He shrugged and shifted his eyes downward, allowing me to watch his face as he answered. His nose was long and straight, his lashes thick like his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Guess I figured two girls alone might need some help.” He swept his fingers through his thick hair, which fell back over his forehead immediately. “And I already have these two, so what’s two more?” He paused, then looked up at me and added, “Whatever. Do what you want. I don’t care. No me importa.” Then he looked away.
Suddenly, overcome with an agitation that I couldn’t explain, I heard myself say, “And you got caught every time you tried, didn’t you? Why should we stick with you?”
“Alma!” Rosa snapped.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? How can he show us the way—even to Oaxaca—when he’s been sent back each time?” All I could think of was that we had wasted time, given up some of our food, and why . . . so some boy from Guatemala could tell us stories and grab my leg? ¡Basta!
I struggled to my feet, wincing at the pain of my blistered heel. “Just because you have a gun, you think you can boss people around?” Trembling I turned to Rosa. “We need to go,” I said stubbornly.
“Go where?” Rosa asked, half laughing, which only piqued my anger. “It’s dark. It’s late. We need to sleep and get a fresh start at dawn. You’re being foolish. Sit down!”
I looked at the boys scooping atole into their mouths with dirty fingers, at Manuel who glared up from under his thick brows, and at Rosa who was patting the ground beside her. I thought of Mamá and how she turned her back as I scurried down the mountain. I thought of Papá and how safe I felt when he held me in his arms. I wanted to scream and run out into the darkness, but instead I stamped my foot and said, “I don’t want to sleep here. I don’t trust them. What if we wake and our things are gone?”
Before Rosa could answer, Manuel jumped to his feet and, reaching behind his back, pulled out the gun. In one swift movement, it lay at my feet.
“Here, es tuyo!” he hissed. “Sleep in peace.” And he walked out into the night.
I have often wondered what course our lives would have taken if I had not been so difficult. But Rosa later said that the words I spoke were true, as impulsive statements often are, and that this time the Virgin had placed them on my tongue to send Manuel into the night. Virgin or not, I tend to think the words came from a darker place. But still, if we had all been sitting quietly together in that shelter, if we had fallen asleep, who knows what might have happened. Instead, no sooner had Manuel stepped out through the doorway, then we heard shouts of surprise, followed by thuds and moans that sent the boys scampering out the back and into the field like frightened rabbits. Terrified, Rosa and I had reached for our packs and were stumbling for the opening as well, when Manuel was thrust through the doorway, bleeding from his nose, with an arm around his neck and a knife at his throat.
We froze as the man that held him shouted, “Don’t move or he is a dead man.” An animal-like groan echoed in the distance, and in my fear, I swore I felt the ground tremble.
The smell of alcohol reached me first, then Manuel’s pleadings. “No,” he was saying. “I have never seen them before. They are not with me. I travel alone.”
There were two men, both about Tito’s age, dressed in soiled T-shirts and jeans. One with a thick mustache held a bottle, the other, slightly balding, the knife. “No?” one was saying. “Not together? Looks like someone is playing house here.” Their guttural laughs and harsh sneers reminded me of the street boys who once chased me home from school in Oaxaca.
The one with the bottle approached us and, lifting it toward Rosalba, used it to stroke her chin. “Are you his hermana? His novia. Or his puta?” Rosa cringed. Sister, girlfriend, whore!
“They are not with me!” Manuel insisted. “I don’t even know their names.” Then he turned toward us. “Tell them. Tell them we are not traveling together!”
A tear streamed down Rosa’s cheek, and it was then that I felt the cold metal in my right hand. Obstructed by my pack, pressed tightly against my breast was Manuel’s gun. I had scooped it up when I’d grabbed my pack. The walls of the structure rattled slightly, and a rumbling roar echoed in the distance. I imagined a creature from the bowels of hell, heaving its way up through the earth.
I stepped back as the man beside Rosalba spit in her face, then cracked the bottle across her cheek knocking her off her feet. “Dirty Guatemalans,” he hissed. “Stay home where you belong. Don’t bring your filth to our blessed Chiapas.”
“Chiapas? Chiapas? But we are from Chiapas! We are not Guatemalans!” I pleaded, at the same time realizing that Manuel had been trying to protect us. Men in Chiapas often watched for Central American immigrants who crossed the border into Mexico and then took matters into their own hands. Despite our same skin color, that simple line of division defined a hatred that I had only heard of before. I thought of my cousins who joked about throwing rocks at a group of Salvadorans.
The man laughed harshly and turned toward me. “Of course, you are from Chiapas,” he said shaking his head and taking a step forward.
I moved back, shouting the name of our village, but his redrimmed eyes
