Dark Moon Crossing (11 page)

Flat on my belly, my head and shoulders underneath the
car, my fingers finally closed around the elusive bunch of keys. “Thank God,”
I muttered with relief, pushing to my knees. But before I could get to my
feet, the crunch of footsteps in the gravel froze my movements. The clamor of
angry voices coming at me out of the darkness reversed the heavy silence.
Instinctively, I stayed down out of sight.

“Why
can’t you leave me alone?‌ I’m running this place on a wing and a prayer,
trying my best to redeem myself and do something useful with the rest of my
life. Why can’t you do the same?‌”

“Give me a frickin’ break. Try and remember who
you’re talking to. You mess with the Frogman and you’re gonna be real sorry,
Sister Madam Reverend Goldenrod. Christ Almighty, where’d you come up with
such a corny name anyway?‌” The raspy voice ripe with sarcasm belonged to Froggy
McQueen and I wasn’t surprised when I heard Sister G seethe, “Goldenrods just
happen to be my favorite flower, as if it’s any of your business, and what
gives you the right to speak to me like that, you cretin?‌”

“Oh,
please. Get down off your pious sanctimonious horse. You might be able to fool
other people, but that high and mighty shit won’t work on me.”

She
let out a squeak of anguish. “Look, I can’t pay you the full amount right now,
you’re gonna have to give me more time.”

“Yeah, right. Like you ain’t got additional sources of
income.”

“What
are you getting at?‌ You mean the pittance I get from those lousy donation
letters?‌ Not hardly.”

“Froggy’s running out of patience.”

“Listen to me. I’m expecting Sister Agatha and some
of the other big shot church elders from Tucson to be here sometime next week. If
everything goes as planned, if somebody doesn’t open his big yap and mess
things up, there should be a sizable contribution to the mission.”

“That
would be mighty fine indeed. You just remember our agreement.”

“I’m
sure you won’t let me forget.”

“Hey, I don’t expect any more than what’s due me.”

“What’s
due
you?‌ This is nothing more than goddamned blackmail.”

“Now
you’re hurting my feelings,” he whined. “I been doing my best to help you out
around here and my silence on this particular matter simply means a small
supplement to my living expenses. Just consider it a deposit to the National
Bank of Froggy.”

“It’s
blackmail, you…you miserable drunken….”

“Ah,
ah, ah,” he interrupted, his tone hardening. “Let’s not say anything we’ll be
sorry for.”

Sister
G could only splutter as he strolled into the dim circle of light wearing a
smug look of triumph. He banged through the side door, so I edged my head high
enough to make out Sister G’s lumpy silhouette shuffling off in the direction
of the little wooden shacks behind the church.

Slowly, I rose to my feet. Well, well, well. How
very intriguing. Froggy was in possession of information concerning Sister G’s
past that I would very much like to have. Would it confirm my suspicions about
her legitimacy as a real minister?‌ What
was
the criteria for becoming a
minister anyway?‌ Could
anyone
just start a church?‌ Did one have to
file papers or graduate from a seminary with a degree in theology?‌ I’d have
to check that out.

I unlocked the car door, laid my computer on the
passenger seat, retrieved my overnight bag and walked towards the first small
dwelling. A rectangle of light appeared suddenly as Sister G opened the door
and I caught a glimpse inside the tiny room packed wall to wall with mattresses
and cots, all occupied by the grim-faced Mexican families who’d been in the
kitchen earlier. No doubt the other two shacks were also filled to
capacity.

She sucked in a startled breath when the light fell on
me. “What do you want?‌”

“Just wondering what the sleeping arrangements were.”

She shut the door quickly and moved past me. “Where’s
Lupe?‌”

“Conked out in Javier’s room.”

“Well, I don’t really have any extra rooms. I have a
lot of guests tonight.”

“I can see that. Say, um, aren’t you worried about
getting caught?‌”

Her steps faltered. “Caught doing what?‌”

Okay, I’d play the game. “Harboring undocumented
immigrants.”

“Look
here, O’Dell,” she said coldly, “I have no knowledge of that and neither do
you. I’m simply here doing the Lord’s work. I don’t need to see people’s
papers to know whether or not they are human beings in need of help.”

She
had a point. If cornered, she could always claim ignorance. Well, no sense
getting into another pissing match with her right now, it was getting late and
I needed a place to crash. I fell into step beside her as she ambled towards
the pink house. “Listen, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot today, but I
am curious about something you said earlier.”

“What’s
that?‌”

“When
you thought I was an undercover agent with the Border Patrol, you said
something about me coming back here to finish the job. What did you mean by
that?‌”

She
exhaled a wheezy sigh. “We had a big fire here a while back and I think
someone in their ranks is responsible. I’m just lucky the wind shifted when
it did, or it would have burned everything to the ground. As it is, five
buildings were a total loss.”

“What
makes you so sure it was someone with the Border Patrol?‌”

“Because
they’ve been on my case since we opened our doors. They’re pissed off at me,
the ranchers are pissed off at me, the goddamn INS is pissed off at me just
because we’ve been doing the humanitarian deed of putting up water stations to
help save some lives.”

“And
how long have you been doing this type of humanitarian work?‌”

She
paused and turned around, looking annoyed. “Why do you want to know?‌”

I
shrugged. “Just curious, I guess. It’s my nature to ask questions.”

An
upward eye roll. “No kidding.” She reached for the kitchen door handle.
“Look, this old place was falling to ruins when I took over, let’s see, almost
two years ago. Besides a barrel of elbow grease, I put in a lot of my own
savings to help restore some of the buildings. The sanctuary and this house
are both over a hundred years old and need constant repair.”

I
followed her along the winding hallway until she stopped at a door and swung it
open. “I have an extra bed in my room. You’re welcome to bunk there if you
like,” she said pointing to a narrow cot crammed into the corner of the tiny,
angular room.

I
wasn’t keen on the idea of sharing a room with her, but hey, what choice did I
have other than sleeping on the floor in the airless little room with Lupe and
Javier?‌ I set my overnight bag on the floor, switched on the lamp and then
caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I glanced up at the low eaves
and it was all I could do to keep from screaming my lungs out at the sight of a
huge, shiny black spider dangling in a web not two feet above my head. A mass
of shivers engulfed me as I executed a backward leap that almost knocked Sister
Goldenrod to the floor. “Jesus H. Christ!” I gasped, whirling around to make a
mad dash for the doorway.

“What’s
the matter with you?‌” she screeched from behind.

From
a safe distance of ten feet, I raised a trembling finger. “The…there’s a
humongous spider hanging over the bed. A black widow, I think.”

She
blinked slowly. “So?‌”

Her
look of bemused irritation said it all. People who do not have a spider phobia
can never in a million years understand the raw terror these eight-legged
creatures can generate. “I can’t sleep with that thing hanging there. You’re
going to have to kill it.”

She
glared daggers at me. “I will do no such thing. Beulah has been living here
almost as long as me.”

“You
named
the spider?‌”

“Listen
up, O’Dell,” she said with a tired sigh, dropping onto her large four-poster
bed. “Beulah stays. That’s the only spare bed I’ve got. Take it or leave it.”

Well,
it was her decision, her place and her spider, so I was out of there. Suddenly
camping out in my car didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. “If you’ll hand
me my bag, I’ll be going now.”

Now what?‌ I was contemplating the idea of spreading
out my bedroll on the living room floor when halfway down the hall a door
opened and Froggy McQueen stepped into my path. “I…ah, couldn’t help but
overhear your dilemma, Miss O’Dell, and I think maybe I can be of service.”
His smile appeared genuine, but he couldn’t disguise the crafty gleam in his
eyes.

I stared down at him, noticing for the first time the
bushy tangle of gray hairs protruding from his nostrils. In fact, Froggy
seemed to have an abundance of hair everywhere but on his head. Even his ears
were fuzzy. I suppressed a shudder of repugnance and forced a polite smile.
“And just exactly what did you have in mind?‌” He made a great show of reaching
over to push the door open wide enough to reveal two twin beds. “
Are you
lonesome tonight?‌
” he crooned in a terrible imitation of Elvis Presley, “
are
you lonesome tonight?‌ Are you sorry
we drifted apart?‌”

I’m sure my mouth was hanging open a mile. “Excuse
me?‌”

“In other words,” he said, grinning wickedly while
executing a grand sweep of his hand. “I’d be more than happy to share my
quarters with you.”

I’ll bet you would, you disgusting little…horny toad.
With extreme difficulty, I swallowed back a hundred
caustic retorts and weighed my position carefully. If I alienated this guy it
would make it much harder to extract information from him. “That’s very kind
of you, but you see I’m having a really bad asthma attack,” I said, patting my
chest and forcing a tiny cough, “so I’m going to have to sleep…” Where?‌ Think
fast! “…out on the porch.”

“It’s gonna be freezing outside,” he said, apparently
hoping to dissuade me.

I smiled sweetly. “I need the fresh air. You do
understand, don’t you?‌”

His
smile sank out of sight, replaced by a look of complete bafflement. Before he
could utter another word, I added, “But, thanks for your generous offer. Good
night now.”

Pervert
.
With shivers of revulsion skating down my spine, I pushed past him before I
said something I’d regret. And that wouldn’t have taken much.

“Okay,
sweet thing,” he called after me in an oily tone I’m sure he meant to sound
enticing. “But if you change your mind and want to get toasty warm, you know
where to find Froggy.”

I
hated it when people referred to themselves in the third person. The image of
spending the night under the same roof with this odious little man derailed my
plans of sleeping in the living room, so I headed outdoors once more. Would
this aggravating day never end?‌

I got about ten steps from the door when it dawned on
me that I’d best use the facilities now because there sure weren’t any outside
that I knew of. I did a quick turnabout, let myself quietly in the kitchen
door, and started towards the bathroom I’d seen adjacent to Javier’s room when
a slight sound from the direction of the living room halted my steps. Moving
with stealth, I peeked around the doorway. Froggy stood in the dim lamplight
dialing the phone. I pulled back out of sight, breathing shallowly. Who would
he be calling at this late hour?‌

“Hey, diddle diddle, it’s the cat with the fiddle,” he
intoned, keeping his gravelly voice low. “Little boy blue
do not
blow
your horn, but the sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.”

What the hell?‌ Struggling to make sense of what I’d
just overheard, I nearly missed his abrupt cradling of the phone. Oh, crap!
On tiptoe, I hotfooted it around the corner and ducked into the kitchen.
Seconds later, I heard his door close. The after-effect of yet another
adrenaline jolt left my whole body tingling. I sat down on one of the benches
until the sensation subsided, thinking I’d had more than enough shocks for one
day.

So what had that been all about?‌ Froggy certainly had
a thing for songs and now nursery rhymes. Innocent sounding as it may have
been, the call was obviously some sort of a signal. But for whom?‌ There was
no way to check because the phone he’d used was so ancient it didn’t have a
redial button.

To conceal the fact that I’d been eavesdropping again,
I returned to the kitchen and banged the door as if I’d just come in. Making
no attempt to muffle my steps, I made my way along the hallway once again.
When I passed Froggy’s door, I heard the hinges squeak softly. The icy chill
on the back of my neck told me he was watching, but I entered the bathroom
without turning to verify it. I washed up quickly and was back outside in less
than fifteen minutes.

Walking towards my car looking skyward, I almost
gasped aloud at the sheer magnificence unfolding. The driving wind had
ruptured the thick cloud cover, allowing intermittent beams of moonlight to
shine through the ragged openings like a flashing neon sign. Long shadows
chasing across the rugged landscape created a rather hypnotic effect. I could
have stood there in the exhilarating breeze watching the moon play Peek-a-boo
with the silver-edged clouds all night, but fatigue won out.

Now that it was my only choice, I must admit I didn’t
relish the idea of spending the night in my car. I would have preferred to
camp out in the open, but thoughts of Froggy roaming about, not to mention the
legion of other strangers present, squelched that idea.

It was no easy task to accordion my long frame into
the sleeping bag on the back seat. After locking the doors, I rolled the
windows open a few inches to stave off my claustrophobia, but in spite of the
soothing wind whispering through the palo verde branches, sleep proved to be
elusive. I shifted to my left side and adjusted the rolled up jacket pillowing
my neck. Just think, if I hadn’t agreed to take part in this peculiar
undertaking I’d be cuddling with Tally right now.

Time passes at a sluggish pace when it seems as if
you’re the only person awake on earth. But it does give one time to be
introspective. Lying there staring up at the distant carpet of stars winking
back at me like a million rhinestones, I began to look at them differently. I
began to question my own beliefs. Sure, I’d read science fiction novels
dealing with the possibility of life on other planets, I’d seen all the
long-running TV shows and movies addressing the subject, but was I really ready
to accept the fact that there might be alien forces kidnapping people here on
earth?‌ No. But then, was it logical to believe that we human beings were the
only intelligent life in the entire universe?‌ Was there really something to
these alleged UFO sightings?‌ How else could one explain the similarities
between Javier’s tale and that of the Mexican immigrant found months ago in
Morita?‌ And, what about all those animal mutilations?‌ No doubt UFO
enthusiasts would solemnly intone that it was the work of the
extraterrestrials, just as Mazzie La Casse had, but it made more sense to
assume that this was the work of someone very human in origin. And if so, what
would be the purpose of such a heinous act?‌ A feeling of helplessness crept
over me. What had possessed me to think that I could tackle something this
ambiguous in two short days?‌ I tried to clear my head, but my mind flitted
from one disturbing theory to another like hungry hummingbirds around a
feeder.

“Stop it,” I said out loud. If I were to get any
sleep at all, this was definitely the wrong subject to explore alone in the
dead of night. I turned my thoughts instead to Tally and the promise of fun
that lay ahead for us in California. But gradually, the memory of our quarrel
and his parting words to me eclipsed my happy fantasy. I was reluctant to
admit that perhaps he was right, but I couldn’t help wondering if I’d made a
huge mistake agreeing to take this on.

Somewhere between reflections of self-recrimination
and the immensity of the task that lay before me, I fell into a tortured sleep
filled with disquieting dreams. The final one had me running for my life
across the desert, pursued by monstrous winged creatures astride wild-eyed
black horses. Consumed with panic, my heart slamming against my ribs, I could
only move in slow motion. A vacant house appeared, but each shadowy room I
tried to hide in was inhabited with spiders of all sizes, shapes and colors. I
tried to escape, but the space creatures closed in, trapping me. When one
enormous yellow spider began crawling up my arm, I awoke with a strangled
shriek of terror and sat up, banging my head on the headliner of the car.
“Owww!” I rubbed the injured spot and massaged the dull pain in my neck. The
sensation of pure horror evoked by the dream lingered on for long minutes,
clinging in my memory like some viscous fog.

“Get real,” I warned myself, holding my wrist aloft,
squinting to see the time. Four-thirty-five. I groaned softly. Too early to
get up, too late to get a decent night’s sleep. Which was just as well, as I
had no intention of chancing a return of the nightmares.

It was then I realized the swiftly-moving shadows
outside my window were not caused by clouds, but by people. Dozens of them
were running through the clearing, many more than had been in Sister G’s
kitchen the night before. “Holy cow.” I hunched lower and watched with
amazement as the dark stream of humanity drifted past me. Even the smallest
child made not one sound. Shifting my weight so I could see out the back
window, I saw a glint of moonlight reflecting off glass, illuminating the
outline of four vans parked at the mouth of the driveway. Official
transportation, I presumed. How was it I’d not heard them?‌

Witnessing the clandestine event, one that was
probably occurring a hundred-fold all along the U.S./ Mexican border at this
very instant, gave me an odd thrill. How many gringos, outside of authorized
government officials and the smugglers themselves, ever got a chance to observe
something like this?‌ Not many, I wagered, observing one tall figure in a low-slung
western hat motioning people into one of the vehicles.

I glanced back towards the shacks and saw the
silhouette of another lone figure disappearing into the darkness. Sister G
watching her flock being herded to safety?‌ Was it really her sole mission in
life to assist these unfortunate souls, or was she entangled in the actual
trafficking process?‌ Is that what Froggy meant when he’d accused her of having
additional sources of income?‌ I thought about the cryptic nursery rhyme—
Little
boy blue
don’t
blow your horn,
and decided
it made more sense
to concentrate on his activities. Since he believed that I was outside on the
porch, had he warned the van drivers to cut their engines and coast silently
into the driveway?‌ And, the sheep’s in the meadow and cow reference was obviously
code announcing that the illegals were now on church property waiting for
transportation.

The faint growl of an engine seemed to validate my
theory. One of the vans rolled away. Two minutes elapsed before the second
one left and several more before the third headed east towards the Sasabe
road. The entire operation had been carried out with military precision in
less than twenty minutes.

Trying to focus in the poor light made my eyes blurry,
so I held them closed for a few seconds and then looked out again at the fourth
van. Something was different. The driver had not started the engine and it sat
there for another five minutes before the headlights blinked three times. Away
in the distance to the southwest, I saw three answering flashes. How odd.

The minutes dragged by until the muffled purr of the
engine alerted me. The van eased out to the road and headed south towards the
border. Huh?‌ Was the driver directionally challenged?‌ Less than thirty
seconds later the headlights of an oncoming vehicle appeared from the direction
the other three had gone. My God, it was the Border Patrol! Had agents
already apprehended the other three vans?‌ Would this one chase down number
four?‌ But the SUV did not appear to be in pursuit. It cruised by the driveway
slowly and I watched until it disappeared from sight. No siren blared, no
emergency lights blazed. I continued my vigil for another ten minutes, but
nothing else happened. I could make no sense of what I’d just seen.

Edgy, crabby, and suffering from pangs of guilt, I
stuffed the jacket under my neck and curled up on the seat again, trying to get
comfortable. I, Kendall Shannon O’Dell, a law-abiding United States citizen,
had witnessed the entire illegal operation go down and had done nothing to stop
it. But what if the smugglers were armed?‌ What could I have actually done?‌
And when the Border Patrol arrived, shouldn’t I have alerted them to the
situation?‌ Why hadn’t I?‌

As I pondered the plight of little Javier, of Lupe, of
the despondent faces of the people in Sister G’s kitchen last night, an odd
sensation of remorse engulfed me. These desperate souls, including this most
recent group of young men and families, were, at great risk to themselves,
breaking our immigration laws in order to flee lives of poverty, despair and
corruption. They were willing to sacrifice everything familiar in order to
seek a better life for themselves and their children. For the first time I
actually thought about the dark-haired men and women who toiled in our fields,
bussed our tables, bagged our groceries, washed our cars, mowed our lawns,
cleaned our toilets—and were happy to do so. Somehow, thinking of these things
lessened the guilt enough so that I drifted in and out of broken sleep until
the first signs of daybreak appeared.

With profound relief, I extricated myself from the
car, stretching my stiff limbs and stomping the circulation back into my feet.
No way was I doing that again tonight. But then, I shouldn’t have to. Lupe
would be going back home this afternoon, which would make the cot in Javier’s
room available. But did I really want to stay at the mission with her gone?‌
It just might be worth driving the distance back to Green Valley to find a nice
comfortable motel tonight.