Fifty Grand

Pedro curled into the fetal position, expecting more blows, but Ray couldn’t be bothered.

“If anybody’s holding out I’ll fucking kill yaz, every one,” Ray said. “Come on, what else you got?”

But nobody had anything.

Heat on our necks.

Still morning but the ground was burning.

The old man from Nogales took off his watch and held it out.

Ray looked at it. “The fuck is this?”

He took the watch and threw it into the desert.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He unslung the rifle and fired it twice into the side of the Land Rover. The bullets whizzed through the metal plates and continued in a dying parabola for a thousand meters.

“What are you looking at?” Ray said, staring at me.

I shook my head.

“I said what are you looking at, bitch?” Ray demanded.

“Nothing,” I told him.

“Yeah? I think you’re looking at me. I think you can’t keep your eyes off me. Is that right?”

Ahh, so this was how it was going to be in America.

Hoping for a little time to get my bearings but that wasn’t going to happen. Gonna be ugly from the very start. Straight from the get-go. Mother of God, how does it feel, Hector, to be right about everything?

“Cover me,” Ray said to Bob, and he took a hunting knife from his belt. He safetied the rifle, slung it over his shoulder, tightened the strap.

“What are you doing, man?” Bob asked, his voice quivering. He knew what was going to happen.

Ray didn’t reply. Ray was gone. Ray was a character from an old story of his uncle or his paw, propelled by forces he didn’t understand.

He kneeled down on top of me. His groin over my groin. I tried to push him off but he put my hands under his knees. He was about a hundred kilos, mostly muscle. I was pinned.

He leaned forward and placed the knife against my throat. It was cold. Very sharp.

My head hurt from the fear. I couldn’t breathe.

The desert burned off the sweat pouring from my back.

“Get off her!” Francisco said, sitting up.

“Shut the fuck up, dink, or I’ll fucking kill all a yaz,” Ray said.

“Get off her!” Francisco repeated.

“Bob, if this one doesn’t lie down in five seconds, blow his fucking dink head off. One… two… three… four…”

Francisco hesitated for only a moment before lying down.

You did the right thing, kid. You can’t argue with a shotgun. Proud of you, güey.

“What are you doing, man? We better go. We have to go. The BP has drones and choppers. This is taking way too long,” Bob said, trying to talk some sense into his partner. But that moment had passed. Ray couldn’t back down now.

His eyes narrowed and he mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

He let the edge of the knife rest against my chin and then he dragged it slowly down my neck, bumping it over the carotid artery before bringing it to a halt above my clavicle.

“You understand English?” he said in a whisper.

I nodded.

“You wanna live?”

I nodded again.

“Don’t do nothing stupid.”

Holding the knife against my throat with his right hand, he began ripping open my shirt buttons with his left.

“Rest of you turn over, face into the dirt, I don’t need no audience, goes for you too, Bob, think I can handle this little lady. Seems eager to please.”

One by one they rolled over. All except for Francisco. His eyes were blazing. Boy was going to get himself killed. He’d clenched his fists and was thinking about a rush.

I couldn’t help. I was deep in the pit. I could barely see. Paralyzed by fear. Fear a blanket smothering me. Fear in my throat.

Ray’s mouth. Desert. The pit.

But now I had to climb out.

I caught Francisco’s eye and gave him a minute shake of the head.

It’s all right. It’s all going to be all right.

But he was still going to come.

Jesus.

It’s all right, little Francisco. Don’t do anything. It’s all right.

Eyes narrowed, fixed, he was gonna rush Ray. No. No. Bob will kill you.

I stared him down and, seething, he finally turned over and forced his face into the dust.

“You want it, baby, don’t ya?” Ray said in a whisper.

The knife was on my thorax.

I owned it. I felt it there. I let it be there.

I would let it be there for a while and then I would move it away.

“What’s your name?” Ray asked.

I tried to think whether I’d used a name with any of the passengers on the bus. But I hadn’t. I’d been careful.

“María,” I said.

Half the girls in my elementary school had been called María. That would do just as well as any other name.

“Ok, María, you look like you got a nice pair, let me see them tits,” Ray said.

“We don’t have fucking time for this, man,” Bob grumbled, scanning the horizon, nervously. The gun not pointing at anyone now.

“Ain’t gonna take but a moment. Ok, María, let me see ’em,” Ray repeated.

He had ripped two of the buttons off my shirt.

“Let me do it,” I said in English.