Journey Through an Arid Land
On a chilly spring night in a remote canyon fewer than a dozen miles north of the Mexican/New Mexican Border, Belen goes into premature labor. She begs the coyote to take her children, 12-year-old Adriana and 9-year-old Edgar, to their father in Phoenix. He agrees, and promises to send help.
The next morning, Wiona Rutherford, a rancher out looking for a missing cow and calf, finds Belen and her newborn son sheltering under a tree.
Though she has little sympathy for illegal aliens, who trash her ranch and cut her fences, she also knows that if she calls the Border Patrol, the woman might never be reunited with her other children.
She takes the woman and her baby in.
After receiving a call from a 911 dispatcher, Border Patrol agent Stokey Stokelund, a Marine reserve recently home from his second tour in Iraq, is sent to find mother and child. He follows the tracks right up to Wiona’s front door. Wiona tells him she was out looking for a missing cow and calf, but saw no one. Because they had once been lovers, Stokey doesn’t call her on the lie. After all, the woman and baby are safe, and their safety was his primary charge.
Later, when Belen phones her husband, she discovers that her children never arrived in Phoenix. Wiona is forced to call Stokey for help in finding the missing children.
To these principal players, add Emma, Wiona’s senile mother who has two moods, sleepy and complacent, or alert and cantankerous; Dr. Lucy Altamirano, also a former lover of Wiona’s; Phoenix police officer, Ray Montoya; and big, black, and dangerous F.B.I agent, Rosamande Beauxchamps. There are also James Trillig, child pornographer, his favorite star, a pregnant 13-year-old who goes by the name of Dawn, and her new little friends, Adriana and Edgar.
Available from amazon.com
The next morning, Wiona Rutherford, a rancher out looking for a missing cow and calf, finds Belen and her newborn son sheltering under a tree.
Though she has little sympathy for illegal aliens, who trash her ranch and cut her fences, she also knows that if she calls the Border Patrol, the woman might never be reunited with her other children.
She takes the woman and her baby in.
After receiving a call from a 911 dispatcher, Border Patrol agent Stokey Stokelund, a Marine reserve recently home from his second tour in Iraq, is sent to find mother and child. He follows the tracks right up to Wiona’s front door. Wiona tells him she was out looking for a missing cow and calf, but saw no one. Because they had once been lovers, Stokey doesn’t call her on the lie. After all, the woman and baby are safe, and their safety was his primary charge.
Later, when Belen phones her husband, she discovers that her children never arrived in Phoenix. Wiona is forced to call Stokey for help in finding the missing children.
To these principal players, add Emma, Wiona’s senile mother who has two moods, sleepy and complacent, or alert and cantankerous; Dr. Lucy Altamirano, also a former lover of Wiona’s; Phoenix police officer, Ray Montoya; and big, black, and dangerous F.B.I agent, Rosamande Beauxchamps. There are also James Trillig, child pornographer, his favorite star, a pregnant 13-year-old who goes by the name of Dawn, and her new little friends, Adriana and Edgar.
Available from amazon.com