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Authors: William T. Vollmann
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could barely lift. Who could blame those girls if they wanted to try their luck across the wall in Northside? The two leafleters waved them aside so that I could get the horror down reliably for this book. They feared that perhaps the missing man had been left to broil alive in the coyotes’ van. The Border Patrol had found bodies inside the Dodge, they said—burned bodies.
As the Calexico Chronicle, which might or might not have been more accurate, told the same story, there were no corpses in the vehicle. A “concerned citizen,” it said, had turned over an illegal to Border Patrol agents at the Highway 86 checkpoint. The pollo led agents to the smoldering van. The agents then caught nine other people who’d straggled to scattered spots between two and five miles south of Highway 78 in that fearful heat. The remaining twelve were not found. Did one or two reach water somewhere? Was the missing man, Serafín Ramírez Hernández, whose blurred head stared out at me from the flyer most distantly, resolutely seeking something beyond and behind me, still alive?
What does he look like? I asked.
Same as me, but more thin, said one man.
He was a good man, said the other. He was the good friend of my brother. Looked same like me, but more tall. Married with three kids.
Why did he go?
To make money.
In the “Imperial Catechism” of 1903 one reads the following questions and answers about doing business there (“Water is King—Here is its Kingdom”):
What kind of labor can be had for ranch work?
The farm labor in the valley is principally foreign; some are Americans, but it is mostly Mexican.
They came to make money a century ago, and they were still coming now.
Do you know his coyote? I asked the two leafleters.
We don’t. Maybe his brother knows him.
Which is more dangerous, to cross alone or with the coyotes?
It’s the same, said one, but the other disagreed and said: If you know the way, it’s more better if you cross by yourself. Because the polleros take advantage of you.
They wandered off to put up more flyers. Behind them, on the grass between the white-limed trees, two men squatted and one man lay, each of them guarding a small plastic bag of necessities as he waited for full dark to try America. The sleeping man was on his side, wearing the same plaid shirt and jeans I’d seen on many of the captured bodies in that Northside field. With or without coyotes the people would go.
INTERVIEW WITH A COYOTE
And the coyotes themselves, what do they say? Well, as you have heard, they are not so easy to talk to. I did talk to some, mostly on the fly.—Is it dangerous? I kept asking.—Yes, very dangerous, they always answered.
I met two men in Mexicali who confirmed what pollos and ex- pollos said about them. In a taciturn, colorless way, ever suspicious of exposure, they disclosed some details of their operations, and I have drawn on them here and there. But it was not until Los Angeles that I got to question a coyote for a good twenty minutes, a young one down on his luck; his many close calls with the Border Patrol had scared him into manual labor.
He said that in the days of his glory he had worked only by word of mouth. Friends known to friends could hire him—no one else. He had always been careful (and he had always been small time). He swore that no pollo had ever died on his watch. But he did admit that there had been difficulties. For a considerable time he had led groups over Signal Mountain (this was the path on which Carlos had been taken). Once he came down into the Imperial Valley with his chickens and the pollista ’s van was not there. It was very hot. They waited for two days and two nights without water. How they survived I don’t know. The pollista never came. Finally he led them back into Mexico.
He also said that once he and his group had gotten lost, and the Border Patrol had actually helped them, showing them which way to go.
But mainly he feared the Border Patrol.
His
As the Calexico Chronicle, which might or might not have been more accurate, told the same story, there were no corpses in the vehicle. A “concerned citizen,” it said, had turned over an illegal to Border Patrol agents at the Highway 86 checkpoint. The pollo led agents to the smoldering van. The agents then caught nine other people who’d straggled to scattered spots between two and five miles south of Highway 78 in that fearful heat. The remaining twelve were not found. Did one or two reach water somewhere? Was the missing man, Serafín Ramírez Hernández, whose blurred head stared out at me from the flyer most distantly, resolutely seeking something beyond and behind me, still alive?
What does he look like? I asked.
Same as me, but more thin, said one man.
He was a good man, said the other. He was the good friend of my brother. Looked same like me, but more tall. Married with three kids.
Why did he go?
To make money.
In the “Imperial Catechism” of 1903 one reads the following questions and answers about doing business there (“Water is King—Here is its Kingdom”):
What kind of labor can be had for ranch work?
The farm labor in the valley is principally foreign; some are Americans, but it is mostly Mexican.
They came to make money a century ago, and they were still coming now.
Do you know his coyote? I asked the two leafleters.
We don’t. Maybe his brother knows him.
Which is more dangerous, to cross alone or with the coyotes?
It’s the same, said one, but the other disagreed and said: If you know the way, it’s more better if you cross by yourself. Because the polleros take advantage of you.
They wandered off to put up more flyers. Behind them, on the grass between the white-limed trees, two men squatted and one man lay, each of them guarding a small plastic bag of necessities as he waited for full dark to try America. The sleeping man was on his side, wearing the same plaid shirt and jeans I’d seen on many of the captured bodies in that Northside field. With or without coyotes the people would go.
INTERVIEW WITH A COYOTE
And the coyotes themselves, what do they say? Well, as you have heard, they are not so easy to talk to. I did talk to some, mostly on the fly.—Is it dangerous? I kept asking.—Yes, very dangerous, they always answered.
I met two men in Mexicali who confirmed what pollos and ex- pollos said about them. In a taciturn, colorless way, ever suspicious of exposure, they disclosed some details of their operations, and I have drawn on them here and there. But it was not until Los Angeles that I got to question a coyote for a good twenty minutes, a young one down on his luck; his many close calls with the Border Patrol had scared him into manual labor.
He said that in the days of his glory he had worked only by word of mouth. Friends known to friends could hire him—no one else. He had always been careful (and he had always been small time). He swore that no pollo had ever died on his watch. But he did admit that there had been difficulties. For a considerable time he had led groups over Signal Mountain (this was the path on which Carlos had been taken). Once he came down into the Imperial Valley with his chickens and the pollista ’s van was not there. It was very hot. They waited for two days and two nights without water. How they survived I don’t know. The pollista never came. Finally he led them back into Mexico.
He also said that once he and his group had gotten lost, and the Border Patrol had actually helped them, showing them which way to go.
But mainly he feared the Border Patrol.
His
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