The Beast (38 page)

Julio César never tried crossing himself this way, explaining that it’s a far cry from getting safely all the way to San Antonio, which is where he and most of the undocumented migrants crossing at this point are headed.

Little by little, while working hard for El Veracruzano and getting on his good side, Julio César saved up money to pay for his own coyote. “We never crossed less than fifteen people a week,” he says, which added up to about $150 a week. Increasingly confident, El Veracruzano started toying with the idea of crossing outside of the city, where the Border Patrol was less ubiquitous, and there were small islands in the shallower parts of the river. That knowledge was something El Veracruzano kept close to his chest. He could have potentially lost a lot of business if migrants started finding out about better crossing zones. But he did finally tell Julio César of El Carrizo, who knew right away that that was where he was going to cross with his coyote.

Another half an hour passes, and we’ve left the dust path for the scrubland of a private ranch. We approach the front door of a small ranch house where a man, the first person we’ve encountered on our walk, is listening to a boom box at full volume. We wave to get his attention, and ask if we’re on the right path to the river.

“Yeah,” he answers. “Straight ahead. But be careful. Last week some bandits murdered a migrant and his coyote right around here.”

This is a crossing point for those in the know, the path for coyotes and migrants with patience, but it’s also far out of the city and a perfect location for assaults. In 2005, walking this same path, Julio César and his coyote were attacked by two masked men who acted as if they were back in La Arrocera: they stripped them both naked, looking for money even in the folds of their underwear.

Further down the path we enter onto another ranch. We’re all very thirsty. But instead of finding a rest and some water, we see eight soldiers, all of them holding AR-15 assault rifles, watching us suspiciously from the ranch house. They approach and order us to identify ourselves. They ask for papers and search our bags. They know Julio César is undocumented, but in Mexico a soldier
doesn’t have the right to detain a migrant. They also know we’re journalists.

“Excuse us,” one of them says meekly. “We’re out looking for drugs. A lot pass through here.” As they let us go, the same soldier warns us: “Don’t go down by the river. That’s where people are getting mugged.”

In another half an hour, walking up and down hills and through the brush, we start to hear the river. We stumble down a steep slope and finally arrive at the muddy bank of the Rio Grande. “Here it is,” Julio César says, a smile on his face. He’s arrived. His long, patient wait and careful research have paid off: he’s finally found the spot where he crossed with his coyote back in 2005.

He sits down to consult a map he drew on a piece of paper. He traces a line with his long pinky nail, and outlines the plan: “The deal is that you have to cross at night. Once on the other side, you have to walk about seven hours to Laredo. From there you got to change clothes so you look decent, and then you’ll have two options. One is to hit the back highways towards Cotula [a small Texan town], asking for water or food for your five- or six-night walk to San Antonio. The other is to jump on a cargo train that’ll get you to San Antonio in an hour, except that there are checkpoints with dogs that’ll be sniffing for you. If you want to ride the train you have to cover yourself with garlic and chilli to scare away the dogs. Because the cops don’t actually get on the trains, they just follow the dogs. And then, once you’re in San Antonio, you made it.”

Except that he still hasn’t finalized his crossing point. The current is strong enough that it would be difficult to swim, and he still has to figure out how deep the river is here.

We jump in. The water is cold. In the middle of the river there’s a small island, so we can take a short break. In the deepest part the water reaches up to our necks, making it difficult to move forward. It’s incredible that this is the famous Rio Grande, which has taken
so many lives, and yet in crossing it we never lose our footing and, in the end, it only takes a few minutes.

We rest, hanging onto the river plants on the US side. It’s not deep at all, but the current is still pulling hard at us. After another minute we cross back to the Mexican side.

“I’m going to go for it here,” Julio César says confidently. We scramble up the steep bank, all of us still thirsty.

Norteña music blasts from the ranch house overlooking the river. It’s a corrido that describes a Border Patrol agent falling into the hands of a narco-trafficker he caught dealing. We approach the house, yelling to announce our presence, not wanting to surprise anyone. We’re greeted by a farmer who is trying to fix a reaping machine. He turns down the volume and I ask him if he sees a lot of migrants die while crossing the river.

“Die, no,” the man responds. “Already dead, yes.”

Julio César returns the bottle of water the farmer has given us.

The farmer explains: “They don’t die here. The river isn’t very deep at this point, except in the rainy season.”

Julio César was thinking of crossing in January. The first rains come to Nuevo Laredo usually in April. He should have plenty of time.

“But you’ve seen dead bodies?” I ask.

“Now and again.”

“How often?”

“I’ve seen two in the last two months,” he says. “They get washed up on the little island. But they’re all people who tried to cross in the city. The river pushes them down here. Last week a police boat recovered the last body on the island. It was already all swollen, lying there on the beach.”

Julio César motions that it’s time to start walking back, before it gets dark. He’s got what he came for. Now he just needs to wait for the right moment. He knows that if he rushes things he’ll put himself in danger. This is the difference in Nuevo Laredo between knowing and not knowing.