The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [23]
Along with great adventures in the west, Americans yearned for riches. The Gold Rush and the Land Rush come to mind. For the Mexicans, the Gold Rush lay in those mystical lands up there, above: Orange County, Cicero, Dubuque, Odessa.
More than four thousand men from the region had already left.
New explorers prepared.
They approached Don Moi in small groups. Some of them didn’t know each other. He met the Bautistas in Equimite, near their home. The first of the Wellton 26. Heading for a place they’d never heard of, had never imagined. Arizona? The joke was to call it “Narizona,” or the Woman with the Big Nose.
Don Moi greeted them and invited them to a sit-down. Hmm, hmmm, yes, yes: he listened and nodded. His rings defined arcs of gold in the air as he stirred his coffee. Oh, yes, boys, sure. Things can be arranged. But they’re complicated. You see, it’s expensive.
Expensive?
What I do isn’t missionary work, boys. It’s a business. I’m a professional.
But of course! Claro! Who would suggest otherwise, Don Moi!
My services are the best. So I charge for them.
The ring, the neck chain, the watch. He sipped his coffee. His belly challenged the buttons on his guayabera.
How expensive?
The Bautista boys weren’t cheap, but they weren’t rich, either. The idea was to go make money, not lose it all before they’d gotten going.
How much is your future worth to you?
Well, chinga’o. We don’t have much.
It’s sixteen thousand pesos to cross into the U.S. And it’s three thousand more for your bus trip and food and lodging to get to the border. Let’s say, twenty thousand pesos. Each.
Low whistles.
Twenty thousand pesos! It takes us a year to make twenty thousand pesos.
Don Moi could sense their reservations. But he’d gotten the bite; now he had to set the hook. He beamed at them.
But you won’t have to go alone. I’ll go with you.
Don Moi, the great father, leading his boys on a field trip. You will?
We’ll go together. Do you think I’d let my clients wander to El Norte alone?
Laughter.
Hook-set.
Of course, you can save some money, if you’re men enough to walk in the desert, instead of catching a ride or sneaking into a city.
Man enough! I’m nothing but man, Don Moi! How much will you take off the top if we walk?
I can get you there for thirteen thousand if you walk.
We’ll walk.
Don Moi happily started reeling them in.
How will you pay?
We don’t know.
Get a loan.
And they did get loans. The going interest rates from local loan sharks for money lent against a plot of land was 15 percent, compounded monthly. They put up their land. A few made deals with Don Moi himself, more than happy to offer them loans against future earnings in the United States. What was seventeen hundred or eighteen hundred dollars when you were going to be rolling in dólares gringos? A few words with his trusted associate, the mighty Chespiro in Hidalgo, and the loan would be approved.
A slight down payment now, Don Moi murmured—whatever they could afford—and a reasonable payment schedule, at a slightly higher percentage rate. After all, Don Moi was taking a great risk in not only delivering them but trusting them to pay him back, and he needed to be rewarded for his trust. A good deal all around, Don Moi would have said.
And of course, they would pay him back … Chespiro, well, Chespiro! Don Moi made it clear that he couldn’t be responsible for Chespiro’s wrath should they shirk their responsibilities to him. They might vanish into the United States, start life anew, be safe forever: who could find them? If the INS didn’t find Mexicans, poor old Don Moi couldn’t either. But Chespiro. He knew where all the wives and children lived. It was too ugly to discuss,