Bridge of Shadows

Chapter 1

July 7, 1992

Esmeralda Elena Sanchez and Peter Alan Ross

Esmeralda Sanchez would never have paid money to the coyotes to take her over the border if she hadn’t already been caught and deported by la migra—the U.S. Border Patrol—seven times. She was desperate to get across and stay across—not only for her own sake, but for Jaime’s, He was six, and small for his age, and she was afraid of what would happen to him if they stayed in the grinding poverty of the Ciudad Juárez barrio, within sight of the nice American homes and cars.

And the coyotes hadn’t seemed so very bad. They’d shown her the car—a nice car, American, with air conditioning.

And after she’d paid them the money, they’d shown her the trunk and, under the spare tire, the tiny, cramped metal compartment just big enough for her and Jaime. She hadn’t liked the way they’d looked at her. She shouldn’t have gotten in the compartment. She knew now, knew it for certain, that if they let her and Jaime live at all, it would be after a terrible ordeal of pain. It had all gone wrong, and it was her own fault.

Mama? It’s too hot, Jaime whispered through dry, cracked lips. He remembered to speak English—she’d told him to practice it, practice it all the time. Mama, make it cold. Frío, Mama.

She couldn’t remember the sky. A clear blue sky, she thought, with the sun a brutal white shimmer rising toward noon. How many horns ago? The heat of his small body against hers was almost unbearable, but she cradled him as best she could, muffling his cry as title car shuddered and their heads banged painfully into the false metal wall above. A coffin, it was a metal coffin, he was dying in the dark, her pobrecito, and there was nothing she could do.

Chito, she whispered, and kissed his sweat-soaked hair. His skin felt clammy. Shhh, no, it will be over soon, I promise.

¿Verdad? He sounded so pitifully weak.

Te lo promesar. He was dying. Better la migra catch them. Better deportation, better starvation, better anything than the sound of Jaime’s breath in her ear.

He was only six years old. Dios mío, ayuda me, she prayed. Don’t let him die. Not because I wanted something better.

It would be over soon. The driver would stop, he’d open the trunk and let them out, and she and Jaime would laugh and drink cold water and—

Jaime whispered, Tengo frío, Mamá. I feel cold.

Esmeralda screamed, screamed as loud as her dry mouth could stand, battered her blistered hands on the metal plating, kicked with all the strength in her cramped muscles. She screamed until the heat made her dizzy and sick, and without meaning to she vomited, managing to turn her head away from Jaime only at the last second, and then she felt his hand on her face, startlingly cool. He said, "Mama? It’s all right, Mama. Está bien. I’ll take care of you."

She would have wept, but her eyes were dry and parched, her throat scraped raw. The heat filled her lungs like sand, and it was so much effort to breathe. The stink of her sickness came muffled and distant, like the smells of hot tar and metal and sweat. The constant vibration of the road was a soothing hand on her back.

She slid away into the dark for a while, jerked back when she felt the car lurch. They were stopping. They were stopping.

Jaime, she croaked. Her lips felt wet; when she licked them with her thick, dry tongue, they tasted of blood. "Jaime, mijo, wake up."

They had survived hell.

Rámon Cruz loved the desert. He had grown up in the small town of Tortilla Flats, near long stretches of white salt deposits that men had fought and killed for a hundred years ago; the desert had taught him many things, not the least of which was that whatever lies men told, the land stayed truthful.

The hot-brass sun, the velvet dunes, the harsh beauty of cactus and mesquite and desert sage. The land of our fathers. No sense of time passing here—only wind whispers, and the subtle movements of snake, lizard, bird.

He was more than two hours outside El Paso, Texas, but he could have been at the edge of the earth. The evidence of human occupation—old bottles, rusted, dirt-scoured cans, faint shreds of plastic—these would fade with time. The shack creaking in the wind behind him would dry up and blow away. The cars, including the ancient green pickup that had brought him here, would rust away to nothing. Only the land was forever.

He closed his eyes and breathed in eternity. Aztlan. This was the empire his ancestors had raised and where, with the will of the old ones, he would raise it again. That was his pure and certain destiny in this life. That, and revenge, in the old ways, on the betrayers of the people.

A shadow fell across him, and he looked up at the sweating leathery face of his padrino, Miguel Sanchez. Miguel swiped a hand across his forehead, knocking back his battered straw hat, and took a seat next to Rámon on the sand. He smelled of fresh, metallic blood.

It’s done, he said, and wiped his hands on his faded pants. Ay, it’s hot out here.

Heat is good for you, Rámon answered. "Burns the stains out of the soul. Here, cerveza."

He passed over a sweating bottle of Dos Equis; Miguel twisted the cap and drank thirstily. His fingers were blunt and hard, cracked at the tips. Blood around his fingernails. Rámon looked past him at the distant purple mountains shimmering in the heat. A fly buzzed close, then veered away toward the shack behind them.

To the cause, Miguel said, and held up his half-empty bottle. Rámon focused on him again, lifted his own beer, and clinked glass.

To the cause, he echoed. "Our time is coming. Eh, amigo, I’m grateful, you know? I couldn’t have done this without you."

Miguel nodded, swallowed, shrugged. It was all work to him, digging irrigation trenches or digging shallow graves. Rámon glanced over his shoulder at the others sitting quietly in the shack’s meager shade. Two of them were asleep, snoring gently; the third was watching him with narrow, dark eyes.

What do you think about the Maldonados? he asked Miguel. Good men?

Good enough. Nestor’s reliable, he’s with us.

You’re sure we can trust them?

Miguel eyed him sideways, tipped his bottle, and drained foam. Why shouldn’t we? They’re our brothers, Rámon. Nestor came up from La Raza.

Rámon nodded slowly. Loyalty was one thing, but they were about to steal more than a million dollars of heroin; that was money Aztlan couldn’t afford to lose. Unlike the cabrones they would take the drugs from, Rámon did not intend to sell the heroin in the barrio; he intended to market it where it would achieve the most good—in the predominantly Anglo neighborhoods of West El Paso. More profit, more money for the cause.

The Maldonado brothers were too quiet, too watchful. He would not turn his back on them.

Rámon. Miguel elbowed him and jerked his chin toward the shimmering black highway in the distance. A car was turning off—a big car, expensive. An Anglo car.

Ya veo. Rámon stood up, feeling the heat suddenly like a close-clinging vampire. Dark spots swam before his eyes, swarmed like ants. He dropped his half-finished beer to the sand and pulled a gun from his waistband. On to Aztlan, he said.

God willing, Miguel murmured. He had a shotgun. Behind him the Maldonado brothers mutely got to their feet.

"Let’s kill these cabrones and get the hell out of here."

The tires crunched off the pavement onto loose gravel. Rocks pinged, and the smells changed to burning oil and sour, smoky exhaust. The engine shut off, and the rumbling vibration Esmeralda had grown so used to stopped. Without it she felt her muscles trembling, close to collapse, and the fear she’d pushed back threatened to smother her like the bad air.

The car shifted. The driver’s side door opened and closed.

Jaime, she whispered again. Jaime—

Men’s voices outside the car. She caught pieces of the rapid Spanish: … the heroin? I don’t do business with you. Where’s Luis?

Men laughed. He’s out of business. You do business with us now.

All right, one of the coyotes said after a short, comprehending pause. Glad to see you, amigo. More money for your cause, eh? Power to the people.

The coyote who’d talked her into this horror said, with a smile in his oily voice, That’s right, Rámon. We’re with you all the way, man. Soldiers for the new land.

I’m glad to hear it, a man said in English. You can die like soldiers, then. Kill them all.

The soft desert wind whipped away the sharp sting of gunpowder, and in the silence Rámon thought for an instant he heard the crying of a child, but his ears were ringing from the noise of the gunfire. Three more dead men, staring sightlessly up at the cloudless sky. He looked across the bodies at Miguel, whose serene expression had not changed even as he shot a seventeen-year-old vato the face.

Put the bodies in the shack, he said. Get the drugs and let’s get out of here.

What about the car? Miguel said. He gestured toward the big, shiny Lincoln the coyotes had arrived in, now pocked here and there with bullet holes. Nestor Maldonado reached into the car and popped open the trunk. He lifted out an old, oil-stained cardboard box and carried it to the truck. As he opened it to check the contents, Rámon stared at the empty trunk. He walked over and clicked it shut.

Leave it. The Lincoln had two flats now, and Rámon was in no mood to change tires. The car disgusted him. It was the symbol of everything he hated—money, power, pointless luxury. Even the cash he’d get for it wouldn’t make that taste leave his mouth. Let the buzzards shit on it.

Like good soldiers, they methodically picked up the ejected brass cartridges from their guns, and Miguel started the truck. Rámon rode in the back, one arm across the loosely taped box of heroin, staring at Nestor Maldonado’s dark, narrow eyes and knowing that one of them would die before this day was finished, because there was greed in those eyes, not dreams of a homeland for the people. If the man couldn’t see the future, he would die in the past.

For no reason, as the rattletrap truck lurched onto the smooth blacktop of Carlsbad Highway, Rámon turned and looked back at the shack where they had left sacrifices on the altar of Aztlan. The Lincoln Town Car gleamed like a dark diamond in the sun.

He did not know why he was so uneasy.

It was dark, so dark; it felt as if the dark had shape and weight and stuffed Esmeralda’s mouth with its rancid heat. The only sound in the world was Jaime’s breathing and the pounding of her own heart

The bullets had missed them, but it was so very hot

Jaime stirred against her and in a voice old with pain croaked, Water, Mama.

She had no water, no tears. Even her sweat was gone. Out of terror she had let the sound of the other car die into silence; now she heard nothing outside. No one.

"Está bien, Jaime," she said, and as best she could, in the dark and in the heat, in a space the size of a child’s coffin, she rocked him to sleep. Está bien.

Christ, he thought, it all looks the same. Peter Ross squinted through the Mercedes’ tinted windshield, trying to pick out the meandering tracks of dirt roads leading from the highway. In the west, smoke blue Franklin Mountains sawed the sun bloody, and clouds soaked up the spill—red edges, brilliant orange centers fading into a delicate pink. The stars were already out to the east in thick diamond clusters.

Damn desert, Larry said from the passenger side, and pointed up ahead at some barely noticeable gravel turnoff. It was Larry’s car, Larry’s booze in the backseat, Larry’s girlfriend’s picture dangling from the rearview mirror. Gets on my nerves. Everything’s got edges, you know? Cactus, rocks, everything.

Why’d you move out here, then? Pete asked, and turned the wheel. The Mercedes responded, smooth as butter, and even the bump of leaving the highway felt like a gentle tap.

Watch the fuckin’ mesquite, man. Larry eyed the spiky, thorny bushes warily, like they might reach out and key the car for the hell of it. He slumped down in the passenger seat and gnawed a much chewed thumbnail. Pete slowed the car to a leisurely crawl. Headlights lit up red sand, rough mesquite, the occasional pod-crowned spike of a sotol cactus. All the same, the desert, and all so deceptively different.

I thought we were going to El Paso, he said to Larry, not quite a question, more a way to make Larry stop chewing his cuticle.

"No, man, I didn’t, say that. I said we were going kinda that way. Get too close to the city, you get cops, Border Patrol, DEA, Customs—they’re just aching to bust our asses. No, we always meet out here."

Well, where is here exactly?

Red Sands. Larry, who was the size of a defensive lineman, combed his long, dark hair over his shoulders. He had two earrings in his left ear, both gold rings, and he was wearing all black. His drug dealer look, Pete thought, and with a fair amount of self-disgust, Like I have room to talk? What the hell am I doing here? Not his car, not his girlfriend, not his money— It’s like White Sands—

Only it’s red, yeah, I get it. Why here?

Dunno. Ask Luis, man, I just work here. Hey, what’re you going to do after this? You catching a plane back to Dallas, or you want to hang around?

He didn’t know. The fight with Ana had nearly destroyed him this time. He was afraid for her and he was furious with her. She was the kind of woman who always had a cause, and the causes were always dangerous; this one, the one that had earned her death threats, was because she was consulting physician for a Dallas abortion clinic. It was a subject they could not discuss, so the anger came out in other ways—little cutting comments about money or jealousy or the color of sheets on the bed. He and Ana were over. They just hadn’t admitted it yet.

A tumbleweed the size of a Christmas tree rolled across the gravel road, its branches tinseled with yellowed paper, candy wrappers, a limp, pale condom. It hesitated in front of the Mercedes, and Pete stepped on the brakes to let it roll ponderously past. Wouldn’t want that stuck under the grille. He already had itchy, bloodless punctures in his fingers from pulling out the last one.

Larry was very particular about his ride.

The headlights caught a flare of red from another car’s reflectors. Pete stepped on the brakes again, this time with a surge of fear. Cops? He didn’t know he’d, said it aloud until Larry said, No, man, it’s okay. That’s Luis’ car, they’re just early.

Pete put the Mercedes in park, In the cool white beams of the headlights, dust swirled red and gold. The air conditioning breathed its last, and the fading heat of the summer day closed around him like a steel wool blanket.

Larry got out, stretched like a cat, and tossed his hair with another one of those girlish gestures. The gun at the small of his back—black like the rest of his outfit—was hard to see unless you were looking for it. Pete gripped the steering wheel hard, feeling the cool leather give like skin, and took a deep breath before stepping out of the car.

Even with the evening breathing hot on his face, there wasn’t much smell to the desert—a faint bite of mesquite wood and the weirdly dead smell of ultradry air. The tick of the engine as it cooled sounded loud as a cartoon bomb.

Nobody moved at the other car. Larry ambled over to peer in the Town Car’s windows, and Pete stayed where he was, door open, ready to dive at the first sign of trouble. He was not a drug dealer. He didn’t much care about pot, could take it or leave it. It was Larry’s show, Larry’s money, but that wouldn’t matter a damn; he was driving the car. He was guilty, too, and he couldn’t even figure out why he was taking the risk.

Yes, he could. Because apart from going back to another useless fight with his wife, there was absolutely nothing else to do.

The mountains had finished off the sun, but the sunset’s ghost remained. By its glow he saw that the car parked next to the windowless shack had Mexican license plates. He’d seen a lot of those since coming into West Texas—they all said

FRONT CHIH.

Frontera Chihuhua, Larry had explained, playing tour guide. The plates were good in the U.S. only for about three hundred miles from the border.

Luis! Larry called. No answer. In the profound silence the little whisper of tumbleweeds made Pete paranoid. He wished he had a gun. No, he didn’t. He wished he were somewhere else, anywhere but out here with a lunatic long-haired freak buying a kilo of grass. Larry, the rebel without a fix.

It was also a little late to be having second thoughts.

Fuck me, Larry muttered, and went up to the shack. There was a doorway but no door. He poked his head in. Luis? Hey, man, quit screwing around, let’s do it.

Anybody in there? Pete asked. Larry looked back at him and shrugged.

Can’t see a goddamn thing. Get me a flashlight.

Pete popped the Mercedes’ trunk and rooted around, found a slim little MagLite and switched it on, rotated the lens to its widest halogen beam. Larry pointed it inside the doorway.

Hey, guys, if you’re in there, just remember, black widows love places like this. I’d be careful if I—

He yelped and jumped back two feet. Pete’s first thought was, Great, snakebite, and then he saw Larry’s face.

Fuck, Larry said softly. Oh, fuck, man, this isn’t happening. Get in the car.

He scooped up the fallen flashlight, switched it off, and headed for the Mercedes. Pete hesitated, frowning, looking at the shack.

Get in! Larry ordered.

What’s in there?

You don’t want to know.

The hell I don’t!

Larry shook his head. "Some dead guys, okay? Luis and some other guys. Jesus, get in, will you—"

He broke off and looked sharply past Pete at the Town Car.

You hear something? he asked. Pete shook his head. Larry took a step closer to the other car, listened, took another.

This time Pete did hear it—a muffled thump, like something hitting metal.

Shit! Larry jumped back. "Oh, man, that’s it. Come on, Pete, we’ve got to go. Now."

Wait—it sounds like—it’s coming from the trunk. Pete bent over the trunk and listened, listened hard. Yeah, somebody’s in the trunk. Open the car and pop the latch.

"No way. You put your goddamn prints all over a murder scene, not me."

Pete shot him an exasperated look and opened the door with a fold of his shirt over his hand, popped the trunk release the same way. The inside of the car was clean and very hot. It smelled, faintly, of vomit. There were no keys.

Nothing, Larry reported from the back. Pete walked around to stand beside him, both of them staring like idiots at the empty carpet, the spare tire. The smell of vomit was stronger.

They both jumped at the sound of another thump. This one rattled the spare.

Underneath, Pete said, and dragged the carpet out of the way. The metal plate below was bolted at the corners. Hell. Got any tools?

No, I don’t have any tools. What do I look like, a mechanic? Oh, man, I can’t believe this is happening. Where’s my shit? Somebody ripped Luis off and they took my shit. What the hell am I going to do? I got obligations, you know.

Pete found a crowbar wedged in one corner of the trunk, jammed the forked end under the plate, and heaved up. Metal bowed and popped.

You’re fucking crazy. Larry backed up a step or two, watching as Pete snapped the first bolt off and started on the second. You don’t know who the hell’s in there. Could be a cop for all you know.

Yeah, that would make sense. Drug dealers always stick cops in smuggling compartments.

Larry made the obvious connection—smuggling compartment, missing drugs. He grabbed his own crowbar out of the Mercedes and worked on the other side of the plate, and within five minutes all four bolts were sheared off.

The plate was still hot to the touch, like coins left in the sun. Pete hissed in pain and held it up with the palm of his hand, squinting under it as Larry helpfully turned on the flashlight.

Jesus God, Larry said, and backed off.

A woman lay at a torturous angle in the tiny compartment. Her swollen, blistered face was smeared with dried vomit, her lips cracked and bloody, and in her arms she held a little boy with skin the color of delicate ivory, his open eyes gone opaque and dry.

Her lips parted, the cracks splitting open to stitch threads of blood down her chin.

Ayude mi hijo, she croaked. Ayude Jaime.

Larry backed off, all the way back to the Mercedes, breath rasping hard in his throat. Pete stood frozen, looking down at her, and after a long few seconds he reached down and took the boy out. The small body felt so heavy, limp as a sack of sand. There was no muscle in him at all.

The reality of it hit Pete in a hot wave, like pepper in his throat and eyes. His lungs felt hot and compressed, and he had to put the kid down, quick, before he dropped him.

No matter how limp he was, he didn’t look like a sleeping kid ought to look. Pete worked at the buttons on his own shirt, fingers clumsy, got it off and draped it over the little boy’s pale, sad, somehow knowing face.

Help me, he said. He wasn’t sure who he was saying it to for a second; a breeze, startlingly cool, blew up goose bumps on his bare back. Oh, yeah, Larry—Larry was standing there, staring at him like a stranger. Come on, Larry, help me get her out.

Out? Larry repeated. And put her where exactly?

He was too tired for this shit. Pete got up, moving maybe too fast, and Larry made a nervous move for his car. Pete held out his empty hands, palms up.

In the backseat. Come on, Larry, don’t bullshit me. We’ve got to do this. She’ll die out here. The kid’s already— For some reason he didn’t want to say it. Larry shook his head and avoided looking down at the blue and white shirt fluttering in the evening breeze.

In order to avoid that, he ended up staring in the direction of the highway. Pete saw the red and blue lights flashing in the distance at the same time Larry did.

Oh, shit! Larry yelped. See? See what I told you? No fucking way, Peter. If I go down, it’s for the third time. Why’re we even talking about this? You saw her, no way she’s going to last until morning. I’m not getting my ass busted for a goddamn dead wetback!

Shut up and help me, Larry! Pete screamed, and it was the wrong thing to do because now Larry had the gun out, a flash of black in his hand, and he had one hand on the driver’s-side door of the Mercedes. Larry, you can’t do this, man. You can’t leave her here. You’re better than that.

The cops are coming. They’ll pick her up. Get in the goddamn car, Peter, or I swear I’ll leave you here. We got history, man, but I’ll leave your ass.

For a second it was very tempting. Get in the car, relieved of responsibility because of Larry and his gun. I had no choice.

I can’t, he said. Simple truth.

I’m not saying it again. Larry got in the car. He started the engine, closed the door, rolled down the window. Don’t get yourself busted over her, buddy. She’s dead by morning no matter what you do. Okay? Okay. I’m leaving. Bye-bye.

He put the car in reverse with a smooth click of gears, the backup lights shooting white flares over the sand. He turned on the radio very loud, the heavy beat of AC/DC thudding like hooves. Stalling.