42. You're All Bad

The guards retreated behind the gate as soon as their captives settled down. A long while passed with everybody in the corral standing quietly against its rails. As time passed, one by one, the captives began to slump way to the ground. First they sat on their haunches to see if this was permitted. When nothing happened, they sat down with their backs to the rails.

There was no more interrogating. The men that had sat behind the bench abandoned their posts and disappeared altogether from the loading ramp. Only their guards kept their places in the box of the pickup parked on the ramp. They sat silently, bored, not even talking among themselves.

The men peering in from behind the gate, on the other hand, appeared agitated and quite engaged in conversation with each other. The seemed to rotate often from their perches behind the gate. From where Ervey was standing, the gate looked quite busy with many eyeballs peaking through the slats and a steady hum of muffled talk emanating from behind the gate.

Lilo said nothing. He was one of the first to hunch down but resisted sitting down on the dirt. He kept his back to the gate and the loading ramp. Ervey followed him to his haunches and quickly relaxed against the rails, exhausted.

After a long while, the murmuring behind the gate grew. Lilo looked into Ervey's eyes to catch his attention as he looked intently toward the source of the sound. Ervey noticed this and, before he could react, Lilo raised his eyebrows to ask what he saw. Ervey responded with a shrug.

"See the young man in a yellow cowboy shirt next to the gate?" Lilo whispered almost inaudibly.

"Sí," said Ervey.

Lilo nodded.

"Keep looking at him to see where he's looking," Lilo instructed, "that's where the other Mulateño is.

Ervey locked in on the man with the yellow shirt standing a couple of places right of the gate. A few minutes later, he straightened up and gave a more intense look.

Lilo discreetly waved his hands to indicate to Ervey that he should reveal as little as possible about what he was looking at. Ervey relaxed a bit and sat back against the rails. Eventually he changed his facial expression and looked back at Lilo.

"You make contact?" asked silently with his eyebrows Lilo.

Ervey nodded slightly.

"See where his partner's at?" Lilo whispered.

Ervey nodded a little.

Lilo nodded and stiff-armed the air to indicate that Ervey should wait for further instructions.

Ervey gave Lilo a long, rueful stare. Lilo returned a wordless facial expression of, "who knows?"

The night wore on until it began to turn to dawn. The overhead flood on the ramp never went off, which made it hard to discern the change in the darkness beyond it. The imminence of daybreak was announced only by the subtle change in wind and humidity and the crescendo of bird calls all around the corral. Lilo spoke up when the noise had risen to such a level that it presented a cover for him to talk.

"If something happens, go to them, and back them," he instructed, "they'll do the same for you."

"Really?" Ervey asked.

"Sí. Tell them who you are and any message you want them to deliver if you don't make it. They'll do the same," Lilo said.

"Shit!" said Ervey, "what do think's going to happen?"

"Who knows?" said Lilo, "these narcos don't act like they're from Chihuahua."

"Narcos? Shit!," said Ervey, "from where then?"

"West, south, central? I can't tell. But it's clear they don't care about us," said Lilo.

"Oh, and the Mulateños do care?" asked Ervey facetiously.

"They care about their families and, in this fix, about the next thing to that, which is their distant kin," said Lilo, "don't you?"

Ervey didn't answer. He stared into into the center of the corral behind Lilo.

"Then you have the forth guy?" asked Lilo.

Ervey nodded.

"Which one?" Lilo asked.

"Fat. T-shirt with horses. He occasionally signals his partner," said Ervey.

"So if I don't make it and you do, tell my people through the boss at the garage that the narcos got me and it was quick and that I talked a lot about my grandchildren," said Lilo expressionlessly.

Ervey looked at him, and was about to make his own last request, but he was interrupted by a man speaking through the loud speaker.

"Señores, we have completed our investigation. What we have found is that everybody here is wrong one way or another. You're all bad!" the man said.

The crowd in the corral stood up. Everybody turned their heads in every direction, but nobody said anything.

After a long pause, the man went on again.

"Because of this, we have no option but to let you self-select the ones that will pay for the infractions of the others and which ones will go free!" the man said, "comrades, prepare the people."