ON THEIR WAY OUT OF TOWN, JOSe PULLED OVER AT A ROADSIDE stand selling pieces of grilled chicken and orange soda in old Fanta bottles, scratched and scarred from years of reuse. The boy behind the cinder-block counter who took their money could only have been six or seven. His arms were little more than stubby claws and Casey stared back behind them at the plumes of smoke, wondering. They sat on a metal bench in the shade of the shack. Isodora tore into the meat, pulling away pieces and slipping them into her little girl's eager mouth.
They wiped their fingers on bits of newspaper and climbed into the jeep. Casey rode in back so that Isodora could huddle up behind the windshield with her baby. Jose slowed for the worst of the bumps and after a while the baby stopped crying and faded off to sleep. They hit the main highway going north at about three in the afternoon. The hot pavement shed its heat, waffling the air. Casey longed for the relative coolness of the dusty and broken country roads. Blue mountains turned green and the road climbed into a pass. At its peak, the air cooled and a field of deep blue smiled down at them from beyond the treetops. The oasis quickly faded as they descended into the waiting reds, browns, and yellows of the wasteland beyond.
The mountains were soon nothing but distant purple shadows, cloaked in hot haze. Tractor trailers made up most of the traffic on the road. Occasionally they passed a car or a pickup truck whose driver would stare at the unlikely group. Jose pulled over for gas outside a small town built from corrugated metal and crumbling concrete. He came out from paying at the station carrying a plastic bag filled with sweaty water bottles. They chugged the water and got back onto the highway. Soon, on the horizon ahead, a brown-and-yellow cloud appeared. Off toward the east, a bruised sky brooded and flickered with lightning.
Jose pulled off the highway, stood up with his hands on the windshield, and studied the sky. Big tractor trailers whooshed by without slowing, whipping them with streams of grit and dust.
"Weather usually comes west to east," he said, glancing back at Casey and giving her a knowing nod toward Isodora and her baby. "Why it's coming from the wrong direction and what it means, I don't know. I think we can beat it. If it looks bad, we'll have to get off and find a hotel, fast. What do you think?"
"Let's try," Casey said. "I'd like to at least make it across the border before we stop."
Jose fell back into his seat and ground the gears, bringing the jeep back up to speed. They crept toward the brown cloud of smoke and soon saw that its source lay just beyond a low rise of hills where the land began to dip toward the Rio Grande. They had nearly reached Nuevo Laredo when Casey sniffed the air and poked Jose's shoulder.
"You smell that?" Casey said, shouting above the whine of the jeep and the flap of air.
Jose nodded. "Stinks like hell."
"I can taste it," Casey said, studying the hills and just making out the glint of a metal stack.
The road soon rose and in a cleft between two hills, the factory made itself known on the plain below. Power lines running alongside the road detoured down to it and a wide stone road ran perpendicular to the highway. Shiny metal gates guarding the road and the fence, all of fourteen feet and capped with loops of concertina wire, stretched off into the distance, marking the boundaries of the place. Casey squinted and stared at a single pale blue sign whose words she could not read. Beyond, the storm rolled toward them. Above, the heavy brown swell of filthy air swirled and grew.
Jose pulled off the road and rose from his seat. Casey stood on the back of her seat, a full foot higher than Jose.
"The priest said a factory up north," she said, her face directed into the coming wind. "You don't think?"
Thunder rumbled from a distance.
"I think most times people wouldn't smell it like this," Jose said, "but the wind's just right, coming out of the east with this storm. A drug factory? Why not? That smell, God, it's awful."
Casey had her hand over her mouth and nose. She took out her cell phone to take a picture. As she did, the bark of a siren made her jump. A black police car with white doors had pulled off the highway behind them, its blue-and-red lights flashing. Two federales in blue uniforms and shiny midnight hats jumped out and scrambled up alongside the jeep with their hands on the holsters of their guns.
They barked out orders that Casey didn't understand. She looked to Jose, who glared back at the cop closest to him. Isodora clutched her baby tight and whined.
"What the hell do they want?" Casey said.
Before Jose could answer, the cops drew their guns and began to shout.