There’s a briny cut to the air as the tracks draw near the ocean. Mango groves give way to palm trees in sandy soil, and outside a tiny village, a couple dozen migrant men have made a large camp. They cheer when they see the train approaching, but the beast doesn’t slow, it’s moving too fast for them to board, so the men stand despondent, watching it thunder past. Luca waves, and a few wave back. Most reclaim their positions in the scanty shade to rest while they wait for the next train, but one man decides to try. He runs alongside the tracks while the others watch. They shout and whoop at him, a lot of competing noise, conflicting advice. He manages to get one hand up on a passing ladder, but his legs can’t keep up. His arm is snagged, but the legs hang down. The watching men yell louder and more frantically.
‘Luca.’ Mami tries to draw his attention away, but he’s leaning over to watch, transfixed by the dangling man. They all are.
It’s clear he won’t make it, that he can’t haul himself up from that position. One arm binds him to the velocity of La Bestia. They all hold their breath. The man’s face is tipped up so Luca can see his expression, the moment he shifts from determination to acceptance. For a moment beyond that, he delays letting go, so Luca has the impression the man is savoring it, these final seconds when his life is intact. When at last his grip fails and he falls, there’s still a hope, briefly, that he’ll land clear of the tracks. That happens sometimes. A fluke of lucky physics and biology. But no. This man is sucked instantly beneath the wheels of the beast.
His mangled screams can be heard above the sounds of the churning train. Luca looks back and sees the migrants gathering in a knot on the tracks behind them, assessing the pieces of the severed man. Lydia does not cry for that wounded man, but she does pray for him. She prays that he won’t survive his mutilation, that merciful death comes quickly for him. More fervently, she prays that whatever impression the incident has on Luca, it won’t cause him any further harm. Surely her son may soon reach a limit of what a resilient child might endure without triggering some permanent internal decay.
‘Don’t worry, amorcito,’ she tells him. ‘That man will be fine.’
Luca protests. ‘He was in two pieces, Mami.’
Her voice is light. ‘That’s what doctors are for.’ She feigns confidence in the way all mothers know how to do in front of their children. She wears the fierce maternal armor of deceit. She allows only a moment to pass before she changes the subject, turning to Rebeca. ‘So what will you girls do when you get to the border? You have a plan, how to cross?’
‘Yes, our primo went last year, into Arizona, and then he got a ride from there to Maryland. That’s where he lives, and we’re going to stay with him. We’re using the same route, the same coyote.’
‘How’d he find the coyote?’ Lydia is constantly reminded that her education has no purchase here, that she has no access to the kind of information that has real currency on this journey. Among migrants, everyone knows more than she does. How do you find a coyote, make sure he’s reputable, pay for your crossing, all without getting ripped off?
Thankfully, Rebeca is flush with insight. ‘Loads of people from our village used him before. He was recommended. Because you can’t just pick any coyote. A lot of them will steal your money and then sell you to the cartel, you know?’
Lydia has never met a coyote. It’s possible she’s never even met anyone who’s met a coyote.
‘You should use our guy,’ Rebeca says. ‘Unless you already have one lined up.’
Lydia shakes her head. ‘We don’t.’
Rebeca smiles. ‘So we can go together. Mi primo César – he says this guy is the best. It took them only two days of walking and then somebody picked them up in a camper van on the other side and drove them to Phoenix. Gave ’em bus tickets from there to wherever they were going. It’s a lot of money, but he’s safe.’
‘How much money?’ Lydia asks.
Rebeca looks to Soledad, who’s still lying down, her head resting in her folded arms. Rebeca continues rubbing her sister’s back. ‘How much, Sole?’
Soledad answers without lifting her head or opening her eyes. ‘Four thousand each.’
Lydia is startled by the sum. ‘I thought it would be much more than that, like ten thousand pesos at least.’
‘Dollars,’ Soledad says, her voice muffled by the sleeve of her shirt. ‘Four thousand dollars.’
Dios Santo. Lydia does a quick intake of breath. She accepts dollars in the bookstore, so she’s familiar with the typical exchange rates, but not in these quantities. She strains to do the math in her head. It’s a lot of money, but they have enough, they have plenty. They will even have a small sum left, to get them started on the other side. But then she remembers the padre’s pep talk in Celaya. Every single one of you will be robbed. Every one. If you make it to el norte, you will arrive penniless, that’s a guarantee.
But it’s good, anyway, to have a plan, to look beyond what they might eat today or where they might sleep tonight. Lydia doesn’t feel ready for it, but she’s beginning to consider the future. She’s definitely not ready to look back, though, and she hopes she may accomplish one without necessitating the other.
‘So where do you meet this coyote? He’s expecting you?’ she asks Rebeca.
‘Yes, his name is El Chacal –’
Of course it is, Lydia thinks. Why would a coyote be named Roberto or Luis or José when he can be named The Jackal?
‘ – and he works out of Nogales. When we get there, we call his cell phone. Look.’ Rebeca loosens the rainbow wristband she wears on her left arm and sticks her finger into a tiny hole on the inside. From there she unrolls a scrap of paper with the coyote’s phone number on it.
‘Good.’ Lydia nods. ‘Okay.’
So now they have a solid plan.
It’s amazing that riding on the top of a freight train can become boring, but it’s true. The tedium is spectacular. The chugging of the engine and the squeal of the metal are so constant that the migrants no longer hear those things. At towns where the train slows or stops, migrants get off, migrants get on, and they continue. The sun hikes high into the sky and glares down on them until their skin is so hot they can smell it, a little charred, and the brightness of the light bleaches the colors out of the landscape.
They pass through Mazatlán without stopping, where the tracks run alongside the ocean for a while, and the existence of sand there and the blueness of the sea remind Luca of home, which makes him feel obliterated instead of cheered. He’s glad when they turn inland and leave the beach behind. But then it’s back to hours of tedium, blended brown and green and gray, so it’s almost a welcome diversion when, a few miles outside Culiacán, the monotony is broken by screaming. A lone voice repeats the words over and over, like a siren: ¡la migra, la migra!