Sweet Nothing (18 page)

THE FIRE REACHES
Brewer's place around nine. It barrels down the hill fronted by a twenty-foot wall of flame. The dry grass hisses as it burns, and the oily shrubs explode, sending up showers of flaming shrapnel. The willows and cottonwoods lining the creek that runs along the western edge of the property wither and go from green to orange to black.

Brewer stands at the break in goggles and bandanna, hose in one hand, rake in the other. His eyes sting from the smoke, and it's impossible to draw a deep breath without coughing. The heat increases as the fire pushes closer, and the exposed flesh on his forehead feels tight enough to tear.

If he thinks of all of it at once, pauses to acknowledge the intensity of the blaze, the heat, the choking smoke, he'll cut and run, he knows it, and die in a futile scramble for safety. So instead he focuses on individual flames and wayward sparks, moving from task to task, head down, humming that damn song, the one about the doggie.

An ember sails across the break on a gust of wind and lands in a clump of dead weeds. Brewer drags the hose over and douses the flare-up, then spots another and soaks that too. He replaces the doggie song with Hamlet's soliloquy “To be or not to be…” Not his favorite speech, not his favorite play, but something he memorized as a young man because even the roughnecks he worked with in the oil fields recognized it as something fine and would reward him with whiskey and backslaps when he stood, deliriously drunk, and recited it in those long-ago jukebox honky-tonks that were their only respite from day upon hellish day on the rigs.

He's up to “the rub” when a sage bush inside the perimeter catches fire and ignites a mat of brittle grass that stretches all the way over to where his truck is parked. By the time he pulls the hose into position, the ground beneath the vehicle is on fire. His legs shake as he squeezes the pistol-gripped nozzle and aims the stream of water at the flames. Two of the truck's tires explode, but he manages to extinguish the blaze before it does any more damage.

A step back, a clattery breath, and out of the corner of his eye he sees that the old oak that shades the trailer, a tree he should have cut down years ago,
would have
if he hadn't been moved by its gnarled dignity, is suddenly aflame. He's soaked its branches half a dozen times since hearing of the approaching fire, but the air itself is thirsty in this parched place, so, despite his precautions, the tree is dropping burning leaves onto his home.

He climbs onto the picnic table next to the trailer and sprays the roof and the branches above it, which are laced with orange flame. He's making progress, but then a blazing limb gives way with a loud crack and crashes down onto the trailer.

Brewer hops off the table and retrieves the rake. He hooks the limb with the tool and yanks repeatedly in an effort to dislodge it. The stubborn tangle of smoldering branches comes loose all of a sudden, throwing him off balance, and he falls backward and brings the limb down on top of himself. He scrabbles wildly to get free of the burning cage, then snags the limb with the rake and drags it across the yard.

The fire is lapping at the break on all sides now, and the intense heat ripples the air, giving the blaze the ghostly quality of something seen through an old, warped windowpane. Thick, black smoke rolls over Brewer in choking waves, and the sharp pop and crackle of flames chewing through the chaparral plucks at his nerves. He opens his mouth to yell, to prove he's still here, but only a ragged cough comes out.

Next time, I let it burn,
he thinks, and staggers toward a new flare-up that's bloomed inside the perimeter.

PAPÁ AND THE
taxi driver talk like old friends as they zip past concrete-and-cinder-block dental clinics, auto-repair shops, and twenty-four-hour pharmacies. All the buildings look like they're either half finished or on their way to falling down, and music blasts out of every open door. A man in a dirty chicken suit dances in front of a restaurant, beckoning passing cars.

The stink of burning trash in the air makes Miguel nauseous. Or maybe he's carsick. He tries concentrating on the CD dangling from the rearview mirror of the cab, watches it twirl and flash, but that only makes him feel worse.

They turn off the pavement onto a deeply rutted dirt road that leads up a steep hill past shacks pieced together out of cardboard and corrugated tin, scavenged wood and plastic tarps. It's even more pitiful than Durango. Look at the garbage piled in the street. Look at the women washing clothes in a muddy stream.
Vatos
with tattooed faces bend to peer into the taxi as it passes, and the driver locks the doors.

The cab stops in front of a house that's a little nicer than the rest, with four solid walls and glass in the windows. A satellite dish perches on the roof like a vulture, and a new gas grill takes up most of the dirt yard. Papá climbs out and knocks on the door. A woman clutching a naked baby answers and talks briefly with the old man, stepping outside to point down the road.

The cabdriver turns in his seat to address Miguel. “You like L.A.?” he asks in English.

“It's okay,” Miguel replies.

“I live there ten years,” the driver says. “I like the money, but Mexico is better for me.”

Miguel doesn't understand how that could possibly be.

Papá returns to the cab and tells the driver to go to the end of the street and make a left. They stop again, in front of a windowless concrete building with a Corona logo painted on the side.

“Cuidado,”
the driver says when Papá gets out of the cab. Careful. Miguel gets out too, because he'd rather be with his father than the driver if something goes wrong.

The only light inside the building comes from a dozen strands of Christmas bulbs strung across the ceiling. Their blinking reveals a glass-doored refrigerator stocked with beer and a wooden shelf lined with bottles of tequila. The place is a cantina of some sort, judging by the white plastic tables and chairs scattered about. A little man in a red apron is sitting on an overturned bucket next to the refrigerator. He stands when Miguel and his father enter, his eyes full of questions.

The only customer is a dark-skinned drunk in sweatpants and a Chivas jersey who looks to be asleep in his chair.

“Chango,” Papá calls out to him.

The drunk squints at the old man, drinks from a bottle of Modelo, then lets his chin drop to his chest again. Papá walks over and kneels beside him, grabs the arm of his chair, and shakes it.

“¿Qué pasa?”
El Chango mumbles without lifting his head or opening his eyes.

The old man asks about Alberto and Maria, explains that they were supposed to cross last night. It's difficult for Miguel to hear what he's saying because he speaks so softly, almost whispering into the coyote's ear. A fly buzzing around the room is louder than he is.

El Chango frowns and shakes his head, eyes still closed. He reaches out and tries to push the old man away. Papá's face hardens into a mask Miguel has never seen before. “Listen,” he says. “You know El Teo, right?”

The name is a mystery to Miguel, but El Chango has heard it. He opens his little red eyes and looks Papá up and down.

“You better talk to me, or you'll soon be talking to him,” the old man says.

El Chango grunts and licks his thick lips. He tugs at his jersey and has another sip of beer. “We set out at dusk,” he begins, then slurs out the story of how he led Alberto, Maria, and two other
pollos,
young boys, across the border and up into the scrubby hills of the U.S. side. He knew about the fire, could see the orange glow of it in the distance as they trudged along, but that seemed to him a good thing. The border patrol would be forced to pull back, and the crossing would be an easy one.

The wind, though, fuck, who can predict that? It changed in an instant and sent the flames racing toward them. El Chango hurried the
pollos
along, but the pregnant girl slowed them down. When the smoke thickened and sparks began to fall like burning rain, the group insisted they turn around. El Chango climbed to the top of a hill and looked back the way they'd come to see if this was an option, and, Mother of God, he couldn't believe his eyes: a sea of fire now blocked any retreat.

There was nothing to do but keep moving, try to stay in front of the flames. This proved to be impossible. The fire moved too quickly and finally overtook them in a steep, narrow canyon, roaring and spitting like some bright, burning beast. El Chango lost his nerve. He and the boys abandoned the pregnant girl and her husband and sprinted up the path, not stopping until they no longer felt heat on the backs of their necks. Upon reaching the railroad tracks that cut across the desert there, they sat and waited for over an hour, but nobody else appeared out of the inferno.

El Chango hangs his head and weeps when he finishes. Miguel is embarrassed by the tears. He hasn't cried in years and is sure he never will again. He stares at the Modelo bottle as the man sobs. The Christmas lights turn it red, then green, then blue.

Papá pulls a map from his pocket and thrusts it at the coyote, demanding he show him where they crossed. El Chango wipes his eyes with his palms, squints down at the map and points to a remote area east of Tecate.

“The same trail as always?” Papá asks.

El Chango nods.

“Okay, then, let's go,” Papá says to Miguel, and for once Miguel is happy to obey one of his orders.

BREWER SITS AT
the picnic table and drinks a celebratory beer. His property lies charred and smoldering all around him, but he's saved the trailer and the truck, the pump house and the propane tank. Not finding much fuel here, the fire passed through quickly and is now crawling toward Calexico and Mexicali. The smoke has cleared, except for a few white snakes still writhing over shrubs that haven't yet burned themselves out.

Brewer's hands were slightly scorched fighting the fire. He rests a plastic bag filled with ice on the blistered skin. His eyebrows are gone too, burned away, and some of his hair, but nothing that won't grow back. All in all he's proud of having stood his ground.

“Cassius,” he shouts. “Get your ass out here.”

He last saw the dog cowering under the trailer right before the fire descended upon them. A tickle of worry makes him bend to peer into the animal's hiding place.

“Cassius?” he calls again, but detects no movement in the shadows.

He tells himself the mutt is fine. Probably holed up somewhere else on the property, still too frightened by the smoke and flames to come out. He forces his mind to move on. There are plenty of other issues to be dealt with. The power is out, for example, and since it might be days before repairs are made, he decides dinner tonight will be the T-bone he's been saving in the freezer, with ice cream for dessert. He's in the middle of a mental inventory of the rest of the contents of the refrigerator, dividing it into stuff that will spoil and stuff that won't, when a watery uneasiness once again creeps up on him.

“Cassius?” he shouts, before finally figuring out what's bothering him: No birds. They've all disappeared in the wake of the fire, and the quiet is unsettling. No ravens bitching, no doves courting. No finches, no jays, no quail. There's only the wind now, and the distant whine of an engine coming closer. Brewer cranes his neck to look down the road and sees a cloud of dust. Probably the lady cop, expecting the worst. Won't she be surprised. He stands and tucks in his shirt, straightens his collar.

But it's not the cop who drives into the yard, it's the Sharp brothers, a pair of former marines who still favor high-and-tights and camo. They live near Lake Morena with their wives and kids, get by as handymen, and, under the mantle of patriotism, spend their spare hours patrolling the border in search of illegals. The deal is, they're not allowed to detain the wetbacks or confront them in any way, only to radio their location to the border patrol, but Brewer suspects there's some wink-wink nudge-nudge going on around that.

Steve is behind the wheel of the Jeep, Matthew in the passenger seat. The only way Brewer can tell them apart is that Steve has tattoos and Matthew doesn't. Nice enough guys, but he isn't looking to get any friendlier with them than he already is. He can't help wondering about the essential qualities of folks who get their kicks fucking with the poor and desperate.

“You made it!” Steve shouts.

“I wasn't sure for a while there,” Brewer says. “Goddamn thing almost seemed to have a grudge. How'd it go at your place?”

“No problems,” Matthew says. “The crews kept it south of the 94.”

“So everybody got lucky. Good. Say, you didn't happen to see that old dog that hangs around here on your way in, did you?”

“Nope,” Steve says. “He run off?”

“No, no,” Brewer says. “I just haven't seen him in an hour or so. Where you guys off to?”

“Ah, you know, looking for trouble,” Steve says. There's a scorpion on his neck, and rattlesnakes coil up both arms.

“The coyotes are for sure gonna take advantage of the fire,” Matthew says. “They'll be bringing across as many
pollos
as they can while everyone's busy.”

Brewer notices a couple of shotguns in the backseat of the Jeep, and each man has a Glock on his hip. A bit excessive for “observers,” but then again, Brewer can't imagine that vigilantes like Matthew and Steve are too popular out there in no-man's-land.

“Well, take it easy,” he says.

“You good?” Matthew says.

Brewer has two ruined tires on his truck and only one spare, but he'll worry about that tomorrow, walk up the road to where he can get a signal on his phone or hitch into Calexico. It's always been like that: If he can do for himself, he will.

“I'm good,” he says.

Steve backs the Jeep out and whips it around toward a dirt track that leads to the border, and Brewer is suddenly beat all the way down to his bones. He calls for Cassius a few more times, then walks to the trailer and pulls himself up the step to get inside. Everything hurts when he lies on the bed, everything's against him. Not even a bird left to sing him to sleep.