Chapter One of River Out Of Eden

by Camy Sorbello

There were too many people in the boat. Elena was sure it would tip over and sink. Several inches of water in the bottom had soaked her new American shoes and her feet felt frozen. Her left hand clutched the splintered side of the boat, while her right one rested on her huge stomach, as if to protect the baby inside.

“Aye, Díos mío.” It sounded more like a curse than a prayer coming from the teen-age boy beside her. Using a red coffee can, he scooped water out as fast as he could. But the muddy Rio Bravo continued to seep in from cracks and holes everywhere.

Elena tried to focus on the Texas shore ahead of her, but the boat pitched and turned. She felt sick, and tried hard not to vomit. The eight men in the boat hadn’t planned to have a pregnant woman cross with them. But when she gave Paco, the oarsman, two hundred dollars cash, American, he told the others to make room for her.

“¡Cuñado estúpido!” It was Paco, sitting behind her, rowing with all his strength. “When I get my hands on that no good brother-in-law of mine, I’ll wring his neck like a chicken. He tells me this boat is solid, no holes, like brand new. ¡Mierda!”

The current caught the boat and spun it around. Elena grabbed the side with both hands to keep from being thrown out. Muddy water from the river splashed up, drenching her. She coughed and spit as the boat pitched one way, then another.

“Santa Maria de Guadalupe,” she whispered. “This rio wants to kill me. Ayudame, por favor.”

When she looked up, she saw Mexico instead of America. The blue mountains of Chihuahua seemed so beautiful, so serene. And then they were gone, as Paco yanked the boat around and pulled hard for the north sore. Elena watched Texas move closer until, finally, they skidded up onto land.

“¡Gracias a Díos!” shouted the boy as he leaped out of the front of the boat. Without so much as a glance backward, he scrambled uphill, through the willow brush and reeds, around the spiny bushes to the highway. Elena stood slowly, on stiff legs, her knees shaking.

“Move! Get out of my way!” A man shoved her aside and climbed out. The others pushed past her, nearly knocking her down. Only one bothered to say “con permiso,” and that was after he’d stepped on her foot.

Without the weight of eight men, the boat began to float. Desperate to escape, Elena hoisted herself over the side just as the current pulled the boat back in. She slipped on the mud and fell, losing one shoe to the river.There she sat, her belly huge in front of her, and watched her new American shoe and the leaky Mexican boat head downstream bound for the Gulf of Mexico. The shoe bobbed along until it disappeared around a bend in the river. The boat didn’t get far. It crashed against a pile of rocks and wedged itself between two boulders.

“Señora, vamanos.” Paco stopped halfway up the hill to the road and motioned Elena to come along.

“No,” she said. “No puedo.” How could he expect her to run with them? She’d lost her shoe. For an instant Elena believed he would come back to help her. Then she heard a voice from the top of the hill.

“Paco. Hurry up. Before La Migra comes.”

At the mention of the dreaded Border Patrol, Paco continued his climb.

“Lo siento, Señora,” he shouted to her. “Adiós.”

Elena sat alone, nine months pregnant, soggy with Texas mud, and stared across the river the gringos called the Rio Grande. For a long time she rested there, leaning back on her elbows and breathing slowly, deeply. It was peaceful now beside this rio that had tried to kill her. It sang to her as it passed by, its music a corrido that told the story of the border. Here, the river divided everyone-north and south, rich and poor, white and brown, legal and illegal, English and Spanish, and living and dead. Here, along the frontera, the river ruled everything. Here, the Rio Bravo del Norte became the Rio Grande.

Elena’s back ached, and her legs. She felt a chill, though the sun was strong. She knew she had to leave the solitude of the river, and climb up to the highway. She turned over onto her knees, and managed to stand. It was exhausting. The hill that the men had easily dashed up loomed over her like a mountain.

She trudged up, her right foot bare. Careful to avoid sharp rocks, she paused often. When her water broke she doubled over, more in fear than pain. The warm fluid soaked her pants and the caked mud turned moist. She knew she had to reach the highway or she and her baby would die in the Texas desert.

It took twenty minutes to reach the top. The road looked hot and black in the bright sun. Elena stumbled and fell, grabbing a creosote bush as she went down. The pungent odor of its tiny leaves smelled sweet as she lay in the gravel beside the River Road.

Mike Kincaid steered the Bronco with his right knee while he used both hands to light a Marlboro. It wasn’t even noon yet, and this was his tenth cigarette.

“You smoke too much, Mike, ya’ know,” said Pete. “Geez, I’ve only been on the force six months, and riding with you, I probably got enough second hand smoke to kill me.”

“Don’t worry about it, Pete. Only the good die young. You’ll live forever.”

Mike had been a Border Patrol Officer for nearly twenty years. He was assigned to the rough West Texas territory along the Rio Grande, from El Paso to Big Bend National Park. He’d ridden with dozens of partners over the years, but none as young as Pete Ballou. Or maybe Pete just seemed so young because Mike felt so old.

“Yeah, really Mike. It’s bad for you. Plus, you’ll probably send us both over a cliff driving ‘no hands’ like you do every time you light up. Why not let me drive? Then you can enjoy your smoke.”

“Nope,” answered Mike. “I keep the keys. That one day with you behind the wheel was enough for me.”

“Geez, Mike. You get nervous too easy. Sign of old age.”

“Well, Pete, I’ll hand over the keys the day I retire. And that’s not due to happen for a few years, so sit back and enjoy the view.”

It was Mike who enjoyed the scenery most. He had moved down from San Angelo to work the River Road area, and had been astonished at the huge beauty all around him. It was like living in a John Wayne movie. The terrain was wild and remote. Some called it uncivilized. And empty. People were few and far between, and that was the way Mike liked it.

“Geez, Mike. Do you have to drive up this way?” Pete griped as Mike turned north off the main highway. “The road is so damned rough, and it’s so desolate, it’s like being on the moon.”

“All the more reason to check it out, Pete. The wetbacks cut through these canyons here and hide out in the arroyos. They’re not stupid. They know there are only a few ranches up here, and some of those are abandoned.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. But I like it down by the river better. Paved road, faster pace, a town once in a while. Plus, we can catch them coming off the river before they have a chance to scatter.”

“Sometimes,” answered Mike. “Sometimes not.”

The two men rode in silence as the Bronco bounced its way up the dusty road. When they reached a plateau, Mike stopped. From where they sat, they could look down across the canyons, south to the Rio Grande, and over into northern Mexico. Mike lit up another smoke, the last in the pack. A squeaky windmill from a nearby ranch was all he heard. It sounded like music, bringing him back to his early years at home. He’d hated ranching then, and had gladly left it behind. He thought a job with the Border Patrol would be full of excitement, danger, and adventure. Now it was full of paperwork, monotony, and frustration.

“Geez, Mike. Come on. Let’s go, will ya’?”

Mike thought about counting how many times a day Pete said “geez.” It seemed like a million.

“All right, Pete. Keep your pants on.” Mike downshifted the Bronco and bounced it over a gully washed out in the recent rains.

“Don’t they ever fix these road?” asked Pete. “At this rate, it’ll be tomorrow by the time we get back, and I’ve got to be someplace by seven.”

“Another hot date?”

“Of course.” Pete grinned.

“Darlene?”

“Hell, no. She’s history. Dumped her last Friday.”

“Oh.” Mike knew more was coming.

“Met a hot chick down to the Ramrod Inn at Presidio.” Pete grinned again. “Babs.”

“Babs? That’s her name?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“No reason, I guess.”

“You know, Mike. Just because you haven’t had a date since Moses was in diapers-“

“Pete, after you’ve been divorced twice, screwed to the wall by the lawyers, and beat up by your former brother-in-law,” he recited it like a grocery list, “even hot chicks named Babs lose their appeal.”

Mike reached in front of Pete, opened the glove box, and grabbed a fresh pack of Marlboros. That left three more packs, his emergency supply, in case they broke down and he was stranded in the desert with Pete.

“By the way, Mike. I was wondering, if, well, maybe…”

Here it comes, thought Mike.

“Well,” continued Pete. “The situation is this. My rent was due last Monday, and the landlord’s kind of a hardass about money, and …”

“How much you need?”

“Oh, two C-notes would pull me through ‘til payday.”

Mike drove with his knee again as he pulled four fifty dollar bills from his wallet.

“Thanks, Mike. You’re a prince, as my dad would say.”

“Yeah, right.”

An hour later, they drove back onto the River Road. A layer of fine beige dust covered the pale green Bronco. Mike ran the windshield fluid and wipers, and the dust turned to mud that streaked the window.

“Step on it, Mike, will ya’? I’ve got to hustle to get to the Ramrod by seven.”

“This is all the faster she goes, Pete.”

Mike reached for a Marlboro. Before he was able to light it, he spotted a body lying in the brush on the left shoulder of the road.

“Oh, shit.” Mike threw the unlit cigarette on the floor. “Another stiff.”

“Really?” Pete sat up straight. “Where?”

Mike pulled onto the gravel, stopped the truck, and jumped out.

“Oh, God, it’s a woman. But I think she’s still alive.”

Mike knelt beside the woman. She was splattered with mud and missing her right shoe. She appeared to be young, late teens or early twenties, and very pregnant. Though Mike was sweating in the hot Texas sun, her hand felt like ice when he touched it.

“Pete!” he yelled. “Grab that blanket from the back seat.”

The woman opened her eyes. Mike expected her to be terrified when she saw his green uniform and badge. But she grabbed his hand with both of hers, frigid as they were, and held onto him with a grip as strong as death.

“Por favor, Señor.” Her voice was a raspy whisper. “Ayudame.”

After twenty years on the border, Mike’s Spanish was still far from perfect. But he knew she was begging for help.

 

The End