by Luanne Rice
The day started before dawn. The group drank water and ate their dried meat and fruit, then began to walk before the sun rose. Without mercy, heat seared through the gray light. The ground burned Rosa’s feet through her lime-green sneakers, so Roberto carried her again. He asked her if she remembered the moon last night, and she didn’t, so he described it to her, the way the whole desert had been painted silver, even the prickly pears and round boulders.
Usually she loved his stories, but today she couldn’t concentrate on his words. The morning hours advanced, and Roberto’s head ached as if a metal band were being tightened around his skull. Rosa cried softly, delirious and calling for Roberto’s grandmother. Roberto lowered Rosa and made her drink water. She guzzled it and promptly threw it up, so he asked her to take small sips, even smaller than the ones she would give to Maria.
One night and half a day in the desert, and already two gallons of water were gone. Roberto looked around. The land was a garbage dump, strewn with plastic bottles, candy wrappers, piles of human excrement, and women’s panties. It was true, what his father and other migrants had said: the desert was not just a wasteland, but evil, filled with evidence of rape. He left his plastic jug in the dirt, lifted Rosa, and caught up with the other walkers. Pedro had waited, and when Roberto passed, the coyote swept away the track with his twig broom.
No one spoke. They saved their energy for the trek. Roberto noticed husbands helping wives, wives helping husbands. An older man’s lips turned white, and he sat heavily on the ground. Some people tried to help him. He clutched his arm and shuddered as he took his last breath. Roberto kept walking so Rosa wouldn’t see. No one stayed behind to bury him. They hadn’t a shovel or the strength.
Two hours later, with the sun at its peak, Benito decided it was time to rest again. Where? Roberto wanted to ask. In what shade? There was nothing—no tree, cactus, rock. A mountain range rose in the distance—it looked a hundred miles away.
The migrants drank more water, tried to settle down for a siesta, covering themselves with jackets and packs in an attempt to create shade. Roberto lay north-south on his side on the scorching hot dry earth and tried to angle his body to make shade for Rosa.
Her lips were white, like the old man’s. She wanted to drink the whole water bottle, but he wouldn’t let her. While she sobbed, he portioned out one capful after another. He took her pulse. Her skin felt clammy. Once she’d drunk four capfuls of water, slowly, he settled her down so she was completely in the shadow of his body.
“Abuela,” she cried, hallucinating for his grandmother. “Delfina, Alma . . . ,” her best friends. “Tino,” the pet goat Roberto had told her about, that he had had long before she was born, when he was a little boy and his grandfather had given him one kid from the herd. And how Roberto had named him, played with him, and one day, returning home from school on his seventh birthday, smelled a feast, a special meal for the whole family—only they had cooked Tino—the only animal they could spare.
Hearing Rosa cry for Tino constricted Roberto’s throat. He held his daughter tightly, his sweat sticking to hers, thinking of that little goat and how he’d loved it, and how he’d had to pretend to his grandfather to be happy for the birthday feast, and to hide the hatred he felt for the old man for killing his pet.
Jack Leary
2007
Jack’s grandfather on his mother’s side had been a Texas Ranger, patrolling the hills along the Texas-Oklahoma border looking for every type of criminal hiding in the caves and holes. He still had Grandpa’s Colt .44 and his nightstick, more like a baseball bat, really, and also his sap—that’s what they called it, a flexible six-inch weapon covered in braided black leather and well soaked with the blood of the many bad-guy skulls his gramps had conked.
While Grandpa Tecumseh Shane had been a hard-core, hard-assed redneck mountain man and expert tracker, Jack’s other grandfather, Brendan Leary, had been an FBI agent in Boston, working white-collar paper cases on con men who targeted the vulnerable through church groups and immigrant populations. That’s where Jack got his desire to work for the federal government—the combination of power and good benefits. Marriage to Louella and memories of his grandfather Brendan had drummed into his head a better reason for working for the Fed: the potential to help people.
Driving his Explorer through the desert that late afternoon, he kept his eyes open for any signs of cutting the drag. The big machines had been through here earlier hauling chain and pipe, smoothing out the dirt and sand so any footprint would show up clearly. The dashboard thermometer registered 120 degrees out there. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d saved someone’s life in the heat; sometimes the migrants staggered onto the road, begging him to stop.
His SUV was equipped with a radio mounted by the driver’s seat, and a shotgun rack behind his head but separated from the back by wire mesh. The rig was heavy, with four-wheel drive strong enough to haul a semi out of the sand. He had the AC blasting, a coffee in the holder, water jugs bungeed in back just in case he came upon some wanderers.
Jack had worked for the United States Border Patrol for twenty-five years, and he could see retirement on the horizon. His job was to guard the U.S.-Mexican border and work in conjunction with ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When he’d first started, ICE was the INS—Immigration and Naturalization Service. The change in last words from “service” to “enforcement” said everything about the new attitude.
Some of his colleagues in the Tucson Sector of Arizona called the illegals “wets” for wetbacks, back from when most of them tried crossing the Rio Grande. Now, with urban entries heavily guarded, and the eight-hundred-mile fence, floodlights, sensors, and helicopter patrols, the migrants had started moving through the most deadly, less-patrolled sections of desert.
He rode along, eyes sweeping from side to side. He had a gift for tracking from his grandfather Shane, but his sensibility was more in line with his grandfather Leary. His Irish ancestors had fought and died their way across the Atlantic in steerage, many of them dying of disease on an island in Canada’s St. Lawrence River before ever achieving their goals of “a better life.”
Assimilation was a hell of a lot easier for the Irish, white-skinned and blue-eyed, looking the Anglo part, fitting into society and getting good jobs—patronage jobs in the case of his Chicago and Oklahoma City ancestors. They started out as janitors in City Hall, worked their way up to cops and finally the FBI.
Love of family, that’s what killed him. These people were literally dying to be together, to make enough money to feed their elderly and young, just as his had done. He was always on the lookout for terrorists and drug smugglers, but most of what he found were poor families. His wife, Louella, reminded him of that every day. She said that inside he had more in common with the Mexicans and other Latin Americans he picked up than he did with his bosses.
He didn’t exactly go around talking about his philosophy. The Border Patrol and ICE had plenty of closet kind-hearted agents, but more and more it attracted kids who watched Border Wars on TV and wanted to chase down the wets and send them packing back to where they came from, preferably with lumps and bruises to remind them of what awaited should they decide to attempt another crossing.
The sun was setting; he took his Ray-Bans off and in the last golden light saw it: a crescent-moon-shaped heel print on the track’s edge. He pulled over the Explorer, got out for a closer look. The coyote had swept up. He was smart but daring: this stretch of land was brutal, and very few groups attempted to cross here. Patrols in this area were relatively light, and the coyote would know that.
If he hadn’t left that heel print behind, Leary would have missed it entirely. He scanned the desert in the direction the print was heading. Then he locked his truck and set off that way himself. He left the shotgun behind but had his pistol and hollow-point ammo in his holster.
Even at sunset, the hea
t hit him like a wall. Only travelers who lived far below poverty level were desperate enough to risk their lives this way. Now that he was walking, he saw another set of not-quite-erased footprints: tiny ones. He thought of the little kid and walked faster.
He saw the mound in the distance, crows and turkey vultures all over it. He had his service radio out and was calling headquarters before the smell reached him. Did the wanderers know they had crossed the U.S. border, that they had already arrived? Had their coyotes arranged for pickup? He searched the immediate area, still thinking of that little footprint.
“I’ve got a body here,” he said to Jeannie, the dispatcher. “And it looks like more dead up ahead.”
“Do you think the others are making for Route 2?” she asked, knowing the area as well as he did.
“Yeah, that’s what I figure.”
“You want to stay with the body, and I’ll send Chandler and Leone to intercept the rest of the group up on the highway?”
“No,” Leary said. Chandler and Leone: two of the new guard, not just ready but eager to bust heads and send everyone packing back to whatever place so hellish they’d risk crossing this desert trying to escape.
“Then what?”
“Have them come here. I’ll plant a flag by the body—they’ll see it with their flashlights. I’ll drive north and look for the others.”
“Jack,” she said. “They’re closer to the highway. I’m sending them, okay? A helicopter, too. They’ll find them.”
He couldn’t argue the point. Chandler and Leone were already on the way, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Roberto
2007
Roberto and Rosa drank all their water, and even in the heat of the late-day sun, her skin felt damp instead of hot and dry, and that scared him. He carried her with both arms stretched out—she was too weak to grab his neck now. Other members of the group had fallen behind—were resting or sleeping or maybe dying. Benito and Pedro led Roberto and ten others deeper into the desert, toward a distant V of rocks rising out of nowhere.
“What is out there?” Roberto asked.
“That’s our landmark. Tells us we’re close to the pickup spot,” Benito said.
“The border?”
“We crossed it, man,” he said, holding up his GPS. “You’re in the United States.”
Roberto expected to feel exultant, but he felt panic. “My daughter needs water.”
“We all do. Keep walking.”
“Where’s the pickup?”
“Through those rocks. Two more miles and our contact is already there with his van running and waiting for us.”
Two more miles once they passed those rocks, Roberto thought. The sun began to slide down, but nothing cooled his body or feet, and Rosa’s eyes were closed; she had white foam in the corners of her mouth, but when he kissed her forehead, she opened her eyes.
“Did you hear the man?” he asked.
“He talked too fast,” she said.
“We’re almost there, preciosa,” he said.
“Daddy, it’s too hot,” she said, practically the first complaint he’d heard from her, and he kissed her forehead again.
“When we get there, we’ll have all the water we want, and Papá has air-conditioning, and you’ll be so cool,” he said. “You’ll need your fleece.”
“Where’s Maria?” she asked.
“In the pack,” he said.
“Will you give her to me?”
“Soon, cariño. We just go through those rocks, and then to the road, and then we’ll be fine and you can have Maria.”
“I want her, she’ll fly us to Papá,” Rosa said, and began to cry, and again Roberto panicked because she had no tears on her cheeks.
The coyotes walked faster, herding the ten of them along. The sun dipped down, and as they approached the rocks he noticed deep shadows.
“Hey, can we take a rest here?” he asked the coyotes.
“Listen, you hear that?” Benito asked, pointing overhead. “Helicopter. Border agents in the airship looking for us. It’s getting dark, so we have a little cover, unless they’re using heat sensors. Two miles and we get into the van, and we’re all on our way to L.A.”
Roberto strained his ears, couldn’t hear anything but the desert wind. Holding Rosa, he almost wished for the helicopter—no, he did wish for it—he wanted ICE to come, find them, and take her to the hospital. But then he thought—two miles. They could make it.
“We’ll be at Papá’s house tonight,” he said to her.
“The mariachis?” she asked.
“Yes!”
She was okay. If she remembered the mariachis, and wanted to hold Maria, she was going to get through this. Roberto told himself that, even while cursing himself for doing everything wrong. He should have carried more water, he should have found a better coyote with a smarter route, he shouldn’t have taken Rosa on this journey—his father had been so much smarter, had left him behind when he was a child.
Passing through the rock formations, Roberto tensed up. For a minute he thought the coyotes had led them into a trap—this would be the right place for bandits. But they made it through, and now there were just two miles to go. The tall rocks looked purple and gold and cast long shadows, and then as the sun disappeared, there were no shadows.
Suddenly everyone got a second wind. Benito and Pedro were dehydrated too, but they started to trot, and the remaining ten walkers kept up. Roberto ran along with them, holding Rosa as if she were light as air, knowing it was less than two miles to go. He counted his steps, lost track, forced himself to keep making progress. She squirmed, nearly dropping from his arms. Roberto fell behind, focusing all his attention on each step, staying strong and holding Rosa tight.
“Daddy, I’m going to be sick,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. Let her throw up all over him, he didn’t care. He just had to get her to the road, and the van, and there would be water.
“Hurry, faster!” Benito called. “Hear those engines? Fucking ICE SUVs!”
“Daddy, put me down,” she cried.
He ignored her, tried to keep up with the others. There were rocks in small formations, and the ground had turned from hard earth to small pebbles. She retched and cried, sick and embarrassed, and calling “Abuela, Abuela . . .”
She wanted his grandmother. He stumbled on a stone, nearly twisted his ankle, fell to one knee and skinned it right through his jeans. Rosa tumbled from his arms, but he caught her, let her stand wobbly on her feet for a minute, vomiting spit and bile into the sand, leaning against a round boulder.
“Wait!” he yelled to the others.
The moon rose, turning the desert bright as morning. Now he did hear noise—but not SUVs, just regular traffic. Up in the distance he saw one set of headlights, bright white car lights parked along a road.
“That’s it,” he said to Rosa. “We get there and we’re home.”
“Abuela,” she wept. “Maria.”
Roberto watched the figures getting smaller. He narrowed his eyes and swore he saw the van. All he had to do was get Rosa to the road—another half mile at the most. He tried to stand, and nearly passed out. “Come on, baby,” he said, trying to lift her. “Just that far, see the van?”
She curled up in a ball by the boulder, where it felt cool. Roberto watched his fellow travelers reach the road, start climbing into the van. He didn’t think—he just acted. They weren’t going to leave Rosa and him in the desert. He knelt down, pressed Maria into Rosa’s hands.
“Five minutes, love,” he said. “That’s all. Stay with Maria, and I’ll be right back. Don’t move. Promise me you won’t move.”
“I promise.”
He’d cracked his knee, maybe broken something, but he had never run faster in his
life. The moon shone bright on Rosa’s boulder—a beacon of gold blaring from the bleak and empty land. The faster he ran, the more dangerous he felt. He’d kill the driver if he tried to leave without them. He’d jump on the windshield and make them stop, grab Pedro’s pistol, hold it to his head and walk him back to the boulder to get Rosa.
The road looked smooth. He tripped over a stone, and his ankle twisted. The van’s headlights were on, the door was open. All ten of the migrants were already inside; he saw Pedro and Benito climbing in last.
“Wait!” he yelled. The moonlight caught the metal of their guns. Or jewelry. Or bracelets. His eyes were used to the bright moon, and hadn’t picked up the two dark shapes behind the van. SUVs.
The metal on Benito and Pedro and all the others was handcuffs.
“We got another one,” a voice said in English.
“He wanted us to wait,” another voice said, laughing. “So we waited.”
Roberto couldn’t understand the language but he knew La Migra when he saw it. He turned and bolted—straight back the way he’d come, heading for the moonlit boulder. He could see Rosa’s tiny shape curled up at the base, her little feet in her lime-green sneakers, and he heard the hissing and howling of night creatures, and he bellowed, “Rosa!”
“Stop right there! Put your hands up!” the voice yelled.
“Mi hija,” Roberto shouted. “Ella está ahí, tengo que rescatar a mi hija!”
“You’re in America, speak English now.”
The shotgun butt cracked him across his skull, and he never even felt himself hit the rocky ground. He didn’t die, but in that moment his life ended.
chapter six
Julia
At the Casa, listening to Roberto, she heard how the border agents had arrested and detained the group. Roberto couldn’t get any of them to look for Rosa. But once he was at the detention center, waiting to be processed, something like a miracle happened. A border agent named Jack Leary walked into the holding cell and asked if anyone there had a child. For a minute Roberto had thought he had found Rosa, but no—he had just seen her footprint. Roberto told him what had happened. Leary went straight to look for her, but by the time he got to the big rock, Rosa was gone.
