Free Crossers by Philip Caputo Page A

his gun barrel, he raised his head and let out a hoarse cry: “¡No! ¡Por Dios! ¡No!” The Mexican was shivering. His filthy clothes and the burrs and grass stuck in his hair indicated that he’d spent the night out here. A wonder he hadn’t frozen to death.
    Always trust your dog, Castle thought. This must have been the intruder Sam had barked at last night. He broke the gun and unloaded it and showed the man the two shells before putting them in his pocket. “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.”
    Though he’d seen border crossers before at a distance, huddled wretchedly at roadsides, waiting under the watchful gazes of the Border Patrol agents for the big buses marked DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY to take them to the station for processing and deportation, this was the first one he’d encountered face-to-face. He wasn’t sure what to do.
    “Agua,” the man whispered. “¿Tiene agua? Por favor.”
    Castle pulled a water bottle from out of the game pocket in the back of his vest and, kneeling down, put the bottle to the man’s mouth. He seized it with both hands and gulped, water dribbling down his chin.
    “Gracias, señor.”
    “Can you walk?” How the hell did you say it in Spanish? “Like this.” He spread two fingers and moved them back and forth. “Comprende?”
    The Mexican looked at him quizzically. “¿Usted … americano?”
    That was easy enough. Castle nodded.
    “¿Estoy en los Estados Unidos?”
    “I don’t understand. No comprendo.”
    “Esto …” The man patted the ground with his hand, then waved it in a semicircle. “¿Estados Unidos? Yewnayta Stays?”
    “Okay. Yes. Sí. This is the United States. Sí.”
    “Gracias a Dios.” He locked his hands and raised them toward the sky. “Gracias a Dios,” he repeated, then clutched Castle’s arms in tears. “Y usted también, señor. Gracias, mil gracias.”
    The display of gratitude moved Castle and somehow embarrassed him. “Can you walk?” Again, he mimicked walking with his fingers.
    The man tried to stand but couldn’t until Castle clasped him under his arms and pulled him to his feet. He took a couple of steps, then dropped to his knees. “No lo puedo. No más caminar.”
    That must be it. Caminar. Walk. The Mexican was no more than five feet four or five but was heavyset.
    “What’s your name?” Castle pointed at him. “You. Name. Uh … Cómo … Cómo …”
    “Miguel. Me llamo Miguel.”
    “Okay, Miguel. We have to get you to some help. Uh … necesario … caminar, necesario. I can’t carry you over this—” he gestured at the steep ridge. “¿Comprende?”
    “Sí.”
    Castle got him up again, and draping Miguel’s arm over his shoulders, his own arm around Miguel’s waist, started to climb.

Ben Erskine
Transcript 2—T.J. Babcock
We left at sunup on a warm, windy day in the spring of the year 1911. The grass was still winter yellow, but the cottonwoods along the Santa Cruz were budding out. Ben was wearing that German pistol, even though Álvarez had shot off most of the bullets in it and Ben didn’t have any to replace them. He had his six-gun in his saddlebag and a Winchester Model 94 in his saddle scabbard. His pa’s old rifle, he said. I was armed in a like way, and the both of us were pretty excited. It was a fine day, and we was a-goin to war for gold and glory and the little-shots of Old Mexico!
Álvarez’s hacienda was only about ten miles south of the line, and we got there before noon. We rode up to a low rise and could see it below us and a little ways off, in some cottonwoods beside a dry wash. The place looked like one of those old Spanish missions—there was the main house and a chapel and some outbuildings, with an adobe wall all around. A lot of horses were picketed outside the wall, and smoke from campfires was curling up through the trees and bending back and stretching out in the wind like horsetails. In a minute, a band of revolucionarios come loping out of the trees, maybe a