Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants (31 page)

“
Take the end of it and rub it on your eye,”
Jesús advised. I resented him making this joke while my eye burned, but Conce too was nodding.

“A woman’s hair is the best cure,” he confirmed.

So I took the pigtail and rubbed around my watering eye with the hair ends beneath the rubber band. It still hurt.
“Rub it some more,”
commanded Jesús. I did, and Evangélica nodded approvingly. It felt a little better.

The next day we helped pass the miles with the small stack of
novelas
we had bought in Querétaro.
Novelas
are the main form of recreational reading for millions of ordinary Mexicans—akin to the junk novels Americans consume, but much briefer and even more popular. The intelligentsia disdains these novels, with their supposed “vocabulary of only some 300 words”—but they are some sort of indicator of the interests of the everyday Mexican, as well as, perhaps, an aid to literacy in a country that lacks it. They are set up like comic books, with glossy covers, drawings, and newsprint pages in color, the characters’ lines printed in balloons over their heads. The dialogue includes the slang of everyday life, and the themes of the little dramas are equally popular: police intrigue, romance, westerns, Biblical tales. I was somehow not surprised, as I riffled through them, to find an entire series entitled “Wetbacks: True Tales of the Braceros.”

Emigration to the States, in fact, figured importantly throughout Mexican popular culture. In the
ranchera
songs devoted to the exploits of
braceros,
in Mexican films (fully one-third of those produced over the past ten years dealt with intrigues of the border and life “on the other side”), in the attention newspapers gave to anything having to do with Mexicans in the U.S.A.—the permeation of the emigration theme into Mexican life was complete. I looked at the numbers of the
novela
series. “Better He Never Had Gone” was one title; the cover showed a stern American Immigration agent waving his finger at a downcast Mexican. Inside, an attractive young couple were forced by tragic circumstance to seek their fortune in the States. They made plenty of money; but due to her weakness and the influence of “loose” American friends, their marriage fell to pieces and she was killed in a car wreck. “Hell on Earth” detailed the tragic misadventures of two brothers who crossed and were variously exploited by employers, falsely accused of crimes, and beat up by police and their cellmates in American jails. The cover of “I Want to Earn Dollars” promised “all the intense drama generated by ambition and greed,” but the story delivered mainly an exposition of the awesome computerized efficiency of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. (Agents of the American
migra
generally were feared and respected in Mexico; Mexicans always looked puzzled or disbelieving when I described the lack of seriousness with which they were taken by many Americans.) Jesús, Conce, Plácido, Tiberio, Rolando, and others who knew what it was really like didn’t have much use for these
novelas,
but the Woodpecker and young Marín and Inocencio—and I—devoured them.

Friday morning dawned on me with thoughts of chicken leftovers, but no sooner was Jesús up than he threw the remaining half-eaten carcass out the window. I protested as I saw it hit the pavement below and crash into pieces. “
What was wrong with it?”
I asked.
“It’s Friday,”
he explained, with a tone of uncharacteristic piety.
“No meat—only fish.”
Thus we began to get out when the bus stopped in stations along the way and search for food, or else wait for vendors to offer us things through the windows. If the bus drivers permitted it, occasionally vendors would also board the bus. They were usually boys, selling Chiclets or Cokes or their mothers’
burritos,
wrapped in paper and carried in buckets. Now and then one would simply stand in the aisle and sing a song at the top of his lungs, passing the hat afterward. The bus drivers were most permissive toward the handicapped beggars, present in almost every station, who passed out picture cards of the Virgin with an explanation on the back such as “I AM DEAF AND MUTE. THIS IMAGE OF THE VIRGIN COSTS 20 PESOS. PLEASE RETURN IT IF YOU DO NOT WANT IT. GOD BLESS YOU.”

They came in thin plastic envelopes, and enclosed was a tin crucifix on a string. All of us bought these cards, and, imitating the others, I hung the tiny crucifix from the ashtray of the seat back in front of me. It was Mexican travel insurance.

As we entered our second evening of travel, the coach left the coast, heading directly north toward the border. By now it was filled almost entirely with men in their twenties and thirties; a few more had gotten on in every city along the way, and some had even been turned away for lack of room. Around midnight the bus was waved to the side of the road by men with flashlights. We came to a stop by a small, two-room building with lights on inside. A uniformed man climbed up the bus stairs.

“
¡Pasaportes, tarjetas turísticas, identificación!”
he cried. Everyone stopped talking. Another uniformed man, with side arms on his belt, climbed in and stationed himself at the door. I glanced across the aisle at Tiberio and Conce; their faces wore the sort of look you see on a person about to have to deal with someone who can screw things up for them, someone in power: a school principal, a supervisor. Most of the men were handing the official their military service card; I got out my tourist card. We watched as he approached, turning to give extra scrutiny to one of the emigrants-to-be who had boarded with us at Querétaro. The man had a large amount of luggage stashed on the shelf above his seat. As Jesús had explained when he instructed me to pack light, luggage could be taken as evidence that you were planning to stay away a long time. Cops would accuse you of plotting to cross the border. Of course, there was no Mexican law against this, but few rural Mexicans knew the law, and if the cops came up with some pretext for arresting you, you had to pay them off to keep them from doing it. This was a Mexican customs stop, also known as a graft opportunity. The policeman ordered the man off the bus.

Seated right behind the offender was Eduardo, the Woodpecker. Our jaws were tight as he, too—apparently implicated by the same mass of luggage—was ordered off the bus. The policeman seemed uninterested in me, or in any of the others in our group; he continued his slow walk to the back of the bus, sending two other men into the little building outside before he was done.

We talked lowly when the policemen left, but there was not a great deal to discuss. The only question would be how much Eduardo would have to pay. Jesús had explained previously: they would threaten him with detention if he didn’t cooperate, say they would tell the bus to go, leave his belongings on it. More severe, physical methods of coercion could follow if that didn’t work. It was worth your time to barter with them over an amount, but not to refuse to pay.

Red faced through either embarrassment or anger, the Woodpecker eventually returned to the bus. The damage had been only 750 pesos—two and a half dollars at the time. He could live with it, he supposed. Another of the detainees, a Guatemalan, had got it worse. When the man could produce neither a Mexican draft card nor immigration papers, he had been ordered to strip. Sewn into the cuff of one of his pant legs was $150; the police found it and kept all but $10.

I nodded. I had done an article on Central American refugees in Mexico. For them, customs inspections were truly a thing to dread—because almost invariably that’s where they were separated from all their money. Many were en route to the United States, but the problem was that Central Americans already were
Mexico’s
illegal aliens. I had been to the southern border to interview people and watch them wade the Río Suchiate, and was startled by the many similarities between their situation in Mexico and that of Mexican undocumented in the United States. During harvest season in the cotton, banana, and coffee plantations of southern Mexico, there was seldom a problem, for they could be hired even more cheaply than Mexican laborers and, it was said, they worked harder. Out of season, however, Mexicans had no need for them, and when they were discovered during customs checks on buses, the demands of customs officials became exorbitant. It was an interesting form of immigration control: in the States we shipped immigrants back to the Mexican border, causing them the loss of a few days’ work and whatever it took to pay another
coyote.
In Mexico officials simply extracted a direct payment. It was an odious practice, but it saved both sides time and probably money.

*

For hours the bus traversed the vast Sonoran Desert, a cold black space with no lights; the horizon was marked by the line where the twinkling sky yielded to pitch darkness. Though cramped, the dimly lit bus offered warmth and security, a sense of enclosure. With extended travel through such a large, indeterminate space, I had almost ceased to anticipate a stop; but those who recognized our destination, the little border town of Sonoita, jerked the rest of us out of slumber, and after a scramble to collect coats and sacks, we were down the steps and into the night. The coach turned left, to trace the border the rest of the way to Tijuana, and left us in a cloud of warm, acrid diesel smoke.

A frigid north wind reminded me that the desert didn’t stop at the border; only Mexico did. The desert was a seamless continuum ranging from perhaps 500 miles south of here all the way north to Oregon. It was probably very nearly as cold that evening down where it began in San Luis Potosí as it was up north near the Bitterroots. Bisecting the expanse was the arbitrary line of the border, the only conceivable reason for the existence of the little town, the x-axis of its location. The y-axis, as we would see with daylight, was a little stream running roughly north to south, a thin green corridor along which a few livestock grazed and
los mojados
lounged before undertaking the crossing.

My problems with Alonso in mind, I suggested to my companions that we remain separate when in public places on the border. Entering the bus stop cafe, I sat apart from the long table where I knew most of them would take a seat. But Victor, Marín, and the Woodpecker forgot; they walked up and plopped themselves right down at my table as though they had known me for years. In response to my hissed protests they laughed, said I was overcautious and a worrywart, and ordered coffee.

The existence of a twenty-four-hour café was a reminder that we were close to the States, and something of a comfort to me. But apparently we were there only to brace ourselves against the cold, for with the first light of Saturday, a couple of hours later, we were outside, briskly following Plácido down the road toward a bridge that spanned the stream. From the end of the bridge railing, a narrow footpath curved down to the stream. The thin, lush floodplain was a welcome contrast to the severity of the desert. We walked single file through shrubs, trees, and grasses for a half mile or so, until we were a comfortable distance from town. In the dim light we silently passed several groups, large and small, of sleeping people crowded under blankets on the ground—earlier arrivals. Already awake and grazing were a few cows and goats, the other inhabitants of the riverside park. Skirting their numerous piles, we came to a knoll and there built our morning warm-up fire.

The presence of other beginners saved me from having to ask naive questions about what came next. Plácido, the senior member of the party, explained to Marín that the main thing to do was wait—the
coyotes
would come to us. There was competition among them, so we would hold out for a good price. Most would want to take us all the way to Phoenix, and would charge up to two dollars for every mile of the 150-mile distance. But all we needed was a 15- or 20-mile ride out of town, a drop-off in a remote area away from the border patrols originating in Lukeville. From there, I already knew, their custom was to trek north through the desert, into Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and then the Papago Indian Reservation (now known as the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation). The native Americans traditionally had been able to supply a second ride—transportation the rest of the way to Phoenix—for a reasonable price; this way, we could expect to save about one hundred dollars apiece.

Plácido, thirty-three and the father of six, was the most experienced Idaho hand. He could claim eight seasons working in the Northwest, and as many desert crossings. A sweaty man, he did not much resemble the others: his black hair, parted way over on the side, stuck to his forehead, his shirts always looked too tight, and his pants were never quite up. From his face—usually expressionless, especially around the eyes—and his corpulent build, the name (meaning “placid, serene”) seemed to fit. But Plácido was neither slow nor relaxed, and, when it came to important decisions, everyone looked to him.

Until the
coyotes
arrived, Plácido visited with the senior members of other groups waiting in the park. As they woke up, different groups would send envoys over to us, or Plácido would mosey over to their camps, to see who they were and what they knew about the local situation. One group of ten men, he reported, was from Michoacán; another group of four from Sinaloa. Another group that disappeared with the dawn had been from Nayarit. About all that was new in Sonoita, he had heard, was that the Federal Judicial Police, Mexico’s main national police force, had recently opened a branch in town. With all I had heard about bandits and con men along the border, I thought this would be good news to the others. But they seemed, if anything, more worried by the presence of the so-called
judiciales. “When the judiciales come to town,”
Jesús explained,
“official bandits replace the unofficial ones.”
The other groups reported a number of
coyotes
in the area, and gave a description of one suspected to be a snitch for the
judiciales.