La Linea by Ann Jaramillo

Author:Ann Jaramillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250111234
Publisher: Square Fish

CHAPTER 20

The sun set, the moon rose, and the mata gente moved us steadily along. Javi took a length of rope from his pack, lashed us together through our belt loops, and secured the rope to a rail on top of the car. Javi made us as safe as he could, but he did it grimly. The mata gente had sucked out all of his good humor.

The other mata gente hoppers, most of them young, children really, perched on the cars in front of us, like little birds on a limb riding out a storm. The cars swayed side to side. They rocked and jolted and lurched. We settled into the crazy rhythm, unable to talk. It was too hard to hear. Words traveled back with the wind from the car ahead, only to be swallowed up by the clatter of the wheels.

“No train gangs so far,” Javi spoke into my ear. “Rest some. I’ll keep watch for a while.”

I lay down and watched the progress of the moon across the starry sky. For hours I drifted in and out of sleep atop the roaring train. Javi thought we could make it more than halfway to the border on the mata gente, maybe farther if we were lucky. I thought it was about time we had some good luck.

I woke up for the third time when the moon had descended almost to the horizon. The train’s brakes screeched. The large jolt threw me toward the front of the car. The train slowed to a crawl. Javi frowned and untied himself from our rope. He climbed partway down the ladder on the side of the car and leaned out as far as he could.

“I can’t see what’s going on up there.” Javi motioned toward the engine. “Can you see anything from the top?”

We stood up. People ran along the tops of the cars toward us, leaping across the chasms between the cars. Others scrambled down the side ladders as fast as they could.

A warning echoed from car to car. “¡La migra! Get off! Run!”

We climbed quickly down our ladder and jumped off the train. We ran into a thick grove of trees, then turned around and watched, ready to plunge farther into the forest. The migra made a show of rounding up the slowest ones but didn’t bother to try to find the rest. By the time the train started up again, they had left, and we were back in our place on top.

For the next two days, the mata gente was home. Five more times we jumped off to avoid capture by la migra. Once we even got off, skirted around a small town, and hopped on once again on the other side. Javi said the migra had a checkpoint in the dead center of town. I don’t know how, but each time, Javier seemed to know what we should do.

But by evening of the second day, we’d had only sips of water from one bottle and two small bolillos to share.

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