Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [125]
“Up and over,” Mojas told us. “When you hit the ground, keep going downhill. You’ll come to a clump of bushes. Wait there. When I know it’s okay, we’ll run into the canyon. It’s real steep. Halfway down, there’s a buncha rocks. We’ll stop again, then move slower. I click my fingers, you follow. I stop, you stop. No talking till we get through to this big drainage pipe off Monument Road. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
Hy and Mourning nodded.
“Then let’s go.”
Up and over: not so easy as Mojas claimed. Fence posts icy, panels slick. A foothold gained, lost, regained. Halfway up, I slipped. Slid back to the ground, wrenching the arm that grasped the post.
Mojas was already on the other side. Hy straddled the top, hauling Mourning up. I grabbed the post, started climbing again. Lost my footing and gritted my teeth in frustration.
Clinging to the post, I planted my right foot more securely. Brought the left up. Climbed carefully. Finally my fingers touched the top. I got a good hold, pulled with every bit of my strength.
Palms flat on the top now, pushing. Torso rolling forward, legs following. For a moment I teetered there, then lost my hold and plummeted downward. Onto American soil.
Home, yet not home. In a no-one’s-land full of dangers both known and unknown. Bandits didn’t discriminate against American citizens; neither did crooked coyotes and Tijuana cops.
I’d hit hard on all fours; now I pushed up, looking around for the others. Nothing but darkness, the night so black I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me. I ran downhill blindly, stumbling over stones, skidding on pebbles.
Shadows ahead now, the slope steeper. I fought for balance, pitched forward. Put my hands out and plunged into a stand of dry, prickly vegetation.
A hand grasped my arm, kept me from falling. Hy: I couldn’t see him, identified him by the rough weave of his wool jacket. My breath came in gasps. I got it under control as I waited.
After a moment I heard Mojas snap his fingers. He moved out—a blur darting downhill. A second blur followed: Mourning. I nudged Hy; he went ahead of me.
Another stop: the rocks. Another wait. Another snap of the fingers.
We moved more slowly now, in a zigzag path. The ground got steeper, rockier; the vegetation grew thicker. The sky was an inverted black lacquer bowl above the canyon. Cactus spines pierced my clothing.
There were night creatures down here. Scorpions, coyotes— the real kind. Rattlers, too—
Don’t think about them.
There were other people down here; I could sense their presence, hear small telltale noises. Pollos, badly frightened. Their coyotes, who had been known to turn on their own customers for a few pesos. And the bandits—
Don’t think about them, either.
And la migra—God, I’d started to look upon our own border patrol as my enemy! But in a way, they were. If they picked us up, they’d want to know what we were doing out here. If we explained about the kidnapping, they’d want to know why the FBI hadn’t been called in. Besides, hadn’t I read somewhere that the border patrol had been accused by a human-rights organization of excessive abusiveness?
We were deep in the canyon now. Mojas’s hand stayed me, pulled me down beside a rock pile. Mourning was breathing hard. Hy’s body tensed—with pain, I thought.
As we waited there, I remembered the story Gloria Escobar had told me in my office at All Souls last Tuesday while trying to persuade me to accept the proffered promotion. Remembered her pregnant mother, who had brought her older sister through this same canyon unassisted by a coyote, separated from the others, attacked by bandits—and yet she had made the crossing and then walked some fifteen miles to the safe house, carrying both her daughter and her unborn child.
Gloria, I thought, I think I can understand what you were trying to tell me. Can grasp the full value of the life you’ve shaped for yourself and your daughter. I hope I get the chance to tell you that your mother’s story has given me courage….
We waited for ten minutes or more, Mojas watching and listening. As I knelt on