RL opened the gate and swung it open on squealing hinges. Ellis drove through and RL closed and re-locked the gate. He hopped in the passenger side and Ellis drove a rough road that took a weaving path among small hills and across shallow washes, until they reached the boxcar. It sat silent and rusting near a caliche hill.
The railroad car sat on a short stretch of railroad tracks that extended twenty feet beyond the boxcar on either end. Other rusted pieces of iron and railroad equipment lay scattered around. Off to the side was a small, ten-by-twelve shack that looked uninhabited.
Ellis parked among the trash closest to the boxcar and said, “Here we are.” He hopped out, as did RL.
Ellis opened the sliding door with some difficulty. The badly rusted rolle
rs squealed as they moved with the door’s motion. When it was open, Ellis said, “There, now it can air out a bit.” He motioned to the rear of the vehicle, “Let’s get those wets out of the back.”
RL lifted the rear door hatch and the aliens crawled out, with Adan the last. He stumbled and hit the ground, but one of the other helped him to his feet. Ben and Anselmo helped RL herd the backpackers and Adan.
Ellis pointed to the four backpacks of drugs, saying to Ben and Anselmo, “Put those in the brush over there. Hide it.” They carried the back packs by the straps, lugging them with one in each hand. Ellis motioned the others to the boxcar’s open door. The four men and one boy shuffled to the boxcar and climbed inside. Ellis slid the door closed and locked it.
Adan asked through the door, “Can we have some water?”
“Gonna go get some water for you right now.” He motioned to RL and they got in their vehicle, along with the other two men. He drove away while the white, hot sun blazed down on everything.
RL said, “Where are we going for water?”
“Don’t be stupid. They’ll be fine until we’re ready for them to transport the drugs.”
RL started to say something, but he saw Ellis touch the butt of his Glock, not looking at RL. Ellis said, “Everything’s copacetic.”
RL stared straight ahead as Ellis drove, but he thought about the terrible way those five people were going to die.
**
Adan felt for the back wall of the boxcar in the darkness as the four men huddled together near the door. Needle-like beams of sunlight pierced the gloom in three places, giving only enough light to make out vague shapes, or where the walls were. One of the men called to Adan to come join them, but he said no, that it was too hot, crowded together like that.
Beads of sweat rolled down Adan’s temples and down his neck to soak the collar of his shirt. The other men were also sweating, and Adan could smell them all the way across the boxcar.
He found the far corner and sat down, and as he did, his hand landed on an iron railroad spike someone had tossed in there. He pulled it close and hid it behind his leg.
An hour passed. The stifling heat rose in the boxcar like in an oven over glowing coals. Several of the men yelled for help, and continued yelling for a long time, until they tired and sat, exhausted on the wooden plank floor. One of them rolled on his side and vomited. The sour smell reached Adan and he almost threw up himself, but kept it down.
The air heated to the point it burned their nostrils when they breathed, and soon the men shed their shirts. Later, they shed their pants and shoes. They complained to each other about how terribly hot it was, talking as if Adan wasn’t there. Adan felt as if he was being roasted alive.
Six hours later, one of the men convulsed, shaking and moaning on the floor as his feet moved so his heels occasionally drummed the wood underneath.
An hour passed, and they all heard the man’s death rattle.
Two more died in the next hour.
Adan knew he had to do something or he would join them soon. His hand touched the iron spike. He grasped it, then felt for a gouged place he noticed earlier in the plank floor.
When his fingers found it again, he realized it was where someone had dug at the wood before, someone else who had been trapped in the boxcar. Slivers of wood lay scattered around the rough groove, and a few curls of wood still were attached to the floor at the edge of it.
The last man alive besides Adan made a moaning sound, and thrashed on the floor. His naked body made raw, obscene sounds as flesh tore and skin ripped from the rough wood planks. He asked for his mother in a childlike, quavering voice, which made the hair on Adan’s neck rise, and he moved close against the wall so the moaning man asking for his mother wouldn’t find him in his delirium.
Adan hacked and wriggled and pried with the point of the spike against the wood, slowly deepening and widening the groove already there. He didn’t sweat, his moisture was all gone. He was certain the blood was only dust in his veins. His skin felt as though it would burst, like a hot dog he had once seen explode in a microwave. It was so hot…
The last man died an hour before sundown. His breath whistled through his open mouth in uneven notes at the last, and his body didn’t move except at the very end when his arms spread wide and then relaxed in death.
Adan was scared in this dark, hot, smelly place with four dead bodies near him. He dug some more, even though his hands tore from the rough head on the iron spike. They ached from the effort. He couldn’t cry, there was no moisture for tears.
Adan missed his mother…
As the sun left the sky, a bit of relief from the heat came to Adan inside the boxcar, enough to revive him and leave him with a horrible, burning thirst like he had never experienced before.