Finding Fortune by W. Michael Farmer

There was a time when volunteers took their turn to help slow the rush of migrants with no papers from the south across the U.S. border. Now those days are gone.

John Fortune is a guardian of the gateway to paradise, an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance to Eden. He sits on a campstool in the shadow of a camouflaged sunshade. A big Bailey panama pulled toward his brows shadows his bronze face from the unblinking sun blazing in the distant, gray haze. A beetle races from a rock’s shade toward the cover of another. Too slow, it’s covered with a splat of tobacco juice. Nothing passes this point unchallenged, nothing.

There is no breeze, no sound. Every living thing has gone to cover from the brutal, fiery sun. The edge of the Promised Land wavers in mirage distorted images of light green mesquite, patches of rusty red and light brown sands, scattered pieces of black basalt, desiccated prickly pear, and creosote bushes barely more than dry twigs with roots.

The heat surrounding Fortune makes him drowsy. His consciousness drifts, and he gently nods into the large military surplus binoculars mounted on a sturdy tripod before him. Jerking awake, he snaps his head erect and stares into the eyepieces.

Mesquite limbs quiver at the edge of a distant arroyo. A roadrunner? Javelinas? Illegals? His jaw muscles ripple at the thought of illegals. They leave trash all over his fields, steal anything they can get their hands on from his yard or barn or sometimes even his house, and cut through his fences to let his animals scatter all over Arizona. He lifts his radio to call for a pick-up bus but takes his finger off the transmit button. If it’s just an animal, and he calls in a false alarm, he’ll be teased unmercifully. Better to check first.

Vibrating in a low hum, the radio comes to life. Without taking his eyes from the mesquite, he answers holding the receiver’s blazing frame just off his ear. “Station twenty-one, Fortune.”

“Radio check. How’s your water?”

“Still have two full canteens.”

“Copy. Any business?”

“Negative.”

“Roger that.”

The radio jabbers a moment in static before he clicks off. Silence returns.

Reviving from the flood of nicotine filled juice falling from a clear blue sky, the beetle staggers to its feet. It’s hit again.

Sliding a canteen strap over his shoulder, checking the cartridges in a Colt Python, and pulling the Bailey lower over his eyes, Fortune steps into the bright glare. He picks his way past the prickly pear and cactus and avoids loud, crunchy patches of gravel.

At the edge of the wash, his rough, gnarled hand glides over the holstered Colt’s grip, and his thumb flips off the hammer loop. He looks through a crack in the green wall of mesquite along the top edge of the arroyo and sees nothing. Squeezing past the mesquite’s thorns, he eases down a steep sandy bank. The arroyo, ten or twelve feet deep, curves out of sight in the direction he saw the mesquite shake. He carefully walks along the bottom of the arroyo, his eyes missing nothing. The wash grows wider and shallower as he rounds the curve.

Gasping for air, a man in a dirty white shirt and Levi’s sprawls in the sand in front of him. His mouth forms a big circle, making him look like a dying fish. A second man wearing a green and yellow John Deere baseball cap heaves in agony on his hands and knees just behind and to the right of the first one. A plastic milk jug, probably used to carry water, lies between them. Fortune draws the Colt, cocks it, and points the barrel toward the sky. He steps forward, contempt in his squinting eyes. It’s time to use the radio. For reasons he’ll never be able to explain, he leaves it in his pocket.

Neither man notices as he approaches. The milk jug is dry, the top missing. White Shirt has brown, sunburned arms, close-cropped jet-black hair, and wears old, ragged running shoes. The crown of John Deere’s cap has a circle of dirt and sweat from long hours of hard labor under the sun. His hands are calloused and rough. He wears ancient boots, their leather scratched and torn, heels rounded from long use.

Fortune kneels by White Shirt and rolls him over. White Shirt brings his hand up to shield his bloodshot eyes and burned face from the sun’s glare. In his late twenties, he croaks through cracked lips, “Por favor, señor, agua… agua por mis muchachos.”

Letting the hammer down on the Colt, Fortune slides it in his holster. Glancing around the wash he sees no sign of children. He opens the canteen and gives White Shirt a couple of swallows. Coughing and sputtering, he mumbles, still trying to catch his breath, “Gracias, muchas gracias. Por favor… agua por mis muchachos… por favor?”

Leaving White Shirt, Fortune crabs over to John Deere. He’s also sunburned and laboring hard to get the furnace-like air into his lungs. His voice cracks, starved for moisture, “Por favor… señor… agua por mis niños… por favor….” Giving John Deere a couple of swallows from the canteen, he again scans both sides of the wash for children, but sees none.

White Shirt staggers to his feet. He turns all the way around, swaying, almost losing his balance, his eyes searching first one and then the other bank. Fortune motions toward a big mesquite on the top of the bank nearest his sunshade. Nodding, the Mexican staggers toward the shady spot. Helping John Deere to his feet, Fortune points him in the same direction, giving him a little push forward.

Clearing the top of the bank, White Shirt falls to his hands and knees. He races toward the mesquite’s shade and the two sets of black marble eyes staring at him. The sun has pounded the children, but it’s obvious who drank most of the milk jug’s water. Two little boys, one not over four, the other maybe six years old, don’t move or make a sound, rabbits waiting for the fox to pass.

Clearing the top of the arroyo bank behind John Deere, Fortune sees them and holding out the canteen, motions them toward him, “Agua, muchachos!” They pause a moment and then crawl forward to take the canteen and long swallows of life before handing it back to him.

“Bueno!”

Fortune looks the two men over, shaking his head. “Hablas Inglés, señors?”

White Shirt nods. “Sí, señor. Speak the Eenglees.”

“You birds are loco trying to cross this desert on foot, much less with two youngsters. If I hadn’t found you, you’d all be dead before sundown. Which one of you is their padre?”

White Shirt, smiling, raises his hand. “Mi, señor! They are mis niños!” John Deere, his eyes wide, shakes his head in quick little jerks and speaking through lips so cracked they nearly bleed. “No, señor, they are mine! I am padre of these muchachos!”

Fortune scratches the back of his head, pushing the Bailey further forward. “I don’t know what kind of game you boys are playin’, but it don’t make no difference cause you’re heading back south pronto.” He spits a brown stream from the quid in his cheek to emphasize his disgust. “Whichever of you idjits took these babies out across this desert ought to be shot. I don’t understand it. It can’t be so bad working in Mexico that you’d risk your babies coming here across that desert.”

White Shirt scoots over to the little boys and leans back on his arm nearest them. They stare at him, too tired to laugh or cry. He pats his chest, “Mis muchachos, señor! I bring theem to their madré. Juanita… she… works en una casa grande en Los Angeles. Weeth the wood I am muy skilled. Mi cabinets en casas are muy linda… vera beautiful. I think mucho jobs come to mi pronto en the United States. Mis niños never again have empty bellies because I cannot earn enough pesos en Mexico. Sí, sí, I know ees hard en the United States, but here ees a mañana por mi niños, en Mexico ees nada… nothing.”

He shakes his head and motions toward John Deere. “Thees hombre ees a coyote. I pay heem to bring mi and mis muchachos to the United States. He agrees to get us across the border before I pay him all the dinero. Teen kilometers from the border he demands all hees money and mucho mas or he weel no cross the border. I know he weel leave us to the sun, anyway, so I take my niños and run. When he sees we go, he chases us to take all my dinero. He finds us when we can run no mas.”

John Deere shakes his head saying over and over, “No es verdad, no es verdad… not true, not true!” Anger burns in his eyes. His cracked lips are set in a straight, hard line, his hands curled into fists.

White Shirt sighs, his eyes studying the ground at his feet. “The border policia, they throw coyotes een the jail, sí? Usted send mi and mis niños back to Mexico, sí?”

Fortune stares at the two men and nods his head. “That’s about right. I think it’s a little cooler under that sunshade over by my binoculars yonder, and there’s plenty of water. Vamos!” The men, still shaky, stand up. White Shirt reaches for the youngest boy’s hand, but the child shakes his head and jerks it away. John Deere speaks soothingly to the children and nods toward the sunshade. They follow him.

Under the sunshade, Fortune has them sit down and gives them water and aloe to put on their lips and sunburns. The boys sit on John Deere’s lap while White Shirt rubs the lotion on their faces. They don’t like it at all, wiggling and squirming to avoid being touched.

Fortune clicks on his radio.

“Central. Station twenty-one.”

“Central. What’s happening Fortune?

“I have passengers.”

“Roger. It’ll be an hour or two before the bus can get there. There’re so many today, it’s like rush hour in Tucson.”

“Copy. We’ll be here.”

John Deere malovently eyes White Shirt and then looks pleadingly at Fortune while the boys play in the sand. “Señor, como se llama… how are you called?”

“John Fortune. Why?”

“Señor… Fortune, I beg you. Let me and my muchachos go. Give thees coyote to the Border Patrol. Mi and mis muchachos will work hard and be a credit to our new country.”

It was White Shirt’s turn to look angry and shake his head. He roars through clinched teeth, “Thees hombre ees a liar! He has no truth!”

Fortune tips back his Bailey and frowns. “Why should I help either one of you birds? There’s way too many of you here now. This ain’t no illegal immigration we’re seein’. It’s an uncontrolled migration, and it’s got to stop—today. But, we got us a long wait, and there’s time to hear it all. Go on and tell me. What’s your story?”

John Deere nods, his brown face dark and angry. “My story, Señor Fortune, is the same as that hombre, but he is the coyote. He pretends to be me. He already takes my dinero—check his pockets, you’ll see. He tries to murder me and keep my muchachos to sell in Mexico. My wife, she has a carta verde… how you say… a green card. She is… legal immigrant. Señor Fortune, we both ask for a green card at the same time. Hers, it takes seven years to come. Seven years of waiting and hoping, señor! Seven years! The emigration jefe says he cannot find my… green card. I must fill out the paper and start all over. I write the new papers again for the jefe.

“We wait another year, still no card. We work hard, still we starve and live in the dirt. There is no dinero. This is no good. I tell my wife to go to the United States. I come with the niños when my carta verde… my… green card… comes. She sends me all the dinero she can from her job. With her dinero, our life in Mexico is better. At least our muchachos have no hunger. She is gone for two years now. Three years and still there is no green card for me. I have waited ten years for thees green card.”

John Deere sighs and makes a sad, earnest face. “It is not right, señor. The green card leaves me without my wife and these muchachos without a madré. I can stand it no mas. I sell all we have to pay this coyote. We go to find my woman en Los Angeles…”

Eyes wide, White Shirt trembles in rage while John Deere speaks. The little boys, unafraid, stare at him. “No ees verdad! No ees verdad! He lies, Señor Fortune! He lies! I tell him all thees when I give heem part of the dinero he wants for bringing us to the United States. Sí! I have dinero. Eet ees mine! I save it for ten years. I am the one who waits for the carta verde ten years. Ees no justice here? Send us back to Mexico. I weel keel this hombre who steals my life, and I weel come back again weeth mi muchachos.”

Fortune crosses his arms and stares them into silence. “You boys do what you want to do in Mexico. There ain’t gonna to be no killing here. Now shut up! The bus will be along in a while, and that’ll be the end of this day.”

An hour passes—two. The boys play with one man, then the other. They seem to favor John Deere until the day falls heavy on them, filling their eyes with sleep as they lay side-by-side on the sand under the sunshade. The sun paints the sky a gauzy vermillion, and the shadows are growing long when Fortune sees a distant dust streamer lifting off the road toward his position. He pulls the Colt. The men, round-eyed, stare at him before following his nod toward the road.

Fortune turns to White Shirt. “Señor, take your muchachos over yonder behind that thicket of big mesquites, climb in the jeep, keep quiet, and wait for me. I’ll be along in a little while, and then we’ll take us a little ride to see if we can’t find that wife of yours.”

“Gracias, señor! Muchas gracias!” The boys, still sleeping when he picks them up, don’t struggle as he runs for the jeep.

His face twisted in rage, John Deere glares at Fortune and then toward White Shirt. “Señor Fortune, what about me? What about me! You give the coyote my children? You do not send them back?”

“No, I ain’t sending  ’em back, but you’re getting on the bus. You’d better not come back through my part of the border again either, or this pistola’s gonna fill you full of more holes than a screen door. Comprende? Now give me that roll of cash in your pocket.”

The bus rolls up, heavy gauge wire netting covering the windows. A guard gets off and cuffs John Deere while he rails about Fortune not turning over the others. As the guard is climbing back on the bus, Fortune grins. “Poor devil. He’s been out of his head all afternoon.”

The guard nods. “Yeah, I can tell.”

A smile fills White Shirt’s face as Fortune hands him the roll of cash. “Muchas gracias, señor! But how did you know thees muchachos reely belong to me, Tomás Espalin? Why are you doing thees thing grande?”

Fortune shrugs. “When I found you, you had fallen in front of old John Deere. No doubt he was chasing you and not the other way around. As for sending you back… you tried mighty hard to get in legal and waited a long time. The government is screwed up, but the people ain’t. Now hold on and let’s find those boys their mama.”

——————

The Sunday morning sun chases the last gray shadows of dawn. Red and orange streaks wash a pale blue sky as a pickup pulls to the curb on a wide street lined with red-tile-roof villas surrounded by high stone fences. Across the street hangs a gate in the fence that hides a villa. Tomás stares at it, eager to rouse his sons, jerks open the truck door, and sprints across the street. “Ees theese the place, Señor Fortune?”

“That’s what this here GPS says. It’s the right place if the address on that paper you gave me is good. Relax. Either she sleeps here with the family or catches a ride to work. It’ll be all right. If she doesn’t show in a couple of hours, I’ll knock on the door and ask how to see her.”

Tomás’ shoulders sag. “Gracias, señor. Sí, we must wait a little longer as you say.”

Minutes pass that feel like weeks. The boys open their eyes to the new day’s light but stay still and huddled together in the cool air.

In the truck’s big side mirror Fortune sees a bus turn a corner far down the street. It stops twice coming up the street. Tomás, chewing his lip, watches it approach and pass them. Disappointment fills his eyes as he slumps back in the seat only to see it stop fifty yards ahead. Gently rubbing the boys’ hair, he tilts his head up to watch over the edge of the dashboard. Four women get off. Two cross the street, one heads up the street, and one comes toward them.

Tomás’ eyes lock on and follow her as she unlocks the gate to the house, goes in, and closes it behind her. He frowns, confusion filling his eyes. “No ees Juanita, Señor Fortune. Where ees Juanita?”

Fortune shakes his head. “I don’t know. Stay here while I go find out.” Stiff from the long overnight ride through the backcountry, he climbs out of the truck, crosses the street, and pushes the gate buzzer button.

Tomás watches again, chewing the bottom of his cracked lip. It takes a long time before the woman comes to the gate. Fortune asks questions. She nods or shakes her head. A couple of times, Fortune points over his shoulder with his thumb, and she looks around him to look at Tomás and the boys in the truck. Finally, she shrugs, shakes her head, and closes the gate.

As he approaches the pickup, Fortune’s teeth are clinched, his jaw muscles rippling. He climbs in the truck and shakes his head. “The lady says her name is Juanita Espalin, she’s worked at the house for three years, and she says she’s definitely not the mother of two little boys and is not married to anyone named Tomás Espalin. Got any idea what’s going on amigo?”

Tomás’s eyes are the size of quarters. “No, señor. The mail from Juanita always comes from thees place. I have a letter from her mailed no more than two weeks ago. Who ees these woman who says she ees Juanita? What can I do? I must talk with thees woman.”

“Just take it easy for a little while more. We’ll figure this thing out. In the meantime, I’m gonna park around the corner back behind us where we can still keep an eye on that gate.”

Fortune pulls the truck around the block and parks behind a stand of flowering bushes on a side street. Tomás gives the little boys their burritos and orange juice from a fast-food drive-thru while he and Fortune sip coffee from a thermos bottle and discuss what to do.

Half an hour after they park, a well-groomed woman in a white bathrobe opens the gate, steps to the entrance way, and looks up and down the street. She turns, says something over her shoulder, looks both ways again, and then closes the gate. Fortune scratches his chin, a thin smile cracking his lips. He reaches in the glove box, finds the Colt, and lays it on the seat beside him. Tomás stares at him in surprise. “We attack thees casa grande and geet Juanita back, Señor Fortune?”

“No need for that. Just wait a few minutes and you’ll see.”

“Sí, señor. We wait as you say.”

Twenty minutes pass, thirty, forty. The gate opens. The woman claiming to be Juanita Espalin, wearing dark glasses and a shawl over her head, steps through the gate. Walking fast, she practically runs for the bus stop. Fortune cranks the truck and pulls into the street behind her. Tomás stares at him. “What you do, Señor Fortune?”

“Just watch, keep those boys quiet, and don’t say anything unless I ask you. Comprende?”

“Sí, señor. Nada.”

The truck rolls up to the bus stop even with the woman who is huffing and puffing. She looks in panic in the truck window and sees the big barrel of Fortune’s Colt pointed straight at her. She hears, “Open the door, Tomás! Señora! En the camino, por favor! Rapido!” Hand over her mouth, she climbs in, her hands trembling. Tomás pushes her over by Fortune. The little boys stare at her saying nothing. Tomás glares at her, teeth clenched. She begins sobbing.

Fortune, keeping the Colt out of sight below the window, drives the truck around the block and parks once more behind the bushes. He cocks the revolver so she hears it click. Her eyes grow wide as she shakes her head. “Now, señora, por favor, we know you are not Juanita Espalin, wife to Tomás here and mother of these little boys. Let me see your carta verde.” With trembling hands, she digs around in her threadbare bag, finds it, and hands it to him. Fortune passes the card to Tomás. “Is that your Juanita?”

Tomás stares at the card, tears welling in his eyes. “Sí, señor. She ees mi Juanita.”

Fortune stares at the woman through hooded eyes. “Juanita! Where is she?”

The woman’s tears are in full flow. “No sabe, señor, no sabe. She goes back to Mexico.”

Tomás stares at her. “She lies!” He shouts. “She lies, Señor Fortune!”

Fortune holds up his hand and puts his finger to his lips. “When did she leave?”

The woman holds up two fingers, “Dos dias.”

“Why do you have her carta verde?”

She wipes her eyes with a wadded-up tissue from her raggedy bag. “Juanita, she loses it en la casa grande. She is afraid the policia come and put her en the jail without it. She misses her familia. She goes back to Mexico. The patron, he finds it. He says if I work for a little less dinero, he gives me her carta verde. I take it.”

Fortune stares at her, certain she’s telling the truth, anger burning in his guts. Tomás stares out the windshield, holding his sons, his face framed by despair.

“Tomás, where was your casa in Mexico?”

Tomás smiles at the irony and shakes his head. “En Casas Grandes—Chihuahua—”

“Okay, señora, here’s the deal. I keep the carta verde. You keep the job and say nothing to the señor who gives it to you. If you tell him I have it, I will come back with my pistola. Comprende?”

Relief floods her face. “Sí, señor. Comprendo muy bien. I say nada. Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias.”

“Bueno!” Fortune opens his door and steps out of the truck. He motions to her with a flick of his hand. “Out! Go get your bus.”

At the bus station, Fortune stares at the schedule and makes some guesses. If Juanita quit her job two days ago, she probably packed, said goodbye to her amigas, and took a bus for El Paso–the same crossing she used when she emigrated into the United States. The bus she most likely took left last night at midnight. If she were headed back to Mexico without her green card, she’d be caught at the first check point open on I-10 and put in a holding pen for a free ride back to Mexico.

He calls a friend on the Border Patrol and asks which of the crossing check points are active on I-10 beyond San Diego. He listens to the computer clicking in the background and then hears a whispered, “Damn!” The Border Patrol has shuffled personnel to some demonstration for a congressional committee on the border near Tijuana. The first active checkpoint is within twenty miles of Fortune’s ranch.

Fortune makes another call to a Border Patrol friend near Tucson and asks a favor. There’s a long pause before the voice on the other end of the connection says, “…okay, but the best I can do is hold her for twenty-four hours. Is that enough?”

Fortune smiles. “We’ll be there in about twelve.”

“I’ll be looking for you.”

Fortune thanks his friend, cranks the truck, and pulls away from the bus station parking lot.

Tomás nervously cuts his eyes to Fortune. “You find Juanita, Señor Fortune? You find her, sí?”

Fortune shrugs. “If we’re real lucky. If she goes back the same way you told me she came in, we may find her pronto. If I’ve guessed wrong, then you may have to wait until she gets back home. Let’s just hope she doesn’t try to sneak back across on foot or puts herself at the mercy of the same people you used.”

It’s nearing midnight when Fortune drives up the access road to the old, renovated hotel the Border Patrol uses to hold illegals until a bus carries them back to Mexico. The niños, exhausted from the long day and night drive cooped up in the truck cab with two men lost in their thoughts, are curled up sound asleep in the middle of the seat. Tomás, slumped in the seat, strokes their hair and nervously eyes every Border Patrol vehicle that passes them. Fortune’s eyes feel like half the desert has been poured in them, and he’s caught himself starting to doze off, the sudden rush of adrenaline making his heart pound.

Holding his ID out the window as his truck rolls into the lights at the gate of the tall wire fence surrounding the hotel grounds, Fortune grins at the guard who waves them through without even looking inside the cab. He parks in front of the lobby doors. Tomás studies every face inside the lobby and cuts his eyes back to Fortune in disappointment.

“You stay here with the niños. I’ll check inside. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”

The dejection in Tomás’ eyes is palpable. He feels as if he is running from the coyote again and is about to be caught. “Sí, we wait here, Señor Fortune.”

From the truck Tomás watches Fortune stop at a desk inside, exchange pleasantries with the man on duty, and then follow a pointing finger through a hall doorway off to the left. The next twenty minutes are the longest Tomás Espalin spends in his life. A thousand fantasies, all of them bad, pass through his imagination. He asks himself what he will do when Fortune comes out the door without Juanita.

After a while, a big school bus with heavy lattice-work steel screens over the windows pulls into the parking lot. A driver with a clipboard gets out and goes inside. Soon the lobby empties of men in Border Patrol uniforms who form a corridor to the open bus door. In five minutes, a long line of weary, sullen men and women are marched out the door and guided down the human corridor toward the bus. Soon loaded, the bus closes its doors and begins making its way toward the gate. Tomás eyes follow its every move. He is sad for the people on it but very relieved that it doesn’t carry him and the boys or Juanita back to Mexico—back to square one to start all over again.

At the sound of the driver’s side door opening, he whips around. Juanita stands there, tears catching the light, Fortune standing just behind her. “Madre de Dios! Juanita! Eet ees you!” She nods. Saying nothing, she slides up on the seat, taking the still sleeping children in her arms and hugging them while she stretches to kiss her joyful husband.

Fortune slides up on the seat beside her, closes the door, puts the idling truck in gear, and drives off toward the gate. He has a story ready to cover the little family if the guard stops him, but he’s busy with a vehicle coming in and waves him out without so much as a glance.

Bouncing down the dirt road toward his ranch, Fortune’s mind is filled with all he must do to get the immigration problems of the little family straightened out, but he’s certain he can make the system work. He has too many IOUs from the Border Patrol agents for it not to. Excited whispers in Spanish fill his truck, and although it is spoken too fast and with too much excitement for him to follow, he hears the words “coyote” and “Señor Fortune,” several times. He glances at the little family. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, Juanita and Tomás, each holding a sleeping child, have their fingers entwined.

For the first time in days, Fortune smiles.

——————

W. Michael Farmer combines fifteen-plus years of research into nineteenth-century Apache history and culture with Southwest-living experience to fill his stories with a genuine sense of time and place. A retired PhD physicist, his scientific research has included measurement of atmospheric aerosols with laser-based instruments. He has published a two-volume reference book on atmospheric effects on remote sensing as well as fiction in anthologies and award-winning essays. His novels have won numerous awards, including three Will Rogers Gold and five Silver Medallions, New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for Literary, Adventure, Historical Fiction, a Non-Fiction New Mexico Book of the Year, and a Spur Finalist Award for Best First Novel. His book series includes The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero Apache and Legends of the Desert. His nonfiction books include Apacheria, True Stories of Apache Culture 1860-1920 and Geronimo, Prisoner of Lies. His most recent novels are the award-winning The Odyssey of Geronimo, Twenty-Three Years a Prisoner of War, The Iliad of Geronimo, A Song of Blood and Fire, and Desperate Warrior: Days of War, Days of Peace, Chato’s Chiricahua Apache Legacy