El Tren de la Muerte

Migrants up ahead shout warnings that the Lecheria station is coming up; they have to jump before they're spotted by police or rail security. Even after weeks of plunging off moving trains, Elias hasn't gotten used to it. He forces himself to leap, clenches his jaws against the pain as he hits the ground and rolls roughly over dirt and rocks. Feeling the sting of skinned elbows, he stands and surveys the landscape. There are smoke-spewing factories, warehouses and squares of farmland full of green grass and munching goats. He finds his friends ahead, dusting themselves off, and together they walk along the street by the station, past bodegas and tire shops and bars. Within an hour, they're inside a store chatting with a tall, pleasant-faced man in his late 30s. His name is Martin, and as he polishes off a beer, he invites the Hondurans home for dinner and drinks. They're welcome to sleep in his yard, he says. Elias pauses. Since that day in Chiapas, each time someone offers help, his stomach tightens. He looks hard at the man. Martin seems genuinely friendly, and Elias has a good feeling about him. Despite his fear, he chooses to trust it.

Martin tells them he's a guide and can secure their passage to Texas for $2,100 each, $1,000 up front. He leads them to his house and asks them what size shirts and pants they wear—he's noticed the tears and stains and caked dirt. He leaves and returns with a pile of clothes, tossing Elias a white button-up and size 34 dress pants. Later, Martin takes them to a nearby store. Elias, who doesn't drink alcohol, selects a Coke while the others line up to buy bottles of Corona. A tough-looking Salvadoran man walks in. He isn't covered with tattoos like the gangsters Elias has seen before, but he looks just as mean. From the moment he walks up to the counter, it's clear he has nothing but bad intentions.

"All Hondurans are motherfuckers," the man declares to the Honduran store owner.

"We'll see about that," the owner, a burly man in his 40s, replies, narrowing his eyes.

"I'm Salvatrucha, motherfucker," the man says, referring to the Central American street gang.

Elias attempts to defuse the tension. "Don't fight," he says. "We're all Central American."

The Salvadoran turns and lifts his shirt to show a machete strapped around his waist. "I don't give a shit," he says. "If this fight were with you, I'd have already slit your throat."

Without warning, the petite woman who's married to the owner darts out from behind the counter and unsheathes the gangster's machete in one swift motion. "You won't be fighting in here!" she yells, holding the machete in the air. Her husband is beside her now. For a moment the young man's face registers shock and confusion, but he says nothing and turns to leave.

Elias can't believe it—how is it possible that this man, a member of the legendary Mara Salvatrucha, was just disarmed by a tiny shop owner's wife? And it's not over. The store owner grabs the gangster by the shirt and punches him repeatedly in the face. When the man's legs buckle he drags him out front by the collar and leaves him in the gutter, throwing a few last punches. "Don't you ever come back here," he says.

The migrants watch, holding their drinks in silence.

There's a Spanish expression: "Todo se compra, Todo se vende." "Everything can be bought or sold." Perhaps nowhere is it truer than along the human smuggling routes through Mexico. Migrants are routinely beaten and robbed by cops and extorted by immigration agents. And as much as migrants depend on smugglers for at least part of the journey, it's difficult to tell which ones they can trust.

In Tenosique, I meet a muscular man with tattoos on his arms and a rosary around his neck. The migrants call him Laredo, which is stitched in white letters on his navy baseball cap. When I ask if he's made this trip before, he nods indulgently, as if I've asked if he can ride a bike. "I've lived in Austin, Boston, Kansas. I've entered the country 20 times. Crossing here isn't hard, it's getting across the border up there," he says, leaning casually on a long machete. I wonder if he is a smuggler, and later, Salas, the Beta coordinator, confirms my suspicions. "Oh, yeah—it's obvious he's a pollero," she says, using a common term for coyote.