Shock Point

  When she awoke two hours later, Cassie ate half the Powerbar. It was dry and crumbly and it parched her mouth. She took out her water bottle and shook it. Half gone. She had watched more than one kid pass out at Peaceful Cove from the heat, so she knew how important it was to drink enough water, but she also knew once she finished it, there wouldn’t be anyplace to get more. She compromised by drinking only a few swallows.

  The sun was lower in the sky, but the day was, if anything, hotter. Plus, the air was heavy with moisture, and dark clouds were massing on the southern horizon. The air shimmered and played tricks on her, making the mountains appear to move. A half hour later, a cool, narrow sandstone canyon beckoned her. About thirty feet deep, it ran roughly north, so she clambered down into its shady depths. A small stream trickled over the rocks, and she took off her shoes, knotted the laces around her neck, and waded. The cool water felt good against her blisters. Beneath her feet, the stones were smooth and slippery. She wished she could drink the water, but she knew it was too dangerous.

  A drop of rain landed on her cheek, then another on her arm. In the distance she heard the low grumble of thunder. She looked up at the sky. It was all dark gray now, and the light had an odd greenish cast. Sheltered by the canyon, she hadn’t noticed that the wind had picked up.

  Her eye caught on something she had seen earlier, but not paid attention to. There were branches and sometimes whole logs tangled high up at the edge of the canyon. How had they gotten wedged so far up there? The stream was deeper now than it had been earlier, turbid with silt. More raindrops freckled her arms.

  There was a rumbling sound like an approaching freight train. Head cocked, Cassie tried to figure out what it meant. Then she realized that the canyon was acting like a funnel, channeling all the rain that had landed to the south of her. And that meant—

  With a burst of energy, she ran toward the side of the canyon. There was no easy way out, just a mad scramble up the side. Ignoring her stubbed toes, she clambered up, her feet and fingers finding crevices and notches, sometimes creating them by sheer force of will.

  Halfway up, Cassie turned just in time to see a wall of water thunder into the canyon. Her scream was lost in the roar of the flash flood.

  A second later, there was a river rising under her feet. Water lapped at her toes, then sucked at her calves. She scrambled faster, just managing to keep ahead of the water. A passing branch scratched her back. Raindrops stung her arms and face. Nearly at the top, Cassie looked behind her. The little trickling stream now nearly reached the top of the canyon. Filled with broken branches, the water was the color of mud. The cataract was only a few inches below her, so fast it created its own breeze. With a final fevered burst, Cassie grabbed a stone at the lip of the canyon. It came away in her hand, anchoring her to nothing but air.

  She fell backward, arms pinwheeling. At the last minute, she reached out and just managed to snag a dangling root. For a long moment, she hung suspended, her shoulder screaming. Then she found another root, and then a toehold, and another, and painfully dragged herself to the top. Panting, she lay on her belly, ignoring the stinging rain.

  Lightning flickered down and touched a small wizened tree less than three hundred feet away. The thunder was directly overhead, as loud as artillery. Cassie realized that if she stood up, she would be the tallest thing around, a human lightning rod.

  She had to get to shelter. In the flare of another lightning strike, she saw a rock outcropping a few hundred yards away. She ran through standing water, the wind a giant hand at her back. Between the wind and the rain, it was nearly impossible to breathe.

  Cassie crouched under the lip of rock, just big enough to shelter her. Rain sheeted from it. It was as if she had crawled under a waterfall. But as quickly as it came, the rush of water began to slow to a trickle, then a few drips. The light changed as the clouds parted. By the time she left her shelter, the sun was dazzling, sparkling off the dozens of puddles, the ground steaming. Water had collected on top of the rock that had sheltered her. She lowered her head and sucked it dry, not even minding the grit it left on her tongue.

  She walked for another hour, two, her clothes gradually growing damp, then dry. As the sun was setting, she realized she was staggering. Again, she looked behind her for any signs of pursuit, saw none. Finally she rolled herself into a ball and slept with her back against a rock. Although the air was cool, the stone against her back was warm.

  She awoke the next morning, ate the rest of the Powerbar, used her watch to figure out north again, and kept on. Cassie calculated that she’d been walking the better part of twenty-four hours. The blisters on her heels were filled with water, hot and tight, but she tried to ignore the pain.

  As the heat began to rise, she found the faint trace of a road. In the brush on either side were dozens of discarded white plastic jugs and shreds of newspaper that had been used as toilet paper. A faded Mexican comic book waved in the breeze. Cassie hoped that all these discards meant she was getting close to the border.

  Stumbling through the sand and scrub, she searched in vain for shade. She shook the last few drops of water onto her tongue, then put the empty bottle in her pack. She should have drunk up all the puddles yesterday, but Cassie had been afraid she would get alkali poisoning or something. Now Cassie’s mouth was cold and dry, while her face was burning and wet with sweat. Despite the sunscreen she kept reapplying, her face felt like it was cracking when she squinted. She had planned to spend the heat of the day resting in a shadowed cleft, but there was no shade, just desert specked with mesquite shrubs, yuccas, and prickly pear. She kept on.

  Just as darkness fell, she crossed a river, holding her shoes and pack above her head. The water was low, no higher than her belly button. Surrendering to temptation, she bent her head to the water and drank a few sips. It tasted like chemicals and left her tongue feeling coated. In the fading light, the river looked more like oil than water. On the far side, the road was tire tracks worn into the dirt, the moon a tiny smudged thumbprint on the horizon. She was exhausted, but afraid that if she closed her eyes, they might not open again.

  Finally, an hour after sunrise, Cassie found what she thought was the border. Not a twelve-foot-tall steel barricade illuminated by stadium-style lighting and fortified with motion detectors, but a four-foot-high barbed wire fence, cut in places, that stretched as far as she could see. Along the fence, tiny flags of torn clothing fluttered in the breeze. Turning sideways, Cassie simply walked through. It seemed too easy. And, her brain fuzzily realized, that easiness told her something. This couldn’t be a border next to a major metropolitan area. It must be in the middle of nowhere. That first night she must have angled too far east, so now she was nowhere near San Diego.

  She was resting in the shadow of a large cactus when she saw a green open-sided Jeep jouncing across the flats. After three days of running, it took Cassie a minute to realize that, now that she was finally in America, a vehicle meant rescue. Water. An adult who would listen to her. Water. Food. Transportation to a flushing toilet and a bed. Water.

  As the Jeep got closer, she saw that the two men inside wore uniforms, and there were white logos stenciled on the door panels. The Border Patrol. She stood up, waving her arms.

  The Jeep slowed to a stop. Two men in green uniforms jumped out. One of the men pulled a squared-off gun from the holster on his belt. “¡Manos para arriba!” He was pointing the gun directly at her chest.

  thirty

  June 19

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Cassie shouted. Or tried to. Her voice was a strangled whisper, her tongue so swollen, it refused to shape the words.

  The man with the gun narrowed his eyes, but kept his weapon trained on Cassie. He was gray-haired, lean, and weather-beaten. The second man, who wore the waistband of his pants below his ample belly, pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. “Romeo, be advised, we just captured an SBI. Mexican female, age about nineteen. Alone. Over.”

  The walkie-talkie crack
led in return. “Copy that, Foxtrot. Should we come search the arroyo? Over.”

  “Affirmative your last. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Over and out.”

  Cassie tried again to moisten her mouth, not moving her eyes from the gun. “Not Mexican. American. Need water.”

  The one called Foxtrot leaned into the Jeep and handed her a quart bottle of Safeway brand water. Her hands shook so much, it was hard to twist open the cap. Cassie drank until the bottle was empty, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, the man with the gun had lowered it until it was pointing at the ground.

  “I’m not Mexican,” Cassie repeated, her saliva still thick. “I’m American.”

  “Then prove it! Show me some ID.” Even though he looked as old as Cassie’s grandfather, the man with the gun was giddy with excitement. “You’re an illegal.”

  “I am not. I’m just as American as you.” She looked past him at the logo stenciled on the Jeep’s door panel. An eagle gripping arrows, encircled by the words National Border Watch. That didn’t sound quite right.

  “Then show us some ID.”

  “I don’t have any ID.” Cassie scrambled for a cover story. She was far closer to Peaceful Cove than she was to Portland, and she suddenly remembered Father Gary saying that they had custody rights. “I was in Tijuana and some people robbed me and took me out in the desert. They stole my ID. My name’s”—she hesitated and hoped they didn’t notice—“Carrie Johnson.”

  “I still say she’s a pollo,” the older man said.

  “A chicken?” Cassie felt confused.

  The two men exchanged glances. “For an American, you speak pretty good Spanish,” the skinny one said. “A pollo’s an illegal immigrant.”

  “You’ve got to speak some Spanish to live in America today,” she said.

  “She’s got a point there, Davis,” Foxtrot said.

  “She could still be an SBI who learned her English off TV.” But Davis holstered his gun.

  “What’s an SBI?” Cassie asked, remembering what Foxtrot had said.

  “Suspected border intruder. We use that term because we don’t know if people are illegals or not,” Foxtrot said. “They could be very lost Mexican hikers. Not likely, but still.”

  “Are you the Border Patrol?”

  “The Border Patrol?” Davis snorted. “The Border Patrol is inefficient at best. We’re with National Border Watch. NBW. You might have heard of us?”

  Cassie shook her head, then felt dizzy and regretted it. Her stomach was as tight as a water balloon.

  “This border”—Davis waved his hand in the direction of the fence—“is no border at all. It’s like a trapdoor into America. In the last two years, the NBW has captured more than thirty-three hundred illegal immigrants.”

  “If you’re not the Border Patrol, then why do you have guns?”

  “They’re not guns—they’re tasers. They shoot little darts on wires, not bullets. Basically, they just give you a big electric shock,” Davis said. “Make it so you can’t run away.”

  “And it’s all legal,” Foxtrot added.

  Davis said, “Let’s take you back to the house, check out the bona fides. Foxtrot, you go check the arroyos and cuts, just in case there are any more where she came from.” He turned to Cassie. “Go on, get in back.”

  Wire mesh separated the two seats, reminding Cassie uncomfortably of the van that had taken her to Mexico in the first place. Was she a prisoner again? It took them twenty minutes to drive to Davis’s house. It looked like any ranch house in the suburbs of Portland, at least any suburban ranch house surrounded by nothing but desert and barbed wire and with a twenty-foot-tall metal viewing tower next to it.

  Inside, the house was clean and quiet. The curtains were all drawn tight, giving the house a muffled and sleepy feel, as if it had just settled down for a long siesta. There was a cream-colored carpet, a blue plaid couch and a matching recliner. There was no art on the walls and nothing out of place. She shivered in the air-conditioning, unaccustomed to feeling cool.

  “Diana,” Davis called out. He unbuckled his gun belt and put it on a high shelf next to the door, along with his keys. A plump woman appeared in the kitchen doorway and walked toward them, wiping her hands on a white apron.

  “This is my wife, Diana. Diana, this is Carrie,” Davis said.

  She smelled like cookies. The sweet scent cramped Cassie’s stomach. She put her hand on the wall to steady herself.

  “When did you last eat?” Davis rapped out.

  Cassie couldn’t even remember anymore. “Two days ago?”

  “Don’t just stand there, Diana, fix the girl a plate.”

  Without speaking, Diana turned and hurried back into the kitchen. Davis took Cassie’s elbow and led her into the dining room, which had a long wooden table and eight ladder-back chairs. Three little girls crept into the hall and stared at her. The oldest looked about six.

  It was only a minute before Diana was back with a glass of milk and a white plate with a cheese sandwich, potato chips, and a pickle.

  “Thank you,” Cassie mumbled to Diana with her mouth full. “This is really good.” Her face was lined but not old. Cassie guessed she was at least thirty years younger than her husband.

  Davis pulled out a chair, straddled it. “Tell me again what happened to you.”

  “Some friends and I went to Tijuana to party. Somebody must have put something in my drink. The next thing I knew, I was wandering around in the desert by myself and my purse was gone.”

  “Are you even legally old enough to drink, young lady?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “And your parents—what did they think about it?”

  “They’re divorced. And it was fine with my mom.”

  Cassie nodded her head, which made her feel dizzy. She closed her eyes.

  Davis laid a hand on her shoulder. His fingers felt long and spidery. “You look like you could use a nap. I’ll have Diana put you in the guest room.”

  thirty-one

  June 20

  At one in the morning, Cassie was driving the Jeep down a deserted road. On the seat beside her was Davis’s taser and holster. With luck, she might have a five-hour head start. Or less. Davis looked like the kind of guy who would get up early.

  When she had woken from her nap, she had gotten up and started to go down the hall. Then she heard Diana and Davis talking. Suspicious of her story, they thought she was a runaway, and hoped there was a reward. They were planning on turning her over to the cops the next day. Cassie wasn’t sure what the cops would do—but she didn’t want to take the slightest chance they would send her back to Peaceful Cove. She decided she had to cut and run while they still thought her too worn-out from her ordeal to think for herself. She didn’t have to feign exhaustion at the dinner table, and it took all her energy to stay awake until they went to bed. When she reached for the keys on the shelf Davis had left them on, her fingers touched something else. The holster for the taser. She decided to take it as well. If Davis did come hunting her, now he couldn’t come armed.

  At first her hands were slick on the wheel. Cassie had never driven by herself before, but the road was just a flat place in the middle of a bigger flat place. She slowly lost her fear and grew nearly comfortable. An hour later, she merged onto another road heading north. Later, she turned onto an even bigger road, then finally to a freeway. At five in the morning, the sky just getting light, she pulled into a rest area. She parked the car next to the restroom and put the keys under the mat. Buckling the taser’s holster around her waist, she tied a huge sweatshirt of Diana’s over it, then got out and locked the door.

  Over the next hour, several cars with Oregon or Washington plates drove into the rest stop. Cassie rejected the first one, a man driving alone (would-be rapist), then the second, a woman who looked about fifty (more likely to insist on phoning her mom and Rick), and finally the third car, which held a couple (twice as many questions). She felt jumpy as her head start slowl
y evaporated, but she didn’t want to end up with the wrong rescuer twice. Finally, she saw a young woman driving a fifteen-year-old Toyota with Oregon plates pull in to the rest stop. As the woman bought a Diet Coke from a vending machine, Cassie walked over to her. She was slender and wore jeans, Birkenstocks, and a sleeveless shirt without benefit of a bra.

  “You’re from Oregon?”

  “Yeah.” The woman looked at her curiously. She lifted her blond hair from her shoulders and rested the cold can on the back of her neck. Even though it was still early in the morning, the day was already hot.

  “I’m from Portland.”

  “Oh, really?” The woman smiled now. In Portland she might not have talked to Cassie, but now that they were far from home, it was like they were old friends. “From what part?”

  “West Hills.”

  “I live in Multnomah Village!” The two areas of the city were only a few miles apart.

  “Are you going back to Portland now? Can you maybe give me a ride?”

  The smile left her face and the other woman looked Cassie up and down. “How come you can’t just get back the way you came?”

  “I met this guy, see, but it didn’t work out. He talked me into coming with him, but he wanted more than I wanted to give him. So he kicked me out of the car and took off.” Cassie was getting better at spinning alibis.

  “That jerk! But what about your parents? Shouldn’t we call them? They must be worried about you.”