He reached into the back pocket of his dirty jeans and brought out a worn baseball card. Hugo Pivaral, a player I’d never heard of. According to the card, Pivaral played for the Dodgers’ minor league team in the mid-nineties. He was from Guatemala.
I handed the card back. “It’s a tough road, Juan. I hope you make it.”
Other children drifted out and joined us. Juan introduced them, but it was clear that he was the only one who understood English. The women wandered out, too, and the sun went down, and the stars began to appear, but Peter and Rainy and Mondragón did not come.
CHAPTER 29
* * *
The night was clear, the stars like white dust against the black heavens, the moon a lopsided, yellow balloon. The vehicles came just before dawn.
I’d been sleeping fitfully among the rocks. It was Juan who shook me awake.
“Lights,” the boy said.
They came from the south, following the jeep trail, three sets of headlights. I studied them with my binoculars and watched them stop on the desert floor directly below the Jesus Lode. The moon gave me some light, but not enough to see details. The interior lights came on as the passengers exited, but I couldn’t tell who they were or how many.
Once the headlights and the interior lights were out, I couldn’t see anything. It could have been Peter and his people. It could have been Mondragón’s men, the same ones who’d saved our asses at the Lulabelle. Or even, I supposed, Border Patrol. The worst-case scenario was that it was Rodriguez’s goons. I had no way of knowing. If they came up, it would take them less than an hour to reach us.
“Wake up everybody,” I said to Juan. “Tell them we have to move.”
The boy left me and went among the others, who’d found places to sleep on the rocks outside the narrow tunnel of the Jesus Lode. I continued to scan the folds of the hills that led up to where we’d thought we were safe, but I couldn’t make out anything useful.
“They are ready,” Juan said at my back.
The moon, what there was of it, dimly illuminated the ground. It was enough, if we went carefully, to see our way. I considered waiting until the sky lightened a little with predawn, which was not that far off, but I couldn’t take the chance. Whoever it was below us might already be on the move.
“Follow me.”
“Where?” Juan said.
“Where you were before.”
“The other mine?”
I nodded. “The other mine.”
I did my best to remove any evidence that anyone had been in the mine, put all the food and the waste from what had already been eaten into the pack. Four of the women each took one of the gallon water jugs. Then I led them away single file from the Jesus Lode.
I cursed myself silently, knowing that the prints I’d left in the mud on my climb during the storm could lead anyone directly to where these people had been safe. I tried to think. If they weren’t Peter and his people, or Mondragón and his, how did they know where to come looking? The chopper? That would have given them only a general idea. But maybe that was all they’d needed, and then they’d spotted my truck. So it could well have been either Rodriguez’s men or Border Patrol.
Christ, I was getting sick of playing at this guessing game. There were too many sides in this struggle, too many unanswered questions, too many threatening possibilities.
The sky began to lighten, and we could see more easily and move more quickly. I picked up my pace, wanting to put as much distance as I could between us and those people behind us. When I calculated that we were roughly halfway to the Lulabelle, I stopped.
“A rest,” I told Juan, and he spoke to the others.
After they’d all sat down, I pulled Juan aside.
“Do you think you can find your way to the other mine from here?”
The boy turned and studied the steep slopes and folds of the hills to the south, all of it gray in the dim morning light. “Yes,” he finally said.
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. But why?”
“I’m going back. I want to find out who those people are and make sure they haven’t followed us. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Will you explain to the others? I don’t want them to think I’m deserting you.”
He spoke to the others in the language he’d used all along and that I’d heard Peter use. The women talked among themselves, and then to Juan, and then stared at me.
“They are afraid,” Juan said. “But we have been afraid before.”
“I’ll come back to you just as soon as I can.”
Juan said, “I believe you.”
I unshouldered my pack, which contained the food. “Can you carry this?”
“Yes.”
“Five more minutes of rest, then go.”
I turned and headed back the way we’d come.
I moved fast now, with the early morning light illuminating the Santa Margaritas. When I was near enough to the Jesus Lode to use my binoculars, I found a tall, flat outcropping and lay myself down on it. I could see the Jesus Rock, but not the mine opening. I scanned the hillsides below the mine. I saw them coming, like ants swarming.
They were spread out and it took me a while to count them. Fifteen men, all carrying weapons. They weren’t dressed in the military fatigues Mondragón’s men had worn, nor did they wear Border Patrol uniforms. They were Rodriguez’s people. As I watched, I realized that there was one man in the lead, moving slowly, studying the ground. A tracker. He led them to the rocks surrounding the entrance to the Jesus Lode, and they all disappeared where an hour earlier the women and children had been sleeping.
I considered my options. I could slide from the rock and return to Juan and the others, who, if they weren’t already at the Lulabelle, would be there soon. Or I could maintain my position until I knew what Rodriguez’s people would do next. If the man in the lead was a good tracker, he’d probably find signs that would lead them all to the Lulabelle.
I was torn, but the decision was taken from my hands.
Four men passed below the ledge on which I’d flattened myself. I recognized them. Agent Sprangers and DEA Agent Vega, Sheriff Carlson, and Deputy Crockett. They were headed directly toward the Jesus Rock, but not moving quickly because Sprangers was cutting sign. It was clear that he didn’t know exactly where he was leading the others, and that he had no idea what he was heading into.
Trust no one in Coronado County. The advice everyone had been giving me since I’d arrived in this desert place.
Trust only family. Gilberto Mondragón’s advice.
Then I heard another voice speaking, that of a wise old man: Trust your heart.
“Sprangers. Carlson,” I called out.
The men stopped, spun around, and looked up.
“You’re heading into a firefight,” I said from my perch. “Rodriguez’s people. They have you outnumbered and outgunned.”
“What are you doing here, O’Connor?” Sprangers said.
“Are you really surprised to see me?”
Carlson said, “Where’s Bisonette?”
“Not up there ahead of you. Keep going and in ten minutes you’ll run into fifteen heavily armed men.”
“Come down and we’ll talk,” Sprangers said.
I left the ledge and made my way to where the others stood. “Just the four of you? This is all the manpower of your task force?”