Just as my fingers find the leather, Angus kicks out, and the steel toe of his boot crashes into my left cheek. My head rings, chiming like when someone smashes down on a bunch of piano keys at once. I tilt back, my vision, for an instant, white, but I’ve somehow managed to keep my grip on the reins.
“I can help!” I cry out.
The horse lands, her hooves slamming down just inches from my feet. She twists and screams, backs away, and then rears up again.
“I don’t need your fucking help!” Angus shouts.
The leather strap finally rips out of my hands. I grit my teeth and shove the horse.
From there, the wind takes over, slamming into the both of us. I fall instantly, sideways like a felled tree, but for a moment, the sorrel is suspended motionless, nearly vertical. Then, slowly, she begins to tilt and tip farther until her back legs buckle underneath her and she plummets to the ground. She twists in the dirt before jerking herself upright and thundering away, her saddle half-stripped from her body. I look to the man from the Real Marvelous, the one I was trying to help, and through the orange haze of dust, I see him clutching his boy and glaring at me as if I’ve brought the devil down upon us all.
My gaze tracks over to Angus. His wide eyes are frozen toward the dust-choked sky, and his limbs and head are at odd angles. There’s a bone, oddly white, sticking out from his shoulder. His hand is the closest thing to me, palm facing up, like he’s giving me a gift.
I sense vaguely that James has his arm around my waist and is trying to get me to stand. He’s saying something, but I can’t understand what.
There’s a break in the wind, just brief enough for me to hear the sound of men shouting, whistles blowing, and more horses approaching.
I’m standing, and James is tugging at my wrist. I understand now that we have to run. We have to run because I made a mistake.
Two
The 9:22 eastbound train is tearing across the desert in front of us. It should’ve taken us ten minutes to reach these tracks, but it feels like at least double that because the dust has been steering us in circles, and we’ve been straining against a thick wind determined to throw us back to camp. It was only when we heard the train blow its whistle that we knew for sure which way to run.
The storm is starting to die out, and I can now see the last train car down the tracks in the not-so-distant distance. There’s a good chance we’ll miss our opportunity to jump on. If that happens, we’ll either suffer heat death out here or be hunted down and taken back to camp, where our executions will be made into a public spectacle. Ranch owners don’t look kindly on the death of one of their foremen, even if that death was technically an accident. I’d prefer the heatstroke because at least then I’d die at the hands of the elements and not at those of some jefe.
I’m running on pure fear right now. I’ve always thought I was the weak link in our chain and that I would eventually bring James down with me because of some dumb thing I said or did.
James bolts ahead. With one final push, he takes a running leap and grabs the metal handle of the door to the open train compartment with both hands. The toes of his boots skid across the dirt for a couple of yards before he’s able to pull himself up and into the cargo car. He catches his balance, wipes his hand on his jeans, and reaches out to me. I run faster because he’s getting farther away and smaller, and I can’t bear the thought of him being carried away with one arm extended toward me like this.
James knows if I push I can reach him. The long strands of muscle in my legs feel like they’re about to rip, but I manage to catch up to the train and sprint alongside it. The roar is incessant, deafening. Heat rushes up from where the steel wheels meet the track. It reeks like rust and burning metal.
I jump. Our fingertips flutter against one another for the briefest instant and then slip away. I lose my balance, find it again, and charge on. I time my steps, find a rhythm, and jump again. My hand grips his. He shifts his weight back and pulls me toward him. My legs feel suddenly heavy, then suddenly light. I’m up off the earth, letting out a strangled cry and soaring. My spine wrenches, then slams against the floor of the car. My chest heaves, and I start wheezing as I stare up at the rusted roof of the empty train compartment.
I stay like this for only a couple seconds before I push myself up to a seated position, scoot myself back against the side of the car, and put my head between my knees. I can breathe better now, but my heart still thrums in my ears. My legs are so used to running, they won’t stop twitching. A knot’s forming in my right calf. I wince and flex my foot in the attempt to release it.
“Here.” James digs into one of his pockets and pulls out two strips of jerky wrapped in a damp cloth. “You don’t want cramps.” He offers me both strips, but I only take one.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say.
Our money, everything we’d saved from our work in the fields is sewn into my mattress in a bunkhouse I’ll never see again. I’ve never lost this much before, only a couple bucks that were stolen from underneath my pillow by some girl back when we first started cutting maguey.
“I have some,” he says. “A dollar and some change. I picked it up this morning before you were awake.”
Several days a week, James gets—used to get—a small group of itchy men and boys together to throw dice against the wall of the mess building before the fires got built and the foremen came out with their dogs and their horses. Angus would join in. James always said he was the perfect gambler, which meant the young foreman talked an enormous amount of shit but never learned when to stop throwing down coin.
They weren’t friends by any stretch, but James and Angus had a mutual agreement that seemed to work well. Angus would look the other way on the games as long as he was allowed to play every once in a while. When he was feeling generous, James even let Angus win a game or two.
“You said you’d stop.” My remark is halfhearted. Normally, I’d be upset with him for being careless with his money, but obviously circumstances have changed.
James reaches out and intertwines his fingers with mine. He rubs the calloused surface of his thumb over the lines of my grime-streaked palm. He’s a good person, certainly too good for me. Ever since I met James two years, four months, and eighteen days ago, he’s been essential to my survival, and I sometimes really hate myself for that.
“You would’ve acted differently,” I say.
His response is immediate. “Probably.”
James is studying my palm, and won’t look me in the eye. He wants to say more, possibly read me the riot act—we both know I’ve earned it—but that’s all he’ll give me right now: a probably. Somehow that one word seems like the worst of all the things he could say.
I swallow some more of the jerky, which does nothing but cause my stomach to kick and remind me of how thirsty I am and how we have no water. It’s not even midmorning. It’ll be hot soon, and we’ll bake in this metal box for hours. Then, after the sun sets, we’ll freeze. This is the way of the high desert. It goes from one extreme to the other. I’m almost too exhausted to care.
James scoots in closer, but still doesn’t raise his head. He smells like sweat and smoke and dirt and engine oil, which is how he always smells. I lean into him and rest my head against his chest. He wraps one arm around me, which makes me feel a little bit forgiven.
James eases his fingers into my matted hair, and I close my eyes. I’ll fall asleep this way—propped up against James—for the first time in months, and I’ll probably sleep for hours and hours.
IT’S DARK WHEN we’re both rattled awake by a pounding above our heads. Our limbs untangle, and we launch apart. James jumps to his feet. On reflex, he reaches down for the bone-handled knife he keeps in the lining of his boot. I stay in a crouch. When I breathe I see the vapor escape between my lips.
The sound above us travels the length of the train car and stops. I stand as a head-shaped shadow drops into the open doorway. Whoever it is scans our empty car
go car from an upside-down vantage point, sees us, pauses, then vanishes.
“Hey!” James shouts. There’s a croak in his voice. “Do you have water? We’ll trade you gold for water.”
The head reappears, a dark mass against the sky. I can’t see James’ hand, but I imagine his knuckles are nearly as white as the bone of his knife handle. We don’t know if this person is a stowaway like us or a thief who rides the trains to prey on stowaways, but both James and I are so wracked with thirst we have to take the risk.
“What do you have?” From the close-cropped hair and tenor of the voice, I assume it’s a guy our age, or slightly older.
“Jewelry,” James replies. “Worked gold and silver.”
“Let me see,” the guy demands.
“Let’s see the water,” James fires back.
The head grunts and vanishes again. I reach to my waistband and pull out a once-white, now dun-colored bandanna I keep tucked against my skin. It holds several pieces of jewelry—bracelets, charms, and pendants—most of which are stolen and I’ll part with for next to nothing. There’s one piece, though, a thin, rose-gold necklace that belonged to Lane. That one I’ll keep forever.
The contents of my bandanna and the few things James keeps stashed away in the pockets of his pants are all we have left. My hand trembles as I shift through my jewelry, and my legs are shaky beneath me. My quivering muscles and James’ raspy voice tell me how much we desperately need water. The physical need is one thing, but the panic of being parched in the desert is worse.
“Hard hearts,” I whisper as a reminder to both of us not to show weakness in front of others.
“Hard hearts,” he echoes.
Within seconds, the guy reappears, waving a waterskin. I approach him slowly, holding one end of a delicate chain of gold between my thumb and middle finger. The bracelet sways with the motion of the train. The guy studies it briefly.
“Deal,” he says, tossing me the waterskin.
I pass over the chain and drink, ignoring how the warm water in my empty stomach makes me nauseous. When I’m done, I toss the waterskin to James, who takes a more meager pull.
The guy doesn’t wait for an invitation before gripping the top of the train compartment with both his hands and flipping into our car. He lands on his feet in front of me, revealing his towering height. Not at all fazed by the five-inch blade James is holding in plain sight, the guy hides the gold away in the depths of his cargo jacket and smiles, revealing a chip in one of his front teeth.
“I’m Leo,” he says as he takes back his waterskin. His breath smells like mescal. I’d know that smoke-tang anywhere.
“I’m Sarah Jac. This is James.”
Leo steps around me and takes a cross-legged seat in the center of the car.
“Make yourself at home,” I say.
Leo grins. “You two just hop on?”
James nods.
“Jimadors?”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Me too,” Leo says. “Lucky for you. At this point, we’re only a little over a day away. I’ve been on this train for almost a week. Since Salton City. It’s gotten to the point where I’m so bored I can’t even fall asleep. Has that ever happened to you? It might be the moon, so low and bright like it is—like this giant eye staring right at me. So where are you two from? Like, where are you from from. Your accent, it reminds me of someone I used to know. You’re not from the South, that’s for sure. I’m originally from Oregon, but I got out of there pretty quick.”
James tucks his knife back into his boot and glances over at me. We’re thinking the same thing: this guy sure is chatty. He must be telling the truth about being a jimador. If he were a thief, the amount of wind coming out of his mouth would’ve gotten him killed a long time ago.
“We’re from Chicago,” James offers.
“That’s it,” Leo says, clucking his tongue and wagging his finger. “I once knew a guy from Chicago. He died.”
I don’t say anything because that doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Leo tells us we’re a long way from home, as if that wasn’t obvious, and I don’t say anything to that, either. It’s uncomfortably quiet for a while, and he eventually takes the hint.
“Well.” Leo unwinds his long legs, rises to stand, and starts digging around in his pockets. “I guess I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”
I don’t freeze up, or blush, or look away because I’ve come to expect people to say something along those lines when they first meet James and me. I laugh, though, and so does James, but in this very specific, very grating sort of way that only I know is fake. It’s aggravating how good he is at this: pretending he’s embarrassed of me or, worse, that he finds me repellent.
“Actually,” James says. “Sarah Jac’s my cousin.”
“Oh,” Leo replies, still rummaging around in his pockets. “Okay. Well . . .”
“You never told us where this train is headed,” I say. “You just said we’re a day away. A day away from what?”
“The Real Marvelous.” Leo glances up. “In Texas. I thought you knew that.”
I tense. Leo doesn’t notice, but James does, of course. His gaze flickers across my face.
Finally, Leo finds what he’s been searching for. He takes out a bracelet—the one I just gave him—and holds it out. “I’d be a total jerk if I made two thirsty cousins pay for water.” He steps forward, leans in a little, and smirks. As Leo drops the chain into my open palm, I smell the liquor on his breath again. “Just don’t tell anyone else about my kind and gentle nature, alright?”
“How many?” I ask.
Leo raises an eyebrow, taken off guard by my ill-mannered reaction to what he obviously intended to be a generous gesture. “How many what?”
“How many jimadors are on this train?”
“Maybe forty,” Leo replies, heading back over to the open door. “Give or take.”
“Thanks for the water,” James remembers to say, nudging me in the ribs.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Thanks for the water.”
Leo shrugs like it’s no big deal, hops up to grab the top of the compartment, and flips up the reverse of how he came in. James and I wait until we can no longer hear the sound of his boots stomping over our heads before turning to face each other.
“What was that?” James asks. “At this point, we need all the friends we can get. Leo said the name of that place, and you went cold.”
“Sorry. It’s nothing.” I shake my head. “Just that man I was working with earlier today mentioned something about it. The Real Marvelous. No one wants to work there because the fields are cursed and the owner puts hexes on the workers.”
James snorts. “Since when do you believe in hexes?”
“I don’t.”
I cross my arms over my chest and gaze out into a dark night lit by a low, bright moon. Leo was right—it looks like a great big eye staring right at me. But there’s no magic out there, I remind myself, no spirits rising from the split earth, just fields upon fields, slamming into mountains, and maguey in those fields, waiting to be cut, waiting to be turned into money in my pocket.
“We could stay on the train,” James offers. “If that’s what you’re thinking. See where it takes us.”
That’s not what I’m thinking. I don’t know what I’m thinking. Out in the distance something catches my eye. It’s a solitary deer. I can just see its outline and its glassy eye reflecting the moonlight. James sees it, too—a large, wild land animal is not a common sight here. Most have been pushed north and east by the heat and the cold and the lack of water. What’s left of them have been hunted down for food. The deer takes a tender step forward, stops. Its ear twitches and then rotates. It hears something we don’t and then darts away.
“I was scared today. When that horse was charging toward you . . .” James trails off, and I know what he’s doing: replaying the event in his head, re-splicing its frames, fixing it.
“We’ve had some
close calls before,” I say. “Outside Tulsa was worse.”
“I’m tired of close calls, Sarah,” James replies. “I’m tired of this life, the ruse, putting you into these types of situations . . .”
“You didn’t put me into any situation. This is what we do together. We hop trains, work fields, save money.”
James takes a step back, shaking his head. After Lane died, I was incapable of making any kind of decision. I was dead weight that James practically had to drag from Chicago.
“I don’t want to have to lie anymore.” His voice has gone brittle.
That worry, that frustration from earlier this morning is back, and I can hardly blame him for it.
“That’s all we do out here, Sarah. If we keep telling each other to have hard hearts, then we’re going to have hard hearts. Is that what you want? To end up like some of these workers, or these foremen, who’ve turned into monsters with human skin?”
“James.” I reach out to him, but he doesn’t take my hand. “I’m not . . . I was trying to do something good. I was trying to save those people.”
“And then you were trying to hurt that foreman. I saw you push his horse.”
“I didn’t mean for him to die! The wind came and . . .”
James says nothing, but there’s an ugly twitch at the corner of his lips.
“You’re disgusted with me,” I say.
James clucks. “Of course I’m not disgusted with you, Sarah. But you have to realize there are things you can’t fix. You can’t just stand in the way of fate and wave your arms hoping it’ll turn the other way.”
We’re silent for a while, the both of us thinking. He said there are things I can’t fix, and while that may be true, there is one thing I can fix. I pivot toward James and tell him: this is what we’ll do. We’ll get off the train. We’ll work harder at the Real Marvelous than at any place we’ve worked before. Forget hexes. Forget poison. We’re stronger than all that. We’ll cut so much maguey, piles and piles of it. After six months, no matter what, we’ll go east, toward the ocean, where we’ll ride our horses and pick fruit off trees and dive into cold breaking waves.
All the Wind in the World Page 2
