The Only Road (12 page)

When it looked like no one else had any money for a safe passage aboard the train, El Gordo turned back to his
immaculate car. “We'll come back for those of you who've paid or changed your mind at one o'clock in the morning. The rest of you who are going to face the Beast, thanks for feeding the vultures.”

He laughed again and motioned to his minion, who popped open the trunk with the push of a button. From there the minion extracted a leg of raw meat. Jaime hoped it was pork or beef and not something more sinister. The minion went through the trees by the river and slapped the meat on the table outside the kitchen that held their meals.

“For your troubles, Kevin.” El Gordo waved a fat hand at the food. “Always a pleasure doing business with you.” And once more his laughter rang across the street.

“Of course, God thanks you,” Padre Kevin said through tight lips.

It took a couple of minutes for El Gordo to squeeze himself back into the cramped driver's seat, and then he and his minion were gone. A collective sigh, almost as loud as El Gordo's satanic laughter, vibrated in the now-quiet street. No one's sigh was louder than Padre Kevin's.

People shuffled back into the church or returned to their previous activities. Yesterday's grumpy woman got César and some other boys to haul the meat into the kitchen and ordered some women to help her cook it. Jaime and his friends looked at the semi-deflated ball and seemed to agree the
fútbol
game was over.

Three Honduran boys who had been playing
fútbol
with them shoved their hands in their pockets.

“Four thousand pesos? Who does that fat cat think he is?” said Gusti, one of the best strikers Jaime had ever played with.

Sebastián, who preferred refereeing to playing, grumbled, “I bet he just takes the money and feeds people to
la migra
.”

“Any chance we can come up with four thousand pesos in six hours?” asked Omar, who had been their goalkeeper.

“Sure.” Gusti smirked. “If a purse of money falls from the heavens.”

The other two boys stared at the overcast sky for a few seconds, as if wondering whether there was any chance of that happening. As they headed up the street, Omar picked up an empty beer bottle lying in the bushes; they could get a couple of copper coins for the glass. At that rate they would need thousands of bottles to earn enough to pay El Gordo.

“Our parents paid double that,” Ángela muttered under her breath. She took Jaime's hand and they turned to walk back into the church with their other friends. Jaime worked the math in his head to figure out how much that translated into Guatemalan quetzales—about his father's three-month salary. He hated thinking of the trouble he'd
caused everyone.Their whole family must have chipped in; the women Mamá worked for must have given her loans; Tomás probably sent his wages too. All to be overcharged. But there was nothing they could do. They certainly couldn't ask El Gordo for a refund.

“Maybe they'll give us nice seats with air-conditioning on the train,” he joked. He didn't know what to expect—he'd never been on a train before—but he doubted El Gordo's way was even legal.
We're lucky
, he kept reminding himself. His family could pay for El Gordo's train, and maybe, just maybe, they were better protected as a result.

“I'm not surprised your parents paid more,” Xavi said. “There are middlemen to pay off and others who just take advantage. The ignorant are always the ones who pay more.”

“Our parents aren't ignorant,” Jaime defended quickly.

“I meant ignorant in terms of smuggling costs. Someone told them a price and they didn't negotiate it.”

Xavi did have a point. Neither his parents nor Ángela's had ever made this journey, nor anyone in the immediate family. Tomás had papers and sponsorship that allowed him to travel through México the whole way by bus without any complications. His parents could only go by what someone said or another recommended.

If only his parents hadn't had to pay so much. If only he and Ángela hadn't had to leave Guatemala. He should
have been nicer to Pulguita back when they were friends. He should have let the boy continue stealing from him. He should have stopped Miguel from telling Pulguita they didn't want to be friends anymore.

It all came down to Jaime, and the ways he could have stopped any of this from happening.

No one slept that night.
And there was no bonfire.

Only about fifteen of the hundred and fifty staying at the church were using El Gordo's services. Inside the church the sheet that divided the men's quarters from the women and children was pulled aside as more than half of the people gathered their things and made plans to face the Beast, or
la bestia
as it was nicknamed. Also known as the train.  Advice bounced around from the veteran train riders, and everyone else who liked to give an opinion.

“Don't travel by yourself,” said a man who had been deported twice back to Nicaragua.

“Don't trust anyone,” said a pregnant Honduran woman, wrapping a shawl tight around her shoulders.

The grumpy woman who served them food grumbled, “You're
better off just going home. You'll never make it.”

A few others, particularly the old people, murmured in agreement. One man added, “If the train slows down, it could be an immigration stop. Or a trap.”

“If you jump off, don't be scared of the ground. It'll hurt you less than the train wheels, or the gangsters' gunshots,” the Nicaraguan chimed in again.

César, who played
fútbol
with them and had been on the train a few times, told everyone they weren't that bad. “Just give the gangs what they want. No big deal.”

Of course it was a big deal, especially when the gang wanted your life.

But warnings and opinions weren't enough to change minds. Most people were determined to board
la bestia
anyway. They didn't have a choice.

“I'm still getting on the train,” Xavi announced as their group sat by the river, with Vida licking a bone from the meat El Gordo had brought. “Rafa, Joaquín, you're coming too, right?”

“Obviously.” Rafa looked at him with mock disbelief, as if there could be another answer.

Joaquín stared at Xavi with scared eyes as he shifted from one foot to another. Then he blinked in agreement.

“Do you have any money?” Jaime asked. It'd be much better if they went with him and Ángela. If only El Gordo would strike a deal with them, take whatever the three
could afford, and call it even. But Jaime knew El Gordo would never go for that kind of deal. Not after he'd kicked that man who had insisted he had paid.

Xavi ran a hand through his hair, which made it stand up as if his thoughts had electrified it. “I left El Salvador in a hurry, with only enough money for the bus ticket here. I stole this uniform shirt from a washing line just over the Guatemala-México border. I have nothing left except my phone and charger.”

From Joaquín's pockets came two Honduran lempira coins. The boy turned them over as if he were studying the engravings. Jaime had no idea of their value, but he guessed it was next to nothing. Rafa, Jaime knew, had gambled away the little money he had. Inside Ángela's backpack they had the remains of the food from home, and a few pesos for another couple of meals. It was better than nothing but still not fair. These boys didn't even have a change of clothes.

“How are you going to stay in the train without any money?” Ángela put her hands on her hips in a way that gave her an uncanny resemblance to Abuela, and no one messed with their grandmother.

Xavi couldn't look her in the eye. “Not in. On.”

Jaime remembered playing trains with Miguel when they were younger. Miguel always liked to balance the passenger toy people on top of the train cars and see how fast he could roll the train before the plastic people fell
off. Xavi was talking about doing the same, except as a real-life person.

Ángela shook her head. “Don't. It's too dangerous.”

“But what's the alternative?” Xavi folded his arms over his chest and paced back and forth. “If we walk or hitchhike, sooner or later we're going to get caught. This whole journey is dangerous. Most people have to attempt it several times. César's on his sixth try. None of us can return home, either. We're not staying here to wash dishes for Padre Kevin for the rest of our lives.”

“But you can wash dishes for someone else until you've earned enough money to get properly on the train,” Ángela pointed out.

Rafa laughed as he put a casual forearm on Ángela's shoulder. “It would take ages to save up that much. I don't want to work that hard. Besides, who's going to hire us when we saw half our
fútbol
team also looking for jobs to pay their way north?”

Ángela pushed his arm off her and gave him a reproachful look before turning back to Xavi. “What if something happens to you?”

He didn't look at her. “Things happen all the time.”

“Sure, if you go looking for trouble,” she snapped back.

“You're not their mother,” Jaime told his cousin in a low whisper. He didn't want anything bad to happen to these boys either, but he understood that what they did was their choice.

“Don't
worry about us, it'll be fun,” Rafa said.
Fun, right
, Jaime thought. That boy sure had a twisted idea of what “fun” meant. But, Jaime imagined, if their lives weren't at stake, riding a train cross-country would be fun—going through big cities and one-horse towns, getting the conductor in his striped hat to toot the horn, borrowing a piece of coal to draw it all. Yes, that would be fun. If it were realistic. Maybe not thinking of the reality was what kept Rafa optimistic.

“What will you do if
la migra
catches you?” Ángela demanded, as if she knew they didn't have real answers.

“Drop it,” Jaime said, this time loud enough for them all to hear, though no one listened.

Xavi pointed to the uniform shirt that claimed him as a “student” at a Mexican school.
La migra
officer on the bus had bought the disguise. Except now the shirt was stained with dirt and Vida's blood. “It's worked for me so far.”

Rafa pulled a letter from his jeans pocket and showed it to Xavi and Ángela. As usual, he volunteered information without being asked. “I sent this to myself, using an address here in Arriaga. The letter contains a long plea from my ‘
abuelita
' up north to come for a visit before Grandfather dies. See, this way, if
la migra
tries to deport me, I have the letter with ‘my' Mexican address, dated a couple weeks ago. They'll think that I'm southern Mexican, which explains my accent.”

Jaime and Joaquín looked at each other and then at the older kids, not knowing what to say. It was Xavi, after glancing through the letter, who finally said, “Except this letter supposedly came from the northeastern state of Coahuila, where your ‘grandparents' live. But it has the Arriaga postmark.” Xavi folded the letter back into the envelope and returned it to its owner. Rafa's mouth dropped open in disappointment as he realized his plan wasn't as clever as he thought.

“Do you have a way to avoid getting deported?” Jaime asked Joaquín. The boy seemed so helpless and innocent, Jaime wondered how he could possibly have made it this far on his own.

“I can sing the Mexican national anthem,” Joaquín said to his shoes, and didn't notice the others looking at him in surprise. Partly because it was a much better ruse than the fake letter, partly because he knew the words. But mostly because he'd dare sing it when he barely spoke.

Ángela wrapped the young boy in a tight hug before grabbing Xavi's hand and giving it a squeeze. “Fine. I'll help you get ready. You need a plan, and a few backup ones in case things go wrong, 'cause they will.”

She led the way back into the church to the wall where route maps and safe-house locations were displayed. Jaime lagged behind with Xavi while the older boy dragged his toes along the dirt floor.

“I'm sorry she's acting like this,” Jaime muttered. “She's not usually so bossy.”

The corners of Xavi's mouth went up, but the smile seemed sad, distracted. “It's her way of showing she cares.”

Jaime supposed. He knew Ángela liked being in charge and taking care of people—she was a lot like Abuela and his mamá that way. But he'd never seen her like this before. Before Miguel, she never . . . Maybe that was it. Maybe she also thought there was more she could have done to save Miguel. Maybe by helping these boys, they could make it up to Miguel. If that was the case, he was all in.

There wasn't much to do to help prepare the boys for their journey—they had no money, no supplies, and not much time left. The best they could do was memorize the locations of the safe-houses throughout México (Jaime drew replicas of the maps in his sketchbook and gave a copy to everyone) and come up with ideas to keep them from harm. Other than “do not get caught,” there weren't too many options.