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In May 2001, a group of people attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent. A place called The Devil's highway. On January 18, 1541, the first death recorded on The Devil's Highway was recorded. A group of men make a journey to attempt to cross the border. They begin to disoriented by dehydration and hypothermia. They have been surviving on prickly pears, and the cactus spines cutting their mouths. Locals believe it's haunted.

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Chapter 1: Rules of the Game (pg. 14-18)

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Chapter 1: Rules of the Game (pg. 14-18)

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In this chapter, the men are becoming dehydrated. The men continue to walk, not for survival, but for water. The men are praying to be found by la Migra. They can't decide if they should continue walking on the road or head for a nearby mountain. An explorer approaches the men. Unable to find a sign anywhere, Mike F., a Border Patrol agent, was making a turn back, when he spotted the lost walkers. Mike F. gestures the men to stay where they are. They don't seem to be a threat to him. There are stories along the border of Border Patrol officers handcuffing women, then groping and molesting them. Coyotes were shot in the head too.

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Chapter 1: Rules of the Game (pg. 18-28)

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Chapter 1: Rules of the Game (pg. 18-28)

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Southern Arizona has been divided into two Border Patrol sections. 200,000 immigrants passed through just one part of the Tuscon sector each year and just has many died in the crossing.

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Don Moi was a recruiter for the Northern Coyotes. Don Moi drove around in Veracruz with his American car and smoking his American cigarettes. He was a walking ad for the good life. He was seen as Robin Hood for the people in Veracruz. Don Moi was approached by the Bautistas men. Don Moi explained that he would charge 20,000 pesos for the journey, but assured him they could save money if they were man enough to walk in the desert instead of catching a ride. The men agreed and Don Moi lowered the price to 13,000 pesos. Don moi worked for the mighty Chespiro, to offer the men loans.

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The Mexican government has placed a sign in Sasabe, which explains in Spanish, that coyotes don't care about your safety or the safety of your family. Many walkers can't read the sign and yet Mexico is trying to stop them from crossing. The Mexican army men who patrol the border have been paid off by the Coyotes. The Mexican government previously had offered immigrants "survival kits" filled with water, snacks, and even condoms. The Wellton 26 did not crossed at Sasabe. They crossed in an area where there was likely only a bit of sagging barbed wire. Border slang, however, refers to Coyotes as Los Polleros, or chicken-wranglers and to walkers as pollos. Luis and Daniel Cercas were the brothers who ran the gang which lured in the Wellton 26 into the desert. Daniel worked in Mexico and was known as El Chespiro. Luis worked in Pheonix

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There are three guides that lead the Wellton 26. One will never be known, one is known by a code name, and the other is achieved "polleros". The guias earn about a hundred dollars a head for leading groups over the border. They never reveal their names and only go by their code names. Many guides drug their walkers to make them walk faster, disregarding the fact they might die. The leader of the Wellton 26 is a nineteen year old from Guadalajara. He wore his "in a silly punk rock style with red-dyed forelock hanging over his eye". He earned the name "Rooster Boy", and though he went by Mendez, his real name was Jesus Antonio and was coincidentally born on December 25th. In the summer of 2002, a pollero driver with 23 pollos on board, was driving the wrong way on Interstate 8 in California. Unfortunately, his van crashed head onto a Ford Explorer and sent it flying off.

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Jesus had come illegally from Guadalajara to work in San Antonio brickyard. He hated the brick work but later, he met Maradona. Jesus's life would later change after "Chespiro" himself appeared like the devil in the brickyard and whispered temptations in Jesus's ear. Maradona told Jesus he was making thousands of dollars a week. Jesus was still enthused and told Maradona he wanted in. Jesus liked bold music. Soon he had a "gangster" hustle, an apartment, a morra, and money. He saw himself reflected in the song he was listening to on the radio. There are many people out working along the border looking to catch illegals, including human rights groups walking around hoping to save dying walkers, as well as prospectors, drug smugglers, and journalists. Jesus and Maradona loaded illegals onto a bus to Sonoita. Maradona showed Jesus how to use the landscape to navigate, and the two-day went off without their pitch, After, Jesus was caught multiple times and both, Mardona and Jesus, were transferred from San Luis to Sonoita.

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Jesus and Maradona rented rooms in a hotel. El Negro hooked the two of them up with their "teachers", who went by Santos and Lauro. The new route out of Sonoita was horrible but Jesus proudly saw it more than a desert. Their walk was now anywhere between 35 and 65 miles long. After a little while, Jesus finds himself a girlfriend and soon left to a hotel to move in with her. Later he adopted her last name, Mendez, as his alias.

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Chapter 7: A Pepsi for the Apocalypse (pg. 98-105)

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Chapter 7: A Pepsi for the Apocalypse (pg. 98-105)

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Mendez wakes up hungover and he says his goodbye to his girlfriend Celia. He goes to Maradona's room and tries to rouse him by knocking on the door but can't. Mendez calls El Negro to tell him Maradona is either gone or very drunk he can't be woken up. El Negro calls Santos and Lauro to fill in for Maradona. At the safehouse, the walkers are beginning to wake up. They eat so little breakfast and they go to the store to buy enough water for journey. Mendez tells them to meet him at the bus station At the corner store, the walkers buy waters with candy, chocolates, and Pepsi's. At the bus station, Mendez tells the walkers to "act normal" while he bribes the bus driver. The walkers must pay 50 pesos each for passage to the border, and the bus driver takes their money without a word. After successfully passing the checkpoint, Mendez instructs the driver to drop them off in  sandy spot just south of a rest area. The men get off the bus and run through the sand to the border, where they step over the a rust barbed wire fence. Mendez welcomes the men to the United States. After 5 minutes, Mendez stops the men and tells them they are going to take another ride. Mendez walks down the road and disappears. He comes back after a while in a van driven by El Moreno.

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Chapter 8: Bad Step at Bluebird (pg. 106-114)

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Chapter 8: Bad Step at Bluebird (pg. 106-114)

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The men climb a steep hill and although they're in good shape, the trek is still proving "brutal". Reymundo Sr. attempts to help his son, Reymundo Jr., with the ascent. Mendez knows that the surest way to be La Migra is to keep high country and avoid the flat planes of the desert. As the night falls, the men reach the hill top, and Mendez points out another peak of the horizon. He assures the men that the second desert they must pass through is beyond that hill and their pickup point will just be another short journey. At 11:30 p.m., Mendez would later claim La Migra caught them off guard by bright lights. Mendez yells out "La Migra" and the men scattered. However, this seemed mysterious to Mendez. Mendez would panic if he saw a Border Patrol car, as he "certainly ducked and hidden from scores of headlights in his career". He insisted that running back to the desert was a "suicidal gesture". He speculates that maybe civilian border patrol agents were out at night, attempting to entertain themselves by chasing walkers. As the men hunch down in a bush, it begins to rain. They had thought they successfully outran La Migra and many of them took the rest to stop to enjoy their snacks they had bought. However, in reality, the highway was not nearby. They do not know they are in "uncharted territory".

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Chapter 9: Killed by the Light (pg. 115-129)

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Chapter 9: Killed by the Light (pg. 115-129)

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At six in the morning, the desert starts to heat up. Animals awaken, and the men worry they are lost. Mendez reassures them that they are on track. The heat slams into the men suddenly and brutally as morning arrives. Mendez yet makes another fatal error: he urges the men to walk on in the light, perhaps unaware that "they had already begun to die".

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On Sunday, May 20 at 6:00 a.m., chaos falls upon the Wellton 26. The men are deep in the Cabeza Prieta. If Mendez had known where to look, he could've found several water spots. The men grow angry even as they begin to despair, but continue to follow Mendez. Mendez repeatedly tries to lead the men over the Growler Mountains. believing they were all that stood between their group and the salvation of Ajo. Mendez is well aware that if their group does not make it to Ajo, they will die, and his frustration and fear both grow. Mendez's trail, by midmorning, grows confused and jerky, and the group's "integrity as a unit" is greatly compromised. Many start to fall behind but they continue the journey with so little water left. At noon, the group stops to rest and Mendez reassures them that there are just a "few more miles left".

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Urrea includes this chapter because he wants to talk about the victims stories. He wants us to understand that these people were real and had real dreams and real lives. He wants us to connect with the people and understand that they had goals in life but it ended short

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The night of Sunday, May 20, convinced even Mendez that they were all going to die. Either Mendez called a group meeting or the men had a meeting and then brought their demands to Mendez. Either way, all agreed they were doomed if Mendez did not strike out on his own in an attempt to find help or water. Mendez first told the men he'd go alone or take his partner, Lauro. Whether the group "pressed their money to him and asked him to get water, to get a vehicle and a driver", or whether Mendez demanded money to save them, he took between $70-$300 for his own journey and departed, instructing the men to wait where they are. The men wait for Mendez's return while tormented with heat and thirst.

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Five of the men climbed up a mountain to look for lights. They spot a migra truck patrolling the desert. They ran down, scraping their hands, but there was no way to reach him. They come upon some brush and decided to start a fire to signal for help. Nobody comes though, and the men again find themselves waiting in vain. On Tuesday, May 22, it was the high spike of the heat wave. The men walk on and the first member of the group begin to die. Disoriented, few of the men realize the group is slowly becoming smaller and smaller. It was impossible for them to know who in the group had died. The men begin to hallucinate and some call for their mothers. Luckily Isidro and Mario find some prickly pears to fend off dehydration. Reymundo Jr. dies in his father's arms. One man attempts to bury himself in the sand and is "barbecued" in the dirt. Julian Malaga tears up his money and Reymundo Sr. does too. One man removes all his clothes and lies on his back and dies.

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Mendez and Lauro struggle through the desert on their own. They were getting closer to salvation, but Lauro was becoming weak. He sits down to rest and falls asleep. Mendez tries to wake him up.He tries shaking him and slapping him, but Lauro doesn't wake up. Mendez takes the money Lauro had left and continues to walk but astonishingly, he couldn't stand up. His legs gave out and he had to crawl until the effort exhausts him, and he too falls asleep. On Wednesday, May 23, more men in the group have fallen to the ground, and a small "commando" group of five, led by the Manzano brothers, makes a "final dash for salvation". They approach the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range aware that they are dying when Mike F. spots them. Mario tells Mike that there are more men in the hills. Mike calls in "Banzai run" for more officers possible. Within 10 minutes of Mike F. finding the men and giving them water, the Migra are already fully engaged in a rescue mission. Mike F., with the lost walkers in his car, drives through the desert, cutting for more sign. A Marine pilot in a helicopter spots 10 bodies on the ground, 9 are alive and are loaded in the helicopter. While Marines, EMT's, and rangers hunt all night for other survivors, Mendez remains asleep. When he and Lauro are finally found, Lauro is dead. Edgar Adrien Martinez, who has been lying in the heat for days, dies just as he is being saved.

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The Border Patrol has attempted to "palm the survivors off on the hospital in Yuma without arresting them," in order to ensure them that the medical bills will be the hospital's responsibility, and the governments. One of the Doctors, David Haynes, told the reporters that the men looked like mummies. Nine men were in fair condition, two were serious, and one was in critical. The men were placed in rooms, some together and some alone, and interrogations begin. Rita Vargas, the Mexican consul in Calexico, is now on the case. Because Yuma, "and by any extension Wellton" had no consulate at the time Vargas was responsible

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Rita arrives to supervise the police interrogations, while still hounding Mexican pols. The survivors are officially arrested now, will be pumped full of water, and antibiotics, and saline solution. They were going to be sent to Phoenix to some holding cells. They are suddenly "paid professional narrators," and, realizing they would be allowed to stay as long as they continued to tell their stories Mendez composes a letter expressing his contrition, apologizing and attempting to declare his innocence. The dead bodies were shipped to examiners in Tuscon. The ride was relaxed and out of the harsh sun, and "the entire trip that had killed them" took only a couple of hours by car. "If you listened, you could hear them whispering. We're going home."

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The Mexican president Vicente Fox sends the Mexican chief of Migratory Affairs, the poet Juan Hernandez, to meet with the survivors. Hernandez tells them that they are "heroes of the republic." Meanwhile, the guards watch over Mendez like a prey. Mendez knows his life is over. He refused to snitch on Don Moi, El Negro, or the Cercas brother. The Medical examiners confirmed that the men, in the Yuma 14, died of exposure and of hypothermia. Preparing the bodies for shipment costs thousands of dollars per body, not including the coffins and the shipping trays. The total cost of the dead have incurred is $25,000. The dead are flown home to Veracruz. When the plane landed, Rita notices there are crowds of people waiting. The governor is in attendance, as are reporters, photographers, and bands. As she deplanes, Rita is overtaken by the crowds. Rita meets with the Yuma 14 families and watches as a young women reads a prepared statement for the cameras on their behalf. She's disgusted with the way that "every moment of the arrival has been stage managed." At her hotel that night, unable to sleep, Rita calculates that the flight for the dead costs $68,000 and wonders what would've happened "if somebody had simply invested that amount in their villages to begin with."

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Mendez goes to jail in Phoenix and continues to stonewall interviews. His appointed lawyer attempts to construct a case on his behalf, trying to imply that the Border Patrol agents who lit the walkers up at Bluebird pass did so intentionally and were the same agents who rescued the men in the desert at the end of their ordeal.

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The Yuma and Wellton Border Patrol understood they needed to take proactive rather than reactive stance in saving lives of those who become lost on the Devil's Highway. They upped the number of BORSTAR agents on patrol brought portable army buildings right to the middle of the Devil's Highway, and designed "lifesaving towers", which serve as emergency checkpoints. Urrea considers the hard facts and figures about immigration. Far fewer Mexicans are coming over the border than "politicians and talk show hosts" would have Americans believe. Even illegal workers pay taxes by default, the numbers are shaved off their paychecks automatically, and American jobs are not at risk.

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Ten years have passed since the release of The Devil's Highway and 13 years since the deaths of the Yuma 14. The Devil's Highway has immediately taken off. The author (Luis Alberto Urrea) reveals that the deeper idea eventually became one of bearing witness to "an exodus straight from biblical template," to which nobody seemed to be paying attention. He began to realize the ways to in which blame is often mislaid in border issues, especially where the Border Patrol is concerned.

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Urrea briefly notes that he left out his own personal experiences along the border during the research and the writing of The Devil's Highway. He reveals that he accidentally crossed paths with Don Moi before he even knew who he was, and that he learned a great deal from Border Patrol Agents, unfortunately, Urrea has "lost track" with the survivors. He also revealed that Reymundo Sr.'s nephew wrote to him after the book's publication, expressing gratitude to Urrea for writing the truth of what happened to his uncle and confessing that he himself made the same journey his uncle did and survived. Reymundo Sr.'s nephew now holds a Ph.D and is now a well known professor. He hopes to "save the border."