THEY’D TAKEN THE BUSES two hours earlier outside Ojinaga, bargaining with the drivers until they’d agreed to take the thirty-five students of the Escuela Normal Rural Librado Rivera to Chihuahua City. It was the way of things, a practice that had been going on for as long as the rural schools had existed. With no funding from the government, the normalistas—all teachers-in-training for Mexico’s most remote farming areas—had become accustomed to making deals with local bus and van drivers, borrowing and begging and offering them food and lodging and what little money they had in exchange for help. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes not, but they took the buses all the time to visit the remote schools they would eventually be responsible for or to pick up supplies . . . and of course, to go to protests. On this occasion they were going to Chihuahua City to join other normalistas in a great rally against government corruption. Next fall they’d need them again to make their way to Mexico City itself, to commemorate the 1968 massacre of students and civilians by government security forces in Tlatelolco, in the great Plaza de las Tres Culturas. They’d sing and draw chalk outlines of the dead and bleed fake blood on scribbled doves.

Carry signs and chant.

“¡Yo no estaba allí, pero no voy a olvidar!” I wasn’t there, but I won’t forget!

Again, it was the way of things. All the normalistas were going to be teachers, but most were activists, too, at heart. They loved their country and wanted better for it.

Chayo, a first-year, along with Castel and Juan Pablo and Batista, was responsible for getting the buses for the trip to Chihuahua. They found the first at Calle Segunda, near Federal Highway 16. The bus had been empty and the driver had been lighthearted. A big man, round and ruddy as the navelinas Castel liked so much (so Chayo called him “Naranja”), drinking two warm Cokes and eating an empanada his wife had made; laughing easily at Juan Pablo’s jokes. He told dirty stories of his own youth and they all liked him. They found the second on Calle del Pacífico, but this one had been less enthusiastic. He already had paying passengers, a handful of old abuelas and teenagers no older than the normalistas themselves, and only agreed to their request if he could first drop them at the bus station and then talk with his dispatch.

He had to make arrangements for the rest of his shift and have the tires checked for such a long trip.