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By Root 502 0

the Devil’s Highway itself. At the time of this investigation, the survivors were material witnesses in a criminal case, and were also clients in the notorious civil suit against the United States; because of this, they were shielded from direct contact with me. The hours of their torment, however, were well documented, often in their own words. And the Mexican officials who handle their cases were forthcoming with information, sometimes offered surreptitiously, off the record, or representing messages the survivors wanted heard. Some of the sources for this book did not choose to be—or could not be— quoted directly.

The year I spent researching and traveling consumed four leather-bound notebooks of about 144 pages each. Much of that material, of course, was tangential. Still, about half of each notebook went into this book. Certain passages, nevertheless, were subject to educated conjecture. For example, no number of letters to Jesús Antonio Lopez Ramos, aka Mendez, will ever be answered. He simply won’t answer questions, largely to protect his loved ones from payback by the Coyote gang. Fortunately, his testimony and writings and taped pensées are available for study. Any discussion of his private thoughts and motivations could only be taken on faith based on his various statements—some of them contradictory. The opinions of his attorney and of the Mexican officials who dealt with him were also of great help in decoding the cipher that is Mendez.

Furthermore, some conversations were implied—they are presented in the text as possibilities based on recollections and inferences from the recorded testimonies. These are shown without quotation marks. Where the actual words are known, they are presented as straight dialogue.

Finally, although I wasn’t with them on the morning when they awoke lost in the Sonoran desert, I have spent many spring mornings there. I know the smell and sound of the dawn quite well. I know the time of year. And I know the weather conditions in which they found themselves. The Wellton 26 had scant time to worry about the nature aspects of their journey. But no story about death and the Devil’s Highway could rightly exist without the strong presence of Desolation, in all its intimidating glory.

PART ONE

CUTTING THE DRAG

1

The Rules of the Game

Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names, couldn’t remember where they’d come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost. One of them wandered back up a peak. One of them was barefoot. They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear. Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their scalps, old sweat because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their systems.

They were beyond rational thought. Visions of home fluttered through their minds. Soft green bushes, waterfalls, children, music. Butterflies the size of your hand. Leaves and beans of coffee plants burning through the morning mist as if lit from within. Rivers. Not like this place where they’d gotten lost. Nothing soft here. This world of spikes and crags was as alien to them as if they’d suddenly awakened on Mars. They had seen cowboys cut open cacti to find water in the movies, but they didn’t know what cactus among the many before them might hold some hope. Men tore their faces open chewing saguaros and prickly pears, leaving gutted plants that looked like animals had torn them apart with their claws. The green here was gray.

They were walking now for water, not salvation. Just a drink. They whispered it to each other as they staggered into parched pools of their own shadows, forever spilling downhill before them: Just one drink, brothers. Water. Cold water!

They