A day at still-dark dawn. El Alacrán and I steal to the edge of the big-water river. Many hopeful river-crossers are creeping close, ready to churn into the waters. But the burning gaze of El Alacrán keeps them at a distance from us. From the Glittering Side, Border Patrol guys roar, “Go back! Go back!”
No stars. Not one. But my eyes quickly grow used to the dark. Already I feel the steamy heat coming. Soon it will blaze.
The riverbank. My insides freeze when I am here. I cannot swim. But somehow I must, I must.
Here it is overgrown with bruja-haired trees and scraggy deep grass up to the shoulders. Though scary looking in the dark, these vegetations will hide us El Alacrán has said. From guys on both sides who want to catch us. Some of these tipos are armed with electric things to stun people. Most have guns with bullets to just snuff them lifeless. They prowl the tall grasses and the witch-haired trees waiting waiting, to stop people like me.
They are supposed to keep unarmed people alive Toño has told me. But often they do not. They just shoot. Probably they would even shoot a turtle trying for a river crossing. That is what I think.
For days before we make our move of danger—to cross over—El Alacrán, eyes glazed from guzzling Tequila, has slurred into my ear certain survival rules: “Chavo Viejo, listen good. When we go, follow me. Do not say one stinking word. Do not move one stinking weed. Do not take one stinking breath or we may be stinking dead.”
“Got it?”
“Sí.”
From him, “stinking” sounds like the worst word ever to pass lips.
Crack! He gives me a wicked slap that sprawls me to the ground.
“Not one stinking word,” he snarls as if we have already begun our escape.
I tremble at his ferocity. I have got it. Ay do I!
This is it. The moment that I have been struggling toward these three terrible years. I feel deep danger, sí. But I feel also an excitement that I have never before known. I feel my life about to change forever.
“Now!” El Alacrán hisses. And into the mouth of peril we plunge.
We slide through the tall grasses on our panzas. Silent silent. I feel fright beyond fright. There are whirlpools, I have heard. There are snakes. But the guys with guns are scarier than snakes. Snakes do not shoot.
I think of El Alacrán’s rules. I try for silence. I try for stillness. But what if the gunmen can hear my heart thundering? What if they can see my whole self shaking the grasses? Suddenly panic overtakes me. I have not told him that I cannot swim. If he knows this, he himself might just hold me under.
Abue, I pray, hold on to my hand. Keep me from drowning in this fearsome water.
El Alacrán knows a shallow place where we can cross. But the gun-guys know it also. They tromp it. They stalk it. They wait. From nowhere now a form appears like spreading ink. An officer close by. He spots me I think and I go stiff with fear. No, no, no, I moan inside like a wounded thing, I am caught again.
Suddenly a voice shouts, “Over there! Grab him!” Others add to the noise. They are after some other poor soul. There come frenzied rustlings. Scramblings. El Alacrán moves fast fast. Whatever plan he had before has changed.
“Run for it! Now!” he whisper-rasps.
I scream a prayer inside me and plunge for a little lump of land groping itself into the shallower waters. Squelching through the sucking mud, I make it. Thanks to Dios. No swimming. No drowning. No getting killed—not even by El Alacrán.
Shots blare behind me. Somebody wails, “¡Me mataron!” They killed me.
I just stumble, scramble, limp-run like a crazy thing alongside El Alacrán, never once looking back. My feet, heavy with my soaking tennis shoes, feel El Norte beneath them, but they do not pause. They keep going, carrying me deep into the trees of this riverbank, deep into the land of Tejas.
The witch-haired trees and the grass and El Alacrán, they have helped. But mostly the guy who got wounded—or killed. By distracting those who guard this river crossing, he has, without knowing it, gotten me across to safety. Now the sun is full up, warm, comforting. Somewhere a dove mourns. A thought flickers in my brain. I wish I knew that man’s name.