by JJ Flowers
Eventually their sore muscles and tired limbs found relief as they floated on their backs. Rocio stared up at the arch of blue sky, but Juan Pablo studied her long hair circling her head and lit by sunlight like a great fan.
A pair of white birds flew overhead, their wings flapping in a slow rhythmic reach against the sky.
“Do you think our abuelos are watching us now?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I am imagining their love pouring down on us.”
“I never told you what my abuela said about you.”
“What?”
“Remember that day you came over and busted into my room without knocking?”
“You were so mad.”
Juan Pablo laughed, remembering. “After you left, I complained, Rocio just opens my door and walks inside like it is her room. She was mixing potions and at first she didn’t say anything. Yes, Rocio is a door opener. I asked her, What do you mean? and she told me, Rocio will be a great teacher. I am seeing science and math. She will open doors for many bright young minds.
A look of wonder lifted Rocio’s face. “Did she really say that?”
Juan Pablo assured her that she had.
For several minutes she considered this as they floated peacefully in the water, staring up at the empty sky. He thought it could be true; because of the Khan Academy, he and Rocio were many grades ahead in math. She did love watching his abuela’s science shows on TV.
“It is a beautiful dream, becoming a teacher. If only we can get to America and we can go to a university someday.”
Juan Pablo imagined studying music at a university; it would indeed be a dream come true.
The two white birds flew back, circled, and zoomed off, interrupting his revelry.
“We have to go, too,” Juan Pablo realized.
Revived and refreshed, they emerged from the pond’s cool depths. Armed with full water bottles, they fitted their packs on now-cool shoulders. Still dripping wet, Juan Pablo started for the trail.
He was thinking his abuela was right. She was always right.
Follow the butterflies. They will not lead him wrong.
A loud buzzing in his ears sounded a different note. He looked across the vista and stopped dead in his tracks.
A lone man walked on the trail toward the mountain, his back to them.
Juan Pablo’s hand snaked out, stopping Rocio. He pressed into the cliff to shield himself in the shadows. Rocio did the same. Neither said a word, but their hearts leapt and pounded against their chests.
Juan Pablo felt the danger this man presented from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair. Yet, he looked like any other man. Average height, neither tall nor short, he wore a tan cowboy hat, a gray buttoned shirt, Levi’s, and red boots. A saddlebag was slung over his shoulder. He puffed an unlit cigar.
The same man who had been in his house.
The man suddenly stopped. He stood stock-still, as if sensing something. He turned around slowly. His hat came off to shield his view from the sun as he surveyed the desolate surroundings.
He paused for a long moment before returning his hat to his head and continuing on.
They remained like that for nearly a half-hour. The man had long since disappeared, heading up the way they had just come. They slowly, silently made their way down to the trail. They moved quickly now.
They needed to get somewhere safe.
Darkness came fast.
Exhaustion defined them. Every muscle ached and throbbed and demanded rest, but there seemed no place safe to sleep. Nothing but rocky desert terrain in all directions. They had to keep going. Juan Pablo thought if he stopped, he’d never get up again.
The stars shone bright in the arch of sky above. A half moon rose over the eastern horizon. He wondered if his grandmother was with his mother now, and if all this time, his mother, too, was sending him love from the sky. He wondered if they could help them more than the butterflies or if they could direct the butterflies to help them. Or could they do nothing? Maybe they couldn’t even see them.
What, he wondered, were the rules the Sky People followed?
“We must be getting close,” Rocio said.
“How much juice is left in your phone?” Juan Pablo asked.
Rocio stopped and found her phone in the pocket of her backpack. “Seventeen percent.”
“How long will the light last?” he asked.
Rocio shrugged. “Maybe an hour?”
“We should just sleep alongside of the trail here.”
“Let’s use the light until it goes out,” Juan Pablo said. “If we are close, it would be better to go around the roadblock at night.”
“Good thinking. Okay. Let’s go.”
Rocio turned on the flashlight and they continued on. Not for long. They traveled another quarter of a mile before they heard it. The distant sound of music. The same booming noise the banditos had played that terrifying night at the cantina.
“That’s them. The roadblock set up to catch us.”
They exchanged looks of desperate alarm.
“We have to go around.” Juan Pablo pointed, whispering urgently, “this way. We need to be on this side, going toward Guadalajara, right?”
Rocio nodded obliquely. The other way eventually led to Mexico City. They could catch a bus to her brother’s house from Guadalajara, but that was over sixty or seventy kilometers away. They had not figured out how they would get to Guadalajara. They couldn’t walk, that was for sure.
“How much light is left?”
Rocio checked. “Nine percent, maybe a half-hour.”
Rocio aimed it as they stumbled over the harsh desert terrain.
Not fifty meters away, the light illuminated a ravine. First Rocio and then Juan Pablo knelt down, attempting to slide. Just before he slipped, something caught his eye. A tiny red dot floated eerily from the trail behind them.
“Look,” he whispered. “What is it?”
“What?” Rocio whispered. “I don’t see anything?”
“Quick,” Juan Pablo whispered urgently. “Kill the light.”
Rocio clicked off the phone light.
They stood motionless, staring into the darkness. The tiny red dot approached at a leisurely pace. It was the Hunter with the red boots. Juan Pablo was sure of it. He was returning to the roadblock, his cigar appearing as a tiny red dot moving eerily in space.
Despite the warm, still night, a chill raced down his spine as he watched the steady progress of the red dot dancing down the trail.
The man passed the spot they had just left. He walked no more than ten paces when the red dot turned in their direction.
“Duck,” Rocio whispered.
A strong flashlight suddenly swept across the landscape. Back and forth, twice, before moving in slow motion over the darkened space.
Juan Pablo’s mind raced. The man must have hiked the trail all day. Yet at some point, he figured they had passed him somewhere and he turned around. How did he know? He tried to think if they left anything behind, but he couldn’t think of anything.
It was like the man had a gift. Like his abuela, only instead of helping people, this man used it to track people.
The light finally disappeared. They waited like that, crunched into frightened balls in the ravine for maybe fifteen more minutes. Slowly, they emerged on the other side. They could not risk the light now. They moved as quickly as they could, aiming west of the roadblock and slightly south, hoping to find the road before the banditos found them.
Holding hands for safety, they put one foot in front of the other over the rough ground. The change came suddenly; there came a slight dip, and once over it, they were walking on pavement. “The road. We’re on it,” Juan Pablo marveled.
They looked to the left in search of a sign of the roadblock but saw nothing but darkness.
“What should we do now?” Rocio asked.
“We should walk alongside the road, but far enough away so no one coming can spot us.”
&nb
sp; “I can’t walk anymore,” Rocio said.
“We will sit and wait then for daylight.”
“JP, I’m scared.”
“Me too,” he said, realizing they had no options now. What would they do? Walk fifty-plus miles in broad daylight with no food left? That would never work.
Abuela, this problem has no solution, he remembered complaining once about a piece of music he struggled with.
If a problem has no good solution, then it is best to decide not to have the problem.
They only made it about twenty paces from the road when in the far distance, headlights approached. They both fell to the ground, crouching there as they watched. Another set of headlights followed the first.
One black SUV after another.
A large black Cadillac car passed next.
They didn’t speak until the red lights disappeared altogether.
“I bet that was the men at the roadblock,” Juan Pablo said.
“It must be,” Rocio said. “Does that mean it’s safe now?”
“I think so,” Juan Pablo said as they sat up.
“That was so close,” Rocio said.
“Too close. We just made it.”
“Want some water?”
They drank a bottle, as if to celebrate.
“We might as well sleep here,” Juan Pablo realized.
“Might as well, I guess,” Rocio said.
They started to arrange their backpacks when another set of headlights appeared in the distance. These were unlike the others—yellow and placed close together. They moved very slowly down the road. “I wonder what it is.”
“Not banditos?”
Juan Pablo shook his head. Somehow he knew it was not the narco-traffickers. “Maybe whoever it is will give us a ride to Guadalajara.”
Grabbing their packs, they moved toward the road. The headlights drew closer and closer until he saw that it was an old truck. Swallowing his hesitation, Juan Pablo moved out onto the road and waved.
The truck came to a stop. The engine died.
“You go,” Rocio said.
“Me?”
“Make sure they look nice,” Rocio said, practically pushing Juan Pablo toward the truck as she held back.
Taking a deep breath, Juan Pablo approached the driver.
He was surprised to make out a young boy driving a truck. He looked quite a bit younger than himself. A bowl of short dark hair crowned a round, smiling face. A man sat in the passenger side, hidden in the dark. They exchanged a friendly greeting. A sound came from the truck’s bed and with a start, Juan Pablo saw several goats huddled in the back.
“We need a ride to Guadalajara.”
The boy looked to his father. Juan Pablo could barely make out the older man’s features in the dim light, but he had a strong prominent nose, which his grandmother always said was a good sign.
I have never met a stupid person with a fine, large nose. I’m sure they exist, but I have never met one.
He pushed his glasses back up and slowly wiped a bandana across his brow.
“Are you running away, son?”
“No, no. We, well, you see, my friend Rocio, her abuelo had a heart attack and died two days ago.”
“Condolences,” the father said in a voice of concern.
“Yes, it is very sad for us. He was a good man, a good abuelo. My abuela sent me with Rocio for safety reasons.” This was mostly true. “We are trying to reach Rocio’s uncle in a village north of Puerto Vallarta. We have money for the bus, but first we must reach Guadalajara. Can you help us?”
That is how Rocio and Juan Pablo found themselves in the back of an old truck, lying on the fresh straw covering the truck bed, their heavy packs on either side to protect them from the four curious goats. The truck slipped into gear and they were off.
Juan Pablo slipped his hand into Rocio’s, they closed their eyes, and once again they slept the dreamless sleep of the exhausted.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Juan Pablo knew Rocio was pretty, of course. He could see after all, but he never realized just how pretty she was. She was just Rocio to him, but now sitting in the bus station, waiting for their bus, he noticed the stares of certain men upon spotting her. That man smoking by the lockers. The two teenage boys across from them.
Three times men had approached them and asked if Rocio needed help or wanted a soda or, once, an ice cream. “No, gracias,” she replied, and he would take her hand possessively as they hurriedly moved on. She was not safe, even without the man with the red boots looking for them.
They had spent the day exploring the modern and historic city of Guadalajara. Juan Pablo played his violin at the gorgeous plaza at the city center to get money to feed their enormous appetites. He played classical pieces he knew and mixed them up with popular ones. Within two hours, they had nearly 200 pesos. Weighted by their packs, they examined restaurant menus and judged each picture posted on them, searching for the biggest bounty.
It was the best food they had ever had. Giant plates of huevos rancheros, spinach, and potato-stuffed empanadas, tomato juice, and all the water they could drink. Afterward, on the way back to the bus station, they visited the famous Guadalajara Cathedral, where Rocio pretended she was getting married and JP had to be both the priest and the groom. They went to an Internet café so Rocio could recharge her phone and he could recharge his iPad. With the last of the money, they bought a caffe mocha to share.
All day long, homeless children placed stickers on them, reaching out slender arms for a handout: he got a smiley face and a peace sign, while Rocio got a cross and a flower. They had no more money, so Juan Pablo kept giving them packets of milkweed seeds to sell. “Ask for three pesos from Mexicans and twenty pesos from Americans and Europeans,” he instructed.
Sipping on the last of their coffee, they waited for the five-thirty bus to Puerto Vallarta. They had seven minutes until boarding. They might have taken an earlier bus, but they realized if they took the last bus instead, they could safely sleep on the seats instead of trying to find a safe place to spend the night in Puerto Vallarta. It was definitely not safe to sleep in the streets.
People-watching through the window, Juan Pablo wondered how a single day, brought about by both tragedy and calamity, could be so much fun.
The red boots appeared on the other side of the terminal window.
Juan Pablo gasped. “Rocio.” He said her name in a whisper of fear. “Look.”
“What?”
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
“The bandito looking for us. The red boots.”
The man entered the crowded building.
Juan Pablo and Rocio rose simultaneously, dropped their drinks into the garbage, and headed for the bus. Just in time. The driver sat, reading a paper. He had already checked their tickets, so he only nodded as they climbed onboard and took their seats in the back. The bus appeared half full. No one looked at them; the other passengers pretended they were invisible in the way of city people.
“Stay down,” Juan Pablo urged.
They crouched down in their seats as two other people boarded. Juan Pablo peeked at the driver, who put down his phone and started the engine.
Minutes felt like an eternity. Juan Pablo peered cautiously above their seats. He searched the terminal, looking for the man with the red boots. He froze upon spotting him at the ticket counter. The clerk nodded, pointing to the bus. The man turned with a start and ran toward them.
“He’s coming!”
Rocio almost screamed. The doors shut.
The bus slowly pulled into the road. Juan Pablo watched the man with the red boots stopped just behind the bus. Hands on hips, he stood there as the bus pulled away before he turned and began running to the parking lot.
The bus made its way onto the street.
Juan Pablo sat back. “We lost him, I think.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know.”
He made an anxious study of the cars
as the bus moved slowly onto the highway. Rocio still knelt down, both her hands wrapped around his leg, where she buried her face. Juan Pablo noted the cities they passed on the freeway: Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Zapopan.
Rocio finally sat tensely in her seat at his side.
Juan Pablo stared intently out the window.
He abruptly noticed a black Cadillac driving alongside of the bus on the four-lane freeway. His eyes widened with the fear that it was him—the man with the red boots. The tinted windows offered no sure clue.
“Rocio . . .”
She turned her frightened eyes to the sight. “Is it him?”
“I don’t know.”
The two watched as the Cadillac kept to the bus’s side. The bus moved into the fast lane as the slow lane headed to an off-ramp. The Cadillac fell behind the bus. Juan Pablo stood and looked to the last row of seats across the back of the bus.
Only an old woman slept there, surrounded by shopping bags. Rocio froze and stared straight ahead as Juan Pablo made his way to the back. He cautiously looked out. The Cadillac followed a car length behind the bus. A cracked window from the car allowed the wind to grab smoke, sending it violently into the air.
It was him. The man with the red boots. The Hunter.
“We should get off at the next stop,” Rocio said.
“He’s following us. He’ll catch us.”
The back of her hand went to her mouth, as if to stop her panic. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Let me think.”
They fell into a tense silence. Every five minutes, Juan Pablo got up and looked out the back window. Returning to his seat beside Rocio, he leaned over, resting his head in his hands, and tried to think of an escape.
“We should tell the bus driver,” Rocio said.
Juan Pablo looked over at her, his expression one of confusion. “What can he do?”
“Drive faster.”
“Rocio.” He rolled his eyes before explaining as if to a very young child. “We are in a bus. He is in a car. Even if the bus driver went faster, a car will always beat a bus.”
