It was thirty feet across, with a pebbled sliver of shore on their side—like a gnarled fingernail—and rising grass and thick brush on the other. The water was dark, not brown or black, but deepest green, and it moved with a slight current. Up, down. Up, down. The river was breathing, and its breath was foul. Even high above it, they could smell that it was as thick and pungent as the unseen animal they had crossed.

Ripples rolled out across its surface, dimpling the green skin, before disappearing again as if they’d never appeared at all.

It didn’t look deep, but Chayo wouldn’t know for sure until they waded into it.

They had made it to the Río Bravo. Los Estados Unidos was on the other side.

Chayo did not know what he’d expected—gleaming towers, green fields, streets of perfect houses as he’d seen on TV. He’d never given it much thought, focusing only on getting here, and although he was from a small village and had not traveled to many places, he’d never been foolish enough to think there could be a real difference in a place only thirty feet away.

Still, he had expected . . . more . . . and it worried him that grass and rocks and canyon walls visible across the water looked no different from any of those they had walked through. Exactamente el mismo. He tried hard to find differences, staring closely, getting more desperate, and when he could find none—not a sign or a chain-link fence—he became scared that he’d brought them to the wrong river. He’d set them on the wrong path, and the real Río Bravo was still miles, or another one of those imagined worlds, away.

Neva was making ready to slide down the rise, toward the water, but it was Chayo who suddenly couldn’t, wouldn’t, move.

He was convinced now that even if it was the Río Bravo, they’d be unable to pass it. Someone or something would keep them out; some monstrous, invisible hand would push them away.

He sat like that for several moments, with Neva staring at him curiously, waiting. He caught sight of a bird, a large one—possibly un halcón—appearing above and behind them, gliding in a long, dropping arc. It was the gray of smoke, with a banded black and white tail, unlike any he had ever seen. It flew over them and he could feel its shadow on his skin as it passed overhead. It rose, dipped, turned on one of its powerful wings, and crossed over the river into a long row of mesquites on the other side.

It disappeared like the ripples on the river itself.

It had made it look so easy, effortless.

It reminded him that it was time to fly.

Para volar.