The Only Road (19 page)

Too tired to care, Jaime dragged his feet behind the others and let them figure things out. At least it had stopped raining. The “waiting spot” was obvious: there were a few others scattered around the tall grasses and shrubs where the tracks bent. Ten, maybe twelve, people in total. Jaime nodded and greeted each traveler politely, but didn't feel
like making conversation. Not when he knew how easy it was for any of them to die. Not after having said good-bye to Rafa. Soon he would have to do the same with Joaquín. And maybe Xavi. The older boy still hadn't mentioned where he was going.

They slept in some bushes near the tracks and woke up early. The legless man had said the train heading to Mexicalli would go through in the morning but hadn't said when, not that anyone had a wristwatch. They had left the populated city behind during their long trek the day before and were now in grasslands with scattered trees and occasional buildings.

Jaime joined Xavi to use the bathroom in the bushes, but Joaquín, like always, chose to go alone. After ten minutes the young boy hadn't returned. Ángela sent the other two to go look for him while she stayed with Vida for protection.

Joaquín wasn't far away, crouched under a shrub and hugging his knees to his chest. By his feet was some scuffed-up dirt as if he'd buried his business.

“Are you okay?” Jaime bent down next to him while Xavi, a few meters away, tried to identify edible plants.

Joaquín didn't answer, just stared into the bushes, half-shocked, half-scared.

“Is it your stomach?” Jaime wondered if the boy had soiled his pants. It wasn't unreasonable, and it'd explain
the embarrassment. Parasites were hard to avoid, especially when they were eating and drinking whatever they could find.

Joaquín shook his head no.

“Do you want me to get Ángela?”

With this, Joaquín nodded vigorously.

“¡Ángela!” Jaime called out.

Ángela was there in a second with Vida at her heels. She dropped to her knees and put a hand on Joaquín's shoulder. “What is it,
papi
?”

Joaquín stared at Jaime and then at Xavi, who had stopped his gathering to glance at the boy. Jaime got the hint, though he wasn't happy about it. He walked away with Xavi, leaving the other two to a private moment. He thought he and Joaquín were friends, even though the younger boy still didn't talk much. They laughed together, rolled their eyes when Xavi and Ángela gave each other sappy looks, had bubblegum-blowing contests. It wasn't fair that he trusted Ángela more than him.

Ángela came back a few minutes later with the most deliberately blank expression she could muster.

“What's up with him?” Jaime asked quickly. If Joaquín was sick, would it be worth taking him to a hospital? Would they even treat him if he couldn't pay? Jaime had imagined all the worst things that could happen on the trip, but had never once thought about what to do if someone got sick.

She set down her backpack at her feet and shook her head, still pretending like it wasn't a big deal. “I can't say.”

“But I'm your cousin, you can tell me anything.”

This time her expression did change as she glared at him like he was a misbehaving little kid. “Except someone else's secret.”

Fine.
He kicked a bit of dirt under his shoe. He supposed he would have to respect that. “But is he at least okay?”

“There's nothing to worry about,” she said, but didn't meet his eyes.

Joaquín emerged from the bushes a few minutes later, not looking at anyone. In his hands were some long grasses he was weaving together with extreme concentration. In other words, he didn't want to be bothered. Jaime sighed and told himself at least Joaquín didn't look any different.

They breakfasted in silence on the cracked raw eggs they'd gotten from the
mercado
, a few leaves Xavi promised weren't poisonous, and an overripe papaya that they divided. Their food stores had dwindled to a couple of fruits and a few broken bits of tortilla they'd slathered with lard. In his backpack Jaime saved the water bottle and
turrón
he'd bought.

“Why don't you come to Ciudad Juárez with us?” Ángela suggested to Joaquín as they waited for his train. The look of motherly concern etched across her face made
her look older than fifteen. “Then you can travel through El Norte to get to your aunt in San Diego. That has to be safer than going by yourself on the train.
Por fa
.”

Joaquín stared at his shoes. The sole of the right one curled as if it were opening its mouth. It took him forever to speak. “This is the way I know. The way I promised to go. To keep going.”

“
Claro
.” Ángela understood. “But staying together will make it easier to keep going.”

“You can trust us. We'll help you no matter what.” Xavi looked at the boy in concern. He didn't seem to know Joaquín's secret either.

Joaquín started crying. “Yes, but that way there's a river and I can't swim! Besides, I understand things here, I speak the language. I don't know the national anthem in El Norte.” Joaquín looked around the bushes, where litter had been thrown, and then at the train tracks. “I know how to survive here.”

Ángela took him into her arms and rocked him until he stopped crying. “You'll learn to survive there, too. Don't you worry,
cariño
.” She used her term of endearment before kissing him on top of the head.

Xavi came over and put a hand on the boy. “Why don't I go with you, Joaquín. One place is the same for me as the next.”

“Where's your family?” Jaime asked. Xavi was the
only one of them who hadn't shared any of his plans. His decisions had always been more for the moment than the future.

Xavi pointed up toward Heaven. Then, as if making a joke, pointed down to Hell as well. No one laughed.

“My parents”—Xavi didn't look at them as he watched Vida, who was tracking an insect that buzzed around her head—“were taken by government officials five years ago. Most likely they were executed for political disagreement. That's when I went to live with my
abuela
. But even her
brujería
wasn't enough to keep me safe.”

Ángela reached out to touch him, but Xavi turned away with his head still hung low.

“When my aunt, two uncles, and cousins were killed, I only just got away.” Xavi sniffed. “My abuela in El Salvador is the only family I have left. One day I'd like to send for her, but I have no idea when or where that will be.”

Jaime shook his head in disbelief. He had a great big family back home who loved him.. He had his brother, his own flesh and blood, waiting for him in Nuevo México. Most of all, he had his cousin at his side all the time. Xavi did not have any of that.

“
Pues
, you should go with them. They can be your family,” Joaquín said in his soft voice, looking up from Ángela's arms with red but determined eyes. “Someone needs to take care of Ángela.”

“Hey!”
Jaime exclaimed. He might not have been big and muscular like Xavi, but he could take care of his cousin. Except maybe not. Not if they were attacked by gangs. Not if some thugs forced her to be their girlfriend. Maybe Joaquín was right—he couldn't take care of her, just like he couldn't take care of Miguel. But at least he'd die trying. “I think you need Xavi yourself. You shouldn't be alone.”

“Trains aren't safe for girls.” Joaquín choked when he said this.

“They're just as dangerous for you.” Ángela gave him a stern look. Joaquín turned away. What was this secret they weren't sharing?

“Do you want to take Vida?” Xavi asked. The dog tilted her head and looked between them as if trying to understand why they were talking about her.

Joaquín just shook his head no. “She's your dog. Yours and Ángela's. I don't want anything to happen to her. I made it to Arriaga on my own. I can do this.”

Something other than stubbornness lined Joaquín's face. Fear? Worry?

“
We
can do this,” Xavi corrected.

“Xavi, please.” Joaquín's eyes shifted to Ángela. “I don't want this trip to take another mamá.”

His mamá.
The realization hit Jaime like a coconut landing on his head. No wonder the boy clung to Ángela,
why he was so worried about her.
Had he witnessed his mamá's death? Witnessed and not been able to do anything about it?
Imagining Miguel's death was hard enough; actually seeing it probably would have killed Jaime. A new admiration filled Jaime for the boy with the extra-large shirt and bad haircut.

Xavi looked between Joaquín and Ángela, as if debating what he wanted to do, and what he should do. Finally he nodded. “Fine, if that's what you want.”

Joaquín jerked his chin down in confirmation, but he looked like he was going to cry again.

“I really wish you'd come with us instead.” Ángela placed her hands on his shoulders and stared at Joaquín intently again, as if she were trying to tell him something secret and important.

“Me too,” he whispered.

The rumble of an approaching train began in the distance. They all got up and quickly hugged the young boy good-bye. Xavi gave him a few of the tortilla scraps and one of Rafa's cigarette packs for bartering. Ángela slipped him something small but indistinguishable. Jaime handed him two sharpened pencils he'd taken from Padre Kevin's. “For self-defense. Just in case.”

Joaquín kissed everyone as if they were family and straightened up.

The train came toward them, black and smoking. As promised, it slowed down as it turned around the bend. Jaime crouched down and wrapped an arm around Vida's neck so she couldn't chase it, as Joaquín and Xavi ran out to meet it. Other people who had been hiding among the grass and bushes popped out as well. Xavi lifted Joaquín onto the ladder coming down from a boxcar and then stopped running to watch him. For a second Jaime worried the train would tear Joaquín apart, but Joaquín seemed to know what he was doing. The boy grabbed hold with an elbow locked in place and then scrambled onto the top of the car like a monkey. He stood there waving from the top. The other people who got on board waved too. Jaime didn't want to think that soon it'd be his turn to do the same.

He watched the small boy in the too-large shirt, and something else clicked into place. Something that had been bothering Jaime, without realizing it had bothered him.

Jaime kept his eyes on the never-ending train even though he could no longer see his friend. “Joaquín's not really a boy, is he?”

Ángela wiped the tears with her shoulder and shook her head. “No, she's not.”

The train heading to Ciudad
Juárez came later that afternoon. Jaime shifted his weight from one foot to another as he crouched near the tracks. He'd never gotten on a moving train before. He'd never gotten on any moving vehicle. Scenarios filled his head. The worst, of course: he could trip and get swallowed by the train. He could trip and have the train bite off his arms or legs. He could trip and get left behind. They weren't just horror stories. They were events that happened to real people he'd met—the legless man under the bridge in Lechería, the papá of a classmate back home, the man whose sneakered-foot lay along the tracks some ten kilometers away.

He tightened the straps of his backpack. When Ángela offered him some edible leaves, he turned them down. He wasn't
hungry even though they'd barely eaten that day.

Their train came around the bend as Joaquín's did, except this one had a gray engine instead of a black one. He could see people already on board, lying on their stomachs with their arms outstretched to help the newcomers. Jaime took a deep breath, wishing he had gone to the bathroom in the bushes one more time. Ángela glanced his way and he saw she was just as nervous as he was—she tightened her shoulder straps as well. Somehow that made him feel a bit better. Like he wasn't weak for being scared.

“I can help you two get on. Lift you to the ladder like I did Joaquín,” Xavi offered.

They shook their heads no, though Jaime wished Ángela had accepted the older boy's help.

Other people, mostly boys older than Jaime, waited up and down the tracks as well. Some looked nervous, some calculating, some as if they didn't care anymore but knew they had to keep going anyway.

Instead of appearing scared, Xavi looked determined. Across his chest he carried Vida in her double sling. She didn't fidget, just watched the train approach with her one ear cocked.

“
¡Ya!
” Xavi yelled over the engine's roar. They burst into a sprint alongside the train. Jaime glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming cars, being careful not to trip. The first ladder he noticed was on a tank car with a
rounded top. It would be near impossible to get to the top and keep his balance. The next car was a hopper that didn't have any top. No way of knowing how high its contents reached the sides. A boxcar came next with a ladder on either end. He glanced at Ángela. This was it.