The Devil's Highway

Crosses mark the 120-mile desert trail from Sonoyta, Mexico, to San Luis, Ariz. Under the crosses are the corpses of wanderers who have died along its arid and terrible wastes. In Mexico it is called "El Camino del Diablo." Last week seven new crosses were put up on the Devil's Highway.

German Cornejo, 52-year-old Mexican farm worker, heard there might be some kind of work for him across the border. He loaded relatives and friends into his truck and from Sonoyta lightheartedly set forth. Nineteen miles from San Luis the truck's wheels sank into the sand, stuck fast.

Four days later, Francisco Arvallo, a peddler, driving along the same route, came upon Cornejo's stalled truck. Near by was a woman who screamed at him and waved a hat. It was Cornejo's daughter, Socorro. A man, Francisco Flores, was alive, lying under a bush. He had cut one wrist, tried to slake his thirst with his own blood. These two were the only survivors. Some of the others had stumbled for miles across the sand, looking for water. Nine miles off, Tomas Ponce had scratched on border monument No. 201: "Dying of thirst, hungry." Dead was lighthearted German Cornejo. Dead was his 17-year-old son Rafael, who, desperate with suffering, had slashed his own throat.