El Tren de la Muerte

Elias wakes to searing pain and the jarring metal-on-metal grind of the train. He'd used the lasso to lash himself to the ladder at the rear of the gasoline car, just above the steel connectors. Two nights of fitful sleep tied at the waist have left him with sharp aches in his back and neck. He's covered with mud churned by the whirring wheels below, and though some of the men riding nearby have shared water and food with him, there's no way to get rid of the grainy dirt that coats his mouth and sticks between his teeth. The temperature climbs to 95 degrees during the day, dressing him in a suit of sticky sweat and grime. His hair is matted in muddy clumps.

Elias ended up renting a stall in a local market and opening a cosmetics store, selling shampoos and lotions, ladies' face cream and Scope. He hired a woman to work the register, and for a while sales were good enough to begin building his own home, so he could move out of his parents' house. But then his luck turned. He'd just wanted a small house, but the men he hired built it way too big and spent too much money. Sales at the store started to tank; it seemed like all the small shops were going broke because they couldn't compete with the big stores. Soon Elias was drowning in debt. There was no way he'd be able to repay the $27,000 he owed with 12 percent interest—the bank would repossess everything. So he had one choice: Do what tens of thousands of Hondurans do each year—go north. When his friend Pedro, a truck driver in their hometown of Choluteca, asked him to come along and ride the trains, he said yes. It was the only way out, he thought, and besides, it would be an adventure.

Elias' mother cried and prayed for days after his brother, now a carpenter in Dallas, left for the U.S., so he told himself he'd call home when he was closer, past most of the danger. Now, tired and sore, he considers the irony of it all. He'd been sure he would show his parents and his nine siblings how successful he was, with his own house and business. And instead, here he is, bound like an animal to the ladder and praying that when night falls, he won't sleep through shouted warnings of a police checkpoint, or worse, fall prey to bandits or gang members. He prays he won't have to face another situation like the one he found himself in days before.

Elias, Pedro and two other Hondurans had been wandering in the jungle, lost, trying to find the right place to get the train. They'd entered Mexico in Tapachula, on the Pacific side near Guatemala, but because the train tracks had been washed away by a hurricane, they wound up walking eight days toward the Gulf, to Tenosique. Before they found their way, they came to an adobe house on the outskirts of a little town in Chiapas called La Arrocera. Elias didn't know it, but the isolated cattle town is notorious. It's known to be inhabited by locals who help authorities catch migrants. The madrinas, or godmothers, as these predatory villagers are called, often pose as migrants themselves in order to beat, rape and rob, and they're permitted by crooked officials to keep part of what they steal. Elias asked an old rancher who stood outside the adobe house if he had any food to spare. The man shook his head. "No," he said. "But there's a woman up ahead who can help you. You'll come to two houses, each on a hill. One is bad, and one is good." Elias stared blankly for a moment. "Well, which one is good?" he asked. "One is bad, and one is good," the man said again. OK, Elias thought, hopefully God will lead us to the good one.