Translation of kreuzen

A bystander who watched the entire scene all the time decided to help me. He was an older man, around seventy, but nonetheless he went to the oldest of these kids and slapped him. The boy was sixteen.
I took my backpack and looked for a minibus that would take me a little outside of the town to a small settlement called El Panchan. I arrived there very early and no rooms were available yet.
Luckily the town was small and the hotel manager could call all taxi stations. They checked it through their radios and an hour later the driver was back with our bags. He did not want to be paid extra, but I insisted.