Take Me to the River

by Will Hobbs

  “From the landowner?”

  “Or his heat-packing hired hands, or an aggressive bull. If we have to get back on the river we will.”

  The wind was stirring and a thunderstorm was brewing. We ate a can of tuna apiece and then we pitched the tent.

  The stars stayed out, no cattle appeared, and neither did cowboys packing heat. We woke to day three and an incredible view of the Sierra del Carmen upriver. It was a huge relief to have put those mountains behind us.

  We wondered if the manhunt was still on, but we didn’t have to wonder long. We were eating breakfast on the boats—Raisin Bran with rice milk—when the Black Hawk flew by. Within minutes it was headed back upriver.

  No new messages.

  Chapter 11

  The Point of No Return

  PERCHED ON A BLUFF on the Mexican side, the abandoned village of La Linda appeared as we rounded a bend. Its whitewashed church with twin bell towers looked sadly beautiful against a backdrop of stony hills. We had the Hallie Stillwell Bridge in our sights. Beyond the bridge, no more Black Hawks. We’d be good to run the river without fear.

  We floated under the bridge, a real eyesore. Concrete barriers, chain link, and razor wire made it impossible for pedestrians as well as vehicles to cross. Even so, a man in a green-and-white pickup—Border Patrol—was keeping watch from the American side. Just past the bridge, where the river made a sharp left, an abandoned chemical plant appeared on the Mexican side. The bridge had been built for trucks to haul a chemical called fluorspar sixty miles north to the railroad.

  Rio pointed to a bulldozed swath of the riverbank on the Texas side. “This is where we would’ve launched for the Lower Canyons if we hadn’t added on the extra mileage for Ariel.”

  “It turned out to be kind of high anxiety, but I’m glad we did.”

  “It’s time to start with the new guidebook. Let’s go to shore and pull it out.”

  We beached our boats, got out and stretched our legs, and chewed on some jerky. Rio fished the guidebook for the Lower Canyons out of his waterproof day bag. “So, Dylan, you wanna take a look?”

  “You bet. I barely glanced at it back in Terlingua.”

  I took a seat on the raft and turned to the introduction. Suddenly I had a lot more to chew on than beef jerky. Here’s what it said:

  Without doubt the Lower Canyons section of the Rio Grande, with its spectacular scenery, whitewater, and rugged wilderness character, makes for one of the great river adventures in North America. Anyone considering this section must factor in the combination of its length—83 miles—with its extreme remoteness. It is in fact the most rugged and remote section of the entire 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico. Preparations need to be exhaustive. Exercise caution at all times, on and off the river. If you injure yourself or damage essential gear beyond repair, help is not on the way. You may well not see another human being during the duration of your trip. Hiking out through the desert can be fatal, especially during the summer.

  Soon as I finished that opening paragraph, I read it a second time. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it gave me the jitters. What would we do if we broke a leg? What if one of us got appendicitis or got bit by a snake?

  Downstream from here, we were going to be way out on a limb, and if something happened, we couldn’t call for help.

  Did Rio have a satellite phone along, and just didn’t tell me?

  What were the chances? He didn’t have a phone of any description at home, and sat phones are expensive, even to rent.

  Here you are, I told myself, about to take your last step on the slippery slope. Think, you fool. Stop and think.

  I tried to appear casual as I reached for my water bottle and took a long drink. Rio was skipping stones on the river. He wasn’t in a rush; just the opposite. He had called for this break, at this exact spot, because it was the point of no return.

  I turned to the first map. It showed the put-in where we were standing. It showed the bridge. On the Mexican side was La Linda. On the American side was a ranch, Heath Canyon Ranch. The map showed a paved road leading north to Marathon. Somewhere along that road was a turnoff for Big Bend National Park and Terlingua. If we decided to bail out here, we could get the Border Patrolman to radio Terlingua. If that didn’t work out, we could walk to the ranch. We could ask them to call Terlingua for us, call Ariel.

  What about Hurricane Dolly? The Border Patrolman watching the bridge would know what the hurricane was up to. Had it made landfall in east Texas or Louisiana, like they thought it would? What if, against the odds, it had come ashore at the mouth of the Rio Grande and was heading for the Lower Canyons this minute? Shouldn’t we at least be asking?

  The Border Patrolman wouldn’t be able to tell us for sure if we were going to run into Dolly. The storm could veer any which way. He could only give us the latest odds.

  Should I bring it up with Rio?

  If I did, would he entertain the idea of quitting on the trip just because we might run into rough weather? Not hardly. He’d been picturing high water from the start. It was why he’d brought the raft along.

  Stop, I told myself. Just stop. You’ve got your mind chasing its tail. The first thirty-three miles were only to drop the donations off at Boquillas. All the whitewater is downstream. Just quit worrying and do what you came all this way to do.

  Rio was no longer skipping stones. I closed the mile-by-mile guide and spit out a wad of jerky gristle. “You still on Mile 1?” he said. “Reading all about La Linda and the DuPont plant?”

  “Just thinking. I’ve been doing too much thinking, actually.”

  “About whether we should commit, now that we’re here?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I saw you reading the introduction—the big heads-up.”

  “They don’t pull any punches.”

  “One thing I forgot to mention back home—I’ve never been past here.”

  He’d said it casually, but this was big. “You mean, downstream of the bridge?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You mean you haven’t run the Lower Canyons before?”

  “Never laid eyes on it, except in pictures.”

  “But I thought you’d done it with your dad.”

  “I never said that, did I?”

  “I just assumed, I guess.”

  “My dad hasn’t run it for the last two years. None of the guides have. There isn’t much market for week-long trips. Some private river runners do it, mostly in the spring.”

  “Man, that’s different.”

  “Different from what?”

  “From what I was thinking.”

  “Okay, it’s different, and maybe I should’ve told you, but would it have made any difference?”

  “I don’t know . . . I could have factored it in . . . I guess not.”

  “So, you’re good with it? We can always go home and shoot hoops, watch DVDs of Man vs. Wild. Hey, no pressure. I’m cool with whatever you decide.”

  I hesitated. The heat was so intense, it was hard to think at all. This is it, I told myself.

  No doubt Rio could hear my gears grinding. Here’s what I kept coming back to: You play it safe, you’ll disappoint your cousin and yourself. You’ll have to live with that.

  “I’m in,” I told him. “I’m going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn.”

  “That’s what I was hoping to hear, mi primo loco.”

  Rio had just called me his crazy cousin. This felt great, absolutely great. We slapped hands and got back on the river.

  Floating under the walls of Heath Canyon and then Temple Canyon—tantalizing appetizers of the mighty Lower Canyons to come—we passed into the broken and rugged country beyond. Once again the quiet of the wilderness prevailed. We were beyond the reach of the helicopter patrol; we’d left all that madness behind.

  Everything on the Texas side was part of the Black Gap Wildlife Area, and we were seeing wildlife. We watched a herd of bighorn sheep, th
eir young included, charge down a slope that would’ve made an extreme skier vomit. They were doing all sorts of insane aerials, huge leaps off of boulders, just unbelievable stuff. We thought for sure a mountain lion must be chasing them, but it turned out nothing was. They were simply having fun on their way down to get a drink.

  We floated past a huge rock formation on the Mexican side called El Caracol—The Snail—and ran the Class 2 rapid below a dry wash on the Texas side. The bow of my canoe caught some air, but I took on barely enough water to soak my boat sponge. The best part was, Rio liked my style. He could see I was far from being a novice.

  Downstream we found a shady beach, went swimming, and took naps. We were living the life of Huck Finn. I had made the right call.

  At Mile 13 we replenished our freshwater jugs from the springs that emerged between rock layers on the Texas side. We were lucky the river wasn’t any higher, or the springs would have been underwater.

  We made it all the way to Las Vegas de los Ladrones, the Outlaw Flats, at Mile 17. A grassy flat on the Mexican side in front of a spectacular butte called El Sombrero made for a perfect campsite. The grass had been mowed by cattle and all the pies were dry. The guidebook said we would be seeing quite a few cattle, “more than half wild.”

  We pitched the tent and set up our camp table and chairs. Rio dug out his fishing tackle, which wasn’t the kind I was expecting. It consisted of a tackle box and a couple of laundry detergent jugs, capped and empty. I’d never done any jug fishing but I’d heard of it. The basic idea is to suspend a couple of hooks from the jug, which serves as a float. For anchors, Rio had brought along four-inch lengths of heavy construction rebar.

  We put together two juglines with two leaders apiece. At the end of each leader we tied on a hook.

  For bait, Rio had brought along a block of Zote Soap. That, I’d never heard of. “Made in Mexico,” I read aloud. “Sixty-six percent animal fat. Zote Soap is safe for the environment and safe for your family.”

  “Not to mention, catfish go crazy over it,” Rio added. “The citronella scent is what does it.” He sliced off four chunks and baited the hooks. “We’ll try Spam if the soap doesn’t do the trick.”

  We deployed the juglines in the pool just down from our campsite. One of them produced a yellow catfish, a ten pounder. Rio carved two fillets and fried them up. As the sun was setting and the full moon was rising over that big wide-open country, we feasted. Ten more miles and we would be inside the Lower Canyons.

  I slept well on a belly full of catfish, and woke to clear skies. By the time we were pouring pancake batter on the griddle, things were changing. A skirmish line of clouds was heading our way from downstream. Rio remarked that it was early in the day for thunderstorms to be cooking. This looked more like a front.

  “Front?” I repeated. “Front, as in tropical storm front?”

  “Possibly. Our garden-variety thunderstorms boil up out of the clear blue sky. This is something else.”

  “Can’t be Dolly,” I said after some thought.

  “Why not, Dylan?”

  “This front is coming from downstream. The map shows us running north and a little east until the last fifteen miles of our trip. The Gulf of Mexico is south and east.”

  Rio shook his head. “Nice try! Tropical storms have a counterclockwise spin. The first band would arrive from the northeast.”

  “Hmmm . . . ,” I said. “That might be exciting.”

  “Something to tell my dad about. He’d be sick that he missed it.”

  Just then came the sound of a snapping twig from the brush at the back of the campsite. We heard shuffling feet. We spun around on our chairs. Scarcely twenty feet away, a man and a boy stood at the edge of the clearing. I about jumped out of my skin. What were they doing here, in the absolute middle of nowhere?

  “Don’t be alarmed, my friends,” the man said in heavily accented English, raising his hand in a peaceful gesture.

  Their clothes were torn, and their faces, hands, and arms were badly scratched. They looked like they hadn’t slept for a week.

  “We lost our way . . . had a rough time . . . need some help,” the man said. About forty, he was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt—white polyester. The boy was my little brother’s age, right around seven. He was wearing a soccer jersey. Underneath the name of the team, LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB, were the words You’ll Never Walk Alone.

  The man had a beard of sorts, a week’s growth of coarse black stubble. The scar dead center on his forehead, mostly above his hairline, made you want to look away. His eyes were all over the place, assessing us and our gear—the kitchen, the tent, the boats.

  The boy had yet to look at us. His eyes were on the ground. One eye was blackened, and the cheek on the same side was bruised. He was covered with cuts and scratches. As my own hands would testify, nearly every plant in the desert had its way to draw blood, and it looked like the boy had stumbled or fallen into more than a few. The man kept one hand clamped on his shoulder.

  Evidently they weren’t related. They weren’t acting like it, and their faces didn’t bear a family resemblance.

  “Are you hungry?” Rio asked. “How about some breakfast?”

  “Please,” the man replied. “We haven’t eaten in days.”

  The man and the boy approached us. The man had a small backpack that he placed under our table, next to the gas bottle. “I am Carlos,” he said. “The boy is Diego. Do you speak Spanish?”

  Rio hesitated. “Not that much,” he said, which surprised me. “Keep speaking English,” he went on, “so my cousin can understand. I’m Rio, he’s Dylan. Come, sit down on these chairs. We’ll make more pancakes, and we could also fry up some meat, if you don’t mind Spam.”

  The Mexican flashed a wide smile. “Like they say in the U.S.A., beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Chapter 12

  The Coyote’s Story

  “CROSSERS,” RIO WHISPERED AS we worked side by side at the table mixing more pancake batter and slicing Spam.

  “They’re in really bad shape,” I whispered back, “especially the boy.”

  Carlos was watching us over his shoulder from the chair alongside Diego’s. He seemed suspicious of our whispers. The Mexican was stocky, with a wrestler’s build—not somebody you would want to tangle with. I didn’t know what it was about him that made me so uneasy.

  “We can spare them some food,” Rio whispered.

  “We’re in a lot better shape than they are,” I agreed. “We have to help.”

  “What you guys talking about?” Carlos called.

  “Our food supply,” Rio said. “We’re kind of on short rations. Not to worry, we’re making you a meal that will fill you up.”

  Pretty quick, we brought them plates heaped with pancakes and fried Spam. Carlos accepted a knife and fork, and said yes to maple syrup. “Diego,” I said as I handed the boy his plate, “would you like syrup on your pancakes?”

  I made a pouring motion with the syrup. He nodded without looking me in the eye.

  The boy ate ravenously, with his hands, like a starving raccoon. I filled a liter bottle from one of our five-gallon water jugs and set it by his foot. He drank half immediately. A minute later he drank the other half. “Diego,” I asked as I refilled the bottle, “do you speak English?”

  No response. It seemed like there was something seriously off about him.

  Carlos gave the boy a scornful look. “I barely get his own language out of him. A spoiled brat is what he is. He don’t deserve what his family is trying to do for him.”

  “Are you family, Carlos?” Rio asked. “His uncle, something like that?”

  “Me, no, no way. I’m just doing my job. His mother in Chicago hired me to go to Mexico and bring him to her.”

  “Is that where you’re from—Chicago?”

  “Sí, sí. I live in Chi-ca-go for many years. This is what I do for a living. People go north without their children, and after a while, they pay someone to bring them
across.”

  “So, you are a coyote.”

  “The good kind, not the kind you hear about, the ones that leave women and children in the desert to die. I’m not like them. This boy would rather stay with his grandmother in Mexico. He is afraid of his mother’s boyfriend. He is afraid of the desert. He is afraid of everything. I’ve had it up to here with him.”

  “You got lost, you said?”

  “Sí, we been wandering around for days. We had some food, but it was stolen.”

  “Where did you start from?”

  “A town called Melchor Múzquiz. We followed dirt roads, but many times you could go this way or that way—no signs. For a long time now, no road at all. We were supposed to find a bridge across the river.”

  “You took a wrong turn all right. The only bridge in a stretch of hundreds of miles is seventeen miles upstream from here. Whoever told you that you could cross on it was mistaken. The bridge is sealed off, and the Border Patrol is always keeping watch there.”

  “You live in Texas?”

  “Yes, in Terlingua, a hundred miles upstream and ten miles from the river. My cousin is visiting—first time in Texas.”

  “You two boys, you do this alone?”

  “Yep, ten days, just the two of us.”

  “That’s pretty crazy, no? This is wild country.”

  “That’s what makes it fun.”

  “Fun,” Carlos repeated with a wry grin. “The things Americans do for fun—it’s loco.”

  Rio gave him a big smile, and proceeded, casual and off-handed. “Tell me, Carlos . . . not very many people without documents try to cross in the Big Bend . . . Why are you crossing here instead of downstream in the valley, or upstream near El Paso? Or maybe Arizona?”

  “I used those places before, and California. Your government is making it harder and harder. Where there is no wall, there are cameras and so many Migra—”

  “Border Patrol,” Rio translated.

  “—thousands more Migra than there were even a year ago. You mark my words, many more people will try to cross in the Big Bend, even with the cliffs. If they have to try the roughest places, that’s what they will do.”