La Linea (14 page)

Then, suddenly, it started to rain. It was a hard, pounding downpour that soaked us within seconds, before we even had a chance to pull out our jackets. We stood and let the water stream over us for several minutes. The storm passed as quickly as it came. It lasted long enough to cool the temperature by maybe thirty degrees. It didn't last long enough for water to collect, water we needed, badly.

“Now what?” Elena asked me, her teeth chattering wildly.

“Change. We take off the wet shirts and put on our jackets. We'll dry the shirts tomorrow.” I was making this up as I went along. It seemed like a good thing to do, or the only thing we could do.

So we changed. And we walked, and we walked, and we walked. The ground leveled to a sort of valley. I thought I found a faint trail. It was narrow, but it headed in the right direction. I lengthened my stride, hoping to make up for time we'd lost earlier in the night. I moved to avoid a branch on my left, brushing up against a cactus on the right.

“Ow!” I complained. I rubbed my hand, and the pain intensified. Hundreds of tiny spurs covered my fingers. I bent to see if I could pick them out, but the light was too dim. There were too many anyway.

“Ah, these are the
chollas
I heard of.” Javi took out his comb and handed it to me. “They penetrate your skin and stick in. Rake them off. It's the only way.”

A
cholla
had also attacked Elena. She sniffled in pain but said nothing. We took turns with Javi's comb many times that night. Every stop cost us precious time and energy.

What was this place trying so hard to protect? Why bother with fences or
la migra
or militias? The heat, the cold, the snakes, the evil
cholla
spurs—they all conspired to keep us out or slow us down or outright kill us.

I tried and tried, but I couldn't seem to find a route straight toward our landmark. Whenever I headed us north, a ravine or cactus or part of a barbed-wire fence made us veer either east or west. Each time, it slowed us down. Twice we ducked down flat and hid when headlights flickered on a dirt road. We believed it was
la migra
out on patrol.

But I worried most about something else. We were going slowly, yet Javi continued to fall behind. He caught up when we stopped, but each time it took him longer to reach us. The rough terrain had to be hurting his ankle. At dawn, I turned to watch Javi struggle toward us yet again. He limped slightly, but it was more than that. He looked shrunken and wizened, as if the desert were sucking out his insides.

Elena came up right next to me. She squinted her eyes toward the mountain. It now appeared to be several kilometers away. “It looks closer. How much farther, do you think?”

I remembered what Javi said about illusions in the desert. I had no idea how far we had to go. I looked at her, then at me. Our condition was the opposite of illusion. Deep scratches covered our hands, arms, faces. Barbed wire had torn my shirt in front and one knee of my pants. One thorn was deeply embedded in my forearm. It would be infected soon if I didn't get it out. Elena's face was badly sunburned. She sat and pulled off her left boot. A blister, broken and leaking fluid, covered her heel.

But the worst part of it all was the thirst. I'd allowed us only small sips of water during the night. But what was it that Moisés said? Something about not getting too thirsty. Something about not saving the water. I couldn't make sense of that advice. I figured we had enough left for a small amount each. Then it would be gone anyway.

It was early morning and already the sun had no mercy. I didn't want to think about how hot it was going to get. I pulled out the water and swallowed several small drinks. Elena watched me closely and then took exactly the same amount for herself. Javi barely wet his lips.

“Drink,” Elena and I said together. He put the bottle up to his lips and rolled his head back.

“Listen, you two,” Javi said slowly, stowing his water bottle in his pack. “I have something to tell you.” His usual fast talk had slowed to a crawl. His words slurred together. Everything about him seemed to have slowed down.

“Miguel is in charge now.” He looked at Elena to make his point. “Do what he says.”

Then he seemed to summon something from deep within. He pushed himself up, groaning with each movement. “You'll make it. I promised, remember? And I'll be right behind you, every step of the way.”

CHAPTER 29

The sun beat down fiercely and the heat rose up from the ground in wavy, pulsating bands. Once, mid-morning, Javi stopped suddenly. He let his pack slide to the sand and began to fumble with the buttons on his long-sleeved shirt.

“It's hot,” he mumbled to himself. “I'll be cooler.”

“No, Javi!” I pulled his hands away from his chest. “Remember what Moisés said?”

Javi wrinkled his brow. “Moisés?” he asked. “Moisés? Oh, yes, him.” But he gave me a puzzled look as I heaved his pack up and placed the straps around his shoulders.

I forced us to go on an hour more, but it was clear we needed rest, Javi more than anyone. The best protection I could find was a scrawny stand of mesquite bushes. They gave poor shade, but it was better than nothing, maybe.

We spread our tarps the way Moisés showed us. I looked around for snakes. Elena looked farther and harder, but even she gave up after a minute or two. A snake seemed like a small thing, or just another thing. It seemed neutral, a part of this place. I didn't have enough energy to care about a
culebra.

I slept off and on. We moved to try to stay in the shade, but more than half of my body stayed out in the sun. I tried to lick my lips but I couldn't find enough saliva to do it. A steady wind came up that seemed to suck the last bit of water out of my body.

Late in the afternoon, I watched a dusty brown scorpion climb up my shirt sleeve to my chest, just below my chin. It stopped, as if it might stay. It held its tail high, at the ready. I took in a breath, very slowly, held it, and waited.

But the scorpion suddenly scurried away, down my body, and disappeared on the other side of the mesquite. Was the scorpion another omen? I decided that once we finished the water, we'd have to give ourselves up to the first person we saw. We'd die otherwise.

The sunset was a hundred different colors, but the sun itself was a blurry blob. The wind flapped our tarps as we folded them up for the last time. It picked up the sand in miniature tornados and sent them dancing across the desert. I led us north … again … the wind now blowing at a steady pace from the west.

“Look!” Elena pointed toward the sun. It dipped low on the horizon, completely hidden by a red-brown haze.

“Why does it look so strange?” she asked. “That's not a cloud. What is it?”

“I'm not sure,” I replied. “But the weather is changing again. Can't you feel it?”

Elena paused, took her bandanna and wrapped it around her face to cover her nose and mouth as protection against the stinging sand.

I kept myself going by telling myself that this was the last stretch. Just one more step, Miguel. Don't stop, Miguel.
No te des por vencido,
Miguel.
Amáchate,
Miguel. If you stop, Elena and Javi will stop, too.
No pares,
Miguel.

We climbed up and down a series of small hills dotted with cactus. The hot wind pushed us to the side, like a mighty hand. On the far side of the first hill, a red toothbrush poked out of the desert floor, bristles first. I bent and picked it up. It was light, almost weightless, really.

I turned the toothbrush over and over. Who dropped it here? Was this the first thing abandoned? Was it the very last thing given up?

Then I made another decision. Not only would we leave no person in the desert, but we would leave no thing in the desert. If we left even one thing, it would mean we'd given up. I saw now that it was my job to not let us give up.

Twenty or thirty steps later, Elena found a plastic water bottle like ours. The blowing sand had already covered part of it. She examined the whole surface, as if she half expected to see the name of the owner marked somewhere on the plastic.

Another bottle leaned crookedly against a cactus, its top gone. A pair of child's sneakers, tied together by the laces, straddled the base of the plant. The soles of the shoes had melted in the heat. A torn blue work shirt hung from one of the arms of the cactus. The wind picked up the shirt and sent it flying to the east, along with the blowing sand, its arms extended ghostlike in the dusk.

On the far side of the next small hill, I spotted a shape lying next to a large, smooth rock. Even in the fading light, I could tell it was human. I stopped, waiting for Elena and Javi to come up next to me. Javi's cheeks had hollowed. His lips were scabbed over, his eyes dull and flat. He stared ahead at the blob in front of us.

“Stay here,” I told Elena and Javi. “Let me look.”

I approached slowly. It was a woman. She lay on her side, curled up. Her long black hair fanned out from her head. The skin on her face had blistered and puckered up. I couldn't tell how old she might be. Cradled in her arms was a small child, its face turned toward her breast.

Javi and Elena were beside me. Javi fell to the sand. He crossed himself. Then he crawled on his knees, a penitent at a shrine, three slow steps toward the bodies.

“Eduardo …
m'ijo
 … Magdalena,
m'ija,
” he muttered.

Elena inched closer to my side, grabbed my hand, and squeezed. She furrowed her brow in concern. Javi had confused the bodies with his own children.

“Dios los guarde.…”
The wind muffled the rest of Javi's words.

“We can't just leave them, Miguel.” Elena's grip tightened. “We should bury them.”

“No.” I pointed to the mother's feet, already covered with sand. The desert would take care of the burial. “We need to save our energy.”

Who was she? Where did she come from? Where was she going? Who would wait for her, and the child, only to have them never appear? The desert had claimed her life and the life of her child. It would now take them away completely.

I took Javi's elbow to help him up. He pushed me away, continuing to pray in a barely audible whisper. Twice more, I tried to lift him to his feet. Finally, he allowed Elena to take his hand and pull him up.

We walked now side by side, the three of us, at Javi's pace, very slowly. We'd lose each other if we weren't close. The wind began to blow violently. In the driving sand, I couldn't see the mountain. I couldn't even see my fingers when I stretched out my arms in front of me.

If we didn't go on, we would run out of water and time. If we did go on, we'd run the risk of walking in circles or back, in the wrong direction. But we were in the middle of a giant desert sandstorm, and there were no good choices.

“We have to stop!” I yelled over the wind to Elena and Javi. “Get out the tarps! We'll curl up in them and wait this thing out. Maybe it won't last long, and we can go on.”

We took off our backpacks, dug into them, and pulled out the tarps. Our water bottles were nearly empty. I shared the rest of mine with Elena. There didn't seem to be any point anymore in saving the water. Javi had already curled up inside his tarp like a butterfly in a cocoon, his backpack tucked close to his chest.

“
Tengo miedo,
Miguel.” Elena's voice wavered weakly. “I don't want to be alone.”

We strained against the driving sand to make our own cocoon, one tarp under us, the other tucked in as tight as we could make it around our bodies. By then the wind was howling fiercely.

We lay side by side. In the muffled darkness, the screaming wind all around us, I could barely make out her words.

“Are you mad at Papá, Miguel? I'm not mad at Mamá. Don't be mad, Miguel,” Elena murmured. She felt for my hand and intertwined her fingers with mine.

“It'll be better in California than we ever dreamed, right, Miguel? It'll be worth the wait, won't it?” She held tightly for a moment, then loosened her grip. She was too tired to hold on hard.

“You let me come with you. You didn't send me back to San Jacinto, like I deserved.
No me abandonaste,
” she whispered. “
Gracias,
Miguel.
Gracias.
”

Darkness fell. The storm got worse with each minute. Despite our efforts to block out the sand, it crept into our shelter. We kept our bandannas over our noses and mouths to filter it out, but I could still feel the grit between my teeth.

Elena slept beside me, exhausted. But I lay awake, listening to the wind. It was a thousand voices competing to be heard. Hundreds moaned in despair, hundreds in sadness. It was the people lost in this place, calling me to join them. It was the mother and child we left, now arisen and walking with the others.

It was
La Llorona
out to bewitch me, just as Doña Maria had warned. If I listened and followed, I'd be lost forever. With the last little piece of resistance I had, I plugged my ears with my fingers to shut out the sounds. And, finally, somehow, I slept.

CHAPTER 30

I put my head under the waterfall, tilted it back, and took big deep drinks of cold water. Lalo pulled me into the pool, wrestling me down into the green depths. Our arms and legs tangled and we burst to the surface, laughing and gasping for air.

Chuy reached into his pocket for his carving—bright green horns, red claws, blue fangs, yellow-spotted wings—and put it in my hand. The creature fit easily on my palm. I touched its head, between the horns. It turned and looked at me, then jumped spryly to the ground.

It grew, in an instant, bigger than a horse. “Get on!” Chuy and Lalo shouted together. They dived into the pool and came up as one. Their heads were bobbing black balls on the water.