“On it.” She heard his boots scrunch on the gravel and caliche as he ran to their Border Patrol vehicle. He returned in less than a minute. He put all of their water inside the boxcar where Hunter could reach it, and said, “EMS is on their way. So is Carlo.” He looked around the piles of debris and trash scattered arou
nd, then trotted to the end of the boxcar and returned with a discarded Igloo cooler. Using it for a step, Raymond pushed up and crawled into the interior to help Hunter.
Hunter had Adan’s shirt open and trickled water on his chest and stomach, using her handkerchief to keep it there and not allow moisture to run off him. “His skin’s burning, like touching a hot oven.”
Raymond handed her his handkerchief, “Soak this one and put it on his neck.”
She did, and talked to the boy as she wet the cloth and placed it over the large veins running up his neck, close to the surface, “Adan, hey buddy, can you hear me? We’ve got you now.” She didn’t know if he would make it or not, but she said to him, “You’re gonna be all right.” She used her moist handkerchief to wet his lips and squeeze drops between them into his bone-dry mouth.
The corners of his mouth were crusted, and she noticed the cracks there, the insides of them showing blood. His tongue was so swollen it looked as if someone had inserted an air needle and inflated it.
She dribbled more water in his mouth, and this time he swallowed, then coughed. “That’s it, that’s it, Adan. Drink a little more.” She continued to feed him drops of water and he continued to swallow, although with difficulty.
Raymond looked over the other bodies, “These are the four fentanyl mules.”
“Any of them shot?”
“No. Looks like they were locked in here and left to die.”
Hunter said, “The only reason we came up here was we spotted those vehicle tracks and then RL’s shoe print at the gate, otherwise nobody would know about them.”
“Those are some cold bastards.”
Hunter dripped a few more drops of water into Adan’s mouth, “No kiddin’.”
Both heard the faint sound of a siren coming their way. Raymond said, “Help is coming.”
The small sips of water seemed to be working, and Adan moved his legs, moaning softly as he exhaled.
“It’s okay, Adan. We’re here with you,” Hunter said. She wiped his forehead again with a moistened handkerchief.
They heard the EMS vehicle pull up beside the boxcar, and Buddy and Brandi hopped out and came to the two Agents. Their eyes grew big as they looked inside, and Brandi wrinkled her nose as she looked at Hunter. They had Adan out of the boxcar in less than a minute, and Brandi had an IV sending fluids in his arm shortly after that.
Carlo drove up in his Sheriff’s Department vehicle and came to the open rail car door. As he got out, the ambulance left with Adan. Carlo said to Raymond and Hunter, “You two attract things like this, don’t you, like a big magnet attracts nails. Jesus H. Christ.”
“You have any other people coming?”
“What, like I’m CSI or something? It’s not hard to see what happened here, the problem is finding out who.”
“We think we have a good idea.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Those Hart Ranch employees, Ellis and RL.”
Carlo waited for more, and Raymond said, “Their tracks are here.”
“All that means is that they were here, and that’s only if the tracks were made from their shoes and not someone else wearing the same type footwear. You know that.”
“It’s all we have, until that tough little kid in the ambulance wakes up.”
Raymond hitched a thumb at the boxcar, “How about the bodies?”
“That’s the county coroner’s work.”
“We know they’re from Mexico. These are the backpackers we found yesterday.”
“The ones bringing in Fentanyl, and that got away from you.”