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Rico was practically breathing in her face—she could smell his sour tobacco breath—but the guy behind her had unwisely left her arms free. She had been terrified in custody, but now, with these two, she was furious.
Adrenalin surging, Darcy acted without hesitation.
Making a fist with her left hand, the third knuckle extended, she hit him sharply in each eye—pop! pop!—before he could react. He dropped to the ground screaming and clutching at his face.
It happened so fast the man who was holding her evidently didn’t realize what she had done. He dragged her back a step but didn't tighten his arms enough to prevent her from making a convulsive movement and turning within his grasp to face him. Her face inches below his, she swung her arms, palms flat, and slapped the man's ears as hard as she could, catching them flush.
The man acted as if a bomb had gone off in his head, which it might as well have.
He dropped to the ground alongside Rico, hollering in pain.
Darcy moved away quickly, before they recovered and tried again.
The next vehicle in line was some kind of camper. In the darkness she could make out a sticker on the bumper. "Jesus is Lord," it said. The camper was idling and there were lights on inside.
Darcy knocked on the door, which was opened by a gray-haired woman in capris pants and a flowered top. A white-haired man stood behind her, holding a pistol down at his side.
"Yes?" said the lady, looking surprised.
"I need a ride, ma'am," Darcy said, clearly frightened, but trying to keep her voice even. "Could you give me a ride, please?"
The lady looked stunned. After a second or two she began shaking her head.
"Why no, dear, we couldn't do that. Where are your parents? Get your parents to give you a ride." And she shut the door firmly. Darcy heard the lock click.
Below the window on the door was another sticker: “Love thy neighbor.”
That left only one vehicle at the far end of the parking area, an old rusty pickup with dents in the side and odds and ends of wire, drifts of hay, and a stack of large feed bags weighted down by hand tools in the back. An old man seemed to be sleeping inside. Darcy knocked frantically on the window. The man opened his eyes, blinked several times, looked left and then right, saw Darcy, and slowly rolled the window down.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I really need a ride, sir. Could you give me a ride, please?"
"¿Que? Wha...Whazzat, miss? A ride? You need a ride? Where you going?"
"East. I'm going east, please. And I really need to be going now, sir, if you can, please."
"I'm going east too. Well, not right now. I was taking a nap. But I'm going that way myself.”
He covered his mouth as he yawned.
“Sure, you can have a ride. Tell you what—you can drive! You drive?"
"Oh! Uh no, not yet. I'm sorry. We need to leave now, if we can."
She looked left to the faint outlines of the two men on their knees, their hands still on their heads.
"If you start now, maybe I can drive later."
"What time is it?"
He looked at his wristwatch.
"Ay, I slept too long. Sí, we can leave now. We need to leave now. I gotta be home before midnight."
The camper lumbered by them as the old man popped the lock on the passenger side door and slid over to the driver's side and started the engine. Darcy hesitated two seconds and then opened it and got in. The man turned on the headlights and rolled down the on-ramp, right behind the camper. She looked back at the rest stop. The low-slung car was still parked there.
The owner of the truck introduced himself as Ezekiel Hernandez, "a sus ordenes," he said, "at your service."
Darcy thanked him again for giving her a lift.
"How come you need a ride just now?" he asked, in a loud, raspy, high-pitched voice.
"Oh. Uh, I'm going to visit someone in Alpine. I don't have a car so I was hitchhiking. I was doing all right until two men at that rest stop started bothering me."
She looked out the back window of the truck.
"That's their car coming up behind us."
She slid down low in the seat.
The car changed into the left lane and pulled even with the truck, where it stayed a long minute. Hernandez looked at it and gave a friendly wave. Finally, the car zoomed toward the camper, which lumbered ahead in the distance.
"It’s OK now," he said. "You can sit up. They’re gone."
"I asked the people in that camper for a ride before I asked you. They told me to leave them alone. The man had a gun."
"Well, maybe those vatos,\dudes, in that ranfla are going to get a big surprise!" said Hernandez.
“Ranfla?”
“Their cool car, that lowrider. If they bother them in that camper too much, the Border Patrol up ahead will grab them, you bet."
"Border Patrol? What's that?"
"Awww, that's a place in the highway where La Migra stops all the cars and trucks and looks for illegals, drogas, drugs, and stuff like that. What’s the matter?" he asked, as Darcy put a hand to her mouth.
"Oh, Mr. Hernandez. I may be in big trouble." She was visualizing herself back in that tiny holding cell.
"How come?"
"Well, uh, I'm from Canada," she almost sobbed. "I don't have any papers myself. Maybe you should just let me out somewhere so you don't get in trouble too."
"Ai de mi! You poor child! Hijole, darn, I know what we’ll do. You’re a little thing, really. You can get behind the seat here and they won't see you in the dark. They know me anyway. They’ll look under the stuff in the back, that's all. You don't worry. It’s going to be fine."
By the time they stopped for gas at Fort Hancock, Darcy had been diverted enough to almost forget her troubles. Mr. Hernandez was 72 and most amazingly lived near Alpine. He went to El Paso every month for some kind of experimental radiation treatment for cancer (he wasn't sure about the details).
Normally his wife drove him, but she had been sick lately. The radiation made him sleepy, which was why he was glad to give Darcy a ride, and glad to have someone to talk to. He was also hoping Darcy would share the driving with him.
After Hernandez learned she was "Canadian," he took it upon himself to be her area guide, much as had the Delbosques.
He had story after story about ranching (he was a rancher), the oil business (there was a well on his land), his wife's cooking (as Darcy gratefully demolished two of his wife's bean burritos that he’d packed in his nap sack), the weather (they needed rain), plants and animals, Alpine politics, his grandparents in the Mexican Revolution, his early work experience in Cuba and on shrimp boats in the Gulf of Mexico, and, most exotically, local Mexican-American folklore.
The whole time Mr. Hernandez was talking, worry about the Border Patrol was never out of her mind, but the encounter happened as he said it would. The way the seat curved to the back wall of the cab, there was just enough room for her. The way it looked, a dictionary would have been too big to hide there. In any case, the officers at the checkpoint merely waved him through, adding a friendly greeting.
By the time they turned south at Van Horn, leaving the Interstate for US 90, he had explained the basics of driving to her, and at least partially assuaged her anxiety about being an inexperienced driver without a license. After all, they were on one of the loneliest roads in a state full of lonely roads, and it was dark.
Hernandez was soon asleep. She held the truck to 60 mph out of plain fear. No car caught up with them, and only a few passed them the other way.
She was feeling a little more confident behind the wheel by the time she slowed to pass through the town of Marfa. Hernandez roused himself, had her pull over, and took the driving duties back.
"Who are you going to visit in Alpine?" he asked, once they were rolling again.
"An old friend," she said, thinking quickly. "A friend at college."
"Ah! Someone at the university, yes?"
"Yes, I think so. She used to be there. I hope she still is."
"It’s kind of late to go visiting, 'specially when they’re not expecting you."
"It should be OK. She's a night person."
"Where does she live at the university? At the dormitory?"
"I think so," she said hopefully.
"That’s good. That’s near the entrance. We’ll drive right by there. I’ll drop you off."
