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Fear leaped inside. Noelle glanced back at him, and he saw the concern in her face that he felt too. The darkness had seemed like protection, like cover from those who might be hunting for them, though they hadn’t heard any sounds, near or far, that might have suggested that, not even fire trucks to extinguish the inferno they’d left behind.
And so they walked on, the shadows of the desert becoming sage-green and brown plants, shiny, yellow-topped cacti covered in white spines, and red-hued dirt beneath their feet.
The sky moved from pearl to pale pink, and then all at once seemed to explode in streaks of purple and orange.
Noelle stopped in front of him, sucking in a breath as she met his eyes. He stopped, too, realizing that the sound of a vehicle could be heard moving in their direction. He’d zoned out, synchronizing his steps to the pulsating of his hand, and almost missed it. Adrenaline surged, and he pointed to a hedge of dry bushes to their right, and both of them limped as quickly as possible for the cover they provided.
The vehicle was driving slowly, and Evan realized there was a road ahead of them. He heard the tires rolling over the gravelly ground, but also the sounds of ... laughter and ... singing?
“It’s Spanish,” Noelle said under her breath, her eyes wide as they met his. Were they in ...Mexico?
They held themselves still as the vehicle passed slowly by, coming to a squeaky stop a hundred feet from where they hid. More Spanish, an adult saying something and a child responding. Evan moved a piece of brush aside, peering out. It was a truck, and six or seven people sat in the open cab at the back, a few of them children. A little boy about nine or ten jumped down from the flatbed and ran into the desert, stepping behind a cactus and unzipping his pants. Evan heard the sound of him urinating.
He turned his head and met Noelle’s eyes. Did they dare? Did they dare ask for help? There was nothing as far as the eye could see, and hewas so parched he felt like passing out. He could see she was at least as bad off as he was. They wouldn’t make it much farther on their feet. And that would mean they escaped hell simply to die in a desert alone. That’d be better, but not by much.
“There arechildren,” she whispered.
He gave a nod. They looked like farmers or laborers of some type, headed to a day of work along with their sons. If they were there as part of whatever Noelle and Evan had been dragged into, would they have their children with them? And—he looked closer—one old lady, sitting at the back of the flatbed, a scarf tied around her hair?
No, these were locals, whateverlocalmeant. Evan looked at Noelle, giving a tip of his chin. Then he took her hand, and they stood, stepping from the bushes.
The man standing at the back of the truck waiting for the boy startled, letting out what sounded like an epithet in Spanish. The little boy came running from behind the cactus and joined his father. The other people on the truck were staring at them, eyes wide, expressions incredulous.
Noelle and Evan approached slowly. It was all they could manage anyway. “We need help,” Evan said. “Can you help us?”
The man standing at the back of the truck with the boy stared, then said something in Spanish to them. Evan shook his head. “I’m sorry, we only speak English.”
“English,” the man said with a heavy accent. He turned to the rest of the people in the truck, speaking several strings of words.
Next to him, Noelle swayed, and he put his arm around her, holding her up.
The old woman stood and said something, and then one of the men jumped down, and he and the father came toward Evan and Noelle, each taking one of their arms and helping them over to the truck and then up to the open bed, where they sat on built-in wooden seats.
A man leaned through the open back window of the cab and said something to the driver, and the truck began moving slowly again, dust and gravel kicking up in its wake.
A different man offered them a jug of water, and they both drank greedily, thanking him and returning it mostly empty. He handed over something wrapped in a cloth, and Noelle opened it. Food. She broke it in half and gave part to Evan. They both ate it. Evan couldn’t have said what it was or how it tasted. He only knew they were half starved and needed to eat if they were going to make it any further.
“Where are we?” Evan asked the father and son, who were sitting across from them, staring suspiciously.
The little boy said something to his father and then turned back to Evan.Sobreviviente,he thought the little boy had said. Evan nodded. He had no idea if he’d heard the word correctly or if it was the name of where they were or not.
The old woman said something and gestured for Evan to come join her where she sat. When he hesitated, she pointed to his hand and then removed a piece of cloth and a small jar from the bag next to her. When he hesitated again, she repeated the same line, but this time with more command, clucking and tsking. “I think she wants to wrap your hand,” Noelle said.
He glanced at her and then stood, mostly crouched over, shuffling the few steps in the swaying truck and then sitting next to the woman. She took his hand gently in hers, and when he hissed in pain, she said something low and under her breath. He sensed sympathy, and so he didn’t pull away. His hand had swollen and was twice its normal size, the skin angry red and cracking in places where it stretched tight. His fingers looked like five fat sausages.
He watched Noelle as the old woman put some kind of clear salve onto his skin, clucking some more and muttering under her breath. He felt like he was floating out of his body and had the strange urge to laugh suddenly as he and Noelle stared at each other from a few feetaway, knees bouncing along with the other riders’. A man had taken out a very small guitar and begun to sing, and it was just all so surreal and hilarious. Evan’s lips trembled, and he looked away, out to the brightening horizon. He knew that if he started laughing, he wouldn’t stop, and would eventually end up a howling, writhing nutcase on the floor of this truck.
The woman said something else, patting his hand very lightly. He caught the wordmédicoand figured she was telling him to see a doctor.
He nodded. “Gracias.” It was about the only word he knew in Spanish. He was taking German in school, of all things. That suddenly seemed hilarious, too, but he couldn’t for the life of him explain why.
The truck came to a stop, and Evan turned. He could see the roofs of buildings. It looked like a small town. His heart quickened, but it felt far away. He was numb, and half out of both his body and his head.
The little boy pointed to the town and said something, and then the man jumped from the truck, reaching his hand up to help Noelle down. Clearly, they were dropping them off at the edge of whatever town this was. The man pointed. “Vamos,” he said.
Evan stood and followed Noelle as she sat on the edge of the truck and hopped down. They both turned around. “Gracias,” Evan said again. “Uh, police?” he asked.
They all looked at each other, their expressions filled with wariness. He heard one of them say the wordpolicía.
