Law of Lead

by Laura Chester

Here on Harshaw Creek the Border Patrol congregate down the road where they trade stories about smugglers and transients. Mexicans on the run are now ditching their jackets and there is often a gun in the pocket.

I have been warned, “Don’t ever stop for a man lying in a ditch. He’ll probably jump up and demand you hand over your car keys.”

Another rancher who lives out on the San Rafael Valley, where 911 rarely responds, says once drug runners drop off their stuff, they come banging on his door—Toc-toc. Quien es? Before they used to ask nicely, but now it’s—“Give me that roast.”

My friend, Juanita, is tired of hearing everything blamed on the illegals—how they start all the forest fires and break into homes, how they’ll even stoop to eating dog food from a can! Who wants to think about that, disgusting. Now they’re dying of thirst out there on the desert, making the vigilantes angry.

Juanita believes it’s too easy to blame all our woes on the indigent. Their plight should cause a crisis of conscience in us. We really must do something, now.

I am a second-home owner from New York City, and I do want to get to know my Hispanic neighbors. I even put HOLA on my license plates, and I’m making an effort by listening to Spanish CD’s—(in one ear and out the other)—though I do like the sound of Adios Pantalones. I heard that over the radio.

Juanita and I come up with a plan. It should be exciting, an adventure in giving. We decide to open up my house to all these weary travelers. I figure because of the hacienda floor plan, interior courtyard and cantera fountain, the transients will feel right at home.

Juanita and I go up into the mountains, where illegals are known to pass—in fact they have almost created a road. Drones fly over in their pointless search, because the Border Patrol can not easily get here.

With the help of a hammer, we plant signs marked Agua y Comida. The signs will lead them down to my place where we will give them water and sustenance. I picture whole families with mothers and children walking hundreds of miles through the desert, desperate to find mi casa. But the first arrivals, before we’re even ready, are twelve men dressed in black. Isn’t that a bit hot for the desert?

They keep on their clothes when they jump in the pool. “Wait a minute!” I scream, but it’s too late. They must be very modest or else they want to clean up their outfits. In any case, the water turns brown. I’ll have to wait for the pool man to shock it.

Before I know it, they’ve built a fire on my porch beneath the wooden rafters. How ignorant can you get. They are asking to use my cell phone. Can we give them a ride to Phoenix? Phoenix is three hours away! I ask Juanita to translate. Juanita says they want to go anyway. Well, fine, but that’s not what we’re offering here. “Tell them—only water and food. Comprende?”

They make a unanimous face of disgruntlement. Enough is never enough for some people. Perhaps this isn’t the nicest crowd. I don’t know if they’re coming or going. Are they wanting to work for a living wage, or have they just dropped off bales of grass in the foothills?

One of them starts to smoke something funny. He passes it around. Even Juanita takes a toke. “Pretty soon I’ll have to call you Merry Juanita,” I chide her.

She gets it and cannot stop laughing. It wasn’t that funny. I feel like I’m on the outside of my own joke, as they sit in a circle, hilarious, cross-legged, eyeing the Christo on my adobe wall, the one I bought in San Miguel d’Allende.

Then the smallest of these very short men approaches me in an alarming manner. He tries to speak, and I make a real attempt to discern what he says. “I,” he begins, searching for the right words, “I,” he touches his own heart, “I,” he repeats—“I love you!”

“I love you too,” I respond nonchalantly.

But what would Jesus say? I wonder. What would Mary do. Offer them blankets, surely. I have a pile of those from the yoga class that comes here to practice on Wednesdays.

So why do I wish I had a big black dog? I even think about the pearl handled pistol I purchased on eBay. It isn’t loaded of course, but it might make an impression.

I assume they are hungry and hold up a finger to signal, Hold On. Juanita has a pot of beans, a bowl of rice and a stack of flour tortillas. But they do not seem to want this.

“What DO they want?”

Juanita asks them all in Spanish, “Que querre?” They answer quickly as if they knew their own collective mind.

"Apparently," she shrugs, "they want a house tour." Would I mind showing them around inside?

I certainly DO mind. I am sick of giving the God Damn House Tour to every Tom, Dick and Jorge who happens to drop by. How many transients have to file through my place, goggling at every little thing—the closures on the metal windows, the size of my closet, the patina of the plaster—before these endless house tours cease.

“Tell them, if they’re patient, my house will be featured in Southwest Says.” That article was enough of an invasion.

But they are persistent, starting to ooze through the front door.

“Mi casa non su casa! Comprende?”

They shake their heads in bafflement, but don’t seem offended, only very wet. Is that why they are called wetbacks? Maybe warm dry towels are all they want.

I consider calling 911, but they would never get here in time and the transients would just scatter in the foothills as usual, outwitting the border patrol.

I pull out a wad of dollar bills, and stand by the arch where the hand-carved fountain from Michoahcan is spraying from the mouth of a jaguar. It makes for a somewhat sonorous effect.

They act as if the fountain is a holy water font, and touch the surface on leaving. I don’t see them cross themselves though. Maybe they want to clean their hands before eating, as Juanita is there with her pile of burritos stuffed with rice & beans. They take as many as they can carry away.

I wish them well, Adios Pantalones, as they exit my place beneath the great stone arch that was recently reclaimed from a real hacienda, and brought here from Magdalena, Mexico.