“You want to keep ‘em?”
“No, I guess not.” Raymond tossed the stones aside and motioned the boys into the vehicle. He closed it as Hunter slid behind the wheel, then he got in on the passenger side. As they left the great white house, Raymond said to the boys, “I’ve got some candy bars, couple of Snickers if you want them.”
They both nodded yes, and Raymond gave them the candy. “They’re starting to melt,” he said to Hunter in explanation.
“Sure,” She winked at her best friend and said, “You old toughie.”
Forty-five minutes later, Hunter parked their vehicle at the Presidio Border Patrol Station and ushered the boys inside. Hunter processed Adan while Dario sat nearby. When she asked Adan where he resided in Ojinaga, the boy lied again, “Colonia Villa,” and he felt bad for lying to the woman Agent. It was a guess, for he didn’t know if there was a Colonia Villa or not, but he knew that Villa, the Centaur of the North during the great Revolution, was a famous man and had once captured Ojinaga.
Hunter continued to type the information without hesitation, so Adan breathed easier. Once the processing was finished, Raymond and Hunter loaded the boys into the vehicle and took them to the International Bridge where they allowed them to voluntarily return to Mexico. Adan felt confused, because he felt safe with the two officers, the Patrulla. He had heard stories of how they were terrible people, but he wasn’t so sure now. Dario walked beside them as they approached the officials on the Mexican side of the bridge. Several older men in uniform waved them through, with one telling them to hurry because they were holding up people behind them, so the boys trotted across and into Ojinaga. They walked along Calle Fronteriza, one of the main streets in the town and had not gone far when someone called out to them, “Hola niños, quieren un paseo? It was Ellis, from the great ranch, in his SUV calling to them and smiling like a good friend, asking them if they wanted a ride.
Adan felt uneasy, but Dario said, “Yes! Si, señor!”
Ellis pulled to the curb and waved them over. He had another man in the passenger seat, a darkly handsome man who looked as slender as a knife blade. He smiled, “I’m RL.”
Dario asked, “And your last name?”
RL glanced at Ellis, “Cheeky boys, ain’t they?” He looked at the boys, “Just, RL.”
“Yes sir.”
Dario pulled Adan along with him and they climbed in the back seat of the vehicle. Traffic sped by, with some cars honking at the stopped SUV.
“You speak English?”
“Yes, we both do,” Dario said.
“Good, my Spanish is rusty. Where do you two want to go?”
“We need to get to Lajitas, if you can help us.” Adan was silent, letting Dario do all the talking. It was all he could do not to jerk open the door and leap to the street in a frightened run.
Ellis said, “We can take you there, no problem. You mind if we stop along the way, do a little business beyond there, maybe get something to eat?”
“No sir.”
“My treat.”
Dario smiled but Adan did not. He caught Ellis looking at him in the rearview mirror. Ellis drove beside a long arroyo and without warning turned and drove into the bottom where muddy brown water ran in a frothy current.
Dario yelled, but the vehicle splashed and the wheels hit bottom only a foot down. Ellis laughed, “It’s an old crossing place, even during rains up in the mountains. I just know where it is.” He drove across the river at a slow five miles per hour, and went up the far bank where it sloped down into the water.
“I didn’t know that was there,” Dario said.
“Unless you were an Apache from a hundred years ago, or a few Yaquis smuggling things through here in the twenties, there’s only a few of us today that knows of it. RL and I are the only gringos that know.” Ellis drove deeper into Mexico on a dirt road that was little more than two ruts pointing into the desert and toward some low foothills to the west.
Behind the foothills and in the distance, rose the looming, forested heights of the Maderas Del Carmen. Ellis said, “I know this isn’t going straight to where you need, but I’ve got a little quick business to do first, then we’ll go; buy you two some ice cream when we get there, how’s that?” Dario said, “Thank you,” and he looked at Adan and both boys knew they didn’t have a choice in the matter. Ellis hummed to himself as he drove. Adan recognized the song, a Mexican corrida. El Lobo y la Tejana. Ellis occasionally glanced at Dario in the backseat and in the rearview mirror at Adan.
The boys watched the land change, becoming rougher and higher as Ellis drove on a barely-there ghost of a road into the beginning low hills dotted in Ocotillo and cactus, with here and there a small patch of needle grass or buffalo grass. The plants changed as they gained altitude, and soon Ellis drove through patches of juniper and an occasional piñon tree. When they leveled out on a long bench that almost abutted into the first real mountain, Adan saw an almost hidden small shed made of rusted tin, and in it he saw the blackness of a mine.
Parking in front of it with a flourish, the man said to the boys, “Let me show you two this baby.” RL, you can stay here.” He exited the vehicle and the two boys followed, although reluctantly.
Dario asked, “When are we going to our home?”
Ellis smiled, “Thirty minutes here, give or take, then we’ll be off.” Adan noticed that the man’s smile did not reach his eyes, and he stayed a step farther back as they walked into the shed. Sunlight sent gold beams through nail holes and torn places in the tin as dust motes floated in the long room. A half-rotted wooden door stood open at the far end, propped open with a single small, dried juniper branch wedged against the floor and below the door knob.
Through it beckoned a round darkness. Ellis walked to the back of the shed and stepped into the gloaming of the mine shaft. “Come on, I’ve got a light right here.” He flicked on a strong flashlight beam and it pierced the darkness, showing a patchwork of glistening spider webs reaching from wall to wall in the mine. Ellis pulled them down as he advanced, stopping once to smile over his shoulder at the boys.
The mine made a shallow curve to the right and they walked another twenty feet before the floor disappeared and a perpendicular hole the size of a Volkswagen van opened, going straight down. Ellis motioned them up beside him, and Dario came forward, while Adan remained a foot behind his friend. Ellis pointed the flashlight into the hole and used the beam to point out things, “Look at these colors in the wall, like looking at a melted box of crayons with all the colors. It’s from the minerals around here.”