La Linea (12 page)

“Where is he?” Elena asked anxiously. “He said three. Do you think he's not coming?”

“Calm down, Elena,” I replied. “He'll be here. He's probably just running late. We'll wait. At least it's cooler in here.” It was a relief to escape the afternoon heat.

Javier sank down onto the concrete floor and leaned against the metal grill. He closed his eyes, pulled his ankle toward him, and rubbed it carefully. He probed the area above the anklebone, grimacing slightly.

Elena looked at him with concern. She sat down next to him, cross-legged, and motioned for him to prop up his ankle on her knee. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the pamphlet. She thumbed through the pages, scanning the contents.

“Listen to this,” Elena said. “This is what happens if you don't drink enough water out in the desert.”

I leaned over to check out “Danger Signs of Dehydration.”

“Irritability. Angers easily,” she read. “That's one of the first things to watch out for.”

Elena gave me a little grin. “I finally know what's wrong with you! It looks like you've been dehydrated your whole life, Miguel.”

I grabbed the pamphlet out of her hands and read the next warning sign aloud. “Confusion. Makes irrational decisions.”

“What? Is this whole thing about you?” I teased back.

Elena poked me in the ribs, and yanked the paper out of my hands. “Oh, yeah, well just look what it says next,” she began.

“He's here,” Javi interrupted. He was looking down the long corridor of stalls. Striding toward us, head high, was El Plomero.

“Come! We're running late,” our
coyote
commanded.

He motioned for us to follow him. He unlocked the grating and pulled it up. As we stepped inside the boot stall, he quickly slammed the grating back down and locked it up tight. Then he moved to the back of the stall toward the shelves of boots and reached under the lowest shelf. I heard a small click, and a small section of the shelves swung out.

We walked through the opening, squeezing into the room behind the stall. The secret door closed. One dull bulb revealed a small storeroom stuffed from floor to ceiling with survival gear, organized by category.

“Here, try these.” El Plomero shoved a pair of light but well-made synthetic hiking boots into my hands. I kicked off my worn-out sneakers and replaced my filthy, stinky socks with new, thick ones. The new boots fit perfectly. Elena tried on several pairs before she found ones she liked.

Javier selected a high-topped pair. He laced them, stood up, and took several tentative steps. He limped only a little. He nodded to himself and muttered, “These will do.”

El Plomero gave us new pants, caps, and bandannas; two shirts to layer; and waterproof jackets, all in light colors. We each got a backpack stocked with raisins and packets of brown sugar, a small first-aid kit, and a tarpaulin. Mostly, though, the backpacks held as much water as we could carry.

El Plomero was a professional. He knew what he was doing. Nothing was left to chance. No wonder Don Clemente's fees were so high. No wonder they said he had never lost a single person.

“We leave now,” El Plomero announced. “We have a full moon tonight. We need to take advantage of that.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out our remaining money. “Here. Take this. It's all we have left.”

“We'll have plenty of time to take care of that later.” El Plomero didn't touch the money. “I'm taking you myself. Don Clemente said I was to take special care of you. This is the last thing I'll do for him.”

He looked at us hard. “It's at least two long nights of walking, perhaps more. It depends on your stamina, the weather,
la migra
 … many, many things can happen in the desert. Most of them are unpleasant.

“We'll take a new route, to the west,” El Plomero continued. “There's too much surveillance, too many other problems to the east. The new route is longer than the eastern one. It will be very difficult. If you're not able to withstand the heat and other hardships, you won't make it.”

He paused, letting his words sink in. “I'm giving you one last opportunity to reconsider. You can turn around and go back home now.”

Again he waited. Our silence filled up the little room. Did he really expect that we would back out? He didn't know what we'd come through. I wasn't about to give up yet. Elena was even more stubborn. And Javi? He'd never turn around. Never. This would be his only chance.

“You're like everyone else,” El Plomero said matter-of-factly. His warnings had not changed our minds one bit. “Everyone believes they'll make it. And, of course, you must have faith, mustn't you? It's the only way to enter the wilderness.”

He turned and opened a door that led to an alley outside. We piled ourselves and our gear into a dirty white pickup truck. Elena and El Plomero sat in front with the driver, Javi and I in the back.

For maybe an hour and a half, we headed west along a dirt road. The driver swerved to avoid the worst of the potholes, but Javi and I flew up and down on the hard metal of the truck bed. The road gave way to a faint dirt track that ended abruptly at the edge of a dry gully.

We got out and stretched. The driver pulled plastic jugs from the toolbox in the truck bed and thrust them into our hands. We took long swigs of warm water, as much as we could, before the truck headed back to town. A large trail of dust marked its slow passage east. The sun had set, but the heat of the day still rose up from the sand under our feet.

We adjusted our bootlaces and backpack straps for comfort. My shoulders ached and we hadn't taken a single step. The water was heavy. Really, really heavy. I'd carried enough
agua
in San Jacinto, for the corn, to know that soon it would feel like I was hauling around a load of bricks.

Javi hefted his own pack higher on his shoulders and tightened the belt at the waist. I couldn't see that it made any difference. The weight just seemed to settle down low again, as if the water were pulling him toward the center of the earth. He grunted, tugged at the pack again, and cinched the shoulder straps even tighter. Sweat poured down his face, too much for the effort he was making.

El Plomero checked his own pack. He shifted some contents, reached into Elena's pack, took out three-quarters of her water and put it in his.

“I can carry it, Plomero,” Elena insisted. “I want to do my share.”

“No, you can't. You'll slow us down. We can't wait for you.” El Plomero squared his shoulders.

“
Me llamo
Moisés,” he added quietly. “You can call me Moisés.”

With that, he faced north and began scrambling down the rocky slope into the gully.
“Vámonos,”
he commanded. “There's no time to waste. I set the pace.”

He'd made his way across the wash and up the other side before we had even taken one step.

“Keep up. No one can afford to wait for anybody,” Moisés's voice echoed across the emptiness. “We wait for no one.”

CHAPTER 26

The desert stretched out on all sides of us, flat and immense. We had unlimited space, but we walked single file behind Moisés, first Javi, then Elena, then me. Moisés hiked at a fast, steady pace. He stopped now and then to check his bearings. In the fading twilight, and then in the rising light of the moon, it was easy to see.

Perhaps two hours into the hike, we paused briefly. Moisés doled out raisins and a few almonds. Between bites, he gave us a lecture on basic survival.

“Unfortunately, this is the hottest time of the year. So don't talk more than you need to, even at night. It uses up moisture. Drink before you're thirsty. If you wait, it will be too late. Never take off any of your clothes. You lose water twice as fast if you're not covered up. We have just enough water to make it, if everything goes perfectly. Don't go anywhere without your pack. It has everything you need to survive, for a while anyway.”

I didn't need to ask Moisés to repeat any of it. It's easy to learn something when it matters to you. Javi nodded, as if he already knew most of what Moisés said.

“Watch where you sit and where you walk, especially at night. Scorpions and rattlesnakes will be out, just like us,” Moisés continued. “Don't sit on the ground, in the sun, during the day. Sit above the ground. Even a meter up, it may be ten to twenty degrees cooler. Take care of your feet. They're the only way to get out of here.”

So, we had a whole new set of enemies here—the sun, the heat, the animals. We could stay for a short time only. If we stayed longer, we would pay with our lives.

“Of course, there's always
la migra
to worry about,” Moisés said. “But here, in this section, once we cross the border, it's the militia we need to look out for. Ranchers have their own armies, equipped with uniforms and guns. And hatred for us.”

Moisés turned his back to us and began to walk once again. He had long legs and took big steps. With my own height, I could match him stride for stride. Elena had to take almost two steps for every one of Moisés's. Javi was somewhere in between. Moisés didn't look back to see where we were. He kept up the same relentless pace. I fell into the rhythm of the hike.

I daydreamed about the end, the very end, my homecoming in California. Papá would hug me and not let go. He'd ask for my forgiveness. He'd say he'd made a big mistake by making me wait.

Mamá would cry and hold my hand and offer up small grateful prayers
a Dios.
Papá would crack open a beer and hand it to me and no one would say I was too young. They'd beg me to tell them everything.

Javi and Moisés, Colmillo, Capitán Morales—all would figure into the story, but I'd be the main character. I would, of course, give Elena some credit. And I'd have a big heart. I wouldn't blame Elena for any of the trouble she got us into. Elena would tell everyone how I saved us both.

I replayed this fantasy a hundred times in my mind. I was so deep into my thoughts that I didn't notice that I was now third in line. Moisés, Elena, then me. I looked back over my shoulder. Javier had fallen behind, way behind. He straightened up and walked evenly, just as I turned to look.

We stopped twice more, the second time just as pale gold and pink tinted the eastern horizon. It took Javi more than five minutes to catch up to us. Moisés frowned, checked the ground around us, and spread a tarpaulin for us to sit on. We drank the small rations of water that he allowed us. I wasn't hungry, but he insisted that we eat small portions of the energy bars.

“We move again in ten minutes,” Moisés announced. “Two or three more hours, then we'll stop for the hottest part of the day. Javier, come with me.”

Moisés motioned for Javier to follow him. They moved out of hearing distance, but they needn't have bothered. We could guess what was being said. Moisés pointed at Javi's ankle. Javi shrugged, then raised his hands, palms up.

“Really,” I could imagine him saying, “it's just a small sprain. It'll be fine again once we rest.”

Then Moisés turned his back to us. He wanted to be sure we couldn't read his lips. But there were other things to read. I could hear the harsh tone of Moisés's words. I could see his stiff back, his shaking head.

It wasn't hard to understand what Moisés meant when his hands and fingers pointed first back toward Elena and me and then toward the rocky ground and the mountains that rose in the distance in front of us. The conversation might as well have been written out in the red sand at our feet or across the pale blue of the morning sky.

“He doesn't know Javi like we do, does he, Miguel?” Elena said. “Moisés doesn't know how strong Javi is.”

I was silent. I didn't know if I should say what she wanted to hear or what I thought she needed to hear.

“
¿Qué piensas,
Miguel? I want to know what you think. Really, I do,” Elena pleaded.

“Well, I think you're right,” I replied. “Javi
is
strong. He's going to make it.”

I couldn't see how telling the truth would help Elena make it out of this desert. She needed to believe that the three of us would survive together. Besides, what
was
the truth about Javi? He'd surprised me again and again with what he could do, with what he knew. He'd made it this far. Why not all the way?

Relief flooded her face. A single tear made its way down through the dirt on her cheek. “
Gracias,
Miguel. We can all make it, together. I just know it.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek.

Javi and Moisés made their way back to us. Moisés kicked at the sand grimly, his eyes fixed on the ground. Javi had put on his best smile, but there was pain in his eyes.

“Hey, you two, guess what Moisés told me?” he said excitedly. “We're here! We're already here!”

I looked around, confused. “What do you mean? We're in the middle of the desert! We're not anywhere.”

“No, no!” Javi said. “We
are
here. We crossed
la línea, la frontera
 … sometime in the night.”

Javi stretched out his arms as if to embrace the idea. “Don't you see? We made it!
¡Ya llegamos!
”

We all looked at the desolation that surrounded us. There was nothing but scrub brush and a single, tailless lizard skittering across the sand toward the safety of a rock.

I began to laugh first, then Elena and Javi. His big donkey laugh echoed across the desert. Moisés grinned. Soon we were laughing out loud. We laughed until our stomachs hurt and we couldn't laugh anymore.

I laughed so hard that I cried. It was crazy …
una tontería.
I'd arrived at the very place I always wanted to be, across
la línea
in
el Norte,
but I was in the middle of nowhere.