Telling Fortunes in Phoenix

Eddie

Edward Matthew Wyatt hurtled south in a ghost grey van, the brilliant moon making the headlights invisible in the Sonoran Desert night. The sun had just dropped below the horizon when he left Phoenix several hours earlier for his monthly appointment with his coyote, not a slim wild canine but a Mexican National specializing in the movement of undocumented workers. Time to get ’er done.

This had been easier when his daughter was young, back when he didn’t itch with anxiety when he was away, wondering if she was safe, wondering if she were having boys over or throwing parties. But since turning fifteen she had refused custodians, insisting that he trust her. She was not a little baby. He missed the simplicity and security of hiring a caretaker to attend to his most precious commodity.

The cut-off appeared on the left, pulling him out of his ruminations. He slowed onto the dirt road and followed it through a series of gentle curves hugging the bottom of a rocky ridge. Ten long miles through dust choked gullies brought him to a campsite where a small dark man in rough jeans and a sweat stained white shirt approached.

The summer had not yet bloomed and the campfire, though not strictly necessary, cast a welcome heat and light on the road weary company surrounding it. Eddie clambered out of the van, removing his white Stetson and pounding it on his jean-clad thighs before approaching the fire.

“Hola, Chaco. What have you got?”

“A family,” said the coyote. “Three women, two men, three boys, two girls.”

Two of the women held toddlers in their arms. The other three children were between five and ten years old and leaned against the women, sleepy and rubbing their eyes.

Eddie looked them over and was satisfied. Everyone looked healthy.

He smiled and shook hands with the men and tipped his hat to the women and children. From the van he carried a picnic basket and passed around burritos and fruit, waiting until they’d finished to hand out cold drinks, beers for the adults and sodas for the kids. He watched carefully as everyone drank, then looked at his watch and nodded them into the back of the van.

Mattresses and blankets filled the rear compartment. The family group was wobbly as he herded them into the little space where they hit the comfy padding in exhaustion, falling into an immediate sodden slumber. He locked them in.

There was no rush now and Eddie took it slow, letting his passengers and van take as little jouncing as possible. When they reached the highway he opened the back and flashed his penlight around, checking the sleeping Mexicans. They were all breathing.