Into the Beautiful North(20)
They first stared at an old woman alone in the right front row.
“Drugs?” he said.
“?Ay Dios, no!” she cried.
He nodded, but he was already looking beyond her.
They came down the aisle, poking travelers with the barrels of their weapons.
“?Mojados?” the first soldier asked a small group of men in front of Nayeli and Tacho.
“Only when we get to the other side,” one of the men quipped.
“Oh?” the soldier said.
“We’re Mexicans! From Jalisco.”
He nodded.
Moved forward.
He paused and looked at Nayeli.
His eyes fell to her chest.
He smiled a fraction of a smile, then turned his eyes to Tacho.
“You,” he said. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”
“Wetback,” Tacho said. “When we get to the border.”
“Where you from?”
“Tres Camarones.”
“Never heard of it.”
The soldiers looked at each other and smirked again.
The second soldier said, “This one looks like he’s carrying drugs.”
“Marijuana?” his partner said to Tacho.
“No.”
“Coca?”
“Hell, no.”
The soldier laid his rifle across the seat back in front of Tacho’s face.
“When you leave Mexico,” he said, “don’t come back.”
“Don’t worry,” Tacho said. “I’m on my way.”
What did he care? He’d never see this piece of crap again. But he knew better than to mouth off.
They looked at Yolo and Vampi, and were about to say something else, when they caught sight of a couple huddled in the rear of the bus.
“?Y ustedes, qué?” the first soldier demanded.
“Nada,” the man said. “Vamos a Tijuana.”
“?Deveras? ?Para qué van?”
The man spread his hands.
“Trabajo,” he said.
The soldiers were jamming in at his seat.
They kicked him.
“?Ay!” he said.
“You’re illegal,” the interrogator said.
“No!”
“You snuck into Mexico, cabrón.”
“No,” the woman cried. “?Por favor!”
“We’re Mexicans,” the man said.
“You’re foreigners.”
“No!”
Nayeli was shaking. Tacho put his hand on her forearm. He looked at the two girls across the aisle and mimicked looking forward with his eyes.
The soldier smacked the man in the mouth.
The two travelers were both crying.
“Where are you from, cabrón?”
“Colombia,” he admitted.
Cursing, the soldiers dragged him from his seat. The woman was yelling. The second soldier grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her.
“It’ll go better for you if you keep your mouth shut,” he said.
The Colombians were dragged and bounced down the aisle and shoved down the steps, and the soldier said, “Get out of here” to Chuy, who made the sign of the cross and shut the doors and started the engine and bounced the bus hard as he got back up on the road.
Nayeli saw the palest ghosts in the night as the Colombians were tossed into a tan Humvee and then were swallowed whole by dust and darkness and were gone, as if it had all been a dream.
Their little bags were still in the overhead bin.
Nayeli caught Chuy’s eyes in the mirror again.
He shook his head. He shrugged. He turned off the interior lights.
Gunshots awoke them before dawn.
Tacho dove out of his seat and sprawled in the aisle. Chuy wove across the highway, and the big bus shuddered when he braked. They heard yelling, then three more shots, in rapid succession: POP-POP-POP. Everybody had heard guns go off before—it could have been a rabbit hunt, or a goat’s execution for a barbacoa. But it was on the long empty road.
Vampi was on top of Yolo, and she whispered, “Is it bandidos?”
Chuy was rolling slowly, peering out his side window, unsure about how he should respond to this ambush. Stop or speed away? Nayeli moved up to the sideways bench behind his seat.
“Who are they?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
A pickup wobbled around behind them. POP-POP. Men in cowboy hats, waving their arms in the dark.
Chuy decided: he put it in gear and sped up. The truck followed. Nayeli crouched behind him. Suddenly, the truck sped up and passed them. POP-POP-POP. The men held up banners that read: ?pan! They hollered. They waved. They threw beer cans. They sped away.
Chuy exhaled and slowed down.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “A political rally.”
Nayeli started to laugh.
So did he.
“Are all your trips like this?” she said.
“Miss,” he replied, “if you want to see the damnedest things in life, drive long-haul trips in Mexico.”
By the time he had finished telling her stories of flaming car wrecks, armed bandits, UFOs, roadside devils chasing the bus, and the tragic story of Melesio, the driver who sneezed at the wheel and drove off a cliff, killing everyone but himself in the bus, the sun had come up.