“I love you too.”
And he left the trailer without another look.
A couple of silhouettes moved inside the barn light. Jaime bet anything Tomás was giving Mel and Lucas last-minute details about the cattle and horses. Tomás’s truck stood in front of the trailer, just a few meters away from Jaime. No one would see him. Except Jaime had a feeling they weren’t taking Tomás’s truck. That truck was old and rickety. No, they’d go in Meester George’s sleek, six-tire vehicle. The one parked in front of the big house, a hundred meters away.
There wasn’t time to think or plan. Any second, Tomás would turn around and see Jaime from the barn. Any moment, Meester George would come out of the big house to start the engine.
Jaime pulled the hood over his head to hide his face, a superstition from when he was little and thought if he couldn’t see then he couldn’t be seen, and crouched low as he dashed to the expensive truck. He braced his hands on the top of the sidewalls and vaulted into the bed. He landed on the hard ridges of the black bed-liner and tucked into a tight ball in the corner shadow created by the cab.
Not a few seconds later, Meester George opened the kitchen door. Jaime kept his face hidden but could tell by the footsteps who it was.
“Tom, let’s go!” he called out to the barn.
“Please, Mr. George,” Doña Cici said from farther away, probably from the door. “Bring my husband home.”
“You better start cooking because we’re celebrating tonight.” The booming voice came from right above Jaime. Just like with the rattlesnake, he didn’t dare move the tiniest bit.
The rancher got in the truck and started driving to the barn. The truck barely stopped when Tomás got in. The roar of the diesel engine drowned out any further noise as they drove down the track to the highway. Still hugging the shadow under the cab, Jaime stretched against the width of the truck to brace himself and keep from rolling all over the place and banging his head. Meester George’s truck had much better suspension than Tomás’s but still it was a bumpy ride.
They turned onto the highway and the terrain became smooth as ice. He rolled onto his back, tucked his arms under his head, and watched the sky lighten.
They couldn’t have driven for more than half an hour when Meester George pulled off the side of the road. The truck leaned heavily on Tomás’s side and Jaime contracted back into armadillo status, trying to be invisible.
It didn’t work.
“Why don’t you ride in front with us?”
Jaime remained still. Maybe Meester George was talking to a hitchhiker they came across on the side of the road. Except a sharp poke in his shoulder said otherwise.
“C’mon, get in.”
With nothing else to do, Jaime uncurled himself and accepted the hand Meester George offered to climb out of the truck bed.
In the passenger seat, Tomás had his arms crossed over his best shirt and only tie. His face angrier than it’d been last night.
“¿Qué diablo piensas?” he hissed before Meester George followed Jaime into the truck.
“I help Don Vicente,” Jaime said with his chin up, and in English. Tomás turned away, but not before muttering a few choice words that if Abuela had heard, would have earned him a mouth washing.
“Welcome aboard, son.” Meester George clapped a hand on Jaime’s shoulder before putting the truck back in gear.
“No, not welcome, not happy,” Tomás said in English, slowly so Jaime would understand. “You’re staying in the car. Stay in car.”
“Now, Tom, you can’t do that,” Meester George reasoned. “You leave a kid in a car for a few hours, that’s called child abuse.”
Tomás swore again and turned to face out the window. Jaime hadn’t understood everything the rancher said, but he got the gist. He was going to the trial and there was nothing Tomás could do to stop him.
He turned to Meester George; anything to keep wondering if Tomás was right and he’d just doomed himself to imprisonment, deportation, and assassination.
“How you see me?” Jaime pointed to the bed.
“I noticed your scrawny lump as soon as I went to open the door back at the ranch.”
“You knew he was there from the start and you let him come with us? How could you?” Tomás said through tight lips. He ran his hands through his gelled hair.
“I know he’s your brother and you’re worried, but I’m still your boss. You don’t talk to me like that,” Meester George scolded as he shifted his large cowboy hat. “I let him come ’cause I know you would have done the exact same thing if you were in his shoes. You Rivera brothers stop at nothing to help the people you care about. I would like to think that’s a good thing.”
Jaime only got part of what Meester George said, but knew it was important and complimentary. At any rate, it kept Tomás from talking, or swearing, for the rest of the ride.
• • •
Nothing stood nearby the detention center except brown bushes, more scraggly than the ones on the ranch. A tall barbed wire fence surrounded the building.
Jaime gulped. Maybe he should wait in the truck. Tomás was right. Jaime didn’t want to be detained and have to stay here. He wished Ángela had joined them. She would have put her arm around him and made him feel like nothing was impossible with her by his side.
You can do this. You’ve come too far to stay in the truck. A voice that sounded like a mixture between Ángela and Abuela thumped in his head. He slid out of the truck and took a deep breath.
“Best leave phones behind. Now that everyone has recording devices, I don’t think they’ll let them in,” Meester George said. Jaime hesitated. If he got in trouble, he wouldn’t be able to call for help. If he tried to smuggle in the phone and got caught, he’d definitely be in trouble. With a sigh, he dropped the phone in the glove compartment, next to Tomás’s.
Meester George stashed his hip pistol under the seat, placed his hat on the dashboard, and together they walked into the detention center. As they passed through the barbed wire fence, Tomás reached for Jaime’s hand.
Inside the building, Meester George and Tomás showed their IDs, but the guard didn’t ask Jaime for anything and waved him through the metal detector. The device beeped and flashed an angry red light when Jaime went through. The look of panic and horror on Tomás’s face must have mirrored his own.
The guard however didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Do you have anything in your pockets?”
Heart thumping, Jaime pulled out the sketchbook from his waistband. The guard flipped through the book, half bored, before handing it back to Jaime once he passed through the detector a second time, beep-free. He and Tomás let out simultaneous sighs of relief and then, still in sync, together muttered, “Gracias a Dios.”
In the waiting area, they met with Meester George’s lawyer, Hope Mariño, who greeted Meester George with a shake of his hand, but Tomás and Jaime each with the traditional kiss on the cheek. She stood taller than Tomás and could easily be mistaken for a gringa with light brown hair and skin so pale she’d burn if the sun so much as winked at her.
“You must be Jaime, mucho gusto,” she said in flawless Spanish, but with a distinctly Caribbean accent.
“May I ask you something?” he asked the lawyer in a low voice.
“Claro que sí, mi’jo. What’s up?” she whispered back.
Jaime’s shoulders relaxed just a bit. No, this was no gringa. She was one of them, a Latina, with all the self-assurance and determination he knew from his own family.
“Is it safe for me to be here?”
She laughed. Not a mean laugh but one that was sweet and relieving. “This isn’t the movies. No one’s going to organize a prison break and take you hostage.”
“But—”
“This hearing is about Vicente. No one’s going to care about you.” She gave his hand a squeeze and switched to English to discuss the court procedures with Meester George.
A different guard led them into an empty white room. Beh
ind them, the doors slammed shut with an ominous click of locks being secured.
They were trapped.
Tomás put his arm around Jaime. The height difference between them wasn’t so obvious anymore but he still felt like a little kid needing his big brother to protect him.
A few seconds later, though it felt like hours, the door on the other side of the empty room opened with a buzz. The guard showed them down a hall and into the courtroom.
Maybe because it was a detention center instead of a courthouse, but this room looked nothing like the fancy courts on TV: just a desk at the front, two tables, and two columns of folding chairs. No jury. No fancy furniture. Good. Less intimidating.
Señora Mariño waved them to some chairs in the back while the hearing ahead of them took place. Across the aisle and a few rows up, a dozen men in orange jumpsuits sat in a cluster supervised by two guards. Jaime searched for Don Vicente and had to look a few times before he found him.
Three weeks in prison and without his cowboy hat, Jaime’s friend was barely recognizable. Bits of white hair stood up in random patches as if some balding disease didn’t know how to spread evenly. The brown, leathery skin hung on his face, giving him thick jowls he hadn’t had before. And he slouched. Something that after centuries of horseback riding, Jaime never thought he’d be capable of doing.
He wanted to rush over to the man and comfort him as he had comforted Jaime after the news of Abuela. If only Jaime could tell him everything that had happened. About the new ranch hands and learning how to ride. About finding his friend Joaquín and the trouble she’d been through in a different detention center. He wanted to tell him that nothing on the ranch had been the same without him.
As if he could feel Jaime staring at him, Don Vicente looked over his shoulder. Jaime and Tomás waved and Meester George nodded. Don Vicente blinked a few times, as if he were outside and the sun’s glare blinded him. Jaime kept waving and smiling. A few of the other inmates snickered and one even waved back. And then Don Vicente finally seemed to trust his eyes and he smiled in return. He braced himself against the empty seat in front of him and hoisted himself to a more upright sitting position with his shoulders square and back straight.
Even with the fancy lawyer jargon and words he’d never be able to pronounce, Jaime could tell the hearing before them wasn’t going well. When the other lawyer’s client, Juan García, was summoned, two men in orange jumpsuits stood up. Both were named Juan García, both were from México, and the lawyer didn’t know which one was her client.
“Qué desastre,” Señora Mariño whispered in his ear as she shook her head.
The other lawyer agreed to represent both of the Juan Garcías, but Jaime thought they would have been better off representing themselves. This lady’s paperwork was all disorganized, the judge had to keep repeating herself, to which the lawyer kept saying “I don’t know,” which even Jaime knew couldn’t be good.
When the judge made her decision, Señora Mariño shook her head again. They all rose from their seats as the judge stepped out of the room.
“¿Qué pasó?” Jaime asked as they settled back in their seats.
“Judge has to pee,” Tomás answered.
“No, I mean with those other guys, Juan García squared?” Jaime asked.
“It’s not good,” Señora Mariño answered him. “Immigrants are not like criminals. They’re not entitled to a public defender and it’s hard to get anywhere without a lawyer. Pero esta tipa,” she used her lips to motion at the other lawyer, “is a disgrace. One Juan got caught shoplifting some food, she couldn’t get him out. The other Juan, his bond got approved for twenty thousand dollars. His family will never come up with that money. They’re both stuck here, or wherever they get transferred to. This judge is tough and that lawyer didn’t help.”
They rose from their seats again when the judge returned. Señora Mariño seemed to look at all the men in orange jumpsuits, and resisted the temptation to sigh. Jaime sighed for her as he squeezed his sweaty palms. Señora Mariño’s words, “This judge is tough,” repeated in his head.
But as soon as Don Vicente’s case was called and Señora Mariño began talking, the difference between the lawyers was astonishing, even if Jaime didn’t understand most of what she said.
“Your honor, my client Señor Delgado is honest and hardworking. He is the kind of man everyone wants to have as a neighbor and is a real asset to the community.”
The judge nodded and looked through some of her papers. “How long has Mr. Delgado lived in the United States?”
“Over sixty years, your honor,” Señora Mariño responded without having to consult any files. “There’s a record of him having worked in a mustang roundup that took place sixty-two years ago.”
From where Jaime sat it looked like the lawyer handed the judge a photocopy of an old newspaper article. The photograph from the big house. The one that showed a handful of men leaning against a fence as they stared at the wild-eyed mustangs. How had she known it took place sixty-two years ago?
“Has he been employed all this time?”
“At Dundee Ranch. Mr. George Dundee Senior hired him the day that photo was taken.”
“But he never filed any taxes?”
For the first time Señora Mariño’s confidence faltered. “No, your honor. He never earned enough.”
A silence fell over the room as the judge reviewed her papers. A breath caught in Tomás’s throat.
“What happened?” Jaime whispered. He thought it had been going well.
“The government doesn’t like people who don’t pay taxes,” Tomás explained in a low voice. “Even if you’re undocumented, you’re expected to pay a percentage of what you earn.”
Jaime grabbed his brother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. It couldn’t be over.
“Your honor, if I may?” Meester George stood and motioned to the front of the room. The judge nodded her head, inviting him to come forward.
“George Dundee Junior,” the rancher introduced himself. “Vicente Delgado has lived with my family longer than I can remember. It’s true he never earned enough to file taxes, but that’s only because he’s never accepted much pay. So I pay him in other ways. When he admires a mare, I buy him her foal. If his wife says her back hurts, I get them a new bed. The kitchen is always stocked, the local feed store bills me for any clothes he needs, and I have him and his wife on my family’s health care plan. There isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t give him, but he’s not into material things.”
The judge leaned forward and addressed Don Vicente. “Is this true?”
Don Vicente stood to address the judge. His voice came out raspier than usual. “¿Para qué necesito dinero cuando tengo todo lo que quiero?”
Instantly a small man with a thin mustache who was seated near the judge translated the Spanish: “For what do I need money when I have everything I desire?”
The judge nodded for Meester George and Don Vicente to sit back down and then turned to Señora Mariño to continue with the case.
Señora Mariño presented further facts and papers, and every time the judge asked a question, she had an immediate answer. The judge listened intently, glanced at her forms, and nodded in agreement several times.
And then Jaime’s heart stopped at the sound of his name.
“Jaime Rivera,” Señora Mariño looked at him and continued to speak in slow, understandable English. “Mr. Dundee told me you’d like to help. Please come tell the judge about Vicente Delgado.”
Tomás grabbed Jaime’s arm and shook his head no. Jaime hugged his sketchbook to his chest and stood. He walked to the front of the room, feeling all the eyes on him. Tomás and Meester George. Señora Mariño and the disaster lawyer. Don Vicente and all the inmates. The security guards and the judge.
When he passed by Señora Mariño, she whispered, “You can use the interpreter if you want.” She nodded to the mustached man who had translated for Don Vicente.
Jaime shook his
head no. If he was going to do this, it had to be this way.
There was no bible to swear an oath, like they did on TV. Instead, Jaime stood in front of the judge with his back to the rest of the room. His legs began to shake.
“What is your name?” the judge asked
“Jaime Rivera.”
“And who are you?”
He took a deep breath and made an effort to speak in his best English. “I Don—sorree, I am Don Vicente’s friend and family.”
“And what do you have to say about him?”
Jaime turned to the sketchbook in his hands. His legs stopped shaking and he knew this was one thing he could express correctly. He opened his sketchbook and showed the judge the illustrations of Don Vicente’s life, based on the stories he’d gathered from everyone in their community.
“I no speak English good,” he explained. “But I leesen. People talk about life of Don Vicente. I draw what dey talk, um say.”
He pointed to the first sketch, the one Diego’s dad had told him while in the principal’s office.
“Deez picture, car get stuck in snow. Don Vicente and horse save man from snow. Take man home. Save life.”
He skipped one and flipped to the next page. This story had come from the local sheriff. Jaime had been hesitant to approach law enforcement, but Doña Cici had insisted the story was crucial and that the sheriff was nice. He was. He gave them all jelly doughnuts and orange Fanta. “Police look for gone boy. Don Vicente see foot . . .” He paused, not sure how to say the word he was looking for.
“Yes,” the judge looked through her papers and pulled out a letter. “Your local sheriff wrote a letter telling us how Mr. Delgado found footprints in a dry arroyo, which led Search and Rescue to find the lost hiker.”
“Yes, help find boy.” He wanted to explain that Don Vicente understood the land and the animals, knowing things no one else did. But that was too complicated to explain.
He settled for turning to the next image. That person hadn’t been home but Doña Cici had told him the story anyway. “Deez horse have baby trouble. Horse and baby no die.”
“Tell me about this one.” The judge pointed to Jaime’s favorite drawing, the one he had skipped because he was saving it for last: the one he’d made after visiting Sani, Carla’s great-grandfather.
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