The road curved through the aspen and pine, north from Florence and points of civilization too boring for the two men in the cab of a beat-up 1973 Ford pickup and too crowded for the four men in the bed of the truck, huddled together under a camper shell. As Fulano had explained to the others, the gravel road followed the route of the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad. Built in 1894, the railroad was a connection from Florence to the goldfields of Cripple Creek and Victor. It was, as Fulano put it, "a piece of American history that needs to be understood."
"It's boring," was the unanimous response. It was a dirt road, not unlike many in Mexico. What was so special about this one?
Fulano regarded the three men around him with disdain then focused his attention on a dust cloud behind them, down the hill about a mile away. It had been there for the last fifteen minutes, the sign of another car on the road, someone else taking the scenic route to Cripple Creek. He knew they were relatively safe from la migra, but it didn't calm his nerves. He kept his eyes on the cloud and let his mind drift to more important matters.
He'd never been to Cripple Creek, never been to Florence and, in fact, never been beyond the confines of the fields save that one trip in the back of the moving van that got him there. His shack, the Arkansas River and the massive expanse of agriculture near Pueblo had been—up until now—his only taste of the American life. For the last three months, however, he'd had no desire to go anywhere else; he was in America to make money, to save money and to eventually use that money to bring Maria, Juan and Cerdito north to start over. That he missed them was no secret. Maria had been in his life for forty of his forty-five years. Juan was a miracle born ten years ago, and Cerdito was nothing short of a gift from God born last March. He could have stayed in Lázaro Cárdenas, but it was Cerdito's birth—and his birth defects—that drove Fulano north. If only the clínica had the treatments the boy needed. If only there was a job to pay the bills. If only . . . .
The dust cloud grew larger. Fulano glanced at the other three, didn't see any sweat on their brows and decided he was just paranoid. They were an hour from Florence and probably only a few miles from the turnoff in Victor. They would be safe. Then again, what was the rule against riding in the back of pickup trucks in Colorado? He'd been told once that every state had its own laws, but if you just kept your mouth shut and stayed in the shadows, it wouldn't matter. He looked through the window of the camper shell and up at the September sun, peeking out between the trees. Keep to the shadows, he mused. Difficult to do in the bed of a truck.
"Are you ready to win big?" one of the other men asked over the roar of the tires on the gravel. When Fulano didn't respond, the man poked him in the knee with a small stick. "Hey, Fulano. I'm talking to you."
Fulano pulled his gaze away from the window and rolled his head toward the man who'd just poked him. He was fat, smelly and greasy with a black frock of hair that stuck out from around a mesh baseball cap pasted to his head. The man was a new hire, only allowed to go on this trip because the capataz knew he couldn't pull his weight around the fields alone. Fulano couldn't remember his name.
"I'm not looking to win big," Fulano said. "I just want to the play the nickel machines." He let his lips turn up in a small smile before turning his attention back to the dust cloud.
"Nickels? You'll never get your family here winning nickels."
"I'll never get my family here losing dollars."
The fat man didn't respond. He was quiet for a moment then turned away. Fulano felt a sigh of relief well up. He didn't want to be bothered on this trip.
The dust cloud had grown larger, more menacing in appearance. Fulano wondered if that menacing look was just his paranoia bubbling to the surface or if there was something more to it. He'd been careful since the day his feet hit American soil. Talk to no one, stay in the shadows, behave and listen. Always listen. The last thing he could afford was a trip back home, so it was with great reservation he decided to go on this little outing in the first place. Out here—even in the forest or the small towns—he would be exposed. The agents were probably everywhere, and it was only a matter of time before they caught him. He had to work fast, make enough money, get the visas, get Maria and the boys across the border—before Cerdito lost his only hope of getting better.
But the lure of the casinos was great. Even greater still was the lure of a day off, especially after the past three months of hard labor. The capataz was not always a nice man, and you learned quickly to accept any offer of kindness—no matter how much it smelled like a trap. This offer was different, however. It was a chance to get away from the fields and see just what America had to offer—providing, of course, you could keep your mouth shut and stay out of sight.
As the truck rounded a hairpin, the four men in the back of the truck instinctively reached for something to hold. It was a longer trip than they expected, and no one had really mentioned the road itself. Phantom Canyon Ranch Road wound from the south to the north, carved into the mountainside and at some points, narrow enough for only one car at a time. Fulano glanced back over the fading hairpin and saw for the first time the originator of that dust cloud: an old Jeep, rusty and yellowed with age. He breathed a sigh of relief; it wasn't la migra.
The Jeep caught up to the truck at the next curve in the road. Fulano and the others sat watching the lone man inside grow angrier at the lack of fast forward progress. Americans can be such jerks on the road, expecting the freest lane to drive a hundred miles an hour and getting mad at anyone who might follow the speed limits. But he knew the capataz would not break the law; he would drive at the speed limit and use his blinkers to signal a turn. Apparently, however, he didn't think anything of throwing four grown men in the bed of his truck on a mountain road not known for gentle grades.
The man in the Jeep honked his horn. The sound rose above the constant rumble of tires on gravel. The fat man with greasy hair stuck out his middle finger. "Pendejo!" he screamed then seemed to visibly tense as the Jeep slowed down just a bit.
Fulano felt his body sink into the bed of the truck. He didn't want to be in harm's way if that man in the Jeep decided to do something in retaliation. Instead of retaliate, however, the Jeep continued to slow, its yellowed bulk falling farther away.
The fat man chuckled as he threw another rude gesture toward the man in the Jeep. "Pendejo estúpido. I hope he falls off the mountain."
Minutes passed as the threat of the Jeep dissipated. Was it even a threat? Fulano wondered. He looked at each of the other men in turn then resolved to fill the rest of his thoughts with family. Family was his only real reason for being here, anyway.
Maria stood against the door jamb, her dress translucent in the setting sun. Fulano felt a jab in his heart.
"You don't have to go," Maria said. Her voice sent shivers through Fulano.
"It's the only way I can see. There are no jobs here."
"The boys will miss you."
"I'll be back."
"Did you say goodbye?"
Fulano shot a shameful glance behind him. "I can't."
Maria shifted her weight and looked down at the dirty concrete floor. The one-room shack on the edge of Lázaro Cárdenas was all they could afford after Fulano was laid off. It was a struggle for a few months, but nothing compared to the struggle when Cerdito was born. A cleft palette, hemophilia—words neither Maria nor Fulano knew when the baby was born. The clínica recommended a trip to Houston, but there was a problem: no money, no work, no hope for the child.
"I know you will come back," Maria said. Her words seemed to fall to the floor in a puff of dust, heavy, full of fear. "I know you will."
Fulano shifted his weight himself, unsure of his methods, but sure of his decision. He could make it. He could wire back money. The cost of the pollero to lead him across the border paled in comparison to the money he could make if he landed the right job.
The right job, he thought. Any job would be the right job.
Fulano looked out the back of the camper shell and watched the Jeep draw closer again. Although partially obscured by the truck's dust cloud, the man inside the Jeep appeared large. His hands gripped the steering wheel in an odd fashion. "I wonder if he's going to try to pass us," Fulano muttered.
One of the men turned to Fulano. José. Juan. Whatever his name was, Fulano knew it wasn't his real name. No one knew your real name. If the Americans figured out what Fulano really meant, they might not have treated him the same way.
"Do you think he's la migra?" the man Fulano now referred to as José asked.
"No. He's just someone driving up the same road as us."
"I don't need to see any more of la migra. I don't want to go home just yet."
"You won't get caught. The capataz said there isn't anyone in Cripple Creek who would care whether or not you're illegal. They just want your money."
José smiled weakly then turned around to look through the front window. "We're coming up on a tunnel."
"He'll behave."
"What if he tries something?"
The fat man laughed. "That asshole? He won't try anything. Americans are full of shit and do nothing but fart."
With a grind of the transmission, the truck slowed. Fulano's heart beat more rapidly than it had before. He turned toward the front of the cab then peered outside the little window in the side of the camper shell. "We're stopping."
"Stopping?" José leaned toward the side window as well. The smell of Old Spice mixed with dirt infiltrated Fulano's nose. Christ, the man stank.
The truck pulled to a stop just short of the tunnel. José let out a whoop of fear. His voice rose in crescendo. "What? Why are we stopped? What's the capataz doing? We're going to be searched and taken back south."
"Shut up," the fourth man said. Fulano engaged the man with a quick glance. Alberto: long in the face with a full black mustache that covered cracked lips. Something about him had always been untrustworthy.
"No, man." José's voice dropped to a whisper, but there was force in it, like a shriek muted. "No, man. We're done for."
Fulano felt a sinking in his stomach. Maybe they were done for. Maybe the capataz really wanted to dispose of the four of them in the worst possible place: a dirt road winding through unpopulated lands and skirting the edge of a mountain that would surely be their grave.
No, he thought. Not the capataz. He may be cruel, but he's not evil.
Fulano looked out the rear window and watched the Jeep draw close. The man inside was older, maybe in his fifties, with a girth that was anything but suited for the car he drove. With a strange look on his face, he slowed down to an imperceptible crawl and peered through the windshield at the back of the truck. Through the fine dust caked on the back of the camper shell, Fulano hoped the man couldn't see inside very well.
José leaned back against the front of the camper shell. "It's la migra!"
"Damn, you're stupid," the fat man called out. "Did you see what he's driving? A piece of shit Jeep. What kind of cop do you think drives an old, beat-up Jeep?"
"An undercover one," José shot back. His face was locked in fear. "We got stopped in Arizona by a Jeep."
"You got stopped in Arizona by a Samaritan. That isn't la migra."
"I don't trust them."
"You don't trust your mother."
"New shoes?" Fulano looked at the American in the red polo shirt holding a box of new Nike shoes. His hair looked like a yellow feather duster, but it wasn't catching any dust. "What do I need new shoes for? I have good shoes."
"Let me see them," the man said. He was struggling with Spanish, the way a toddler struggles to read a story. Nevertheless, the café owner told them all to trust him. He was one of the "good guys," although Fulano didn't know what that meant.
Fulano reached down and unlaced a shoe then passed it to the man. The man held it in his hands, turned it over and examined it like a piece of meat for sale at the market. He brushed aside a wayward strand of the dust mop stuck to his forehead, then sighed and handed Fulano back his shoe.
"New shoes, señor."
With a grunt and a touch of apprehension, Fulano took the pair of shoes the man offered. The man nodded and stepped back to his truck just outside the door of the café. He grabbed another box of shoes, noted something in a notebook then approached another of their crossing party.
Fulano turned toward the others all gathered in the back of a barn behind the café. A "shelter," they called it. Twenty pesos a day for lodging and food until the polleros arrived. It was late afternoon, and they had been notified the polleros would arrive by nightfall. At that time, the border crossers would have to pay up or find a way home.
Maria had never liked the idea of a border crossing, and she certainly didn't warm up to it after finding out it would cost the family all but a hundred or so pesos of their savings. Fulano shuddered. Twenty thousand pesos to get from San Lázaro to a safe house south of Tucson. From there, the thirty-two men, women and children gathered in the barn were on their own . . . if they made it that far.
"José." The fat man jabbed an elbow into José's side. "Wake up. We're here."
José turned to look out the side window with Fulano, bringing with him the all-too-familiar smell of Old Spice and dirt. He snorted once and wiped his face with a greasy hand.
With watering eyes, Fulano pulled back. "It's not Cripple Creek," he said. "It's Victor."
"Victor?" José yawned, letting loose a garlic-laced cloud of air. "I thought we were going to Cripple Creek."
Fulano sighed. "We are. This is one of the towns in the mining district. Still has an operating gold mine."
The truck slowed at a stop sign then turned left onto a paved road. The hours of bouncing over washboard roads and loose gravel were finally replaced with what felt like a pillow of air. In a quick second, the grind of the tires on the dirt was thankfully muted.
José peered through the window at the dilapidated buildings, the gift shops scattered between vacant shops, the general disuse of the town. He said nothing as the truck cruised down the main street. Finally, he leaned back from the window and closed his eyes. "Wake me when we get there."
Fulano shook his head and returned to his original position. He stared with fascination at the town and all the artifacts still standing. A brick building with a robin's egg blue front stood on a corner, patiently waiting out time. The glass windows were yellowed with age and warped, giving a surreal look to the drapery hanging in them. On the side of the building words were painted, words Fulano didn't know despite his year of English as a teenager. He thought he recognized the word "under" but it was attached to another word that was unfamiliar: "taker." Put together, he could sound it out in his head but not translate it.
Parked in front of the building was the Jeep, even rustier in the September sun. Dirt covered the windows, blending the car into its surroundings. The driver was nowhere to be seen. Fulano swallowed and tried to push away his unwarranted fear.
The truck continued up a slight hill, past other buildings, each distinct in wear. With a fascination not shared by anyone else, Fulano read each carved store front, each date stamped or painted on their ornate cornices. He relished the history of the West, and especially that of the miners in Colorado. They, too, gave up everything to search for a fortune in an unknown world. They, too, endured undocumented hardships. They, too, were immigrants.
The path wasn't so much a path as it was a snaking thoroughfare through cholla and creosote bushes. A nearly-full moon provided a little light and bathed the desert south of the border and east of Nogales in alternating patterns of indigo and dark green. It was not unlike the desert outside Lázaro Cárdenas, but it was different. It was, unlike that desert, the doorstep to a new world.
The thirty-two travelers kept to themselves, as instructed. Conversations between child and parent were short and whispered. Casual talk between man and woman was almost nonexistent. They all knew what they faced once they crossed the border, and some of them were facing it for the second or third time. Fulano was wary of those who were on their second trip; what did they do to be deported the first time? How were they caught? Would they give themselves or the others over to la migra easily?
An animal howled in the distance and one of the three polleros held up his hand and motioned for the group to stop. Fulano could see his silhouette ahead of the group as the man turned his head slowly left then right. He was listening for something. Silence infected the group like a virus; even the children held their breath. They had been told many things about the journey, warned of many dangers. There would, of course, be animals and la migra, a need to ration water and food. There would be sickness during the journey and the group would not stop to wait for another. On top of these hazards, however, there were also banditos, especially along the border east of Nogales. They were relentless and operated in a lawless land. They would not hesitate to take everything you had and leave you naked in the desert as a meal for the vultures and coyotes.
The pollero with his hand up turned slowly around to the group. As his hand lowered, he whispered: "banditos." With a visible wave of tension, the group of border crossers turned their individual heads and looked around into the darkness.
"Keep together and keep quiet," the pollero said.
Following direction, the migrants became one group, taking tentative steps behind the pollero through the brush and cacti, talking to no one, their eyes darting back and forth, expecting the inevitable death in the desert.
As the truck wound its way past the buildings of Victor and across a monstrously tall bridge, Alberto glared at Fulano over his bushy mustache. A deep scar across his cheek smiled even if his mouth didn't. "How come you know so much about this place?"
"I read a few books." Fulano couldn't face the man directly, only in quick sidelong glances. Truth be told, he was scary, like someone he'd met before who didn't have good intentions. However, even though his instincts had certainly been sharpened on the trip across the border and into Colorado, he knew he couldn't trust them. Alberto might not be dangerous at all, just ugly.
"Books." The word fell from Alberto's mustache like a piece of unwanted corn. "The books you read were written by Americans. They probably don't tell the real story."
"Oh, really." Fulano didn't want to get into an argument with an unread, filthy migrant worker, but at the same time, he welcomed the conversation. When did he ever get a chance to sit back and relax, to really converse with people who shared his journey?
The truck wound around curves and began to descend into a valley. Fulano turned to look out the window at the passing scenery. This was the Cripple Creek Gold Mining District, a land that welcomed the rush of the late 1800s and early 1900s and produced more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined. Despite what Alberto said, the books couldn't lie about what really happened here; the evidence was speckled throughout the land. Ancient pitheads, wooden structures that may have once been train depots or rich men's houses, train tracks that wound through aspen and pine and between prospector's holes dug and forgotten; this land was scarred with history.
Much like Alberto's face, Fulano thought. Scarred with history.
With a clunky downshift of gears, the truck slowed its descent and both the fat man and José looked up.
"Are we there yet?" José asked. "I need to piss like a donkey."
Fulano's eyes grew in size as the town of Cripple Creek appeared around a bend. Rather than loom large, it sank into the environment like it belonged there, a derelict town brought back to life by the lure of casinos and the money of Colorado Springs. It was beautiful in its American way, so much different from the towns south of the border, so much unlike Pueblo.
"Yeah," Fulano muttered. "Get your dollars ready."
The four men crawled out of the back of the truck. It was parked in a deserted parking lot on what looked like the edge of town. Fulano half expected this; the capataz wouldn't want to draw attention to his slaves—that's what they were, right?—by unloading the truck along some main street where any number of people might gawk and perhaps call la migra.
Was there even la migra this far north?
"You have five hours," the capataz said. He looked out from under his Stetson and let his eyes rest on each man in turn. Next to him stood his son, a large man with muscles that seemed to show through even the baggiest of clothes. It was well known: if the capataz was out, the boy was in charge. No one liked it when the boy was in charge.
The capataz raised his head up and looked toward Bennett Avenue and the casinos in the distance. "In five hours the truck is leaving. If you're not on board, you can find work somewhere else. Consider this trip either a gift or a curse. Your choice."
Fulano swallowed a lump of fear in his throat. He knew he should have stayed on the farm, worked another twelve hours, made more money to send back home. Instead, he was cajoled into coming on this trip by the same man who now threatened to leave him in a mountain town that would likely swallow him alive and spit out his guts in a heartbeat. The growing gnaw of unease that had set upon his stomach when he first stepped into the back of the truck in Pueblo was now a raging, gnashing bear of a burden.
"Five hours. Does everyone understand?"
The four men nodded and waited until the capataz had returned to the cab of his truck and driven away. In under a minute, they were alone: four men in a strange world, unsure of where to start.
"Where to?" José asked. His hands were buried in the pockets of dirty jeans, apprehension visible in every line on his face. "Do we want to gamble?"
Fulano looked up the street toward the casinos. He was sure he could tell which buildings actually housed the games, but he wasn't sure if he could read the signs. From a distance he made out "Century Casino" and "Free Parking." That's a start, he thought.
"There's the first casino," Fulano said as he pointed up the street toward a yellow sign painted over red brick. "The Century. I say we start there and move up the street."
Alberto turned. The lines and scars on his face shone in the midday sun. The mustache under his nose quivered. "Who made you the leader?"
"I'm just offering a suggestion," Fulano said, as quietly and surely as he could. "You can do whatever you want."
"I don't want to follow you, that's for sure."
José looked down. "Shouldn't we all stay together?"
"Who's in charge?" Alberto spat a perfect dollop of brown saliva at José's feet. "The history guru or the chicken? What about you, fat boy?"
Fulano pulled his mochila over his shoulder a little higher. The damned thing was heavy. Three gallons of water and a case of Powerbars gifted by the American in the red polo was at first welcomed, but now cursed. The path through the desert east of Nogales was, at best, tricky to navigate, especially with clouds now covering the moon and the group of thirty-two travelers already worn out. Some had come from as far away as Honduras. None were local. All were tired.
He didn't know any of the names and didn't expect to learn them. The polleros had made it clear that familiarity would cause problems down the line, especially if they ran into trouble. The last thing anyone wanted was trouble. Truth be told, many of them just wanted to go home.
The first man appeared out of the desert floor like a ghost. He pushed one of the polleros down and pulled out a pistol. Screams erupted from the quiet group as an hour of built-up tension released at once. Fulano swung around to the left and saw a second man appear out of nowhere. The pollero was right: there were banditos in the night.
The first man with the pistol flashed it right and left, pointing it first at the polleros in the lead and then at anyone in the group. "Necklaces! Wallets! Money!" he cried out.
Fulano quickly dropped his mochila and pulled out his wallet. He knew what he hoped the banditos did not know: not all the money he had was inside his wallet. Before leaving Lázaro Cárdenas, Maria had sewn hidden pockets inside his jeans. "Just in case," she had said matter-of-factly. Fulano would have to let her know just how thankful he was because of her efforts the next time they were together . . . if they were ever together again.
A push from behind sent Fulano to the ground. His face scraped against a cholla cactus, and dirt lodged in his nose. A third bandito appeared over him, purple bandana drawn around his face, black hair sticking out from a baseball cap. The man held a pistol at arm's length, its barrel shaking. "Your shoes, señor." The man's voice was as gravelly as the rocks around Fulano's face. "Your shoes!"
The screams from the other travelers had morphed into a mix of sobs and curses. Fulano could no longer register individual words, only a cacophony of violence. In the darkness and with his face close to the ground, he couldn't see what hell had been unleashed on the others, but he imagined it was much worse. If all the man wanted was his shoes, then he would happily oblige. Life was worth more than a pair of shoes.
In less than five minutes, the three banditos were gone. Their victorious shouts faded in the night, replaced by the cries of those in the crossing party. Two of the polleros quickly rounded the group up and tried to quiet them down. The third pollero walked around and assessed the situation. His eyes were swollen, his lip bleeding.
"They took your shoes, señor?" the pollero asked. It took a moment for Fulano to realize the man was talking to him.
Rather than wait for a response, the man shook his head and turned to the others. "I need two pairs of socks. Does anyone have extras?"
Fulano and José stood at the doorway of the Spanish Mustang, dragging cigarettes until they tasted burnt filter. Where Alberto and the fat man were was of no concern. José may be panicky, but that seemed to Fulano a good thing.
On the streets of Cripple Creek, there were people everywhere: fat types, skinny types, tourist types, biker types. After the three-hour drive from Pueblo, the mass of people was almost overwhelming. It wasn't even close to the mercado in Lázaro Cárdenas; sure, there were people everywhere, but they were so . . . different.
Fulano stubbed his cigarette out on the sidewalk and looked up the street. The buildings across from the Spanish Mustang were festooned with dates on their false fronts. Apparently, most of the buildings were built in 1896, except one marked 1991. That building, though, looked like the rest. Whatever possessed the builders in this town to keep the Old West feel, it worked in ways they could have never understood. It was so similar to the books he'd read, but so dissimilar as well. He could almost hear the clomp of horses on the dirt, the chatter of women festooned with tight bodices, their skirts gathered at the waist, out for a miner who struck it rich. The gentle breeze carried with it ghost sounds like the rough banging of keys on some ancient bar piano, the accompanying lyrics to The Sidewalks of New York slaughtered by some chunky soprano after a few too many shots of rye.
He turned to look the other way and swallowed his philosophical thoughts of high-country mining and piano ditties. That same Jeep from the trip up was parked on the side of the road. On its bumper, an American flag sticker with words he didn't know screamed a warning in his mind. He knew the driver wasn't la migra, but that didn't mean he was friendly, either. He'd had run-ins with ranchers and truck drivers, with people in expensive cars, with waitresses and bankers. There were far too many wary and inhospitable people in America.
"We going in?" José asked.
Fulano turned to his compañero. The man was eager to gamble, but more eager, Fulano thought, to get off the street and disappear into the anonymity of the casino floor. I don't blame him, he thought.
José smiled. "The slot machines are calling your name."
"Really?" Fulano heard his voice crack. He tried to muster a smile in return. "Do you hear them?"
"Sure. 'Fulano,' they said. 'Come put your shiny stuff in my hole.'" José's lips parted in good humor, yellowed teeth advertising a lifetime of tobacco and coffee.
"Okay, my friend. Show me the woman who will steal my nickels."
It had only been five hours since the banditos attacked. Fulano's feet were sore, the outer socks nearly shredded from the desert rocks. His shoulders and lower back burned with the weight of his mochila, and he couldn't stop thinking about his bed, Maria and the boys.
It had been five hours of trudging through the desert at night with thirty-five strangers.
Five hours of cacti, rocks and cold.
Five hours of silence.
The banditos were long gone, but their effect on the border crossers was obvious in the hush and occasional quiet sob of children too young to understand why they had to cross in the first place. Fulano found himself behind two such boys, both around ten, both laden with mochilas full of water and food. At first they seemed excited, almost elated in the prospect of crossing the border and finding riches in big cities like Phoenix or Los Angeles. Now they were ready to go home and play stick ball in the streets, to accept life in a poor town with no prospects, no future. It was preferable to the threat of death in the desert that hung around them like the cloud of dust kicked up by the weary, shuffling feet of the migrants.
Fulano didn't know the boys' names and he didn't want to know them. They were brothers in the journey, but that was it. He knew better than to get involved with anyone else. In two days, he would be on a train headed north, to the fields in Colorado and a future of making and saving money while doing a job no American wanted. He was thankful his cousin had sent him that letter, told him about the opportunities available. It had come at the right moment, no more than a week after they'd learned Cerdito needed help and the help he needed was in Houston. Sure, it was a week of soul-searching, of long talks with Maria and arguments about leaving her to care for the boys alone, but in the end he had won the argument and begun the mental preparation he felt he needed to take the trip.
Now he just wanted to go home.
The noise was the first thing Fulano noticed. It crashed over him like a wave. Every bell, whistle, beep, word spoken, glass clinked, whoop of success, cry of failure beat against his eardrums, eroding the comparative quiet of the sidewalk. Next came a flash of light, explosions of color, from slot machines to video poker screens and down to the green felt of the blackjack and roulette tables. Even the carpet bled color, in alternating patterns of yellow and red and black and purple. People crowded around games, slithered around others, pushed up to one-armed bandits and dropped change or fed money into the Great Machine that was the Spanish Mustang. It was chaos, an immutable example of the American way of life.
José's lips parted in a smile of what might have been both amusement and awe. He rolled back on his feet, then forward. Fulano waited for an inevitable sarcastic statement from his partner, but perhaps the scene in front of them was too overwhelming. It was, in a word, breathtaking.
Contrasting with the modern elements of the gambling hall, the walls told a different story. Coarse red brick led up to a low ceiling of ornate, wood-paneled tiles dotted with dark glass bulbs. Cameras, Fulano thought as his wonder was instantaneously replaced with a gnawing fear of discovery. Great.
He swallowed back the fear, unsure of how José would respond to the paranoia that never fully abated. Then again, did it really matter? The casino floor was packed with people looking to win something or walk out with pockets laden with coins. The cameras were likely trained on their actions, not on who they were. Two Mexicans willing to give up their paychecks to a few nickel machines were hardly noticeable; they were nothing more than cogs in the machine, two maggots on a dead horse, indistinct from all the others.
"Where do we start?" José asked. There was a crack in his voice.
Fulano shrugged. Where do you start in a sea of possibilities? "I'm looking for the nickel games. If you want the dollars, they're right in front of you."
José scanned the first line of slot machines closest to where they stood. There were pictures of cherries and lightning bolts and 7s, merged together with words that likely served as teasers for patrons. "Hay . . ." José mumbled. "Hay . . . weer . . . ay?"
Fulano knew José's English was nearly non-existent, but perhaps the attempt at translation was calming to him in a way. He leaned closer to José. "It's 'Hay-wire.' Don't try to pronounce the last 'e' in an English word." He chuckled slightly. "You know what? Just look for the dollar sign machines and give it a go."
José looked up and down the row of machines a second then a third time. Finally, he sighed and smiled. "I guess it doesn't matter what it says, as long as it gives me money."
"No, it doesn't."
Fulano watched José take a tentative step forward, reach into his dirty jeans, pull out a twenty-dollar bill and stop. He turned around.
"Are you sure you don't want to play the dollars?" José asked, a creepy smile stuck to his brown face.
In an instant, the fear of the cameras and la migra and the man in the Jeep erupted in Fulano's stomach like a bore wave up a jungle river. His smile faded with the rush of feeling as it spread throughout his body. He stepped up next to José and leaned in close. "Hey, man," he whispered. "Take it easy and be careful. Remember the time. Don't speak to anyone and stay in the shadows. We're still unwanted."
The path wound down the side of a cliff, so unlike the relatively flat land that had led them to the barbed wire fence on the border. They were now twenty-nine strong with three polleros in the lead. Three fellow crossers had to be left behind for lagging. The polleros had made it clear: there was no time to help the weak.
The crossing itself was nothing more than an inconvenient hop and skip over the line with the moon trapped behind a cloud. Fulano had expected more—perhaps a dash, perhaps a tricky climb over a large chain-link fence, perhaps a chase through the brush with banditos on their tail and la migra hiding in wait with handcuffs and pistols. But it was none of those things, and now they were in America, the journey half complete, the future bright.
The climb down the cliff, however, was not easy, especially with the socks he wore nearly shredded to an unrecognizable mass of dirty cloth. At a rest just before the climb down, Fulano checked his soles; they were as he felt they were: blistered, bloodied and mangled. How much longer he could walk through the desert he didn't know, but he was here. He was in America. One more day and he would be in a shelter south of Tucson, showered and ready for the last leg of the trip to Colorado. Maybe someone would give him new shoes.
In the distance, over a rise a few hundred feet away, Fulano saw the indigo of night bleed into a purple-orange swath of warning. The sun would be rising into view in an hour, and they would soon need to rest under whatever shade they found or suffer the blisters of exposure. Stories of sun-bleached bones found in the desert were prevalent while waiting in the shelter, and while not spoken of during the journey, it was nonetheless foremost in their collective minds: a day of exposure in the desert was the end. What had Maria said? "Don't die on me. Don't die on the boys."
It was never Fulano's intention to die.
The first time he slipped on the loose rocks, he managed to get an arm out and brace his fall with the help of the rock face. The jerking movement left deep scratches across his forearm, but it prevented further injury. The second time he slipped, however, there was no rock wall to rescue him. He found himself tumbling down the side of the cliff, twenty feet over the edge of the path. He felt a sharp jab in his side as his body slammed against a boulder and then another jab in his ankle as it contacted the soft dirt and rolled outward. Despite the fire raging through his body, however, he refused to scream.
The pollero in the lead halted the group and wound his way down to Fulano. He knelt and waved a second man down. "You know we can't carry you," the pollero said, as sympathetically as he could despite the matter-of-factness of the words.
Through the fire raging in Fulano's ankle and the bursting explosions of pain in his side, Fulano nodded. Tears welled up as he looked away from the man kneeling and toward the purple-orange morning sky over the ridge. "Sí," he whispered. "I understand."
A cold ululation of coyotes echoed in the distance.
Fulano sat down at a slot machine and glanced up at its flashy logo: "Triple Wild." Whatever "triple" meant, he knew the word "wild." A woman to his right looked over, a sneer painted on her face with both age and makeup. Lines of maybe seventy years carved out patterns of disgust in her face, interlaced with pustules of repulsion either at the sight of Fulano or his invasion of her space. He weakly smiled in a noncommittal way and fished out money from his pocket. He'd read his watch not five minutes ago and knew he had a good three or so hours to play before he needed to round up José and get back to the truck.
Despite the generosity of the capataz and his son, Fulano nevertheless couldn't get rid of a foreboding. Were they driven here as a thank you for all the hard work they had recently put in, or were they about to be abandoned? Would the four of them wait out in the parking lot in a few hours only to discover they were now homeless and lost? What was the man's intention?
He heard Maria's voice in the back of his head, much as it had been for weeks: "Trust no one and accept nothing."
How could he do that, though? How could he live his life chained to one plot of land, pooling his money into weekly transfers back home without getting to experience at least the smallest portion of the American way of life? The Old West—from its Manifest Destiny to its intercontinental railway to its heroes like Billy the Kid and Kit Carson—was so fascinating and so new. After reading a few books on the Colorado mining rush, the misadventures of Zebulon Pike, the life and death of towns just like Cripple Creek, Fulano felt he'd found an aspiration. One day, he would have the money to move his family into that Old West he'd read about, to build out a train set reminiscent of the Florence line, to buy a pair of Roper snakeskin boots and wade out in the creeks with a gold pan looking for placer deposits from a vein of riches hidden in the mountains.
The woman next to him smacked her lips and drew Fulano out of his reverie. "Are you going to play that machine or just sit there?"
Fulano furrowed his brow. He caught only one of the words the woman said, but he surmised from her facial expression and the dying frog in her throat that her words were not of a friendly nature. She probably wanted to play his machine.
"Sí, señora," he said, then inwardly lambasted himself for speaking in Spanish. Was that a bead of sweat on his forehead?
The woman muttered something to herself Fulano wouldn't have been able to understand even if it had been in Spanish. She hefted a large white leather bag over her shoulder and stood up. With another mumble of incomprehensible words, she turned and walked away, a cloud of cheap perfume in her wake.
Fulano expelled a puff of relief. What the hell was wrong with him?
The day was brutal, even in the shade of the mesquite tree. As the sun crawled across the Arizona sky, the cliff offered its own varying degree of comfort, but what comfort could come for a broken man lying on the desert floor? The group had moved on, as Fulano knew they would. The responsibility of the polleros stretched only to the safety of the group, not to the well-being of the one or two who fell behind. It was Fulano's fate—his fortune, perhaps—that he lost his shoes to the banditos and slipped on the path coming down the side of the cliff. He didn't know how much longer he could keep up with the group and whether or not he would ever make it to that shelter in Tucson.
He sighed. As it was, he had shade, one gallon of water left and a small cache of granola. He could rest his feet. He could dream of Maria. If the stories were true—if the Virgin of Guadalupe could be trusted—he could also be home with his family in just a few short days. All he had to do was wait for la migra and welcome them with open arms. Maybe that was the reason a few of the others had made multiple crossings. Maybe he was too quick in his assessment of their reasons for giving in to fate.
There's nothing wrong with giving in, he thought. A fortune can't be made from the inside of a grave.
As the shadows grew long and the temperature dropped, Fulano reached for his water. He had to ration it; it might be days before he was found. He could call out, but that was sure to draw the scavengers of the desert floor, not the saviors. He looked around, aware he was likely miles from the nearest road and certainly nowhere he could be picked up. If he was going to have any chance at all of reuniting with Maria and the boys, he might have to hike, something he knew he couldn't do.
Salvation would have to come to him.
Another coyote howled in the distance. Soon, they would surround him. He looked around and pulled a stick close to his body. If anything, it would be comforting to hold while he waited for the end or for the salvation he reluctantly dismissed as fantasy.
The first slot machine Fulano lost money to was anything but kind. Even its sound was off and silently mocked him. The second machine was equally as cruel. By the third machine, Fulano was down almost forty dollars and had nothing to show for it but a nervous tendency to look for places to run should he be approached. The woman who leered at him once was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean she wasn't sitting in the office of the casino manager, blathering on about how this Mexican (who was obviously not in the country legally) had taken her machine and, therefore, her money. What had started as a trip to blow off steam was quickly turning sour.
He sat down at a fourth machine, attempted to read its flashing banner, and pulled out his wallet. There were three more American twenties inside and probably two more hours before he'd have to find José and head back to the truck. For the first time since arriving, he couldn't wait to get back to the farms. The idea of waking early, eating a bowl of eggs and bacon then walking rows and rows of lettuce in the hot sun was suddenly more appealing than the crushing dreams of quick fortune.
As the machine swallowed his twenty with a distant aplomb, Fulano wondered if he should just get up, buy a pack of cigarettes and head back to the parking lot now. He could wait for the capataz, save the rest of his money and prepare himself for the tales of gambling adventure sure to be shared by the other three men as they bounced in the back of the pickup truck on the way to safety. Instead, he found himself mesmerized by the slot machine's counter as it rang up money in nickels.
With a sigh, he settled in to lose it all.
"Looks like you got yourself a winner." Fulano startled and turned to his left. An older man, plump around the waist, settled down in the seat next to him, a white handlebar mustache bouncing under a large gray Stetson. As the man pulled a magnetic card from his shirt pocket and slid it into the machine, Fulano could see something . . . familiar about him.
The man smiled. "Son, you got to play with the cards. Give yourself an edge." He flicked the end of the card in the machine. "These machines here know if you're a regular when you stick one of these babies in. If they know you're a regular, they'll make you a winner."
Fulano tried to separate the man's words into translatable chunks, but some thick accent made it difficult. He caught the word "winner" and perhaps something about a "card," but there was no sense in trying to figure out the rest. He hoped he could just smile, nod and ignore the man the rest of the time.
The smile below the handlebar mustache faded slightly as the man waited for his money to be changed into nickels in his own machine. "Do you understand me, son?"
Fulano nodded quickly and turned back to his machine. A fear—something he'd not felt since those days in the desert under the mesquite tree—tugged at his stomach like a vulture pulling at entrails. It wasn't something he could ignore. There was danger coupled with vulnerability, and death suddenly seemed to be the only way out.
Why couldn't he just be left alone?
"¿Dónde están sus amigos, hijo?" the man asked in perfect Spanish. Fulano turned. The man's smile was broad again, yellowed teeth flashing wet in the light of the casino floor. Fulano instantly recognized the man from the Jeep and knew exactly what those teeth were capable of doing.
The eyes were the first to appear out of the darkness, gold and silver at the same time, reflecting the moon. They slid to the left, blinked, then slid back to the right. Fulano watched, the grip on his stick tighter. He'd slept most of the last three days, painfully aware of his inability to run if he needed to. His ankle was swollen, his feet crusted over with dried blood. Dirt had wedged between tears in the fabric of the socks. The sun must have burned his skin while he slept; every twist of his arm and his neck responded with a sting. He knew he was going to die in the desert, alone, far from Maria and the boys.
He did not think he would be eaten.
The eyes flickered again then remained steady. Fulano was sure they belong to a starving coyote, waiting for an easy meal. He shouted at the animal, tossed a pebble in its direction, shouted again. With great effort, he pushed himself against the trunk of the mesquite tree. Perhaps if he showed life, the animal would tire and find food elsewhere.
Still, the eyes remained motionless, patient.
"¡Vete!" Fulano shouted. He quickly felt the hopelessness of his actions. What did it matter, anyway? If he tried to go for help, it would take days, if not weeks. He didn't even know where in America he was. If he further injured himself, he might find himself in a worse position, without the shelter of a mesquite tree or the relative safety of the cliff. If the animal did go away, it would likely bring others. The idea of a pack of coyotes unsettled him more than the one currently watching him from the brush.
Fulano craned his neck and looked up at the cliff wall. If there was a cave, even an indentation in the rock, he would have a better chance at survival. In the darkness, despite the moonlight, however, all he could see were shadows painted like devils in the night, looming large and ready to strike.
The crack of a twig brought his attention back to the waiting animal. It had moved closer, matted gray fur and nose brilliantly contrasted with its background. The animal took another slow step, then stopped, its yellowed teeth flashing wet in the light of the moon.
"Why do you look so scared, my friend?" The old man's smile was nothing short of an evil sneer. Fulano stared into his eyes, silvery gray like clouds before a storm. "I said we would meet again."
Fulano swallowed the lump lodged against his windpipe. How did this man—no, this creature—know where to look for him? Had he not prayed enough? Had he not confessed his sins, prayed the Rosary every night since that horrible day?
"How—?" Fulano's question hung in the air.
"Don't worry about how, friend. Worry about what you're going to do right now." The man's smile faded slowly. "I made a promise to you, didn't I?"
"You made a promise to kill me." Fulano felt his heart beat against his chest. The sounds of the casino grew distant, like a train that had left the station and rounded a bend. The bright colors of the machines, the electricity of the moment, was replaced with nothing but silver eyes, gray hair, yellowed teeth—a view down a tunnel where the end is nothing but death.
"Should we continue our conversation here," the old man asked in a calm voice, "or should we go outside?"
Fulano couldn't move. His body felt heavy. Running away was out of the question. Screaming for help would be futile, the cry forever lodged in his throat unable to escape. The fear gripped him so much more than before. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but even that movement was prohibited. Nevertheless, he heard his own words; perhaps they were spoken, perhaps they were nothing more than thoughts in the air between the beast and the man. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
The man smiled again, consolatory if such a thing were possible. "A promise is a promise, and I think you know the answer to that question. Should we step outside?"
"No."
"Do you want to die here, in public?"
"I don't want to die."
"I don't think you have a choice. You decided that in the desert."
"I decided nothing. You did."
The man's eyes caught a light and flickered unevenly. "Stand up."
Fulano found himself on his feet next to his machine, unable to control the movement of his body. Sparks exploded through his body like waves of electricity crashing against a rocky shore. He knew he was trapped, caught, doomed. And for what? For a choice he made in the desert so many months ago?
"Walk outside, my friend." The old man turned away from Fulano and pressed the spin button. The wheels turned frantically, then stopped one at a time. "I'll deal with you in a minute."
With a flick of the man's wrist, Fulano found himself absentmindedly walking toward the exit.
The coyote stepped closer as Fulano pushed his back against the tree. The stick he held offered no comfort. The animal was hungry, and the glow of its eyes was warning enough that nothing good would come of this meeting. Still, Fulano wasn't dead. He'd been left alone in a wash in the middle of the desert, his ankle swollen, sores on his feet that were likely infected, but in his heart he knew the end was not near. A gallon of water left; he could make it another few nights and surely help would come in that time.
The animal was not going to get an easy meal. Not today.
"¡Vete!" Fulano screamed again. He waved his stick toward the coyote. "Leave me alone!"
The coyote stopped its slow walk toward its prey. A gnarled tongue lapped at parched lips. Its head tilted to the right, eyes locked on Fulano. After what seemed like an eternity of staring its future meal down, the coyote sat back on its rear haunches.
"You're going to wait for me?" Fulano asked, aware of the absurdity of talking to an animal, but also aware he felt oddly comforted by the action. "You think I'm an easy meal? Well, think again, coyote. I'm not about to sit here and die so you can feast on my innards. So go away."
The coyote stared back. In the moonlight, the hair on its back and head looked white, almost luminescent. Coupled with yellowed teeth and glowing silver eyes, the scene was more surreal than Fulano expected. The fear he felt slowly ebbed, replaced by a swirling miasma of random thoughts and visions inside his head. As Fulano locked eyes with the coyote, he noticed his vision exploding in colors of distant memories.
There was at first Maria, standing in the doorway, her dress translucent in the setting sun. She was asking him not to leave. He could feel his children asleep in the room behind him, and suddenly he felt so fortunate to have Maria, to have Juan, to have Cerdito. They were his life, the reason for living, the purpose behind his journey. Why, then, could he not say goodbye to the boys? What had this journey brought him besides pain and disaster, besides the prospect of death as a nameless victim in the Arizona desert? Was it worth it?
More images came at him, faster, like a train speeding through a tunnel. The job he once held as an accountant for Ford Motor Company, friends he kept, laughter in the night around a chiminea in the backyard of their large hacienda. There was the money his father-in-law gifted them as a wedding present, the wedding itself, full of colors and flowers, set against the backdrop of a mid-17th century church in Santa Rosalia de Camargo, white pillars draped with green ivy like a fairy tale and he the prince riding in on a white stallion to sweep away the young maiden.
Even after losing his job at Ford, he was wealthy. Sure, they had to move into a one room shack at the edge of town, but they had each other. They never wondered where their meal was going to come from, Juan was in school, there was transportation and the hope of a future. Fulano watched it all in his mind's eye—all the fortunes he once possessed now lost to memory, impossible to ever dig up from the graveyard of the past. It was over, and he knew it. He could feel the life draining from his body as his eyes continued to stare into the executioner in front of him.
The coyote licked its front teeth. Perhaps because of his nearness to death, Fulano heard the coyote speak. "Time is running out, my friend."
The alley was dark. Fulano couldn't understand it. The sun was up when he'd walked into the casino and now it seemed as if time had jumped forward. Did he really play for so long that he missed his ride home? Was he now doomed to wander this mining town looking for work, for food, for shelter? He couldn't remember playing for long, nor could he remember why he now stood outside at the back of the Spanish Mustang looking at a dumpster and the retaining wall across from him. Nevertheless, here he was.
"You look better," said a voice from his right. Fulano turned to face it. The old man from the slot machine next to him, the man from the Jeep on the road up, the man from his nightmares, leaned against the casino wall. "You didn't think I would find you, did you?"
"I didn't think I would need to run so far," Fulano said. He noticed a crack in his voice, one of fear.
"You can't run far enough." The man smiled.
"What do you want from me?"
"What you promised in the desert. Do you remember that?"
Fulano swallowed. "Of course I remember."
"Then why do you ask me what I want?"
"I was hoping you'd forget. That was miles from here and months ago."
"Forget?" The man chuckled, deep and full of venom. "I do not forget the promises of a dying man."
Fulano took a step toward the man, then stopped. Why was he moving at all? And toward his death? His body tingled with electric pinpricks.
The coyote stood up. "How long are you going to make me wait?" it said.
Fulano stared at the animal. Was it really talking or was his mind playing tricks on him? Two days in the desert sun, out of water, out of food; it was likely this was just an illusion. Why did he have to be the one to fall?
The coyote stepped closer, one foot in front of the other, its head bowed low. "I think I see the future," it said. "I think the future is tasty."
"¡Vete! I am not a meal for you!"
"Oh, but you are. This is the desert, and we eat each other to survive."
Fulano held his stick up. "I will not let you eat me."
"You can have it your way, my friend. In a day, you will be too tired to hold up that stick. In two days, you will be dead. Either way, you will be in my belly."
"¡Vete!"
The coyote stopped moving forward. It tilted its head to the side and looked back as if listening for something. After a moment, it turned to Fulano and took another step forward. "You have flesh. Why don't you share your fortune with me now, rather than wait for the inevitable?"
What was this animal? As if on cue, a word rang through the dying man's head like a bell on a cold winter's night: nahuales.
The old man's breath stank like apples left in the sun far too long. His handlebar mustache protruded from a wrinkled face and, to Fulano, looked more like tentacles reaching for a meal. He was inches from the man, unsure of how he came to be so close but positive he could do nothing about it.
"You can't be real," Fulano whispered. He cringed suddenly at the smells that assaulted his nostrils. "You were a figment of my sunstroke, an element of dying."
The man tilted his head in contemplation, as if figuring out a great puzzle. "Why, then, are you standing outside? The night has fallen and you don't even remember where the afternoon went. According to your view of history, two minutes ago you were gambling away el dinero de la familia. Now, here you are."
Fulano swallowed. As real as this man felt, as right as he was, it still could not be happening. The brujo are not real. He left that idea on the desert floor many months ago.
"Where are your friends? Ah, they have left you for dead and gone home."
Was this true? Fulano tried to look around, to judge his situation better. If darkness had settled in, then he was, indeed, lost in a mining town in the middle of Colorado with no way to get home. Even if the capataz showed some sign of compassion, his son would not. Fulano had somehow missed his deadline for making it back to the truck, and now the brujo was right—he was alone. What would it matter if he lost his life just as he'd lost his way?
The man's lips cracked open to reveal those hideous yellowed teeth. "There will be no salvador today."
The coyote raised his head again, this time in an obvious attempt to listen for something Fulano could not hear. It waited a moment before turning back to its prey. "You are dying."
"I know that," Fulano said, still unaccustomed to the idea of talking to an animal. But if the animal truly was nahuales, then it wasn't any animal he'd encountered before. What was this shape shifter? What hell did this brujo—this witch—plan to deliver?
"You have no water, no food. Your body is giving up. Give me your flesh and at least one of us can live."
Fulano pushed his back against the mesquite tree. He could not run, could not hide, and he didn't feel strong enough to fight. "Is this the end of me, then?"
The coyote took another step. "It looks like you have no choice. But I supposed it would be unkind of me not to show you what you'll be missing in life, at least one more time."
Above the animal, something stirred, spinning like a whirlpool upside down. Sparks of light erupted within it, quickly flared to life then died out while more and more appeared in their place. Finally, with incredible clarity, images of Maria, of the boys, of the little shack they shared suddenly materialized in that spinning whirlpool. Fulano watched in fascination, drawn in by the realism of the moment. There they were, drawn from his memory like pages pulled from a magazine and tacked to a wall: Maria with her beautiful brown hair, deep compassionate eyes; Juan, curiosity and mischief all wrapped into a friendly and comforting face; Cerdito, a symbol of God and of miracles, a reminder that all things in this world have meaning and all obstacles can be overcome.
The images shimmered in the night air, and with them, Fulano's eyes began to fill with tears. He wanted to call to them for help. He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted to tell them he loved them with his last dying breath. Instead, with a muted cry, he looked away, hiding his face from the images and from the animal that now stood fifteen feet away, casting visions in the air. "Brujo," Fulano whispered. "Why can't you leave me be?"
Before answering, the coyote lifted his head and looked back again. This time, Fulano thought he heard something, too.
"I said I would be back for you, and I meant it."
Fulano stared into the old man's eyes. There was darkness, something he hadn't seen in the desert but was apparent now. That darkness seemed to swirl, hypnotic. Despite his desire to run, a feeling of utter helplessness washed over him, like a tsunami reaching shore. It washed out his senses, flooded his belief, crushed his thoughts. In an instant, Fulano found himself floating in a sea of misery, awaiting death.
"You were fortunate once," the brujo said. "You cannot be so fortunate again."
In an instant the eyes flashed red, then shone silver in the dim light from an alley lamp. The flash was enough to release Fulano from the grip the brujo held on him. He stepped back, sickened by the display of horror in front of him.
Skin fell from the man in wet clumps as blood poured on the ground. What was human quickly changed into a tangled mass of blood and bone and flesh mixed together. It twisted and snapped and popped until it finally took shape.
Four legs—canine in shape—protruded from the main mass and pushed the body up. A sickening crack echoed through the alley as a twisted spine formed, vertebra by vertebra, finally ending in a bulbous skull. The silver eyes reappeared from the bloody mass, followed by teeth cutting through what began to look like a mouth. Finally, thin gray hairs, course and uneven, climbed up and around the exposed flesh.
In less than a minute, the coyote was back. Its black lips parted, revealing the yellowed teeth that were now destined for Fulano's flesh.
"I thought you were a nightmare," Fulano whispered.
"You hear something, don't you?" Fulano straightened his back and looked up over the coyote. The moonlight illuminated a ridge behind the animal, but he couldn't see anything. Did the polleros come back for him? Maybe someone else in the crossing party sent for help. In a warm rush, hope replaced the fear and despair that had so flooded him.
The coyote took another step forward. "I heard nothing."
"You lie. What is it?"
The sound came again, wispy on the dry air. It was unclear at first, but now that Fulano heard it once, he could train his ears. It had to be closer, maybe just a quarter mile past the ridge. He quieted his breath and tried to drown out the low growl the coyote was suddenly expelling.
"Quiet!" Fulano shot at the coyote.
"You have no salvador in the desert. There is nothing out there but pain and misery."
"There is never a day without hope."
"What hope? That someone will come and give you food and water? That your family will join you in your foolish quest to find a job? That life will go on after this moment?"
The relentless words from the coyote made it impossible for Fulano to focus on the sound he knew he heard.
"You need to die," the coyote continued. "Die now and let me have your flesh. Give your meat to me and the gristle on your bones to the vultures. Give us life."
"Quiet, brujo! You won't have me!"
The coyote lunged forward, teeth bared, silver eyes flashing in the moonlight. After two angry bounds, it stopped a few inches from Fulano. Nostrils flared with each hot breath. The intention to kill surrounded it like an aura.
"Promise me," the coyote said through bared teeth. "Promise me your flesh, and I promise I will let you live just long enough to get your family here."
A flash of light behind the coyote—the brujo—was just enough to snap Fulano out of his hypnotic trance. His eyes flashed up then down, unsure of where to go or what to do. Timing was everything, and if he could get back inside the Spanish Mustang, away from the beast, he might have a chance. But the animal was blocking the door, its teeth bared, hackles raised.
"You can't run, my friend." The animal's voice was deeper, throaty and rang of memory off Fulano's mind like bells in a church. "You promised to give me your flesh. What good would promises be if they were always broken?"
"My family is not here."
"Oh, but they will be. It's only a matter of time."
"How can it be only a matter of time when I don't have the money to buy them the visas?"
"You will make the money."
"How? You tricked me into being here past sunset. Now the capataz has left me for dead and without a job. I am penniless and homeless. What chance do I have?"
The coyote looked over its shoulder at the door to the casino. It remained there for a moment before turning back to Fulano.
"Put your money in one more machine. You will win enough to get your family here. Then I will take that money and give it to your precious family."
"And then what?" Fulano felt his heart beat fast against his chest. "And then you will eat me."
The coyote took a step forward. "I could eat you now, but I keep my promises as well."
Fulano swallowed. He could not die here, alone. He was undocumented, a man living in a country that didn't know he was alive. If he died, no one would know. No one would contact his family. No would care. He would just be a pile of bones in an alley in a small mountain town.
On the flip side, if he did go inside the casino and do as the brujo instructed, he would die anyway, but at least Cerdito would have a chance to get better. Then Maria and Juan could escape the poverty of Lázaro Cárdenas and make an honest run at a new life in America.
But for what? For money that cost his own blood, his own life? There had to be another way, another chance at salvation from both the beast in front of him and the impossible task of getting his family across the border.
"What if I refuse to go inside?" Fulano finally asked. "What if I just turn and walk away from you right now? You would need to keep your promise until my family arrived, yes?"
The coyote growled and lowered its head. Black lips quivered around the yellowed teeth. "I would not advise that. Go inside and put your money in one more machine."
Fulano looked up past the coyote, down the alley toward the cross street and the houses beyond. For the first time in his life, he felt the courage he knew he had well up and take control.
A flash of light appeared over the ridge. Fulano pulled his eyes from the coyote and looked up.
"¿Hola, necesita ayuda? ¿Necesita agua o comida?" The words were low but audible over the ridge. Fulano's heart skipped a beat as the idea of salvation filled his veins.
The coyote pushed its face into Fulano's, momentarily knocking the hope away. The scent of rotted meat, wet fur and copper filled Fulano's nose, watered his eyes. The animal growled then slowly pulled back. "Promise your flesh and I will let you live long enough to get your family here, or I will eat these two men and you next."
The silver flash of the animal's eyes was menacing enough, but it was the power in the throaty voice that sent a chill through Fulano's spine. The brujo was serious, and what could they not do? They were evil, and as nahuales, they could change at will and walk among men or beast. They were malevolent, in the strictest sense of the word, and one of them was just inches from his face. A spell, a few malicious words and he was done. His family, too, no doubt.
"Okay," Fulano whispered. He closed his eyes, suddenly aware of the gravity of his promise. "Just leave."
The coyote backed up a step and ran its tongue across its teeth. "I will find you again."
Fulano stood at the bottom of the pithead, the ancient boards rising above him in haphazard ways. There was a purpose for this ugliness, a reason men dug into the earth and risked their lives for everything. That purpose made them uproot their families, travel the distance on what little money they had, and stake claim to a small plot of land that only had the promise, not guarantee, of gold. What they endured—from injury to disease to bandits to death—they did so because they believed in a future better than what they had.
It wasn't Fulano's desire to be like them any longer. He'd suffered enough, given up enough, just for that glimpse of a future he knew he couldn't have. Maria was alive. Juan was alive. Cerdito would live. If he'd given his life to ensure their safety across the border and into Houston, what then would be left? They would struggle in the new world, the unfriendly world of America. They would have to find refuge in shelters until Maria could find work. They would have to live in a shack in a barrio in a town that didn't care who they were. They would have to protect themselves from the thieves, from the gangs, from the wild west of America that was still present, just wearing new clothes.
No, that would not be a life. The brujo had tried to trick him into giving up his life so they could cross the border, but their lives would be worse than if they stayed where they were. Fulano had to find a way home, back to the arms of Maria and comfort of two boys that loved him unconditionally.
He looked out past the pithead to the mountains in the south. They were rugged but beautiful, distant but achievable. They stood high above aspens turning gold. He could walk for a while, hitch a ride when he needed to, and finally find la migra. La migra would take him in. La migra would send him home.
He sighed and set off down the path toward the highway. He prayed the brujo would not try to trick him again.
There was no fortune in America.