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.
Carefully, I wriggled my hands free from under his knees. He didn’t stop me. I undid a third button and a fourth. I smiled at him and gently pushed him upright. He resisted at first but then moved back. He was still straddling my pelvis and he still had the knife.
The knife.
A four-inch serrated hunting weapon. Lovingly honed. You could skin a bear with that thing.
He was holding it lightly in his palm, face open. It might be susceptible to a blow to the wrist. He might drop it. But then again, he was big and strong and wary.
Knife fights are bad news. In self-defense class they tell you that you have to be prepared to lose a hand. You have to commit.
To save your life, grab the blade and twist and know that it’s going to hurt and it’s going to cost you fingers.
I undid another button. The shirt was open to my navel.
“That’s it, that’s my girl,” he said. Slobber at the corner of his mouth. His eyes filming over.
And me light, floating.
The knife.
The grinning face.
The partner turning away.
Commit. Lose fingers. The hand. And more. Never killed anyone. Nothing bigger than a wasp.
Commit. Lose fingers.
“Yeah, that’s it, let me see,” he said.
And then, just when I was ready to grab the knife with my left and punch him with my right, he rolled back onto his heels and stood.
I was puzzled for a second, but then I saw. He was undoing his belt and pulling down his jeans.
“You, too,” he said excitedly.
“Ok,” I said.
I pulled my jeans and underwear to my ankles. I slid them off.
Half naked.
The fear a river.
My arms shaking.
“Come on then,” I told him and offered another smile.
He leered back.
Yeah. He liked this better. He wasn’t getting off on the terror. He wanted a fantasy in his head. The willing victim. The fiery Latina. The sex-starved maid. Just like in his DVDs.
His jeans came off.
“Come on, honey,” I said in a voice that was half willing accomplice, half frightened victim. Evidently the right mix.
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered. He spread my legs with his feet.
“Hurry up, Ray,” Bob said.
“Don’t worry, man, you’ll get your turn,” Ray said.
“Just fuck the bitch,” Bob grunted.
I opened my shirt.
“You’re gagging for it,” he said. “It’s going to be like making guac, María, we’re gonna scoop all the love right out of ya. Show you a trick or two. I’ve had compliments from pros.”
I nodded.
He kneeled between my legs and put down the knife to take off his boxers.
There would be one play.
I knew that he had the capacity to kill me. I knew that as a wetback my life wasn’t worth anything and more than likely if he did kill me, he’d have to kill all of us. Six deaths for what?
No two ways about it. A commitment. A trade. Your lives for ours. In advance I ask forgiveness.
His tossed his cartoon-covered boxers and when they were gone he grinned and reached for the knife.
The knife that wasn’t there.
“Huh?” he said.
Watching his brain tick over was like watching a dinosaur step on volcanic glass. Confusion showed between his eyes and before he could say or do anything his own treasonous hunting knife slashed him across the belly.