“CROSSERS,” RIO WHISPERED AS we worked side by side at the table mixing more pancake batter and slicing Spam.
“They’re in really bad shape,” I whispered back, “especially the boy.”
Carlos was watching us over his shoulder from the chair alongside Diego’s. He seemed suspicious of our whispers. The Mexican was stocky, with a wrestler’s build—not somebody you would want to tangle with. I didn’t know what it was about him that made me so uneasy.
“We can spare them some food,” Rio whispered.
“We’re in a lot better shape than they are,” I agreed. “We have to help.”
“What you guys talking about?” Carlos called.
“Our food supply,” Rio said. “We’re kind of on short rations. Not to worry, we’re making you a meal that will fill you up.”
Pretty quick, we brought them plates heaped with pancakes and fried Spam. Carlos accepted a knife and fork, and said yes to maple syrup. “Diego,” I said as I handed the boy his plate, “would you like syrup on your pancakes?”
I made a pouring motion with the syrup. He nodded without looking me in the eye.
The boy ate ravenously, with his hands, like a starving raccoon. I filled a liter bottle from one of our five-gallon water jugs and set it by his foot. He drank half immediately. A minute later he drank the other half. “Diego,” I asked as I refilled the bottle, “do you speak English?”
No response. It seemed like there was something seriously off about him.
Carlos gave the boy a scornful look. “I barely get his own language out of him. A spoiled brat is what he is. He don’t deserve what his family is trying to do for him.”
“Are you family, Carlos?” Rio asked. “His uncle, something like that?”
“Me, no, no way. I’m just doing my job. His mother in Chicago hired me to go to Mexico and bring him to her.”
“Is that where you’re from—Chicago?”
“Sí, sí. I live in Chi-ca-go for many years. This is what I do for a living. People go north without their children, and after a while, they pay someone to bring them across.”
“So, you are a coyote.”
“The good kind, not the kind you hear about, the ones that leave women and children in the desert to die. I’m not like them. This boy would rather stay with his grandmother in Mexico. He is afraid of his mother’s boyfriend. He is afraid of the desert. He is afraid of everything. I’ve had it up to here with him.”
“You got lost, you said?”
“Sí, we been wandering around for days. We had some food, but it was stolen.”
“Where did you start from?”
“A town called Melchor Múzquiz. We followed dirt roads, but many times you could go this way or that way—no signs. For a long time now, no road at all. We were supposed to find a bridge across the river.”
“You took a wrong turn all right. The only bridge in a stretch of hundreds of miles is seventeen miles upstream from here. Whoever told you that you could cross on it was mistaken. The bridge is sealed off, and the Border Patrol is always keeping watch there.”
“You live in Texas?”
“Yes, in Terlingua, a hundred miles upstream and ten miles from the river. My cousin is visiting—first time in Texas.”
“You two boys, you do this alone?”
“Yep, ten days, just the two of us.”
“That’s pretty crazy, no? This is wild country.”
“That’s what makes it fun.”
“Fun,” Carlos repeated with a wry grin. “The things Americans do for fun—it’s loco.”
Rio gave him a big smile, and proceeded, casual and off-handed. “Tell me, Carlos . . . not very many people without documents try to cross in the Big Bend . . . Why are you crossing here instead of downstream in the valley, or upstream near El Paso? Or maybe Arizona?”
“I used those places before, and California. Your government is making it harder and harder. Where there is no wall, there are cameras and so many Migra—”
“Border Patrol,” Rio translated.
“—thousands more Migra than there were even a year ago. You mark my words, many more people will try to cross in the Big Bend, even with the cliffs. If they have to try the roughest places, that’s what they will do.”
“We can give you a little food,” Rio said. “What else can we do for you?”
Carlos ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and up the side of his face. “If the boy was in better shape, you could take us across the river, but the highway and the railroad are not close—am I right?”
“Sixty or seventy miles north.”
“I could never drag this kid that far without killing him. His mother wouldn’t appreciate that, eh, Diego?”
The boy was done eating and was licking his fingers. He didn’t acknowledge that he’d been spoken to.
“Bad attitude,” Carlos sneered. “Look, amigos, even my maps were stolen. If I could look at yours, I could figure out what to do next.”
“No problem,” Rio said, “but it only shows the river and about fifteen miles on either side.” He went to the raft to fetch the guidebook.
Carlos turned to me. “The weather is changing.”
“Maybe a tropical storm,” I said. “We heard that a hurricane was heading for the Gulf Coast of Texas. Maybe it already came ashore.”
Carlos looked at the clouds racing in. They were about to blot out the sun. “You think this is it?”
“We hope not, but maybe it is.”
Rio returned to the table, closed the lid of the Coleman stove, and placed the guidebook on it. He opened it to the first map, and Carlos stepped close. Rio pointed out the Hallie Stillwell Bridge and the roads—the dirt one heading south to Melchor Múzquiz and the paved one north to Marathon.
I sat down next to the boy. Diego had his head down, and was attempting to pull something from the back of one hand with his fingernails. I leaned over to see what it was. A tiny cactus needle. Now that I looked, I saw them all over his hands and his forearms. “Do those hurt?” I whispered.
He grimaced. I took that for a yes. Diego’s lips were badly chapped. I offered my spare lip balm and he took it. I went to the raft and returned with the first aid kit. The cut on his head was infected, and some of his scratches soon would be if they weren’t already.
As Rio and Carlos talked about the map, I swabbed the cut with alcohol wipes. Diego winced but appeared grateful. I applied antibiotic ointment and a square Band-Aid that looked like it was going to stay put. Catclaw mesquite or something similar accounted for the cut and the scratches, but I was suspicious about the black eye and the bruised cheek.
Only with tweezers was I was able to pull the tiny cactus needles from Diego’s hands and arms. It was a laborious process; there were hundreds of them. “I like your soccer jersey,” I whispered as I worked. “Do you like soccer, Diego?”
He nodded mournfully. He knew the word soccer, as I’d guessed. Evidently he understood English; he might even be able to speak it. Why he wouldn’t was painfully obvious. He was afraid. He’d been ordered to play dumb.
“Here we are at Mile 17,” Rio was saying to the coyote. “Look, no roads on the Mexican side, but across the river, in the wildlife area, there’s a four-wheel-drive road. If you followed that north and west, it would eventually lead you to the paved road to Marathon. With food, you could do it, not that I’m recommending it.”
Carlos frowned. “Find me the next road down the river that goes south into Mexico.”
“You’re going to go back and try again?”
“I’m going to quit on this job—take the brat back to his grandmother in Torreón.”
“Okay, let’s take a look.”
Rio and Carlos studied the maps and read the text on the opposite pages. The country was so wild and so rugged, they found no roads close to our present position, none on the Mexican side until San Rosendo Canyon, between Miles 40 and 41. Rio read the text about the primitive hot springs pools at the river there and a rough road leading twelve miles up San Rosendo Canyon to a ranch. The ranch was described as “one of the most remote in all of Mexico.”
“Only twenty-three miles from here to San Rosendo Canyon,” Carlos said.
“True, but thirteen of those are in a canyon that’s more than a thousand feet deep. You couldn’t walk to San Rosendo Canyon from here. It would be easier to walk the seventeen miles from here upstream to the bridge. From there you could walk on the road south to Múzquiz.”
“That would take a week!”
“I guess it might. If it rains, and it looks like it will, you’ll find water. Do you want us to take you across the river instead, and try your luck walking to Marathon?”
“The boy would never make it. Take us on your raft to San Rosendo Canyon. Then we walk only twelve miles to that ranch to get help. They can drive us to town next time they go.”
Rio hesitated, which surprised me. I was expecting him to agree. “Sorry, señor,” he said. “I can’t be responsible. We have three life jackets counting our spare, and none will fit Diego. If the tropical storm hits us, and it looks like it’s going to, it might get really rough on the river.”
“Between here and this San Rosendo Canyon—I see this on the map— there are only two rapids, both Class 1. That sounds like the easiest, no?”
“That may be true—the big stuff starts with the rapid at San Rosendo Canyon—but all the same, I can’t be responsible. My cousin and I are on our own trip. Besides, you don’t know that there’s anybody home at that ranch twelve miles from the river. They might be there only part of the year, when they come to round up cattle.”
The Mexican’s forehead wrinkled around that angry scar. “You would abandon us?”
“We’ll give you canned food and we’ll even give you our tent. But no, I’m sorry, we can’t take you along.”
I had pulled as many cactus needles from Diego as I could. Some were too tiny for the tweezers to grab hold of. I used cotton balls and peroxide to clean up his face, arms, and hands. Both wrists had welts on them. When I finished, a tear dropped from his eye.
Rio and I packed quickly. We gave the man our canned meat and soup, a can opener, and a lighter. We gave them two milk jugs filled with clean water. And we gave them our tent.
We’d probably just saved their lives, but Carlos was far from grateful. His face was frozen with a scowl as we shoved off. The coyote looked like he wanted to murder us. The boy was streaming tears.