“Julia.”
“Hi, Julia. My name is Tracy, and I’m going to help both of you. But first, can you come out of there?”
The girl drew back into the darkness. “I won’t leave her!”
“All right, then, if you don’t come out, I’ll have to come in.” Tracy got down on her hands and knees just as Nate rounded the corner.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“There’s a girl in here, and her mother has passed out, probably from heatstroke.”
“For God’s sake, hold on. There might be rattlesnakes or scorpions under there, or who knows what. Jesus, I’ll be right back.” Nate took off around the house.
“Just stay where you are, sweetheart, we’re coming.”
Tracy stayed by the opening until Nate returned with a large flashlight. He shone the beam inside, revealing a stick-thin girl crouched over the still form of her mother, lying on the ground facing away from them.
“Don’t see any rattlers, and I don’t hear any, either, but let’s get ’em both out of there right away.” He squatted down and moved toward the entrance, but the girl shrieked, a high, piercing sound that cut right through Tracy’s ears, and scurried away from him.
“Nate, maybe you’d better let me handle this. I’ll get the girl out, and once we’re clear, you get the mother.”
Tracy edged him aside and got on her hands and knees.
“Keep that light on me.” She crawled into the space, gasping at the intense heat.
Julia edged farther away, torn between her urge to hide and her desire to protect her mother. Tracy tried to calm her down by speaking in Spanish. “Shh, sweetheart, it’s all right. Can you come over to me?”
“Help my mother, please.”
Tracy held out her arms. “If you can come over here, then we can get out of here. The other agent can get your mother out of here, but we have to get out of the way first.” She nodded back at Nate, bent over at the entrance and smiled.
“He’s too big, so we have to leave before he can come in.”
The girl peered past her at the opening. “Promise he won’t hurt her?”
“Cross my heart.”
“And hope to die?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Come on, sweetie, you must be thirsty.”
The girl hesitated a moment longer, then scrambled into Tracy’s arms, who hugged her tightly, feeling her ribs underneath the soiled shirt, and her hammering heart underneath. Her skin was hot and dry, and Tracy was sure the poor thing was dehydrated, too. Still holding her, she crawled backward on her knees, uncaring of the dirt being ground into her slacks. When she got outside, the air felt at least twenty degrees cooler.
“Here.” Nate passed her a chilled bottle of water.
“Slow sips, not too much, or she’ll get sick. I’ll get her mom.” He disappeared under the house, leaving Tracy to cradle Julia on her lap and dole out small swallows of water. A few seconds later, he reappeared, moving slowly as he dragged the mother out from the blackness. “She’s in bad shape. We need to get her to a hospital right away.”
As soon as she was clear, he scooped her up in his arms.
“Come on.”
“Hold on to me, honey.” Tracy picked up Julia, shocked at how small and light she was, and followed Nate out to the rest of the agents.
“Hey, I need to get this woman into a hospital ASAP, so I’m borrowing your truck. Got any liquids inside?”
Nate grabbed the keys that were tossed to him and opened the back door, laying her on the bench seat. “Sit next to her and keep a blanket handy. If you can, try to get her to take some water. Once her temperature starts to come down—”
“She may go into shock, yes, I know the symptoms,”
Tracy said.
“Good.” He slid into the driver’s seat, cranked the air conditioner up to regulate the temperature, turned the truck around and kicked up dirt as he headed down to the road.
Once there, he got to the nearest highway that led back to El Paso, then headed for the south side of the city.
In the back, Tracy alternated between giving Julia sips of water and trying to get some liquid into her mother.
When the girl began to shiver from the temperature change, she had Nate turn down the air conditioner, and wrapped her in the blanket.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the emergency entrance of Providence Memorial. The SUV had barely stopped when Nate got out and was pulling the mother out of the backseat, carrying her through the double doors.
“Got an undocumented alien with heatstroke and dehydration, suggest IV fluids and observation,” he said.
Tracy noticed that the nurse who took charge of the patient, a chunky bottle blonde, looked startled when Nate came in, but covered her surprise under a professional mask and got a gurney ready to take her into a room. Nate and Tracy followed, and got information from Julia to fill out the necessary forms to admit her mother to the hospital.
When that was done, the nurse—she introduced herself as Sharon—asked to examine Julia in the back, leaving Nate and Tracy in the crowded waiting room.
“How long are we going to wait here?” Tracy asked.
“Well, we’ll make sure she’s all right—I imagine they’ll want to watch her overnight—and then tomorrow both she and her daughter will have to be collected, processed and returned to wherever they came from.”
“Isn’t there any way to keep them here? I’m sure they don’t have a lot to look forward to going back.”
Nate turned to look at her, his face neutral. “Look, I know this is your first hands-on experience with this, but we’re going to follow procedure just like every other UA we apprehend, whether they’ve got one child or a dozen.
Like as not, as soon as she gets back, she’s gonna turn right around and head north again, and keep tryin’ until she either makes it across or dies in the attempt, just like tens of thousands of others every year.”
Tracy couldn’t believe her ears. “Jesus, you sound like you’re herding cattle. These are human beings you’re so casually dismissing.”
“Yeah, human beings that are breaking our laws to enter this country.” He waved at the people in the waiting room, more than half of whom were Hispanic. “How many of these people do you think are here legally? When they get medical care—care they’re not entitled to and have no way to pay for—the hospitals have to eat that cost. There’s no reimbursement from the government or anyone. There are medical centers all over Texas and throughout the Southwest going broke because they can’t keep up with the flood of illegal immigrants coming through their doors.
When they close, they don’t just stop treating illegals— they stop treating the surrounding communities, too.”
Nate glanced around again, but Tracy wasn’t sure if he was checking to see if anyone heard him, or if anyone was going to challenge him. “UAs get their forged papers and green cards, get jobs here with companies willing to hire them without doing the proper checks, and have their kids educated—also paid for by the state and federal governments—and most of the money they earn goes back to their family in Mexico. A good cause, sure, but every dollar sent comes out of our economic system. And I haven’t even mentioned the criminals that flee to America to commit more crimes against our citizens, or the ever popular and increasing drug trade that flows across our border, as well.”
Tracy brushed a lank lock of hair out of her face, more aware by the minute that she hadn’t had a shower since early that morning. “I know the issues the Customs and Border Protection faces down here, Nate—”
Nate rubbed a hand over his eyes, which came away coated in dust and sweat. “Spoken like a true bureaucrat.
Maybe that’s the real difference between us and you. Up there you call them
