The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [71]
Nahum Landa said he wanted them to forget giving him a drink—he wanted them to pour cold water over his head. The sound of helicopters filled the sky, the calls of Migra agents. In spite of their terrible situation, it was still tempting to hide for a few of them. Even then, they didn’t want to give up.
Lorenzo Ortiz Hernandez lay as if asleep beside an ancient saguaro. The cactus was easily three hundred years old, and it had seen walkers die before. GPS N. 32.23.18/W. 113.19.59. Lorenzo was on his back, his eyes open to his enemy, the sun. His brown slacks were empty looking: his abdomen had fallen in, his pelvis held up the material of the slacks as if his slacks were a circus tent coming loose from its poles.
It was 110 degrees before noon.
N. 32.13.16/W. 113.19.51. Claudio Alejandro Marin. Black pants, horse head belt buckle. One small mirror in his pocket.
Cutters, Marines, cops, EMTs, rangers, hunted all night. Mendez slept through it all. They cut his sign from the group’s breakup point all the way to the outskirts of Dateland. Among their traces were a couple of bottles, which suggests they did have some water.
Lauro was found dead beneath his bush.
When they found Mendez, they thought he, too, was dead. They dragged him out and got him in the helicopter. He might have thought he was still in his strange dream, dark goggles and engine scream, the sky above and the killer dirt so far below.
N. 32. 23. 17/ W. 113.19.45. Arnulfo Baldilla Flores. His white shirt still looked remarkably clean. His white shoes were scuffed. He had a wad of pesos in his pocket, money Mendez had refused to accept. He had a letter from somebody in his pocket, but out of respect, the cutters didn’t read it.
Reymundo Sr. was found at N. 32.23.16/W. 113.19.52. He wore maroon pants and his favorite spur belt buckle. His shoes were gone. Oddly, he only wore one sock. It was black. His son, young Reymundo, was picked up at N. 32.23.19/W. 113.19.56. The cutters wouldn’t know until Nahum told them that they were father and son.
The helicopters. Their engines whopped the air. They looked like dragonflies.
Mario Castillo Fernandez wore blue jeans. His belt buckle had a rooster inlaid in the silver. N. 32.23.16/W. 113.19.54. Deceased.
Far back, far east from all the action, Edgar Adrian Martinez lay, still alive, still breathing. It was incredible that he’d lasted that long.
He’d been lying in the heat for days. The rescuers did what they could for him, but he was in bad shape. They called in the coordinates on him and waited for the dust-off to get there. He never responded to questions, they tried to pour water between his split lips.
It must have been his sixteen-year-old body that kept him alive.
Finally, the helicopter came over the peaks. It hove into view and circled.
Edgar opened his eyes. They were dull. Maybe he saw, maybe he didn’t. The big beast hovered over them, kicking up dust. It started to descend.
Edgar raised his head. He opened his mouth, but the motors were too loud for anyone to hear anything. He raised his hands as the machine landed.
He put his head down.
He died.
PART FOUR
AFTERMATH
15
Aftermath
The Border Patrol, enacting a long-standing federal plan, tried to palm the survivors off on the hospital in Yuma without arresting them. If an illegal was brought in and turned over for lifesaving purposes, and the Migra had not officially arrested the culprit, the bill immediately was the hospital’s problem. If the clients were prisoners, the government had to pay for their health care. It was not uncommon for illegals to rehydrate, catch a nap, eat some hospital food, then walk out the doors and into the United States. Migra-as-Coyote. But it saved the government money. Seventy-seven hospitals throughout the American Southwest were losing about $190 million in unpaid bills, and tens of millions of these could