Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista

by Matthew Bracken

  “Salt Lake City. I’m going to take 287, up into Colorado. We don’t hardly ever go into New Mexico, not anymore. Almost never.”

  “What’s the matter with New Mexico?”

  “What’s the matter with New Mexico? Where have you been, darlin’? First of all, it’s Nuevo Mexico now, that’s what they call it. I can take you as far west on 40 as Amarillo, but that’s where I turn north, and if I don’t…”

  “I know. Your GPS rats you out.” She heaved a sigh in frustration.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he asked. “Makes me mighty nervous, you pointing that thing at me.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He withdrew a Winston from a pack in his console, and lit it one handed, his left hand on the big wheel. “You in trouble?” He glanced over at Ranya, taking in the incongruent tan lines on her arms, the residual ink marks on her neck, and the choppy haircut. “Look, I’ve had my own run-ins with the law. I’ve done some time, in my younger days.”

  She changed the subject. “So, what’s the deal with New Mexico?”

  “Shit. That place is messed up bad, even more since last year. That’s when they passed the ‘Spanish only’ laws. Español Solamente, they call it. You speak Spanish?”

  “I can speak it okay.”

  “Well, you’ll need to speak it good in Nuevo Mexico. Most of the highway signs are in Spanish now; almost everything is. They made all the cops take a Spanish test, and fired everybody who didn’t pass it. All the gringo cops got the axe. They did it after Idaho passed an English-only law—at least I think Idaho was the first. That’s what I heard on talk radio, anyway. Montana and Wyoming did it too—passed English only—and then they started booting out the illegals. You know, illegal alien Mexicans, mostly. Even ones that had the amnesty—they said the federal amnesty didn’t count, at least not in Idaho and Montana.”

  “How could they do that, if the illegals had been given amnesty?”

  “Well, it was amnesty, but not exactly citizenship, not yet. It was pretty complicated. Anyway, they said the illegals had gotten faked, I mean forged—no, that’s not the word either—no, it was ‘fraud,’ that’s it. Up north, they said the illegals had gotten the amnesty ‘by fraudulent means,’ so it was no good. They started checking, and thousands of illegals were all supposedly living at the same addresses for years and years, and working at the same labor centers. The records were all the same, just Xerox copies with different names. Can you imagine? So they started taking away the amnesty, and kicking them out.”

  “Kicking them out to where? Mexico?”

  “No, just over their state lines—but they couldn’t stay there either. Like in Wyoming and Colorado, the state police met the deportation buses at the state lines, and they escorted them south.”

  “They deported all of the illegal aliens out of Idaho?”

  “Oh no, they didn't have to. Once Idaho and Montana took away the bogus amnesties and went after the employers, the illegals started leaving on their own. No jobs, no more free school, no more free medicine, no food stamps, stuff like that. Washington raised hell, but they stuck at it. They didn’t have to use a lot of buses—mostly the illegals left on their own, when the gravy train dried up. I mean, if you’re picked up and deported on a bus, that means your car gets left behind, right? Most of the illegals decided they’d rather drive out and keep their cars, than get put on a bus. This was really big news—where were you that you didn’t hear about it?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Well, okay. Anyway, that’s part of why it’s so crazy in New Mexico now: the ones that got booted out of the other states are really pissed off—they seriously have it in for gringos. It’s nothing but hassles, driving through. You’d think you were in friggin’ Castro Cuba or some damn communist country! Trucks get impounded and confiscated right and left. And now they’ve got these new cops, called Milicias. They’re the ‘brown berets,’ and they have special checkpoints all over the place. Anyway, I won’t go into Nuevo Mexico, no ma’am, not if I don’t have to.

  I’ll take 287 straight up into Colorado instead, even though it’s longer. This is my truck we’re sitting in, and I aim to keep it.”

  Ranya sighed again in resignation. “Sign we just passed says it’s two hundred miles to Amarillo. Three hours, right? Any problems at the Texas state line? Weigh stations, checkpoints, things like that?” She still held the Glock across her lap, now only casually pointed at him.

  “There’s an inspection station a few miles in. It’s not open, or it shouldn’t be. And Texas doesn’t care about the federal gun laws, if that’s what you mean by checkpoints. Nothing like back East. I can find out about it out on the CB.” He reached for the radio microphone, mounted in the ceiling.

  She waved the pistol at him, bringing his hand quickly back to the wheel. “No radio. We’ll take our chances.” Traffic was sparse out here in western Oklahoma. An unusual percentage of the vehicles that she did see seemed to be loaded down with luggage, furniture, and jerry cans, somehow reminiscent of a distant generation of Okies fleeing the dustbowl days of the 1930s. “The Grapes of Wrath.” She remembered the Steinbeck classic from high school English class. It had seemed like ancient history at the time.

  After long minutes of silence between them, he glanced over at Ranya and said, “Look, if you’re really set on going to Albuquerque, I know where you want to go first. It’s a place in Texas, north of Amarillo. If I wanted to find the best way into New Mexico, with no hassles, it’s where I’d go. I mean, I’ve been in trouble with the law, I know how it…”

  “Save it. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Oh, I think I do know! Look, can you please put the gun away? Point it somewhere else? I don’t need a heart attack, okay? If I wreck this thing, it won’t do either of us any good. And grab a couple of sodas out of the bag down there. Please? If my mouth was any drier, it’d catch on fire.” He turned and looked at her. “Listen lady, I’m trying to help you, okay? I’ll drop you off at a place where you’ll be clear, and then you can find your own way into New Mexico. It’s a campground a little west of

  287. Honest, it’s your best bet. Deal?”

  Ranya kept her hand on the Glock, but she pointed it forward, away from the driver, her finger well clear of the trigger. “Deal.” Then she reached into the plastic shopping bag on the floor with her left hand, and twisted out a pair of cold Mountain Dews from a six-pack.

  ***

  It was after dark when he let Ranya out. He stopped the eighteen-wheeler on the shoulder of the highway before an overpass. She climbed down, thanking him before she slammed the truck’s door shut, and watched as his red taillights diminished and disappeared. If he was going to call the police, there was nothing stopping him now.

  She hiked an hour west from 287 on the dirt shoulder of the asphalt county road. She stepped away from the road and crouched behind scrub at the first hint of headlights, until the occasional vehicles were past. Finally, she left the road and walked up a dry wash, and found a place to sleep rough. The driver had given her a green wool Army blanket from his truck’s sleeping compartment. Before finding a flat grassy spot, she zipped on her pant legs and pulled on a black hooded sweatshirt from her pack.

  Each time she put on another article of stolen clothing, she thought about Starr Linssen, wrapped in her seashell pattern shower curtain, concealed beneath her bed. She wondered if the warden had been found yet. Linssen had said that she had signed out for the rest of the workday. She might not be missed until she failed to show up for her next scheduled duty shift, or she failed to answer her phone or pager too many times. It was Friday night, so it was even possible that she wouldn’t be missed until Monday.

  There was no news of any prison break (or a murdered assistant warden) on any of the AM radio stations Ranya could tune in. Still, she knew that the alert could have been put out only to the police on their own radio and email networks. In the meantime, she was engrossed in catching
up on the current news. It was the fourth night of deadly “arson riots” in Los Angeles, despite martial law, curfews and shoot-to-kill orders. The tense standoff was continuing in the besieged Muslim Quarter in Detroit. Marines were engaged in heavy combat in some city called ‘Nazeer-Bakaf,’ wherever that was. An emergency meeting of the Federal Reserve Board was scheduled for Monday. The first thousand representatives of the “Poor People’s Party” had set up their planned tent city encampment on the National Mall in Washington.

  Headlights passed less frequently as the night wore on. She slept fitfully, with her head on the warden’s pack, and the Glock beneath it. She was wrapped in the blanket on a bed of flattened range grass, with her black sweatshirt hood pulled up, the string tied tightly in a circle. Mosquitos buzzed around her exposed face, other insects trilled and chirped. It was miserable attempting to sleep this way, but she was hardened to misery. Through a slit in the folds of her blanket, she could see a brilliant swath of stars, and she found Orion standing guard among the constellations.

  ***

  The real Spiderman wouldn’t be afraid. Not one little bit. But I’m not the real Spiderman, and I am afraid, thought Brian Garabanda. Spiderman pajamas wouldn’t fool real bad guys or monsters. Something was scratching the roof of his house, right over his bed. This happened sometimes when it was windy, or even worse, when there were thunderstorms.

  It was the middle of the night. Brian was awake, but lying perfectly still, while something terrible scratched at the tiles on the roof. He carefully opened his eyes, just barely. If anything terrible was in the room, or looking in through his window, he was ready to shut them tightly again in an instant. But there was nothing. The Snoopy nightlight cast its reassuring glow across his room.

  Once when he had opened his eyes in the night, he thought he had seen Daddy looking in the window from just a few feet away, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a dream. Daddy was very brave, he even had a gun. He worked for the FBI, catching bad guys. Brian hoped that his Daddy was outside somewhere, guarding him from terrible things. Daddy had told him that when it was windy, the tree branches scratched the roof sometimes, and not to worry.

  But Daddy didn’t live here any more. Now, Daddy only came and got him on Fridays, and took him to his small house, his apartment where he lived now. His Daddy and Mommy used to get so angry all the time, that he had finally left. Brian knew that it was his fault. He was sure that Mommy and Daddy had been happier before he had come along. He had heard his Mommy say this, and he knew it was true.

  But even though today was Friday, Daddy did not come to get him. Instead, he had been picked up at day care by Mommy and her friend Gretchen, and they had gone to a boring meeting, which had lasted forever. Grown-ups in a big room, talking forever, blah-blah-blah. He didn’t even have a gameboy to play with, so he had to play with boring Legos and coloring books instead.

  He wondered why his Daddy didn’t pick him up at day care. Mommy said he had other things to do. Brian worried that his Daddy was probably getting tired of picking him up. Probably, Daddy didn’t care about him very much any more, since he had moved away. This fear stabbed deeply into Brian’s five-year-old heart. Maybe Daddy will come and get me tomorrow morning…or maybe he will have other things to do again.

  From his bed, he could see out his window and up at a part of the sky above their neighbor’s roof. It wasn’t cloudy, so there would probably not be any thunderstorms tonight, thank goodness. Thunderstorms at night were the worst, with the booming and crashing and lightning flashing.

  Tonight there were stars out. Daddy would get him in the morning, he hoped.

  3

  Saturday June 21

  Ranya awoke before it was fully light, stiff from sleeping on the hard and uneven ground. She unwrapped herself from the blanket, stood and stretched while surveying the desolate landscape. She breakfasted on bottled water and saltine crackers from the pack, and then quickly brushed her newly cut hair and rolled up the blanket. She had slept fully clothed and was ready in a few minutes.

  She walked back to the cracked asphalt road and picked a hidden location, sitting Indian-style behind the desiccated carcass of a road-killed steer, where she could observe any cars coming in the distance from either direction. The grim mound was disgusting, but there was not enough other natural cover near the road to screen her from view in broad daylight. The dried animal was literally skin over bones, and long past being a source of interest to either insects or vultures. The steer’s skull had become detached from the rest of the remains, and was picked clean and bleached white. Only when she was certain that an approaching vehicle was not a cop, would she stand and step out to hitch a westbound ride. If the police had been alerted to her escape, she knew that a young female hitchhiking on a rural Texas two lane road would draw their immediate attention.

  It was eighteen hours since Starr Linssen had drawn her final breath of water and foam. Ranya was guessing that by now the police in all of the states around Oklahoma would be searching for her, even if their hunt was not publicly announced on the radio.

  It was over twenty miles to the safe haven the truck driver had suggested. If she had not heard any news accounts of escaped prisoners on her mini radio, then the odds were that neither had any other ordinary civilians who were out driving today, and presumably, it would be safe for her to catch a ride. Otherwise, it would be an all day hike across sage land and cattle country. She unzipped her tan pants legs, took off her black sweatshirt, and stowed them in her pack.

  A dark sedan appeared from the east, a possible police cruiser, so Ranya lowered her head, her huddled form blending in with the steer carcass. A black Mercedes flew past at better than 90 miles per hour, the driver unseen behind tinted windows. Other cars passed but she was afraid they might be police, so she stayed hidden. Almost two hours later a camper came into view, a boxy RV with an extension over the cab. Ranya weighed her chances, and stepped to the edge of the blacktop, waving her arms enthusiastically. The camper drove past with a small push of air, and then came to a stop several hundred yards beyond her. The taillights blinked indecision as Ranya slung on her pack and ran after it.

  The big camper had a faded green and white body like a bloated cocoon. A sleeping area extended out over what appeared to be the vestigial front of a full-sized van. The camper was made even taller by the addition of antennas and cargo on top. Metal and plastic Jerry cans and a pair of bicycles were strapped in racks along the back.

  The front side window was down when Ranya jogged up alongside the weathered RV. The passenger was a plump black woman somewhere past sixty years old, wearing a gold velour tracksuit and a purple crocheted cap. The driver was a thin bald black man at least as old, staring out at her through gold-framed glasses. He was gawking and grinning through ill-fitting dentures, but his wife inspected Ranya more skeptically. She said, “Sorry to make you run so far, but we had to be sure you were alone.”

  “No problem, I understand.” Ranya had already rehearsed what she would say. She assumed the most fresh-faced college girl smile possible under the circumstances, considering that she had slept on the ground in the same clothes she had worn since yesterday. A tiny statue of Jesus glued to their dashboard buoyed her spirit. “You wouldn’t be heading to Barlow’s Creek by any chance, would you?”

  The old driver said, “We sure are, Missy! You’re in luck, because that’s right where we’re going today.” He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and gray pants. His left hand was on the steering wheel; his right hand was out of sight behind the woman’s ample hips. No doubt he was prudently holding a gun, Ranya thought.

  The woman looked Ranya up and down and asked, “Lord, what happened to you?”

  “My car died last night, back on 287. I walked as far as I could. I have friends at Barlow’s campground. If I can make it there, I’ll be fine.”

  The husband was nodding, already convinced. The wife studied Ranya and then said, “Well…I see. It’s tight up here in fr
ont—there’s no room for your pack. So let’s throw it in the back, and then you can sit up here with us. How’s that sound?”

  “Wonderful!” She put her hand out, and shook their hands through the open window. She understood that they wanted her sitting in front with them, to keep an eye on her. It didn’t matter, she was just glad for the lift. She would have cheerfully sat on the roof with the other strapped-on cargo.

  “Well, okay then,” said the woman. “And I can get you some orange juice and something to eat. I don’t guess you’ve had breakfast yet today?”

  “No ma’am, just crackers and a little water. Breakfast sounds great.”

  “I’ll bet it does, honey, I’ll just bet it does.”

  In a minute, her pack was in the back of the RV, and she was up front sitting in the middle between them. There was a cloth napkin spread across her lap, she was enjoying canned juice and biscuits with strawberry jelly, as they rolled west at a steady sixty miles per hour.

  The woman said, “By the way, my name’s Olivia, and that’s my husband, Melvin.”

  Ranya didn’t hesitate to give them an assumed name, her last false name from before her arrest. “I’m Diana. Diana Williams.” This was the name from her long-gone counterfeit Canadian passport. Now the name held only sentimental value to her, from her last period of living in freedom, down in Colombia on the sailboat with Phil Carson.

  “Pleased to meet you, Diana. We’re coming from Houston, heading to Utah. We just couldn’t stand living around Houston anymore. We just couldn’t take it. It got too dangerous, too crazy. No way for civilized folks to live. We lived in New Orleans all our lives until the flood in oh-five, and then we thought we’d finish our days in Houston, but there’s no way, no way at all.”

  “You were in the flood?”

  Olivia answered, “No honey, when they said get out, we got out. We were in Baton Rouge in this very camper when Katrina hit, but we lost our house. Thank God, we had some insurance so we could start again in Houston. But then Houston went right straight downhill too, even without a flood.”