The Devil's Highway: A True Story

by Luis Alberto Urrea

After all, they tell themselves, America’s a country with a state called Nuevo México. Other states are called Red, Snowy, Mountain, and Flowery; several of them were going to Flowery, and some of the others were going to Northern Caroline to see about making cigarettes. The state of Nuevo México even has a capital city called Holy Faith: Catholicism, New Mexico.

The filthy high tide of pollution met the road in the mountains, and the orange mist moved among dying trees like fog. As they dropped into the overpopulated valley, El Popo was gradually erased from sight. The sky turned gold, and the light that hit the streets was brown. Endless grids of buildings spilled into the distance.

Later, she calculated that the dead men’s flight alone had cost over sixty-eight thousand dollars. “What if,” she asked, “somebody had simply invested that amount in their villages to begin with?”