This is the story of a boy of about fifteen who travels through Mexico to the borders of the USA. Set in the 1990` s, at the beginning of the story the main character, Santiago Molina, reflects on his early life in a small village near the town of San Cristobal de las Casas in the east of Mexico. Soldiers have killed his father, his older sister has run off with a boyfriend, and now tensions between himself and his mother have caused him also to set off on the long trip to the States. After walking for several weeks he reaches Mexico City, where he is beaten up by a gang and then by the police after being arrested for stealing. Eventually, he is found by an unexpected benefactor who turns out to be a leading barrister and campaigner for justice, and who takes him home to his family and his large estate. Santiago is happy but leaves after venturing back into Mexico City to shoot the police officer who assaulted and abused him. The police are now after him. On reaching Nogales he joins in with the kids who live in one of the floodwater tunnels running below the city of this border town. The girl he is in love with is drowned in a flash flood. To start a new life he has to get to the end of the tunnel, on the other side of the border.