E-mail Yoya at [email protected] when you get to the U.S. She’ll give you an address where you can send the phone or she’ll find someone in her organization to pick it up. She’ll be able to retrieve the information in the phone and send it to us. We’ll know what to do with it. I want to nail Hinojosa and his cronies for good. I wish you didn’t have to carry the phone around. But even if they knew you didn’t have the phone, these people would still want to find you—revenge for turning them in. Be careful. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going!
Sara writes down the e-mail address. Got it. Thank you, Ernesto. What will you do?
I’m going to Mexico City. There’s tons of Jaqueros there. I’ll be okay. I almost forgot to tell you. I’ve been digging in Juana’s computer from here. I found statements in her files from a bank in Panama which in turn made some big loans to El Sol. I always wondered where El Sol got the money to stay afloat. Hinojosa uses that same bank.
Sara remembers the conversation with Juana at the quinceañera.
Does that mean Felipe is bad too?
No evidence of that. I think Juana got the loans and didn’t tell Felipe how. I also found correspondence between Juana and Elias. Something was going on between them at some point. Sara, I have to go. It was an honor knowing you.
It was an honor knowing you, Ernesto. Good-bye.
Sara stares at the screen, smiling to herself as she remembers Ernesto’s conversation with Guillermo about the quinceañera. She will miss Ernesto so much.
“Excuse me, Sara?” She turns quickly to see Daniel holding a cell phone. “For you. Estela.”
“Estela?” Sara says weakly. There’s no saliva anywhere in her mouth. Brother Patricio and Emiliano stop talking.
“I thought I’d find you there. Hold on. I want to put someone on the phone.” Estela’s voice is upbeat, happy.
There is a long silence and then Sara hears a voice as familiar as her own. “Sara. It’s me.”
Sara shuts her eyes tightly, but the tears rush out nevertheless. “Linda. Linda. You’re alive!”
“I am. Barely, but I am.”
“Oh, my God. Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes. This morning, these grenade things go off. Then there was smoke. Doors bursting open with people in bullet-proof vests. All I could think of was Sara did it. My friend Sara saved us.”
“Thank God, thank God.”
“But … Officer Gómez said you were in danger. Will you be all right?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. We’re going away for a while. Have you been home yet?”
“They don’t want me to go home. My mom and dad and my sisters. They’re on their way here. Then we’ll go to a safe place. I … need to be myself again. That place, Sara …”
“It’s okay. You stayed alive. That’s what you had to do.”
“I’m so full of hate right now. Pray for me, okay?”
“I will. I will. Don’t worry. Time will heal you.”
“I hope so. I wish you were with me. That would be a big help. Officer Gómez is making a sign for one more minute. I don’t know how to thank you, Sarita. I messed up your life really bad, didn’t I?”
“No, no. You made it much better.”
“Sara, my friend Erica … she took Hinojosa’s phone …”
“Yes?”
“She … They killed her.”
“Oh, Linda.”
“They were going to kill me too. They waited … for some reason.”
“It’s okay, don’t cry. It’s okay that you’re alive. God wanted you to live.”
“Sara, I have to let you go.” There’s a pause. “You’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine.”
Then Sara and Linda say at the same time:
“Forever and ever.”
Part II
United States
They cross the Rio Grande with the sun still hidden behind the Sierra del Carmen mountain range to the east. Emiliano steps in the river barefoot, his arms slightly outstretched for balance against the tug of the current. When he reaches the center, he turns to look at Sara behind him. She is surprised by the glacial cold of the water and by the soft silt of the river bottom that seeks to swallow her feet. Maybe it is just Mexico not wanting to let go of her. Emiliano waits until he sees her take a second careful step and then continues. When he reaches the other side, he helps Sara to the muddy bank. They climb a rocky slope and then stop to look back at the small town of Boquillas. Brother Patricio, on the other side of the Rio Grande, raises his hand in the gesture of a blessing and Emiliano and Sara wave.
They arrived at Boquillas the evening before, when the few adobe houses in the village were dark and silent. They followed a dirt road that ran parallel to the river and parked the car in a grove of cottonwoods. Then they waited for dawn.
At some point during the night, Sara walked a few yards away, spread a blanket on the grass, and tried to sleep. Now and then, when the ruckus of the frogs quieted down for a few moments, she could hear the murmur of Emiliano and Brother Patricio’s voices. She wondered whether Emiliano had finally decided to tell Brother Patricio that he planned to return. All through the trip, Emiliano had acted as if he was leaving Mexico forever. After they put their mother on the bus to León, Emiliano could have told Brother Patricio that his absence would only be temporary, but he didn’t. Why?
Then again, Sara could count on her two hands the words spoken during the trip. She sat in the backseat with her mother on the way to Chihuahua, holding her hand, listening to her Hail Marys. Now and then she fixed her eyes on the profile of Emiliano’s pensive face staring out the window. What was he thinking? Was his heart breaking like hers? The thought that they might never see their mother again kept coming back to her, no matter how many times she tried to shoo it away.
On top of the rock, Emiliano watches Brother Patricio’s car turn into the village’s main street. He sticks his hand in his pocket and feels his mother’s rosary. She should have given it to Sara and not to him. Sara sat with his mother and prayed in unison with her, two voices forming one single prayer. He doesn’t believe that their prayers were heard or had any power other than a calming effect. So why did his mother cup his hand and drop the rosary in it just before she boarded the bus to León? And why didn’t he tell her he didn’t deserve it? When Sara isn’t looking, he slips the rosary over his head and tucks it under his shirt.
The only sound this early in the morning comes from the river. Sara thinks that if time could make a sound, it would be like the gentle but constant rush of water. In the distance, to the west, from where the river flows, she can see the limestone canyons carved by the river’s patient march. During the eight-hour ride, she read the books on Big Bend National Park that Brother Patricio brought for them. It took millions of years for the river to carve those canyons. She feels so small compared to that immensity of time. And yet, here she is.
Emiliano begins to make his way through the thick cane growing on the banks of the river. The flutter of a gray dove startles him momentarily. He points at the ground so Sara will see the dove’s nest with the miniature eggs, and they step carefully around it. He stops when they emerge from the band of greenery that borders the river. In front of them rises an embankment. On his right, Emiliano sees a well-worn footpath up the cliff. Many, many other Mexicans have come this way before. He climbs it carefully so that Sara can see where he plants his feet and do the same. He is tempted a few times to offer his hand when she begins to slip but decides against it. Instead, when he senses her struggling, he simply waits for her to find a way up. She’s carrying two gallons of water, weighing about eighteen pounds, plus another fifteen pounds of food, clothing, and other equipment. He made the load as light as possible, aware that after a few hours of walking, thirty-three pounds is going to feel like eighty. He smiles when he remembers the trouble he had convincing her that carrying her six-pound laptop was not possible.