone who knew what they were doing, but in the end, he got the gate fixed. The woman, Señora Pérez as she asked them to call her, didn't mind the time it took and had another task for him once he finished.

They spent the rest of the day doing various jobs around the ranch house. Not only did Jaime fix the gate, but he tacked down the roofing paper on the chicken coop and cleaned the cattle's disgusting water trough. The smell from it curled his insides—thank goodness they hadn't had to drink it.

Ángela likewise kept busy changing the twins, putting them to sleep, and washing their diapers. Even Vida did her part by catching a rabbit that went into a stew.

The thought that Señora Pérez was going to keep them as slaves crossed Jaime's mind. It was possible. They'd done more work than the water and cookies were worth, and she never praised them. On the other hand, he didn't mind too much. It was nice feeling useful and not being on the run. Like he was worth something.

As the sun set, Señora Pérez fed them homemade bread slathered with butter and the finished rabbit stew, by far the healthiest, heartiest, and most flavorful thing they'd
eaten during the whole journey. Why did they need to continue traveling? It took so long. Surely this woman would let them stay and work for her in exchange for room and board. She didn't talk much, but she seemed fair and maybe even nice.

The floor creaked under their feet as they washed the dishes, but the rest of Señora Pérez's kitchen was elaborate—she had a refrigerator as tall as Jaime and even a microwave. Next to the kitchen were worn but comfy-looking couches and a TV with a combination VCR and DVD player. Down the hall there were two bedrooms and an indoor bathroom. He'd never been in a mobile home before—they weren't safe in Guatemala with all the hurricanes—and had no idea how nice they were. It also helped that the walls were covered with photographs of the twins and the rest of the family. It felt like a home.

While Señora Pérez bottle-fed the babies, she looked around the clean house and fixed outdoor structures. Her tired face cracked into a smile. “I'm glad you came. You hear all these stories about immigrants robbing and sometimes even killing the residents.”

“We hear the same thing about the locals.” A sad smile crossed Ángela's face as she gave the counters a final wipe. Like her, Jaime still couldn't accept that Xavi was gone.

Señora Pérez handed them the bottles to wash and picked up the two babies. She stood rocking them, her
mouth twisted as if she were debating something. After a few minutes she took a deep breath. “I need to pick up my husband near Ciudad Juárez. He drove a bunch of calves up to El Norte and has to return the trailer to another rancher. It's about a three-hour drive. Do you want me to drop you off along the way? I assume you're trying to cross.”

“
Gracias
,” they said together. They couldn't believe their luck. It was more than they could have hoped for. No more trains! No more traveling across México. From Ciudad Juárez they would be able to see los Estados Unidos. Now they just had to cross the border to Tomás.

Except crossing into los Estados
Unidos would be harder than everything they had gone through in México. Señora Pérez said so. Back home, everyone—family, friends, newscasters—agreed.

It was night when Señora Pérez dropped them off at the migration camp on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez. From what they could see in the dark, sheets of metal attached haphazardly made up the structures at the camp. Trash littered the ground. Her rifle lay propped next to the gearshift.

“I don't want to leave you here,” she said. She reached for the door and hit the powerlocks even though she'd already done it fifteen minutes before.

“It was on the map.” Jaime glanced through his sketch
book to make sure. He could feel the vibration of Vida's growl against his arm. “The map with shelters for immigrants.”

“Do you know a better place?” Ángela licked her dry, chapped lips.

Señora Pérez shook her head. “I live on a ranch in the desert. I don't get visitors.”

Jaime and Ángela communicated via one of their silent looks. Like on most of their journey, they had no choice. Ángela unlocked the door while Jaime kissed their driver.

“We wouldn't have made it without you,
en serio,
” he said as he slid across the seat to get out.

“We owe you our lives,” Ángela agreed as she set Vida on the ground.

“
Que Dios los bendiga
,” she blessed them. They slammed the door shut, and in an instant the sound of power locks clicked. From the narrow cab behind the truck's main seats, the twin babies began to cry.

As soon as Señora Pérez drove away on the dusty path back to actual roads, people crawled out from the misshapen buildings like cockroaches. Young men with bulging muscles and red eyes, older men with barrel chests and untrustworthy smiles, all of them offering passage into El Norte, all promising they were the most efficient, reliable, and cheapest.

Vida's hackles raised as she growled at each man presenting his border-crossing deal.

“Twenty-five hundred dollars.”

“Thirty-two thousand pesos.”

“Five thousand dollars per person and I can guarantee your safety.”

Jaime and Ángela told everyone who offered their services that they'd think about it. It was impossible to choose one—they didn't know who to trust, and Vida didn't seem to like any of them. Jaime remembered what Xavi had said after they'd met El Gordo, about the ignorant paying more. But even with all these different prices presented to them, every single one of the smugglers, or coyotes as they were called, wanted more money than Tía had sewed into their jeans, even with the money they hadn't paid Santos back in Lechería.

“Call your parents. Get them to wire the fee,” one coyote suggested. Jaime didn't have to look at Ángela to know that wasn't an option. Their parents had already borrowed all the money they could to get them this far. Besides, in order to collect any money sent, they'd need identification. Something they didn't have.

“Have your parents send the money directly to me,” said another coyote who had the small, weedy look of Jaime's former friend Pulguita back home. Jaime got the feeling that if they had money sent to this coyote, they would never see him again.

One man even yelled at them that since there were two of them, he'd only charge them a thousand dollars
each to get to the border. But not to help them cross it.

They issued a flat-out “
no, gracias
” to that offer. They were already at the border—they weren't going to pay for someone to take them a few kilometers up or down to a different part of it. Especially when crossing it, wherever they were, was the most dangerous part.

“Boys, boys, let the poor runts get settled in.” A tall boy not too much older than Jaime emerged from the narrow pathways of the migration camp in heavy combat boots. The coyotes vanished between the falling-down shacks and spewed litter as quickly as they had appeared. Although the boy was dressed in camouflage pants, shirt, and a wedge cap with a pistol resting on his hip, Jaime knew this was no junior law enforcement officer. Only one kind of person made crooks scurry away so fast, and it wasn't the police. This boy was a member of whatever gang controlled the migration camp.

“I'll show you where you can stay,” the boy grunted. His voice sounded as if it had only changed a few weeks ago and he was still getting used to its new sound.

They had no choice but to move from the dirt track where Señora Pérez had dropped them off and follow him. Vida kept to their feet, hackles raised and turning her nose and pricking her one ear from one direction to the other. At least she wasn't growling anymore. Still, Jaime's scrunched shoulders didn't relax.

The boy left them at a shack made more out of cardboard than metal. Seven other people sat huddled inside. When Jaime asked Ángela if she thought they were safe to stay there, he received a roar of laughter from the inhabitants.

“
La migra
doesn't come here, if that's what you mean,” said a Mexican man with a head that looked like an anvil had squashed it. “But that's because this area's run by the Diamantes.”

Another Mexican, this one with a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once, continued, “The coyotes pay the gang a cut of the crossing fee to let them do business with us. Junior Diamantes members come by all the time to sell drugs, but other than that, they leave us alone. Just as long as you don't cause them no trouble.”

Jaime and Ángela glanced at each other. They didn't for a second believe the Diamantes would leave them alone for too long. They'd have to figure out how to cross, and fast.

When Ángela didn't say anything, Jaime took a deep breath and asked the question himself. “Which one of those coyotes is any good?”

“None of them,” two or three answered at once.

“I've been here four weeks,” a man with a grizzled beard and South American accent explained. “And it seems half of the people these dimwits take across get caught on
the other side. The others wash up downstream with a bullet in their head. If you can, go with Conejo.”

“He's the cheapest of the good ones,” one Salvadoran man agreed. “I paid another coyote, only to end up right back here a week later, half-dead from dehydration, and poorer than dirt. I wish I had saved more then and paid Conejo the higher price first. Conejo's clients don't get caught or sent back as often as the rest.”

“That's because they're killed or die trying to cross,” said a different man who came from the south, Nicaragua or maybe Panamá.

“No!” The Salvadoran slapped his fist on the dirt floor. “They don't come back because Conejo's that good.”

“How much does he charge?” a Guatemalan woman asked.

“And how much is he paying you to talk him up?” the other man demanded.

The Salvadoran looked like he was about to attack the cynical man. “For that, I hope your corpse rots in the desert. The kid asked who the best coyote is, so I'm telling him, you son of a gun. He charges twenty-one hundred dollars, and that includes the drive to the safe-house on the other end. He won't take pesos.”