Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario Page B

perch fourteen feet up, he can see anyone approaching on either side of the tracks up ahead or from another car. Below, at each end, the hopper’s wheels are exposed: shiny metal, three feet in diameter, five inches thick, churning. He stays as far away as he can.
    He doesn’t carry anything that might keep him from running fast. At most, if it is exceptionally hot, he ties a nylon string on an empty plastic bottle, wraps it around his arm, and fills the bottle with water when he can.
    Some migrants climb on board with a toothbrush tucked into a pocket. A few allow themselves a small reminder of family. One father wraps his eight-year-old daughter’s favorite hair band around his wrist. Others bring a small Bible with telephone numbers, penciled in the margins, of their mothers or fathers or other relatives in the United States. Maybe nail clippers, a rosary, or a scapular with a tiny drawing of San Cristóbal, the patron saint of travelers, or of San Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of desperate situations.
    As usual, the train lurches hard from side to side. Enrique holds on with both hands. Occasionally, the train speeds up or slows down, smashing couplers together and jarring him backward or forward. The wheels rumble, screech, and clang. Sometimes each car rocks the other way from the ones ahead and behind.
El Gusano de Hierro,
some migrants call it. The Iron Worm.
    In Chiapas, the tracks are twenty years old. Some of the ties sink, especially during the rainy season, when the roadbed turns soggy and soft. Grass grows over the rails, making them slippery.
    When the cars round a bend, they feel as if they might overturn. Enrique’s train runs only a few times a week, but it averages three derailments a month—seventeen accidents in a particularly bad month—by the count of Jorge Reinoso, chief of operations for Ferrocarriles Chiapas-Mayab, the railroad. One year before, a hopper like Enrique’s overturned with a load of sand, burying three migrants alive. In another spot, six hoppers tumbled over. One migrant was crushed between the train car and a bridge the train was crossing. Another migrant was found dead downstream. The cars’ rusty remains are scattered, upside down, next to the tracks. Enrique was once on a train that derailed. His car lurched so violently that he briefly thought of jumping off to save himself. Enrique rarely lets himself admit fear, but he is scared that his car might tip.
El Tren de la Muerte,
some migrants call it. The Train of Death.
    Others cast the train in a more positive light. They believe it has a noble purpose. Sometimes, the train tops are packed with migrants. They face north, toward a new land, a neverending exodus.
El Tren Peregrino,
they call it. The Pilgrim’s Train.
    Enrique is struck by the magic of the train—its power and its ability to take him to his mother. To him, it is
El Caballo de Hierro.
The Iron Horse.
    The train picks up speed. It passes a brown river that smells of sewage. Then a dark form emerges ahead. Migrants at the front of the train, nearest to the locomotive, call back a warning over the train’s deafening din. They sound an alarm, migrant to migrant, car to car.
“¡Rama!”
the migrants yell. “Branch!” They duck.
    Enrique grips the hopper. To avoid the branches, he sways from side to side. All of the riders sway in unison, ducking the same branches—left, then right. One moment of carelessness—a glance down at a watch, a look toward the back of the train at the wrong time—and the branches will hurl them into the air. Matilda de la Rosa, who lives by the tracks, recalls a migrant who came to her door with an eyeball hanging on his cheek. He cupped it near his face, in his right hand. He told her, “The train ripped out my eye.”
    A DREADED STOP
    Each time the train slows, Enrique goes on high alert for
la migra.
Migrants wake one another and begin climbing down to prepare to