“You live here?” I stare at the Winnebago camp trailer.
“Just until my work contract ends, then I’ll move on.” Dad lifts my suitcase, freckled now with pumpkin-colored dust, out of the truck. “Arrived ahead of the others, so I got my pick of places. I liked this spot because it’s a bit more private. Can still see our neighbors, but they’re not on top of us.”
Private? The place looks like pictures of Mars on the Science Channel. Rocky red ledges and gnarled mesquite trees border the back of the camp spot. Cloud shadows creep up and down nearby canyons like dark ghosts.
“And you live in that?” I point at the Winnebago, a dusty metal box on wheels.
“Just like a turtle,” he says, grinning at me, “I take my house with me.”
Dad’s camper is the kind that hitches to the back of his truck. Other types are parked around the campground. The kind you drive. The kind you pull. The flat kind that cranks up. A picnic table sits underneath a shade shelter beside each one. I can see fire rings next to the shelters, smoke rising from some. Looking at the one next to Dad’s, I see a cooking grill balanced on the black, sooty rocks, flies buzzing above it.
No way, I think, almost gagging. I’m not eating a morsel of food cooked on that thing. . . .
“Some of the other people here at the Mesquite are longtimers, too.” He knocks the dust off my suitcase with the flat of his hand. “Staying for more than a weekend.”
The place hums with activity. Men stoking up fires in fire pits or pouring charcoal briquettes into grills they’ve brought along. Women hanging wet things on makeshift clotheslines, setting dishes on picnic tables. Kids walking to and from a cement block building in the middle of the campground, carrying beach towels.
Two boys leave the building and walk toward us. The shorter boy’s wearing jean shorts and no shirt or shoes. The taller one has on cutoffs, flip-flops and a black tee with a logo on the chest: a skull and crossbones inside a three-sided warning sign, the word AGUAS! underneath.
“What’s that mean, the word on that boy’s shirt?”
Dad pauses to look. “Across the border, it would translate as ‘Be careful’ or ‘Danger.’ It’s also a slogan that means something like ‘Don’t mess with me.’ ”
“So it’s sort of a warning?”
“Sort of,” he says.
I watch the boy as he nears. His hair is long and black, almost to his shoulders, and I can see long black lashes fringing dark eyes.
“What’s up, guys?” Dad asks as they walk over.
“How you doing, Lucas?” A damp towel is slung over the taller boy’s shoulder. He carries a cotton tote with clothes sticking out the top.
“We went swimming.” The younger boy is missing two front teeth. He carries a damp towel, too. “And I trapped a fish with my hands.”
“That’s good, Héctor. Big enough to fry up for supper?”
“Yeah, but X didn’t let me keep it.”
“A minnow,” X snickers. “It was a big minnow.”
“You don’t let me do anything,” Héctor says, bottom lip jutting.
“Tell you what.” Dad squats, eye level with the boy. “Next time you go fishing, use my rod and reel. It’s in the locker on the other side of the camper. You know the one?”
Héctor nods, grinning.
“You, uh, you find them, Lucas?” X says. “I left them . . .” He uses his chin to point toward the Winnebago. “You know, the usual place.”
“I did, X. I’ll check them over tonight and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Cool. See you in the morning.”
“Seven thirty,” Dad tells him. “Sharp.”
X gives him a mock salute. As he walks past me, he says, “Welcome to the Mesquite, Cassandra.” When he smiles, his teeth look snow-white next to his dark skin. Then something else catches my eye: tattoos have been permanently inked onto his arms. A bloody knife. Smoking gun. Grinning skull.
Just like the gangs at my old school did. . . .
“You smell good,” Héctor says as he walks by.
“Um, thanks.”
The boys walk toward one of the other campers and I turn to my father.
“Who are they? How’d they know my name? And . . .” I look toward the cement block building. “You have to shower there?”
“They’re Roberto’s boys. Told them you were spending a few weeks with me.” He glances at the bathhouse. “Their camper doesn’t have a shower. Mine does, but to keep from running short on water, I shower there, too.”
I look at the two boys again. “Who’s this Roberto guy? And what kind of name is X?”
“Roberto García works with me—and you’re to call him Mr. García. I manage the carpentry work and he handles the masonry. He’s a genius with concrete. I’d like him to work with me all the time, but don’t know if he’ll go for it. He wants to keep X in regular school for a while, and Héctor will start this year, too.”
The boys stop at a camper half the size of the Winnebago. X pulls damp clothes out of the tote bag and hangs them over a rope strung between posts.
“And X is just a nickname,” Dad says. “His full name is Xavier Rodriguez García.” He looks at me, the hint of a smile showing. “Almost as bad as Cassandra, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, almost.”
Finishing with the clothes, X walks toward a gang of kids clumped in the shade of a scraggy mesquite. Héctor starts to follow, but X makes him go back.
I feel bad watching Héctor sitting alone on their front steps. Seeing him look our way, I wave at him. He waves back. Wondering why X wouldn’t let Héctor go with him, I look toward the other kids, who look to be about eleven or twelve. A round boy and a blond girl sit on the sideline, watching three other boys in baggy jeans and T-shirts roughhouse with each other. Talking loud. Waving their arms around. Punching each other on the shoulder and chest. They’re what my grandma would call toughs.
I bet they all have tattoos. . . .
When one of the boys spots me watching them, he laughs and says something to the other two. I feel my face turn warm as I hear more laughter, knowing he said something rude about me. As I start to turn away, I see X grab the boy by the shoulder and I hear him tell the boy to sit down or leave. In the afternoon light, X’s face looks hard, menacing. It says Don’t mess with me. . . .
I hold my breath, expecting a fight to break out, but it doesn’t. Like someone turned off the TV, the laughing stops and the boys sit down.
Why’d they do that? Is X their leader?