The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [59]
Among them, Hilario, the first to run out of water, managed to march on, his mysterious strength carrying him through his thirst.
Mendez lost what sense of direction he had left. Perhaps it was the exhaustion. Perhaps it was the heat. Once he took them out of the detour, it’s as though he surrendered to fate: he gave up all pretense of breaking through the Growlers, and he went straight west. No attempt to cut north or east at all, as if Ajo had suddenly been abandoned. He started a suicidal hike toward Yuma.
He got less than ten miles before his inner compass fell apart completely.
He veered left, as was his tradition. But then, around eight o’clock, he made a radical turn to the south. All of them followed after him like zombies. Each water bottle emptied on the walk, until even Guerrero was dry. Their bottles marked their path in pale plastic that would gradually soften in the heat.
The group’s sign was a scatter of slips and trips, falls and minor one-man detours. There was no thinking evident, no reasoning process at all. Mendez walked, and his herd followed. They were now going in the exact opposite direction that they had come. Forming a vast inverted U shape twenty miles wide. Mendez clearly had no idea what he was doing.
Sometime during that confused march, the walkers in the rear realized how lost they were. They wanted to quit, but to quit was to die. Perhaps it was Santos who saw the simple solution. They had left tracks. The tracks led, sooner or later, back to Mexico. Mexico! All they had to do was turn around and walk back the way they had come.
It was a long shot. The walk this far had almost killed them. And Mexico was just more desert and thirst. But the walk ahead was certain to kill them. And, if they could just get back to Bluebird Pass, they could somehow go in to Ajo, or be found by the Migra. Somebody would find them.
“I want to live!” Santos said.
Who doesn’t want to live, pendejo?
“Let’s go back,” Santos insisted. “Let’s all just turn around. We can make it. I know we can make it.”
Mendez refused.
The walkers who saw this conflict did not know what to do. Although Mendez had clearly gotten them lost, he was the leader. He was in good shape. He was some kind of bigwig chingón in the guía group, whereas Santos was a chubby underling, some weak little man they did not respect. Still, he had a point.
You’ll die.
They listened to Mendez. It was like choosing a pickup soccer team. Santos led his small mutiny, calling for anyone with the balls to walk back the way they had come. Calling for anyone who wanted to live. He wasn’t lying anymore, he was telling the truth: the only sure way through the desert now was to follow their own tracks and try to repair the damage. There was one path, and it led backward.
Accounts vary. Either three or five men stepped up. The Santos team.
I’m going home.
We’re almost there, man.
I don’t care. I’m going back.
Go.
I will.
Fine. Go.
Santos, expedition leader. They turned around and walked away. Mendez was disgusted with the fat man. He didn’t care to watch him walk away. Some of the walkers watched, torn with fear and worry, unsure what they should do. But they weren’t quitters. Men didn’t quit. Hombres. Machos. Viva Veracruz. Viva Guerrero.
Desolation swallowed Santos and his crew.
No trace of them has ever been found.
SUNDAY, MAY 20—9:00 P.M. NINETY DEGREES.
Mendez walked, they followed.
Men were falling behind. Rafael Temich was worried—he’d lost sight of two companions.
“I said, ‘Hey, I think we lost two guys back there.’ He just said, ‘They can suck my cock. Those guys were dumb assholes before they ever came out here. If they’re lost, that’s their problem. Not mine.’”
Temich wouldn’t forget the comment.
The two lost walkers managed to rejoin the group.
They had been walking now for about thirty hours with a short break the night before.
Once again, they stumbled to a stop.
Everything was repeating itself.
They had wandered