They spent the day with Xavi, Rafa, Joaquín, and other kids hanging out and playing fútbol in front of the church with a semi-deflated ball. The street dead-ended at the church, and the people who lived farther up never glanced in their direction. Padre Kevin assured them the church was safe from la migra or any gangs. César, a Nicaraguan boy who joined their game, said it was safe because El Gordo controlled the area and it was in El Gordo’s best interest to keep the immigrants safe.
The more Jaime heard of this El Gordo, the more he didn’t like him.
Jaime wasn’t sure if he liked Rafa, either, who talked too much and seemed to have unrealistic ideas about the future. They still knew nothing about quiet Joaquín except that he didn’t know how to swim and had no interest in cooling off in the river with the other boys when it got too hot and humid. But Xavi? Xavi was what he imagined, and hoped, Tomás would be like.
Xavi hadn’t mentioned where in El Norte he was heading, but Jaime hoped he’d travel with them for a bit. Ángela, Jaime knew, would agree. If anything, there would be safety in numbers.
When night fell, Rafa tried to convince them to go with him to a dogfight a few kilometers up the river. “I have a hundred pesos I’m putting on this one dog that honestly can’t lose. Just think, if we put our money together, we can make enough to hire our own private smuggler. Whatcha think, mamacita?”
Ángela shook her head with her nose scrunched up. “Absolutely not. I loathe dogs.”
“Besides,” Jaime said, “those fights are really cruel.” Not that he’d ever been to one, but he didn’t need to in order to know how bloody and heart-wrenching it would be.
Rafa laughed. “Nah, it’s fun.”
“If I wanted to watch animals rip each other apart, I would have stayed home,” Xavi said. He didn’t elaborate, but Jaime got the feeling he wasn’t talking about four-legged animals.
Joaquín didn’t say anything, but he huddled closer to Ángela as if just the thought of a dogfight scared him, too.
“Fine. Look me up if you make it across the border. Hasta.” Rafa waved and headed off with some other men hoping for the same fortune at the mercy of dogs with sharp teeth.
The four stayed at the church, where some of the older men built a bonfire next to the river. Xavi’s phone, freshly charged by a neighbor’s outdoor electrical socket, didn’t have any minutes to use as a phone, but contained some great music on it—hip-hop, pop, salsa, rock, and even some songs in English. Xavi and a couple of other boys began showing off their street dance moves. At least two insects flew into Jaime’s mouth as he stared in awe at Xavi’s break dancing and acrobatic talent. By the bonfire light, Jaime sketched the older boy holding all his weight on one arm while his body was parallel to the ground like a sideways star.
In a moment of bravery, Joaquín slipped out of the shadows and performed a series of cartwheels without stopping. Jaime outlined a sketch of that, too, but decided he needed proper light to execute the drawing he had in mind, a graceful circle of human blur.
Even Ángela jumped in with some invented hip-hop moves. For a few minutes she and Xavi seemed to be having a conversation with their dancing where one would dance and the other would respond. Jaime drew that, too—Xavi staring intently at Ángela with his hands on the ground like he was doing a push-up, but with his legs curled into the air like a scorpion’s tail, while Ángela shook her finger “no” at him but with a huge grin on her face.
It was late when the kids made their way the few meters back to the church; the older men had gotten drunk and rowdy, especially after Padre Kevin put his flip-flop foot down, saying they couldn’t sleep in the sanctuary in that condition.
“Are you staying here, Joaquín?” Jaime pointed to the women and children’s section of the church. “You can set your blanket next to us.”
“I’m not a girl,” Joaquín answered sharp and quick, the most words he had said all day in one mouthful.
Jaime yawned, barely able to keep his eyes open any longer. “Me neither. But we’re still kids, so it’s fine.”
Joaquín looked from Ángela to Xavi as if to get their permission.
“You’re welcome with us, cariño.” Ángela used the word of endearment she often reserved for younger kids, or kids she needed to mother. Something she picked up from their mothers. “But if you feel more comfortable staying with the men, Xavi will look after you.”
A roar of laughter came from the bonfire through the trees. Joaquín took hold of Ángela’s hand. “Pues, con vos.”
Jaime collected three tattered blankets from the same old woman who had taken them in the morning, while Ángela and Xavi exchanged kisses on the cheek in the traditional farewell gesture.
“See you in the morning.” Xavi waved before heading to the men’s side of the church.
• • •
It seemed Jaime had barely closed his eyes, when an arm reached over him to wake his cousin.
“Chapina,” Padre Kevin whispered to Ángela. “El chico salvadoreño. He needs you.”
Jaime, Ángela, and Joaquín sat up, almost whacking Padre Kevin in the mouth. The sun was just coming up, but they gathered their things in seconds, the advantage of sleeping in their clothes and never unpacking their bags. They folded the blankets quickly and returned them to Padre Kevin, who once again was the epitome of cheery. If Jaime hadn’t been so worried about Xavi, he would have been annoyed at the priest.
Xavi stood waiting for them in the trees by the embers of last night’s bonfire. The drunken men were nowhere in sight.
In Xavi’s arms he cradled a wet, bloody blob.
“What is that?” Jaime asked as he rushed over. It was impossible to tell where the blood was coming from—Xavi or the thing he held.
“A dog.”
Ángela backed away.
Xavi continued, “I think they used her as bait for the dogfight last night and threw her in the river when they were done. I found her in the bushes. Poor thing. She’s barely breathing.”
Ángela’s mouth twitched as if she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure what. Jaime saved her from having to make a decision. “What do you want us to do?”
“Water.” Xavi took a deep breath. “And some limes to disinfect the wounds.”
Without a word, Joaquín sprinted off through the thick undergrowth to get the supplies. When he returned, Xavi sat on a rock near the fire pit with the dog in his lap and began gently dowsing it with water. The lump twitched but didn’t, or couldn’t, try to escape. Xavi’s white uniform shirt soon became soaked through and pink with blood.
Jaime could see it was a miracle the dog was still alive. One ear had been completely ripped off. Bite marks oozed blood all over the body. But the worst was the gaping wound on its side.
How could Rafa have thought that dogfights were fun? For a second Jaime thought about Miguel and how he’d been beaten to death, how the Alphas may have even thought that was fun. Sometimes Jaime really didn’t understand humans.
“Mira, Jaime, can you hold her? I want to look her over better.”
Jaime reached over to accept the bundle, but Ángela stopped him.
“Wait, take off your shirt first.”
Good thinking—he only had one other as a spare. He handed Ángela the T-shirt, which she promptly folded, and took the wet, white-and-brown, bloody mess from Xavi. The dog was about the length of his forearm and weighed next to nothing. Not only had her previous owners subjected her to being ripped open, but they had barely fed her.
The dog shivered but didn’t move beyond that. Against his chest Jaime could feel her intense body heat, as if she were running a fever. But that was good, right? Didn’t that mean she was still fighting?
Their two heartbeats raced a thousand kilometers a minute to the point that Jaime couldn’t tell whose was whose.
Xavi gently poked and prodded the dog all over. When he touched the skin around the open wound, she let out a loud whimper.
“Can you save her?” Joaquín asked, his voice high-pitched and matching the dog’s whimper. “Please?”
Xavi looked up at Ángela, who was still standing at a distance from them as if her job was only to keep guard. “Any chance you have a needle and thread?” he asked.
Ángela put her hands on her hips. “What, you think just because I’m a woman I go around carrying a sewing kit?” But then she dug around the front pocket of her backpack. Of course she would, Jaime thought. Tía was a seamstress, after all, and had taught the whole family, including the men, how to sew. Jaime wished he’d thought of bringing something as practical as a sewing kit. Or that his mamá had.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Xavi said, half to himself, holding the swath of cardboard with three needles of various sizes, a spool of blue thread, and a miniature pair of folding scissors. “People didn’t often come to my grandmother for stitches and I don’t know how to sew. I’ve butchered pigs, but this is the opposite, isn’t it?”
“I can sew,” Jaime said.
“Yo también,” Joaquín whispered.
Xavi nodded and handed Joaquín the needles and thread. It took three attempts for him to thread the largest needle. He crouched beside Jaime, Xavi, and the dog. Jaime held the dog secure against his chest while Xavi pushed together the pieces of open skin. The dog whimpered again. Joaquín’s hand shook as he approached the flesh with the needle. He had barely poked the skin when the dog yelped, causing Joaquín to jump away.
“I can’t do it,” he cried. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
Jaime bit his lip. He agreed with Joaquín. He wouldn’t want to hurt her either. But they couldn’t leave her like this—they had to save her. Or at least try.
Xavi opened his mouth to say something—that the dog would die if they didn’t or maybe to suggest that Jaime try instead—but Ángela beat him to it.
“Give the needle here.” She bit into a lime to break the peel and squeezed a few drops of juice onto the needle before crouching down. “Whatever you do, don’t let it bite me, or I swear I’m drowning it in the river.”
Jaime shifted his arm so that the snout was clamped between his bicep and ribs but still able to breathe. He held her still with his other arm before giving his cousin a nod.
The dog wiggled and whined as soon as Ángela made the first stitch. Jaime held her tighter against his bare chest and Xavi, with his hands holding her belly together, helped stabilize her. A prayer to San Francisco, patron saint of animals and children, came from Joaquín.
Ángela didn’t bat an eye. She pulled the needle in and out as if she were mending socks. Jaime was sure if he had tried sewing up the dog, he would have panicked like Joaquín. Ángela secured each neat stitch individually with a knot until the dog’s side was nothing more than wet fur with a ten-centimeter line of blue thread.
With a gentleness that surprised him—it was a dog, after all—Ángela dabbed the wound with a wet rag before squeezing the lime juice onto the blue seam to prevent infection. The dog squirmed, but Jaime kept her tight in his arms, telling her it would be all right, and wishing he could believe it as he said it. What Ángela had done was truly a miracle. The other boys saw it too.
“Thank you,” Xavi said softly. “You saved her. You saved her life.”
“It’s fine.” Ángela shrugged away the praise. She stood up, wiping her hands with the rag and more lime juice. She shifted from one foot to the other as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Have they served breakfast already? I’m starving.”
She took two steps and then stopped when she noticed the boys were still huddled around the dog.
“What are we going to call her?” Jaime eased his tight hold but kept the dog against his chest as he got back on his feet. She no longer whimpered from the citrus sting, but her breathing remained heavy. Her white-and-brown–patched fur would look pretty once she dried. “How about Pinta?”
The worry lines on Xavi’s forehead lifted as he took deep breaths of relief. “I was thinking of calling her Vida.”
“Sí,” Joaquín said before Xavi had finished the words. “Vida.”
Against Jaime’s bare chest the canine’s heart thumped with life-giving approval. A smile crossed Jaime’s face as he gave her a gentle cuddle. Ángela looked down, her face twisting with sadness and maybe regret. Jaime knew she was thinking about Miguel; he was. Then she blinked in agreement too. The other two seemed to be lost in the world of deceased loved ones as well; little Joaquín looked ready to burst into tears. But then he, too, relaxed when he looked at the recovered dog with promise and hope. Vida, life. That was a good name.
Jaime stood next to Ángela as Xavi and Joaquín gathered the rags and bucket. Before Jaime could stop the patient, a pink tongue escaped the lips of the wounded mutt as she gave her seamstress a kiss of thanks on the palm.
Ángela’s hand snapped back. For a second Jaime was sure she was going to swat the dog on the nose. Instead Ángela smoothed down the brown-and-white fur sticking up in the spot between the dog’s one ear and where the other should have been.