And he wasn’t the only one, not after Iker—with his round, pockmarked face pressed against the window—had called out that the truck was empty anyway. Abandonado. Its driver having quickly vanished into the dark to join the swiftly circling shadows, the truck left idling in the intersection.

Only its lights alive, pointed at them like cold, staring eyes. Seeing nothing.

Ojos de los muertos.

Holding Neva’s hand, feeling her heartbeat in his fingers, Chayo had thought he could hear the empty truck’s radio still chattering to itself, ghostly voices from far away. A mouthful of static. Fantasmas whispering in the hot night and the empty air, murmuring about them: two busloads of young students, trapped in the street.

So it was Castel alone who’d stepped down from the bus to face the truck, calling out to the rest of them still huddled on the bus—all those like Chayo who’d sat back down, afraid:

“. . . It’s nothing, we’ll push it out of the way. Have heart!”

¡Tener corazón!

Castel, who was going to teach in Chiquero later in the year, who liked navelina oranges more than anyone Chayo had ever known.

Castel, from Meoqui, who also wanted to be a poet, someday.

Castel, who had never listened to anyone about anything and made everything an argument, smiling as he did so, the gap between his two front teeth far too wide.

Castel, who took off his shirt to wave wildly in front of him.

Un pequeño torero.

Only Castel . . . whose voice was far too big for that small, exposed body.

Surrounded by light.

Naked.

“We are unarmed. Who do you think you are? The night cannot hide you! We see all of you.”

¡Los vemos a todos ustedes!

But Chayo couldn’t see anything, not really. The night was too dark. It had become this living thing, with its black lungs and beating red streetlight heart and hot, open mouth.

And . . .

Ojos de los muertos.

The night had come alive to swallow them whole and make them disappear.

Or Chayo hadn’t wanted to see, as Neva buried her face in his arm, turning them both away . . .

. . . when the shooting began.

Leaving Castel alone in that pooled light, looking up into the night sky, searching for that mysterious church bell they’d all heard and Chayo would never forget.

Castel, still calling out, “It’s okay. No fear, my friends. They’re shooting in the air.”

But they weren’t.

—