La Linea Read online

  I looked her up and down. My sister was pretty. She really didn’t need to show skin for boys to notice her. I could scold her about dishonoring the family, but I wasn’t her parent, and she knew it. She wasn’t about to let me tell her how she could dress.

  Elena reached deep into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out an envelope. She’d chewed each fingernail off, way down, a sure sign she was worried about something. Her slender fingers fumbled with the letter.

  “Abuelita got this the other day,” she confessed. “It’s from Mamá. I’m sorry I didn’t show it to you before. Don’t be mad at me.”

  I grabbed the paper roughly, jerking it out of Elena’s grasp. It was Mamá’s usual letter, full of news. There was even a new photo of the twin sisters we’d never seen, three-year-old Maria and Liliana. They sat almost as if they were one, hands clasped. Their lips turned up in identical grins, deep dimples on each cheek. Their noses crinkled up the same way and their faces were framed by curly black hair.

  I held the picture by one corner and stared. How was it possible to have sisters I’d never even seen?

  “Did you read the last paragraph, Miguel?” Elena asked nervously. “Do you think Mamá means it? Do you think we’ll go soon?”

  I read it aloud, Elena mouthing each word with me: “We’ve all been working hard, overtime. We almost have enough money for you, Elena. It won’t be long, te prometo. Please take good care of Abuelita. You’re all she has now.”

  Elena was ignoring the truth of Mamá’s words. I gave her an exasperated look. She knew the way it worked. She knew Papá’s plan. Papá went first. Mamá followed. I was next. Elena would be the last. Papá sent for us one by one, waiting until he had money in hand.

  “Come on, Elena.” I steered her toward the plaza.

  Elena got mango, I got chocolate, and we sat side by side on one of the splintered benches at the edge of la plaza. Two señoras, the ancient Dominguez cuates, sat on the far side, string bags at their feet. They folded their arms and gossiped in small voices, their chins on their chests.

  El alcalde Don Ramiro sat dozing in a chair, and two men played a slow game of checkers under the tree. Three little boys kicked a soccer ball into and out of the empty wading pool at the edge of the plaza. The blue concrete was cracked and stained with rust from the drain.

  “This place is dead,” Elena said, licking her cone. She gestured at me, then la plaza, and then beyond, to include the whole town.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “¿Y qué?”

  “You know what I mean.” She looked out at the deserted town. There should have been lots of people out, that time of day.

  She was right. San Jacinto had been emptied of young men. A few left because they wanted to. Most left because they had to. There was no work, nothing worth doing, just odd jobs here and there that paid a few pesos, not enough to feed a family.

  “Who’d want to stay anymore?” Elena continued. “Even the girls are leaving now, if they can. Just last month Jesusita left, with that new boyfriend of hers.”

  “She’s sixteen, Elena.” I made sixteen sound like sixty—old, really old.

  “¿Tú, qué sabes? You’re barely fifteen, Miguel. You’re hardly even older than me,” Elena said angrily.

  It was the biggest insult she could think of. It was also how she saw the world. In her mind, the eighteen months that separated us were nothing. If I was old enough to do something, then she was, too.

  She stood up and threw the last third of her ice cream cone on the dried-up grass beneath my feet. That was Elena’s way of telling me she knew I’d be going. It was her way of telling me what a chicken I was for keeping it a secret.

  “It’s not fair, Miguel. It’s just not fair.”

  Elena turned and started running down Avenida Principal, out of town. She went right down the center of the road. There weren’t any cars to worry about, or boys to impress, so she ran fast, kicking up the red dirt. It mixed with the sweat running down her face, ruining her pretty pink shirt.

  CHAPTER 5

  By Sunday noon, everyone knew Don Clemente had returned from la capital. You couldn’t miss his new black Mercedes among the thirty-year-old beat-up, patched-together VW Beetles and Chevy Novas. Most of us didn’t have cars at all.

  I walked to Don Clemente’s compound. It was no longer a house. He’d added two stories, a fancy tiled courtyard, a three-car garage, gates all around, a security system. They said there was even a swimming pool inside. Don Clemente made his money off people like us who needed him.

  Juanito stood at Don Clemente’s front gate. He slouched against the wrought iron, his hands stuck in his pockets. Juanito was Don Clemente’s bueno para nada nephew, spoiled by money and too much time on his hands. He screened his uncle’s visitors.

  I’d hated him ever since we’d both tried out for goalie on the best regional soccer team. It’d been my last shot to make it, and Juanito had beat me out. Everyone believed Don Clemente had bribed the coach. Then Juanito had squandered his chance by drinking and partying, and missing practice. Within two months, he’d been kicked off the team.

  Juanito was a jerk, yet I envied him even more than I hated him. Sometimes they felt like the same things, hate and envy. I was jealous of Juanito’s easy money. I hated him for his freedom to do what he wanted. The worst thing was that Juanito knew how I felt. I couldn’t hide it. He’d take advantage of me if he could.

  “Hey, Juanito,” I said. “¿Está tu tío? I have to see him.”

  I moved closer. His eyes were red. He covered them quickly with his sunglasses. I smiled to let him know what a loser he was.

  “He’s busy. You better come back another day,” Juanito answered. I was sure this was a lie. It was just Juanito’s way of annoying me. I didn’t back down.

  “Check for me,” I replied. “He’s expecting me.”

  I sat down on a carved bench flanked by planters overflowing with bright pink bouganvillea. And then I pulled out a newspaper and read the soccer scores. I wasn’t going anywhere until I saw Don Clemente. Juanito sighed, punched a code into the gate, and retreated into the house. I waited an hour.

  When Juanito finally returned, he led me wordlessly through the cool courtyard and around the side of the house to the back. Don Clemente sat on a vine-covered patio, his back to me, sipping black coffee. He didn’t turn to greet me. He just motioned with his good, right hand to come and sit across from him. With the bad, left hand, he dismissed Juanito.

  Don Clemente turned his one good eye to me. He didn’t try to hide the dark red burn scars that covered the whole left side of his face. He didn’t cover up the empty eye socket. He dared me to stare, to be embarrassed for him. I didn’t look away. Don Clemente respected those who weren’t afraid to see his ugliness. He leaned down and pulled a packet of papers out of the briefcase at his feet.

  “I’ve heard from Domingo,” he announced. “Tu padre,” he added, as if I might have forgotten Papá’s name.

  “He’s sent money and asked me to make arrangements for you to go.” Don Clemente pushed the papers across the table to me.

  “Everything you need is there. It’s becoming more complicated to make the journey. You must follow the instructions I’ve provided. Unfortunately, I can no longer vouch for everyone who assists in my operation,” he explained. “I’ve had to rely on some polleros whose reputation you should fear.”

  He stopped to let this sink in. I waited for him to finish.

  “But your coyote,” he continued, pointing to the papers, “the one I’ve arranged for, he’s the best. I’ve paid him half his fee already. The rest you’ll take with you, and pay him when his job is done. He is trustworthy, unlike most.”

  “Papá trusts you. I’m ready to go.”

  I said it with confidence, but I felt scared. Don Clemente was not making too much of the risks. Everyone had stories, bad stories. But I couldn’t afford to wait. It wasn’t getting easier to get across la línea; it was getting harder every day.


  “Domingo must be desperate to have you with him,” Don Clemente continued. “This is the first time he has asked for my help. I would have helped with your mother. I offered to send you, too, a long time ago—and your sister—but Domingo was too proud to accept.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. What was Don Clemente saying? All Papá had to do was ask and I could’ve gone, just like that? I’d waited and waited and waited, just because Papá wouldn’t ask a rich old man for help? Don Clemente had money coming out of his ears! It especially hurt to know that it was Papá’s pride that kept us apart, more than the money. Orgullo, puro orgullo.

  Don Clemente handed me an envelope with a stack of bills inside. “You know what I owe Domingo. This is a small payment on a large debt.”

  It was true. Papá had pulled Don Clemente from a roaring fire that burned down his house and killed his wife and daughter. Papá saved him from the flames, but he couldn’t save him from becoming bitter.

  Money took the place of Don Clemente’s family. They said he trafficked in everything. He could get anybody anything he wanted or needed. Anything at all.

  But Don Clemente’s specialty was why most people ended up knocking on his gate, hat in hand. Everyone in the state knew him as the person who arranged the safest passage north—for the biggest price. If you could scrape together his fees, you went with Don Clemente. They said he’d never lost a single person. Nunca. Ni una persona.

  We could never afford Don Clemente’s price. Whatever money Papá had sent, Don Clemente was making up the difference himself. I touched the edges of the bills in the envelope. Some of the money came from Papá’s cutting lettuce, from Mamá’s picking strawberries or weeding and hoeing. The rest of it came from Don Clemente.

  “They say you’re very quick.” He looked at me curiously. “M’ija Marisol was like you—smart. Quicker than all the others. She would have gone far.”

  He paused and rubbed the taut skin around his eye socket. “Read the instructions carefully. Follow them exactly. My people will be expecting you.”

  “Gracias, Don Clemente,” I replied. “I’ll do as you say.”

  I stood up and stuck out my hand. Don Clemente grasped it firmly in his. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Juanito emerge from the shadows at the edge of the patio.

  Don Clemente looked at his nephew, then pulled me into a hug. He was stronger than he looked. He held me for a second, then whispered his blessing into my ear, “Que Dios te acompañe.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Abuelita poured more café into my half-empty cup. The sweet scent of the canela that she boiled along with the coffee filled up the kitchen. We sat in friendly silence for many moments, watching the sun rise over the Sierra de los Angeles. We began most mornings that way, ever since Papá and Mamá left years before.

  We never talked much. We didn’t need to. But the day after I saw Don Clemente, Abuelita had something on her mind. So did I.

  “Por fin tu súplica se te ha concedido,” Abuelita finally said. “I know how much this means to you.”

  She reached across the table and entwined my fingers with hers. Dark brown age spots and deep blue veins covered the backs of her hands.

  A strand of gray hair fell out of the bun at the back of her head. She tucked it back behind her ear with her free hand, while her other tightened its grip on mine.

  “Abuelita,” I began. “I have a question for you. Please tell me the truth.”

  I was sorry as soon as I said it. Abuelita didn’t lie. She just gave me a small smile and nodded.

  “Is it true what Don Clemente told me, about Papá?” I swallowed hard.

  “Sí, m’ijo.”

  “¿Por qué?, Abuelita? Why? Why?”

  “Miguel, your papá must have had his reasons,” she answered. “You’re going now. That’s what counts.”

  I disengaged my hand from hers, stood up, and turned to the window. “I know. I want to go, but I don’t know if I can forgive him.”

  “You’re too hard on people, Miguel. You’re hard on Elena,” Abuelita answered. “Don’t judge your father.”

  I remained unmoving. I gripped the edge of the windowsill, tightly, until my knuckles turned white. I could not talk back to Abuelita.

  “No juzgues, m’ijo,” she repeated firmly. It was as close as she ever came to scolding me, and it was the end of the conversation.

  “We’ll need to slaughter a goat,” she said. “I want to have a going-away party for you.”

  “No, Abuelita,” I protested.

  Abuelita might need the goat meat later on. Things were tight, really tight. It seemed a waste to use it up. And I didn’t want a party. I didn’t want any long good-byes. I already had my eyes on la línea. I could already feel my feet moving me away.

  But Abuelita was determined. So we set the fiesta for three days from then, the night before I was scheduled to leave.

  I spent the rest of the day poring over my travel packet. I memorized the routes and the names that Don Clemente had written, each in his flowing, elaborate script. The sheaf of papers, the envelope with the money—all of it seemed too thin, too small to get me where I needed to go, so far north.

  But I followed Don Clemente’s instructions to the letter. I went to the next town, to the supermercado to buy the items I needed: a plastic water bottle, comfortable shoes, and a new backpack with compartments to store everything. I even got a pouch for the money to wear next to my skin, under my shirt. I sneaked everything into the house when Elena was away and hid them in my secret place behind the wall.

  And then, for the next three days, I did work for Abuelita that I should have done months before. I hauled, chopped, and stacked a big pile of wood. I repaired several parts of the fence around the corral. I hit my thumb with the hammer twice, and some of the boards hung a little crooked, but at least it was done.

  Then I climbed up on the roof to see if I could find the leaks. Even with the little rain we got last winter, Abuelita had to place pots under three places where steady drips of water fell into her kitchen. I patched the leaks, poorly.

  “Lo siento, Abuelita,” I apologized to her silently as I worked. The truth was, I was no good as a carpenter. The patches on the roof probably wouldn’t last.

  Finally, I stood and stared at the tomatoes I’d planted two months before. I was an even worse farmer. Bugs had eaten most of them inside out, leaving gaping holes in the flesh. The tomatoes that had escaped the bug attack were small and shriveled. My chiles, next to the tomatoes, had puckered up and fallen off before they ripened.

  I picked one of Elena’s tomatoes, growing right next to mine. It was round, red, and warm from the sun. I took a big bite. The juice ran down my chin, sweet as sugar. Elena’s chiles had grown fat and shiny and long.

  “I bet you can’t grow ones as good as mine,” Elena had taunted in the spring. I took her bet, to shut her up. I checked my plants every day. I tried to do what Elena did with hers. I even gave them extra water, but it was useless. I couldn’t compete.

  And that wasn’t all. When Abuelita put me in charge of the animals last year, the cow quit giving milk and a goat dropped dead for no reason. Under Elena’s care, the cow gave more milk than ever. Good thing. We needed the money we’d get from selling it to Señor Gonzalez.

  Abuelita said I didn’t pay enough attention. She said my mind was always somewhere else. Anybody could grow a plant or raise an animal! But Abuelita didn’t scold. She didn’t even seem to blame me. To Abuelita, both my strengths and weaknesses were facts, as true as the rising sun or the drought that the sun caused.

  “¡Fíjate!” she said last week. I hadn’t latched the gate and three chickens disappeared. “Elena is younger, and already she can take care of the rancho better than you.” There wasn’t a bit of rancor in her voice.

  Abuelita was right, and I didn’t care. Each failure I had on the rancho was just more proof to myself that my future lay across la línea, in California. If I’d ever belonged in San Jacinto, I
didn’t belong now.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Elena, I need your help. ¡Levántate!” I shook her shoulders roughly. She groaned and pushed my hand away.

  “Let me sleep, Miguel. Please, please.”

  “No, come on. Now!” I pulled off her blankets and jerked the pillow out from under her head. It was already late and I had a lot to do. The goat needed to be slaughtered for the fiesta, and I needed Elena to do it.

  An hour later Elena finally made it down to our little barn. I’d already tethered the goat and gathered the tools for the slaughter. Tío used a gunshot to the brain to kill his goats, but Elena preferred a hammer.

  “Tío should at least have the guts,” she always said, “to get up close to an animal he’s going to kill.”

  Elena held the hammer tightly in her small hands and looked the goat right in the eyes. She took a deep breath and raised the hammer above her head. I turned my eyes, but I heard the sure, solid blow that Elena brought down on the goat’s skull. Its knees buckled and it fell to the ground. The goat lay motionless.

  “Pronto, Miguel,” Elena admonished.

  I gripped my sharpened knife and cut swiftly through the jugular vein. Together, we strung up the goat and hung it head-downward so the blood would drain out of the body and into the bucket below. The metallic odor of the freshly spilled blood made me gag. I breathed through my mouth to block out the smell, and to stop my stomach from churning.

  Elena pulled a wrapped torta out of her pocket and gobbled it up in several quick bites. How could she eat with a dead, bloody goat hanging right next to her? She stood, arms crossed. Her eyes moved up and down the carcass.

  “We won’t get a lot of meat out of this one.” She looked at me and waited, daring me to say the truth out loud.

  “It should be enough, though, for the fiesta,” I replied. “I bet I won’t get cabra like this in California.”

  “I was dumb to think Papá would send for both of us,” she said. “I know it’s your turn.”