Illegal

ELEVEN

El Tigre pulled the pickup truck off the highway, onto a dirt road west of La Rumorosa. Nothing for miles except dark canyons and sheer cliffs.

Everyone piled out of the truck bed. Two of the campesinos from the south began urinating several feet away, the splashing audible. Barnyard animals, Marisol thought, so inconsiderate they cannot walk twenty feet to relieve themselves behind a cactus.

She heard El Tigre screaming into his cell phone.

"?Chingalo! One car? I told you, a van! Asshole! I got ten pollos."

"What's happening?" Mirasol asked Rey, his leaden eyes hidden now behind sunglasses.

"Stupid gabacho driver on other side only has one car," Rey said. "We got to make two trips across."

Once again, Marisol tightened her grip on Tino's hand.

After another explosion of Spanish curses, El Tigre clicked off the phone and, for the second time tonight, counted his passengers. Luckily, he had just enough fingers to complete the tabulation. "Five men, five women." He looked toward Tino. "I'm putting you with the men. Are you a good runner?"

"The fastest in Caborca," Tino said.

El Tigre showed his gold-toothed smile. "New plan. Women first."

He explained his strategy as if he were Pancho Villa at the Battle of Chihuahua. He would take the women through the canyons and across the border to his idiot gabacho friend, who had a single car waiting. Then El Tigre would come back and lead the men down the same path. By the time they got across, the driver would have taken the women to a stash house near Calexico and returned to his hiding spot near the border. El Tigre would then take the five men-including Tino-to the same stash house. There would be no charge for El Tigre's extra effort.

"It will all work out." He sounded pleased with his brilliant tactics.

Marisol shook her head. "My son goes with me."

He gave her a poisonous look. "The woman who asks for credit does not make the rules. By the time the second group gets to the border fence, the sun will be up, and we can be spotted. We may need to run."

"I can run as fast as any man here," Marisol said.

" Chingad. You will do as I say."

She knew she had embarrassed El Tigre by arguing with him. Backed him into a corner. Now he had to save face. Still, she would not relent.

"My son goes with me."

His face colored."?Chinga to putas!"

"If my son does not go, neither do I. Please give back our money."

El Tigre's laugh was liquid, a toilet flushing. Then he shouted, "Rey!"

The sleepy-eyed nephew seemed to wake up. He pulled the gun from his waistband and stuck it under Marisol's nose. "Shut up, woman."

Tino leapt at Rey, knocked the gun to the ground, then pummeled him with a flurry of punches. The boy was skinny, but his long arms whirled like propellor blades, and several blows landed, breaking Rey's sunglasses. Off balance, Rey fell awkwardly into an ocotillo shrub, cursing in Spanish and English and maybe some words he just made up.

El Tigre grabbed Tino by the back of his T-shirt, lifted him off his feet, and swung him against the side of the truck.

"Don't touch my son!" Marisol flew at the man, tearing his hand away.

A gunshot echoed off the canyon walls.

Rey stood there, eyes wide, pupils dilated, gun pointing in the air. "We do what my uncle says, or I swear, I will kill someone tonight."

"I'm not afraid of you, grifo, " Tino said.

"Tino, quiet!" Marisol ordered.

"Listen to your mother, pendejo, " Rey said. "You die out here, nobody gives a shit. Birds eat your eyeballs for breakfast and your balls for lunch. Out here, you're nothing but a grease spot in the sand."