Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [126]
I’d experienced this phenomenon before when I’d spent my fear and come to terms with danger. Whenever that happened, I instinctively knew that I’d continue to leave myself open to danger my whole life. In a way, it was like a friendly adversary with whom I was at my best, against whom I’d often taken my measure.
Mojas stood and beckoned. We moved out….
4:28 A.M.
The huge black-mouthed drainage pipe lay ahead of us. Above the embankment that it butted into—twenty or more feet high—the sky glowed from the lights of the South Bay.
Mojas stopped us a few yards away. “Pipe comes out about fifteen yards from here in a ditch. You cross it, you’re on the road. La migra stops you, you say your car broke down and you’re waiting for a ride. All they’ll do is tell you you got no business being down here in the dark. I’ll check things out now. Then you’re on your own.”
“Which way do we go to get to the old dairy?” I asked.
“Right, maybe a mile. Wait here.” Mojas darted toward the pipe, stooped, and disappeared into the blackness.
I shivered as a gust of cold wind hit us. Looked up at the sky and saw hints of a gray dawn. Hy put his hands on my shoulders. “Almost there, McCone.”
“Thank God. Is your arm still bleeding?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Bad pain?”
“I’ll live.”
“You okay, Tim?”
Mourning nodded, teeth chattering.
Mojas was a long time coming back. I kept checking the luminous dial of my watch as five, then another four minutes went by. When he finally emerged from the pipe he ran toward us in a crouch. “Something funny’s going on,” he said. “There’s nobody in the pipe.”
Hy asked, “Should there be?”
“It’s a regular crossing place. La migra was smart, they’d just stand on the other end with a net. Pipe’s always full of people who’ve lost their nerve or’re too tired to go on.” He hesitated. “I could’ve swore a gun’s been fired in there.”
“Those shots we heard earlier?” I asked. They’d echoed off the canyon walls maybe fifteen minutes before we got to the pipe—the stutter of a semiautomatic weapon.
Mojas shrugged.
“Did you see anybody in the ditch or on the road?” Hy asked.
“No.”
It didn’t feel right to me. “Al, is there another way to get to the road?”
“We’d have to backtrack, and it’ll be getting light soon.”
“And you say a lot of people know about this pipe?”
“Well, people like me, who need to know.”
I considered. “All right,” I finally said, “we’ll go through here.” I felt in my pocket for the coyote’s remaining three hundred dollars and extended it to him. “Thanks for guiding us.”
He took it, grinning. “Sure. You got any more crazy gringo friends want to come home the hard way, you know where to find me.” Then he was gone, disappearing into the shadows.
Hy began to move toward the pipe. I put a restraining hand on his arm. When he frowned, I mouthed the words, “I don’t trust him. Wait awhile.”
4:49 A.M.
Ten minutes passed with no further sign of Mojas. We got up from where we huddled on the ground and went over to the pipe. Hy and Mourning crouched and stepped inside. I took a final look around and joined them.
Blackness enveloped me. Silt and rocks and debris lay underfoot. The slightest sound echoed off the curving concrete walls. Far ahead I could see a round opening full of gray light. There might not be any people in there now, but I could smell their leavings, feel remnants of their fear and despair.
I could also smell the faint trapped odor of cordite.
I stiffened, tugged at Hy’s sleeve. “Something is wrong,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”
Quickly I thought through our options; they were few. “You and Tim stay here. I’ll go back, climb the embankment, and take a look. Give me around five minutes, then move closer to the other end and make some noise. If anybody’s waiting for us, that might flush him out.”
“McCone, you climb