The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [37]
Most walkers die a relatively short distance from salvation. Some walkers fall in the canals and drown. It seems to be one of the cruel tricks of the Desolation spirits, but it makes brutal sense. Most walkers are fresh and strong at the start of the journey. After a day of baking in the sun, they start to get disoriented. They drink too much water. They’re dizzy and weak. By the second or third days, when they need their wits and strength about them, they are near death. And they drop, often reported with sad irony in the press, a few miles, or yards, or feet, from water, a home, a road, or a Border Patrol outpost.
This first trip, however, went perfectly. The vans appeared, and the walkers were whisked off to Phoenix.
But the Border Patrol was catching on to the Cercas gang’s routes. After two months, they were getting busted more often, their walks disrupted by the sudden appearances of trucks and spotlights. Those Migra guys made Jesús crazy. The Mexican Migra agents were the worst. Turncoats. Traitors. They hunted down their own people, and they were meaner to the illegals than the gringo Migras were. He did everything he could to avoid their attention. He walked down the loneliest valleys, cut across the darkest washes, and regularly relied on the brush-out.
He dressed like the pollos, of course, in case he was arrested. If he was, he’d be processed and put on a bus and sent back. He learned quickly to keep his head down and stay quiet. The Tucson Migra had this evil trick they’d pull. They wouldn’t chase you if you ran, they’d run along beside you, and they’d grab a hunk of your shirt. And you’d be trotting along, wondering, What is this? And the pinche Migra would be grinning a little. Then, bam! He’d shove you to one side as you ran, and you’d smash face-first into a saguaro. Any tree or tall boulder would do, but the saguaro trick, that really hurt. Yuma was supposed to be a little different, but he didn’t intend to find out. Oh, hell no—Jesús never ran. He shuffled along, acted stupid, which they pretty much believed of him anyway. He accepted water and nodded and grinned and said “Sí, señor” when addressed, as if he respected the Migra.
Of course his name started appearing in Border Patrol reports. But of the thousands of illegals intercepted by the Yuma sector, how many must have come back over and over? Jesús was nothing special. Still, he was becoming visible and El Negro needed an invisible man.
So Jesús and Maradona were sent to Sonoita. Hey, what the hell. It didn’t make no nevermind to them: they’d been in San Luis a long time, and they’d used it up. Sonoita was just about as flyblown and Podunk as San Luis, but it was something almost new. And there was plenty of work coming out of Altar. The boys had been doing two loads a week in San Luis. But in Sonoita and Sasabe they could probably up that by another three loads a month. Plus the Migra didn’t know them out there—they might get away with it for a year before anybody noticed. Yeah, man, orale vato, no mames buey, they were ready. And besides, what were they going to do, tell Chespiro and El Negro no? All they could do was get pumped and pack, head east to the dead heart. Plug in the headphones and listen to Marilyn Manson as the saguaros and volcanoes drifted by.
They only had one real concern. They were going to new desert, to the center of the Devil’s Highway. But El Negro had a couple of locals ready to show them the ropes. Nothing to worry about.
Jesús and Maradona boarded the same Mexican Route 2 bus they smuggled walkers on. Perhaps one of their bribed drivers was at the wheel. They paid full fare. No doubt the driver’s eyebrows rose. Orale, they said. No drop-off today. They got off at El Saguaro for a Coke and a piss, a smoke and some flirting. Then they climbed back on, only starting on their big adventure.
6
In Sonoita
And here they were, getting off a bus again, whiplashed out of