Crossers

by Philip Caputo

  We waited outside the movie house in a squad car, a big Pontiac I think it was. Ben was wearing his badge on his vest. He gave me a pair of handcuffs. I felt pretty nervous but kind of excited, too, like I was in a picture show myself. Another funny thing I remember is the movie that was playing that night—The Wild Party, with Clara Bow. The movie let out. López and Pedroza was easy to spot on account of they dressed like real dandies and had their whores with them. Pedroza was tall, maybe six foot, but López was a good three inches shorter than his girlfriend in her high heels.

  We followed them to their car so as not to make a public fuss, me getting more nervous but Ben so cool I could have put a bottle of milk next to him and kept it fresh for a week. Just as they were getting into the car, Ben stepped up and said they was under arrest for entering the United States illegally. Pedroza drew back and pulled out a passport and said he had permission to be in the U.S. of A. López did the same thing. Ben looked at the permits or whatever they were and said they looked like forgeries to him and slapped the cuffs on Pedroza. I put mine on the little fella. The whores started in to making a fuss. They were Mexican gals and Ben told them to get lost or he’d arrest and deport them, too.

  We hustled our prisoners into the squad car before a crowd could gather. The colonels were shouting that this was a big mistake, that they was going to call the Mexican consul and suchlike, and Ben told them to shut up—they weren’t just illegal aliens, they were engaged in illegal activities, and we knew it.

  It had been arranged ahead of time for Ben to call a number in Mexico when we had them in custody. It was all in a code. Sounds kind of silly to me now. Ben was supposed to say, “The tomatoes are ready for delivery,” and then he would be told where to deliver them. I remember he made the call from his house on Beck Street. Don’t know what his wife and kids must have thought, if they was awake. I stayed in the car, and truth to tell, I wasn’t feeling real good about things. Hell, those colonels wasn’t doing a thing worse than me and Ben had done back in ’fifteen. And I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen to the tomatoes once they got delivered.

  Ben come out, and we drove out of town, headed south down a road that didn’t deserve to be called one. López said in this shaky voice, “Where are you taking us?” Ben answered that we was going to deport them. Pedroza got mad, said Ben was nothing but a regular cop and didn’t have no authority to deport anybody. Ben stopped and took off his bandanna and gave me an extra one he had and said it would be best to gag them, and we did. “This is a hard thing we’re doing,” I said. “We have done a lot of hard things, T.J.” said Ben. Then he was quiet for a spell. Then he said, “Think about Ynez. That will make it easier.”

  We come to the border fence. Ben cut it with his wire cutters, and we drove on through, down a two-track that was so rough we couldn’t go no faster than a man can walk. After a time we saw lamps burning in a ranch house. Ben headed toward it. When we come to the gate, two sets of headlights flashed on and off, and somebody yelled, “¡Alto!” Next thing we knew, a whole squad of soldiers piled out of a truck and surrounded our car and opened the rear door and pulled out López and Pedroza. In spite of them being handcuffed, they put up quite a struggle. An officer shined a flashlight in their faces and said it was them. I recognized Bracamonte’s voice. “You may get out,” he said to Ben and me, and almost as soon as we did, a flashbulb went off and then again. Bracamonte said, “Please, step out of the way of the photographer. You do not want to be in these pictures.” Of course, as I come to find out, we already was in one.

  The photographer was a soldier, and he posed Bracamonte and the troopers with the prisoners and took some more pictures. When that got done, Bracamonte thanked us and said because of what we’d done, a lot of bloodshed would be halted in Mexico. I sure did want to believe that.

  Bracamonte brought me and Ben to his car. A young officer climbed out with a satchel and opened it, and Bracamonte shined his flashlight on stacks of one-thousand-peso notes in bundles of fifty each. He gave two bundles to Ben and two to me and said, “You will come with me, Babcock. Your wife is to be released in the morning.” I felt a whole lot better then, I surely did.

  So Ben stuffed the bundles into his vest pockets and said “Hasta luego” and drove back to the U.S. of A. You know, money never did count a whole lot with him, and I partly expected him to turn down his share of the reward. Really, it was mordida, you know, a bribe. But when I look back on it, I think Ben took it as insurance. He had used his badge to capture two fellas for a foreign government and turned them over to be executed. He knew he would get fired if it ever got found out, so the money would come in handy just in case.

  Next morning Ynez got released, and it was grand to hold her in my arms again. Bracamonte told me that López and Pedroza confessed to being traitors and gave him the names of other officers in on the rebellion. I reckon they was hoping to spare themselves the firing squad, but they got it anyway, right there in that same prison. Like Ben had said a long time before, long on justice, short on mercy.

  A few months later the whole thing got found out.

  First off, Bracamonte planted a phony story about the capture in the Mexican newspapers, and the Calles government rounded up the rebel officers that López and Pedroza had identified. But a few were not caught and somehow or another got hold of the truth and the photograph that was accidentally took of me and Ben. They gave what they had to a newspaper, El Diario de Sonora. It was a mouthpiece for the opposition that López and Pedroza had been part of. The funny thing was, my name was never mentioned in the article and the picture caption misidentified me as Ben! So if T.J. Babcock’s name wasn’t mud among certain parties in Old Mexico, his face surely was. Those certain parties started in to taking revenge. It was the end of the trail for Bracamonte—he got shot dead one morning in his driveway in Mexico City.

  I felt bad for my old colonel, but now Ben and me had troubles of our own. That picture was like a wanted poster, and friends told me folks was out to get me and might even kidnap Ynez and my kids and that it would be a smart idea if we relocated north of the border—way north. I could take another hour to tell you how hard Ynez fought the notion of leaving her country, but it had to be done. I got work as a foreman on a ranch up to Prescott, and we headed there, me, Ynez, and the kids.

  On our way we stopped off to pay a call on Ben at the sheriff’s office. He knew he was in hot water. You see, a new government had taken over in 1930, first of the year, and the new presidente, fella the name of Ortiz Rubio, didn’t want a scandal on his hands and to have it look like he’d anything to do with the kidnapping of López and Pedroza, so he wrote a letter of protest to the governor of Arizona demanding that some action be taken against Ben. You know the old rule, shit rolls downhill, if you’ll pardon the expression. The governor passed the letter on to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

  A couple weeks later on, after we got settled on the new ranch, I telephoned Ben and found out that the board of supervisors had called the sheriff on the carpet, and then he called Ben on the carpet and asked him if he’d done what was said, and he told him that he did. Ben wasn’t the kind to weasel out of things. This sheriff, I forgot his name, told Ben to turn in his badge. On account of Ben’s fine record, he said he would keep the reason for it secret, something about Ben resigning for personal reasons. I remember I warned Ben that no matter what trouble he’d been in with his boss, he was in worse trouble with certain parties in Mexico. Friends of López and Pedroza probably knew where he lived and were going to come after him. He told me he had already figured that out and was prepared, and I did not doubt he was. Ben was always ready for trouble.

  There you have it, except for one thing. My Ynez died in 1933, age of forty-one or so. The doc said it was a cancer of the breasts, but to my mind it was something else. There is a flower that blooms in the low desert at springtime, a white one that’s called a dune primrose. Pulling Ynez out of Mexico up to Prescott was like tear
ing one of them primroses out of the sand and trying to make it live in those cold, piney mountains. So I’d saved her from the prison but lost her anyways. I brought her body down to Cananea and hired a band to play “La Adelita” when we laid her to rest in her native ground. There is no more to say.

  22

  MIGUEL WAITED for news that Cruz had been arrested and a summons to identify him at a lineup. After four days passed without a word, Castle phoned Soto and asked what was up. It seemed that Cruz had vanished. He had been traced to an address in an unincorporated area outside Nogales, where he was living with a brother of his late uncle; but when Soto and a detachment of deputy sheriffs got there to arrest him, he was gone. Enthusiastic questioning had persuaded the man to disclose that Cruz was in Mexico “on business,” that is, assembling a group of illegals to smuggle into the United States. As far as Soto knew, Cruz was still there; someone—his relative or a friend—must have warned him that the police were looking for him. At any rate the Mexican authorities had been notified, a request for extradition issued. There was nothing more to be done except wait for the federales to pick him up and kick him back over the border. The detective did have some good news for Miguel—the “interests of justice” would be better served if he were to remain in the United States. The sheriff had asked Immigration to extend his temporary stay permit for another sixty days.

  Hearing all this deflated Miguel. Identifying Cruz had been an act of moral courage; he could have pretended not to recognize the face in the photograph. He had been hoping that his bravery and honesty would be rewarded with an arrest, a trial, and a conclusive end to the nightmare he’d been living for more than six months. Now it was going to be prolonged, and the fact that he would get to be a legal resident for two more months did not cheer him.

  Castle too felt let down. To keep Miguel, and himself, occupied, he decided to spruce up his cabin. Patch the stucco. Paint the place inside and out. Replace the junky furniture, which had neither the comforts of the modern nor the charm of the antique. Miguel proved expert at adobe plastering, troweling the stuff on so seamlessly, you couldn’t tell the new stucco from the old once the walls were painted.

  They were putting the finishing touches on the outside when Tessa dropped by. She jumped out of the car, waving what appeared to be a letter, and did not seem to notice the cabin’s fresh exterior as she ran up to Castle and threw her arms around him. Beth was out of danger and coming home. Her unit had been withdrawn from Iraq and redeployed to Kuwait. From there it was to be sent back to its home base, Fort Bliss, Texas.

  “I want to take you to lunch to celebrate, just like we did before.” She smiled broadly. “I’ll get blasted on margaritas and hold on to you to keep from falling.”

  They left in her car after he’d washed up and changed into clean Levi’s and a polo shirt. The San Rafael, emerald green and speckled with gold and white flowers, could have been mistaken for a valley in Colorado in the springtime. Pillars of sunlight fell through the rain clouds gathering over the Patagonias, and as the clouds swept with the wind, the shafts moved with them, playing across the mountain slopes like hazy searchlights. In all this beauty Tessa saw the colors, the very forms of her happiness.

  “Love it!” she exclaimed. “Love it here this time of year! Fort Bliss, is that perfect or what? It’s only a day’s drive from Tucson. I’m going to be there for the homecoming.”

  “Which is when?”

  “She didn’t say. I think that information is censored for now. I got the impression it won’t be too long. I’d like it if you came with me. I want you to meet Beth.”

  “And I’d like to meet her—” He stopped as a picture composed itself in his mind: soldiers in desert camouflage marching past a crowd of spouses and parents, applauding and waving tiny American flags. He did not see himself in it. “Do you think that would be a good idea?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Seeing us together …”

  “Meeting the new man in her mother’s life might be too much for her to deal with?” said Tessa, in a tone that scoffed at such a notion. “I’ve written her about you. Anyhow, she’s been through a war. I would think she can deal with almost anything.”

  The reality was, Castle was more concerned with his own state of mind. Yes, he was in love with Tessa, but he wasn’t sure what would come of their relationship. To meet Beth would signify a commitment he wasn’t yet prepared to make, for he knew Amanda still had a claim on him. “Look, it might be better if you saw her first, by yourself. Get reacquainted. There’ll be plenty of time for me later on.”

  “Fine,” Tessa responded.

  He was disappointing her. He was disappointed in himself and his tepid sensibleness. When they drove through a compact, violent thunderstorm, he changed the subject, to that ultimate of banalities, the weather. He mentioned that five inches had fallen on the San Ignacio so far. Tessa, his Miss Manners about local etiquette, chided him. Owing to the patchy, capricious nature of the monsoons, one ranch could get only a trace of rain while its neighbor was blessed with a deluge. To say that your place had received an abundance was bragging, and that was as tacky as bragging about how much money you made. He salaamed and begged her pardon. She forgave him because she could afford to. Her rain gauge had measured a little over four inches; if that kept up, her place would get twenty inches by the end of the season, and her grass-fed cattle would be as sleek as any fattened in feedlots.

  “How is Blaine?” she asked. “He should be happy with this rain.”

  He was, Castle answered. But the migrant traffic was bedeviling him. The other day he found jerry cans of gasoline stashed in the brush—a smuggler’s fuel cache. Instead of dumping the gas, he’d ridden horseback all the way back to the house for a bag of sugar and poured it into the jerry cans and left them there.

  Tessa made a clicking sound with her tongue.

  “He says it’s a war between him and them,” Castle said. “He’s been talking about asking vigilantes to start patrolling the ranch. Sally and Monica have vetoed that. They don’t want a bunch of strangers with guns wandering around the place.”

  “Don’t blame them,” Tessa said, peeling off the Duquesne road onto the Nogales highway. “And I don’t blame him either. And I don’t blame the Mexicans. Right over there, you’ve got people slaving away in maquiladoras for ten bucks a day.” She pointed down the highway toward the houses cluttering the hillsides on the Sonoran side of Nogales. “And all they have to do is crawl under a fence or jump a wall, and they’re making ten an hour sweeping floors at Wal-Mart. It’s a no-brainer. I’d do the same thing. But I’ve had my fences cut. A couple of years ago McIntyre caught an illegal trying to steal my truck. I feel for those people, and at the same time they flat piss me off, and I think that I ought not to be of two minds about it.”

  “Life isn’t talk radio,” Castle said philosophically. “It’s okay to be ambivalent.”

  They had lunch at La Roca. Tessa drank only one margarita and did not require support as they toured the shops on Avenida Obregón, looking for furniture for his redecoration project. Another storm accompanied them on the drive home. It was quick and sharp, a high wind shredded the clouds, and Tessa stopped at the pass beneath Mount Washington to gape at a double rainbow looped over the San Rafael and a full moon, distinct in the late afternoon sky, hovering between the shimmering arches.

  “Sometimes it’s so beautiful I almost feel guilty living here.”

  A pretty place where some ugly things happen. Castle decided to tell Tessa about his recent adventure. “Rodriguez wanted us to keep quiet about it, but now that Cruz has gone south, I guess it’s all right.”

  “Like we didn’t have enough going on around here. Oh Gil, you’ve done your bit. You will be careful from now on? Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  He stroked the back of her neck, exposed by her upswept hair. It was an easy promise to make; he had everything, everything to live for.

  “And all
right,” he added. “We’ll go to Fort Bliss together.”

  Tessa punched him lightly in the arm. “You’re getting better at this.”

  She turned up the San Ignacio road. An ambulance was coming toward them, its roof lights pulsing, its siren off. Tessa swung to the side to give it room to pass, and it flew by as fast as conditions would allow, its tires flinging clods of mud. When they got to the main house, they rushed in and found Monica in the living room with Gerardo and Elena, whose eyes glistened as she fingered a rosary.

  “What is it?” Castle asked, alarmed. “What happened?”

  Monica stood and placed her hands on his shoulders. “It’s Sally. She went out to feed those steers of hers and ran off the road.”

  “Oh, Christ. How bad is it?”

  “Don’t know. Some sort of head injuries. She’s unconscious. They’re taking her to Holy Cross in Nogales. Blaine’s with her. He’s going to call when he knows something.”

  Castle and Tessa sat down and joined Monica in a vigil by the telephone. Sally had gone out after lunch, Monica related, ignoring her pleas to stay home because the roads were in bad shape, coated with mud slick as black ice. When she failed to return after three hours, Monica called Blaine on his cell.

  “He and Gerardo were out on another fence-mending job,” she went on. “It’s a miracle I got through. They dropped what they were doing and went to look for her and found her truck, nose down in a ditch. It looked like she’d missed a turn. She was over the wheel, bleeding from the forehead. Blaine called nine-one-one, but he was in a dead zone, and so he drove back here and got them on a landline. He wanted a helicopter, but they couldn’t get one up—it was raining like hell. So they sent the ambulance.”