One of the men said, “We need to make a call on it.”
Holland nodded, and the other man called on the special phone. Almost immediately the first man said, “Tagged it.” He worked the keys some more, then punched a button. A printer fed out a single sheet of white paper. Holland picked it up and read it. “This will be taken care of tomorrow morning. Maintain silence until then.” He walked Samir and Crystal to their vehicle and said, “Stay on schedule.”
On their return trip to El Paso, Samir said, “I think we do it in the morning.”
“I’ll pack a few things tonight.” She shivered.
“Are you cold?”
“No, just nerves.”
***
Floyd Riffey was so thirsty and his throat so dry and swollen that he couldn’t swallow without it feeling like the sides of his throat were sticking together. He feared that soon it would stick and not open again, leaving him strangling on the side of a mountain. He limped down the slope, using handholds on rocks and trees to keep from falling. His ankle throbbed, but there was no stopping. He had to get out of the mountains and across the roads all the way to Texas without being seen.
In this area, a gringo walking alone was prey, pure and simple. The cartel people might only rough him up for fun, but they might just as easily decide on a whim to torture and kill him. If the Mexican police or military caught him, he would never see life outside a cell.
This was an area of the mountains he had not been in before, and though it was wild and beautiful, there was little water. Riffey angled along the shoulder of one peak, checking each ravine or valley for the sounds of water, or the sight of cottonwoods and sycamores, which were signs of water close to the surface.
A shallow ravine came into view. The far bank was fairly level and clear of brush. He saw shiny black things like dozens of indigo snakes visible in the sparse grass. Dope growers.
Riffey eased his way down the steep slope, across the rocky bottom, and up the far bench to the level area. He picked up one of the long, lightweight plastic pipes that growers used for irrigating their crops. The plants and the growers were long gone. Following the pipes to their common ends led him to a small seep spring that someone had dug out and lined with rocks.
Riffey cupped a handful of water and drank slowly, letting the tiniest trickle down his throat. It almost hurt when the water reached the dry membranes, but was wonderful at the same time. Drinking too fast would have him puking water out on the ground, so as hard as it was to hold back, he waited a good minute before cupping another handful, then another.
Half an hour later, Riffey felt like he might live. One part near the edge of the cleared area showed a faint trail going further down the mountain. He pondered following it. The trail could make his way out of the mountains much quicker, but on the other hand it might lead him into a group of marijuana growers who would not be pleased to see a gringo using their trail.
If they were people like the ones in the little village, La Sombra, he might be able to talk his way out of things. But if they were cartel associates, he would be tied up and either suffocated or told to kneel, where he would be beheaded with an axe, which was their current gristly fad. Either way they would save their bullets.
Riffey decided to follow the trail, but keep his eyes open. He wanted to get out of these mountains as fast as he could and reach the border before Holland left the country. Riffey didn’t realize that his hands curled into fists as he thought about it.
An hour later, the deep woof of a large dog echoed through the trees. Stopping on the trail, Riffey looked around for a weapon. He found a four-foot long branch that had fallen from a dead pine. He broke off the brittle twigs and checked the splintered end. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work as a crude spear point.
Easing around the brush and trees, Riffey spotted the small house a hundred feet below. Two pit bulls stood at attention, looking in his direction, straining against the chains anchored in a huge stump near the open door. A shirtless man stepped outside, showing a torso festooned with dark tattoos from neck to the belt line and down both arms. He held an AK with loose familiarity. The dogs barked again, and the man looked where the dogs looked.
This is no time for a confrontation, Riffey thought. He retraced his route all the way to the clearing, where he took another drink from the spring. He decided on a different direction and walked through the trees, regretting the lost time, but still determined to make it out of Mexico unseen. Two hours later he had some luck.
The crude road was partially overgrown with grass and weeds, but Riffey was grateful not to have to push through brush to keep going in the right direction. Around the first bend in the road he spotted salvation. The Ford pickup was old and battered, with a rusted paint job that at one time had been red but now showed through the sun damage as desert rose. Riffey thought it was beautiful because it was idling.
He watched the driver turn it off and leave the keys in the ignition. The man walked a hundred yards into the trees, carrying a chainsaw and a red plastic gallon can of gasoline. He checked several tree trunks, picked one and started the chainsaw.
Riffey crouched behind some brush and waited until the cutter’s back was to him, then eased down the slope to the pickup, slid into the driver’s seat, and with the chainsaw’s noise reverberating in the area, started the vehicle and sped away. The window was down and Riffey heard faint yells from the owner. The gas gauge needle rested at the halfway point between full and empty. Finally, he thought. Things are going my way.
Three hours later, the pickup ran out of gas o
n a dirt road fifty miles north of Ojinaga. Riffey sighed, leaving the Ford on the gravel shoulder. He decided to walk through the rough desert rather than on the road where it would be much easier. Holland and his men could be close, and Riffey did not want to run into them.
He made decent time and in less than two hours was standing on a barren hill on the Mexican side looking down at the green Rio Grande valley and the little village of San Antonio del Bravo. Beyond the scattered dwellings and buildings were small rectangular green fields extending all the way to the Rio Grande, with Texas on the far side. Further upriver, the valley was mostly thick brush and carrizo cane. From his height on the hill, Riffey could make out Capote Creek on the Texas side, and that was where he wanted to cross.
Riffey was too tired and thirsty to hide any longer, and walked down the hill to the village. He found a horse trough near one small adobe home and dunked his head in it, then stood and cupped water into his mouth until he was sated. He returned to the dirt road that divided the green valley on his right from the harsh, almost barren desert hills and ridges on the left. Several farmers working in the fields glanced at him, then went back to hoeing weeds.
A short distance northwest of the village, Riffey took a direction that would, if he could hold to it in the thick brush, come out on the river directly across from where Capote Creek entered into the Rio Bravo. After pushing and sweating to get through the thick salt cedar, mesquite and river cane, he found what he needed.
Years of sediment coming from the Capote Creek into the Rio Bravo left most of the river less than a foot deep. It was deepest near the Mexican side, and that was only an area maybe six feet in width. Riffey worked his feet down the grassy bank and into the water, which moved faster than he anticipated, sweeping him downriver for thirty feet before he regained footing. After that it was only a matter of wading to Texas, and with every step, the river grew shallower.
Riffey stood on Texas soil a short time later. He rested a moment, and noticed fresh tire tracks crossing the dry riverbed of Capote Creek. Thinking he might find another abandoned vehicle to steal, Riffey followed them.
A Border Patrol vehicle had made the tracks and was parked nearby, with no one in it. Riffey looked around and found the driver’s footprints, as well as tracks of others, all going in the same direction. There was no thought of stealing the Border Patrol vehicle, but he was still curious as to how far from the vehicle the Agent might be, so he followed them.