“Bingo,” Ashley said quietly, and raised Miguel’s hand, which she was still holding, lifting it up like he was a champ.
Through all this talk Miguel had been peering from Jack to Ashley, back and forth, his eyes bright and interested, his expression curious.
“You’ve got to be kidding. This is him?”
“Yep.”
“Can he talk?” Jack asked.
Ashley turned to Miguel. “This is my brother, Jack, I told you about,” she said. “He wants to know if you can talk. Say something to him.”
Miguel grinned, his teeth large and white in his brown face. “Hey, dude,” he said.
It was so unexpected that Jack burst out laughing. “Hey dude? You know English!”
“Ummmmm, un poco,” Miguel nodded, holding his thumb and forefinger close together. “Little bit.”
“Miguel told me all about his escape from Mexico,” Ashley said. “That’s why I had to sneak out and meet him this morning. All last night you wouldn’t let me go anywhere alone for more than five minutes.”
“That was because of the bears,” Jack said, trying to remember what had seemed so important about their feud less than 12 hours before. Nothing much, he realized.
“Forget bears. This,” Ashley said, wiggling her eyebrows, “is bigger than bears. This is rescuing somebody who needs us. Are you going to help?”
Jack didn’t know what to say. Standing there, in the sun-dappled clearing, it seemed impossible that he was actually in front of a Mexican runaway, one who had been reported in the papers and who was even now probably being hunted by the police. Even more impossible was the fact that his sister had managed to keep a secret this big from both his parents and him.
All he could think to say was, “You must be hungry, right, Miguel?” He tried to remember any shred of Spanish he’d learned in school, but the only words that came to mind were sí and no, and those weren’t going to get him very far. “Hungry,” Jack said again, bringing his fingers up to his lips as if he were taking a bite. Again, more slowly, he said, “Eat. Food.”
“He’s not deaf, Jack.”
Miguel nodded, patting his flat stomach. The sound it made was as hollow as a stick beating a drum. “Sí, eat. Food. Bueno.”
“Last night I told him how to get into the Jeep and take the hot dogs,” Ashley said, “but I bet he’s starving now. Come on, Miguel.” Tugging his arm, she pulled him in the direction of the trailer, calling to Jack over her shoulder, “He’s on his way to Seattle to be with a teacher who used to live in Mexico. He says he wants to work in her restaurant.”
Miguel turned to smile broadly, eyes bright, dark hair standing in stiff tufts that looked like black feathers. “I go Seattle,” he said haltingly. “Earn money.”
“But he’s too young! How can he—”
“Food first,” Ashley told Jack, “then the story.”
Every time Miguel emptied the green plastic bowl of Cheerios Ashley had given him, she poured more into it, as if it were bottomless. Miguel wolfed the food so quickly, bits of milk dribbled down his chin. Periodically he’d stop to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, then return to the cereal with an intensity Jack had never seen before.
Ashley sat cross-legged at Miguel’s elbow, pouring milk into the bowl to keep it filled. Jack had settled in across from them, watching, thinking, wondering what to do next. How would it feel to be that hungry? Jack always felt deprived if he missed a snack before bedtime, and here was this little kid, who had traveled from another country without a dime and no food at all, who looked dirty and bug-bitten and road weary. It reminded Jack once again why his dad welcomed foster kids into their home whenever they got a call from the Jackson, Wyoming, Social Services. “Being a foster kid myself, I came through some hard times,” Steven had often told Ashley and Jack. “I want to help kids who are in the same rough place I was.”
Miguel ate until the box rattled empty and his stomach bulged, round and hard. Finally satisfied, he settled back contentedly, his smile wide and lopsided. “Gracias,” he told them.
“You’re welcome,” Jack answered. Then, to Ashley, “Now what?”
“Miguel, tell Jack what happened to you. Tell him why you are here.”
Nodding solemnly, Miguel began his story. “I come from Nogales, near the border. Shantytown, no water, my sister carry agua from the river. My—familia—live in house of paper.”
“Paper?” Jack asked.
“I think he means cardboard,” Ashley explained.
“We want to work, but no work. No work, no pesos. I always dream to come to the other side.” He said all this as though he’d recited it often, maybe to get food from sympathetic listeners on his journeys.
“‘The other side’ means the United States,” Ashley told Jack. “Go on, Miguel, tell Jack where you’re going.”
Miguel took a deep breath and concentrated, trying to make the words come out right: “Hace mucho tiempo—a long time ago—maybe six years—seis años—my brother have a teacher, Crecensia Álvarez. She hate to see children go hungry. She want better life for her people. So she come to U.S.A. to sell burritos, tacos, enchiladas—real food from Mexico, with spice hot like fire. Norteamericanos love her food. Now she is rich, with many restaurantes. She give always a job to people from Nogales.” Jabbing a finger into his chest, Miguel announced, “I will work for Señora Álvarez. Send money to my family.”
“Work! How old are you?” Jack asked.
“Ten,” Miguel answered. “Old enough.”
“You want to work when you’re only ten? What about school?”
Miguel shrugged. “No es importante.”
“Sure it is,” Jack exploded. “Anyway, you can’t get a job if you’re only ten.”
Miguel laughed and held up the fingers of both hands. “I work when I was this many—ocho años. Eight. In supermercado. I carry groceries to cars. No pay; tips only.”
Ashley looked at Miguel with admiration. “Go on, Miguel, tell Jack how you left Mexico and got all the way to Montana,” she encouraged.
Grinning, he answered, “I ride the rails.”
“He hopped a train, Jack. Can you believe it? He said he sneaks onto trains all by himself. He’s done it a lot—that’s how he learned English, ’cause usually the trains took him to Texas or California, and when he’d get there he’d hang out with a bunch of other homeless people till he got caught. But it hasn’t always been good. One time some hobos stole his shoes.”
“Sí. My shoes got swipe,” Miguel said, wiggling his toes. When he noticed Jack staring at the toenails protruding through the holes in the dirty canvas, Miguel added, “These I find in garbage can in San Diego.”
“And each time the immigration officials caught him, they sent him right back. I think it’s wrong that the U.S. does that to him, don’t you? Miguel’s just trying to help his family, but nobody cares, so they make him go home to his paper house in Nogales.”
“Then he’s been caught—”
“Two times—once in Sacramento, California, and once in Salt Lake City. But this time he’s made it all the way to Montana. He’s been sneaking into trucks, and when one of them stopped at Ulm Pishkun, he got out. Then he saw a man in uniform and thought it was a policeman—it was probably a park ranger—so he opened the bottom part of our trailer door and ducked inside. Before he could get out, we started driving.”
Miguel sat there nodding, although he probably couldn’t follow much of what Ashley was saying.
“He’s lucky we were heading west,” she added. “He’s been trying every way he could to make it to Seattle.”
“Sí. To find Señora Álvarez,” Miguel said.
Ashley questioned Jack with her dark eyes. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Jack! You promised! You said I could trust you. If you tell, they’ll have to call the police. Immigration officers will take him, after he’s made it all this way. They’ll send him back t
o Nogales. Is that what you want? Do you want him to live where there’s no electricity and not enough food?”
Jack could answer this one honestly. “No,” he said, “I don’t want that at all.” Still, he didn’t like the idea of lying to his parents, and they’d have to do a lot of lying to keep Miguel a secret. He studied the boy, who had once again picked up the plastic bowl. “Just what do you want to do with him, Ashley? We can’t keep him here. He’s not a pet.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Then what’s your plan?”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” she admitted, “to have a plan.” Fanning her face with her hand, she added, “Oooh, it’s hot in here.” Her skin was flushed, and Jack could see bits of perspiration glistening where her hair framed her face. Jumping to her feet, she flung open the door of the trailer as far as it would go, then stood next to Jack. Bending close, using an exaggerated whisper, she said, “For starters, maybe it would be a good idea to give him a bath. He kind of…smells.”
“Smell?” Miguel asked before he tipped the bowl and drained the last drops of milk.
“Sí, poco,” Ashley answered, smiling apologetically at Miguel. “Let’s grab some shampoo and head to the creek. While we’re scrubbing, maybe we can figure out what to do next. Jack, do you have any extra clothes that will fit him?”
“Nothing his size. He’s littler than you. What do you have?”
“A Utah Jazz T-shirt, which I love, but I guess it’ll have to do, since everything else I packed would look too girly on him.” Sighing, she rummaged through her duffel bag and brought out a faded purple and gray shirt, and then a pair of black shorts. Elbow-deep, she poked around until she pulled up a pair of sandals, the kind with Velcro fasteners. “These might work, too,” she said.
“Mom bought those for you for this trip, and they cost 50 bucks!” Jack objected.
“So? I have other shoes. Miguel’s got nothing. We shouldn’t be pigs, Jack.”
“Pig?” Miguel repeated, looking puzzled. “Ah, puerco!” He laughed, then patted his stomach and burped, making Jack and Ashley laugh with him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
White angelica next to Quartz Creek bloomed like soap bubbles on green straws, nodding to the water as it rushed on its way to Lower and Middle Quartz Lakes. Though it swirled with foamy ripples, the water didn’t look too deep, especially where it pooled behind a string of boulders polished smooth by the swift current. Branches and bits of sticks had lodged against the stones, damming the water into a small pool. A perfect bathing spot.
“There,” Ashley said, pointing. “That’s where we’ll clean him. It’ll be cold, but it’s the best we can do, ’cause I don’t have a clue how to rig up that shower bag thing Dad has. You ready, Jack?”
“I guess. I’m not sure Miguel understands what we’re doing here.”
“Sure he does, don’t you, Miguel?” Miguel shrugged and smiled, a sign Ashley took for “yes” but that Jack interpreted as “I have no idea.” Both he and Ashley were in their bathing suits, so Miguel most likely just figured they were going in for a swim. Jack looked away from Miguel’s trusting eyes. Poor guy was really in for it now.
“OK, Jack, I’ll turn my back while you tell him to get undressed. Tell him to leave his underwear on, though,” Ashley instructed.
“You do it.”
“I’m not going to. That’s a guy thing. After you get him in, I’ll give his hair a really good shampoo.”
Jack snorted. “Give us a break. Miguel can wash his own hair.”
“Not as well as I can,” came her reply. “You don’t mind me washing your hair, do you, Miguel?”
Another shrug, another grin.
“There you go, Jack, he’s fine with it.” Ashley had armed herself with a full load of supplies, from biodegradable shampoo to biodegradable soap to fresh underwear (Jack’s), her own Jazz T-shirt and black shorts, a spare toothbrush and toothpaste, comb and scissors, and her sandals, all of which she’d loaded into a clean plastic garbage bag and slung over her shoulder.
They seemed like mother and child, Ashley and Miguel, which amused Jack because the two of them were exactly the same age.
“All right, I’ll wait up on the bank,” Ashley told him. “You get him in the water and then call me.”
Jack asked, “You sure you want to do this?”
“Sure I’m sure. He stinks. Besides, I want to cut his hair after it’s wet—”
“No way,” Jack protested. “The only hair you’ve ever cut was on your Barbie dolls.”
“They looked great!”
“They were bald!”
“Only Malibu Barbie. Besides, that was a long time ago. Come on, Jack, it’ll only be a trim! I’ll just snip a teeny tiny bit, and he’ll look a whole lot better.” Supremely confident, she retreated up the bank of the creek to wait. Bushes rustled behind her, and then, like a forest animal disappearing into the underbrush, she was gone.
Jack turned to face Miguel, who was studying him with his large, dark eyes. “OK,” Jack began, feeling completely stupid. “See the water? We want to go in. To wash.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and pointed once again to the stream.
“Sí. Wash.” Miguel seemed to have understood enough to act amused. They exchanged a look of “she’s a girl—what can you expect?”
“So, you need to take off your clothes. But leave on your underwear,” Jack added quickly. In a flash, Miguel kicked off his tattered sneakers, then scrambled out of his shorts and began to wade into the water. From behind, Jack saw that Miguel was completely naked. “Ashley,” Jack sputtered, “stay up on the bank. Whatever you do, don’t come down here!”
“But I want to—”
“Miguel doesn’t have any underwear.”
“Oh,” her voice floated down. “Never mind.”
Great, Jack muttered. Now he was going to be the one responsible for following through with Ashley’s idea. Well, there was no way he was going to scrub another guy, no matter how bad the other guy smelled. Yanking open the bag, Jack rooted around until he found the shampoo, soap, and a washcloth. When he waded in, his breath was caught by the coldness of the stream, until he let out a loud yelp and chattered, “Man, this is cold.” Miguel didn’t seem to mind it. Laughing loudly, he splashed the water with his palm, spraying Jack with an arc that caught the light in rainbow crystals.
“Oh, so you want to play rough, huh?” With his fist, Jack hit the water, returning fire, and as the battle escalated, both of them slipped on the algae-covered stones and fell flat in the stream. Laughing, sputtering out mouthfuls of creek, they kept up the water fight until they were thoroughly soaked. With hair plastered flat against their foreheads in wet stripes—Miguel’s black, Jack’s honey blond—they signaled each other: Truce!
Miguel then grabbed the shampoo and soap and cleaned himself until his brown skin was as smooth as a seal’s.
“Ashley,” Jack yelled, “we need towels. Bring that big blue beach towel and leave it up behind those bushes that have the pink flowers.”
“OK, but it’ll take me a minute,” she called back. “Last night I gave the blue beach towel to Miguel.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because he needed something to keep him warm, and Mom would have noticed if I’d pinched one of the blankets. Hang on—I’ll run back for it.”
Jack felt a hint of worry. Their parents had told them to stay together when they went anywhere, especially into the woods, yet Ashley seemed to be going off by herself constantly without coming to any harm. In a few minutes she returned, the blue towel trailing behind her shoulders like Batman’s cape. “Don’t worry,” she said, taking a halting step forward. “I’m looking only at the ground.”
“Leave it on that bush. Good. Now, go away.”
“Hurry up. I didn’t mean for you and Miguel to have all the fun.”
Back on the bank Miguel rubbed himself dry and dressed in the clothes Ashley had brought. Clean, dry, and sweet
smelling, Miguel was a good-looking—dude. He seemed pleased as well. Rolling his old clothes into a ball, he was about to toss them into the creek when Jack stopped him. “No, this will go into the garbage,” Jack instructed, taking the bundle and jamming it into the plastic bag. “Don’t litter.” He launched into a short lecture about keeping the park clean, about why they’d needed to use biodegradable soap and shampoo to protect the environment—but after watching Miguel’s eyes glaze, he gave up. Jack had never realized how hard it was to get ideas across when there was no common language to build on.
“Now can I come down?” Ashley’s voice drifted from somewhere near the picnic table. “I want to give him his haircut.”
Jack groaned. “She wants to—” With his index and third finger, he made snipping motions to his own hair.
At first Miguel looked alarmed, but then he gave one of his shrugs—this time without the grin—and said, “Sí. OK.”
When Ashley reached them, Miguel sat on a big rock, his back ramrod stiff, as if the slightest movement might result in decapitation. With the big blue towel wrapped around him to his feet, Miguel looked as small as an eight-year-old. “Now, don’t move,” Ashley warned. “Don’t even breathe.”
The haircut was not making Miguel especially happy, but maybe he felt he owed Ashley. Frowning in concentration, peering close, then standing back, she worked her way around Miguel, scissors winking in the bright sun. Snip, snip, snip, went the blades as bits of black hair fluttered to the ground. Bugs buzzed around, but Ashley ignored them, intent on her work. “OK…I think you’re done.”
She surprised Jack. She did a reasonably good job on Miguel. “Not bad,” she cried, brushing his neck. “There, Jack. Now try to tell me I can’t cut hair.” Looking speculatively at her brother, she raised the scissors and took a step in his direction.
“Not me!” he yelled, backing away from her. “Not ever! Forget it!”
“OK, OK, I’ll just have to wait till you’re asleep,” she agreed cheerfully.
“Ashley!”
“Just kidding. Let’s all go up to the picnic table and sit there while we figure out what to do. First I’ll get dressed, then I’ll get us some cans of soda—you want grape or orange or cola?”
The Hunted Page 5
