The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [62]
Julian Ambros Malaga could take it. He was a healthy twenty-four-year-old former soldier. He was sure he could handle cross-country forced marches. He was so sure he could take whatever the desert threw at him that he wanted his teenage cousin to join him. The family put a stop to that. He was Rafael Temich’s brother-in-law and they had come here together.
Julian wore his favorite good-luck red-striped soccer jersey. He was planning to make money to build cement walls for his mother’s house. He was recently married, and he and his wife were expecting a child that October.
His father said Julian had promised to “always behave with respect,” and that he would do nothing to cost his father his feelings of pride.
He had a note from his bride in his pocket.
The crazy González Manzano brothers walked together. Isidro, Mario, Efraín. They were the Hidalgo contingent. Viva Verde Rico! This whole deal was working out badly—hell, they’d been busted, deported, shoved around, and now they were being dragged all over this hellhole desert. By God, they were going to get their damned money back! Still, they walked like men. They’d show these poor Veracruz boys how to walk. All for one.
Mario was heading for Lake Pleasant, Florida. He’d been there before. He couldn’t believe it was such a bitch trying to get back.
Javier García was a pip. A compact little fellow with big whiskers and a balding dome, he was a joker. Everything was funny. Even dying seemed funny to him, as long as he wasn’t the one dying. “Dead?” he told the sheriffs. “Whew! I saw twenty dead!” He laughed until he cried. He’d stumbled onto the trip—no real plan in mind—after he’d found the men getting ready at the safe house. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s a million lowlife hotels in Sonoita. I just saw the group and joined in.”
Just lucky—it made him giggle.
And who was Lauro? Some scrub. Mendez was the closest thing he had to a friend out there, and Mendez didn’t even know his real name.
12
Broken Promise
MONDAY, MAY 21.
The long night of Sunday, May 20, convinced even Mendez that they were all going to die. He could no longer tell them that they had a few more miles to go, because even the stupidest among them, even in their worsening states of confusion, each knew they were only going nowhere. They were at the bottom of their southern march, pointed directly at the Mexican border, yet miles away from it. Even if they had walked those miles, they would have died in Mexican wastes. Once he saw the sun come up on Monday morning, Mendez knew there was no hope. Dawn was easy enough: sun is east; keep it on your right side and you’re going north. Noon, however, was a daily bafflement. Dusk and darkness were indecipherable.
What happened next is still debated among them. Mendez has told different versions. The survivors tell different versions. The lawyer tells a version, and the Migra tells a version.
Mendez called them together.
Or they called Mendez to their meeting.
Mendez told them they were doomed unless he went to get help for them.
Or they told Mendez they were doomed if he did not go find help.
He told them he could make it to water, and possibly to help. It would be better if he went alone: he could move quicker.
No, he took his partner.
All right, then two were better than the big group. Two definitely had a better chance.
Those two chickenshits planned the whole time to book out of there and save their asses.
Or the members of the group told Mendez he had to save them and go alone to find water. And then, at the last second, he said he’d take Lauro.
He was afraid Lauro might die soon without help.
They pressed their money on him and asked him to get water, to get a vehicle and a driver.
Or he demanded money to save them.
Or he extorted money so he’d have funds for himself after he saved himself and left them to die.
They said, “Take all we have.”
Or he said, “Give me all you have.”
They collected seventy dollars.
They collected ninety dollars.
Or they