the truck. It had to come from there.”
“Maybe it was our Matamoros friends,” Jeb guessed. “They shot at me before.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Lucy, stated. “I’ve seen at least one of these guys before, the one hanging out the window doing the shooting. There must be a leak in the Houston Office. I don’t see how else they could have known about us and about this truck. This is not good and, to make matters worse, we are unarmed.”
We came over a slight hill and saw in front of us a little stick house with a garden and animals. Someone must live out here. How can they do that?
We pulled up in front of the fence and honked the horn. Nothing happened so we waited for a while.
CARLOS
As we topped a ridge, we could see where the trail was headed. On the slope of the next rise was a small dwelling. A thatched hut with a lean-to outbuilding, surrounded by a sagging fence. We saw chickens and a burro, a big garden and what looked like a well, so it must be inhabited.
I drove slowly up to the little gate, stopped, and tapped the horn. No response. We waited. We waited some more. And then some more. Finally, Jeb got out and stood by the truck.
“¡Somos amigos!” he called out “We’re friends! We are lost in the desert! ¡Necesitamos ayuda! We need help!”
After a few minutes, a short man wearing a large straw hat emerged from behind a rock pile further up the rise. He was carrying a rifle. The rifle was pointed at us. We didn’t make any sudden moves.
We exchanged formalities and introductions. Esteban was his name, Esteban González y Huerta. He lived out here with his family in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t ask why.
We told him the truth, no reason not to. We explained that we had been attacked on the highway, and pointed out the bullet holes to prove it. We asked for directions to somewhere—anywhere.
Esteban smiled and looked the truck over. “Sí,” he said, “I think you can make it in this truck. I’ll tell you how to go.” He called out, and three people came slowly out from behind the same rock pile. A small woman and two little girls walked shyly toward us.
“My wife, María de los Ángeles, and my daughters María and Lucinda.” The wife curtsied and the little girls stared.
“María and Lucinda!” Lucy exclaimed, her hands on her cheeks. “Those are my names! I am María Lucinda! I am so glad I have the same names as such beautiful children!” The little girls smiled shyly and looked at the ground. Lucy started talking to María de los Ángeles, but got only a blank stare in return.
“My wife does not speak much Spanish,” Esteban explained. “We are from near Papantla, in the Huasteca. Huasteco is what she speaks.”
“B’ix a béel. B’ix a k’àab’a?” Lucy said. This woman never stops with the surprises.
María de los Ángeles’ eyes widened. Her shyness disappeared and she produced a rapid-fire stream of what I presumed was Huasteco.
Lucy raised her hand for her to slow down. She turned and explained to us, “Huasteco is a kind of Mayan, but it’s different than Yucateco. Like Spanish and Italian, maybe more so. We can understand each other, but not when she talks that fast.”
LUCY
A man with a rifle came from behind a rock, and after a few minutes his wife and two darling little girls, very neatly dressed for out here in the wilderness, came out from the same hiding place and joined us. They were so pretty!
Amazing! The little girls were named María and Lucinda! My names exactly! And they were so sweet, wanted to show me everything, especially after I told them about our names. I think they thought that made us related in some way. Maybe it did.
The mother, María de los Ángeles, spoke Huasteco and couldn’t read or write, but the girls had books and could read them, loved to read them. Their father had taught them, way out here in the desert!
I could talk, with difficulty, with María de los Ángeles. She spoke only Huasteco, with a little Spanish, and my language was, of course, Yucateco. It helped I’d had classes comparing the twenty-eight or so Mayan languages, when I was at the university in Mérida. If we spoke slowly and didn’t get too complicated, we could get along. The little girls, naturally, were bilingual, they had to be, so they helped out.
We shared a meal with the family and then got on our way again. We wanted to get somewhere before dark. At least we had a rough idea of where we were going, thanks to Esteban. We found the highway, got up on it, and made it into Matehuala. I was never so thankful to see gas stations and motels and restaurants. Especially gas stations. Carlos hadn’t said anything, but I knew we were almost out.
CARLOS
Lucy and María de los Ángeles moved off companionably with the little girls leading the way. They wanted to show Lucy the chickens and the dog and cats. All of them had names, and they cackled and barked and mewed appropriately. They also introduced her to the burro, who didn’t seem at all impressed.
Meanwhile, Esteban was explaining to Jeb and me just how we would have to go to get to a real road. He drew maps in the dirt with a stick, drawing out landmarks, showing us how we would have to circle around to keep on fairly level ground until we came to a particular dry arroyo. “With this truck, you’ll be just fine,” Esteban told us, “unless it rains, of course. If it rains, you’ll never make it.”
Well, it didn’t look much like rain and rain was not a regular occurrence around here, so we thought our chances were good.
Esteban and his wife insisted we have a meal. We didn’t want to take their food, as we knew they didn’t have much extra, but they would have been terribly insulted if we’d refused. We contributed our stash of car snacks, the like of which the little girls had never seen, judging from their reactions. They nibbled on them, liked some, didn’t like others. I hoped they wouldn’t get sick.
Finally we took our leave. It was getting late and we wouldn’t be able to drive after dark, nor did we want to inconvenience our new friends by staying the night. There would be no extra beds or hammocks, and they would insist on giving theirs to us and themselves sleeping on the dirt floor, if not outside.
Lucy kissed her little namesakes and hugged their mother. We all shook hands with Esteban and thanked him for his help. Without him we could easily have wandered around for days, running out of gas and reduced to drinking radiator water.
We drove off, waving. “What a great little family!” exclaimed Lucy. “What it must be like, living out here in the middle of nowhere. I saw books, and those little girls can read and write! Their Papá reads to them every night before they go to sleep.”
“I hid 200 pesos in the kitchen where they’ll find it someday.” She continued, “That’s not much, about 16 U.S. dollars, but it will be a lot to them. I couldn’t just give it to them, they’d be insulted. Just because I’m mad at Houston, I’ll charge it to the expense account, write it off under bullets.”
We drove on, circling around, following Esteban’s instructions. We found the dry arroyo, a streambed covered with gravel washed down over the years. It was narrow, but mostly flat and we could drive a little faster.
We
