The deaf old woman genuflected.

The Indian kid looked uneasy. “And what do you know about it, señora?” he asked.

Señora, not señorita. That was ok. It was better than güey.

“It’s just a saying, forget it,” I assured him.

His eyes frosted over and he looked at me with disdain, and I knew the hook was in. Too damn easy. Poor kid, I thought, and returned to the view of the flatland. A few scrabble trees, a dried-up creek.

“Ok, fifty cents, you can have it… Hell, you can have it for nothing.”

I yawned.

“Go on, take it,” the kid said finally, resting the bottle on my knee.

No point torturing him anymore. “For your sake,” I said.

He smiled with relief. A big easy grin. A kid’s grin. Life hadn’t ground that out of him. Hadn’t seen too much of the world.

Twenty-one, twenty-two. Half a decade separated us. Half a dec and a lot of experience.

I unscrewed the bottle top, took a drink of the tepid water, and passed it back.

“Muy amable,” I said.

He put his hand over his heart. “Please think nothing of it,” he replied formally.

Somewhere, at least for a while, he’d been raised right with a lot of sisters and aunts. It made me curious.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Francisco.”

“I heard Pedro say you were from Nicaragua.”

“Originally, but I lived in the DF for a few years.”

“The DF?”

“That’s the Distrito Federal, you know, Mexico City, and then after that I moved to Juárez.”

Shit, I’d been planning on saying that I was from Mexico City too. Have to change that idea. “I see,” I said hastily. “So what are your plans in America?”

“I want to make money,” he said flatly. The old man murmured, the little kid grinned. Of course. I was the odd fish here. That’s why everybody went to America.

“Why didn’t you cross in Juárez?”

He leaned forward. “Vientos Huracánados,” he said in a whisper.