The Long Run, page 25
“This is our ride.”
He extended his hand towards her. She hesitated before accepting it. They stood and crossed over the ditch and scampered down the hill. Israel lost his footing and tumbled forward. He hopped back to his feet and continued running. Sofia ran behind him, wincing in pain with every step. They should have replaced her undersized shoes after leaving the finca. Too late now. The train’s steel wheels rumbled and grew louder as they neared the tracks. The train’s massive frame loomed in their vision. A lumbering mass of steel covered in skirts, ladders, and decking. Plenty of handholds to grab onto. A young man and a boy sat atop one car and glanced at them as the train rumbled past. How hard could this be? Israel extended his hand towards the train when he felt Sofia grip his shoulder.
“Wait!” she said, loud enough to be heard over the grinding, rattling wheels.
“What? Why? We have to go!” Eventually, the cartel would find them.
“Stop and think! Please!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and glared at him. “You can’t just grab a moving train. It will kill you.”
“It didn’t kill them!” He pointed to a woman sitting on top of a car with her legs dangling casually off the side.
“Because they know how to do it! Just because it’s not moving fast doesn’t make it easy. Can you imagine grabbing a ten-thousand-pound train car moving seventy miles an hour?”
A mental image of a man pulverized into a fine mist flashed into Israel’s mind. A train car moving half that speed could still be lethal. Sofia was in school to become an immigration lawyer. It had been her passion since childhood. Immigrants riding and dying on Mexican trains had been a problem for years.
“Then how do we do it?”
“You run beside the train, match its pace, before you grab it. And when you grab on, you have to avoid the wheels. That’s the dangerous part, Izzy. Those wheels will suck your legs underneath them.”
Falling beneath a train car would mash Israel into hamburger meat. He glanced behind them. The last train car was in sight. Soon it, and any chance of boarding the train, would pass.
“There’s the last train car. If we fall, we’ll just hit the ground!” he said. “I’ll get on first. I’ll help you on. OK?”
She sucked her teeth and glanced at the train. She seemed unsure.
“Sofie, you know what Chucho will do if he catches us. Come on. We can do this.”
Sofia nodded. “The last train car.”
“The last one.” That meant only one chance. If they missed it, they were screwed. But he wouldn’t tell her that. He looked back. The last car was almost there. “We gotta go.”
The final car in the line was a hopper, enclosed to protect its contents from the elements. The steel hull formed a V-shape to allow grain to flow from top to bottom. Open notches at both ends of the car provided enough room for people to huddle inside.
They started at a jog’s pace, measuring the speed of the train. It chugged forward, building up steam after leaving the depot down the line. Its slow speed gave them a chance. The wheels stood chest high to Israel. He tried not to imagine falling under one. Dry grass crunched under their feet as they ran. Soon, the last car loomed behind them. There were two ladders on this car. One forward, the other aft. Israel waited until the rear ladder neared.
“Ready?” he yelled. She nodded. He grabbed the ladder with his right hand. The train’s inertia lifted him off the ground. He skittered and bounced on one foot before he matched the train’s speed. The next part was the hardest. He leaped forward, snatching the next rung up with his other hand. His belly heaved as both feet dangled off the ground; His legs twisting in the air. He arched his back as he coiled his feet away from the rolling death beneath him. He grabbed the next rung and planted one foot on the bottom rung. His body curled like a shrimp at the bottom of the ladder. Two more rungs up and he stood straight. Safe.
He edged off the ladder to the mesh decking beside it. He held a steel grab bar running horizontally across the car’s thick shell to steady himself. Then he swiveled to find Sofia still running alongside. “OK! Now you! Be careful with the grip! It will pull you off your feet!”
“OK!” Her lips pursed as she measured the distance between her and the train. She swiped at the ladder once and missed it.
“Closer, Sofie! Come on!” Standing on the train showed him its true scale. Even hunched low, holding the bar and extending a helping hand, Sofia remained a couple of feet below him.Sofia ran closer. Hot wind from the train’s wheels winced her eyes and buffeted her clothes. She grimaced in pain. The shoes were hurting her. This was a bad idea. She lunged for the ladder and snatched it with one hand, handling the sudden transference of inertia with ease. She glanced at him. It was a look of confidence. She had this. He exhaled with relief.
“Now, grab the next step!” Israel yelled.
She increased her speed and leaped. A painful scream accompanied the jump. She scowled and clutched at the next rung. But it was a tenuous grip at best. She twisted in the air with her legs scissor-kicking at nothing.
“Izzy!”
“Watch your legs!” he yelled, seeing her feet kicking near the driving wheels. “Reach up! Grab the next step!”
She bared her teeth and focused on the next rung. With a roar, she released the bottom rung and stretched to grab the next one in line.
“Now put your foot on the bottom step!” Israel said. Sofia did so and followed it with another grab at the next rung. A moment later, she stood up straight on the ladder. She breathed hard and clutched her chest.
“We have to move!” Israel said.
They were a human billboard, pressed into the train car shell. Anybody standing near the rails could see them. She followed his lead, clutching the grab bar above their heads and shuffling her feet towards the forward end of the car. Whipping wind battered their faces, forcing them to squint. They rounded the corner and stepped over a locked toolbox and a thin plate partition and sat down against the car’s hull. They straightened their legs on the diamond plate between them and the next train car. Tucked inside their nook, no one would see them from the road. They breathed sighs of relief.
“See,” Israel panted. “Not that hard!” A wide smile spread across his face. Sofia grinned.
“Says you.” She grimaced as she plucked off her right shoe and stared at her toes. A crack ran vertically up her big toenail. A victim of the ill-fitting shoes and her pounding feet. Bright red blood oozed between the crack.
“Shit.” Israel winced in sympathy pain.
“Whatever,” she groaned and plopped the shoe beside her. They leaned against each other, relieved and exhausted by their escape.
The train passed into the darkness. Behind them, dozens of bobbing flashlights combed the fields and ditches they had just abandoned.
CHAPTER 45
Chucho
The police had pushed the Versa off the road by the time Chucho arrived. It sat in the driveway beside the darkened office building; Cloaked in shadow with its doors open like butterfly wings. Officers and narcos alike milled in the driveway, kicking spent bullet casings. One cop sat inside the back seat of the Versa, pulling a drag from a half-burned cigarette. Chucho scowled. He didn’t care that they had tampered with evidence. He was still processing the fact that the two escapees had eluded his grasp. Again.
The spirits were taunting him. Having their fun. Life was a game to the lifeless. Everyone is a japing marionette in their bored hands. He had to wait them out. Play his part and they would play theirs. He would continue his prayers and offerings. Eventually, the spirits would grow bored, and these gringos would drop into his hands like gifts from the thirteen heavens. It had happened before. It would happen again.
“E’esik in in baak' utia'al u pajtal ts'oon le,” Chucho said, asking the spirits for help in finding his quarry.
“What was that?” a policeman standing next to him asked. He had greeted Chucho on site and led him to the Versa. He had lingered on, thinking his presence required. The three chevrons embroidered on his sleeves emboldened him with misplaced importance. Chucho eyed him dismissively until he slunk away. Chucho turned his attention to the milling troops.
“Who saw them first?” he said aloud.
“I did, señor,” a narco standing in the shadows said. He stepped forward into the lamplight. He wore a cowboy hat and had a potbelly that strained the buttons on his shirt to near popping.
“Show me where they ran,” Chucho said.
“Claro.” The man nodded and strode forward. “A son-of-a-bitch was honking his car. I ran to see what was happening. Aquí.” He stood near the spot on the road where he found the abandoned Versa. “I saw them. A pelón and a blondie. They ran that way.” He pointed to the parking lot at the opposite end of the driveway.
“Why didn’t you shoot them?”
“Perdón, señor. I did. Or… I tried,” the narco said with downcast eyes. “But they ducked behind the building.”
Chucho grunted. Near misses. Close scrapes. The spirits delighted in their games. “Then where?”
The narco jogged past him, holding his hat to his head with one hand. “I ran after them. Came around the corner.” He stopped at the back corner of the building, already breathing hard. “They… had kicked the door open. So… me and Tomás ran inside.” Chucho scanned the milling group for Tomás, the only other non-policeman on site. The man looked at him nervously. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Chucho returned his attention to the first narco. “We ran after them,” the fat narco said, pointing up the stairs.
“And they weren’t inside,” Chucho grimaced.
“No. They…” He rotated and pointed to the empty lot behind the parking lot. It bristled with weeds half a man high. A discarded clothes dryer sat rusting in one corner. “They ran that way. Towards those shops.”
“Show me.”
“Claro.” He led Chucho through the parking lot and into the overgrown field. They crossed a beaten path of crushed weeds and fractured dirt. Past that lay a long, rectangular one-story building subdivided into several smaller shops. A flower store and a pawn shop occupied two slots. The others were empty. Two of the doors to the unoccupied shops stood open, presumably kicked in by the passing pelón. Chucho wondered if the open-door trick had fooled these pendejos twice.
“They ran past here,” the narco said. “Kicked these doors open. But we knew better.” He tapped his temple. “They ran down the ditch.” They passed the end of the shops and stood on the lip of the embankment that sloped towards a burbling ditch at the bottom.
“You lost them here,” Chucho said. He scanned the length of the ditch. One side angled toward a residential neighborhood of low-slung homes. A pack of dogs loped past on the distant street, sniffing for scraps.
“Uh, sí,” he nodded and rubbed his jaw. “But we think they’re hiding in that neighborhood. We’re knocking on doors. Looking in every hole. We’ll find them.” He offered a weak smile at the end.
“Hm,” Chucho groaned. He didn’t think the pelón was dumb enough to remain close. That one had a look about him. A spark. Like he knew the game. He spent time street level with the grunts. Roaches knew to stay hidden. And to never stop moving. He could see them now. A wave of roaches scurrying through the grass. Their antennae twirling as they skittered. The edges of their crisp wings pulsed a faint amber glow. The spirits were strong with them. Where were they going? Chucho followed their movement and walked down the slope. The roaches split around his feet like a river cleaved in two by a stout rock. They hopped off his feet and raced ahead. Chucho jogged to keep pace.
“Where are you going?” The narco called. His clumsy footsteps crunched behind Chucho.
“Following the roaches,” Chucho said, not bothering to look back. He focused on a pipe poking out from a culvert further down the ditch.
“What… What roaches?”
But the fat narco didn’t matter anymore. The spirits guided him now. The roaches took flight as one, lifting into the air with a flapping buzz of their thin membranous wings that illuminated the night sky. Their ovular bodies angled toward the exposed pipe. One roach stayed close by Chucho’s head. He glanced at it as he ran. Its beady head turned to face him. A tendril of electricity coursed through its antennae. Follow me, it seemed to say, I’ll show you the way.
“Buluc Chabtan. A alabo,” Chucho whispered.
He splashed through the shallow ditch and arrived at the culvert. A cloud of roaches separated as he approached. Their tiny black heads rotated as he passed. Brown water burbled out of the pipe and spattered on the culvert. Years of constant splatter had blackened the concrete where it landed. Slimy green algae rimmed the bottom of the pipe and hung in long strands. But not the entire pipe. There, where a person might grab the pipe to pull themselves inside, the algae spread apart, scraped into rectangles like the scrabbling grip of wet fingers. Chucho leaned inside and peered at the opposite end. A pinhole of light, cast by nearby streetlamps, glowed a faint blue. His nose tickled at the pungent damp of floating chemicals in the water. The escapees crawled through this pipe to elude their bungling pursuers.
“Señor… What is it?” the fat narco wheezed behind him. Chucho stood and faced him. The clouds of roaches had vanished, replaced by the puffing and winded narco.
“They escaped through this pipe.”
“Really?” The narco winced as he peered inside the pipe. “Should I follow?”
“Yes. Hurry!” Chucho waved to the open pipe. The fat narco grimaced, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of entering the pipe. But Chucho’s gaze didn’t waver. These fools needed to pay a price for allowing another escape. The narco laid his cowboy hat on a ledge in the culvert and slid off his boots. Then he approached the pipe and tried to pull himself up inside. But he was too heavy and couldn’t lift his knee above the rim. Chucho intervened, angling his shoulder into the narco’s wide bottom. With a grunt, he raised the man high enough to enter the pipe.
“Gracias,” he said. “It smells terrible.”
“Yes. It does. Go all the way to the end.”
“Sí, señor.” The narco’s voice echoed inside the tube. He shuffled forward, his knees splashing water as he moved.
Chucho climbed the culvert beside the pipe and stood on the ridge above the ditch. He walked parallel to the pipe below him and arrived at another embankment. The water was deep here and met the bottom rim of the pipe.
“It’s very dark in here. ¿Señor?” The fat narco’s pained grunts played through the open pipe like a megaphone. But Chucho’s attention lay elsewhere.
The escapees came out here. But then where? A distant train horn caught his attention. It came from beyond this tributary. Further past, where the ditch widened and snaked around a curve. Chucho ran towards the far ridge. At a thinning of the ditch, he backed up and leaped across the water. His knees buckled when he landed. He barely felt it through the gauzy dullness of his peyote high. He reached the ridge and stopped.
Below him, at the base of the slope, two sets of train tracks cut across the narrow valley. A passing cargo train was aglow. The light didn’t come from lanterns or lamps. It was the train cars themselves. Their steel walls emanated brilliant shades of blue and white, bright as a Las Vegas casino, as they trundled below him. Chucho’s face glowed pale blue from the reflected light. His eyes darted left and right, jumping from car to car. People, immigrants, sat on the roof tops and clung to the side railings. They glanced at him as they passed. The last car scooted past him down the line and the landscape faded to the milky black of midnight.
The escapees weren’t hiding out in the small neighborhoods nearby. They weren’t crouching in a shed or stowed under someone’s bed. They were aboard a train car rolling away from Merida. Their escape was still fresh. They couldn’t have reached another depot. Not yet. He would be present when they did.
DAY 6
Friday
CHAPTER 46
Israel
The train car’s soothing rattle had calmed Sofia and Israel’s frayed nerves soon after they settled into the hopper car’s open nooks. They drifted to sleep with a warm breeze caressing their faces. Israel woke hours later with Sofia’s head resting on his shoulder. Her slender shoulders and chest rose and fell with gentle breaths. Rising sunlight clipped the canopy of trees at their side and illuminated the fine blonde stubble of her hair. Blonde, buzz-cut Sofia appeared a stranger to Israel. But the gentle curves of her nose and lips made her familiar as well. She radiated warmth and peace that Israel absorbed with a smile. Her hand rested on his knee. He reached out to touch it and stopped. His fingers twitched an unsure dance. If she woke, would she appreciate his touch? He lowered his hand. Her sleeping beside him was enough.
Movement above him caught his eye. A round-faced boy blinked at him through black bangs of hair hanging from his forehead. He laid flat on his belly on top of the boxcar in front of Israel. The boy’s pudgy fingers gripped the metal edge of the car and stared at them.
“He’s looking for handouts,” a man’s voice said. Israel turned to face the speaker. A young man made old by intense sun and wind. His beardless face resembled the surface of soft leather. And his chapped, cracked lips inspired Israel to lick his own lips. The rider sat cross-legged on the opposite corner of the car. His dingy muscle shirt displayed his flat chest and visible ribs. Weathered eyes crinkled as he stared at the boy. “Food. He asked me earlier.” He nodded at the boy.
