Bewere the Night

COYOTAJE by Marie Brennan

The coyotes of Mexicali were bold. They did their business in cantinas, in the middle of the afternoon; the police, well-fed with bribes, looked the other way. Day by day, week by week, people came into Mexicali, carrying backpacks and bundles and small children, and day by day, week by week, they went away again, vanishing while the back of the police was obligingly turned.

If the people could afford it. “The price is twenty-five thousand pesos,” the coyote repeated, and drained the last of his beer. “If you can’t pay, stop wasting my time.”

Inés bit her lip, looking down at the scratched Formica tabletop. “I don’t have twenty-five thousand. I only have—” She stopped herself before saying the number. Mexicali was far from the worst of the border towns, but it was bad enough, if you went looking for the wrong people.

The coyote shrugged. “Try El Rojo. He might take you for less. Especially if you have something else to offer.” The quick downward flick of his eyes made his meaning clear.

“Where can I find El Rojo?”

“La Puerta de Oro, in Chinesca. Ask for shark-fin tacos.”

Inés nodded and got up. She heard footsteps following her as she left the cantina, and whirled once she was through the door, prepared to defend herself.

Her pursuer held up his hands, letting the door swing shut behind him. “Relax. I only followed because I heard what Ortega said. Don’t go to El Rojo.”

The sun was like a hammer on Inés’ back, trying to pound her into the dust. But it meant she could see the other man’s face, broad and pocked with the occasional scar, seamed where he squinted against the light. “If he’s cheaper, I have to. Notold me it would be this expensive.”

The man—another coyote—shrugged and pulled sunglasses from his pocket. “Can’t help it. With all the new laws, it’s a lot riskier for us, and you need documents on the other side. Look, I’ll take you for twenty.”

Inés shook her head. “I don’t have twenty, either.”

“Then stay here a while. There’s jobs—not good ones, but if you’re patient you can save enough to get across. Safely. El Rojo … he isn’t safe.”

None of it was safe; even the honest coyotes could get a migrant killed. “I don’t have any choice,” she said.

With the man’s eyes hidden by the sunglasses, she couldn’t be sure, but she thought he gave her a pitying look. “Go with God, then. And be careful.”

Caution had gone out the window when Javier died. Shading her eyes against the desert sun, Inés went in search of La Puerta de Oro.

It lay in Mexicali’s Chinatown, its garish red and gold faded by the elements. The interior was blindingly dark, after the street outside. “Shark-fin tacos,” she said once her eyes adjusted, and the hostess jabbed her thumb toward a table in the back corner.

Two men sat there, both facing the door. The bigger one grinned as Inés approached, licking his lips in an exaggerated gesture, but it was the skinnier one she watched. He had a predator’s eyes.

She cast her gaze down when she got to the table. “I want to get across the border,” she said. Quietly, but not whispering. “I heard El Rojo could take me.”

“I can,” the smaller man said. He was wiry more than slender, hardened to rawhide by the desert sun. Other Mexicali coyotes took migrants in secret truck compartments, sneaking them across into Calexico or up to State Route 7, then onward to San Diego or Phoenix. El Rojo, according to rumor, went a more dangerous route, through the Sonoran Desert. Less risk of being caught by the Border Patrol, but more risk of dying, whether from thirst or the guns of militia. Or coyotes, of the four-legged kind.

Inés sat, eyes still downcast; the last thing she wanted was for him to take her stare as a challenge. “I can pay ten thousand.”

The bigger fellow laughed, a barking sound in the quiet of the restaurant. “That and a bit more will do, girl,” he said, laying one hand on her knee as if she might not catch his meaning.

She controlled her revulsion; pulling away too fast would make her look like prey. It was the other man who mattered, anyway. El Rojo, the red one. There were many possible explanations for the nickname, few of them reassuring.

His method of bargaining showed a sharp mind. From money, he would switch without warning to questions about Inés: where she was from, why she was emigrating, what kind of work she thought she would find. She told him she came from Cuauhtémoc in Chihuahua, and had a brother who crossed at Nogales two years ago; if she could get to Albuquerque, he knew a man who could get her a job as a maid. Seventeen thousand, El Rojo said, and if she was coming from Cuauhtémoc and going to Albuquerque, why had she come to Mexicali? A man had brought her this far, promising help, Inés said, but he’d tried to rape her; she would pay fifteen thousand and no more.

El Rojo smiled, thin, lips closed. “That’ll do. Half now, half when we get there, and Pipo here will show you to your room.”

“My room?” Inés asked, alarm rising in her throat.

Now he showed a glint of teeth. “I’m your coyote now. Full service, from here until your trip is done. Wouldn’t want you getting picked up by the cops.”

Or telling anyabout his business. This was his reputation, that he was shrewd and careful, and utterly without human morals. If she gave him reason to cut her throat, he would, without hesitation.

She’d hoped to send a letter, in case she didn’t survive this trip. “Do you think I’m stupid? I didn’t bring the money with me.”

He gestured at his companion. “Pipo will go with you to fetch it. We have a deal, and until it’s done, you’re mine.”

The “room” Pipo showed her to was a basement elsewhere in Chinesca, though Inés, blindfolded, only knew it by the smell of spices. What sort of deals had El Rojo struck, that he chose to do business out of this part of Mexicali?

Maybe the police just paid less attention to the Chinese district. Certainly Pipo felt comfortable enough to lead her blindfolded through the streets, by a very roundabout path. When he shoved her off the last step and yanked off the bandanna, Inés found more than a dozen people in the basement already, sitting in the light of a single dim bulb, watching her with wary eyes.

“Tomorrow night,” Pipo said, and left.

Inés brushed her hair from her face, nodded at the migrants, and found a place to sit by the wall, where she leaned against a broken piece of tabletop. Nospoke; she didn’t expect it. Right now they were all strangers, in an unknown place, taking an enormous risk. Talk would come later, when shared trials created a sense of bonding; then she would hear about relatives on the other side of the border, or the hope of work—whatever dream or desperation sent them on this journey.

She studied them, though, out of the corners of her eyes, taking care never to stare at anyone. Most were a bit younger than her: in their teens, maybe early twenties. A few women, the rest men; three of the women were cradling children too young to walk. One man was substantially older—maybe his fifties, though with his face so wrinkled by the sun, she could be off by ten years. He made no pretense about not staring at her, though when Inés returned the look he glanced away, scratching his fingers through hair like gray wire.

Fifteen thousand pesos, Inés had promised El Rojo. Assume the same for everyone here; some maybe bargained better, some worse, and she didn’t know if he charged the same for little kids. Seventeen people in this basement, counting her. Assume that was average. Two hundred fifty-five thousand pesos—more than twenty thousand dollars. How often did El Rojo do this? Every month? Less often? More? However she did the math, coyotaje was a profitable business.

One for which many people paid the price.

Javier would’ve told Inés she was an idiot for coming here, for putting herself into El Rojo’s hands. But Javier was gone, and she was the only one who could do this.

She laid down on the hard concrete and tried to get some sleep.

When the basement door slammed open, half the people there were already awake; within seconds, all of them were on their feet, and one mother stifled her daughter’s wail. Pipo grinned at them, blunt face monstrous in the dim light, and jerked a thumb toward the door. “Time to go.”

Inés sneaked a glance at her mother’s old watch, with its extra hole punched in the band to fit her smaller wrist. An hour past sunset. They would make their move in the dead of night.

Last chance to run.

But it was a lie. She’d passed up that chance when she sat down at El Rojo’s table—maybe when she came to Mexicali in search of him. Inés followed the others upstairs and into the narrow alley behind.

A truck waited there. Inés didn’t see El Rojo, but three other men were helping Pipo, and one climbed into the back with the migrants before the door was rolled down and locked into place. No secret compartment, not here; this was only to get them out of town. Most of the journey would be done on foot.

More waiting, this time in near-total darkness. Inés sat with her backpack in the hollow of her crossed legs, arms wrapped around it, swaying into the gray-haired man or the young woman on the other side every time the truck slowed or accelerated or hit a rough patch of road. The young woman sat in much the same position, only it was a little girl she held, a year old at most. The infant, of course, didn’t understand what was going on, and burbled loudly to herself in the darkness.

“Shut her up, already,” one of the young men said abruptly, breaking the stifling silence that overlaid the noise of the truck. “That brat’s gonna get us caught.”

Inés felt the mother shrink back in alarm. “Hey!” Inés said, glaring into the darkness, as if the complainer could see her. “She’s happy. Would you rather she was crying?”

By the voice, she guessed him to be one of the younger ones—probably the weedy kid, fifteen at most, and twitchy with nerves. “I’d rather she shut up. Do you have any idea how far noise like that’s gonna carry, once we’re out in the desert?”

Better than you do. Instead she answered, “Let her tire herself out now; then she’ll be quiet later. The hard part’s still ahead of us.”

“Noasked you,” the boy said, but it was sullen rather than threatening. When noelse spoke up in his support, he made a disgusted sound and fell silent. The mother was stiff at Inés’ side, but she made no protest when Inés held her fingers out blindly, for the baby to play with. A bump in the road sent her backpack toppling from her lap, but an anonymous hand pushed it back into place.

Some time after that, the truck slowed, turned, left the paved road. Inés guessed they had been driving for maybe three hours; presuming they were going east, that put them well past Yuma, into the harsh desert of Sonora. So far, at least, the rumors were true.

Knowing still didn’t prepare her for what greeted the migrants when the truck rattled to a halt and Pipo let them out. All around was hard dirt and scrub brush, blue and gray beneath the brilliant canopy of the stars. Inés found herself suddenly, irrationally reluctant to leave the truck; it was the only human thing in sight, and once it was gone, they would be completely at the mercy of the coyotes.

Where is El Rojo?

He appeared without warning, from what Inés would have sworn was an empty patch of desert. The coyote sauntered toward them, hands comfortably in his pockets, but she wasn’t fooled by the show of relaxation; the wary grace of his movement said he was very much alert. “Any trouble?” he asked.

Pipo bent to murmur in his ear. Inés, straining to hear, caught a scrap about the baby. El Rojo’s lip curled in annoyance, and her muscles tensed. But the mother had paid, and a coyote who abandoned his cargo too easily would soon get a reputation that destroyed future business. He waved Pipo back, and turned his attention to the waiting group.

“Listen carefully,” he told them, in a quiet voice that raised the hairs on Inés’ neck, “because anywho dies from not paying attention won’t be my problem.

“We’re going over the fence. Pipo and the boys will show you how. Anywho makes a sound while we’re climbing over will pay for it. Anywho hesitates gets left behind. When I run, you run until I stop. Anywho can’t keep up, gets left behind. We’ll go until midday, rest for four hours, move again. I say ‘quiet,’ you shut up or pay for it. I say ‘hide,’ you go straight for the nearest cover, get low, don’t move until I tell you. Me and the boys leave, you stay where you are, unless you feel like dying. I give you any other orders, you obey, and don’t ask questions. Got it?”

He waited until every migrant had nodded. Nodared make a sound, not even to say yes. When he had agreement, El Rojo said, “Let’s go.”

The fence was a black scar across the desert’s face, looming high overhead. No cameras or lights out here, Inés knew, unless vigilantes on the other side had installed their own—but she trusted El Rojo to be canny enough to know if they had. Didn’t trust the man any further than that, but to be competent at his business, yes. He had a good system for crossing, too. Pipo made a cup of his hands and lifted his boss to the top of the wall, where El Rojo balanced easily and unfurled a rope ladder, which one of the other men staked down in the dirt. It seemed considerate, until Inés saw how much more quickly people climbed, not having to rappel; and the ladder was more portable than a rigid one, less permanent than a tunnel. It fit everything she knew about him: quick, simple, and above all, efficient.

It was hardest for the women with small children. Mindful of El Rojo’s warning, Inés held out her hands wordlessly; after a moment’s hesitation, the mother she’d been sitting next to handed over her daughter, then climbed the ladder. When she was at the top, Inés stretched up to give the sleepy infant back. Then she did the same for the other two, quickly soothing the one baby who looked likely to fuss. Pipo glared, but said nothing.

She was the last one over, except for the coyotes. Not letting herself hesitate, Inés balanced on the swaying rope ladder and scrambled up to the top. With her hands braced on the fence’s edge, she swung one leg over—and there she paused.

One foot in each world. It felt like it should mean something, like this fence, this barrier dividing one nation from its neighbor, should mark some profound transition. It didn’t. The desert on the far side looked no different. It was all borderland, and its inhabitants, regardless of nation, had more in common with each other than with those who lived inside. She had always stood with one foot in each world; only now it was literally true.

Inés swung her other leg over and dropped to the ground below. Now she was just another illegal immigrant, risking her life to enter the United States.

As soon as she landed, El Rojo began to run.

Across the hard-packed stripe of the border road, through the scrubby bushes beyond, not waiting for the coyotes to pack up the ladder and climb down after them. They, Inés supposed, would catch up soon. The pace El Rojo set was steady, but not too fast; they would be at this for a while. She settled her backpack on her shoulders and relaxed into her stride.

The ones with children had it worst. Inés hung back, trying with her presence to give them support; it was easier to run in company than alone. The baby girl she’d played with in the truck, jolted into unhappy wakefulness, started to wail, and the mother clapped a desperate hand over her daughter’s mouth. Inés tensed, looking at El Rojo, but it seemed the order against noise had only applied at the fence.

Or perhaps the paying would come later.

She worried about the older man, too. This would be a hard enough journey for her, and she was young, fit, and used to the trials of the desert. How much worse would it be for him? But the man had energy enough to spare her a rueful smile as he ran. Inés wondered what his story was. Everyone who crossed the border had one.

Running, running through the night, El Rojo in the lead, and Inés fixed her gaze on his back, as if he were prey she would wear down and finally catch.

By the time they slowed to a walk, many of the migrants were gasping. Everyone reached for water; the less cautious gulped theirs, thinking only of immediate thirst, and not the miles of desert that still lay ahead. Inés sipped cautiously, trying to estimate how far they’d come. Two miles from the border? To the left, the ground rose in a thin, jagged line. The Sierra Pinta, if she was reading their location right. El Rojo would take them through the San Cristobel wash and south of Ajo Peak, to the Tohono O’odham reservation. The people there had rescued more than a few migrants from death in the desert. Not all of those they rescued were reported to the Border Patrol, either; the Tohono O’odham knew what it was like be split apart by a fence. Some of their kin lived on the other side.

They got a short break at sunrise, among a scattering of saguaro that would hide them from distant eyes. Inés took a hat from her bag, then slipped her hand back in, hunting by touch, until she found the rubber-banded tin tucked inside her one clean shirt. She waited until the coyotes were looking elsewhere, then shifted the tin into her pocket, where she could reach it more quickly.

A scuff of foot against stone made her jump. The older man held up calming hands, then crouched at her side and murmured, “Miguel.”

“Inés,” she murmured back, keeping a wary eye on the coyotes.

“You seem well prepared.”

The practiced lie rose easily to her lips. “My brother crossed a few years ago. Gave me some advice.”

He smiled. “Brothers are like that.”

Eduardo had given her advice, when she showed up on his doorstep in Cuauhtémoc. Much of it had involved swearing. Not that he doubted what Inés had to say; Mother had once sent him out into the desert, too, as she had later done with Inés. But he thought she should let it go. Or let someone else take care of it—as if that had done any good yet.

And she owed Javier too much to let it go.

“If an old man can give you advice, too,” Miguel said, even quieter than before, “watch out for that one.” He made a tiny gesture toward El Rojo. “He’s got his eye on you. But not in the usual way.”

Inés’ fingers tightened on her backpack. “What do you mean?”

Miguel shook his head. “I don’t know. The big one, he wants what you’d expect, but the leader … he’s watching you for something.”

For what, Inés wanted to ask—but El Rojo rose smoothly to his feet, and they had to follow. It wasn’t a question Miguel could likely answer, anyway.

With the sun now up, the desert rapidly heated from pleasantly cool to sweltering. Inés and Miguel both took turns carrying the small children, to give their mothers a rest. Why were they crossing now, in the brutal conditions of summer? Couldn’t they wait for milder weather? She bit back the desire to yell at the mothers for stupidity. She didn’t know their reasons. And it would upset the kids, who out of all those here were completely blameless. Not that innocence would save them, if immigration agents caught their families; they would be deported back to Mexico, with or without their parents.

Inés gritted her teeth and kept walking.

When the noon halt came, people sank down wherever they stood, trembling and drenched with sweat. El Rojo wandered among them, cursing and kicking, until everyone was as hidden as they could get. Even in this desolation, they couldn’t assume they would remain unnoticed; the so-called Minutemen rode through here on their self-appointed patrols, and some of them were far too ready to shoot.

Miguel joined Inés in her clump of creosote. The bushes didn’t offer much in the way of shelter, not with the sun directly overhead, but it was all they had. The older man offered her beef jerky; Inés gave him chips in exchange, wishing she had brought more. They made her thirsty, but it was necessary to replace the salt lost through sweat, and she could tell that few of the migrants had known to bring their own. She hoped they found a cache of water left by one of the humanitarian groups; some people hadn’t brought enough.

Murmurs rose here and there as people made brief conversation, then gave it up out of exhaustion. One curt order, though, made Inés stiffen: El Rojo, speaking to the mother whose daughter had fussed the most. “Come with me.”

Miguel’s hand clamped down on Inés’ arm before she could move. “Don’t.”

“I can’t let him—” Inés growled, trying to rise. El Rojo was leading the young woman to the far side of a cluster of ocotillo.

“Yes, you can,” Miguel hissed. “Look.” He jerked his chin; Inés, following, saw Pipo watching her. He wants what you’d expect, Miguel had said—what El Rojo was about to take from that woman. Something else to offer, the coyote in the cantina had said. For all she knew, this was part of the woman’s bargain with El Rojo. Which didn’t make it right, didn’t make it okay—

You aren’t here to rescue them, Inés. Not like that. Don’t forget your purpose.

She sagged back down, defeated, and tried to sleep. It wasn’t the heat and relentless sun that kept her awake, though, but the muffled sounds from nearby.

They rested through the hottest part of the day, then rose to walk some more. Now it was clear that, however hard the night and morning had been, that was only the beginning of their trials; stiff muscles protested, and weariness made everyone clumsy. One of the young men stumbled on his way down a slope, nearly falling, putting Inés’ heart in her mouth; if he twisted an ankle, he was dead. Nowould carry him, not all the way to the reservation. He regained his balance, unharmed, and they went on.

Until the sun set and the desert air cooled, and Inés, stupid with exhaustion, began to wonder if all this risk and effort was going to come to nothing whatsoever, except an embarrassed trek back to Phoenix, and a passport in her mailbox with no stamp marking her return to the United States. It isn’t nothing, she thought, you know about El Rojo now, and can tell—

“Hide,” the coyote snarled.

The migrants didn’t move fast enough. They’d been stumbling along, one foot in front of the other, like zombies, and now they stared at him; Pipo and the others began shoving people to the ground as distant headlights sliced through the thickening dusk.

Inés remained standing, staring, until Pipo knocked her down, almost into the spines of an ocotillo. Two lights, moving independently: all-terrain motorcycles, not a Jeep. Border Patrol, not vigilantes, and following their trail from the fence.

A low, quiet laugh from El Rojo raised all the hairs along her arms and neck. “Come on, boys.”

Making only a little more noise than the desert wind, he and his three fellows loped off toward the approaching motorcycles.

Inés shoved a hand into her pocket, pulling out the rubber-banded tin. When she rose to a crouch, Miguel whispered, “What are you doing?” He wasn’t close enough to grab her.

Keeping those agents alive. “Stay here,” she hissed back, and ran before he could protest.

She kept low, taking advantage of the scant cover. Already she’d lost sight of El Rojo and the others, but that wouldn’t matter for long. She just needed to get far enough away from the migrants… .

Good enough. Inés dropped to one knee, stripped out of her clothes, and pulled the rubber band off the tin.

The pungent smell of the teopatli inside rose into the dry air. Its scent brought memories swarming around her like ghosts: her first visit to Cuauhtémoc, at the age of fifteen, re-united after seven years with the family she had lost. Her mother sending her out into the desert, with teopatli for her skin and pulque to drink and a maguey thorn to pierce her tongue, as her ancestors had done for generations before.

Careful despite her haste, Inés dipped her fingers in the paste, and began to dab it onto her body. Legs, back, arm, face, rings and clusters of spots, and even before she was done she could feel the ololiuqui seeds ground into the paste taking effect. Her vision swam, going both blurry and sharp, and smells assaulted her nose. Then everything came together with a bone-wrenching snap, and leaving tin and clothes behind, Inés ran once more.

The coyotes weren’t hard to follow now. They feared no predators, out here in the desert; Border Patrol, vigilantes, ranchers, all were just different kinds of prey. They ran together for a time, then fanned out, and Inés went after the nearest, knowing she would have to be fast.

He was on his way up a steep rise, aiming for a cliff from which he could leap. Inés caught him halfway, slamming his wiry to the ground, her jaws seeking and then finding his skull, teeth punching through into his brain. The coyote died without a sound, as in the distance, the barking calls of his brothers pierced the night air.

The motorcycles growled lower at the sound, but they were still approaching much too fast. Inés ran again, the teopatli giving her strength she’d lacked before. She was made for the stalking ambush, not the chase, but the lives of those two agents depended on her speed. The second coyote died with his throat crushed. The noise dropped sharply; one of the engines had stopped. She caught the third coyote on his way toward the motorcycles, and this one saw her coming; he twisted away from her leap, yipping in surprise, before going down beneath her much greater weight.

Even as the hot blood burst into her mouth, she heard a scream from the direction of the engines—a human scream.

Cold blue light flooded the narrow valley where the migrants had walked. One of the motorcycles had fallen on its side; the rider lay moaning and bleeding. His partner had a shotgun out, and was pointing it in every direction, unsure where the next attack would come from. If Inés wasn’t careful, he would shoot her instead.

Now it was time for the stalk. She circled the area slowly, paws touching down with silent care, nose alive to every scent on the wind. She thought the third coyote had been Pipo—couldn’t be sure—but the last was El Rojo. He was the smart one, the subtle one, the sorcerer who had given them all coyote shape, the better to hunt the humans who came to hunt them.

He knew she was out here. Inés realized that when she found his trail looping upon itself, confusing his scent. He’d heard Pipo die, of course—but maybe he’d known since before then. He’s watching you for something, Miguel had said. Maybe El Rojo recognized a fellow sorcerer when he saw one.

On an ordinary night, she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to approach the overhang. But the strength the teopatli gave her was no substitute for sleep; Inés’ human mind was sluggish, ceding too much control to the beast.

A weight crashed into her back. Pain bloomed hot along her nerves as the coyote’s jaws closed on her neck. Acting on instinct, Inés collapsed and rolled, dislodging El Rojo. When she regained her feet, she saw at last the creature she had come all this way to hunt.

His coat was different than the others’, more uniform in color along the head and back. In sunlight, it would be reddish brown. El Rojo, the red one, whose jaws now dripped red with her blood. Who had murdered Javier, and Consuela, and David, ranchers and vigilantes, and probably some migrants, too. Coyote attacks, the official reports said; they were suddenly more common than before. But agents of the Border Patrol died more often in the line of duty than any other federal law enforcement division, and the people in charge were more concerned with human killers than animal attacks.

Only Inés suspected more. She could hardly tell anyone it was nagualismo, though, even if she admitted to being a nagual herself. And so she had gone south, into Mexico, returning as an illegal immigrant, to hunt the coyote who ran on both two legs and four.

They snapped and feinted at one another, El Rojo using his greater speed and agility. But that was a dangerous game for him to play, especially on his own; when coyotes hunted larger prey, they did so in packs, and his was dead. That was why he had ambushed her—and as if he remembered that at the same moment, El Rojo turned and ran.

Inés followed. It might be enough to have killed the others, or it might not. If he could share his nagualismo with anyone, it wouldn’t take him long to be back in business. But it wasn’t pragmatism that drove her; it was the memory of Javier’s funeral, and his sister’s grief. And her own devastated face, staring back at her from the mirror.

The beast wanted his blood.

And the beast was stupid, forgetting she wasn’t the only predator out here tonight. The shotgun blast clipped her right hip, a few of the pellets raking bloody tracks into her fur. El Rojo had lured her back toward the motorcycles, and the agent with the gun. That man didn’t know she was a friend. Inés roared, and leaped out of range.

Bleeding, trembling with exhaustion even the teopatli couldn’t erase, she prayed, as she’d once prayed to the spirit of the day on which she was born. Alone in the desert, hallucinating and exhausted, bleeding from the tongue in the old manner, she’d begged the spirit to come—and the jaguar had answered.

El Rojo was creeping up behind her, not quite silent enough. Inés waited, paws braced against the rocky dirt. Closer. And closer.

When he leapt, she twisted to meet him, with all the speed and power of the jaguar.

One massive paw slammed him to the side. El Rojo yelped, but it cut off as her jaws found his neck. With a single bite, she severed his spinal cord, and his went limp in the dust.

Panting, she stood over the of her prey. Not far away, she heard the second engine start up again, and the crunching rush of the motorcycles driving away. The wounded agent was well enough to ride, then, and they’d given up the chase.

For now.

Inés licked her spotted fur clean as best she could. Then, wearily, strength fading again, she padded back along her own trail to her clothes and the tin of teopatli. Changing back to human form brought all her previous exhaustion and then some crashing down; she could barely persuade herself to get dressed. The only thing that moved her was the knowledge that sixteen frightened migrants waited in the darkness, knowing only what they heard: motorcycles and guns, coyotes and the roar of a jaguar. She hoped they hadn’t run.

They hadn’t. It would have been suicide, in desert territory none of them knew at all. Miguel stood up as Inés approached, and a few others followed suit, including the mother Inés had failed to protect from El Rojo.

The silence stretched out. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, to what she would tell the migrants. Lack of energy made her blunt. “They’re dead. The coyotes.”

One of the other women whimpered. Inés stood, only half-listening, as a babble of questions and fear broke out. She didn’t come out of her daze until Miguel drew close and said, “Do you know where we were going?”

The Tohono O’odham reservation, probably, where El Rojo would have had some means for them to continue onward. Inés didn’t know what that would have been. But she knew some of the Indians protected migrants, and sent them along to others who could help.

Miguel saw it in her eyes. “You’ll have to lead us, then.”

Inés opened her mouth to answer him, then stopped. She had climbed the fence with these people; she had paid a coyote and gone into the desert, just like the rest of them, and that made them kin. Here in the middle of the wilderness, she could not say to Miguel, I’m an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol. I don’t do coyotaje. I arrest those who do.

She would take them to the reservation, of course; it was that, or abandon them here to die. But when they arrived, she would have to hand them over, to be deported back to Mexico.

Her gaze fell on the young mother, with her infant daughter. Eduardo had been the same age when their mother carried him across the border. He was eleven when they deported him, with no memory of the “home” they were sending him back to; Mamá, caught in the same raid, had gone with him. Inés, born in the United States, had stayed, and lost her family for years.

She’d joined the patrol to fight drug smuggling, to end violence, not to hunt people who only wanted work and a better life. Sneaking across the desert, risking death every step of the way, was no kind of answer—but they had no other. And Inés could not tell these frightened, hopeful men and women and children that the dream was not for them.

“We’ll rest for an hour,” she said. “Then I’ll take you someplace safe.”