American Dirt : A Novel (2020) (30 page)

Lydia hesitates.

El comandante
grins. ‘A woman who looks like you, who speaks like you? You have more money, yes?’

Lydia closes her eyes, and in that darkness she sees Soledad and Rebeca as she first encountered them on that overpass outside Huehuetoca, their singsong voices, their legs dangling down. She sees their vivacity and spirit. Her mind also reproduces, in that moment, the white lace, the dark red stain of Y
é
nifer’s
quincea
ñ
era
dress. A sob cuts into her gut but doesn’t rise. Lydia opens her eyes. She nods.

El comandante
raises his voice. ‘Rafa, bring the girls in.’ To Lydia, ‘Seventy-five thousand pesos.’

She gapes.

‘Each.’

That sum is almost all the money they have left. He’s demanding more for each sister than he took for Luca and Lydia combined, and she has a sickening moment of understanding that this amount is predetermined. It’s the calculated value of their worth as human capital. If Lydia doesn’t pay, someone else will buy the sisters. And then she also immediately perceives how her own price will skyrocket if that guard is able to recall why he recognizes her. The possibility of that recollection is like a ticking bomb in this box of a room.

Luca studies her face, and for him, she does not waver.

‘We will pay.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

All that’s left of Lydia and Sebasti
á
n’s life savings is the
paltry sum
el comandante
returned to Lydia’s wallet after he collected the price for her and Luca. It’s a total of 4,941 pesos, or around $243. In regular life, that kind of money is substantial. It would buy many weeks’ worth of groceries. It would go toward rent or doctors’ bills or putting gas in the Beetle. But now the amount feels negligible. They have nothing. If they get to
el norte,
they will have to start from scratch. Already they need new shoes; Luca’s are beginning to run thin in the soles, Abuela’s gold lam
é
sneakers are peeling apart at the toe. The $243 minus some new shoes – it’s not enough. Lydia feels destitute. But thank God they still have her mother’s money in the bank, enough to pay a coyote to help them cross. That’s all she can think about for now.

When at last the guard opens the door and they stagger out of captivity, Lydia’s not thinking about the money anyway. The guard stays in her mind, his searching expression, his groping for the memory of her face. She knows he’s back there still, that he could remember her at any moment:
yes,
Dios m
í
o
, that’s her, the one who belongs to Los Jardineros.

They run. They don’t know where they are, how far they are from the train or the city. They’ve emerged from a large warehouse in a rural landscape and they don’t hear any distant rumble of locomotive or car engine. They run toward the leftover glow in the sky, pink fading to purple where the sun recently descended, due west over the uneven ground, through ruts and ditches and holes burrowed by unseen animals, across rocks and roots and twisted clumps of plant life, hoping to intercept a road that runs from south to north. The pain in Lydia’s ankle asserts itself only when she flexes her foot, so she tries to keep it straight. Both girls limp, too, but Soledad is like a ball of fire, and she batters herself against the pain while she runs. Luca encourages all of them like a breathless cheerleader as they go.

‘Come on, Rebeca, you can do it. Keep up, Mami, let’s go.’

Soledad pushes ahead. She would run all the way to
el norte
. When they come to a road, they pause. No cars in sight, the twilight still pink around them. Soledad stands close to Lydia. She reaches for Lydia’s hand.

‘Thank you.’ She trembles.

Lydia is beset by guilt. She’d been ready to leave them there. ‘It was Luca,’ she says.

Soledad grabs the top of Luca’s hair. She bends down and looks into his face. ‘You saved our lives. You know that? You and your
mami
.’ She doesn’t let go of Lydia’s hand.

Luca smiles, and Rebeca begins to cry, a tight, high-pitched sound that startles him. Her face is a twist of distress and her breath crashes out of her between sharp hums. Her jeans are covered in the dead man’s blood mixed with some of her own, and the button has been ripped off
the fly, so they no longer stay up. Lydia retrieves one of the belts from her backpack and laces it through the girl’s belt loops for her. Rebeca winces and shakes but endures Lydia’s kindness. She fastens the buckle herself. Soledad stands behind and twists her sister’s black hair into a ponytail, revealing a dark purple bruise on her neck. She touches the spot softly with her finger. Rebeca turns to her, and the girls embrace. Rebeca shudders and cries and they all wait close together until she’s able to walk again. She folds her arms in front of her because her bra is gone.

They turn north to follow the road, and the light fades from purple to indigo to blue, and by the time they pass the outskirts of a village, they’re walking in darkness. Lydia watches over her shoulder the whole time, waiting for the approach of a distant light, a distant gunshot. Her exhaustion is no match for her fear, and she keeps pushing ahead as quickly as they can go. They’re all very thirsty because they finished whatever water they had with them hours ago, and there’s no shop here, no river or stream. It seems too dangerous to venture into the tiny village. They’re not yet far enough away from the warehouse, those men. They don’t want to reveal themselves. But they haven’t eaten today, and they are hungry. Despite their adrenaline, they weaken as they go. Occasionally the headlights of a car approach, and they dart away from the road to hold still against whatever cover they can find. They know without speaking that this new fear is a burden they’re all carrying together, this sense that they haven’t really escaped, that they’re not safe. Any one of those cars could be carrying the men who abducted them earlier. Those men, with or without the knowledge of their
comandante,
may decide to come after them, to repeat and repeat and repeat the things they did to Rebeca and Soledad in the back of their truck earlier. They may decide to drag Lydia into the trunk of a car by her hair, to rip Luca from her arms, to shoot him on the side of the road and then drive her through the night back to Acapulco, to Javier. He’s waiting for her there.

At length they begin to sense the ragged glow of a town to the north. They pass a juncture, and the traffic becomes steadier. They can no longer flee from the road each time a car passes because there are too many.

‘We’ll get water,’ Lydia says. ‘Soon there will be a place. Someone will give us water.’ There is no real indication of how true this might be, but she says it because she needs it, and it’s encouragement enough for the others to quicken their pace. The land is flat, and the lights of the town soon come into view. A car passes them, slows down ahead, pulls onto the shoulder, and stops. Lydia puts a hand out to stop Luca from walking any farther. Rebeca and Soledad both freeze. They draw their bodies close together. The car reverses some way toward them, and the girls run from the road, but there’s nowhere for them to go. Lydia stands her ground. She leans down automatically to retrieve her machete from its holster, forgetting that it’s gone now. She curses mildly under her breath – $243 minus two pairs of shoes and a new machete. She puts Luca behind her. The door on the driver’s side opens, and a man steps out. He’s wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a button-up shirt. He stays beside his car, doesn’t attempt to approach them.

‘Are you okay?’ he calls into the darkness.

‘Fine,’ Lydia answers.

‘Migrants?’

Lydia does not respond.

‘We see many migrants on this road at night, some in very poor condition,’ the man explains. ‘And no one knows where they’re coming from. You’re well off the migrant trail here. How did you come to be in this neighborhood?’

Lydia tightens her lips, but he continues talking, undeterred by their reticence to speak to him.

‘I’m a doctor,’ he says. ‘I have a clinic, not far. If you want, I can take you to safety.’

Soledad snorts, but Rebeca squeezes her arm. ‘It’s not funny.’

Soledad dissolves into full-on hysterics.

‘Is something wrong?’ the man asks.

‘Safety!’ Soledad howls with laughter.

Luca presses in beside his
mami
. ‘Why is she laughing, Mami? What’s wrong with her?’

‘Sh,’ Mami says. ‘She has been through so much. Sometimes people break down for a minute. She will come back to herself,
mijo
.’

They watch as the man walks to the trunk of his car and opens it. Lydia grips Luca’s neck and takes two steps back, but when the man reaches into the trunk, he retrieves only a gallon jug of water. He sets it on the side of the road.

‘Listen, I’ll leave this here for you,’ he says. ‘I might have
.
.
.’ He interrupts himself and turns back into the trunk. ‘I thought I had some cookies here, too, but my son must have eaten them. I’ll leave the water.’ He’s holding his keys in his hand, and Luca can hear them clink against one another. ‘But if any of you need medical attention, I may be able to help. If you are hungry, I can get you some food.’

Lydia peers through the darkness at the sisters off the side of the road. Her eyes have adjusted to the light so she can make out their faces but can’t read their expressions.

‘How far is it to town?’ Soledad asks.

‘Not far,’ the doctor says. ‘Another two or three miles. A half
hour’s walk will get you to the edge of the city.’

‘What city is it?’ This is Luca. The word
city
has excited him, as it indicates a place larger than he expected.

‘Navolato,’ the doctor says. ‘About twenty miles west of Culiac
á
n.’

Luca closes his eyes to look at the map in his mind. He can see Navolato there, a small dot next to Culiac
á
n’s large dot, but he hasn’t stored any information about this place.
Twenty miles,
Lydia thinks.
How in God’s name will we get back to the train?
The sisters are in no condition to walk much farther.

‘Are there migrant services in Navolato?’ Lydia asks.

‘No,’ the man says. ‘I don’t think so. But there’s a church. They always help.’

‘What about in Culiac
á
n? Are there migrant services there?’

‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’

Lydia allows a big gust of a breath to billow out of her. The surge of stunned gratitude she experienced when all four of them emerged from that warehouse, alive and together, is still with her, but it’s beginning to fade behind exhaustion and lingering fear.

‘Are you hungry?’ the man asks.

‘Yes,’ Luca says.

‘Do you want a ride?’

Again, Lydia looks to the sisters.

‘Nope,’ Soledad says.

Lydia’s own disappointment, her eagerness to trust this man, surprises her, but she wants trace evidence of goodness in the world. She needs a glimmer. She can see only the outline of the man’s body ahead, lit by the peripheral glow of his car, the headlights pointing the opposite direction behind him.

‘Thank you anyway,’ Lydia says.

She ventures a few steps toward him, and Luca trots ahead. The jug of water sits near the back bumper, close to the man’s feet. Luca pries the cap off the jug and lifts it, but it’s too heavy for him and it sloshes awkwardly. The man helps. He holds the jug steady while Luca drinks and drinks. Luca turns his face away to breathe before going back for another long drink. Lydia stands behind him and waits for him to finish. She can hear the sisters approaching behind her, but they hang back in the shadows.

‘Listen, I don’t want to press you,’ the doctor says. ‘But it’s not safe for you to be out on this road at night. There’s a lot of activity in this area. There have been some terrible stories. Maybe you already know.’

Soledad snorts again, but this time it’s a solitary sound. She can no longer locate what was funny about it before. Concern creases the doctor’s face. A miniflashlight dangles from his key chain, and this he clicks on. He turns the small beam toward the girls’ legs to confirm what he thought he could see or smell there in the darkness: a significant amount of blood. And not only on Rebeca’s jeans, Lydia can see now. Soledad’s are covered as well, and the blood there isn’t dry. Luca is still drinking. The doctor clicks off the flashlight.

‘Please,’ he says. ‘Won’t you let me help you?’

Soledad crosses her arms. Rebeca makes her jaw into the shape of a square. It’s Luca who speaks up.

‘How do we know you’re really a doctor?’

‘Ah.’ The man puts a finger in the air, then retrieves a wallet from his back pocket. There’s an identification card there. The man’s picture. It says ‘Doctor Ricardo Monta
ñ
ero-Alc
á
n’. Luca breathes on it before handing it back.

‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ Soledad observes. ‘You can be a doctor and still be a narco, too. You can be a doctor, a teacher, a priest. You can be a federal police officer and still murder people.’

The doctor nods, slipping the wallet back into the pocket of his jeans. ‘It’s true,’ he concedes.

‘And why do you want to help us anyway?’ Soledad asks.

The man touches the gold crucifix around his neck.
‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.’

Lydia automatically blesses herself.
‘A stranger and you welcomed me.’
She completes the line of scripture, passing the water jug to Rebeca, who drinks only a little before passing it to Soledad.

‘We should go with him,’ Luca declares.

The man lets Soledad scroll through his phone first. He shows her his Facebook page, photographs of his wife and children. She’s so hungry, so depleted. She relents.

The doctor wants to take them to his clinic, but they refuse, so he drives them into the city, to a poorly whitewashed two-story building instead, with a shop on the bottom floor and bars on the windows above. Large red letters proclaim the building to be the Techorojo Motel. The
shop beneath has a red awning and an open-air counter where two young women wear smock-aprons and eye the approaching patrons with considerable suspicion. Behind them are shiny tinfoil snacks and bottled soft drinks in neon colors. There’s also a grill, the aroma of cooking meat, and the shallow sound of a cheap radio playing
m
ú
sica norte
ñ
a,
heavy on the accordion. The doctor buys them food and pays for their room.