She held out her free hand. The mata gente was picking up speed, fast. For a moment, I imagined Elena fading into the distance. I saw myself tripping and falling, dragged into the stomach of the monster. It ate me up and I felt nothing.
“Go, Miguel,” Javier puffed in my ear. “Now!”
From somewhere I found the speed I needed. I grabbed the rung with one hand, Elena’s hand with the other. We moved up the ladder and, somehow, Javi attached himself below us.
The train rounded the corner and then, from the bushes, from the grass, dozens and dozens of people began to throw themselves at the mata gente. They ran and pushed and shoved. A few ended up like us, clinging to a ladder. The others were like a swarm of pesky flies. The mata gente just swatted them away and moved forward.
The young couple, Javi’s friends from the train yard, ran clumsily along. The husband urged his pregnant wife to go faster. She never had a chance. They crumpled together onto their knees next to the track.
A thin little boy scrambled easily up a ladder, only to lose his grip suddenly. He fell like a leaf, silently.
An old man with watery desperate eyes looked like he would make it. But, at the last moment, just as he reached for Javi’s extended fingers, the tip of his cowboy boot caught on a railroad tie. He tripped, stumbled, and disappeared without a sound beneath the grinding wheels.
It was over as fast as it began. Within seconds, the train moved beyond the unlucky ones. Javi, Elena, and I crawled numbly to the top of the car and lay down flat, Elena in the middle. Javi cried quietly. The roar of the mata gente turned to a rhythmic low rumble. We held hands and turned our bodies toward the front of the train, facing north.
CHAPTER 20
The sun set, the moon rose, and the mata gente moved us steadily along. Javi took a length of rope from his pack, lashed us together through our belt loops, and secured the rope to a rail on top of the car. Javi made us as safe as he could, but he did it grimly. The mata gente had sucked out all of his good humor.
The other mata gente hoppers, most of them young, children really, perched on the cars in front of us, like little birds on a limb riding out a storm. The cars swayed side to side. They rocked and jolted and lurched. We settled into the crazy rhythm, unable to talk. It was too hard to hear. Words traveled back with the wind from the car ahead, only to be swallowed up by the clatter of the wheels.
“No train gangs so far,” Javi spoke into my ear. “Rest some. I’ll keep watch for a while.”
I lay down and watched the progress of the moon across the starry sky. For hours I drifted in and out of sleep atop the roaring train. Javi thought we could make it more than halfway to the border on the mata gente, maybe farther if we were lucky. I thought it was about time we had some good luck.
I woke up for the third time when the moon had descended almost to the horizon. The train’s brakes screeched. The large jolt threw me toward the front of the car. The train slowed to a crawl. Javi frowned and untied himself from our rope. He climbed partway down the ladder on the side of the car and leaned out as far as he could.
“I can’t see what’s going on up there.” Javi motioned toward the engine. “Can you see anything from the top?”
We stood up. People ran along the tops of the cars toward us, leaping across the chasms between the cars. Others scrambled down the side ladders as fast as they could.
A warning echoed from car to car. “¡La migra! Get off! Run!”
We climbed quickly down our ladder and jumped off the train. We ran into a thick grove of trees, then turned around and watched, ready to plunge farther into the forest. The migra made a show of rounding up the slowest ones but didn’t bother to try to find the rest. By the time the train started up again, they had left, and we were back in our place on top.
For the next two days, the mata gente was home. Five more times we jumped off to avoid capture by la migra. Once we even got off, skirted around a small town, and hopped on once again on the other side. Javi said the migra had a checkpoint in the dead center of town. I don’t know how, but each time, Javier seemed to know what we should do.
But by evening of the second day, we’d had only sips of water from one bottle and two small bolillos to share. We were hungry, but mostly we were dead tired. Even when we could stay on top of our car, we could never rest.
Two boys got swept off the car right in front of us by a low-hanging branch. They fell into a ditch full of dirty brown water. We had to duck again and again to avoid electrical wires. If we touched one, we’d die, just like that. The metal rails, hot from the sun, burned our hands. We coughed up the diesel smoke that filled our lungs.
“I can’t go on,” Elena finally yelled above the roar of the engine. “I need to eat something. I need to drink. I want a bed!”
Dark circles of fatigue ringed Elena’s eyes. Her face was streaked with diesel soot and she blew diesel snot out of her runny nose. Her jeans were stained and torn at the knees. Her lower lip trembled.
“Don’t worry,” Javi called back. “I’ve heard that up ahead there are some people who take care of migrants like us. We’ll get some food.”
Elena shook her head in disbelief. “Fairy tales are for little girls,” she screamed above the roar of the train. “I don’t believe in el hada madrina anymore. I hate this stupid train!”
The brakes squealed and the train slowed, again. If we had to hop off and on here, just one more time, one of us wouldn’t make it. One of us would not have the strength. Right now, it was a tossup between Elena and Javier. I hadn’t seen Javi rest at all. He’d been awake, vigilant, looking out for every big and little danger. How much sleep could he do without, anyway?
The train whistle blew three times. The mata gente slowed even more, but did not stop. Javi moved toward the edge of the car.
Elena shook her head again. “I’m getting off here and I’m not getting back on.”
And then I saw people gathered at the side of the tracks. They were throwing things at the train, probably rocks or bricks. Maybe they hated migrants like us in this pueblito. We flattened our bodies on top of the car. But nothing fell on us. Instead, I heard a girl, two cars ahead of us, laughing.
I peeked over the side of the car. There, running alongside, was a fit middle-aged man.
“Here!” he yelled, keeping pace with the mata gente. “Catch!”
More people swarmed from their houses, their arms full. They aimed and threw and they didn’t miss. They’d done this before, lots of times.
I reached out my arms and caught a plastic-wrapped package of tortillas. An old woman held out a water bottle full to the brim, a young girl a plastic bag with fruit. Javi leaned from the ladder and grabbed both.
A whole bagful of bread landed in Elena’s outstretched hands. At the bottom was some ham. Everyone on the top of the train got gifts: loaves of bread, lemonade, sandwiches, even sweaters and blankets.
All up and down the train, the migrantes yelled down, “¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!”
“¡Dios los proteja!” the people on the ground called back.
But there were some who held nothing in their hands. One old woman stood unsteadily, too close to the moving train. Our eyes met.
“Go to your father,” she urged.
Another old man called out, over and over, “Find your mothers.”
The people of this pueblito knew the mata gente was full of boys and girls, just kids. Just like Elena. Just like me. The people knew we were looking for our padres and madres. There must be trainload after trainload of niños, all of them headed north, searching for their families.
Javi didn’t smile at the bendiciones from below. He looked haunted, as if a ghost had just whispered into his ear. Well, no wonder. He was, after all, the one doing the leaving. His own children would be forced to hop the mata gente someday, if they ever wanted to see him again. They could die from a train gang, or thirst or hunger, or just pure loneliness.
I looked at Javi again. How many times would he make pr
omises to his children back in El Salvador, promises he couldn’t keep once he got to his brother in New York?
Then it wasn’t Javi I saw. Instead, it was Papá. Papá’s face was exactly as it was the day he left me. Papá left without me. Me abandonó. He could’ve taken me with him and he didn’t. Or he could’ve stayed, just stayed, and made it work in San Jacinto. Or, he could’ve snapped a finger, and just like magic, Don Clemente would have sent me.
So there we were, Elena and I, making that trip. ¿Y para qué? How many times had we already escaped death, or worse? And we hadn’t even reached the border yet.
Well, I’d been only partly alive anyway, for a long time. Papá took a big part of me with him to California when he left. He thought he was sending for me now, but I’d already been there and he didn’t even know it.
I searched for a word to describe how I felt at that moment, but I realized I felt nothing for Papá. Nada, absolutamente nada. Where there should have been feeling, there was just a big black hole of emptiness.
CHAPTER 21
The train rounded a curve and slowed to a crawl. The whistle sounded twice. The mata gente chugged forward, then stopped next to a tall water tower. Several figures leaped from the tower, onto the mata gente two cars in front of us.
“It’s a train gang.” Javi grabbed Elena’s hand. “Follow me, quickly.”
We scrambled down the ladder between the cars and ran toward a small group of buildings, away from the water tower, on the opposite side of the train.
“Here,” Javi wheezed. He pulled us behind a corrugated metal shed. We knelt and peeked through the ragged holes of the rusted-out walls. Javi sat cross-legged, coughed deeply, then spit black saliva on the ground. He stuffed his head into his arms to muffle two or three more coughs. In between coughs, he breathed heavily.
The gang dragged three young girls off the train, screaming and begging to be let go. They disappeared into the bushes on the far side of the water tower. Elena shrank down to the ground, pulled her cap down tight over her head, and hugged her knees.
“Come on, Elena, we’ve got to get back on. Come on. We’ll miss the train,” I urged.
I grabbed her elbows, now locked firmly around her legs. I tugged, and Elena’s whole body moved in response. She was a tight little ball of fear. Javi pushed himself to his feet. He pried one of Elena’s hands loose from around her knees, held it in his callused palm, and gently straightened each stiff finger one by one.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Javi huffed. “You’ll make it across la línea, all the way north. I swear to you on my life. Lo juro.” We’d been quiet for many minutes, but he breathed as if he hadn’t stopped running.
Elena said nothing, but she let Javi lead her by the hand back to the train and boost her up.
After that, Elena wouldn’t take her eyes off Javi. She looked at him as if he held the secrets to the whole universe. I could read her mind: Javi had saved us—all of us—from Morales. He’d been right about how to hop the mata gente. He was right about the people from el pueblito with the food and about the train gangs.
And then, not half an hour later, the mata gente screeched to a halt. I leaned out to see why we’d stopped, yet again. Ahead, I saw the lowered bars of a railroad crossing, and stretched across the tracks, their weapons drawn, a cadre of soldiers with weapons.
“Jump!” Javi screamed. Elena hurried down the ladder and leaped onto the gravel by the track. I followed quickly, with Javi right behind. I landed squarely on both feet, but Javi cried out in pain the moment he hit the ground. I turned to see him roll in the dirt, grabbing his right ankle.
“Go on!” Javi’s face was screwed up in agony. “Run! Get out of here!”
I looked up the tracks. The other train hoppers were scurrying down the sides of the train in swarms. Already I could see those at the front raising their arms above their heads in defeat. We were at the back of the train. There was a small chance we could escape.
Javi continued his pleas. “You have time. Go now!”
But Elena and I each grabbed one arm and pulled him up. “Lean on me!” I demanded.
We hobbled together toward a cornfield, and began to make our way down a row. At first all I could hear was the dim echo of the mata gente still roaring in my ears. But then I caught the sound of the soldiers running down the tracks, their boots crunching on the rocky railroad bed.
One yelled, “¡El fil! I saw some go into the field!”
We cut to the right. Every few steps, Javi pleaded with us to leave him. I got ready to surrender. If they caught us, if we had to go back home, Elena and I wouldn’t do it all over again. As for Javi, he couldn’t. He’d never make it.
Again we cut right, through the cornstalks grown higher than our heads. I couldn’t see what lay beyond the field, but I led us in a diagonal direction, toward where I thought the field ended. Javi put as much weight as he could on his left foot to lessen our burden, but each time his right foot grazed the ground, he groaned. Elena and I half carried him, half dragged him. His body was solid and muscled and heavy.
Behind us, the soldiers crashed through the corn, cursing. We reached the edge of the field. To the left, a series of low hills rose quickly to a low peak covered in clouds. Bright green coffee plants covered the terraced ground as far as the eye could see.
In front of us, a dense tangle of vines appeared to lead into a thick grove of plantains. I pushed through the first layer, pulling the vines apart with my hands. I went back for Elena and Javier, then attacked the next layer in front of us. We had to bend down to get through. Javi crawled on his hands and knees. On the other side of the thicket of vines, we paused to catch our breath.
I looked behind us. “Shhh!” I cautioned to Javi and Elena.
We strained to hear our pursuers. We didn’t move. We barely breathed. But there was no sound of the soldiers or the train.
“They’ve given up,” Javi whispered. “Incompetence … or laziness. We’re not worth the effort. They probably got their quota, anyway.”
He sat up and pushed his bad right ankle out in front of him. He clenched his teeth, unlaced his boot, and teased it off his foot. It had been only minutes, but already the ankle was puffy.
Javi touched the ankle carefully with his forefinger. “I won’t be able to walk on this for a couple of days, at least.”
He didn’t look up at us. “You two need to go back the way we came. Get the next train that comes through,” Javi said quietly.
Javi wouldn’t be able to help us now. In fact, he would be an obstacle. What should we do now? Should Elena and I go on, like Javi said? Who knew how long it might take for him to be well enough to travel?
And if we had to walk across the desert? Then what? He’d slow us down, for sure. Elena and I could hop back on the train and save the rest of our money.
Javi was right. It was time for Elena and me to go it alone again. It was the only way.
CHAPTER 22
“No!” Elena exclaimed. “I’m not leaving Javi!” She glared at me. She knew what I was thinking.
Elena’s face was diesel-streaked, her short hair stuck out from her head in uneven, greasy spikes, her “boy” clothes hung torn and filthy from her skinny body. She put her dirty right index finger to her mouth and chewed at what was left of the nail.
The chances of me changing her mind were zero. She wouldn’t leave Javier, not after the train gang.
“I’m going to see if I can find us some water,” I announced. I needed to get away. I needed to be alone, to think.
I grabbed Javi’s water bottle and headed away from the little clearing toward a trail that disappeared into the forest. Thousands of birds sang and called in the forest canopy above my head, the first natural sounds I’d heard since the roar of the mata gente had filled my ears.
I finally found a small but swiftly moving stream. I filled the water bottle, drank deeply, filled it again, then collapsed on the pebbled bank.
What else cou
ld we do to get the rest of the way north? Try to find work? Hah! Doing what? Who would hire a couple of dirty teenagers or an old man, anyway? I couldn’t get work even in San Jacinto where everyone knew me.
If we had to, we could beg. Yes, there was always begging. I tried to picture myself with my hand out or knocking on a stranger’s door, eyes downcast, hunched over to look smaller. Even so, the most we could hope for from begging was a little food. Nobody around here had money to hand out. No, hopping back on the mata gente was our only real choice.
I trudged toward the clearing, one slow step at a time. How could I talk some sense into Elena? But before I broke through the brush, I heard the voices of strangers. The soldiers hadn’t given up after all! They’d found us!
I crouched and peered through the branches. At first, all I could see was what seemed to be the back end of a burro and a pair of gnarled bare feet. I inched closer. These were no soldiers.
I pushed my way back through the thicket and stood next to Elena. In her hands was her little cloth bag. This time it had been cut open with Javi’s knife. An old Indian man nodded slowly and tucked some of Elena’s pesos away under his shirt. An old Indian woman, her silver braids swinging behind her, reached into a pack tied to the burro, took out a package, and handed it to Javi. Without a word, they plodded slowly away.
“We have a ride,” Javi announced. “Their Spanish isn’t so good, but we managed. A primo drives a truck. He’s going north tomorrow, and he’ll let us ride in back.”
“How could you do this without talking to me first? We need every peso, you know that. How could you?” I demanded.
“I knew you’d say no. Besides, it’s the only way we’ll make it.” Elena stuck out her chin and crossed her arms.
I grabbed Elena’s elbow and dragged her to the far side of the clearing.
“No, Elena,” I answered through clenched teeth. “It’s the only way he’ll make it. It’s the only way Javier will make it.”
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