Page 47

Hector motioned for the girls to follow. They began walking along the shoreline, within the line of trees and out of sight of the other shore. They came to a small rapid where the river bottom was exposed and the murky green-brown river rushed over it.

Walk across? Ana thought.

Why didn’t we do this the first time? Instead of those stupid rowboats!

Could the policeman in the car have something to do with this? Maybe control this part of the river?

Hector pulled out a cellular telephone. In a flurry of finger movements, he typed then sent a very short text message.

Almost immediately on the U.S. side of the river border, not a hundred kilometers away, there was movement at the top of the rise above the river’s edge. It was some sort of small cartlike vehicle. It stopped, and a man got out of it. He was heavyset, like a larger version of Hector, and wore a uniform that was the same tan and brown as the outfits that the girls wore. He then started down toward the river, walking awkwardly under the weight of a long black bag he carried with both hands.

Hector started across the river shoal. The girls looked at each other, then followed.

Wading the shallows was uneventful save for Ana at one point snagging her foot on something underwater. She stumbled, and Rosario laughed. But when Ana went to free her foot and found it stuck in yet another pair of women’s underwear-this pair snagged on a submerged tree limb-Rosario’s smile quickly disappeared.

Once they reached the U.S. side of the river border, the heavyset man nodded a greeting but said nothing.

The girls watched as he and Hector exchanged the backpack for the long black canvas duffle. Hector grunted under the big bag’s weight, and when he slung its web handles over his right shoulder, the girls heard what sounded like metal pipe and dense plastic clunking against each other inside it.

Hector then said, “Jos? he will take you the next step.”

And, without another word, he struggled with the long bag and went back across the river.

Jos? led the girls with their backpacks to the cartlike vehicle they had never seen before. It had four small tires, a dull scratched dark green body, and not much more than a steering wheel and a black vinyl-covered bench seat that could accommodate no more than the three of them. There was lettering on the front of the cart-though neither girl could translate it, recognizing only the same logotype that was on the badges of their outfits-that read RGG amp;RC MAINTENANCE.

Jos? smiled warmly but said nothing as he drove them down a narrow asphalt-paved path that Ana thought looked as if it had been made expressly for this vehicle.

They came to an automobile parking lot, where Jos? pulled to a stop. A sign there announced RGG amp;RC VALET PARKING ONLY. They were beside a dusty white Chrysler Town amp; Country minivan, which a very long time ago had had its sides professionally lettered KIDDIE KASTLE PRE-SCHOOL in a glistening red. They all got in it and wordlessly drove off, passing a grand sign at the entrance reading RIO GRANDE GOLF amp; RACQUET CLUB.

A half hour later, they turned into a neat neighborhood of nice-looking one-story houses. When Jos? pulled the minivan to a stop on the street before one of them with a single scrawny tree in the middle of its yard, he announced with no emotion whatever that their trip was over.

Elated, Ana and Rosario looked at each other and smiled.

Ana then shook her head in wonder. The whole trip back into the United States had taken no time compared to what they’d just gone through from the time they’d been caught by the polic?a Americano to when they’d been sent back across the bridge to Mexico.

Jos? relieved the girls of their backpacks, then showed them the two bedrooms where they’d be staying. The girls beamed when shown a closet full of girls’ clothing in various sizes. They were told to pick their outfits from the closet and return the brown uniforms they were wearing to him.

After they had gotten cleaned up and were getting dressed, they heard the front door open and close, and then voices speaking in English. They pulled back the thin curtain and looked out the window. Out by the KIDDIE KASTLE PRE-SCHOOL minivan was parked a bigger vehicle, a Chevrolet Suburban.

Then they thought they recognized one of the voices, and when they went out into the living room, they found El Gato and another young Latin male drinking beers on the couch. The tan Nike backpacks that they had carried across the river were on the coffee table.

The girls were nervous at first, even somewhat scared, but Juan Paulo Delgado, switching back to Spanish, had been all charm. He played up the friendly El Gato, and introduced the newcomer wearing black jeans and T-shirt as “El Cheque.” The Check was no bigger than either Ana or Rosario, but looked meaner than a snake. He was twenty-five with dark features and had a scar on his cheek in the shape of a check mark.

El Cheque, El Gato said, as he and the girls later shared a dinner of delivered

pizzas, soon would be driving Ana and Rosario north. He explained how they would be permitted to find their family while they were working to repay the costs of their passage. He said it was not uncommon for that to happen quickly.

He saw them smile. “If that pleases you, then we must celebrate your arrival and new lives!”

He went into the kitchen and brought out a bottle of tequila, three squat shot glasses, and a small teabag-size cellophane packet containing a fine white powder.

The girls took a sip of the alcohol and made a face. El Gato laughed loudly and shot his down in a single swallow.

El Gato then playfully introduced the cocaine to them. First he rubbed some on his lips, smiled, then reached over and rubbed some on their full lips. After they smiled awkwardly at the funny tingling feeling it caused, he rubbed some of the white powder between the inside of his upper lip and gums-and then on theirs.

It was not long before he had dumped another cellophane packet on the table and they had decided to follow his lead and sniff a little line of it through a short straw.

They all became very comfortable and relaxed. There was much laughter.