La Linea (11 page)

After dark, I pushed my way through the cornfield until I came to the rocky railroad bed. I found a grassy spot off to the side and lay down. But sleep wouldn't come, so I sat up, my back against a stump, and stared out at the tracks. Every bad part of riding the
mata gente
came back to me. I didn't want to get back on the train. I hated the
mata gente.
But it was free, and it headed in the right direction. And I'd be alone, just like I was when I first started the trip.
Solo.
All alone.

I moved my hand slowly to Abuelita's medallion, out of habit now, to be sure it was still there. I made little circles with my right index finger on the smooth metal back. I made the circles again and again, nonstop, until I couldn't tell where my finger left off and the medallion began.

I dozed, off and on. Then, late, very late, I sensed something near. The train gangs again? Soldiers? Other migrants, like me? A dog or a wild cat? I didn't move, straining to hear. I got ready to run or hide. Something behind me rustled, ever so slightly. I turned, slowly.

There was Elena, peering out from the edge of the cornfield. Her black eyes shone, like a wild animal watching and waiting. The tears running down her face, reflected by the light of the full moon, gave her away.

Had she come to say good-bye? Had she come to say she was sorry? Was she thinking of coming with me after all? Did she finally realize that we'd be better off without Javi?

I didn't move. I was afraid I'd startle Elena, that she would bolt like a deer. I wanted one more chance to convince her I was right. I opened my mouth to speak, to just whisper, “Elena,” to coax her closer. Before I could say it, Elena's face melted away and she was gone, without a sound. The night was still. If Elena was walking back through the corn, she was as quiet as a ghost.

Maybe I'd imagined her. Or maybe she really had come. I didn't know what was real anymore. Should I follow Elena? Should I go now, drag her back with me, make her get on the train? Would she do what I said, anyway?

Elena, my sister,
mi hermana.
Who knew what was the right thing to do? Sure, Javier might look after Elena, but what if something happened to him? He already looked exhausted, or sick. So what if I didn't know everything Javi knew. At least I was young and still strong. That had to count for something.

What was our best chance of making it?
Our
best chance, I said to myself again and again. I realized I no longer thought about it as
my
trip north. I couldn't stand the thought of Elena going north alone. I couldn't stand the thought of me going alone, either.

And maybe it didn't matter why I did it, but before the sun was up, I ran to the road as fast as I could. An old red truck belching black smoke was just pulling away.

“¡Esperen!”
I waved my arms wildly above my head. “Wait for me!” Elena's head popped up from the bed of the truck. A large, joyful smile spread over her face.

“Stop!” she screamed. She banged with both fists on the rear window of the cab. “You have to stop!
¡Es
Miguel,
mi hermano!
”

The truck screeched to a halt. I ran to catch up and vaulted up over the back and into the truck bed. It was filled with burlap bags of coffee beans. The driver pointed to a large, bright blue tarpaulin.

“If we knock on the window, put this over you and hold still. We'll do our best, but if there's a checkpoint, and they decide to check … well.” He didn't finish his sentence. There was only so much they could do. There was only so much we could expect.

For two days and nights, the truck lumbered noisily down rutted roads, highways, through
pueblitos.
We drove around the edges of the big cities, traveling through a countryside that turned increasingly dry and arid. Elena made me a nest out of the coffee-bean bags, with an extra one for a pillow. She made one for herself, right next to mine.

Once, the second day, Javi caught my eye. He nodded silently, as if to acknowledge something unsaid. It could've been a nod that said I'd made the right choice to not get back on the
mata gente.
Or maybe the nod was simply to say, “Okay, here we are again.” I couldn't tell. Except for the nod, his face was blank.

I stared out at the land and kept my thoughts to myself. The only thing that mattered was making it across
la línea.
If the stories were true, the worst was yet to come. Once we crossed
la línea,
everything would change. Everything.

CHAPTER 24

The border town was dust. It poofed up around our feet as we walked. The hoods of cars, windowsills, a tattered blue awning above a closed shoe store, a single droopy mimosa tree next to the police station—everything was clothed in light brown.

Elena wiped her hand across the trunk of a parked taxi, then wrote
“Lávame”
with her index finger. Bright green paint showed through, glinting in the sun.

We walked toward the
mercado,
where my contact could be found. Elena and Javier walked side by side. Javi limped slightly, favoring his right ankle. With each step, he listed slightly toward Elena. She moved a little to the left, closing the gap between them.

We crossed the street and pushed our way onto the sidewalk on the other side. A crowd had gathered around the newsstand at the edge of the
mercado.
The headlines on three different newspapers screamed in giant letters:

¡S
E
D
ESCARILLA
T
REN
!

¡C
IENTOS
M
UERTOS
!

¡E
L
M
ATA
G
ENTE
M
ATA A
M
UCHOS
!

Javi grabbed a paper and held it so Elena and I could see. The
mata gente
had derailed at a high speed, hours north of where we had jumped off. Many were killed, maybe hundreds. Many more were injured, and most were children. The photos were big and scary. Little bodies lay scattered, like twigs, across a grassy slope.

“Was it
our mata gente,
Javi?” Elena asked.

“I don't know.” Javi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It could've been. Or maybe the
mata gente
that came through the next day. Who knows?”

We read every word of every article in each of the papers, but they all said the same things. Equipment failure. A tragedy. Children with no identification. A government investigation. Javi shook his head, as if the news confirmed what he'd already known. All I could think was that Elena and I had cheated death again. How much luck could we have left?

We threaded our way through the shoppers. “Don Clemente's instructions said to look for a guy in the boot stall, in the
mercado,
” I explained.

There were the usual fruit and vegetable stalls. But there were others you'd find only at the border. One spot, El Coyote, sold supplies you needed to cross the desert: knives, snakebite kits, light jackets and pants, a dozen kinds of hats, and water bottles—hundreds and hundreds of blue and clear plastic water bottles.

People crowded around, pawing through the items. An older man in a cowboy hat cradled an armful of water bottles. Two teenage boys grabbed several pairs of pants with drawstrings.

“We need two pair each,” one said to the other. “They said it gets cold at night. Get one bigger pair to layer, and to protect against scorpions.”

A man and a woman in matching bright blue Windbreakers stood off to the side of El Coyote. The words
“Socorro Fronterizo”
were stitched onto the front of each jacket. They held thick stacks of pamphlets, handing one to every person who left the stall.

An older woman took the paper politely, folded it, and stowed it in her shirt pocket.
“Si Dios es servido, llegamos,”
she said. She thought it was all in God's hands. Nothing the pamphlet said would make a bit of difference to her.

Two young men about twenty years old each took one. They scanned the pamphlet briefly, shrugged their shoulders, and threw them to the ground as they walked off. Another looked at the paper quizzically. He frowned at the words but studied the drawings intently for several minutes.

“Joven,”
the man said. He pressed a pamphlet into my hand. His touch was warm and firm. Kind eyes met mine. “Here. Take one. Read it.”

“Guía de Seguridad en el Desierto.”
I glanced through the pages. Some of the advice was about desert safety, but most of it seemed to be about how to give yourself up, or how to get back to Mexico if you were lost.

Tip #3: “If the Border Patrol intercepts you, keep your hands visible at all times.

Never move them toward your pockets.”

Tip #7: “Follow the power lines south.”

“But the best thing is, don't go,” the man cautioned. “Go back home. It's very dangerous out there.”

He spoke to me as if I were the only one he would talk to all day, as if I was his son or brother or best friend. He must talk to hundreds a day the same way he talked to me, but I bet he didn't convince more than one person a day to not try to cross.

“Gracias,”
I said. “We just need one. We're together.”

I nodded toward Elena and Javi. A trail of warning pamphlets littered each of the pathways that led away from El Coyote, ground into the dirt by the heels of border crossers in a hurry. Elena took the pamphlet out of my hand and stuffed it in her front pocket.

At the far corner of the
mercado,
we found the one and only
botas
stall. The scent of new leather filled the air. Some boots sat displayed on shelves in the back. Others hung from the ceiling, out of reach. These were pointy-toed boots made of fine black, brown, tan, and white leather, with lots of tooling. These were boots for
misa,
for baptisms, for weddings,
quinceañeras,
and funerals.

A man sat in the middle of the stall on a short three-legged stool, hunched over a boot in his hands. He rubbed paste into the leather with his bare hands. He used a practiced, circular movement. With each pass, the leather became softer and more pliable. We watched the man silently for several moments.

He finally looked up, continuing to work the leather by touch. He was not young, but his face was as smooth and unwrinkled as the leather he held. A carefully trimmed moustache covered his upper lip. His green eyes moved slowly from me to Elena to Javi.

“What can I show you?” he asked. “I have a fine pair right here. They would be perfect for you.” He spoke to Javier first, out of respect, or practicality. Javi would be the one with money.

“We are looking for El Plomero,” I replied quickly, cutting off Javier. I wanted to be the first to talk.

“I make boots. If you need a plumber, I know a good one.” He bent once again to his work. I wondered if there was a code or a password or secret sign that Don Clemente forgot to tell me.

“No,” I insisted, “I'm sure. He told me to ask for ‘El Plomero' in the boot shop at the
mercado.
I'm sure that's what he said.”

The man's head came up again. He raised one eyebrow ever so slightly. “Who told you?” he asked. He continued to soften the leather.

“Don Clemente told me,” I said. “I was supposed to have been here days ago, but I was delayed.”

“What's your name?” he demanded. “And what do you know about Don Clemente?” He stopped his work now. I had his full attention.

I didn't want to say much until I knew who this man was. I needed to know if he really was “El Plomero” or if he knew him. Most of all, I needed to know El Plomero's loyalty. Since Don Clemente's death, did he now work for Juanito? If he did, I couldn't trust him.

“My name is Miguel de Cervantes. Don Clemente arranged for El Plomero to help me.” I didn't say the obvious—that El Plomero was to help me cross the border.

“I spoke to Don Clemente this morning.” His eyes locked on mine. He didn't blink. “He said nothing about you,” he continued. “Your name means nothing to me.”

So he
was
El Plomero. That much was now clear. But what he said was a lie, and a test for me.

“Don Clemente is dead. He died in an accident. Juanito told me so himself,” I answered.

And then I took a risk, to see if I could trust the man or not. The most I'd lose was this one
coyote.
There must be others, lots of others.

“Juanito either killed Don Clemente or had him killed,” I declared. This thought had been forming in my mind for days, but it wasn't until I said it aloud that I knew it was the truth.

The man's eyes flickered. He stood up and placed the boots on the counter.

“You can tell that to your grandchildren, but for now, keep it to yourself,” he warned. “Juanito is a worm, the lowest of the low. He's trying to take over. I worked for Don Clemente for over twenty years. I won't work for anyone else. And, yes, I am El Plomero.”

He examined us again. “Is it the three of you, then, or just you?”

“The three of us … me, my sister, Elena … Javier…” I paused. “Originally, it was just me, but—”

El Plomero interrupted, “No matter. Be here at three. I'll have it all arranged.”

CHAPTER 25

We returned to the boot stall at exactly three o'clock. Nothing so far had gone according to plan, but now with El Plomero, I allowed myself to feel a small bit of optimism. Maybe things would go the way Don Clemente had intended, finally.

The iron grill had been pulled down and locked up tight. Javi rattled the metal with both hands. Elena poked her nose through the grating and peered into the darkness. I pulled at both of the giant padlocks.