Delia’s Crossing (34 page)

Their bodies blocked most of the sunlight, which made them seem even bigger than they were.

I nudged Ignacio to wake him. Maybe he would not see what I was seeing.

Maybe I was only having a nightmare.

U
nfortunately, it was real. The man on the left was stocky, with long arms that dangled like the arms of an ape. His companion was taller and as thin as Pancho. They were both so dirty-looking I thought they had been formed from mud. When I looked closer at them, I saw that the man on the right had a piece of his left ear missing. His right eye looked swollen and bruised.

“Stand up slowly,” Ignacio whispered.

I didn’t think my legs would obey, but I rose with him. Pancho remained in a sitting position. The stocky man nodded at us and then looked at Pancho.

“So,
mi coyote,
how much did you take from them to bring them to the United States?”

“They are not going to the United States. They want to go home,” Pancho said. “So it was not as much.”

“And where is this not as much?”

“You know it’s not here,
amigo.
”

“Something is here,” the stocky man replied, widening his smile and turning toward us. “What do you bring home,
muchacho
?” he asked Ignacio.

“Nothing for you,” Ignacio said.

The stocky man’s smile flew off his face like a frightened bird.

“That’s not friendly. I let you use my home,” he said, indicating the cave, and his friend laughed. “Now you must pay me my rent.” He lifted his machete a little and pointed it at us. “I know you have dollars.”

“Give them what you have,” Pancho told Ignacio.

“See,
su coyote
is smart and friendly,” the stocky man said.

Pancho stood up, and they turned sharply toward him. He raised his arms. Then he opened his knapsack to show that it contained only water and some food.

“You’re welcome to any of this.”

The stocky man spit. “What else do you have?”

Pancho pulled out his pockets to show they were empty.

“Keep going,
mi coyote,
” the stocky man said, waving the machete at him. “Show us you have nothing.”

Pancho took off his shirt and dropped his pants. I was shocked to see him lower his underwear, too, but they wanted him naked to be sure he was not hiding anything. The disappointed bandit turned to us, and Pancho put his clothes on quickly. He picked up his sack of water and food and edged toward the entrance. The stocky man turned with him.

“You don’t want my poor life,” Pancho said. He looked at us. “I’ll be outside waiting to take you on your way after you pay the rent,” he said.

The two bandits smiled and permitted Pancho to slip past them and out.

“
Sí,
listen to your coyote,” the stocky man said.

“The bastard,” Ignacio whispered. He turned himself so the two wouldn’t see or hear him speak to me. “You can’t run with the water, Delia. It will slow you down. When I say, you rush out as fast and as hard as you can, and just keep running.” I started to shake my head, and he said, “They won’t just take our money. They will rape you.”

A chill shot through my heart and nearly took my breath away.

“Throw your sacks this way,” the stocky man ordered.

Ignacio nodded at me. He reached down and then tossed the sacks so they fell to the stocky man’s left. His companion crossed and knelt down to go through them. Ignacio took my hand behind his back and moved slowly toward the stocky man.

“We have very little,” he began. “We will give it to you,” he added. “Please don’t hurt us,” he said, sounding weaker now.

The stocky man smiled and relaxed, and just at that moment, Ignacio charged at him, head down like a bull, and shouted, “Run, Delia, run!”

With his shoulder, he hit the stocky man just below his chest and sent him flying into the jagged walls of the cave. When his companion turned, Ignacio kicked him sharply under his chin, and he fell back. I ran through the opening and then off to my right and down the slope, barely keeping myself from toppling. As soon as I reached the bottom, I stopped and looked back at the cave hopefully, expecting to see Ignacio running out after me. Instead, the stocky man emerged, and I slipped quickly behind a large rock and fell to my stomach. I peered around it and looked again. His companion joined him. They spoke for a few moments, looked around, and then went back into the cave.

“Delia,” I heard, and turned to see Pancho, also on his stomach. He was behind a thick bush. “Crawl this way. Quickly.”

I looked back at the cave. Where was Ignacio?

“Delia, crawl now, before they come out again.”

I did as he said.

He looked back at the cave and seized my hand.

“Quickly,” he repeated, and started to run, pulling me along.

“Ignacio!” I cried.

“You can’t go back to see. It won’t be pleasant, anyway. Run. They won’t chase us if we get far enough away.”

I tried to stop, but he tugged harder.

“Why did you leave us?” I screamed.

“We would all be dead,” he told me. He paused and looked back. “I am sorry for your friend, but he got you out. I have enough to get us through. I will redeem my cowardice by saving your life.”

“No,” I said. “We must go back for Ignacio.”

“And throw away the chance he gave you? That would be a worse sin. It’s too late for him. Do you want to die out here? It’s a terrible death. You’ll get delirious. You’ll eat sand. The buzzards and the coyotes will pull your body apart, and no one will ever know you died.”

“Oh,
Dios mío,
” I cried, and started to sob.

“Don’t waste the water and salt in your body, Delia. The desert has no mercy. Come. We’ll find a safe, shady place to wait for nightfall. I think we can get to Sasabe after one night and part of the morning. Come,” he said, tugging me along.

I looked back as I went.

Ignacio, I thought. I was your hope, your angel, and I’m leaving you behind. I am the coward.

We walked so long in the rising heat that I felt my body softening, my throat parching until it felt as if it was made of sandpaper. It wasn’t until Pancho found a place under a jutting rock that he offered me some of his water.

“Drink slowly,” he said, and then he handed me some dried sardines to eat.

“What did they do to Ignacio?” I asked.

“There’s no way of telling, and it is of no value to think about it. Just think about getting across the border and home.”

“Are you going to come back this way?”

“Of course. I will be taking a group of
pollos
into America.”

“Will you stop to see about Ignacio? If you do, I’ll tell you where to send me word. Please,” I begged.

“I might not be going the same way.”

“But you said this way was your private way. You said it was the best and fastest way. You said…”

“Sleep now, and stop talking. It wastes too much strength,” he said, curled up in as much of the shadow as he could, and closed his eyes.

I sat staring out at the hot desert. It looked blurry in the noon sunlight, but I prayed that I would soon see Ignacio hurrying to catch up to us.

“If you don’t sleep,” I heard Pancho say, “you will not have the strength to walk all night, Delia. I cannot wait. I will have to leave you for the real coyotes.” His tone was very matter-of-fact. “Live or die,” he added. “It’s your choice to make. There is no mercy here.”

I tried to ignore what he said, but I was tired. We were supposed to be sleeping during the morning and the hot daylight hours. Our flight from the bandits cut that time short. I knew he was right. I would not have the strength to walk ten hours on this rough terrain.

Forgive me, Ignacio, I thought, as I looked in the direction from where we had come. Maybe you will see us here, I rationalized, and lowered myself to the dirt floor. At least it was cool.

Despite myself, in moments, I was asleep. I slept right into twilight and woke when I heard Pancho say, “Don’t move. Don’t move a muscle.”

I stared at him. He hovered over me, and then, with a quick sweep of his hand, he swept a scorpion off my upper arm and crushed it with his foot.

“I have had
pollos
get bitten, get too sick to walk, and have to be left behind.”

“Did they die?”

“Only the desert knows, and she does not tell,” he said. “Have some water.”

He offered me the jug. It was very warm, almost nauseating, but I knew I had to have it. He gave me some beef jerky and a piece of bread. We ate, drank some more water, and prepared to leave.

“Maybe Ignacio will catch up with us,” I muttered. “Or maybe he’s just ahead of us.”

Pancho started away.

“Stop thinking about Ignacio, and keep up with me,” he ordered. “We have to make the distance to our next rest stop before the sun begins to rise.”

We walked over rocky ground, through long patches of sand, down and up small gullies. Everything in my body ached, especially around the back of my neck. I kept praying he would stop to rest, but whenever he looked as if he was slowing down, he sped up. At one point, I was some distance behind him. I thought he would look back, see, and wait, but he never looked back. I knew if I tripped and fell or stopped to rest, he would just go on. He wasn’t just a guide through the desert; he
was
the desert, just as unmerciful, as hard and unforgiving. He must have been hatched out there, I thought. What had happened to that redemption he had sworn back at the cave? Was his conscience that short-lived?

It turned out to be my anger that kept me going more than anything. I would not permit him to leave me. I planned to get to someone when we reached Mexico, someone I could tell about Ignacio, someone who might go back to find him.

When Pancho finally stopped to rest, my feet were singing with the pain. I knew I had blisters in places I had never had a scratch or a blemish.

“Drink,” he told me, handing me another jug. I seized it as if it were gold and drank. “Slowly, slowly.”

He gave me some sardines and another piece of bread. I was still standing. I was afraid that if I sat or sprawled out on the ground, I would not be able to rise again.

“You’ve done much better than I thought you would,” he told me. “We will make it to Sasabe tomorrow night. Tell me where your village is.”

I did.

“You will need to take a bus to Mexico City and from there another bus or maybe two. Do you have any money?”

Ignacio had told me to put my dollars in my bra, but I was suddenly afraid to tell Pancho. What if he was asking so he could take it from me?

“I am not a bandit,” he said, when I hesitated. “I do not rob from my
pollos.
I make a very good living without being a thief. Do you know how many
pollos
I have brought across just this year alone?”

I was too tired to ask.

“Fifteen hundred,” he said. “Not all of them made it, but I was paid for each. My share. Never mind,” he said, when he saw that I wasn’t going to talk about my money. “We must go on.”

He started away. I closed my eyes, prayed, and started after him. About an hour later, he held up his hand for me to pause and be quiet. I could hear voices off to our left. I drew closer to him and waited.

“It’s all right,” he said after hearing more. “It’s a group heading across to the United States.”

“Maybe we can tell them about Ignacio. Please,” I begged.

“They can’t go out of their way. Listen. Don’t you hear the
bebés pequeños
? There are families crossing. If they make mistakes because you ask them to look, little children will die. Do you want that?”

“No, but…”

“Walk,” he said, and started ahead.

I listened to the voices. They seemed closer. For a moment, I debated running to them, but then I would lose Pancho for sure, and if I didn’t find them, I would be alone with nothing. I didn’t have the strength to walk all the way back to America, either, even if I did find them, and he had made it sound as if we were not that far from our destination. I hated myself for it, but I rushed after him and not after those who might have looked for Ignacio.

Hours later, Pancho said we were at the rest stop. It was another opening in a hill.

“What if more bandits come?”

“You want to sleep out here in the sun?”

He didn’t wait for my answer. We entered the smaller cave and settled down for another long day’s rest.

“This is the last of the water and food,” he said. “We must make it to Sasabe as soon as we can today after the sun goes down.”

He gave the water to me and more beef jerky. Then he broke the remaining bread in half, and I saw a roll of bills. Slowly, he unraveled them.

“A little pocket money,” he said, smiling. “If those two vermin were hungry back there, I’d have none.”

He thought a moment and then handed me some of his money.

“I don’t know if you have any money for the buses or not, but here.”